Chapter seventy-three
Souls in Transit- Part two
It was all happening in seconds in the accelerator control programs.
[Safety Shutdown Activated.]
The artificial intelligence program, that was conducting the final part of the experime,t had complied with the Director's final order. Once two subjects had entered the chamber LC2 had proceeded to close it definitively and it was completely locked from the outside.
Nothing could get out.
After that the final part of the process had finally been activated. In two of the Pening traps had been released the particles collected in the successive collisions of the accelerator ring.
Two beams had been released. One was destined for LC1, the chamber where Jack Pierson had been placed in his respective capsule. The second beam was sent directly to chamber LC2, which now had three occupants: Lee Reubens, Jim Stuart and a third who had never explained the details of his objective but who, according to the data provided by Janus, it was vital that the lockdown be effected after the newcomer's break-in.
The particle beams passed hundreds of meters from their location and were accelerated once again towards their final destinations taking the form of a plasma stream. Under normal experimental conditions in the past, that would never have been sufficient to carry out the experiment. They were uncontrolled conditions. A Dark Event whose manipulation allowed to a certain extent the artificial intervention to carry out the objective. Using an anomaly in the world such as the fractus cores, the particles coming from the sun to activate such cores and finally the temporal position to carry out the displacement.
Although that was beyond the capabilities of the control program, which could only execute the orders that had been imposed on it by the Director and the other scientists who had been there moments before.
In the other subroutine, the program was set up to change the geometrical shape of the mirror boxes in the chambers to a spherical shape, for the bouncing of the particles in the final phase. Likewise, external rotation motors in four different parts of each chamber had been put into operation to put the huge sphere into horizontal rotational motion.
The outer machines were in charge of opening the tiny hole in the top that would allow the particles to enter the inner part.
In LC1 the particles entered like a calm torrent. First in the form of a beam of electric blue light. Then the light particles had begun to concentrate at the central point of the circumference. As if their angular momentum had been twisted and they could not escape the attraction to that point where, just a few seconds before, there was nothing. But now something was drawing them there, something that remained invisible to the naked eye. In the concentration of particles it seemed that a sphere was forming, that in its first moments was reminiscent of a plasma ball.
Several hundred meters from there the two Pening traps were empty now, but a third one wasn't.
The third and last one was containing fewer particles, particles that were short-lived and would undoubtedly be extinguished in the next few minutes.
***
Shin was worried.
He had never reached the site. He was still fighting and had not been able to fulfill his part of the mission.
The fight had continued for a few seconds. But he had noticed that the girl's agility had increased and her blows no longer contained the fierceness of before, but were at the same time much more controlled.
He had to put an end to it once and for all. There was something that worried him even more.
Those blue particles that he had been seeing for a while had disappeared almost as soon as he had separated from Stuart. The fight had distracted him from it and he hadn't noticed.
There was something he didn't like about it all. Had they been wrong about something? And if the premises were wrong from the beginning?
The duty to stop the experiment on the one hand and, on the other hand, the possibility that they were there to cause the final part was what worried him. There were too many things on his mind. And since the last moments he could not concentrate well. His head was hurting once again and he wondered what was about to happen.
It was at that moment that he got careless. The girl sent a kick that was a feint. Shin ducked and her foot hit a column.
Pieces of concrete flew off and the girl jumped backwards, jumping into an adjoining wall and moving almost five meters away.
Shin looked at her, confused, but soon she disappeared from his sight and was replaced by darkness.
Dozens of tons of concrete and earth fell on top of him. The already cracked ceiling succumbed under Shin, when the girl kicked one of the columns that seemed to be holding all the weight on that part.
***
A tremor shook everything and EVE moved a little further away.
The roof was still cracking and more concrete and dirt was falling. The earth that had fallen on the man began to sink into a new hole in the floor and he too was dragged down. The floor in that part had also caved in and now EVE saw a five meter pit that was widening and opening up a gap. That part was close to Lake Lemac, surely miles below it ran subterranean tributaries.
If she got trapped there and was dragged down she wasn't sure she would make it out alive.
She started to run away from the place and used the Neurowire to try to connect with the control center where she had been a few moments before with the Director. No one answered.
EVE stopped and read the map she had downloaded into her mind as she looked around.
It had just dawned on her. Now all the way back the way she had come was blocked. She was trapped.
She looked around her. No. Maybe she wasn't.
All around were the remains of the tactical droids, against which the intruders must have been fighting, and at the same time the bodies of the mercenaries.
Where had the intruders come from?
She checked the map once more and saw that there were several emergency exits at other points in the old hadron accelerator. But who knew what state they would be in.
If she went through the place where the intruders had entered, there was a chance that she would meet someone else on the way. It was better to take another route if she could find it in that labyrinth. There were longer routes, but they could be safe even if it was to face several kilometers in the dark so as not to attract attention.
***
Newhaven, Edinburgh.
After what had happened last weekend the work had continued in the old port.
Forensic and FRT teams had been working around the clock trying to find the cause of what had happened. Few details had been leaked to the press but that explosion on the abandoned ship could be seen from miles away. It was an enigma to many, although the Sign Organization had tried its best to downplay the seriousness of the matter.
Beyond the investigation, the truth was that little could be corroborated, just a few remains of that fierce fight against those mercenaries. There were almost no remains of the ship to know what had happened.
The teams on site had set up several tents for the teams. Mobile laboratories, security and a fence to prevent the arrival of curious onlookers. But at that time the teams were only just waking up
In one of the tents a team were having breakfast, getting ready for a day's work.
Among them was a certain man with an antenna on his forehead that projected a blue light on his face. That man with the slightly rounded face and sharp teeth was a fey. His name was Portman.
Although Jim Stuart's team had been relieved for the break of the investigation, Portman was one of the few who had asked to work with another team to carry out a detailed analysis. After all, spectroscopy and particle analysis were part of his specialities too.
Portman had just woken up half an hour ago and was almost ready to get to work with his colleagues at that moment. He had hit it off quite well even though he didn't know any of them.
They had been joking about breakfast in the rest tent, when Portman stopped with a piece of muffin he was about to eat. The piece was halfway to his mouth, but he never got to it. The others had continued eating and joking among themselves. But Portman had stopped and was looking toward the entrance.
His eyes looked quizzical.
He put the freshly printed muffin back on the tray with the others and put his coffee on the table.
“What happened?” asked a human girl from the team.
“Nothing...” Portman walked to the entrance and pulled open the gate and looked out. It was dawn and the cold of the old port hit him in the face. “Excuse me for a moment. I'll be right back,” he said and went out.
Portman was out before the others could answer him and was on his way.
It was not his imagination. There was a strange buzz among the teams. A voice that wasn't there the day before.
He had felt it. He had heard a rumor that had resonated in his mind and his ability to sense the emotions of others.
There was a mind, a voice that was not in tune with the others.
A empath ability could not make him see what others thought, but what they felt.
And it was this that had attracted Portman's attention. He had detected strange emotions.
Loneliness. Sadness. But at the same time joy. There was something else in those emotions but he couldn't figure out what it was.
With his Neurowire he corroborated the security and the people present in the place, as well as their locations. There were at least sixty people detected, and three security mechs with aeons. But there was someone else.
Yes, there was someone who shouldn't be there.
Portman made his way to what was left of the old ship, which had been covered with a structure to hide the work from any curious onlookers.
From a distance that structure looked as if it had been a sheet placed to cover a corpse. And in a way it was. It covered the remains of the old ship, at least what was left after that strange crimson explosion.
No one was supposed to be there at that hour. Not for another hour at least.
Portman stopped and looked up at the structure and called out to the others. He was sure now. “Alert security. We've got someone sniffing around!”
***
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Into the nothingness, into the everything, without knowing it.
Jim Stuart screamed.
He screamed at the top of his lungs.
He felt his body burning.
He was floating at insane speed in that spherical cavity. Everything was being dragged, burned, dissolved, transformed, deformed. He could not describe the horrible sensation. Parts of his body were falling apart.
Was that the end for him?
He looked out of the corner of his eye. The dog was still changing size and, like Stuart, was also spinning in that whirlpool of plasma but the pup, if it could still be called that, didn't seem to be suffering as Stuart was. And the professor?
Lee Reubens was also spinning around, still unconscious. His body seemed to be suffering the same as Stuart.
Maybe it is good he is like this, Stuart thought. Death would come to him in his sleep.
Now they were all part of the cloud of plasma particles, suspended in a limbo of uncertain existence. As his body disintegrated, his consciousness expanded, spanning the vast abyss of space and time. Stuart could feel the irresistible pull of an unknown force, drawing him into the center of the whirlpool.
For a split second it seemed to him that everything was happening in slow motion, even though the pain felt incredibly vivid.
In the heart of that whirlpool something had appeared.
At what point?
Stuart wasn't sure. It had appeared out of nowhere.
A dark sphere in the center of the room, floating and with plasma swirling around it.
Time travel, Stuart thought. A wormhole.
https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/42dd80f9-5ac6-42d5-8ccc-bcea020b6152/dic5z5y-7e997d15-35f8-4df5-b5ec-0bc76a2af082.jpg/v1/fit/w_828,h_1170,q_70,strp/nevermore_enygma_vol_5_chapter_73_by_hasegawakein_dic5z5y-414w-2x.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9MTY4NCIsInBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcLzQyZGQ4MGY5LTVhYzYtNDJkNS04Y2NjLWJjZWEwMjBiNjE1MlwvZGljNXo1eS03ZTk5N2QxNS0zNWY4LTRkZjUtYjVlYy0wYmM3NmEyYWYwODIuanBnIiwid2lkdGgiOiI8PTExOTEifV1dLCJhdWQiOlsidXJuOnNlcnZpY2U6aW1hZ2Uub3BlcmF0aW9ucyJdfQ.MvJS-Ts4jWTPy6vZ_FijEOxaUlcpKQbi_RPYqQ7-Fhs [https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/42dd80f9-5ac6-42d5-8ccc-bcea020b6152/dic5z5y-7e997d15-35f8-4df5-b5ec-0bc76a2af082.jpg/v1/fit/w_828,h_1170,q_70,strp/nevermore_enygma_vol_5_chapter_73_by_hasegawakein_dic5z5y-414w-2x.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9MTY4NCIsInBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcLzQyZGQ4MGY5LTVhYzYtNDJkNS04Y2NjLWJjZWEwMjBiNjE1MlwvZGljNXo1eS03ZTk5N2QxNS0zNWY4LTRkZjUtYjVlYy0wYmM3NmEyYWYwODIuanBnIiwid2lkdGgiOiI8PTExOTEifV1dLCJhdWQiOlsidXJuOnNlcnZpY2U6aW1hZ2Uub3BlcmF0aW9ucyJdfQ.MvJS-Ts4jWTPy6vZ_FijEOxaUlcpKQbi_RPYqQ7-Fhs]
A wormhole in the shape of a black sphere surrounded by a bluish halo unfolded before Jim Stuart. A three-dimensional throat of pure energy that would absorb everything.
Jim Stuart had no doubt what he was witnessing, although he had never seen it beyond simulations. Undoubtedly they had used a virtual wormhole to make it real using some source he didn't know about.
The energy cubes could generate enough energy for the experiment for that, but the material to perform such a feat had to be different.
He thought about the materials for a second.
That thing stolen from Rome.
What happened on the plane.
The fragments stolen from Russia the year before.
Was it possible after all?
It was a portal to the impossible, a shortcut through time that held within it the power to destroy or redefine everything it touched and maybe the possibility of moving it to another time. The sight of the wormhole aroused in him a mixture of fascination and horror. On the other hand, he had so many thoughts in his mind that he had not realized how important it was. Shouldn't he already be dead with all that plasma around him?
He wasn't imagining it, time seemed to slow down more and more.
The journey through the throat was not simply a transit. It was an experience of dazzling transformation and terror. As his essence entered the abyss, the boundaries of reality blurred. The past, the present of his memories intertwined in a kaleidoscopic mosaic of possibilities, where every fragment of his being was reconfigured and reimagined into that sphere in the form of elemental particles.
But, he was not in his real body, just a synth. What would happen to him?
And time. Time was terrifying too. If everything already seemed to slow down for him, as he got closer to that sphere, it seemed that everything stopped even more.
Dilation. For an observer at a safe distance, everything was surely happening in less than the blink of an eye. But for those who were there it was an eternity. An eternity. An infinitesimal unit of time, but extended by such an absurd amount that it was useless even to express it in numbers. At that point no matter how strong a mind was. The only thing that awaited those unfortunate enough to be caught in it was madness and the disintegration of sanity.
The transition in that Maelström of energy was a dance in which his body was disintegrated and dissolved as memories seemed to disappear and at the same time memories merged with different moments of his past. The current of time swept him along, an inexorable tide of change and chaos.
As he slipped slowly into the wormhole, the unsettling sensation of dissolution enveloped him even more. He felt as if his essence was being devoured and recreated at the same time. Contradictory sensations that he could not fully explain. He found in them a certain similarity to descriptions of nightmares or to those testimonies of prisoners whose memories were erased. They had no memory but the sensation that something had been stolen from them and that no matter what, it would not return.
What was about to happen to his memory? Jim Stuart's fear grew. What was happening to the memories?!
Suddenly, a subtle vibration shook the sphere he was heading towards. The plasma seemed to be slowly being absorbed, as if responding to a call from that three-dimensional spherical devourer.
Jim Stuart had lost the sight of one eye. It had slowly disintegrated, as had part of his face. Was his head still attached to his body? He couldn't be sure of that. Perhaps the dilation was clouding his senses from the pain and only his consciousness was working at full speed.
Oxy.
Stuart thought about her.
Had Shin gotten to her? Had he pulled her out of the capsule?
Through it all, he still hoped that she was all right. He could afford the luxury of that thought, couldn't he? After all, he was dying. And he wanted to think that Shin had been able to escape from that sphere before all that happened.
Stuart thought about it carefully. Everyone's fear. An explosion like the one in Tokyo. No. It wasn't possible. A wormhole. He reviewed everything he knew about them and if he wasn't mistaken there had to be a balance between the positive and negative energy at the mouths of the wormhole. Otherwise everything would collapse in a matter of milliseconds.
Indeed everything was happening slowly for him, but it was possible that all this was not lasting more than a couple of seconds at most.
His mind was relieved. It wasn't possible for something like Tokyo to happen, was it? At most it could cause damage, but nothing more. It was likely that the fight of Shin and the others was leaving more damage than the experiment itself.
Yes, it was better to think like that.
What could he do in that situation? Floating in the middle of a plasma vortex slowly approaching the wormhole? He felt like an insect about to be trapped in amber.
If time continued to drag on, his mind would most likely be shattered before his body was completely destroyed.
The dog? Where is it? I could no longer see it.
The capsule that had contained Lee Reubens was floating near the sphere, along with the professor Lee Reubens. Due to the violence of the whirlwind the body had come out of the capsule. Parts of his body were disintegrating.
Everything was getting darker as Jim Stuart approached the sphere.
Suddenly everything went black and that was the last thing Jim Stuart saw at that moment.
Whether it was luck, or curse, it didn't last more than ten minutes for him that torture in his time dilated.
***
LC1.
The wormhole in the first chamber had lifted the capsule in which Jack Pierson was resting. Time also seemed to stand still from the perspective of the consciousness, even though the only one there at that moment was not aware of what was going on around him.
The capsule was unraveling, as it was being sucked into one end of the wormhole's mouth.
Time moved and the next second everything was gone.
There was no trace left in any of the chambers of that raging plasma.
LC1 and LC2 were empty.
There were no capsules, no occupants. There were no remains, no ashes. Everything that had been there was gone.
The spatial distortion ceased as the room returned to its cubic form.
Sounds of breaking glass were heard in both chambers, although there was no one to hear the sound.
Mirrors were shattering. There was a tremor and several of the concrete walls near both chambers showed signs of cracking, as if giant skeleton hands had suddenly appeared on the walls.
Beyond that that was all that happened.
Nothing bad happened.
Yet.
***
Newhaven, Edinburgh.
Janus sighed and walked into the maze of the abandoned harbor.
He couldn't deny it. He had too many emotions at that moment. That cultivated and reinforced heart with fractium structure was beating wildly in that body that had been made for his final mission.
He had done it. It was happening.
There had been too many sacrifices but he had done it.
It was there.
His final destination.
He had arrived just a few minutes before and had hidden the vehicle in the sea. No one in security would expect anyone crazy enough to try to invade that place.
He had swum three hundred meters across the sea to get closer to that place and finally succeeded.
He had infiltrated the huge structure that had been the site of the harbor disaster, as the press had called the strange event.
But the press would never know anything. Nor the invaders from other place would they know that he was to blame for the raid not having turned out as it had.
Several days before that incursion from another universe he had planted security devices in that place.
He had seen it in his visions and luckily it was crystal clear where the arrival of the invaders would occur.
Special disruptors to unbalance the incoming energy. That must have caused the invaders to feel as if they had a hangover but multiplied by thirty times. Dizziness, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and surely some internal bleeding, because the molecular cohesion could be affected.
Thanks to this, the invaders had had to make use of those two thieves who brought him the piece he needed for his mission.
Stan and Rum were vital pieces in all of that, even if they didn't know it.
Janus smiled and slipped into the shadows in the knee-deep water, among the testing equipment and twisted iron that had withstood that hell days before.
There was no one there yet. That was lucky. At least he wouldn't have to use his new body to fight.
Now only the final part remained.
He closed his right fist and in his forearm he felt how that fractus nucleus from another universe vibrated.
He was getting closer.
He took a step and then another one and stopped. He raised his arm and held his breath.
That was the point that had connected the two universes. And it was also the point where he would enter.
Everything coincided with what was happening in Geneva. Just a few seconds.
“Stop there!”
Janus didn't turn around at first. he simply grabbed his weapon and quickly turned around, in the direction of the voice that had called him.
A team of seven were there.
Janus fired.
The bullet hit a fey empath with an FRT overalls that had an antenna in its forehead.
Portman collapsed and began to moan in pain. The bullet had pierced his lung and he felt cold.
The others returned fire, but the first bullets ricocheted off Janus while the others passed through him.
Now! thought Janus.
Everyone present and those who had been added watched the spectacle in amazement.
Janus' body began to vibrate and his entire physiognomy distorted as if he were suffering from a standing epileptic seizure. But in fact Janus had not taken a step, everything was concentrated on that same point. The technicians knew that something had happened at that point the day before. It was from where all that ship had been destroyed. Something had happened but they didn't know what. They could only guess what it was thanks to that body that shared the same face of that detective.
An incursion.
But that was not the time to think about it, as everyone stopped wondering about it in the next second.
They did not expect the sudden explosion of water that occurred the next moment. Everyone who was there was thrown out when out of nowhere a sudden wave of heat hit them all.
The last thing many saw of the strange being that had shot Portman was as if his entire being had been compressed into a small space and then exploded.
The structure trembled, but resisted.
Those who had been sent flying got up looking for the assailant but there was nothing there.
Others ran to Portman, who was spitting blue blood from his mouth.
“Who the hell was that guy?”
Portman tried to sit up and looked in the direction from which the strange being had disappeared. It wasn't his imagination. The moment he had shot him he had felt an emotion coming from him.
It was joy.
The same joy as a small child with a new toy playing happily. An immense happiness.
That emotion contrasted with the coldness with which he had shot. But Portman, dismayed by it, had found no malice in that emotion. What had just happened?
They did not know. At that very moment a time travel was taking place in Geneva.
***
Azusa was silent, but inside her emotions were welling up.
She felt it.
The end had come.
Eons and eons had passed. And although the passage of time was different for her in a higher dimension, the truth was that now that the moment had arrived, a different emotion invaded her.
Billions of years of waiting for everything to culminate at that moment.
If destiny was true then it would end there.
At least for her.
What would Mai say? Would she forgive her?
She felt sorry for that girl who had taken her as a friend.
What was Mai to her?
A friend? A goal to an end?
No. Not a goal.
She had wondered many times and felt that the feeling could be in the friendship even though her kind had never been very good at it to begin with.
Where would they be hiding now? In what time?
Azusa shuddered.
That day could well be the beginning of everything or the end of billions of years of waiting.
The image of the one she had loved flashed through her mind.
He was there too. Close by. She could feel him in the sky. Although they had different goals.