by A. K. DuBoff
“I’ve never felt so helpless.” I caught myself. “Well, not since we were modified.”
“Yeah, no kidding. I couldn’t even form a complete thought,” Kaiden said.
Maris shuddered. “Me either.”
“I tried to talk to it in my head, but I’m not sure it understood,” I said. “I asked it what it wanted, and it just said ‘kill’.”
“How friendly!” Kaiden’s attempted sarcasm felt hollow in the moment.
“I tried to communicate with it, too,” Toran said. “I sensed it was frustrated with me.”
“Really? How?” I asked.
He frowned. “I’m not sure. I believe it had hoped that I’d be completely submissive, and my ability to resist it caught it by surprise.”
Kaiden scowled. “What was it after? If it was to ‘kill’, like Elle’s encounter would indicate, why didn’t it take us out when it had the chance. It was toying with us.”
“We’re different,” I said. “We have abilities the rest of our kind don’t. I think it was curious about us.”
“But it also found us weak,” Toran added.
“Yeah, said something similar to me, too.” I nodded. “I think it figured it could take all the time it wanted with us and we wouldn’t get the upper hand.”
Toran’s brow knit, but he didn’t say anything.
“I could see why it was so confident. The way it moved… it was there, and then it wasn’t.” Maris shook her head. “How is that possible?”
Toran stared at the space the creature had occupied. “It never left.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I believe we were watching a dimensional shift. We couldn’t ‘see’ it when it moved through a higher dimension, but it was still governed by our spacetime rules when it existed in our 3D framework,” he explained.
“It used those shifts to corner us,” I said. “That was smart.”
“Not that smart,” Kaiden countered. “If it was, indeed, at least a fourth-dimensional creature— able to move across the fourth-dimension of time, or in an even higher dimension—then it should have been able to know our movements and avoided being struck.”
I thought over the battle. “It did seem to always be ahead of us.”
“But it’s dead, we saw it dissolve. Wouldn’t a creature residing in a dimension above spacetime be able to see the outcome and know how to avoid dying?” Maris insisted.
Toran smiled with wonder. “Not necessarily. To such a being, the past and present would be solid, but possible futures would still be foggy. All the same, it may not be dead—only the physical form existing in our spacetime destroyed. There’s no way to know.”
Kaiden sighed. “Anything we say here we’re just making up. We have next to no information to go on.”
“Our observations will help to reveal the full picture,” Toran mused.
“You’ve gotten way too philosophical in the last few minutes,” I interjected. “What went on back there? Were you communing with that thing?”
Toran’s brows drew together. “I did feel strangely linked to it. It wanted to enter the deeper parts of my mind.”
“I couldn’t feel anything,” Maris admitted. “I was trapped within myself. I didn’t know how to have a thought of my own in that moment.”
Kaiden nodded. “Yeah, it was like there was another presence there, subsuming me.”
The accounts were eerily similar to what I had experienced. I found it curious that Toran and I had been able to maintain a sense of identity during the encounters while Kaiden and Maris had been completely lost, but I didn’t know what it meant. Toran had certainly fared the best of all of us, able to break free while the rest of us were helpless. I had to say that I really appreciated the span of skills on our team; it seemed like one of us was always able to come through for the others, regardless of the situation.
“I hope we never come across another one of those things again,” Maris murmured.
“Don’t count on it,” I replied, trying to be realistic. “I still don’t know if those are the alien masterminds or just a brand of their minions, but I can only imagine there are a lot more where that one came from. And, if we did kill it, the others will be pissed.”
“Stars, pretty sure they’re going to be pissed, regardless. If that thing was supposed to kill us but didn’t, we’re unfinished business,” Kaiden said.
I frowned. “Speaking of which, why haven’t we been swarmed?”
Toran was about to reply then hesitated. “That’s a good point. If they can transition between the planes at will, then dozens of them could have come the moment the creature was in trouble.”
Maris looked around the chamber suspiciously. “So why aren’t they here?”
“The transition might not be straightforward for them,” Kaiden suggested. “Maybe this one was already here and others can’t just do it on the fly?”
I shrugged. “Regardless of the reason, I’m quite happy not being attacked.”
“I always get talked into going places, and then evil aliens from a higher dimension get involved…” Maris sighed.
“Didn’t we say that the only predictable thing is unpredictability?” I said. “Or maybe I made that up just now, I can’t remember.”
Maris pressed the heel of her right hand to her temple. “My brain feels mushy.”
“Well, we can either turn around and have the evil aliens come after us while we get nothing in return, or we can forge ahead and get what we came for, and hopefully figure out how to take them out in the process,” I stated.
“Ahead,” Kaiden replied.
Toran nodded.
Maris rolled her eyes and sighed. “You know my complaints never go anywhere.”
I ventured a smile. “Forward it is.”
6
Maris cast another haste spell now that she was healed, and we jogged toward the far end of the chamber. The dark tendrils still writhed in the shadows by the wall, but I saw no larger shapes lurking among them. I still wasn’t confident if there had been more than one of the creatures in the chamber, but it either had been alone or the others had since fled. Either way, I was happy we didn’t need to face another battle immediately.
As we approached the final quarter of the chamber, the volume of dark tendrils multiplied and extended further from the walls. By the time we were traversing the final meters, only a narrow path remained through the crystal dust on the stone floor, framed on either side by the weaving tendrils infected by the Darkness.
The ceiling and walls of the chamber also tapered, ultimately funneling us into a tunnel that was fully lined with the black foliage.
“Can’t say I’m excited about going through there,” I said, eyeing the two-meter-wide space. The ceiling of the tunnel would allow Toran to pass through without stooping, but only barely.
“I think we’re almost to the end,” Kaiden said.
“Might be wishful thinking,” I replied.
“I don’t know… there’s a strong energy coming from the other side of this tunnel.” He indicated his pendant, which was now glowing as brightly as it did when in the crystal canyon on Crystallis.
“I hope you’re right.” I stepped through the opening.
The tunnel continued for six meters before opening into another cavern. This chamber was on a more intimate scale than the two others we’d been through, with a four-meter-tall ceiling and approximately six-meter diameter. At the center of the space, a spherical crystal sat atop a carved stone pedestal. The dark tendrils wove around the base of the pedestal, seeming to merge with the crystal sphere at its base.
Despite the unnerving sight of the Darkness flowing out of the crystal, I was heartened by the sight of the sphere. I immediately recognized it as being a viewing device like the one in the secret room on the Evangiel. “That’s promising.”
“It is,” Toran agreed, “though not what I was expecting.”
I
checked around the room to make sure there were no creatures lurking in the shadows. The spherical crystal at the center of the space was certainly the prize, and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if it was guarded.
“Looks clear,” Kaiden said, completing his own assessment with the aid of a light orb.
“What are we supposed to do with it?” Maris asked. “I kinda figured there’s be, you know, a doorway somewhere. Don’t we already have one of these?”
“This is one of the most powerful pieces of technology known to our civilization,” Toran said. “If it’s also here, I suspect we haven’t been using ours to its full potential.”
“Well, we haven’t actually used it. Or, this version of us…” Kaiden faded out.
Maris raised an eyebrow. “Haven’t we?”
Kaiden wilted. “You know, I’ve kind of lost track of what it means to be ‘me’ at this point, honestly.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Toran stepped forward, focused on the device.
“Do you think we could use this to get information out of the Master Archive that we weren’t able to get before?” I asked.
“I don’t see why it would be any different,” Kaiden replied.
“There are many reasons why it could be,” Toran said, crouching down to look underneath the sphere. To my eye, it was suspended inside the stone cradle with no other attachments.
I crossed my arms. “You clearly have something in mind. Care to enlighten us?”
He frowned at the sphere. “There’s no guarantee that this world is on the same crystalline network.”
“Wait, what?” I gaped at him. “There are multiple networks?”
“We don’t know for certain,” he admitted. “I was talking through potential theories with the Hegemony scientists, and Lisa tossed that out a as a possibility.”
“Lisa?” Kaiden questioned.
“A quantum physicist—at least, that’s the closest field of study with a readily pronounceable name. She specializes in the subatomic mechanics we believe are related to the crystalline network’s hyperdimensional links.”
I stared at Toran. “You seriously either had no free time in your life before, or there’s a lot more to being a maintenance tech than you’re letting on.”
He finally softened. “Why is everyone still so surprised I’m not illiterate in science? I majored in physics for a couple of years before I switched to engineering, okay?”
Kaiden eyed him. “If you say so. Now, what was that about multiple crystalline networks?”
“Well, the idea was that bandwidth would eventually tap out, as we’ve discussed before. While the hyperdimensional storage itself is theoretically limitless, there are still bottlenecks when it comes to retrieving data through the crystal interfaces. So, in an infinite universe, it may become impossible for a crystalline network to process all requests—it might need to be segmented,” Toran explained.
“Different networks, but linked?” I asked.
“Yes, they would need to communicate with one another, such as to implement a universal reset. But, different sets of worlds may operate on different sub-networks from one another to streamline localized resets.”
“And, what does that have to do with this device?” Kaiden prompted.
“Maybe if there are different subnetworks, that also means there are different Archives,” Toran replied.
“But, the Master Archive is—”
“The only one that the Hegemony knows about,” Toran cut me off. “That doesn’t mean it’s the only one in existence.”
Maris pursed her lips. “If these aliens function on a different network, that might explain how no one has come across them before—at least not in recent history.”
“That was my thought,” Toran said. “But, keep in mind that this is all hypothetical. There may only be one network and the bandwidth issue is handled through other means. Decades more research will be needed to understand these systems.”
“Could that explain how the aliens knew about the space battle and were able to head us off after our first reset?” I asked.
“Yes, being on a different network could explain the difference in recollection. More likely, however, that was a product of residing in a higher dimensional plane. Given what we saw with the creature today, I’m still leaning toward that being the most likely scenario.”
“Which, again, means that they’re watching us right now,” I said. “We shouldn’t stand around here doing nothing.”
“While I agree wholeheartedly, I don’t think it would be wise to attempt to use this device without some careful consideration,” Toran countered.
“If you want to study it, then study it,” I said, unable to keep a touch of exasperation out of my tone. He’d already said it was impossible for us to know what the device did without direct contact, so staring at it wasn’t going to get answers—we needed to just use it and figure out the rest later.
Toran sighed. “I know this is frustrating, but I don’t want us to walk into a worse trap than we’re already in.”
“Noted, but leaping first and looking later is kinda how we roll,” Kaiden said.
“In this matter, I highly advise against it,” Toran continued. “The way I see it, there are three possible outcomes for interacting with this device. First, we might be able to use it as a viewer, either for the sealed Master Archive—in which case, we’d only get a ‘no signal’ type response—or we’d confirm the presence of at least one other Archive, thereby indicating that we’re now under the influence of a separate crystalline network.
“Secondly, we might inadvertently trigger another universal reset. We know from experience that these devices are used as a control mechanism for those. Though I know we don’t have a Master Crystal shard with us, there’s no telling if there are other factors that could initiate a reset.”
“That’s a disturbing prospect,” I said.
Kaiden frowned. “And this sphere has the Darkness vine-things coming out of it, and it might be connected to those beings. If we initiated a reset from this point, that might… I don’t know what, but it seems like it would be bad.”
“Yes, very bad,” Toran said. “For all we know, it could be a master plan to trigger a complete restructuring of all the Hegemony’s worlds at once, completing the transformation by the Darkness.”
“That…” I didn’t know what to say. It sounded like a brilliant master plan, in theory, except it was missing a crucial ‘why’ justification. I also had no explanation for how the aliens would know we would come here—aside from a fuzzy-future vision that we did—or why we would need to be the ones to activate the viewer rather than doing it themselves. Unless… I stopped trying to rationalize it. There were too many offshoots to chase; I needed to take it one thing at a time.
“And what’s the third option?” I asked instead, hoping to complete the picture of likely possibilities before delving into the details of each scenario.
Toran took a deep breath. “This might open a dimensional doorway to allow us access to a higher plane—or multiple planes.”
That was certainly the most mind-twisting of all the explanations. “Okay, let’s table that one for a moment,” I suggested. “Back to the idea about it triggering another universal reset. How would that be possible?”
“Well, different crystals have different properties,” Toran said. “Colren spoke about Master Crystal shards being used in concert with the viewing devices to spark a reset, but there would be no way to tell if a shard was already inside one of the spheres, right? We used the shard at the same time as we touched it to activate the reset, but maybe we could have melded the two before and programmed it with special properties, so the next person to touch it—however far off in the future—would activate it.”
I stared at Toran. “Not saying that you’re wrong, but that sounds really paranoid and far-fetched for what this sphere thing might do.”
“Normally I’d second that a
ssessment, Elle, but we are talking about potential fifth-dimensional beings,” Kaiden said.
“Regardless, it doesn’t make sense,” I insisted. “Why set a trap for us to initiate a reset?”
“They could just do it themselves,” Maris said, echoing my own thoughts from earlier.
“Unless they can’t, for whatever reason,” Kaiden pointed out. “Maybe the interface doesn’t work for higher dimensional beings.”
I considered the thought. “Maybe, but still. What possible purpose would a reset serve? I don’t buy the idea of them using a reset to transform all the worlds at once; they’re already well on their way to accomplishing that end, and speeding up the process would be irrelevant for beings that aren’t locked into a unidirectional flow of time as we know it. For that matter, what in the stars do they even care about spacetime?”
“I don’t know,” Toran admitted after a pause.
“Which probably means that’s not what’s going on here,” I concluded.
“Yes, thinking it through, that does seem the most unlikely of the three scenarios,” Toran stated.
“All right, so that leaves the option of it being a viewing device that may or may not work, or it being a dimensional doorway,” I summarized.
“Or Option D,” Maris said. “I’ll just note that as ‘unknown doom’. The letter even syncs up!”
“Or ‘death’,” Kaiden added.
I gave them each a horrified look and shook my head. “Moving on… The remaining options are either benign, such as the viewer, or going to turn our universe upside down as we know it.”
“Sounds like it,” Kaiden agreed.
“So, I say we just go for it,” I said.
Toran shook his head. “Elle—”
I shrugged. “Yeah, it’s probably dangerous and foolish, but what else is new with us?”
“I know I’ll regret saying this, but I think we should do it,” Maris said.
Kaiden let out a long breath. “I’ve got nothing else. Sure, why not? I always used to say how much I wanted to go sightseeing on another dimensional plane one day.”
Maris eyed him. “You were a weird kid.”