Bridgers 1_The Lure of Infinity

by Stan C. Smith

  August 2 — 30 minutes later

  Eyes half closed, Infinity forced from her mind the flood of visual scenarios and well-practiced techniques for killing things both human and nonhuman. Clearing her mind was no easy task—she would bridge in less than twelve hours. When practicing the silent meditative state known as Mokuso, it was essential to clear away images of violence. Which was why she wasn’t all that good at Mokuso.

  She stared at the floor in front of her to minimize distractions. Inhaling through her nose, she visualized the air moving up through her forehead, across the crown of her skull, and down her spine, finally collecting in her lower abdomen, winding in ever-shrinking circles until it disappeared into a tiny point. She exhaled slowly and repeated the process until her mind was at peace.

  Several minutes later the alarm next to her bed broke her trance. She sighed, got up from the floor, and turned it off.

  Infinity considered every minute of life to be sacred. Driving back and forth from SafeTrek to an apartment elsewhere would mean wasted minutes. So she had insisted on her own permanent bunkroom in the SafeTrek building. Armando had agreed to this, although he had reminded her more than once that she might have more of a social life if she’d live off-site. Armando tended to treat her like a daughter sometimes. Considering Infinity hadn’t seen her real father since she was fourteen, she didn’t usually mind.

  She stepped over to her sink, wiped her eyes with her palms, and looked in the mirror. She saw the face of a killer. The truth of this bothered her more every year. But it was the truth nevertheless. A few more years and she’d have enough money saved to quit bridging and do something normal—something that had nothing to do with fighting or killing.

  “You afraid?” She asked aloud. The face in the mirror looked calm and relaxed, which wasn’t at all how she felt. “You’d better be,” she said, finally.

  She ran her fingers over her scalp and its seventeen-day growth. She could still see the dark scar she’d gotten from a broken bottle when she was fifteen. Two more weeks and her hair would’ve been long enough to hide it. Only once in the last year had her hair grown out that long.

  She looked at the clock and sighed. Turning back to the mirror, she said, “And you’d better be able to sleep tonight.”

  She rubbed cold water on her face, dried it off, and left her room.

  Infinity was the last to sit down at the briefing table. By now the tourists had likely spent the last ten minutes signing non-disclosure agreements and bitching about this clause or that clause. The forms were stupidly long and confusing. But Infinity could summarize them in one sentence: keep your damn mouth shut about everything except what you see and do between bridge-out and bridge-back.

  Briefings were limited to just a few people. Armando and Celia were there to provide information, the tourists were supposed to listen and ask questions, and the two bridgers would answer questions they were allowed to answer. Infinity was always bored by the briefings—she had heard it all before. But she did like to watch the tourists’ reactions to what they learned. You could learn a lot about someone through those reactions. And the more she knew, the better she could get them to cooperate when excursions went south.

  Once Infinity sat down, Armando nodded to Celia, and she didn’t waste time. Which was something Infinity always appreciated.

  “This may seem like an unusual topic to begin the briefing with,” Celia said to the tourists, “but it is important to provide you with some background. Again, I’ll remind you of your non-disclosure obligations. Leaking this information will not only result in federal charges against you, but it will also automatically triple your financial obligation to SafeTrek.” She paused and waited until the tourists nodded.

  “As I’m sure you know, five years ago, humans experienced a significant turning point for science, as well as theology, anthropology, and sociology.” She touched her tablet, which activated a projector, displaying on the wall a photo of the now-famous ATA—the Allen Telescope Array—in the Cascade Mountains of California.

  The three tourists exchanged confused glances. They had no idea what was coming.

  Celia went on. “The Allen Telescope Array detected a repeating set of non-natural radio waves transmitted simultaneously at numerous frequencies between 1,420 and 1,720 megahertz, proving beyond any doubt that at least one intelligent civilization exists besides our own. The extraterrestrials were dubbed in popular culture as the Outlanders, as the signal originated farther from the center of the galactic plane than Earth.”

  The motormouth tourist—Xavier—started to say something but then stopped and waited.

  “The transmitted signals had finally been decoded several months after their discovery. The general public knows that the signals included information about the aliens and their civilization, like a more robust version of the golden records we sent out of our solar system on the Voyagers 1 and 2, or the crude plaques sent onboard Pioneers 10 and 11.”

  Finally the motormouth couldn’t help himself. “May I ask what this has to do with our excursion?”

  Celia nodded. “There are other segments of the Outlanders’ signal the general public does not know about.”

  The tourists exchanged another look, this time with a touch of holy-shit on their faces. The next few minutes would be the most amusing part of Infinity’s day.

  “An international committee representing the governments of twenty-one countries decided some segments of the information were to be withheld and used judiciously. Primarily, detailed instructions for creating a bridging device.”

  All three tourists sat up straight and stared, apparently too shocked to speak.

  Now the briefing was getting real. Infinity watched the tourists carefully.

  Celia continued. “Contrary to what you’ve heard in the media, bridging technology is far beyond human science. Before we built the bridging centers, many physicists didn’t even believe that there were infinite parallel universes. We only had a basic theoretical notion of the concept, and were hundreds of years—maybe thousands—from developing a way to transport living things between realities. To put it bluntly, we have no idea how the bridging devices work.”

  Still the tourists stared silently, trying to process what they’d heard. When they finally regained the ability to speak, they displayed the same sequence of reactions Infinity had seen so many times before: denial, outrage, and then numerous questions. The motormouth Xavier was considering pulling out of the deal. But now that the final agreement forms had been signed, there would be no refund. So now he was pouting like a kid. The agreeable Lenny, on the other hand, had already decided this knowledge would only enhance the adventure. And the leader, Desmond—he was the one who’d make or break the whole excursion. Now he was silently considering things. Infinity wasn’t sure what to think of Desmond. He typically kept his mouth shut unless he had something worthwhile to say. Infinity could identify with that trait. But when Desmond did speak, his buddies listened. If things got rough on the excursion, she’d have to focus on getting Desmond in line first. She found herself wondering what he’d look like after bridging took his hair, but she quickly pushed the thought from her mind.

  For the next half-hour, Celia went through the rest of the most critical information, occasionally projecting photos and graphics on the screen. The bridging device allowed you to dial back accurately to whatever divergence point you wanted, but no one understood how. For each possible divergence point, there were seemingly infinite worlds available, but one world was selected randomly by the device. Once you initially accessed a specific world, the window to that particular universe remained available for only about 108 hours, after which the connection was severed and you could never find that world again. No one knew why bridging stripped away hair, clothing, dead skin cells, and other nonliving matter. Nor did anyone know where these things disappeared to. Bridging back was made possible by a scanning and tagging procedure performed before bridging out. Each excursion lasted slig
htly over thirty-six hours. This was due to the half-life of the tagging radioisotope, but no one knew why that particular isotope was the only one that worked.

  Finally, Celia tapped her tablet, and the projector went dark. She was finished.

  Armando Doyle groaned softly as he stood up. “And that, gentlemen, is why you signed a non-disclosure agreement. If it were up to me, I’d make this information available to everyone. But the powers that be, in their infinite wisdom, have decided that the general public does not need to know that bridging technology came from the Outlanders. I suppose I can see their point. Folks would argue that any information from a distant civilization should be freely available to all citizens of Earth. And it’s conceivable they would win that argument in court.” He raised his hands like a preacher. “But can you imagine if everyone with the resources had the ability to create bridging devices?”

  “Bridging would be less expensive,” Xavier said.

  Armando smiled. “Perhaps. But there must be order. Would you want bridging centers catering to people who desire to bridge to parallel worlds so that they could commit murder or rape? Or to people who fantasize about wiping out an entire city? Or worse? Oh yes, there are people who have requested such excursions from us. But we strive to keep a measure of order.”

  He started pacing around the table. “And the truth of the matter is that bridging is dangerous. That’s why we have highly-qualified bridgers like Infinity and Razor. As the three of you obviously know, bridging to alternate worlds could be one of the richest sources of scientific data imaginable. Scientists, not to mention experts in a thousand other fields, should be lining up at our doors, booking their data-collecting excursions years in advance. But they’re not. Do you know why?”

  Desmond spoke up. “Because none of that data can be brought back. It’s limited to what researchers can fit into their own minds and recall when they return.”

  “Precisely,” Armando said. “And beyond that—”

  “And that’s why I’m here,” Desmond said, cutting him off. “I have an advantage over most other researchers.”

  Armando raised his brows.

  “I have an elevated capacity to remember certain things,” Desmond said. “Some people call it a photographic memory, but that’s an oversimplification.”

  Infinity leaned forward in her chair. There might be more to this Desmond than she had thought.

  “Given the right kind of observations,” he said, “I can recall thousands of chunks of information. You said you will be providing us with recording devices as soon as we return, and I plan to do a serious info-dump. All of which I can then analyze later for my dissertation. That’s why I requested that no other researchers be present at the post-bridge interview—intellectual property and all that.”

  “That is quite fascinating,” Armando said. “If only there were more minds like yours. I’m afraid bridging by researchers has declined in the four years since our facility opened. We have compensated for this by offering excursions as a form of recreation. But the, um, physical hardships of the bridging process are a deterrent to all but the most determined adventure-seekers, some of whom we must refuse due to their interest in non-allowable activities. We’ve been forced to increase our prices significantly to remain viable.”

  “I have a question,” the motormouth said. “Why do you think the Outlanders included instructions for constructing bridging devices in their radio signals?”

  Armando put a finger to his chin like he was thinking about this for the first time. But Infinity knew he had been puzzling over it for years.

  “Perhaps it was their greatest achievement, and they were simply proud,” he said. “I like to think it was because there is something much more useful about bridging, something that was so intuitive to them that they didn’t bother to mention it. Perhaps it’s something we will eventually discover on our own.”

  Infinity was getting bored and decided it was time to speak up. “Are we on for the morning or off? I’ve got prepping to do.”

  “As do I,” Razor added.

  Desmond looked at his two buddies.

  Lenny nodded, as Infinity had expected.

  Motormouth said, “We’re using alien technology no one understands to jump to a predator-heavy world. For the freakin’ life of me, you guys, I can’t imagine what could go wrong.”

  Desmond turned to Infinity and nodded. “It’s on.”

  Razor stood up. “Drink at least a quart of water before you turn in. At least another quart in the morning, no later than 6:00 AM. Once the water is in your cells and bloodstream, it’s yours. Bridging won’t take it from you. It’s possible we won’t drink water for the entire thirty-six hours. If you’re still hungry, eat now. By morning, most of the food will be absorbed. Don’t bother eating breakfast. If bridging didn’t take it from you, you’d probably purge it.”

  To Infinity’s surprise, he took the time to shake each tourist’s hand. This was her first time partnering with Razor on an excursion, so she wasn’t familiar with his habits. As he shook their hands, he looked each of them in the eye and said, “Godspeed, tourist. The bridgers have your back.” He then left the room, no doubt headed for his own private pre-bridge rituals.

  Infinity was suddenly aware that she had never spoken much to tourists during briefings. No reason to change now. She simply nodded at them and walked out.

  Infinity stared at the most beautiful night sky she’d ever seen. Streaks of purple and green faded and brightened, wavering about like glowing shocks of hair blowing in the breeze. She blinked away a drop of sweat that had run into her eye. Every one of her muscles strained to keep her body rigid. Her arms were between her legs, holding her body elevated above the picnic table. Her legs extended horizontally in the air in front of her. It was called the firefly pose, and it was good for maintaining core strength. But it was also an effective tool for clearing the mind, although the amazing sky before her was distracting.

  Her muscles were starting to burn. She took a deep breath and stared at the wavering lights. And then she heard footsteps approaching on the grass, breaking her focus. She relented and lowered herself to the tabletop. She hadn’t expected company this late, so she had removed her clothes. After years of bridging, she was more relaxed without them.

  “That’s impressive.” It was the tourist, Desmond. “I’m sorry if I interrupted.”

  “You did,” she said.

  “Well, I’m sorry. Did you know it’s midnight? Shouldn’t you be getting some sleep?”

  “Don’t worry about me.”

  He sat on the tabletop next to her and put his feet on the bench. “I couldn’t sleep either. Too nervous, I guess.”

  She ignored him and started winding down her workout with some stretches.

  He looked up to the northern sky. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” He paused. “But it scares the crap out of me.”

  She looked at him, surprised. “Why’s that?”

  “This is the first time I’ve been to Missouri, but I’m pretty sure auroras are rare here, if not unheard of.”

  She looked at the shimmering colors. “Until now.”

  “Auroras happen when solar wind interacts with the Earth’s magnetosphere. In order for them to start happening in places this far from the north polar region, something would have to disrupt the planet’s magnetic field. It’s like the world is just falling apart.”

  Infinity didn’t often waste time thinking about weather, or earthquakes, or anything else in the news for that matter. She had a job she was good at, and it paid well. The world’s concerns were not hers.

  She finished the extension stretches of her right leg and switched to the left. “Well, like you said, it’s beautiful.”

  He let out a half-hearted laugh, and then she sensed that he was staring at her. It pissed her off, but it was probably a good thing that he was. On the job, when clothes weren’t an option, there was no place for gawking. But in a situation like this, there was something dishonest
about a guy who pretended not to notice when she was naked. “Watch your gaze, tourist.”

  He turned away. “Sorry. I was just looking at your tattoo. It’s nice. I recognize the bird, a painted bunting. I just… well, you don’t strike me as a bird-tattoo kind of person. A scorpion or rattlesnake, maybe.”

  She turned and glared at him.

  “Well,” he said, “I do like it, just so you know. It must be fresh. In the daylight earlier I saw redness around it.”

  She paused her stretching and put one hand to the tattoo on her chest. “It’s fresh and it’s not. This is the fourth time it’s been re-inked. I lose some of the ink each time I bridge.” Desmond didn’t have any tattoos that Infinity had seen, so that was one thing he wouldn’t have to worry about.

  “I imagine that must get expensive.”

  Infinity didn’t have much else to spend her money on. If she survived bridging for another year or two, she planned to quit and do something normal. But this was none of the tourist’s business, so she didn’t answer.

  He sighed and stepped down from the picnic table. Maybe he was finally getting the message that she was busy.

  “Obviously I’ve never bridged before,” he said. “Does the process hurt?”

  “It can.”

  “I’ve been excited about it for weeks. But I haven’t let myself be afraid yet. Should I?”

  She went back to stretching, working on her left arm. “Not tonight. You need sleep. Remember, you’ll have two bridgers with you.”

  He stood there gazing at her, the green and red glow from the sky reflecting off his face, making it hard not to stare back at him. Finally, he turned and headed back the way he’d come.

  “I hope you sleep well, Infinity,” he said over his shoulder.

  She released her arm and watched him walk away. He paused for a moment to gaze at the colors in the sky. Then he shook his head and entered the SafeTrek compound.

  She started on her right arm. “Yeah, you too,” she said softly.