Backflow Boxed Set

by F P Adriani

  Her left hand on her other sleeve, Kostas turned away from me slightly. Then she pointed her left hand ahead of her. “Lydia, Gary, do not manipulate your sleeves. Just push your torsos forward in that general area; the shift of your body mass will give you momentum, and you should remain on the correct energy level. The tether unfortunately might also give you some angular momentum. But, again, don’t work your sleeves.”

  Both Gary and I took deep breaths and looked at each other. “Well,” I said, “here I go….”

  I thrust my torso at where Kostas had pointed, and I could feel my feet lifting behind me; through the tether, I could also feel Gary swinging near what seemed to be the area behind me—swinging wildly. “Gary!” I shouted, trying to turn my head, but I couldn’t seem to get it to truly face behind me, wherever “behind me” now was.

  “I’m all right! I’m all right,” Gary said. “Just, wow, when Kostas said angular momentum, she wasn’t kidding. Even without that, how long can we move through this and not get a really bad case of motion sickness?”

  “That is the question,” I said.

  I continued floating in the nowhere space around me, waving my arms as if I were swimming, and somehow I was continually propelled forward. I passed the shapes and shadows of incredible-looking inventions, some of which appeared to be organic, slimy even. “I don’t want to know what the hell that is,” I said about a particularly scary-looking, multi-legged…thing.

  I heard Gary’s laugh coming from behind me. I also heard Kostas’ voice coming from somewhere, but I couldn’t see her anywhere. She must have been talking to me in the same way she had talked when I first heard her voice from on the Demeter. She said now, “There should be a wall with an electronic-looking configuration coming up soon on your left.”

  “And you expect me to be able to tell what the hell it is among all this?” I said on a frown, my eyes beginning to search around me for the wall. “Why couldn’t you come with us?”

  “I intended to come with you, Lydia, but you refused to go without Gary. Only two humans can be in there at a time. Only a few more of The Keepers at one time. We cannot mess with the energy levels, for fear of ruining the set-up where everything is protected.”

  If I could have stopped short now, I would have. But I could only grunt and grumble. “You mean we could fuck this space up—and release or even reactivate something? That’s just great! You send us in here when I don’t know where I’m going and what I’m touching.”

  “Try not to touch anything,” Kostas said, “but, if you do, we’ll deal with that when it happens.”

  As if our conversation made it happen, I felt an odd, cold current of something coming my way inside the weird sparkliness this area was, so I tried to move out of the way—but I misjudged where I was pushing myself. I began sliding sideways, on course to hit what looked like two silver spheres attached by a silver triangle at the center.

  “Shit!” I said as I kept moving toward the structure, and I could feel Gary trying to pull back on the tether so I wouldn’t crash into the device. “I’m going to hit some silver spheres—a triangle!” I shouted.

  “Dammit,” I heard Kostas say on a groan.

  Her swearing surprised me, but I was more concerned with what my smashing into the silver contraption would mean….

  My body finally connected with it, and Gary said, “Whoa.” He was still struggling with the tether, but at least he’d made some progress: I didn’t hit the device as hard as I had been on course to do. My body only slid along the surface of one of the big spheres—not that I felt my body sliding. I could only see it happening; there seemed to have been no pressure on my suit.

  “What the hell did I just touch—Kostas?”

  Her voice was dry now: “I am making an adjustment because of what you just touched.”

  “Well, sorry, but how the hell am I supposed to know what’s what here? You know, I’ve gotta say what I’ve been meaning to say for a while now: your system SUCKS! You should find another way to deactivate the stones—you shouldn’t need me…. So, are Gary and I still on the same correct level here or what?”

  “Yes,” Kostas said. “Keep moving where you’re going now. That wall with the electronic configuration should be coming up, though a bit farther to the left than before.”

  I finally saw what she meant: the wide obstruction was a dark-green color, and there were lit-up white arcs and dashes scattered over the front. “I see it!” I said, flapping my arms to push me closer to it. “But I’m going to crash into it!”

  “That’s what you need to do. Grab onto there and I’ll tell you what to push.”

  I seemed to suddenly accelerate. “Oh shit!” I screeched, as the wall quickly grew wider in my vision. But when I collided with the surface, it apparently wasn’t with much force, or at least there wasn’t much of an opposite reaction: I was able to easily grab onto two hand-sized holes in the wall, and Gary gently soared to my right side.

  “We’re here!” I said.

  And Kostas replied, “You need to locate the section where two arcs curve toward a star shape—but don’t confuse it with the two arcs that curve toward a diamond shape.”

  I saw what she meant: the two spots looked similar enough that a person could easily make a mistake if she were in a rush, which I was, but I was even more afraid of screwing up….

  Fortunately, I didn’t screw up. Kostas gave me more instructions about the wall, and then she finally told me that I’d done everything correctly there.

  Both Gary and I sighed in relief, and I couldn’t help laughing a little at how nervous we both were. “We should be excited!” I said to him now. “How many people get to do this?”

  “It really is an honor,” Kostas said.

  “Well, I guess I can finally see that!” I said, glancing around the area Gary and I were still floating in. There was more light here, and the suspended shapes nearby seemed to be moving slower. “It doesn’t seem as confusing around here.”

  “Where the stone must go is in an even calmer space,” Kostas said. “You are almost there. You must move to behind the green wall.”

  A moment later, I tried to do exactly that, but the tether didn’t want to obey my body’s orders, or Gary’s, and we went soaring off to the right, too far past the wall.

  My arms instinctively flailed at the nowhereness around me, but I couldn’t get any momentum back toward where I needed to be. “Kostas—I overshot the damn spot! We’re moving faster again—”

  “Oh dammit,” Kostas said quickly. “Hang on….” A pause from her, and I could feel sweat sliding over my face and falling off of me, to…wherever….

  “Lydia,” Kostas finally said, “I have checked my map, and, unfortunately, I cannot see a way to get you back to that wall without diverting you elsewhere first. But going that way will take a while—”

  “How long?” Gary asked loudly.

  “In normal time, about an hour and a half.”

  “What!?” I yelled. “Gary and I can’t stay in here like we’re just relaxing on a coffee break. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.”

  “I know,” Kostas said. “I have contacted Thura. She will know more. She has just entered the mountain. It will take her ten minutes to get here. Will you be all right till then?”

  “I don’t know—you tell me! I think we’re headed for a bunch of cylindrical shapes—I can’t tell for sure because they’re shadowy. But I’m going to hit them head on—”

  “That should be fine—they are in an inert state.”

  “Well, how do you know they won’t be inert once Gary and I smash into them?”

  As I got closer to the shapes, I saw them more clearly: they were a very-matte pale gray, almost chalky-looking, which flat sheen was unusual inside this even more unusual space.

  “I think you should be fine,” Kostas said, just as my right shoulder hit one of the cylinders.

  Kostas was right: nothing happened to me or Gary. But something did happen, to
the cylinder: it began to disintegrate, the chalky consistency turning into a pale light dust and floating away into the nowhereness.

  “Omigod,” I said through my stunned mouth. “The cylinder just faded away—now we’re headed for the next one—I’m destroying the place!” I had thought my only worry in here would be my safety, but now I saw how fragile this Hall collection was, and, for all I knew, I had just destroyed the only technology left from an extinct civilization.

  I could feel Gary yanking at the tether to try to shift us in a new direction—but it was no good—whoooosh-bye-bye went another cylinder as Gary crashed into it.

  “Crap!” Gary said, and when I turned my head toward him, I saw how ashen-colored his face was.

  “You look terribly pale!”

  “I feel terrible…. I was never bothered much by motion sickness—till now.”

  “No—you won’t—” I said, but, yeah, he would. An instant later he puked a long stream of liquefied food, which floated into yet another cylinder, making that one collapse too; then his stomach bits floated farther down into The Hall, to possibly hit who knew what. Now we were polluting the goddamn place!

  “Gary’s sick! Would someone please get us the hell out of here already?”

  “You cannot leave,” Kostas said. “You must finish, Lydia. I will ask Thura to remove Gary…. Here she is.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Gary mumbled in a weak voice, but one of his hands was rubbing his worksuit over his stomach—and his face turned a sickly yellow-gray as we continued floating through The Hall.

  “Yes, you are going somewhere,” I said to him. “I’m still your captain….” My voice faded—I spotted a Keeper soaring quite quickly toward us—Thura. I’d never seen her whole face and body before, but I did recognize the golden sheen of her chin. She wasn’t wearing a robe now, and her strangely flickering Keeper’s body fit into the background here so well; it seemed The Keepers had designed this place based on their own anatomy.

  It also seemed that Thura had set up a mind-link. In my head, I heard her say, I will take Gary back.

  “No!” Gary said out loud, to me. He had managed to shorten the tether by bunching it up, and now he was floating close beside me on my right. “Please let me stay, Lydia. I don’t want to leave you. I should have been with you when you fell! Maybe you could die in here….”

  Lydia will not die, Thura said. I will work your sleeve controls, Gary. It will make you more comfortable.

  “Yes—please,” Gary said fast, and he looked at me when he said it.

  I sighed hard. “All right. But if you throw up again, you’re going back!”

  He nodded at me, and Thura came up on his other side and grabbed onto his right arm, which slowed both me and him down, almost to a stop. Till that moment, I hadn’t realized how weird moving in The Hall had felt to my anatomy; that I hadn’t gotten sick like Gary was really surprising. But then by now, I’d done more traveling through and existing in different dimensions than Gary had, so maybe I had begun acclimating….

  I have adjusted your worksuit settings, Gary. I have also given you a neurodigestive calmative. Do you feel any better? Thura looked at Gary with her crystal-like yellow eyes. She had more gold and yellow parts than the other Keepers I’d seen….

  She had also heard my thoughts. Our colors change with age. I am older than the others here.

  “How old are you?” I asked.

  I cannot explain that. You would not understand because you are not a Keeper. Aging is not only with time the way it is in your normal dimension.

  “Whatever you gave me seems to be working,” Gary said to her now, and his voice sounded more like his normal one.

  I grabbed onto his arm. “Are you sure?”

  He nodded at me fast, his mustache tilting around his small smile.

  I looked at Thura and thought, Can we get going again?

  Yes. Kostas was right about going this way taking long. But Kostas is not familiar with the entirety of The Hall. I will guide you to and through a shorter route.

  I don’t understand why you didn’t do this from the get-go, I thought.

  The three of us were floating together now, but Thura’s strange, shifting anatomy was slightly ahead of me and Gary. I didn’t feel a pull; nevertheless, I got the feeling that she was somehow sharing her momentum with us.

  Her head turned slightly, in my direction. Because we go to so many places, we must be in a sleeping state often. The Hall Of Devices is particularly exhausting for The Keepers. Our bodies are visiting so many different levels and the histories of so many places as we pass through. I will be exhausted for a long time after this.

  “I—I’m sorry,” I said fast.

  “No—it’s my fault,” Gary said. “If we weren’t tethered, you would have had better control in here.”

  Not necessarily, Thura said. Your more complicated shape together moves differently through here. Lydia probably would have been moving faster. She might have done even worse damage.

  “So then it is good that I’m here. See? You need me.” Gary pulled an I-told-you-so face at me, and I couldn’t help laughing a little.

  In a moment we will go around a sharp bend in the spacetime of this area, Thura said. Try not to resist your surroundings then.

  “What do—” I started to say, but I never got to finish my statement because we reached the bend, and then everything around me seemed to slip into a rapid chaos of abstract forms and colors and the three of us bending and jerking around like organic flotsam.

  Oh no! I thought. We’re being torn apart! We’re dying—Gary—

  I’m here…I think. I was….

  Youuu stillllll arrrreeeeeee, Thura said, her voice seeming to extend throughout the universe and into my body, shaking me inside. Reeeelaxxxx your body. Dooo not flail around, Lydia. You make the jouuurney loooonger then.

  I tried to calm down, but it wasn’t easy; I watched an oddly bent Gary grope with two extremely long arms around the universe and then finally grab onto my right arm. His warm hand tightly clasping mine gave me something to focus on—not that I could see his hand very clearly because, visually, both of our hands had mostly faded away. But I could still feel the silkiness of the hairs on the back of his hand and the wonderful hard musculature of his fingers….

  We slowed down now, in a space that didn’t contain as many disjointed shapes or isolated lights. Here the lighting was golden, steadier, more comforting. The three of us began looking like our normal selves again, and we moved past what appeared to be dark shelves with inanimate objects on top; then we passed amorphous mounds of matter floating free in the golden light.

  I stared around me. “There seem to be organic things in here. Were they alive once?”

  Some of them, Thura said. A long time ago. We did not harm them. They stopped working. They could no longer be revived.

  “But I thought this place was only for the technologies species create.”

  Some technologies are in the form of life created.

  “But that seems cruel!” I said. “Like slavery.”

  It has happened in the universe, unfortunately. If we keep that knowledge in the history here and elsewhere, then others will always have evidence of the negative results of bad behaviors and will hopefully not repeat them. We Keepers feel we must catalogue everything, no matter if some of it saddens us.

  I looked at her flickering profile. Do you get sad?

  Yes. Frequently.

  Her answer surprised me—and saddened me. I didn’t know what else to say; I didn’t know if I should ask her more questions or never ask her anything again.

  A silence seemed to pass between the three of us as we kept floating through this archive of weirdness. It was a fascinating place, and I’d never seen anything like it before. However, that it existed troubled me; it always troubled me that life could be unkind to other life. It also troubled me that the remnants of so many powerful, strange and unkind technologies were all sitting in “
one” place….

  We have reached the space where you must insert the stone, Thura said, and then the three of us slowed down to a stop.

  In front of us there was a silver container with a hexagonal front opening that gaped pure black. The top of the container was connected to a gossamer white string that seemed to lead up to nowhere.

  You must insert the stone into the opening, Thura said. I am detaching the tether. I will hold onto Gary. He and I will pull back.

  I glanced at her. “Why?”

  We cannot have any confusion around the stone. The entry into the opening must remain purely you, Lydia.

  “‘Purely You’—that sounds like a perfume, but I have a feeling that’s not what you meant.” I fumbled with my belt pocket and pulled out the firestone, my mouth immediately gaping down at it: blood-red cracks with dots of black inside had fractal-like fanned out over the surface, and a powdery, unattractive film clouded the bits of smooth area between the red cracks. “Christ, it looks like crap now!”

  It is at the end of its usefulness, Thura said.

  “Goodbye…you pain in the ass,” I said to the stone, hearing Gary laugh from behind me.

  I moved forward toward the silver container and slid the stone into the gaping, dark space.

  We must move now, Thura said inside my mind, but in a quicker than normal way for The Keepers, which alarmed me. But when I turned my head to look at her, I found that she wasn’t there, and neither was Gary.

  Uh-oh.

  “Um, hello,” I said, my lips vibrating with fear. “Where the hell is everyone?”

  Somewhere in the core of my body now, I felt a tingling start and then expand to my extremities, till my both my bare fingers and my feet in my boots were shooting what looked like the same blood-red color from the firestone.

  “Shit!” I screamed. “I’m bleeding—where am I!”

  I heard Thura’s voice coming to me as if from far away, but now her voice also seemed to be originating from outside a mind-link….

  “Lydia, you are being detached from the stone. Gary and I had to move to another level temporarily. We will be back….”