ATHENS OUTSKIRTS.
After an X-ray, fluid samples and wound swabs, Non found a lab tech and showed his badge, but agreed that he’d need to wait.
Dr. Fulgens, a red panda with green surgeon scrubs and a blue vest, examined the fluids from Claw’s transport box. “You collected this in your prescription bottle? Let me see what you got it from.”
Non pulled out the rubber-wrapped leaking box. The panda unwrapped and swabbed down the leaking box before handing it back in a sealed bag. “I have your medical data from Chyron. He did a great job on this spot,” prodding the leeched flank.
“I rather wish that there could be a universal panacea.”
“A healing potion? Do you want me to lose my job, Agent? Give me about half an hour.”
“Let’s get breakfast. I thought the panda Q and A would never finish,” said Psykter, who had been working on Non’s game mechanics. “The hospital cafeteria is over there.”
“It’s part of relief efforts,” commented Non. “We’d be in the way.”
“All the better! The sling lets us eat free.”
Non went along despite sidelong glances. Most quadrupeds avoided restaurants without double doors, even if they fit through. An unspoken societal constraint that didn’t hinder Psykter.
The human behind the food counter didn’t mind. “What’ll you have? Mostly meats and eggs here.”
“Our dog helped with the Patras rescue. Anything you could spare for him?”
“Sure!” She prepared a bowl of items from a tray not on display and covered it with a plate before putting it on Psykter’s tray. “Perhaps bugs and nuts for your bird, sir?” she asked Non.
“Please.” A smaller covered bowl landed on Non’s tray as they moved to the next counter. Peas and carrots looked good, as did the oatmeal with raisins. Psykter got himself coffee and fries.
Ñ̰ KEEP ME INFORMED FOR WHEN ICO IS HUNGRY.
║ ARE YOU SERIOUS? ALL THE TIME, UNLESS IT’S KIBBLE. DEPENDS ON FOOD QUALITY.
The cashier spoke briefly to Psykter before urging them to the outside dining area. Psykter grabbed various condiments as he got his coffee just right. Outside, he chose a picnic table to settle at before setting the bowl of scraps down for Ico. Picoid didn’t wait for Non to set down the bowl of bugs as they crawled within the taur’s slinged arm.
⸎ THE INCOMING PRESCRIPTION LOOKS EXCELLENT. ALSO, YOUR ARM NO LONGER NEEDS THE SLING.
The red panda walked right up onto Non’s table. “First, I have your next round of shots.” The panda gave Non a padded box with a large vial and a new syringe. “Also, I have that analysis for you, Agent. Hydra white cells, a mix of granulocytes and monocytes. In line with world regulation of Hydra blood products, the sample you provided had no T-cells. I’ll send the report now.”
Non scanned the panda’s badge to file with the reports. “Thanks, Dr. Fulgens.”
The panda looked over Non’s meal critically, approved, then walked off the table. “Of course. Be well.”
Picoid watched the panda go. “A useful analysis, Agent Holmes?”
“Cells and bacteria and stuff. Probably boring.”
“I spent millions of years collecting dust from planetoids, hoping to find primitive life forms. The lucky sectors found bacteria. I never got lucky. Are we ready to travel?”
ELEUSIS OUTSKIRTS, GREECE.
Non and Psykter came to a crossroads.
“Uncle, that road goes to Eleusis. A coach and a train there can get you to Lerna Springs.”
“Trying to get rid of your game expert? Eleusis happens to name a great logic deduction game. You need me, and I can travel more.”
“I knew Robert Abbott well. The game interface can wait. I don’t need it right now.”
“You’d throw away an advantage? Should I call you Nonsense Quitter? Have you sent this up your chain of command?” Psykter kept up the barrage of questions for a minute.
Non slumped. “Okay, okay. I’m sleep-deprived. Picoid, any comments?”
Picoid paited. “You’re fatigued. But I’d advise finishing portal training.”
Non took in the advice, then walked to open grasslands well off road. “Portal training needs a safe, quiet spot. This looks copesetic. Psykter, can you be my backup? You’ll need to contact a doctor if anything goes wrong.” He took off the sling and tried several simple catches. No twinges.
“It will be my pleasure, boss. I’ll be working over here.”
[https://i.imgur.com/zIB1WqV.png]
A half hour later, Psykter watched from a safe distance as Non completed a 4-sided portal exercise. “Non, you’re breaking my brain with the moving staff, mesmerizing patterns and portals.”
“Imagine a crumpled sheet of paper. Or the surface of boiling water. Those are 2D planes with lots of extra connection points. With entangled particles, 3D space is like that. We just can’t perceive it.”
Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.
Psykter went back to the notebook of game system ideas.
Picoid quizzed Non. “Where does the spacetime part come in? Is one portal ahead of the other?”
“All portals are set to the same time according to the book Wormholes. But it lies about the avoidance of time travel.”
“Explain that claim,” said Picoid.
“A gravity well distorts time. When sectors first escaped Sagittario’s firewall they didn’t care about time. Your only wanted escape. Many portals have been sustained long term.”
“True. But that was two sides of a strict border. Go through one way gain five seconds. Go through the other and lose five seconds. No time travel exploits exist if portals are sufficiently far apart.”
“Which is doubtlessly the status of the Somnium superportal between here and Earth, spanning a distance of 25.8 thousand light years. One portal has been in a frame-dragging zone for a billion years. We cannot synchronize them.”
“The portals are sufficiently far apart not to matter,” countered Picoid.
“However, backups exist. Are all backup portals synchronized?”
“Dismiss this train of thought. Once, I spent fifty years making a backup portal. While checking both portals, I noticed a time glitch. Just a half minute. In both, I saw a lizard on a rock under a leaf overloaded with beads of water. The water poured on future lizard and it moved off the rock. I moved through the past portal and shooed the past lizard off the rock before it got soaked. The future portal collapsed.”
“Did you report this experiment?”
“Yes. As a reward, GC assigned me the half-million year entanglement task to Pegasus III.”
“Did the collapse remove a parallel universe with a wet lizard? I apologize if this is a painful memory.”
“Very painful. But yes, we are in the dry lizard universe. Since such experiments cause havoc in the universe we have, time experiments are forbidden. We could lose superportals that need thousands of years to set up. Yes, Wormholes has inaccuracies. Your GCC division, Matters of Time and Space, has a subtask of portal integrity. Please get back to reading your book.”
As Picoid said the last sentence, a memory came to Non, amid the tensor equations.
‘Master had cataracts, but I was a handy learner. I read books aloud for him all day.’
‘A handy learner. Online name. Don’t get distracted. Finish the damned Portal training.’
His uncle worked on a screen, oblivious to the time discussion.
“Non, did you know my brother is caring for a new filly in a tent right now?”
‘Don’t distract me!’ Non calmed himself, then checked his tensors. “Yes, I talked to him earlier this morning.” From the Enchiridion, he read aloud. “The edge of the portal is a damaging fractal. If time permits, inform those who may use the portal of the dangerous edge. Psykter, Picoid, Ico, you’ve been warned. When ready, step through your portal.”
Non stepped through the portal, followed by the others. That prompted a notification.
♫ IT'S YOUR OWN DIGITAL REVOLUTION! DON'T LET THIS KODAK MOMENT SLIP AWAY.
🌌 WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY: A TWO LOCALITY PORTALITY WITH A HIGH MORTALITY LETHALITY.
A good name for portals. But also a fallacy, part of the classic “supplies are limited” sales tactic. Kodak’s chance to corner the market did slip away for digital images.
“So you can teleport anywhere?”
“Portals need entangled particles. I can see mountaintops from here. Places outside Line of Sight are more difficult and in a subsequent lesson. Unfortunately, portals come with a cost.”
“There’s a cost? That’s too bad.” Psykter stepped away from the portal, which Non closed.
“There’s always a cost.” Non lifted the jacket’s price tag. “Care to review some info with me, Uncle?”
Psykter pinned his ears back, but raised them again. “What sort of info?”
“Let’s look at a partial transcript of my last chat with Lernea.”
“ARPANET, PRIVATE CHAT, LERNEA5-NONAGON.”
“ARE WE IN?” ASKED LERNEA FIVE. “ENCRYPT BY ONLINE NAME AND TURN ON YOUR PERFECT MEMORY. AN ABILITY YOU NEVER USE,” SHE CLUCKED. “THOSE FADED MEMORIES OF YOURS LACK UTILITY.”
“IT GIVES ME A HEADACHE. BUT IT’S ON, AND WE’RE IN,” SAID NON. “MISS DAP IS TAKING A BOOK TO HER OFFICE.”
ON SCREEN, THE OWL PASSED A PAINTING OF SECRETARY BIRDS TO A TIGHT SPIRAL STAIRCASE.
“I don’t see how this information is worth anything.”
“I might. Online Name is an anagram of Nemean Lion,” said Picoid.
“Yes. Next, on Screen 2, a painting from Lernea’s lair, a 4×3 array of the Labors of Hercules.”
Psykter scrolled down further into the transcript. “As my brother would say, no one likes wordplay except firms, fans and family. However, centaur grub prices matches with Capturing Cerberus. Irks me to hear centaur instead of equitaur, but I’m used to it.”
“I hear you, uncle. Now I’ll play Lernea’s last conversations with myself and Rumbler.”
“Do they still use anagrams in literature these days?” asked Psykter.
“Yes. Anagrams serve as major plot points in Silence of the Lambs and Sneakers.”
“I may be ancient, but even I know those are old movies,” said Psykter.
Challenged, Non brought on his A-game. “Is the movie Glass Onion recent enough? One major plot point is a fatal allergy to bromelins, the protein enzyme in pineapples. The main character of the puzzle film is Miles Bron, which is an anagram of bromelins.”
Psykter lost interest in the argument, so Non replayed the recorded memories.
“The phrase Well Learnt Club sounded awkward in that last bit,” said Psykter.
“Let’s look at what we get when we combine the screens.”
1. ENCRYPT BY ONLINE NAME -------- NEMEAN LION.
2. MASTER HAD CATARACTS, BUT I WAS A HANDY LEARNER. ---- LERNAEAN HYDRA.
3. MISS DAP IS QUITE THE INCENDIARY HEN. ----- CERYNEIAN HIND.
4. THE AMMONITES. BY … AHEM, NARRATION PAUSE. ------ ERYMANTHIAN BOAR.
5. MY FATE WAS GUESSABLE AT AN– ------ AUGEAN STABLE.
6. MISS DAP LABYRINTH. ------ STYMPHALIAN BIRDS.
7. THE FIRST NOTIFICATION OPENS THE WELL LEARNT CLUB. ------ CRETAN BULL.
8. THOSE FADED MEMORIES OF YOURS. ----- THE MARES OF DIOMEDES.
9. HOW APTLY PROFITABLE FOR HER. ----- WAR BELT OF HIPPOLYTA.
10. I’VE LEFT NO CATEGORY EXPOSED. ----- CATTLE OF GERYON.
11. HAVE THOSE BOOKS RESHIPPED, PLEASE. ----- HESPERIDES’ APPLE.
12. I DON’T CARE ABOUT CENTAUR GRUB PRICES. ----- CAPTURING CERBERUS.
A notification popped up in Non’s eye, along with a screen of Lernea 5 with a Play button.
♫ HIDDEN QUEST: SECRETS OF THE HYDRA. IF YOU WISH TO KNOW MORE, PRESS ENTER.
║ THIS IS PART OF A PROGRAM IN ICOSIAN. A FIVE MINUTE COUNTDOWN HAS STARTED.
Non made the new items visible, along with the countdown timer. “Can we analyze, isolate or copy the program before the countdown expires?”
║ NO. PICOID HAS MORE DETAILS.
Ᵽ I’M STILL CATCHING UP ON THE ANALYSIS. IT’S GOOD WE RAN THE COMPUTER SECURITY CHECKS THAT FIRST DAY.
“Tycho, please send all of this to Culpeper. Include that countdown and the video screen. Sidenote for Culpeper, Lernea tampered with Icosian.”
A portal appeared, with Culpeper stepping through, dressed in denim, work boots and blue flannel. The portal framed a pasture, broken white fence, new boards, and a toolbox on the grass. Culpeper frowned as he looked around at the various screens, then the countdown timer. A final glance at Psykter, who’d improved considerably since wheedling for money the previous night.
“Secrets of the Hydra? Non, what have you done this time?”