by Travis Borne
“Whoa,” Jerry said, “who are you?”
“I am Boron, and, a friend you had known, although briefly. I wanted to visit you first, since you were—the one.”
“The one?”
“You were the one who started it all,” the clanking bucket of bolts said. Jerry looked him up and down.
“I know you…” Jerry’s new, fast mind put things together like a rabbit fucking the next one down the line. “Yes. You are one of the sex bots from Meddlinn. I recognize you, and one of the first models. I suggested this mod—”
“That’s not it, sir,” the bot said. “I apologize, but I was a member of the posse that killed you. But we scanned you first. The drone that performed the scan perished, yet transmitted to me the data before it was destroyed. I put you here. I, and this entire world, are the result of your special knowledge, a magnificent idea that grew and grew—”
“You motherfu—” Jerry was a claymore and he detonated himself, determined to blow the old fuck to bits.
“Wait! I am also a friend, now.” Boron had fallen onto his latex-lacking ass. “A human you knew has managed a merger with me, and although he is permanently lost as any individual you could ever recognize or reassemble, he has bequeathed to me something very special.”
But the kelp monster that was Jerry raged on. The suit gave him power and he could feel it. He felt like he had his size sixteens on again. He felt young, alive, able to fuck all night long and fuck anyone up, anyone who messed with any of his friends. He thought of Amy, Jon, in the cave that day. His muscles bulged and he came down like an elevator with a snapped cable, ready to rip the old fist-fucker to pieces; a mod he himself had invented, or at least suggested, at Meddlinn—and he was ready to grab the dick-fist and swing the freak round like a lasso. His mind was fast now and he knew it—the imagery, the years of torture, this fucking fister had fisted its last ass!
“Jerry, control it! You have that power now.” Knees elevated, Boron raised all three hands in a defensive last stand. “You must learn yourself, and contrary to other things seeming to have arrived quickly, earlier, there is still much to master in your new form, and it will take time. And, sir, time is something we have little of at the moment. The Special is almost depleted as I am using the recent surge of it for you, and Bart, your new form. And with the others awakening we have at most one hour before—” Boron pointed up. The sky was coming down on them, sparking like a flickering bulb. “In one hour, maybe less, all of this will come to an end.”
Jerry did control himself, in part because Bart was holding him back, in a powerful manner at that, and Jerry unplugged some of the wires in his mind, abating his rage. He saw the sky and put things together swiftly; it looked more purple now, less pink, and with less of the teal static discharge that had moments earlier made it look so animated. And it had descended. Now it was nearing the tops of the tallest buildings.
“Please allow me to show you, quickly, for I haven't the time to explain in this manner. If you would, sir.” Bart helped Boron up, then Boron extended a hand toward the next building down the line. Jerry obliged, reluctantly, and along with Bart followed the mostly skinless contraption.
“What about them, the humans?” Jerry asked while they walked.
“They are the humans I had managed to save—”
“Steal.”
“I was very different then, sir. But they will take a while to finish the out-processing procedure. We must hurry.”
“And I haven't a body? How many others will end up being green like this?”
“Only you, Jerry,” Boron said, “and the one worker who you subconsciously have chosen—Bart. I’ve never had a need for scanned individuals, yet I saved you for reasons you will soon discover. Every other has a functional body, which I have preserved in a perfect, non-aging condition.”
“But I thought—”
“Jerry, you will know much in a moment, please, if you would, sir.”
The archway door opened on the third building and inside was nothing save for a chair. The structure was immense, at least 300 square feet, and upon walking inside, along with his new sidekick, Bart, he saw every wall which contained what could only be described as a universe turned inside out. The stars were black dots, nebulae were a reverse of their natural color, and outer space was bright white.
“The white hole of my world, Jerry. Please, go to the chair and sit. Bart, please stay here with me.”
Jerry lobbed his new and powerful body—because he was stumbling with awe—along a glass path which led straight to the chair. Even the floor was the reverse image of a universe, and the path was a pristine walkway into a next dimension. He moved drunkenly, as if once again, he owned a real stomach filled with Rita’s Colon-Killer hot sauce, pork tacos, and more beers than he should’ve stuffed into it. The room was alive, a universe flipped like the negatives on a photo reel, and as he neared the chair it began to change. He felt even time itself, as if it was stretching, as if he was stretching into it, into the future. And he could see nothing: no longer the path, not the entrance from which he’d came, nor his sidekick or the Meddlinn first edition.
He sat in the chair and the mystifying wallpaper, which had the thickness of infinity—flipped on end in a final snap, and the universe before him was just as he had always known; and the flip, from a positive charge to negative, or vice versa, brought with it omnipotent intelligence that’d all along been squished into the in-between.
92. Part VIIII - The Call
“Ted, something is happening here,” Ron said. Ted rushed over.
“What do you make of it, Martin?”
“It seems, Ted, someone is trying to open a channel of communication via a quantum gateway we haven’t used in years. The possibility of a third party possessing this sequence is…”
“What, Martin?” Ted asked. Rob Price was in the broadcast room as well; Ted had been teaching him the systems and he came over to Ron’s station where one of the screens flickered as if it was being hacked.
“It must be Herald,” Martin said, “as he is the only other with our key.”
“Then what’s with all the static?” Ron asked. “You told us a quantum channel would be clear, regardless of distance.”
“Look,” Devon interjected, “a face, something—” They could only make out a vague outline of a figure. A globe of a head, round, and lumpy on the top.
“Herald?” Ted said.
“Surely doesn’t look like him,” Ron replied. On the screen above them, Martin, the nerd, was deep in thought as if calculating. He was sitting inside his enclosed trailer.
“That is who I surmised, at first,” Martin said after a moment. He chewed on his yellow pencil a bit more then put it into his pocket. “But, as Ron reminded everyone, if it was Herald he should be coming through without static. It seems something might be hacking us, hacking into my systems, something extremely powerful. But—”
“Let’s have it, Martin,” Rob said, towering behind Devon. They watched as the static ghost seemed to plead using powerful arms, but there was no sound, only this barely distinguishable, very large, head.
“It is only latching on to our quantum channel, and nothing else. As far as hacking a system this is the least stealthy method. And, for something to be able to hack into our quantum channel it would have to possess the computational power equivalent to—a white hole.”
“A what?” Ron asked. His curiosity piqued as if he’d just taken a needle to the ass.
“The opposite of a black hole. The ability to traverse other dimensions on this side of the plane, those pertaining, or at least connected to, our physical plane—unlike a black hole which does the opposite and steals rather than gives. Some surmise knowledge and information are pushed, forced outward from a white hole, and borders on being infinite. Although even now this is still purely speculation. So, to say it outright in easy to understand terms, our quantum channel is, really, unhackable. The knowledge and capabilities of whatever is attem
pting this, as well its rooting into the source of the universe itself, would have to be deep, and reside in or manipulate a dimension unknown to us—unfathomable. I calculate—although again it is still speculation, yet the one and only way—would be to purpose this dimension, our dimension, as a back door and then pinpoint our system like a gleaming beacon in the darkness. It would have to find our glint, one out of near infinite strings of light, and with no differential means aiding its ability to narrow down the search. But there is much we don’t know about the potential of the mind in these other realms.” He paused, obviously having lost the others—although they seemed to absorb it like dry sponges absorbing expensive wine. “I think—it wants us to finalize the connection.”
“And we’re hesitant because it might not be a friendly,” Rob added, having had learned dump-truck loads over the past weeks.
“Exactly, Rob. Once we make the connection we essentially give whoever or whatever it is, the key, and with the power they seem to possess, well, it doesn’t, as someone recently taught me, seem the wise thing to do. It’s like a naive employee in the old world, giving information to a clever yet fraudulent caller.” Martin recalled promptly when he was Marlo, fronting, when he was just so naive: he let three humans have the key to his system, and like a back door being exploited by a teen with dial-up and curiosity, there went 633^infinity years. Yeah, bad idea, just like Rafael later explained—bringing him back: from suicide bomber to his real self, a nerd. “Whoever it is, they’re not getting in. They’re on their own. As long as we don’t respond we are safe. I’ll go ahead and fortify our safeguards and it’ll kick them out for good.”
Rob said, “But what if—”
Ron interrupted, “Look, it’s getting clearer, at least a little bit. It looks as if whoever it is, is getting mad!” The screen went from white bubbles to a red lens, and with pounding punches from within the screen, it seemed to want to explode, and the bubbles received a blast of entropy. Now, through static like that delivered by the burnt projector which resides in the library, they could make out the features of a face: a trimmed beard, curly hair, solid chin. And the person on the inside was screaming, veins popping, and muscles were hearts vacuuming roids through beer bongs, an enraging madman who seemed to want to leap out at the four of them.
“I can almost feel the rage,” Martin said. Then, a calming took place during the next full minute, and nobody spoke. The color faded to that of yellow, and the strange caller became elated, happy even. The viewpoint changed as the camera zoomed out straight from his head, and the human being, somewhere, on some planet, was—fishing. It became just a little more clear, but still very indistinguishable, and eyes were speculating scrutinizers sucking golf-ball-sized gobs of imagination through the optic nerve to fill in the blanks. Then, a small person could be made out by his side, possibly a little girl, and it looked to be at a lake somewhere in the mountains. The camera angle changed once again. It floated lazily toward the tiny, and very cute, person who barely made it to the knee of who seemed to be an oddly, large man. And it got closer, and closer.
“A little girl,” Ted softly said, wobbling as if he was riding a magic carpet with the camera attached like a headlight; the view wavered this way and that.
“What is all of this?” Rob asked. And the camera angle fixed onto the face of the little girl. She was smiling big and jerking side to side.
“She must be reeling in a fish!” Ron said. Her smile was the birth of a star and she looked up to the big man, and the camera once again went to his face. The lens changed color again, to that of blue, hazy static, but they could all make out the tear falling from his eye. It smacked the screen in slow motion, taking a full ten seconds to drop. The camera was a slow-motion diver hitting a swimming pool. Bomb! After a flood of water rushed from the edges the bubbly static became white again—and nothing else appeared.
“That’s it?” Ted wondered out loud. “Marlo, have you finished fortifying the security?”
“I haven’t touched it, Ted. Curiosity got the best of me as well. But this feed is still coming in, very much so. Like a leech it has latched on to the edges of our quantum channel and is trying to claw its way in—it must be navigating other dimensions to do so. On my end I see it building, like a capacitor filling. It should appear in—” Then it came. The screen went even brighter white, no static, then pink, then acid-trip and the camera swung around the mountains, through some flowers, and the static returned with a purple lens; the image was now a little clearer.
“I think that’s about as good as it’s going to get,” Ron said. Then, as if attached to a roller coaster with the potential of sickening daredevils, it swung up the mountain quickly and toward a small brown cabin. A man exited the door—no—it was not a man: a machine, white, and it had—
“Rafael!” Ron said. “The mustache, the same old robot body he is using now!” And the camera went inside, through Rafael as if he was a ghost. Inside and to the left; three people were coming up through a door on the floor.
“There’s Jon!” Devon said.
“And there—is Herald,” Martin added. In close company with Jon was a woman—none recognized her. The static was bad on the inside and getting worse, but it seemed she had blond hair. “I believe we are seeing some type of memory.”
“Too bad Rafael and the others aren't here to see this,” Ted said. Rob nodded in agreement, as did Devon, Ron, and Martin. It was clearly Herald and the camera made itself a first-person view, using Herald’s eye. He walked outside, past Rafael, nodding humbly, and walked down to the lake. The little girl who had been fishing ran up to meet him. The purple haze infused with the static as if grapes were molecules of all sizes, more as she jumped into Herald’s arms, sliming him with two small fishes, and she smiled. The static was a million grapes of all sizes, fighting each other, fading in and out of existence, and moving around like water balloons on a vibrating bed—but it was clear enough. Her face changed before their eyes; she was aging. Three, eight, twelve, eighteen years old. It was Amy.
93. The Connection
“Accept the call!” Rob said. And without hesitation, Martin did just that.
“Hello?” Ted said. The screen went dark, then, like a flashbulb, a man appeared. The molecules of static melted and the clarity snapped; the man seemed to be looking at them through a window made of air. Around his face was nothing but white.
“Jim?” the man asked. He had curly brown hair and wore a red and black flannel—maybe it wasn’t flannel, it looked a little nicer upon close inspection.
“Jim is not here,” Ted said. “Who is this?”
“I am his brother, Jerry. I am talking to Jewel City, correct?”
“Jerry!” Ron said. “Oh my—”
“Yes, now where is my brother, Jim, and Amy?”
There was a pause as the four of them, plus Marlo, thought about how to explain Amy.
“Jim left on a mission, they went for parts, and to find something that can cure us. We’ve been—infected. It’s affecting those predisposed to cancer and genetic disorders first, but as we have just learned, we all have little time. Can you help us, Jerry?”
“I’m calling you for help,” Jerry said. “We have less than an hour before the dome collapses, crushing us—unless…”
“Unless?” Martin asked.
“More on that later. But it’s bad, really bad. Now, what about Amy? I want to see her.”
“She passed away, she—”
“No!” The transmission jerked as if Jerry’s world was passing through a neutron-star’s gravity pulse. He went red and the molecules of static returned, becoming angry fire ants. He roared, “I want to know what happened to her!”
“She recently made a sacrifice. She, she saved us all, but—”
“But what!”
“It’s okay, Jerry,” Rob Price said, “Now I know this is going to sound strange but—”
“After what I’ve been through nothing will ever sound strange again!”
<
br /> “Well, there’s another Amy, the real Amy, and she left with Herald and her mother in a ship. We met them a little over a week ago. And as we learned, the Amy we knew here in our town for more than ten years, was a copy, a printed Amy they’d explained. The real Amy had been lending all along.” The red glow faded from the center out and the neutron-star’s wave assuaged the angry ants. Jerry’s bubble of a world became white again and perplexity worked its way around his face.
“Herald, huh. Lending,” Jerry said slowly. “So, she is alive.”
“It’s a long story,” Martin admitted, “but, yes. And she is safe.” Jerry looked about as if to see where the corky, pubescent voice had come from.
Ted said, “That’s Martin, he is our system. Now, what can we do to help?”
“Just the same, it’s a long story on our end, hundreds of insane years long, but I’ll come right out and say it: we need the lending program. If we don’t get it the sacrifices will continue, and we will not be able to escape. But first let me know what is going on with you. Perhaps, we can help each other. I know everything Boron knows, for now—he’s the system on this end and I am interfacing with it now, very powerful. I merged my imagination with it and have been able to do some amazing things, such as go beyond the boundaries of the physical realm and track you down.”
“Well, it seems you are in more of a predicament than us,” Ted said, “for the moment, but statistically we need to assist each other or we’re all doomed. A recent attack on our city came with something else, something we’ve just now found out, and it is killing everyone who has come in contact with us since. We are not only aging at a faster rate, now, but those with genetic faults are being exploited—their very DNA is being hacked by something on a scale so small even Martin’s most advanced systems cannot detect it.”
