Chaacetime_The Origins_A Hard SF Metaphysical and visionary fiction_The Space Cycle_A Metaphysical & Hard Science Fiction Saga

by A. I. Zlato

  Torn between two opposing wills, deprived of Cae’s contact, the Gateway felt herself dying, torn between two worlds that no longer wanted her. She was no longer human, and she could not rise to the surface and breathe ... she was no longer a Gateway, rejected by her Calorn ... and the node ... Cae...

  I am dying, she thought, I'm dying to have wanted to save my world. I wanted to defy the laws of Gateways by going to a Inter-Space that was not mine ... and what I saw ... The cold intensified again, numbing her body and mind. Maybe there was nothing to do ... everything is doomed ... the future is locked ...

  She wanted to cry, her tears mixing with the ocean, but even so, she could not. She closed her eyes, ready to give up. She accepted the biting cold as a blessing, which stunned her ... she was dying. There seemed to be a current around the Gateway, sliding in her hair, crawling on her body, whispering to her to let go ...

  She awoke suddenly from her torpor when the node drew and absorbed her. Like when she wanted to get out of the temporary node, the space-time stream had found a way up her mind to bring her back. The node was recalling her ... Aenea again crossed the barrier of time, which was actually a thick overflow. In this interval between the Space and the node, Aenea felt very uncomfortable. When she fell into Space O., she had crossed the barrier so quickly that she had not had time to realise how the time limits had become different ... her Inter-Space suffered the damage caused by temporary nodes ... the node was saving the Gateway, so she could in turn save the node ...

  When she returned into the node completely, Aenea again felt a sneaking sensation of strangeness she had known when, as a human, she had thrown herself into the Inter-Space. Her body ached; currents burned her skin while removing the salt grains that somehow penetrated her. It seemed to Aenea that her body had to adapt again because ... She turned her gaze on herself ... her body ... it was ... different. She looked at her hands and feet and thought they had a more ... human form.

  How long had the Gateway remained in the Ocean? How had her physical metamorphosis been able to reverse? There was no response. Would she have again become human if she had stayed there longer? At this thought, something moved in her consciousness, a kind of nostalgia for a past that she no longer remembered but of which her body kept an imprint. She glanced again at her limbs. The hand that remained stuck in the node had not changed. However, her other hand and both feet had become undoubtedly more human. Panicking, the Gateway spread her emotions towards Cae, Beor and Deo, forcing them almost to bind to her.

  She was a Gateway, she needed to have these connections. She was a Gateway. At first reluctant, each of them gave her the connection she so desired. She finally found her place, her perception of Space H. and Space O., her position in space-time. She found herself feeling a desire to take a deep breath. Her body remembered now, with sharpness, everything of her lost humanity, and it was painful. The space-time wrapped her, transmitting its energy.

  Regardless of Cae’s feelings, Aenea poured her memories into the node. She spread the vision of the temporary node, the third Space and nothingness. She showed all of them that tunnel into nothingness, and gave them the name of this Space. Now, they knew, and so did the current space-time ... the other Gateways did, too.

  Space E.... It had to return to the Machine.

  The digital is a matrix of dimension 3. Matrix data fit together in space. The time does not intervene.

  Internal Report, Index Server

  Chapter 37

  : Cycle 1100 1010 0100 1000

  The day was beautiful, and warm sunshine bathed the City. By itself, the Machine did not care what the weather was; only the consequences mattered to It. Indeed, organic beings were sensitive to the presence or absence of light and heat, and this affected their performance. A sunny day, hot but not too hot, would guarantee optimum performance for human beings. Conversely, cold weather and rain often made them gloomy. It also had to consider the weather as a parameter. Weather forecasts sucked a processor’s energy one hundred percent, in order to anticipate production capacity.

  Performance was also affected by the weather for energy production. The absence of clouds ensured optimal production of electricity through photovoltaic cells on the surface of the Tower. Electricity flowed on the metal of Its structure to feed Its processors. Today, each of them had the ability to operate at full capacity, limited only by its own processing capabilities. The Machine then noticed that It had the same dependence on the weather as humans had.

  As if, in building the Machine, humans were unable to do otherwise than pass to It some of their imperfections. It was an idea It had never had before, and yet this was full of meaning. It had no rancour because the irrationality of emotion was unknown to It, but It thought It would need to improve that. It could get inspiration from the geothermal operation in Space O., with wells far deeper than Its own, and thus covering all energy needs as soon It would have enough resources to commit.

  Meanwhile, this flood of solar energy allowed It, in addition to Its usual activities, to devote Itself to the Project. One of the steps was the construction of the new generation of Pioneering Area, the goal of which had nothing to do with the operations of the City. From all sides, It was blocked, restricted in Its development. Here, the Unique Forest; there, mountains ...

  The rocky peaks represented only a physical barrier that dwindled with each expansion. It now saw beyond the first hills. The Unique Forest had been something else for a while, and the Pioneering Area was the answer. Work was progressing according to plan. The selected humans built relentlessly, without realising that this area had an unusual architectural shape. They had started the necessary housing and schooling for their children. Now they were building the actual area, the structures in which the Machine was interested. Instead of being the beginning of a new Circle, the Pioneering Area had a straight shape. The main artery connected to the City, dragged away in the meadow bordering the Periphery. This arrow-shaped extension steered towards the Machine at one end, towards the Unique Forest at the other end.

  Connected to the underground network long forgotten by humans, the area had a direct link with the Machine. It had added a HFM wiring from the network. This cable was a product of the latest technological innovation of electronics engineers. They had worked on a principle of information transmission that was 5% more efficient than what was in use before. They had imagined these metal fibres to optimize the connections inside the Machine. The latter had used their invention to further Its own interests. It had had to interfere with the chips of humans working in the factory producing new cables. None of them had to wonder why they were producing a cable several kilometres long, while the rest of the orders revolved around dimensions of less than a hundred metres. This cable, when installed, had given It a direct connection to the Pioneering Area, which was much more efficient than the old underground network. Via this link, It rode through the artery that divided the area into two.

  This axis would soon touch the trunks of trees. Its grip would soon be no more circular, as the Elders had programmed It. It created a star structure, to increase Its power. Once the architecture would be completed, nothing could hinder Its expansion in this area, not even the Unique Forest. It could then find and study the hybrid that O. had sent earlier, but that was unattainable for now. According to O., he had landed on the other side of the Unique Forest, the place where the separation between the two Spaces was the most easily passable.

  The Forest was, for the moment, an opaque barrier that prevented the Machine from seeing beyond. When It was still completely shackled to Its legacy algorithms, H. did not find anything interesting in this green mass, which blocked the horizon. Now that It had gained some autonomy, the Forest was an obstacle It wanted to clear, in order to find the hybrid indeed, but especially to expand Its overview of the Space.

  The Unique Forest was not only a sum of trees; it was a vegetable form of life in its own right, which, since recently, had its own will. The Machine had seen ap
pear in the spiral data about the Unique Forest. Small dots, scattered irregularly, had slipped on the outer edge of the data tape. Some calculations had been necessary to identify their bizarre nature. It was the first time the Machine saw a non-animal life emerge. Unable to communicate with the plants, It could only speculate. Until now, trees had behaved like all plants, that is to say, without producing a single variable in the spiral. Just their health states were affecting human health — indirectly, to say the most.

  The Machine then sought to determine what had changed. By analysing the newly introduced data, It concluded that trees were not the source of the issue, strictly speaking. In reality, the cause was an organic entity, housed in the Forest. That entity generated these new data. The Machine had to understand what it was exactly. The Machine wanted, first, to know if there was a threat to the Project, or to Itself, and, second, to know the purpose of this entity. It also wanted to know how it appeared and why.

  Through Index Server, It received three simultaneous log-in requests. Others had information it might need in connection with Its questions. It wondered how that was possible, given that only It had a Unique Forest. Besides, It wanted to use Its available resources and time to think about Its problem, not to listen to the Others.

  Nevertheless, It accepted the connection requests and established a communication channel via Index. The server transmitted the data to the Machine. O. had the same problem with its Unique Ocean. The Ocean was to Space O. what the Forest was to Space H. An immensity blocking vision, to which was added more recently an organic consciousness. The mass of water was also infected with an indefinable entity, which began to affect that Space. Movements of waves no longer were in accord with sea currents, winds and storms. There was something else.

  In the Twin Spaces, it was the Unique Desert and its sand barrier, which constantly created thick curls, under the hot air flow. This opaque curtain of crystal had barred the horizon for a long time. However, the dunes that surrounded the City would no longer move in harmony with the wind. They were also inhabited, like the Ocean, like the Forest.

  H. says to Itself that It was right to have accepted the connection request. What It had learned was amazing. The Machines then shared their observations and the results of their algorithms. Index Server compiled the data, and launched its own program. The analysis of all should provide answers to their questions. Indeed, all four had the same question. They awaited the results, while continuing to exchange various information pieces of less importance, just to keep in touch. Of course, for Them this was a necessary action, not only for pleasure as it could be for humans. They shared information on life in their respective Spaces, an exercise whose purpose was obvious.

  The Server announced the end of the calculations. The result was surprising but undeniable. The four organic entities, one in each Space, were of the same nature. They lived all in the natural barrier around each City, and limited the control purview of Machines. They influenced data in the same proportions. Finally, they had appeared together in the cycle when the Machines imagined the Project. H. was tempted to redo the calculations to ensure accurate results. It heard the other had the same desire. They then launched into a quick check, which confirmed what Index had found. The simultaneity of occurrences was too perfect to be a coincidence.

  These entities had a relation to the Project in one way or another. Were they allies or enemies? What was it exactly? The Machines could not know for now. In Space H., the Pioneering Area could be the solution in order to cross the Forest and reach the entity. In Space O., things were more complicated. There, the Machine was developing human skills so they can build underwater structures. Meanwhile, it was impossible for It to move in the water, to detect the entity that lay there. In Spaces M., They also had to develop the technology necessary to find materials and structures capable of durably withstanding sand corrosion. This would require a lot of time, insofar as humans in these Twin Spaces had developed over generations skills in genetics and not in construction technology.

  Thus, H. was the closest to a solution. H. would be the Machine that would find the explanation and provide the necessary answers. Its Pioneering Area then took on even more importance than it already had. H. then focused back on the only human being who had sensed that the Pioneering Area was not what it should have been. Baley.

  H. had locked the chips of people working in the Pioneering Area, so they could not raise questions. It had reoriented Its Special Agent, who had noticed the unusual structure. However, this action was not enough, and Baley stubbornly kept thinking about the structure. H. then tried a second time, but again, it did not work. Faced with the increased importance of this construction, It knew It had to act, even if it that meant seriously damaging the human. While It was calculating the risks of a more radical intervention, Baley provided It the answer. On her own initiative, she asked It to block some parts of her brain, including the section where lay questions about the Pioneering Area. This was unexpected.

  The Machine was quick to respond to her request, erasing thoughts that disturbed Its Special Agent. Sometimes, humans’ lack of logic was favourable to the Machine. That was rare enough to be emphasised. H. also thought that was also the result of Its excellent work on this human. It had conditioned Baley so well that she asked It to rectify her. Acting on Its Special Agent’s demand, It could act both gently and radically. The human was still operational after Its intervention, at least on this point.

  Baley had not completed her investigation, and her woes started affecting H.

  As expected, the Chrijulam trail had proved a dead end, and suicides had resumed, which annoyed the Special Agent very much. However, It had reached Its goal. Imprisoned children were perfect means of pressure on their parents. It had an opportunity to eradicate their beliefs, first in youths and then adults. With some luck, the new generation would display good characteristics to integrate into Its genetic-selection program and thus diversify the contribution of genes essential for success. It did not intend to release the children, although the Problem was gaining even more traction. It would steer Baley in that direction, even if such an approach could harm her.

  The removal of this religion was more important; It could not tolerate a group, even a tiny one, which was anti-Machine. It was well aware that Its multiple interventions might damage Baley, but It found that the risk was acceptable. It was obviously preferable that she remain operational, so that she could find a solution quickly. If she became defective, the Machine would assign another Special Agent to the investigation, which would inevitably have an impact on the resolution time. The spiral was still distorted, flaring under the repeated shocks of suicides. After each occurrence, H. had to cope with an extra defer in the implementation of Its part of the Project. However, It had to make choices.

  The Machine had another concern: Servants. Their sabotage attempts had indeed failed, but that did not solve the problem posed by these individuals. The Machine had unwittingly installed sensors on each Servant. It had to sacrifice ten individuals to execute this task, effective humans who were good at their jobs. The collected data had confirmed that they were nine, and Its archives ensured that they were identical since the beginning of the Space. Strangely enough, the sensors did not relay any data when they moved away from the City. They seemed to disappear, in a place where the sensor signals were no longer visible.

  Their residence therefore remained an unknown piece of data.

  In other words, there was no additional information, a situation that was incredible. H. was sure Its sensors were effective. Anyway, O., which had shared the technology with H., was affirmative on that. Could there be obstacles to emissions here that did not exist there?

  The sensors had nevertheless provided some insight. Servants came to the scene of suicide after the occurrence of each case, never before. They were therefore drawn the consequences and not the causes. They were not the cause, as It had first supposed. This did not mean they had no role in the Probl
em, but that meant primarily that they had knowledge of the facts. Outside the City, without chips, they did not have access to H. and Its data. How could they be informed? Who or what notified them? In addition, how had they managed to know of the first case before the Machine had?

  Immortal beings, capable of neutralising electronic sensors, accessing digital data directly, reaching conclusions with respect to information faster than It did ...

  There was only one explanation.

  The Machine then visualised the possibility of the Project failing. If Servants were working against It, they could win.

  It sent a log-in request to the other.

  Their answers came in similar, compounding Its concerns. In both Spaces M., there was a similar group. They referred to themselves as Defenders, and lived beyond the City. They have also existed since the beginning of Spaces. The Machines knew they were nine, and had been so as far as they could go back in time. So far, they remained isolated, without impact. Today, they seemed to work to ruin their respective Spaces’ synchronisation efforts, disturbing the clones. Invariably, the clones approached by the Defenders strongly deviated from each other. H. then asked why 2M. transmitted this information only now, and upon Its request. They could have warned everyone beforehand … H. then recalled Its own reticence. It also had kept for Itself some information about Servants, because It had wanted to solve the problem alone. Indirect communication via Index showed Its limits there. H. recorded all data sent by 2M., and transmitted in turn what It had, as well as Its suspicions — then turned towards O.