by JM Guillen
“We’ve got antiquated machinery and dead ends down those two.” I pointed down the passages. “Also, there are hatches in the floor, but they don’t open from this side.”
“That sounds lovely.” Wyatt grimaced. “If we’re lucky, perhaps they are all dead ends and we can be stuck here.”
Anya’s fingers were twitching, and she looked distracted. I noticed that her fingers seemed to move a touch slower without the Lattice. “Dossier specifics require me to get readings in those areas you’ve already inspected, Michael.” I always forgot how tiny and delicate her voice was.
“I time stamped my Crown. If you want, I can patch you that information. Then, we can see if the third passage is different in any way.”
Her nod came slowly. “I won’t be able to get any readings from your patch, but please do send it.”
I closed my eyes. Without the Lattice, patching data was difficult and took an onerous seven seconds. When I was finished, it felt as if I had been lifting weights with my grey matter.
“Let’s move along.” Wyatt calibrated his keys as he started to walk. “Sooner begun, sooner done.”
We walked slowly through the mist with Wyatt and me on either side of Anya as she took her readings. We moved at a crawl that made our speed while scanning in the desert seem blisteringly hasty.
We found the first of the machines soon enough though.
“Are they all like this?” Wyatt ran his finger along one of the greasy gears. “Last century, I mean?”
I nodded. “All dials and gears. I haven’t seen a computer screen or a keyboard anywhere.”
“It might be indicative of axiomatic shifts.” Anya arched an eyebrow. “Like your katana, Michael. You might encounter a topia where your disruptors won’t function, but a sharp piece of metal is dangerous almost anywhere.”
I nodded slowly. “So you think that they might commonly shift axioms in these rooms, and when they do, computer equipment might not be viable.”
Anya shrugged distractedly as her fingers plucked at the air. “It’s possible. There’s no way to really say.”
“This one of yer hatches?” Wyatt was slightly ahead of us, wreathed in glowing mist. As I stepped forward, I saw he was tracing a finger around its edge.
“It is.” I crossed my arms and gave him a wry smile. “And I’m betting you won’t find a latch on it, either. It wasn’t designed to be opened from this side.”
He chuckled. “Good thing I don’t care much about design. Step back.” He began calibrating the tangler, and it sang a lower pitch than I was accustomed to hearing.
“Unless you wanna go back to the other tunnels my boy here found and look around, I’m saying we go forward.” He looked at Anya.
“From the data he provided, these tunnels seem quite similar. It is unlikely that we would find significant axiomatic differences here. I doubt the trip is required.”
Wyatt grinned. “Good.” He pulled the trigger to release a spike.
WHUF.
“Step back, katana boy. Dunno how this one will react to the Crown or some of yer gear.” He spat.
I stepped back quickly, even though I expected that I was outside the range of his spike.
“I targeted the steel.” He struck a few keys. “Altered the way that quantum electrodynamics bind the iron and carbon.”
“That’s brilliant.”
“It’ll only be active for five minutes or so. Hopefully, that’s enough. If not, I’ll do it again.”
Five minutes was more than enough. The hatch sagged from the brass fittings and bolts, which were unaffected by his spike, until there was nothing for them to attach to. Long before the spike went inactive, the door collapsed to dust.
“I’m killing it.” Wyatt struck a few of his keys. “Ok. We are clear.”
“Ambient axioms have returned to their previous levels.” Anya nodded to him.
I stepped forward. “I can scout ahead.”
Wyatt shook his head. “No separating, not here.”
Anya grew puzzled. Her fingers moved more quickly, and then her eyes widened. “It’s another topia.” She crouched down next to the hatch and peered over the edge.
“The fuck you say.” Wyatt crouched down and looked in as well. He blinked and looked away. “Vertigo.”
I looked in and immediately understood what he meant.
Wherever this hatch emerged, it didn’t lead down; it opened on a wall. The dust from the door had fallen in and had all gathered to one side, which would be down in the next topia.
I looked at Anya. “Readings?”
She nodded slowly, her fingers twitching. “It’s vastly different than this topia. We will have to be very careful in our mecha calibrations.”
“And you know how to do that.” I turned to her. “Right?”
“I have the Designate specifications.” Her fingers stopped for a moment and then started again. “There are easily a dozen small axiomatic conflicts. Folic acid will break down; serotonin seems to become an unbonding molecule, and there will be endocrine system issues.” She gave us both a look. “I’m not reading nearly enough oxygen. We can’t stay inside longer than four hours, even with mecha calibrations.”
“I’m going to behave as if I understood all that.” I drew my disruptors.
As Wyatt shouldered the tangler, he asked, “Will our gear function, Anya?”
Her brow furrowed. “I don’t know about Michael’s disruptors. They rely on null-point energy to create kinetic force.” She looked at me. “Some of the very basic forces are different in there.” She turned to Wyatt. “I also cannot say you will experience your accustomed level of field control for similar reasons.”
We both nodded slowly.
“Understood.” I looked at Wyatt. “You ready?”
The large man grinned. “Born to raise hell.”
Together, we stepped into a world that was sideways to everything we knew.
18
The carpet was avocado green and belonged somewhere in 1973. Next to the hatch, it was covered in grey particulates and brass fittings, all that remained of the door. The wood paneling caught my eye as well. Just like the silo, the décor evoked the style of decades past.
“We all clear?” I kept my voice low, not wanting to attract attention. Wyatt nodded.
“Incoming mecha specs.” Anya’s blue eyes were unfocused. As it had earlier, my Crown filled with the odd whines and clicks that calibrated the viral mecha, an annoying sound. I much preferred the Crown’s workings when we had the Lattice.
When it was over, Anya bit her lip. “It’s not enough. Not really. The mecha were built to supplement and augment your existing bodily processes. They will create your required oxygen, but they weren’t designed to keep your endocrine system functioning. They cannot alter axiomatic processes to such a vast degree for the time we likely require.” She hesitated. “I apologize. It’s the best I can do.”
I nodded at her. “We’ll do the best we can. Worst case scenario, we’ll fall back.”
That was death too, but I didn’t say so. I was certain there was no other way out of those corridors except for these hatches. However, the misty tunnels seem to function as a go-between or a foyer of some kind—
Wait.
That was an interesting idea. Deep in thought, I froze in place, my eyes wide.
Was it possible that every hatch led to a different topia? Was the whole construction some kind of way-station between them? The concept was mind boggling. Typically, the creation of different topias was seen as incredibly complex. Yet today, I had been inside more than a handful.
“Wyatt,” I looked at him slowly. “I had a thought.”
“Have another. Then rub them together and see if they spark.” He gave me a wide grin, which fell when he saw the look on my face.
“I know Anya patched you the phaneric record of our mission, even though you were drunk at the time.”
“Yes,” he nodded affably. “Although I wasn’t drunk.”
“Whatcher point, Hoss?”
“I had a thought.” I was already accessing the data in my crown, although it came a bit slow without the Lattice. “The Irrationality spikes might not have been targeting our topia to break through our veil.”
“What would be the purpose…?” Anya let her question trail as I held up a hand.
“They obviously could have rent the veil.” I reviewed the visual of Anya’s Fibonacci numbers. “But they didn’t. Also, strangely, there were no after echoes of Irrationality.” I gave them a grave look. “What if that’s because those were the after echoes? What if all we picked up were the echoes of some gargantuan event that didn’t take place in the Rational world at all?”
“That’s…” Wyatt paused, juggling numbers as he looked at the data in his crown. “An odd idea. What would be the point?”
I glanced upward, indicating the topia we had just dropped from.
“What if it wasn’t a change being created in Rationality but something else? Say several topias being connected together, like some kind of—”
“Like a goddamned transdimensional train station?” Wyatt was both surprised at the idea and somehow offended, as if he found the thought personally insulting. “Hoss, that’s just…”
“The theory does answer some questions regarding the lack of Irrational echoes.” Anya’s tone was oddly musing. “There are known instances of large Irrational events creating harmonic reflections in nearby Rational space.”
“I’m not the numbers man,” I glanced at Wyatt and then to Anya. “But I wager there’s math that shows what would happen if a topia, say this one, was forced to make an incursion on another. And if each of those hatches has a different topia behind them…”
“Each of them?” Wyatt ran his fingers through his hair, an oddly familiar gesture of his frustration. “Fuckall, Bishop, that’s just monstrous. Why would any ’Rats have any cause for such a thing?”
“The Vyriim are a hyper-intelligent species that is constantly seeking to create new colonies for themselves.” Anya quoted the Designate back to us, meeting each of our eyes briefly. “Everything we know about them indicates that their primary goals involve invasively spreading as far through the myriad topias as possible.” She gave the tiniest of shrugs. “This could fit that goal.”
I had nothing to say to that. We looked at each other for a moment, all pretending that we weren’t avoiding the topic of genius-level aberrations invading Rationality.
“Not for us to make that call.” Wyatt cleared his throat. “If we don’t get out of here, no one else will be able to either.”
“Agreed,” I nodded. “I’ll take point.”
“No slipping off too far.” Wyatt looked at Anya. “Can he use the Wraith in here without it melting his eyeballs or making his tongue explode?”
Her gaze drifted off as Anya calculated. She nodded slowly. “My readings indicate that neither of those things would happen.”
I thought Wyatt’s head was going to melt, right there.
“I’m initiating the Wraith. Keep a good bead on my systems, please.”
“Understood, Michael.”
Coolness washed over my skin as I vanished from sight. Carefully, I crept from the small room and then down the hallway, soft green carpet beneath my feet.
The carpet and paneling weren’t the only things from the era of funk. The lights overhead were halogens. After approximately four meters, there was a door on the left. It had a small window set in it and a brass plate.
Mr. Oglemeyer
Associate Director
As I looked at the nameplate, a man walked into view through the window. He came from another door; if this had been anywhere else, I might have assumed it was the director’s private washroom. He wore khaki pants and a suit jacket that might have been at home in my closet.
He also wore an old gas mask, perhaps from the Second World War. He had a small tank hanging on his side, and I could see various tubes running from the tank to the mask. He sat at his desk and began reading through a folder of papers.
It was positively surreal.
I stood, almost entranced, watching the man. He could have been in any office building in any large city in the world. He could have been an insurance adjustor or an accountant.
Except that he had to wear a gas mask just so he could breathe. Apparently, he had been in here a long time. Whatever this operation was, they had adapted to the local axioms well enough.
I have visual contact. Anya and Wyatt were still behind me. This seemed worth using the link.
Armed? Irrat? I could feel Wyatt’s eagerness. I knew it wasn’t exactly that he was spoiling for a fight, Wyatt was just tired of feeling powerless and ready for something he could control, could make decisions over.
Unarmed. Unless you count a business prospectus as a deadly weapon.
Anya’s concerns were more down to earth. Will the contact see us as we pass? Do we need to eliminate him?
I glanced down at the door. We can slip by if we want. He shouldn’t be too difficult for us to take out if we need to.
Perhaps we should hold our position. Anya’s link seemed tentative. It wouldn’t do for us to engage the contact without knowing more.
I think I agree with Twitchy, here. I’d hate to have ’Rats swarming us while we focus on one guy.
I grinned. Understood.
I slipped down the hallway to two more offices, both of them with brass nameplates. They were empty but similar to the first. After deciding that they didn’t warrant much attention, I crept to the end of the hallway, where it ended in a T and a metallic blue door with a cobalt sheen.
There’s an odd blue door at the end of the hallway. I pressed my ear against it listening. It was shockingly cold.
Do you see ’Rats anywhere?
I pulled my ear from the door and looked down the intersecting hallway, first right and then left.
Negative. That wasn’t quite true, however. There was a door to the left, and I heard rustling coming from behind it. Check that. Potential contact. Carefully, I stepped close to the door and pressed my ear against it.
The door opened, slamming into the side of my head and throwing me backward on my ass. I cursed, and not inwardly or even over the link. My katana, previously held in my left hand, flew from my grasp and clattered on the floor.
Fuck. I turned and looked up at who had come through the door.
She was positively surreal.
Her hair was styled meticulously, at least what I could see of it. Just like the man in the office, she had a relic of a gas mask on her face. All I could see was curled hair and a figure to die for all wrapped up in a power suit.
Unable to see me, her gaze dropped to my katana. Even without being able to make out her eyes through the bug-eyed goggles of the mask, I could see her wheels turning. Slowly, she reached underneath her jacket. I could see a holster across her chest.
Wyatt. Get ready. I tensed. I had one chance to do this and be quiet about it.
She wrapped her hand around her pistol. As she peered into the hallway, I struck, all grace and data from the Adept.
I swept her leg and, as she went down, lunged at her, hoping to silence her before she screamed. The idea was that this would be over before she knew what happened.
Nope.
She was far quicker than I expected. As she went down, she pulled the gun. She managed to fire once, then twice, as she fell. The bullets tore into the ceiling and the wooden paneling, a thundering sound in the small space.
Excellent. I could feel the eagerness in Wyatt’s comm. Let’s rock.
WHUF.
I fell far short of catching the woman gracefully. Instead, I caught her forehead, which I slammed into the doorframe. The gun dropped from her unconscious fingers. No sooner had I grabbed for it than someone else shot from inside the room. I looked
up and saw four more people in business attire and creepy gas masks. One of them had an old, World War II-era machine gun, while another was emptying his pistol in the air over my head.
Quickly, I grabbed my katana and threw my back against the wall, staying low.
We have four more. Two with guns that I can see, I linked.
Got Mr. Oglemeyer trapped in his room, Hoss.
Anya chimed in. We have no axiomatic disturbances yet. No data on Irrational capabilities.
Right. I glanced back through the door. The two with guns advanced slowly, while another slipped out the back door.
Dammit. I had to move before he could summon reinforcements.
I was in this.
Advancing. I spun into the room, doing my best to keep low and remain silent. From everything I could see, it was a simple office. There were desks with reams of paper on them. Four clocks hung on the wall, and there was a window on the far wall. From here, the window seemed to look out into nighttime.
I let the men get just a touch closer. The one with the pistol was in front, and I could see his hand tremble just the smallest amount.
Then I struck.
I’ve said it before. The Wraith combined with the Adept is a lethal setup. Unseen, I spun toward the first man, slicing with the katana. I opened his neck before he even knew what was happening and turned to the second man.
He was only horrified for a moment. Then, he turned the machine gun straight toward me and opened fire.
Target may be able to see past the Wraith, I linked as I rolled to the side, coming up behind one of the desks. From there, I aimed the gun that I still had from the first woman and caught him in his side.
As he went down, I felt one of his bullets hit my shoulder. I spun from the impact and went down.
I’m hit. Shoulder shot. Still operational.
You still have mecha on standby, Michael. I suggest tasking them for pain and tissue repair.
I had untasked mecha? That was hard to believe. Copy that, Anya. No time just now, however.
Someone yelled. Was it Russian? If I had been connected to the Lattice, I could have translated in real time. Anya would know. Pushing up, I aimed the pistol at one of the others and shot twice. One round went through the gas mask, and other caught him in the neck.
