You're not afraid of danger. What you're afraid of is that you won't find her there, and that it'll take too long searching through what might be an entire universe, and that you should look somewhere else, first…
But be real, Seele. If she's anywhere, she's there.
You know her. She's a literal genius, in love with finding out how things work. Einstein is sure to be there.
Right.
Be strong, be brave. Godspeed, Seele.
ooOOoo
"I think I know where Einstein is," you tell Theresa. "It's just, um…"
You don't like it when you stutter. You think it's unbecoming. When you do, you try to do it where nobody will see. But the truth is, you may have locked Einstein into a trap just because the trap creeped you out.
"We found an entrance to a bubble universe, back when we were searching the ship earlier," Veliona says. "Time was badly warped there, so we locked it up and left it for later. That one. Unfortunately, Seele thinks there's a good chance that it's where Einstein is."
There's a moment of silence.
"Then I guess we don't have a choice, do we?" Theresa says.
"You're coming?" you say, momentary panic in your voice. "I mean, not that you shouldn't! I'm just not sure it's safe for you. I'm not sure it's safe for anybody. It's…" You rack your brain.
She interrupts you. "I'm not. I wish I could, truth be told. I'm curious about this bubble universe of yours. If the worst happens, perhaps we can use it as a lifeboat? Alas, it won't be today."
You sigh, which makes her laugh.
"I already knew about the bubble," she says. "Veliona mentioned it earlier. That you think Einstein might be there, however… hmm. I should have thought of it. That said, Tesla suspected it might be the case."
"You didn't send Kiana there?"
"There were a lot of options. And…"
Theresa sees something in your face, and smiles.
"I'm not going to send anyone into peril on their own," she says. "Have some faith in us, Seele. You can't do everything on your own, after all, but it won't be her."
You look sharply at Theresa, to which she shrugs. "I noticed you've been trying to keep the twins out of harm's way. I've never had siblings, so I can't know for sure how you feel, but I know the two of them. They'd never say it, but you're the only reason they're keeping it together. Truth be told, I've been trying to make them act a bit more like children. They're still only sixteen, after all…"
And it's not because Theresa herself enjoys the games? You quirk a smile, but you also know she's right. No, the twins aren't dumb. It's not that they're still kids, but…
A lot changed while you were lost in the quantum sea. Your sisters became literal child soldiers, victims of your mother's strange attempts at helping all of you, and while you can't say they've changed too much on the surface—Rozaliya is still Roza, Liliya still Lili—there's a sadness hiding inside them now.
You're not sure how to feel about that; you aren't sure how to feel about a lot of things right now, and you can only imagine how the twins feel.
"But…"
Your objection is vague, half-formed and mostly emotional, but as you look at her in silence she takes a deep breath and nods. "Being near you, even if there's risk involved, is safer for them than staying here."
You flinch just a little at that.
"I'll ask Kiana to stay behind, to search any other parts of the ship Einstein might have survived in. I'd like you to give her a list of the likely spots, but I don't want her to be entirely out of contact. I'm sure you can imagine my reasoning there."
You genuinely feel a little worried about that. "You want to watch over her."
It's a statement, not a question. You see hope in her eyes as she nods. "She has power as deep as yours and Vel's, and with you both absent… Well, after what happened to Mei, I'd like to keep an eye on her."
Your lips pinch together. "I'm sure that'll make her feel safe." There's a note of irony in your tone.
"Mm, well. She'll understand. But there's another element to my reasoning. She's the only one who can potentially save any of us, should the worst happen while you're away, and that's what you've been worrying about, right?"
You suspect she is. "Kiana always insisted she could handle it."
"I know. It's one of her more endearing qualities, in my opinion." Theresa smiles wryly. "She's far stronger than any of us. I think she'll be fine; if not, I want a chance to help. But Seele, take your time on this mission. If the place seems reasonably safe, don't even think about coming back before you've found Einstein. This is your most important task, from now and until you succeed at it. That being said, I believe Tesla has something to tell the two of you."
That catches your attention. Theresa moves to the door. "We can continue this briefing as we walk. Come with me."
You follow her out of the office and down a long, Liliya-decorated corridor, listening to Theresa's chatter, until you come to a closed door. She unlocks it and leads the way inside.
Truthfully, it's not a briefing. You're not entirely sure what it is. She sounds… not nervous, but perhaps like she's trying to pack half a year's worth of lessons and advice into five minutes, and it's a testament to her skill that you get anything out of that at all.
On the inside is a workshop. In the centre is a table with a pile of electronics tools and spare parts, useful for tinkering with mechanical devices. Next to it is a waist-high glass case, containing an assortment of tangled wires, disassembled computers, and a few books on the history and science of quantum mechanics. Beyond that is a workbench full of hand tools and the equipment for more advanced repairs.
There's a woman in this room staring at a soldering iron as if it were a bomb about to explode. Specifically, there's a Tesla, and considering her… history…
You consider edging away from the soldering iron. Veliona glances at you, her eyes twinkling.
Tesla chuckles. "Relax. I'm not going to poke you with it."
"I never know whether to believe you or not, Tess."
She rolls her eyes. "I told you not to call me that. If it wasn't for the situation, I'd tie you up until you admit I'm the world's foremost genius."
You wince. "Not the threat I wanted to hear at all."
She rolls her eyes again. "Given the way you dress in combat? I find that hard to believe. Right. Two things." She holds up a pair of fingers. "First. I owe you an apology, Veliona."
Your twin raises her eyebrows. "Oh?"
"I genuinely was expecting that piece of sheet metal to go straight through you. Hitting your head wasn't intentional. The best I can do is plead sleep deprivation, and hope you won't hold it against me."
Veliona shrugs. "It's fine. And apology accepted."
"Thank you." She looks at you. "As for the second thing, here. It's a small gift."
You edge backwards. "What'd you make for me this time?"
The stuff she's had fun with thus far includes a Sierpinski paperweight made out of wood pulp, a tea cozy modeled after the ruins of the Eiffel tower, and several other things that nobody would ever call sensible or practical.
"Nothing silly this time, I promise." She looks unusually serious. "This one is practical. I also had a hand in the expedition kit, but that's rushed. This is something I'd planned to give you for your eighteenth birthday, if things had been calmer at the time."
"You built it for my last birthday?"
"I built and tested it." She holds up a small metal case. "Happy birthday, Seele."
You give her a dubious look, but she only waits patiently. You take the metal box, and open it nervously.
It's a hand-wound mechanical pocket watch on a small chain. There's delicate machinery inside, the designs of which you don't recognize.
You ask her, "You made this?"
"I wish I could claim all the credit." She acts like she's standing at attention. "Einstein helped. You're her best student. Granted, you're her only student… these last couple of years." She leans forward. "You'll find the mop-head, right?"
Her voice is actually shaking slightly.
You nod seriously. What else can you do?
"Good girl," she says. "I had a hand in the expedition kit too. It's rushed, but it's there. You'll find it."
"I also have a little something for you," Theresa says.
Veliona raises her eyebrows. "What is it?"
Theresa smiles. "Just orders, and a bit of advice. Here." She hands over a small bundle of papers. "If you aren't back in two days, your time, I want you to open that. I spent the last hour thinking of every eventuality; there's no time to go over it now. Don't open it before then, okay?"
You study Theresa, but she smiles guilelessly at you.
"Of course not." You pocket the bundle with little hesitation. "It shouldn't take that long."
"Good. Go get 'em, girls." She grins. "And if there's a fight, try not to break the entire universe. Leave some scraps for the rest of us." With that, she gives you a quick salute.
You look at Veliona, and she looks back at you.
You nod. "Let's do this. Uh, where's the twins?"
"Carrying control rods that weigh several times what they do," Tesla says laconically. "It looks ridiculous. They're in reactor three right now. I made them promise not to goof off too much."
You and Veliona leave her quarters to find out what she's talking about.
In the reactor room, your two younger sisters are holding control rods longer than they are tall, while an engineer is inspecting each. When you enter, they look up at you with huge eyes. "Seele!" says Liliya. "You came back!"
"Of course. I promised she would." Veliona smiles at them. "How are you doing?"
"Fine," says Roza. "These things are heavy, though."
The engineer gives her a look of mild disbelief. "They weigh nearly a ton, each. You shouldn't be able to budge them at all."
"The Vodka Girls are the strongest!" proclaims Roza. "These things aren't even… nah, I'm kidding. They're heavy. Seele, what's up?"
"Do you want to go on a vacation?" you ask, painfully aware that your tone is not entirely steady. "We're going to a bubble universe we found earlier, to search for Einstein. It shouldn't be all that risky, but to be honest, we could use the help."
"You want us to come with you?" It's hard to tell which Vodka Twin is which. They're both speaking too quickly, their voices blending into one another. "With you and Veliona? Can we really come?"
You nod, trying not to smile. "Yes."
They make cheer signs with their free hands. "Seele and Veliona forever!" they say. "Vodka Girls never abandon ship! Okay, wait, what's a vacation again?"
You think the line between hilarious and incredibly frustrating is the hardest thing about being a connoisseur of twins. It's a joke. Probably. In any event, it's a working 'vacation'; they may have a point.
"Put that where it's supposed to go, and let's go," you say.
They both suddenly get very busy.
ooOOoo
The gateway is right where you left it, in the scanner room. The consoles are all still dead, and none of them look like they've been touched in weeks. The entire room is dusty; even your own footprints from when you were here yesterday have nearly faded away.
The gateway looks the way it used to. A massive black sphere, two meters in diameter, like a globe made of tar. The altar it's sitting on also looks a little dusty, a far cry from the polished wood of earlier. You guess no one's touched this room since then.
"What now?" Roza asks. She's wearing a backpack that is, again, almost larger than she is; both of the twins are. They're full of supplies, for the twins mostly, but Tesla spent a good ten minutes filling them up with every tool she thought you might possibly need.
As much as you get into fights sometimes, she's a good person. She always worries about you when you're gone. You, and everyone else she knows.
"Stand back a little," you tell them.
You walk slowly towards the black globe, your hand searching for the sphere's surface. It's hard to find. The dark mass gives off a faint light, just enough to see your hand against, but you can't quite find the surface with your hands. It's like smoke, or mist.
With one last glance at the twins and Vel, you put your hands around the globe. You twisted it, like this, to lock it. So to unlock it, you just–
Take a deep breath, close your eyes, and throw yourself into the abyss.
Veliona is willing to let you do this on your own. If you falter, you're sure she can save you, but you can feel the pulse of her will, like a pillar of light.
Something bright, a shock of white-hot luminance explodes behind your eyes.
It's an instantaneous, intense, burning pain, like standing in the heart of a star. You feel as if you are becoming a star yourself.
You're not sure if you can open your eyes. It's not just the light, but the sense of drifting. Your body is drifting into a cold and alien vastness, adrift in the void between worlds. It takes an effort to push your senses away, to focus on what is rather than what you feel. You won't be able to use your eyes until it's all done. It feels like coming home.
You find yourself standing in infinite darkness. Your eyes, apparently, are open. Distantly, you can still see the Hyperion, like a tiny patch of light growing gradually dimmer.
There's a faint warmth, a glow that suffuses you and draws you like a moth. You aren't sure what it is. By your feet is something small and unstable, almost like a bubble.
A tiny world where people live and die, where emotions are expressed. It isn't something you can help, but it's so small… so fragile. More so than even the Hyperion. If it weren't in your shadow, you think that it'd fall apart.
You build a bridge in the nothingness between worlds, so that if someone tries to cross between them, they will find themselves without a chasm to cross. It's not a bridge from one place to another, but between two states of being. You'll be the gate, and the key.
The bridge takes as long as it takes. It can't be rushed, and you forego setting a goal to reach: it will be finished when it is finished. Days or years here don't matter, anyway.
As you work, you sometimes think of the creatures on the near side of the bridge. Your friends, your sisters. Loved ones. You're… losing something, you think, but it's a temporary loss. It won't last. You know that.
When you finish, you look back at reality and find that only seconds have passed.
It's time to go home.
ooOOoo
"–Seele!"
You open your eyes.
The first thing you see is the scanner room, all grey metal and electronics. The second thing you notice is that you're clutching onto something, as if for dear life. You let go, flexing your fingers as realization dawns on you.
Vel is shaking her hand. You were practically crushing it.
You're in the real world again. It's almost over. That means you can feel again.
You feel cool metal under you, against your side. You raise your hand to touch your face and find that it's wet. Your head is pounding. You feel tired and cold. And you realize with a start that you're also crying.
It hurts. You can feel again.
You flex your fingers, staring at them as if they're foreign objects. Then you look up.
The room is dark, save for the glow of the flickering emergency lights, but that's merely the backdrop, and pales in comparison to what you can see where the sphere was. There's a rift, torn open in mid-air, a deep circular scar raggedly illuminated by the scanner room lights. Beyond is a nighttime landscape, complete with a sliver of a crescent moon.
The simple sight is so alien that at first you can't process it. It's… it's just a normal landscape. There are mountains, trees, the pinpricks of stars… everything looks normal, but it's like you're seeing it for the first time. Everything is different. And beautiful.
You can see the stars. You can see them so clearly and distinctly that it's almost painful to look at them.
"Rozaliya? Lili?" you say, hand fumbling behind you. Your sister grabs it, though you glance back and see that it's Liliya. Your voice is hushed. "You're not feeling nauseous, are you?"
"I was, just a bit, but I feel better now. How are you feeling? You went see-through for a while. Like when you're fighting, but…" Liliya doesn't seem to find the words. "And then you fell down. Just now."
She's squinting at you. It doesn't seem like you took long enough to scare her, but she's definitely considering it.
"I'm a little tired." You stand, testing your legs. "I feel weird, but not terribly. When I went to find Kiana, that was a lot harder. This just lasted longer, and I'm not quite sure if I know what I did, exactly. It doesn't fit in my head. But I'll be alright, I think."
You risk looking away from the rift again. Your two younger sisters are holding hands, but Liliya still clings to your arm.
"Is it safe to go through, you think?" you say, addressing Veliona. The landscape looks like… you squint, and think you can see fires in the distance. A village? The lights flicker, not like the steady light of electrical lamps, but you can only see two or three dots of light peeking out behind a hill. It feels a bit alien. On the other hand, it's not like there's anywhere else really to go.
Between you and the possible village, there's only a dark landscape of what might be a forest and might be grasslands. The absolute darkness is like nothing you've seen in your homeland, except for those few times when the power was out during the night, if Matushka let you go outside.
Veliona pokes a finger into it, then shrugs. "It looks safe enough. Come on, let's go," she says and steps through awkwardly in something between a wavering walk and a stumble.
You step through, your sisters trailing after you, oversized backpacks and all, and in that moment you feel awed.
It's… just a normal forest clearing. You tell yourself that, but as your eyes adjust to the darkness, you can see that the trees are stretching their branches overhead as if they're trying to grab the moon and stars. After days spent thinking you'd never see nature again, after weeks and months spent staying combat-ready on the Hyperion, here is a peaceful, quiet forest. You just want to hug it all, squeeze it in your arms and cover yourself with its greenness. You can hear the sound of birds chirping and bugs buzzing; it's not loud or harsh, but rather soothing.
In the middle of the clearing, on a small hillock covered with grass, there lies a pavilion. You can see columns holding up an ancient roof, though age has weathered it. It looks like it hasn't been touched in years, if not centuries. There's no trace of human life. You can't see anything emitting light.
"It's so beautiful," Liliya cries out, entranced. "I want to look at everything!"
You giggle, partly because you don't know what to say. The three of you are no less in awe.
You cross through the clearing, barely taking in anything else, and come to a stop as you reach the pavilion. There is no sign of anyone ever being there. They must have, right? This was obviously built. Just, not recently. Or, maybe…
You don't know.
There's a wooden altar in the centre of the pavilion, visible through a broken wall, though it's missing its ball of tar. Rather, you've shifted the portal by twenty or so meters, landing you outside the pavilion. Kiana, no doubt, would've been spot-on.
= = =
I'd like to take credit for any improvements in this chapter, but most of it was caused by swapping out the model for one that's fine-tuned on literature, not fanfiction.net. It means less time spent fixing style issues, and more time spent whacking tentacles with a stick.
It's the Lovecraft model, but I feel reasonably sure I can keep it in check.
This is not my usual writing style. I like it, but I've never been able to achieve it. That is, perhaps, the biggest benefit of doing this—it's like having a reasonably decent author holding your hand, even if the poor guy is also horribly amnesiac. The Dragon network didn't give me that impression, but the Lovecraft network? That does. I suspect it's a good way of learning.
Even so, it's still a case of garbage in, garbage out. The difference being, when you left Dragon to its own devices it degraded to lowest common denominator fanfiction.net writing style. When you leave Lovecraft to its own devices, it degrades to… well… to Lovecraft.
The technology turns out to work better than I thought it did, and we're back to the content being 50/50 AI/human.
[ ] Examine the pavilion closer
- [ ] Any element in particular?
[ ] Go directly to the village
- [ ] But study it from afar, without being seen
- [ ] And walk straight in
[ ] Write-in
