Bender of Worlds

by Isaac Hooke

  He hadn’t realized it before, but Sinive had also squeezed past G’allanthamas to stand at his side.

  Her pistol was pointed directly at him.

  “Step away from the lens,” Sinive said. Behind her faceplate, her eyes had become dead. Her features, slack.

  Nelson had no doubt left a subconscious command in Sinive’s mind, ordering her to make sure Tane didn’t touch any more artifacts or lenses.

  “I’m not joking...” Sinive pressed.

  Tane released the Melt Metal reserve, targeting her weapon.

  As her pistol liquefied, he shoved his hand toward the lens. Before he touched it, his gloved fingers seemed to elongate as they passed within the region where light was bent. The darkness called out to him, and when his fingers made contact, the blackness bled onto his finger, moving like a liquid as it flowed onto his glove.

  He touched the lens with his other hand, and the darkness seeped onto the spacesuit there, too. The dark threads emerging from his body lifted him into the air toward the lens, swallowing him up. The lens was in control of those threads, not him. For a moment, as the blackness enveloped him and covered his helmet, he felt the fear that was ordinarily depressed in the Umbra. Fear that this darkness would engulf and destroy him. Fear that the lens would transport him alone, leaving his friends behind. And fear that the stored Essencework wouldn’t work at all.

  The darkness flowed inside his helmet from unseen crevices along the edges of the faceplate. As it touched his face, he felt the burning heat of the Dark Essence. That molten liquid flowed down into all of his orifices, drowning all fear. Drowning everything, including reality, and consumed his being.

  He floated there in the incredible heat of that darkness, all that he was scoured away. Time passed. A second. An eternity.

  A tiny white star beckoned in the distance. He reached for it, and nausea overcame him. If he had a body, he would have vomited.

  He experienced the sensation of falling.

  And then both the searing heat and the nausea evaporated as the world slammed back into existence.

  17

  Tane steadied himself by extending a hand for balance. His gloved fingers found Sinive’s and she held him upright. He looked into her helmet and saw genuine relief in her face, mixed with guilt. Her eyes had life in them once more: she was back to herself.

  He was still inside the grav tram tunnel. The lens was gone. The blue tinge that infected everything had vanished, and the overhead lights had returned to a more normal white color. The walls seemed solid, substantial.

  Tane turned, and was relieved to find that he had transported G’allanthamas and Jed as well. The blurring globes of Dark Essence had dissipated around all of them, Tane noted.

  He had also unintentionally carried back two kraals with them, as well as three dead ones. Without environmental suits, the two kraals thrashed helplessly about, the gills on their necks open wide as they succumbed to the deadly effects of humanity’s universe. Jed put them out of their misery. Beyond those five, there was no sign of the other kraals.

  After terminating the kraal pair, the Volur leaped over G’allanthamas and exchanged his sword for his glowing pistol, and held it to Sinive’s helmet.

  “Jed...” Tane said. His voice no longer spanned two octaves at the same time.

  “She turned on you again,” Jed said. “I saw what she did before you touched the lens.”

  “She’s back to herself.” Tane looked imploringly at Sinive. “Tell him.”

  “I’m me again, for what it’s worth,” Sinive said. The sadness and guilt in her voice was heartbreaking. “But Jed is right. I don’t think I can hang around you anymore. Not if I can turn against you at any time.”

  Jed nodded. “See? Even she understands the danger she poses.” He lowered his pistol, but kept it in hand.

  “I won’t leave her,” Tane said.

  “Even if your life depends on it?” Jed pressed.

  “Even then,” Tane said.

  Jed studied him a moment, then returned his attention to Sinive. “As you wish.”

  The Volur retreated into the shadows of the tunnel, ostensibly to keep an eye on both directions.

  “Let me check something...” G’allanthamas came forward, and stopped near Sinive. “I have some ability to interface with minds, like Graaz’dhen. I did it often with Tiberius. If I may, Human?”

  “Do your worst,” Sinive said.

  The dweller extended a suited tentacle. Tane stepped back, and Sinive held out her arms, inviting the alien to do what it would.

  G’allanthamas wrapped the tentacle around her spacesuit and hoisted her to the glass dome above his carapace, directly in front of his sideways-oriented head. He held her there for a few moments, and then:

  “I see the control chip lingering in the background, ready to exert its influence when a command arrives from the controller,” the dweller said. “And I also see the two residual commands placed before it. Those commands have triggered already, and will not surface again. Otherwise, as far as I can tell, there are no more embedded subconscious instructions. I hate to say it, since I don’t like her much at all, but I believe we can trust her.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Dweller,” Sinive said. “I think.”

  G’allanthamas lowered her.

  “There you go, Jed,” Tane said.

  “Fine,” the Volur said from the shadows. “But new rule: she’s not allowed pistols or weapons of any kind until further notice.”

  “Suits me,” Sinive said.

  Jed approached, and held out his hand. “The energy dagger, please.”

  Sinive scowled defiantly, but then opened her storage pouch and retrieved the dagger. She tossed it to Jed. “Have fun with it.”

  He caught it by the hilt and secured the weapon inside his own pouch. “I’ll return it to you again when you’ve earned my trust.”

  “Nah, you can keep it,” Sinive said. “It’s not my style.”

  “You know, that pistol you forced Tane to melt, it had some sentimental value to me,” the Volur continued.

  “Oh really?” Sinive said.

  “Yes,” Jed told her. “Lyra gave it to me when she freed me from slavers. It was a symbol of freedom. And now it’s gone because of you.”

  “I wish I could go back and stop myself, but I can’t,” Sinive said. “I know sorry isn’t going to cut it, but you have to understand: I wasn’t in control.”

  “Which is exactly why we all need to be extra vigilant around you,” Jed said.

  “Even if Gall already said she’s clean?” Tane asked.

  “As a Volur, I’ve learned to err on the side of caution,” Jed replied. “It’s saved my life on more than a few occasions. Also, you would do well to remember I haven’t been chipped like the two of you. And that I’m not an alien of questionable loyalty. So essentially, I’m the only one you can really count on.”

  “Nice play for his trust,” G’allanthamas said. “But you’re wrong. He knows me from his memories. He knows my loyalty is true.”

  “But as you’re so fond of reminding us, those memories were recorded a thousand years ago,” Jed said.

  The alien ignored that comment, and said: “How do we know she doesn’t have more weapons hidden in her storage device? Just because she claims she doesn’t, doesn’t mean it’s true. She could have acquired some since the last time you searched her belongings.”

  “Then search them again.” Sinive unfastened the pouch from her utility belt and offered it to Jed. “As usual, I’ve disabled all the security features. Go ahead. Have a look.”

  Jed accepted the pouch and his eyes defocused as he accessed the remote interface. After a moment he tossed it back to Sinive.

  “I’m satisfied she has no weapons,” Jed said.

  “Thank you,” Sinive said. “So, I hate to break it to you, but we’re in the middle of a grav tram tunnel here. We should probably get moving.”

  “I don’t know of very many
cities that have grav trams operating in the middle of the night,” Tane said.

  “Neither do I,” Jed said. “But I have to agree with her.”

  “The whole erring on the side of caution thing?” Tane told him.

  “You understand,” the Volur replied. “However, my reasons are different from hers. I’m not so worried about getting hit by a grav tram—like you said, they don’t operate in the middle of the night. My worry is the TSN. They’ve likely embargoed this city in our universe as well, with ships in geostationary orbit above Matahepte and others. We will have to move with extreme caution. Troops, mechs, drones, they’ll all be on patrol. And we’ll have to assume they’re beaming LIDAR down into the city from orbit as well.”

  “Yeah but there will be a lot more noise in the city now,” Tane said. “Considering it’s populated in our universe. Densely populated. So I’m not sure how useful their LIDAR is going to be for them.”

  “Moving around won’t be a concern during the day,” Jed admitted. “But I suspect the TSN has imposed a curfew. We will have to be careful tonight.”

  “Wait, maybe the TSN won’t know we escaped here?” Tane said.

  “No, they’ll be thorough,” Jed said. “When the robots don’t find us, they’ll send word that we may have taken a second lens.”

  “Okay, how long until the TSN hears from the Umbra about that then, and directs any surface patrols into this tunnel to look for us?” Tane asked.

  Jed considered for a moment. “In the Umbra, they’ll have to jump one of their ships to Anteres, fly through the Rift, jump back to this system, and send a message to the garrison here. Since many TSN vessels are capable of making multiple jumps without rest, most of the delay will be caused by the interplanetary flights between jumps. So I’d say, they could probably redirect troops here at best within an hour. We’ll be well away from this spot by then. But before we move, I’m going to have to ask your dweller friend to replace the blurring globes. At least for you three, since you can’t become invisible. There are working cameras in this tunnel, and more once we get to the surface. As well as the aforementioned LIDAR and surface patrols...”

  Tane surveyed the curved walls. “No cameras in this particular tunnel segment, it looks like.”

  “We got lucky,” Jed said.

  Tane addressed the dweller. “When can you blur us?”

  “Already working on it,” G’allanthamas replied. “I’m weary.”

  “I hear you.” Tane glanced at Jed. “Are you able to find a ship off-world at this hour?”

  “At this hour, no,” Jed said. “There’s an old friend I can possibly ask tomorrow. In the meantime, we’ll have to find somewhere to sleep tonight. A place where we can stow our alien friend during the day.”

  “A place to sleep...” Tane instinctively reactivated Galnet discovery, but remembered just in time that he couldn’t connect to the Galnet, not if he wanted to retain control of his body. He canceled the connection immediately.

  “Sinive, don’t forget we can’t connect to the Galnet,” Tane said.

  “I haven’t forgotten,” Sinive said. “Why, did you connect?”

  “Almost,” Tane said.

  “Good job,” she commented.

  It was really too bad he couldn’t connect, though, because he also wanted to check for any messages from his parents and his friends back on Galtede Serpentis sometime.

  “So, a room...” Jed said. “The TSN will be looking for recent check-ins. Especially late night.”

  “So instead of checking in, why don’t we simply break in?” Sinive said.

  “We’re going to have to, I think,” Tane said. “And we’ll leave that up to you, since that’s your specialty.”

  “Thanks,” Sinive said. “Wait, why do I get the impression you just insulted me in some way?”

  “Because you’re a sensitive person,” Tane said. “Jed, can you find us a nearby rental? Seeing as you’re the only one of us who can connect to the Galnet.”

  “On it,” Jed said.

  Background noise from the million other occupants ensured the Volur’s transmissions wouldn’t stand out in any way. Once Jed connected, his packets would be bounced between any nearby repeaters, chips, and AR goggles, with each node in the adhoc mixnet anonymizing the data before sending it on. Privacy laws also prevented the city AIs from spying on those packets. Still, there were supposedly ways to track someone down, but hopefully Jed knew all the necessary tricks to prevent that.

  “I’ve managed to connect to the mixnet of a cafe on the surface, and I’ve tunneled through to the Galnet,” Jed said. “Signal strength is exceedingly poor, however, and I’m getting very low bandwidth. I’m downloading the list of available short term rentals now...” He paused. “Okay, got a building two streets away. Three rooms are available there.”

  “I need my own room,” G’allanthamas said.

  “I can share with the Outrimmer,” Sinive said. “I’ve done it before.”

  Tane couldn’t help a suddenly faster heartbeat.

  “No,” Jed said immediately. He glanced at Tane. “We can’t trust her to share a room alone with you. The three of us will room together.”

  “Actually, if at all possible, I think I’d like my own room,” Tane said.

  “But I intend to keep watch—”

  “I think we should all have our own rooms,” Tane insisted.

  Jed stared at him for a moment. “You don’t trust me. I understand.”

  Tane shrugged ever so slightly. “I have some trust issues, sure, but I also value my privacy.”

  “Fine. Then at the very least I want us in adjacent rooms.” His eyes defocused. “Okay, got another building, slightly farther away. It has several rooms available. Three are next to one another. The dweller will be on a different floor, however. Assuming Sinive or myself can hack into the place.”

  “What’s your Hacking level?” Sinive asked him.

  “Two,” Jed answered.

  “Ha,” Sinive said. “I’m a four, here.”

  “That should do,” Jed said.

  “Okay then,” Tane said. “We move out as soon as Gall gets those blurring fields done.” He glanced at the alien expectantly.

  “They’re coming,” G’allanthamas answered.

  Jed’s faceplate abruptly retracted, and his helmet sank back into the trapezius area of his armor. He took a long, deep inhale.

  That’s right. No crillia in our universe.

  Sinive opened up her own faceplate, and Tane followed suit. While it was a slight relief not to have to breathe recycled air anymore, his face felt suddenly cold. Well, at least he didn’t have to worry about depleting his oxygen tank anymore.

  Sinive seemed to be thinking along similar lines, because she asked G’allanthamas: “You can really live forever in that suit?”

  “Forever,” the dweller agreed. His voice came from inside Tane’s head, courtesy of the chip, indicating G’allanthamas was still using the shared comm band.

  She glanced at Tane. “And you thought drinking recycled crap aboard a ship was bad. Imagining drinking it forever!”

  “I’ll take drinking my own crap over drinking from the communal pot any day,” G’allanthamas said.

  “You would,” Sinive commented.

  As Tane took several long inhales, he noticed the tunnel air smelled slightly sooty, and damp. There was also something else. Something… tangy?

  “Do you smell that?” Tane said.

  “That’s kraal blood.” Sinive nodded toward his chest assembly. “We’re covered in it.”

  Tane glanced down. Sure enough, his suit was smeared in black liquid. Sinive, Jed, and G’allanthamas were similarly coated in it, he just hadn’t noticed before in the dim light.

  “Before I forget,” Jed said. “I want the two of you to change your spoofed IDs. The dweller claims the magnetic resonance of his blurring protects us from the ID readers scattered throughout the city, but I’d feel better knowing that your IDs are
different than when the TSN captured you. I’ve already updated mine.”

  “Miles Herculian?” Tane asked, reading Jed’s ID.

  “In the flesh,” Jed replied.

  “You really think highly of yourself, don’t you,” Sinive told the Volur. “Herculean.”

  “Herculian,” Jed emphasized.

  “Sounds the same to me,” Sinive said.

  Tane chose Furly Baker, while Sinive picked Joan Jones.

  Sinive glanced at him. “Furly?" She burst out laughing. “That’s the most ridiculous name I’ve ever heard. I can’t tell if you’re trying to mix furry and curly, or what. Furly Baker.” She giggled again. “It actually kind of suits you.”

  “Thanks,” Tane said distractedly. “We aren’t connected to the Galnet, so your plant in the TSN won’t be able to register these names?”

  “That’s right,” Sinive said. “If any TSN personnel run a background check, we won’t exist.”

  “As usual, we’ll just have to avoid any TSN patrols,” Jed said. He became invisible. “I’m going to scout the tunnel ahead while the dweller creates those blurring fields for you.”

  He moved beyond the reduced range of his transmitter, causing his blue indicator to freeze on the overhead map.

  Several minutes later, Tane, Sinive, and G’allanthamas all had blurring spheres, and they set out into the tunnel with Jed, who had returned. The Volur remained invisible.

  Tane decided to bring up the rear, that way he could keep Sinive and G’allanthamas in sight at all times. He was more concerned about Sinive, of course, since so far the dweller had given him no reason to doubt his loyalty.

  Since his faceplate was open, Tane piped the rear-view feed from the helmet directly into his chip, allowing him to keep an eye on the tunnel behind him via the usual overlay near the top of his vision.

  At the next tram station, Jed became visible to carve through the polycarbonate screen with his Chrysalium sword. Tane was happy to let the Volur work, because it meant he didn’t have to do it.

  The task proved tricky, since the screen began a little above chest height—below it was the metal of the platform. Jed cut a long line into the screen just above the metal, then leaped onto the tiny ledge formed by the edge of the platform and the screen and completed the work. He shoved the resulting elliptical plug inward and it landed with a loud thud, but didn’t break.