by A. I. Zlato
Paul woke up, sweating. He had just seen a possible future; he was convinced. That was what Edgard had been trying to tell him in the last two days … The Kandron had also seen that future. Differ the beginning … it was an absolute necessary, even if he did not know what that meant.
Where the beginning and the end are the same place.
When the Space is a different time.
I am a Gateway.
The Space-time
Chapter 10
: Inter-Space (Level 2)
Aenea was drifting to the rhythm of space-time streams, the slow motion of which prevailed over it. The ripple of the motion spread to the extremities of its body, all the way into its hair. Space and time, aggregated in a tide, surrounded her, engulfing her by successive waves.
As a Gateway, Aenea lived in an Inter-Space, bounded by these flows. Along with them, she maintained the Spaces within a different time, to allow everyone to exist fully. Time and space could only be connected here, via the node … where the beginning and the end are at the same place … the Inter-Space … she had been living there for so long.
Once upon a time, she had been a human, such a long time ago that she barely remembered. Only her body kept the memory of this bygone era, with her few humanoid features. Aenea had two arms, two legs, and a head at the end of trunk. There stopped her similarity to the human body. The node and its currents had shaped her body, and transformed her. She had become an offshoot of her new environment, in perfect symbiosis.
Her limbs, stretched to the maximum, contained no bones, and moved like tentacles. Her stretched fingers, four in total, prolonged her arms like long, flexible threads. Her translucent skin displayed the network of veins and arteries, dark green, which conveyed no more oxygen. Her face featured huge black eyes, hypnotic and devoid of lids. Her mouth and nose had almost disappeared, with her fine lines erased. Her hair, a multitude of thick, brown creepers, floated around her. Like a vaporous mist, her hair curled in on itself, in sync with the space-time flow that constantly roamed the node.
She once had had a different name. She had been a reckless young girl, who thought she controlled everything. Today, Aenea no longer had anything to do with that crazy girl. The node had transformed her, physically and mentally. The memory of her prior life was nothing but a vague echo, a recollection of a recollection, encapsulated in a bubble to which she had access only rarely. Only the node remembered … and now it showed her.
When she was a human, a living being with a narrow viewpoint, she was part of the Elders, as they were called in the Spaces back then. At that time, her name was Helen, and never thought one day she and her contemporaries would be called like this. No, she had not seen herself as a myth, as a person who one day would be part of history. Helen was living her life intensely, vibrating under her emotions and seizing all the adventures that came her way. She was not aware of her narrow mind, of the few things she perceived about the universe. She thought she knew it all, controlled everything and was able to do anything.
She lived among her peers, in a dying world. Aware of the growing difficulties of her universe, she nonetheless displayed the typically human vices of recklessness and selfishness. She thought “all that” would last long enough for her to live her life, that others would take care of “all that” later. She cared about the environment, but only occasionally. She thought it was necessary that society was changing, but that she did not need to. Others had to make the effort to change; she did not feel concerned. Or very little.
When they selected her to be part of the team that would develop the concept of Space, she did not understand initially what was happening to her. She was scared, and tried to escape. Suddenly, she had to be among those in charge of the change she had been calling for. She had come to accept the assignment, yielding to the collective pressure. She now had a responsibility to the world.
Her life had then radically changed. Along with others, she worked tirelessly to find a solution for the future of humanity. While her husband worked to create the Machine, toiling on lines of code and electronic circuits, she had developed cognitive abilities to imagine the unthinkable. She worked to broaden her mind, to have new ideas. It had taken her a long time to unlock the mental barriers in her brain and to access all her capabilities.
Then one day, a whirlwind of thoughts had carried her away, sweeping everything in its path. She had imagined … Spaces … identical places in different times, or chronological dimensions … to save them all from destruction. She had seen that it was possible … she had known how to do it. Her idea had frightened some of her team members, who challenged most, if not all, of the scientific knowledge of their time. They were not ready to forget altogether everything in which they had believed until then. Yet, the Spaces were within their reach; she knew it.
As soon as she invented the concept, Helen had the impression of becoming the smartest in the team in which she worked. Only she understood the concept as a whole. Only she foresaw the future, the consequences of what they were about to do. In her enthusiasm, she had wanted to explain things. Her colleagues listened, but did not understand. Most of them had clung to their comfortable certainties. Only a minority had comprehended the power of her idea. Along with the latter, she managed to convince the authorities that it was the right thing to do.
Helen, however, remained lonely, separated from the others by this invisible barrier, which was her deeper understanding of what she had invented.
She then thought that her brilliant mind could imagine and anticipate everything. Yet, she had gone too far. She had wanted to see the Inter-Spaces, to ensure that each Space would remain in its own time. She thought she could go through and come back. Her brain had imagined the concept of Space, and its corollary, the node. She owned these concepts; she controlled them.
Without telling anyone, she had decided to travel inter-spatially, convinced that she would return safely before anyone found out. Thanks to her superior brain, she had visualised the Inter-Space and the invisible barriers that defined it. She wanted to see and experience what her brain had imagined, but her ego was too big. The Inter-Space … it was a node … and it captured her, then transformed her.
Her humanness had disappeared, and her body had begun an irreversible metamorphosis. Nobody kept her here against her will, but she simply could not remember being anything other than a Gateway.
While in space-time currents, Aenea began to reflect. She had just touched the bubbles of her memory, triggering questions in her.
Who were the other Gateways? Had they all been humans earlier? She did not know. It seemed to her, for a short time during her metamorphosis, that she was responsible for all Gateways, that her appearance within the node had generated their creation. That was certainly the remnant of human ego. How could she be the source of everything?
To the contrary, she was perhaps the last Gateway, the one that was unplanned, the human who was able to cross the barrier of time. In her node, her transformation coming to an end, she became aware of the others, of the network, of the different levels … All became clear to her as she was integrating the node. When and how that happened was not important. The Gateways were there. The network. Others. The different levels.
Aenea accessed these areas only rarely; she knew the conglomerate was there, and that was enough. Space-time currents flowed between Space, following nodes, and connected indirectly the Gateways to one another. Those flows were indescribable; words were inadequate, even for Aenea. It was not really a movement, but a time wave spreading into the Inter-Space. In her earlier life, nothing had prepared her for such a sensation. This soft warmth accompanied her, made the Gateway tingle, like an extension of her body.
Like Aenea, all Gateways materialised in the nodes. Each was an abstraction that materialised discontinuously … one could not really tell whether they were humans; yet, they were all real. Their existence was only possible because there were Spaces between nodes. Gateways and nodes were nothing
but two sides of a same coin.
Aenea was a Level 2 Gateway, which meant it had access to all nodes between two specific Spaces. When she was still a human, she had imagined Inter-Spaces only between two Spaces, unable to conceive something else. Yet, the reality that came about was much more complex than what the craziest minds had imagined. The conglomerate was much larger, with countless Gateways. Her brain understood and, most important, perceived that reality, all those dimensions. To access two Spaces, that was only the first hierarchy step, and there were many others.
There were as many levels as there were Spaces … The currents would notify the Gateway when a new Space was created, but, strangely, did not tell the total number of active Spaces. She thus did not know the number of levels; she did not have access to that information. Not yet. Perhaps, if she could manage to complete her transformation, if she could lose all her last human traits, then she would be able to see all levels … the overall plan … the Diagram … that she had barely imagined so far.
Aenea could access Space H. and Space O. She could see them simultaneously, like two superimposed images of the same area. For Aenea, Space meant a different time. H. and O. … Only the Gateways knew their full name. To be able to call them by their name, meant to see the whole creation … the deep motives … the Diagram … a graduation… everything was there. Aenea knew only two names … the rest was unknown to her. Only a wire connecting two Spaces was available to her. One wire … several wires … wires of the future were interwoven, defining the possibilities. H. and O. … . that had been a good start. What would happen next?
She observed both worlds, moving in parallel, mixed into one vision for her. H. and O … .the reasons for their existence, their names … and life went on. In each of the Spaces, she saw a black layer featuring digital data. Machines … the invention stemming from human ego, which wanted to control everything but did not have the proper capabilities to do so.
Aenea could access Them, through simple mental contact. She only had to stretch her fingers to touch the surface of the data, which then deviated from their route to cross her, thereby establishing communication. She interpreted the binary data and translated her thoughts into endless lines of 1 and 0, to be in sync with the artificial entities. The Machines were nothing but a sequence of code lines, with limited algorithms, even though They could still enhance. They took part, as a mere task implementer, in the creation of Spaces.
The Gateway was the browser, capable of generating the idea of a new Space, as a point of discontinuity, and keeping each one within its assigned place. The Machine was merely the elaborate mechanical layout generating the necessary energy.
Humans were unaware of the binary process, or, rather, the artificial entities made sure humans forgot. Gateways, fortunately, monitored the whole thing, preserving the necessary harmony. They alone had a clear overview of the whole process.
The ripples subsided and became stable the closer she got to Space H. Aenea then saw O. fade under a veil, while H. became crystalline. The position in which the currents had placed her made her start observing the Space H., its Machine, its City … its humans. Strange creatures … She no longer understood them. She had forgotten her past and could no longer fathom the kind of life humans had. Sometimes, she wondered what it would feel like to live in a linear world, but she could not visualise that very concept.
Yet, she had lived earlier in that linearity, but she could no longer understand. Even if she managed to remember, this whole life still would have seemed alien to her, because Aenea had changed so much. The concept of linearity was too remote from her reality. What would concepts like beginning and end mean, as humans said? In their straight-line chronological dimension, humans lived and died in the frame of their Machine. Every life connected in one way or another to the Tower, and this configuration did not bother them.
Aenea saw each life as connected to a biological thread, itself pegged to the black layer of digital data. Humans lived their organic life, yet they intrinsically connected to an artificial entity, which controlled them, leaving them the illusion of independence. She did not understand at all their various jobs, which seemed frankly ridiculous.
They spent their time dreaming of a future that probably would never exist, constantly haunted by an expanding past that prevented them from living fully in the present. Their linear time was sending them closer to their “end,” their “death,” and none of their actions had a real impact on their lives. It was very unsettling. Sometimes, Aenea would follow a human on his or her life path, to study and better understand the species. Sometimes, some of her recollections were superimposed on her observations, without leading to a deeper understanding. She simply could no longer apprehend their universe.
To understand Space H., Aenea would refer to Kandrons, with which communication was possible. They, too, lived in a linear time, but it was opposite to the rest of the Space. Yet, she could talk to them, taking advantage of their clear conversation. The Kandron species was the only one whose cognitive abilities were closer to the concepts that shaped the reality of the Gateways. Prisoners in their space, they could not see the bigger picture, the grand diagram.
Things had not always been that way, and they certainly would not remain this way … the linearity of time … the Kandrons knew or would soon know. Their knowledge was important. Today, they could only see the nodes relating to their Space. In other words, they saw Aenea. When she needed to know the health status of Space H., she would call them. Only one Kandron would respond each time, connecting its brain to hers. Aenea then could feel its life, flow through the channel they had created together. Kandrons had some sort of connection among them, which they called the Spirit of the Multitude. Every animal could know what others of the species knew, through the Spirit. Aenea could then gain access to all Kandrons through one. Their conversations were always enlightening and often of unparalleled beauty, a connection between two beings that had nothing in common, except, of course …
A wave moved Aenea towards O., which then became clear while H. was fading. Like a pendulum swing, the flows had moved her from one Space to the other. She then rested her brain and looked at this universe, both very different from, and yet similar in many respects to, the other. In Space O., there were no Kandrons. However, there were hybrids, the result of the evolution of some humans. Half-man, half-machine, their organic body had entered into symbiosis with artificial components. Their thoughts, half-organic, half-artificial, were more understandable to Aenea than to humans, without however being fully comprehensible.
Their presence thickened the artificial layer of the Machine, reinforcing it. Here, she saw that frame being thicker, the flow of data more important. Lines of code streamed over the Space, shining an artificial light that rivalled sunlight. The frame intensified whenever a hybrid was born, clouding Aenea’s vision a little more.
They were the product of an evolution, performed by humans on themselves. At first, there were transplants, after which a few of them had died. The survivors were selected for their favourable genes, and fifty generations were enough to produce babies with skin interfaces that could receive and establish a connection with a microprocessor, without the need for surgery.
The last generation had hands completely covered with microprocessors, like a second skin layer, offering them a greater connection to the Machine. In addition, electronic components increased their intellectual abilities, so much that they despised the humans who were not hybrid. However, despite their microprocessors, Aenea could not communicate directly with them, as she did with the Machine. The organic part of their body would not allow that.
She remembered the first hybrids, those who had undergone the first transplant. For those who had survived the intervention, the consequences had far exceeded the expectations. Thus, some of the hybrids revolted against the Machine, thinking It was their enemy. It then proceeded to eliminate them, one after the other. Terrified, the renegades had unknowingly used a frequenc
y to communicate among themselves, which caught Aenea’s attention. It was the first time the Gateway had heard something like that, some type of organic-synthetic music.
Between the binary stream and the analogical voice, this frequency was very peculiar. She had then decided to help them. She established a tunnel towards Space H. If they followed the trail the Gateway blazed, they would get there, without being absorbed by the node, as she had been.
The tunnel enabled them to get on the other side, safely, but they became fully human again. Their microprocessors had been destroyed along the way, and Aenea lost the special music she had loved so much. The Gateway never found that song again, not even by listening to their sons or other hybrids. She was nevertheless happy to have given new life to this couple, a new chance. All along, they had brought knowledge and expertise that were for the most part unknown in Space H. By saving their lives, Aenea had given access to new knowledge.
These population transfers were not exceptional, though the Machines knew nothing about them. Gateways made sure the number of human transfers was low enough to prevent alert triggering. These movements aimed at guiding the evolution of populations and ensuring, in a preventive manner, the stability of the universe, where Machines only spearheaded corrective actions. Thus, new knowledge spread, some vanished, in the scheme of things, a minor part of which was what humans called the Equilibrium. Without Gateways, never the Machines would have managed to maintain the Equilibrium. Never.
The space-time streams resumed their flow, and Aenea awoke from her reflections. The flow brought her back to the centre of her node, and proceeded by gentle waves. Carried away by these movements, she focused on them. When she had become a Gateway, they not only had transformed her, but they also had profoundly altered the node by generating three elements. The metamorphosis of her body had linked her to these entities, of which she was the centre, and that became extensions of her body … other abstractions … Beor, Deo and Cae.