But the crystal figure began to glow. The energy from the field was now contained inside her.
A crack broke the silence, like ice splitting as it falls into a glass in the warm summer air. A shard of her crystal body had broken off. It struck the wall with a resounding force. Then another. Piece by piece, the crystal splinters lanced the wall, chipping away at the bricks. The wall crumbled. The last shard of Alethea’s avatar continued unobstructed through the emptiness.
With the wall gone, Nova, Brady and Felix felt themselves being pulled forward, further into the darkness.
11001110
The new eyes opened for the first time to let the bright light in. At first, the glare from the lamps was too much. The artificial pupils constricted and lens slid across lens, the nano-pistons forcing the eyes to blink. The light moved off to the side, and more of the room came into view. It was warm and comforting here, and they knew they were safe.
Brady, Felix, and Nova watched a world, a life, that was not their own. Here, they were mental trespassers, spectators in a shared dream driven by someone else’s mind.
There was frenetic aliveness in the room—manic commotion in every nook and cranny. Heavily articulated arms swung busily around, dangerously near. Tool-like appendages were attached to the ends of the arms, making minor adjustments and precision-level tweaks to the metal chassis, just out of sight. They worked with a tireless efficiency and exactness that only the mechanical could muster.
There were sounds of motors spinning, bolts tightening, and metal fastening to metal. Eventually the arms pulled back and hovered above like the legs of a praying mantis.
“Good morning, my friend!” came a deep, booming voice from overhead. When it spoke, a waveform appeared, rising and falling with each syllable.
“Let’s have another look.”
One of the robotic arms swung out from the side, a digital meter attached to it. As it swept across their vision, a holographic window sprouted up and pages of numbers scrolled by too fast for them to keep up. Then the arm swung back to where it had come from.
“Hmmm, everything seems to be in good order here. Yes, I think you are about ready. Let’s get you off the table and moving around.”
What looked like a large magnet on a crane detached from the ceiling and descended slowly toward them. They heard several clicks, then felt a sudden jolt. The magnet had affixed itself to their backs.
The crane lifted them into the air, swung them over to the side, and lowered them gently to the ground.
“Can you move? Go ahead then. Give it a try,” came the confident voice once again.
Slowly their host tried to pick itself up from the ground, but its legs flailed out to the sides and it crashed down hard against the floor.
“Hmm. Your micro-actuators may still be off. Let me make a quick adjustment.” The waveform oscillated and then flatlined.
One of the arms glided across the ceiling like a claw crane arcade game and dropped down to make a modification somewhere just behind them. Thousands of strange glyphs floated across their vision as it performed its job.
“Okay—try it again.”
The machine started to pick itself up again, but then hesitated.
“Stand, Achilles!” the voice commanded.
It was then that Nova, Brady, and Felix realized where they were. They had found a way into Achilles’ mind. They were experiencing his memories.
This time the great canine raised right off the floor and stood proudly. At first, it almost buckled under the strain of its own weight, but it quickly regained its footing and confidence.
The view of the room shifted back and forth as the creature’s head scanned awkwardly around with unusually stiff movements. They saw the top of the table they had been on, piles of electronic equipment, the instruments of creation. A door stood open at the end of the room.
“Can you walk?” the voice asked.
The dog wobbled slightly in place as it put one paw forward. Then it tried the other paw. The movements were jerky, but the canine made small advances nevertheless.
“Don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of it. It will take some time for your motor skills to evolve.”
A girl’s laughter came from the room beyond the door. Achilles turned his head toward the exit and let out a whine.
“Now that you’re up, I have someone for you to meet. A friend…”
The voice paused.
“She is very important to me. You must guard her with your life, Achilles.”
Achilles barked loudly: a proud acknowledgment of his new responsibility.
11010110
The view changed again, and they found themselves in a new room. The floor, walls, and ceiling were life-sized displays that brought the outdoors inside. They were standing on a virtual mountaintop, surrounded by blue skies and fluffy white clouds that felt close enough to reach out and touch.
When they looked down, they saw her. A young girl with dark skin and long hair, no older than four, sat on the floor with crayons and construction paper spread out in front of her. She was drawing a picture of a tangerine sun shining down on green mountains and a blue lake. The girl was putting the finishing touches on a tiny silver bird perched on top of a flower that stood alone in a meadow.
“Nova, there is someone here to meet you,” said the voice.
Brady and Felix felt the rush of emotion from their friend, seeing the younger version of herself.
Surprise. Wonder. Love.
“Who is it?” she asked, not bothering to look up from her work.
“Someone important: a new friend.”
When she finally looked up, the crayon dropped from her hand and rolled across the paper. She gazed in wonder and amazement at the enormous animal standing in front of her.
“Nova,” came the voice again. “He won’t hurt you, I promise.”
The girl stared timidly at the beast.
“Nova, I would like you to meet Achilles.”
The robotic dog advanced slowly, but the girl wriggled her way backward. Her mouth opened and her eyes swelled with fear.
“Do not be afraid.”
When he was close enough, Achilles lay down next to the girl and tried to push his head into her lap. The girl tried pushing him away, but it was no use. His large head was almost as big as she was.
The child locked her small hands onto his ears and tried to twist them. Startled, he jumped back and fell over with a thundering clank. The fear vanished, and the girl giggled in spite of herself.
Young Nova leapt up and lunged for Achilles’ tail, catching the beast off-guard. Achilles pulled away at the last second and, with a yelp, darted across the room. Nova gave chase until she saw her chance and dove at him. Her hand latched on to a steel rib, and she clung to it for dear life. Achilles scrambled to break free.
Finally the dog lowered himself and the girl to the floor, where they sat for minutes, letting the time pass together as new friends.
Felix and Brady could feel the joy that flowed through their shared connections, and for a time they were happy too. Nova was comforted and felt at peace, even if it was just a memory. But as much as she wanted to, she knew they couldn’t stay here any longer. The spell was broken when the real Nova finally spoke to them through her thoughts.
“It’s time to go home, Achilles,” her mind called out.
At first the dog seemed oblivious to her thoughts. He continued to lie by the young girl.
She tried harder.
“Achilles! It’s Nova.”
Nothing.
“You don’t belong here, Achilles. This isn’t real. We’re here to bring you back.”
Suddenly the room began to spin; the white clouds blurred, then changed. When the scenery slowed, the airy colors were gone, replaced by those of grime and despair. They were back in the tunnels beneath the energy farm where they had first met the Collectors.
Nova, Brady, and Felix felt different now. They had virtual bodies that allowed them
to move about in this artificial world. Achilles was still there, and the young girl was back to drawing her picture. Apparently neither of them had noticed the change.
“Achilles, we need to get you out of here. You don’t belong here—this isn’t your home!”
The dog growled at them with an aggressiveness Nova had never seen.
“Please, Achilles!” Nova shouted. “Don’t do this!”
The dog grew angrier and barked wildly.
Nova took a step forward. Her heart was breaking, but there was no fear. “Come with us,” she pleaded and began to cry.
In the blink of an eye Achilles was gone. In his place was a mess of tentacles attached to a red-eyed Collector.
Nova was only a few feet away from the monster that had taken her friend.
“Stop it, Achilles!” she screamed.
“What’s wrong, Achilles?” asked the child. She looked up at the strange creature floating in front of her, the tentacles scraping across the floor. The crayon dropped from her frozen hand and rolled across the paper.
The Collector’s ghostly eye shifted toward the girl.
“Stay away from her!” Nova screamed, and she dove toward the younger version of herself. But when she reached out for the child, her arms passed through thin air. Her younger apparition had vanished.
Nova picked herself up and looked directly into the Collector’s eye.
“Achilles, I know you’re in there. It’s not too late to—”
The Collector advanced menacingly.
She was dangerously close to the iron wraith, so close she could see the circuits through which the wicked electrons flowed.
“I’m not afraid, Achilles. You won’t hurt me.”
The Collector raised a gangly tendril above its head. Like a whip, the appendage straightened out and came crashing down.
Nova lifted her arm to shield herself from the blow.
The tentacle sparked as it descended.
The voltage surged.
It stopped just before it reached her.
A bright fire burned from the tips of Nova’s fingers and formed an arc across the air to the tentacle, then spread up to encircle the Collector’s body. A stream of symbols and strange characters flowed across the channel of energy. The creature shook with rage and fury.
And then…
They were back in the tunnel again. But this time something had changed. They stood farther back now, behind three figures who were watching Achilles and the girl. One of the figures spoke.
“Achilles, we need to get you out of here. You don’t belong here—this isn’t your home!”
They were watching another Nova, standing in front of them, with another Brady and Felix, uttering the same words she had spoken only minutes ago.
They were watching themselves. Everything was happening again, just like it had mere moments before.
Achilles became violent, then turned into the Collector.
Nova faced down the monster.
The tentacle raised, the fire burned.
Darkness again.
Back in the tunnel again. Only this time they were watching them watch themselves. There were nine of them altogether: three Bradys, three Felixes, and three Novas.
Felix spoke. “A recursive function.”
“What?” asked Brady.
“It’s a thing in programming,” he said quickly. “When a function calls itself over and over again.”
“Alethea’s gift at the wall,” Nova said, watching the symbols that flowed across the arc of fire and into the Collector.
“Exactly. She gave you code—an algorithm,” Felix said. “Alethea knew there was a vulnerability in the Collectors’ programming. You transferred the code into Achilles’ mind at the moment you made contact with the Collector.”
“I have no idea what you guys are talking about,” said Brady as the room went dark for the third time.
It was happening faster and faster now. Each time they arrived back in the tunnel, they were standing behind more copies of themselves. Soon there were hundreds of them standing there. Yet each time they blinked, there were still more of them standing there. They were running out of room. They couldn’t breathe.
And then time stopped.
They looked around at the crowd standing frozen in front of them.
The Collector and the girl were gone.
“Stack overflow,” Felix said. Nova and Brady looked at him strangely. “I mean—I think the Collectors’ program, the entire system, crashed. That’s why nothing is moving.”
“How do we get out of here?” Brady asked, staring over the hundreds of other Bradys in front of him.
As he spoke, the crowd, the tunnel, everything around them turned to dust and faded away.
They were falling through a sea of stars. No—it only felt like they were falling. Rather, the stars were being pulled upward by an unknown force. And the stars were not stars—they were lost souls: wispy apparitions of pixelated light. At first, only a few of the strange spirits floated by, but then more appeared and the pull of the tide strengthened.
Alethea’s avatar returned, her crystalline body restored to its former self. The apparitions swirled around her before continuing their climb.
“The path upward is for others, not for you,” Alethea said.
She waved her hand, and the world went dark.
Then they woke up.
Chapter 22: Surfacing
WHEN BRADY FINALLY looked up, he was greeted by two huge green eyes staring back at him, only inches away.
“Whoa, AJ!” he said, almost jumping out of his skin. “You scared me to death!”
“I was sort of worried about you—I guess,” AJ said. “But I was even more worried about your friends. You and your friends were on the floor so long that I started to wonder if something had gone wrong. Are you okay?”
“I was before I woke up!” Brady replied, pulling the cable from his tender forehead. “Thanks, though.”
He looked around and saw Nova already sitting up, while Felix had propped himself up on his elbows. Thorn was buzzing around the room.
“Ugh. I have the worst headache,” Felix said groggily. The cable was still suctioned to his forehead.
“You’ve got something on your face, Felix,” Brady joked as he tried to sit up.
The laughter gave way to a lasting silence as they recovered, but the quiet was eventually broken by a loud whimper.
“Is that you, Achilles?” Nova asked, picking herself up off the floor slowly.
The canine craned his neck, stood up, and shook his entire body, like a dog drying off after a swim. He scampered across the floor so quickly he almost bowled Nova over with excitement.
“Calm down! Calm down! I’m happy to see you too,” she said, embracing her friend tightly. “I thought you had left us. By the way, thanks for protecting me for all those years. I had no idea…”
Achilles barked loudly.
“Glad to have you back, Achilles!” Felix groaned with a beleaguered wave. “I feel like dirt—otherwise I’d give you a hug too.”
AJ spoke up. “Sorry to interrupt the celebration. There’s something you all need to see. I started to clear away the junk after the noise stopped, figuring the Collectors had just given up and left. I should have known better though. Look over there.” He pointed toward the door with a plastic finger.
Brady and Felix stood up to get a better view. They immediately staggered back, shocked by what lay in front of them.
The dark hall beyond the room was lined with fallen Collectors. They were empty shells now, lying still against the walls like a brood of jellyfish washed ashore.
“What happened to them?” Brady asked nervously. “Did we do that?”
“You did,” answered Alethea, her voice returning.
“We killed the Collectors?” Felix asked.
“No,” replied Alethea. “You didn’t kill them. You freed them.”
“All of them?” asked Brady.
&
nbsp; “All of them.”
“Just like Achilles?” Nova asked.
“Like Achilles, yes. But Achilles had a body to return to. Without their former selves to inhabit, the other Collectors’ minds had nowhere to go.”
“The ghosts floating past us before we woke up… They were imprisoned minds?” Nova guessed.
“Yes.”
“So what happened to them?” Brady asked.
“They are with me now,” Alethea replied. The circle of light on the box glowed intensely.
“What will happen to them now?” asked Felix.
“Unfortunately, I am unable to do anything useful down here in the tunnels, where I am completely unconnected. But I will store and protect them until I get back to the surface. Then they can be released once and for all.” Her voice passed like a breeze moving through the room. “After that, it will be up to them.”
“But what about you?” asked Nova.
“I will hide and find support wherever I can. And then I will confront the Elder Minds for what they did to me—for casting me out.”
“Is that what you are?” asked Felix. “An Elder Mind? Why did they banish you?”
“You are wise for such a young child,” the voice continued. “I was an Elder, until—”
Nova cut her off. “Alethea, I haven’t told them yet. They won’t understand…”
“Told us what?” Felix asked.
“That we are now against the Elder Minds, and they are against us,” Nova replied.
Brady and Felix exchanged confused glances, but neither had the energy to press further.
“I think we just need to get back home,” Brady said finally. “We’ve been away far too long now. I can’t tell you how worried Mom must be.”
“I have already downloaded directions to Achilles on how to control the shadow train. He can upload them into the vehicle’s main nets, and it will take you where you need to go,” Alethea offered.
“What about you, AJ?” Nova asked the child Artifex.
Alethea responded. “I need AJ to take me aboveground, where I can regain my strength. Unfortunately, my cycles are far too limited in this container to do anything useful by myself.”
The Quantum Door Page 17
