9

We had no plan for Rage, and I was worried. It was 23h23 on the ancient digital clock radio I'd fished it out of a box of my dad’s stuff. It was at the back of the garage, but I knew exactly what was in it. My code glowed faintly silver in the pitch dark - no red or blue lights from any device.

“Hey, Blue,” I said as he appeared in the middle of my room. I knew he was coming. He knew I knew he was coming. He smiled, pleased, I think.

“Is worry the best use of your time?” He asked casually.

“My firewall is up,” I complained.

“I don't need to read your mind." He said kindly. “You. We,” he corrected, “have done this many times before." There was that affection again, making me uncomfortable.

A door appeared, and my code danced. It pulsed a red glow around the edges and then opened, revealing several other doors, packed sideways tightly, like cardboard folders in a filing cabinet.

“Passages.” He ran his index finger across them, like coats in a cupboard. They rippled at his touch as he stepped into the Narnia wardrobe. I followed.

***

Thousands of doors hung in the middle of the vast space. “This is your InBetween.” He said.

“InBetween what?” I asked.

“Everything.” He said. The doors curved in on themselves, spiralled and looped, turned upside down, like the house of mirrors at a carnival. Blue nodded as if he were seeing the space for the first time. “I am." He said.

“It doesn’t always look like this?” I asked.

“There are universal elements, but their appearance is your interpretation." He ran his hand across the doors as if we were shopping at Ethereal Doors R Us.

I scrolled through the code surrounding me, like a neverending swirling princess dress, probably the closest I would get to one, and spotted the ribbon of the moment I met Seth. My cheeks burned, and my pulse quickened. I felt something else somewhere in my body.

“Please Note,” said Blue. “The goal is not to solve the Simulation or end it.” As he spoke, I caught a glimpse of the golden thread.

“Then how do I win?” The harder I tried to see the Golden Thread, the less I could. A light tapping began to build.

“It's not about winning." He paused. “There is an emotional response to this Truth.”

"What's the point then?" I was not used to losing.

“Breathe,” he instructed. “Close your eyes. See if you can locate the place in your First Casing that responds to this Truth.”

Blue was not reading my mind; he was reading my body.

“Feel that… Yes, breathe deeper now. Try not to judge your response but only to feel it, then release it. You may not understand these directives yet. All is well.”

My heart beat very fast, and the tapping deepened to a beat.

“You have possibly been attaching faulty meaning to some of your feelings." Said Blue. "Due to your filters. It’s one of the processes of Simulation in the Game. One of the first layers that need decoding and reconstruction." He paused. “Try not to judge your response. Let it pass through you like a breeze.”

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

I waited for my feelings to pass. There was a hum, a constant hum, stretching out into eternity. I sent my code out to find the source, to draw it closer to me. I wanted to get connected to it permanently.

“Be here with me now.” He said. His eyes held worlds within worlds as he gazed at me.

“I am,” I said. I listened to Fikile or Eleanor while executing at least one other task all the time.

“Are you?” He asked.

“I am.” I lied.

“Be here with me now.”

“Blue, I’m right here!” Why was he pointing out the obvious? As if I were a child. So frustrating! Just let me get on with it! I yelled inside my mind.

With his hands at his heart, he lowered his voice. “Your words create Worlds, Regan Grace." He reduced volume but gained authority. “When it's messy up here." He tapped his temple. “It’s messy out here.”

“My words create worlds,” I mulled it over. Colourful strings of code spiralled out of me into the distance. Among them, the elusive occasional golden thread formed a web. It should be strong, but I sensed weakness in places. My FoV deepened, and I comprehended the quantum field was not in good shape.

“Truth,” said Blue. The Presence took shape around us, magnifying the already potent energy. “Can you feel her?” He asked.

I nodded. Is it a ‘her’? I asked telepathically. I looked for Her, but I saw no trace of the entity he spoke of in the coding - and yet I knew she was here as sure as I knew I was.

Blue smiled. "That’s just an idea to help you understand the quality of the energy.” He chuckled. “Humans, in your naivete, make far too much of the role of gender in the Dance of Creation. It can be somewhat of a distraction.” His eyes were full of this strange mix of pride and fear. “She is an Ancient, possibly the most ancient, formless and shapeless because her essence is at the centre of all creation.” He drew his arms out in an all-encompassing arch and then paused. “Call your code back from execution.”

Of course, he knew what I had done. I let every process I was tracking drop out of my mind. I pulled everything back towards my centre.

“Are you with me?” he asked patiently.

I breathed, and I nodded.

“You must be present to have power. To be powerful.” He said, locking eyes with me. “You can not be there until you are here."

My code emanated from me like ribbons. The golden thread interspersed with my code, winding its way into… “Passages,” concluded Blue. “Do you see?” Blue’s field locked into mine, and we locked into her: Truth. “Passages are the stuff of infinite potential. You can end up anywhere if you are not conscious.”

“What do you mean anywhere?" I asked.

“Anywhere,” he reiterated with a shrug. “Passages are the result of information you are processing - much of this information is stored and calculated by your First Casing. Your Carbon Body. Your Iteration mistakenly sees time as a linear construct.” Blue sighed. “It’s completely organic and, unchecked, can run wild with horror, or blossom with potential. Both are beautiful in their way. A marvel to behold.” Blue beamed, and when I looked at it from such a distance, without the pain or torment being mine, it was a marvel to behold. “Pathways, on the other hand,” said Blue suddenly “as young Lu and his ancestors use, almost always begin and end in the same place - because they are naturally occurring phenomena within this realm.”

“Almost always?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Anything is possible,” Blue shrugged. My doors started moving like a carousel, and a red one slid out.

“You didn’t do that, did you?” I asked.

He shook his head, his beam dimming.

“Then who did?” I asked. The door thrummed in sudden urgency. Its edges pulsed with a red glow.

“You did,” he said.

“But I didn’t.”

Blue did not argue with me. He smiled instead. “Regan Grace, “ he said, “you are walking between worlds.” He nodded towards the glowing portal as if to say, in you get. I stepped in, and a blinding light dissolved around me.