For a moment, she wondered. Doubt crept into her heart. For some reason, an image of her mother came to mind. Her mother had been an artist; she had wanted similar things for Marie, and they had clashed always. Now, just like she always did, she silenced the doubt, which was really the distant voice of her mother, begging her to go home. Instead, she reached out in defiance, like lightning streaking across the primordial sky of an uninhabited world.
“Prepare the signal,” she said.
Everyone returned to their respective monitors. After a few moments, Ranger once again turned toward her.
“Ready to initiate,” he said.
“You have a go,” Marie said in a strong, clear voice.
More slowly this time, he returned to his console and began working.
Another moment later, a red light came on overhead, and Marie looked up. A klaxon began to sound—not the blaring sound of a warning tone, but just a hint of what was to come. She turned toward the door once again, facing the sunlight, and proceeded out onto the deck. Walking toward the railing, which was about thirty feet from the door, she took position there and stared down the length of the ship where the transmission antennae were lined. She watched as they turned toward the water. At first, there was nothing. Despondency and disappointment briefly threatened to grip her from within.
Then the vibrations began—completely unlike the ones caused by the ship’s engines. They rose up through her feet from the deck below. A smile spread across her face as her eyes drifted from the surface back toward the door. She saw Lucas standing there, and he stepped out onto the deck too. On his face, she saw a hint of trepidation.
The vibrations continued for a few moments before there was any further evidence of activity from below. Then, Marie heard the sound of water slosh below her, and she whipped her head around toward the sea. In the very center of the formation, giant bubbles of gas had begun to rise from the bottom of the ocean, where the signal had now reached and was apparently doing its work.
“It’s working!” she gasped. “I can’t believe it. Lucas! It’s working.”
She heard him approach from behind her, running. He grasped the railing and stared out at the sea.
The water began to bubble up more fiercely now, and the central area between the ships became a mass of churning white foam. Marie immediately recognized the danger. Her hands were pulling away from the railing just as the first small wave hit the ship, rocking it gently. Her jaw dropped as she glared down.
“This might not be enough distance,” Lucas said.
Marie glanced at him and realized quickly that he was right, but for just another moment, she continued to stare out at the central mass of white, bubbling wash. It grew bigger then, and some of the gas bubbles that were churning up from below exploded at the surface, sending the water gushing up to a height of fifty feet.
***
Jane could feel her physical body after the tranquilizing agent sent her into unconsciousness. She could feel the constriction on her wrists from the restraining device. This lasted only seconds, though. She could feel herself drifting away from the room, and suddenly, she was out of her body, floating through a star field.
She rose upward past the tremendous light and found it difficult to see, but could make out the golden, dust-colored arms of a vast nebula, which was presumably where these very stars were being born. Where am I? she wondered, and she heard the thought echo out into the space around her.
You’re here, with me, the response came.
Max? It’s you!
Yes. I’m coming.
What do I do? she asked, surprised to find that her thoughts had become immensely focused in this strange but beautiful place.
Try to stop them if you can.
OK. She had no idea what he was talking about, although on some level, it felt that the opposite was true. She felt like she was smiling, although there was nothing to smile with. She had no hands and no feet, either. Indeed, she had no body. There was only vision and sense, and not all of that was hers to command either.
What should we do?
Follow your instincts. I’ll be there soon. Whatever happens, if they manage to open the vortex, don’t go through the gate.
Why?
Because I’m afraid you won’t be able to control it properly. It could kill you.
She felt shock at his revelation, and then she felt his hand. If she had eyes to cry with, she would have. She looked up. She was approaching a beautiful star that was wrapped in sheaths of stellar dust. Parts of it were blackened out, and some starlight split the gaps there and beamed through to her. Slowly, that world faded around her, washing her in white light.
They’ve used a tranquilizing agent on you. I’ll help you wake up. You’ll be tired, but it will wear off soon enough.
***
A consciousness that didn’t yet fully know itself passed through the other side of the portal and entered Earth’s solar system, having traversed a vast distance. He was different now, and he knew it, but he didn’t quite have the capacity to form the thoughts that might explain precisely why that was. He traveled as a stellar entity—a being of pure thought—and all around him, he held the core energy he would use to form his body. But his form was already beginning to have a physical presence, and so would impact the solar system as he passed through it.
Moving fast, he now passed through the rings of Saturn, appearing as a ball of glowing, white, hot energy. His velocity had become immense, and he tore up the ring structure in his passing, leaving a swirling wake of rock and dust behind. He was becoming human, but the process was creating a cacophony of thoughts and memories—his vast mind was drawing parts of itself from across the multiverse, where he had been secretly monitoring other diverse cultures. But now he was focused on the ships. And…
What else? Something else besides the ships. Jane and Morris. And… THE MACHINE!
Yes. The Machine. Faster. Have to get there faster.
The vague form of a human began to take shape around him, enshrouded in etheric blue light, his arms stretched out in front of him.
The thoughts continued to swirl as the blue dot came into view, and the light behind it grew brighter still.
The locks on their wrists. So frail. Break the locks. BROKEN!
He saw the locks break.
They’re free. Good.
The others. Rip the ships apart. Rip them to pieces—no. Grinding metal and flesh. No. Not yet. Can’t yet. The Machine. It’s too important. And Jane. All too important.
Still, he moved faster.
***
Jane woke and once again found herself on the floor. She sat upright immediately and sucked in air, fighting waves of tiredness. “I hope that wasn’t a dream,” she said. Her friends were lying unconscious on the floor in front of her. She looked down at the harness around her wrists. She focused on it, but knew nothing would come of it; as she suspected, her power was once again restrained.
“Guys, wake up!” she said loudly.
Mike moved, and after a moment placed a hand flat on the floor.
“Come on!” she urged him.
He pushed against the hand, slowly propping himself up, and rose off the floor.
For a moment, she thought he would simply fall flat on his face. Instead, he slowly looked at her.
“Jane,” he grumbled. He looked around the room as he moved back and leaned against the wall that was just on Jane’s right.
Ciara was on the far side of the room, closest to the entrance. She was lying with her back against the corner at the wall, one arm stretched out and pointing toward the door.
“Ciara!” Jane yelled.
Ciara grunted, then slowly opened her eyes.
Jane looked at Mike to see him glaring down at the restraints. “Don’t bother,” she said. “I already tried that.”
“Same device as the facility?”
“I woul
d think so, yeah.”
Ciara sat up, blinking. “What the hell?”
“Yeah, my thoughts exactly,” Mike said. He looked between the two girls, then finally settled on Jane. “What do we do now?” he asked, his voice cracking.
“We have to find a way out of here.” The second she said this, she felt a tremendous pressure build up around her wrists. She looked down at them just as their components exploded, shattering into pieces, which fell down over her folded legs. She heard the same thing happen to her friends and looked up to see the remains of the restraints fall down around them.
Mike yelled out and jumped to his feet.
Jane took a few deep breaths, her mind filled with thoughts about what could have caused this.
It seemed that Ciara couldn’t quite comprehend what had happened, and continued to stare at her hands with a look of bewilderment.
“What happened?” Mike asked, his eyes wide with shock.
“It was Max,” Jane said after a moment wherein they both merely looked at her. “He contacted me in some kind of dream. He told me he was coming back, and he told me not to—” Her brow furrowed as she tried to remember what he had said. “He said not to go through the gate.” She then found that she was perplexed about what he could have meant.
“What on earth does that mean?” Ciara asked.
Jane shook her head in genuine confusion. “I have no idea,” she said. She stood up, and the remaining pieces of the destroyed restraint fell around her. It had broken into perfect pieces—cubes, rectangles, squares, and triangles—and she assumed that if she were to try, she could fit them all back together again. There was no additional debris from the devices, as they had broken apart perfectly into these somewhat beautiful shapes. As she was looking at the hundred or so pieces that had fallen around her, she thought of Max again. Perfection, she thought. He’s a perfectionist.
Ciara got to her feet. “OK. So, has everything changed, Jane? Does Max have power over the physical world now?”
Jane got to her feet, blinked a few times, and then began to pace the room. “I-I don’t know,” she replied, and then another desperate thought entered her mind. She remembered the way Morris had been led beyond the door toward some other part of the ship. “Morris,” she said aloud. “I have to find him.” For the moment, she pushed thoughts of Max aside, difficult as it was, and thought of her friend whom she knew was in trouble and needed their help. As far as she knew, Max could take care of himself, even though she suspected that he had serious problems of his own.
“OK. How are we going to open that door? We don’t have our powers, and as we’ve seen, the locks are pretty sturdy,” Mike said.
Jane looked at the lock and took a deep breath, trying to quell the fear that crept into her. Another vibration came from below them and spread upward through the walls of the ship, humming as it did. The low resounding sound came from all around them and seemed to coalesce at the center in a perfect point of harmony. What the hell is going on? she wondered, and the faces of her friends reflected the same worry.
***
Marie continued to stare at the wash of white foam that was now spreading out further. When the waves began to crash against the edge of their ship, she decided to return to the control room. She walked inside and made her way directly across the front of the room to Ranger. He immediately ceased what he was doing and turned on his chair to face her.
“We need to retreat to a greater distance.”
“Yes. I was actually just about to contact you,” he said, turning in his chair to face the screen above. “We have contact with the first section.” He pointed at the screen.
The main monitor displayed a side view of the ocean floor, as depicted by a highly detailed topographical map, and broken lines represented the jagged ocean terrain. A large section of the device had broken away from the crust and was moving up through the ocean there, depicted again by a series of close, broken lines. It looked like the crust of a large pizza slice, suspended in midair on the screen.
“Dimensions?”
“It’s only a section of the apparatus, circular in form. Its total circumference is one hundred and ten meters.”
She glared at the screen, hands clasped in front of her, trying not to betray her growing astonishment.
“There’s something else,” Ranger said.
Marie couldn’t pull her eyes away from the screen. “What is it?”
“The release of this section from the crust has destabilized that section of the ocean floor.”
She looked down at him. “You mean there’s a problem?”
“No. It’s just that our initial data may have been very inaccurate. There appears to be more to the structure than we first thought. It’s at least five hundred percent bigger.”
“What?” she spat, astonished. She unclasped her hands and let them fall limply to her side as she took a step closer to the screen. She looked at Ranger.
He grimaced and transferred the data to the main monitor.
Marie turned from him and glanced back toward the screen as the new information was displayed. Ranger zoomed in on the ocean floor, passing by the three-dimensional representation of the first section that had already started moving toward the surface. The angle shifted so that they were right over the jagged, rocky terrain of the seabed. Several pieces of the structure, shaped like the broken sections of a ring, lay around each other on the ground. They were truly gigantic. As she and Ranger watched the screen, one of the pieces began to move, its outline slowly rising off the bottom, churning up rock there, all of it represented by blinking, dotted outlines.
A series of gasps were heard throughout the room behind them as this much larger piece began to rise from the bottom of the ocean.
“Zoom out,” Marie spat. Ranger worked beside her, and almost immediately, the image shifted. Now, the two pieces could be seen rising up from the depths. The first section looked to be half the size of the second, larger section that was floating up toward it quickly, as though chasing it like a predator.
“We need more distance,” she said. Just then, the shipped was rocked sideways with sudden, jarring force. Marie grabbed a handrail just in front of her to avoid falling over, and her feet skidded on the floor. When the ship had stabilized and the rocking stopped, she glared at Ranger. Then she turned around and walked briskly toward the door that led out onto the deck and stepped out.
She could see that the waves that were originating from the central point between the ships were growing larger. She surmised that it wouldn’t be much longer before they could pose a risk to the ships. She felt the engines shudder on the deck beneath her feet as they came to life on her command, and the ship began to move away.
The water at the center bubbled like a cauldron in a wash of white foam; massive jets and gas bubbles exploded turbulently on the surface. In the distance, Marie could see the other three vessels veer away. She was about to go back inside and was turning around when a fierce glare caught her eyes—a glint of gold—at the center of the bubbling jets of water. She was stunned for a moment by the strange light and glanced at the deck, but then recovered quickly and looked up, shielding her eyes. The first piece of the Machine was slowly rising out of the water. She gaped and, breathing deeply, she once again stepped toward the railing.
“What in the world?” she said to herself as this ancient and unknowable piece of technology rose up from the depths. The realization of just how alien the object was struck her then, and she gasped. It was silver on the edge, while the top was colored gold, and strange indentations were carved along its surface. The device rose foot by foot until the bottom was fully visible out of the water, and then it hung suspended in midair by an unseen force. For a moment, it stayed there floating with just a trace of a spin in its motion. Then, with the fierce light of the sun glinting off its surface, it began to rise even higher.
Marie’s wonder was now mixed with
fear. Although the object was magnificent, it was undoubtedly the most alien thing she had ever set eyes on, and for one brief second, she wondered if she was hallucinating the entire event. She grasped the railing more firmly.
The object was forty feet above the ocean’s surface and still rising. The bottom rose upward to the left slowly as it took a lateral position in the air and continued its upward trajectory. It appeared now as a flat portion of a ring moving toward the sky. Marie craned her neck as she followed its path. After a few minutes, it was two hundred feet above them and still rising. Water rained down off its surface, and the sunlight glinted off it with a golden hue.
She finally managed to pull herself away from the astonishing scene for a moment and walked back toward the door that led to the control room. Once inside, she walked back over to where Ranger sat.
“Report,” she said.
“The second piece should be breaking the surface in a few minutes. Vessels have retreated an additional three hundred meters, and that should be enough.”
Marie looked at the screen. Once again, her mouth slowly gaped open. “Are those…”
Ranger nodded. “Yes,” he said, following her gaze. “The other pieces I was referring to. Much more massive.”
On the screen in front of them, sections of the Machine that were at least three times as large as the two that had already risen had now departed from their rocky enclosures on the ocean floor and were slowly rising up through the darkness.
“What kind of readings are we getting so far?” she asked.
“We’re picking up everything here. Electromagnetism, high levels of electrostatic activity, quantum fluctuations, all unlike anything I’ve seen before.”
Marie rubbed her forehead. “Quantum fluctuations?”
“It seems there’s some connection building up between the pieces as they rise. I can speculate and say that a quantum field is forming between them, but I can’t say for sure. Uh, and there’s one other thing.”
Rise (The Ethereal Vision Book 2) Page 13
