by Ben van Eijk
Seth had come to terms with the fact he would not understand what Jacquelyn was talking about.
“No… Io, Kern and Marsa did not create a whole world. I come from a city with only three thousand residents.”
Jacquelyn looked at Seth with surprise in her eyes.
“Wow! That is an extremely discreet operation, no wonder I have never met anyone like you. This explains how you displaced thirty cubic kilometres of water; you clearly have an affinity with it. You are an interesting guy Seth. I hope you never meet Faust and Trikala.”
She had said this with fondness in her voice — yet she was hoping for him never to meet the only two people who might be able to help him get home. Seth was confused.
“Uhh, why not?”
Jacquelyn looked at him.
“Seth, I and my sister are a creation of those two. Do you think we are a friendly pair?”
“Well, yes and no,” Seth said.
Jacquelyn laughed.
“Very funny Seth, but honestly: would you want to encounter us again?”
Seth yielded.
“No, not really.”
“That’s what I thought. Well we are not even close to the worst things they have created, and to them, you and the rest of all of the universes are insignificant. They think of themselves as gods, and to be honest, they are not far from it, but the multiverse has yet to be completely explored. For them, anything they haven’t encountered yet is just an opportunity to learn something new to become even more powerful. Believe me, meeting them is one of the worst things you could ever do.”
“Oh.” Seth did not have much to say to that. Jacquelyn seemed genuine and he certainly did not know enough to argue with her.
Now Jacquelyn looked at Seth with an easy grin, suggesting some sort of joke was coming.
“Are you ready Seth? This will actually be an easy door compared to the other ones. The only person that needs to go through the door is you. No need to worry about bringing the right sister with you; once you have entered the bridge, the game is over.”
Seth was unsure what exactly would happen and opened his mouth to ask, but he was distracted as a pulse of blue energy bounced off an invisible barrier less than a metre in front of him.
They had reached the final door. Similar to the last one underneath the icy ocean, it stood solitary, no field of doors where a thousand dangerous mistakes could be made. Heidi had already opened fire, but luckily Jacquelyn was paying attention, and unlike Seth, she was ready to deflect the oncoming energy assault. Heidi was glowing a fluorescent blue, arcs of energy branching off into the air so bright that Seth could see more afterglow than darkness when he closed his eyes. Jacquelyn shot from Seth’s side and tackled Heidi away from the door.
Seth saw his opportunity and flung himself forward. He grabbed the handle and opened the door. He moved to cross the last threshold and finally enter the bridge — but then he saw panels and buttons very much resembling the Inquirer’s technology and hesitated. He looked at Jacquelyn, who was currently deflecting a bright pink beam of plasma. It streamed around the edges of her energy shield and annihilated the blue-green landscape behind her.
Seth stepped through the door. Jacquelyn, or Heidi, quickly came through the door behind him and smashed Seth up against a wall of buttons. They both stood up. Seth rubbed his head where it had collided with the console and saw blood on his hand as he pulled it away from his face. The other sister stepped calmly through the still open door onto the bridge. Seth was ready for an onslaught as the first sister turned evil, but both sisters remained amicable this time. He looked at one of them, one eyebrow raised questioningly.
“It’s OK now Seth. The last door only changes negative polarity into positive — well from your perspective it does. We are both here to help you operate The Wandering Cross now,” Jacquelyn said to Seth.
Heidi smiled and spoke too.
“Yes Seth, you don’t need to worry about us anymore. Now, where do you want to go?”
Seth felt a little relieved, and overwhelmed. He had just travelled through a terrifyingly dangerous labyrinth where he had almost died countless times. He had no idea where this ship could even take him and he would rather relax a little bit before having to explore again. The interior of the bridge was similar to the hollow sphere he had seen before entering any of the doors. The walls he had seen elsewhere in The Wandering Cross were made of humongous khaki-coloured bricks; these ones, however, seemed less dilapidated and had no evidence of cracks. Inside the sphere there were silver and black consoles everywhere. There was a small cage in the corner that could fit a standing human inside it. The floor of the bridge was just below the halfway point of the sphere. It was a matte silver and completely spotless, like no one had ever actually walked over it. The grey and black consoles looked less modern than the Inquirer’s technology; a lot of the buttons were raised squares and circles, mainly red and green in colour. Some of the buttons seemed to be illuminated, while the majority were not. The roof of the bridge was about five metres from the ground and a lot of the consoles followed the shape of the sphere. Some were so far up it seemed impossible that anyone could reach them.
The design of the bridge was a little underwhelming, really. Seth expected to have his mind blown by multidimensional devices and visions of worlds he did not understand, similar to his experience in the Restyard. But he had either experienced so much now that he was not as easily impressed anymore — or it was just not an impressive design. Heidi saw Seth’s reaction.
“Trikala and Faust did not care much about aesthetics; practicality was their main concern. You still have not told us where you want to go...”
Seth looked at Heidi, then Jacquelyn, then back to Heidi.
“Well, where can this ship take me? I just want to go home to be honest.”
Heidi frowned and was the first to speak:
“Why would you do that? We are in a ship that literally moves through universes — and you don’t even want to leave your own atmosphere?”
“Where’s your sense of adventure, Seth?” asked Jacquelyn.
“I would not be here without a sense of adventure, I have adventure coming out my backside at this point!”
Jacquelyn wrinkled her nose in disgust.
“Why would it be coming out of there?”
“You think any of those worlds that we just travelled through were impressive? I guarantee this is several steps up from anything you’ve seen,” Heidi added.
“I still kind of just want to go home. I think I already have enough stories for now”
Jacquelyn smiled slightly.
“You will regret it; the stories that will come from this can’t even be told.”
“Well, what good is that?” Seth demanded.
Heidi spoke again:
“It strengthens your soul, the very source of your powers. The reason my sister and I are so strong is because of our experiences; all the things we learn teach us impossibilities to strive for. You won’t get that by just going home. You were taught element binding to tip the power in this universe, and many others, but you can’t reach that point unless you actually travel to those other universes.”
Seth began scratching his chin, thinking about the possibility.
“To go to an entire other universe... that’s something I never really imagined… but I can still go home afterwards, right?”
Jacquelyn and Heidi looked at each other, both with mischievous grins. They moved to separate consoles and began pressing buttons. They occasionally waved their hands at the consoles in the ceiling of the bridge and buttons moved and illuminated above them.
Seth had no idea what was happening. He looked at the walls of the bridge and they seemed to be moving. The consoles were also moving slightly, rearranging themselves. A strange brown liquid dripped onto Seth’s hand. He looked at it as the droplet sprang upwards and rejoined the brick from which it came. Seth noticed now that his hand was becoming more... liquid than usual. In fact,
the entire bridge had gained a much more fluid texture than usual. Jacquelyn spoke, her voice was extremely dampened but Seth could understand her perfectly.
“Relax Seth, this is completely normal.”
Everything was melting, dripping, and the small droplets would somehow migrate back to their original forms, maintaining their original mass and shape.
“We have arrived! Let’s take a look outside,” Heidi proudly proclaimed. She opened the door that had brought all three of them into the bridge.
Instead of the glowing green and blue landscape with gigantic worms, Seth saw a world made up of viscous liquids, constantly moving and being rearranged by unknown forces. Some of it leaked through the door and into the bridge. Seth moved forward, but as he raised his foot to advance, part of it remained attached to the floor. Before he could put his foot back down, the rest of it had snapped into the dripping mass of what must be his leg, and made it whole again. Seth looked at the door framing the melting landscape, then at his hands as they dripped to the floor and reformed themselves. He hoped this next adventure would teach him to start thinking first and stepped through the doorway.
