Sally woke to a new dawn, just like the old dawn, day, evening, night, same light as always. She looked around from her bed. Jon was standing close by, instead of the usual re-checking of the rooms.
“Hey Jon. Good morning.”
“Morning.”
“Is it morning?”
“Close enough.”
Sally paused. Then added, “You are getting much better at banter.”
“Yes.”
Silence.
“Maybe not.”
More silence.
“So, what are our big plans for today?”
“I think we have exhausted the avenues of investigation we can follow at this location. Time to move on.”
Sally was surprised. She had been thinking much the same, now that she was in adequate shape for a bit of a challenge, and, well, there really wasn’t much else to do, here.
“There are times I miss the internet,” she mused out loud.
She was somewhat surprised when Jon replied. “I understand your feeling, I am missing the data that I had access to as I developed. Here the average information density is low.”
Feeling a weird sort of camaraderie, Sally went about getting ready for her day. As she dressed, she called over to Jon. “Do you have a change of clothing? All you wear is that red shirt and blue pants.”
“This outfit is actually part of me. Would you want to change your skin?”
Sally thought about it, “Well, honestly? Yes. That would be cool. Might fix some issues we have on Earth.”
She looked over at Jon. His shirt and pants were now a white background with blue and red polka-dots. Sally started laughing so hard she had to sit down.
When she recovered Jon was back to his normal red shirt and blue pants.
“Well, I can say, life here has its moments,” she said, finally.
She continued preparing for her day. She ate some of the powder and a few seeds, then looked at the IV bag.
“Jon, do you think I can drink the water in the trough now?”
“The filters are probably well established, so, yes, it should be okay. You might want to watch for signs of explosive diarrhea.”
Sally flashed a look at him. “Really?”
“No. You will be fine.”
“You are kind of a jerk, sometimes.”
“Thanks, I’ve been working on it.”
While she’d been getting ready, Jon had folded up her bed, packed up their meager possessions, and put everything on the wheelchair. He was currently crouched by a patch of grass, gathering some and putting it into a bag. She had noted that he had occasionally eaten a few blades of the grass, and he’d told her it wasn’t something he absolutely needed but it made his processes simpler.
She went over to the up-waterfall part of the stream.
“Well, here goes nothing,” She cupped her hands, scooped up some water, and drank it. Surprisingly, it actually had some taste and it wasn’t horrible. First thing here that wasn’t something she had to “get used to”.
She drank some more, then called over to Jon. “Should we make something to carry water?”
“We have the IV bag. If it is empty and we can’t find a stream I can run back and get water. I think we are fine as we are, for now.”
Sally thought it over. She concluded that he was probably right. Water seemed to be easy to find, and stored water wouldn’t be as good as the fresh stuff, plus it was heavy. If she was by herself she would have carried the water, but, like he said, Jon could deal with any issues. Not for the first time she realized how much she depended on him.
Packing was simple, and in a very short time, they were ready to go. They left the room, with Jon’s hand preceding them. Sally didn’t look back. She wasn’t one for regrets.
A quick look when they reached the “hospital” showed no change, no new tenant. The fake hospital noises faded behind them as they continued on.
At the last room, they threaded through the remains of the bodies Jon had dissected. Sally wondered if she should do something with the body parts, but didn’t know what. There wasn’t any place to bury them, and cremating would take a long time and might not be that successful. She could throw them over the cliff outside, but that didn’t seem right either. In the end, she just left them as they were.
They stopped at the exit to the trail.
Jon turned to her. “After this point, we will be in a region that I cannot thoroughly investigate before we travel through it. It is likely the other Sally and the bear came this way, so there is some indication we will have no problems, but I can form no conclusions as to what we will encounter.”
Sally looked at him. “What's the difference? We don’t know what is going on anyway, so… onward, stout fellow!” She’d heard that somewhere.
The outside trail went a small distance with the drop-off on one side, then turned to pass between a couple of windows. At this point, they found themselves walking along at the bottom of a crevasse with windows on both sides as the trail continued on ahead of them and curved out of sight.
Their reflections accompanied them. She’d asked Jon if he could see through the windows, he told her that from the outside the windows were opaque to his senses, just like the walls were. It seemed that you could see out, but not in. Sally thought about it. Maybe they weren’t windows at all, but just mirrors? Probably not. She exercised her prerogative to have an opinion with no data.
Sally suddenly remembered the thought she’d had yesterday. “Jon, I wondered if you can use your nose to, I don’t know, um, sniff around, and see if the other two came this way?”
Jon paused. “Reconfiguring,” he said.
He got on his hands and knees and began sniffing the ground. For some reason, he used his hands to brush the trail. He crawled back and forth, then over to the walls and did the brushing thing up and down the windows, as far as he could reach, snuffling the entire time. Sally tried not to laugh.
After a while, he got up and walked over to her.
“Yes, they were here, quite a while ago. There is only a tiny trace of scent from the bear, just on the trail where it placed its feet. Humans, on the other hand, spew cells everywhere. There are scents from the other Sally spread fairly evenly over the trail and walls, so I conclude that she rode on the bear.
“The preponderance of evidence indicates that they passed here only once. This leads to the conclusion that the other Sally did not originate in the same hospital room as you.
“I am going to modify my feet to detect these traces. It will be less sensitive than my other sensors, but will provide a continuous data stream while we carry on normal activity.”
Sally was having an internal crisis! Her brain was screaming at itself. The battle surged back and forth as she walked. Ultimately, it was a lost cause.
Much against her will, her mouth uttered, “So. Do your feet smell... anything?”
“The same. Also, I admire your attempt at restraint”
“I’m so sorry.”
With that over, Sally mused about the whole situation. Jon had always had the means to analyze smells for tracking, but he hadn’t thought of doing it himself. She would have to think about what that meant.
They wandered down the trail for another hour, or so. It remained unchanged, just walls and the trail. For the most part, Jon pushed the chair. The air had no particular odor, and it was reasonably warm, nice for walking, and the light was adequate without being too bright.
Sally looked over at Jon, “Why is it so nice here? It’s just about perfect for me.”
“A fundamental property of this universe is that it can tailor regions for the benefit of its inhabitants. If multiple types with different needs are in the same area it does its best to compromise. This can lead to some instances where extreme individuals are barred in order to keep the region comfortable for the other inhabitants.”
“Do they fight over this? I'm pretty sure humans would.”
“Physical confrontation is frowned upon. The range of available technologies means that the results can be devastating. There’s no winner if there’s nothing left. Rather, a point of contention is usually a basis for negotiation. One common description is that it is a very intricate dance.
“It takes a high level of complex thought to succeed, and, unfortunately, most humans are too primitive to compete. In the case of Earth, my information is that it has been isolated to allow for a chance to improve.”
Sally thought over what he had said. “Then why me? I'm probably one of those primitives. In fact, why two of me? It doesn’t make any sense! I'm nothing special!”
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“I am perplexed, as well. Your case does not match any situation I am aware of. I have developed some low probability scenarios, but nothing conclusive. I need more evidence.”
They walked on.
Sally was thinking about all the stuff Jon had told her since she woke. She thought about the other Sally and the fact that both of them were clones. She didn’t feel any different, but Jon was sure she wasn’t the original Sally, he wasn’t even sure there was an original Sally. If there were two Sallys that she knew about, then it was likely there were more. Jon had said other Sally had been around for ten years longer than her, he also said that it was 200 years later than she thought. Doing some simple math meant that there may be twenty Sallys kicking around. That was a lot of Sallys. What was going on? Maybe Jon could help her figure things out.
It took a while for Sally to decide what she wanted to ask. First, she had to see if what she thought was right. “So, you told me that it’s 200 years past what year I think it is.”
“Actually, what I told you is that I have information from Earth up to the year 2234.”
What? “Does that mean it’s 2234 now?”
Jon didn’t immediately answer.
“Jon?”
“As I told you, my Earth data extends to 2234.”
Sally thought about it. Jon was always very exact when he spoke. Avoiding a question was new.
“Jon, what aren’t you telling me?”
After an unexpectedly long pause, Jon advanced, “We are also in a different dimension. There is a large non-linear temporal schism between the dimension Earth is in and this one.”
Sally looked at Jon. “I have no idea what you just said.”
“I do not have sufficient data to accurately predict what the elapsed time is.”
Sally knew Jon well enough, by this time. “So, if you can’t be accurate, can you make a rough guess?”
Another long pause. Then, “Yes. I have enough information to make a coarse estimate. It has taken an appreciable effort to verify the numbers. I warn you, the amount of time is significant.”
Sally waited.
“Many thousands of years have passed.”
The realization of what this meant hit Sally hard. She stopped in her tracks.
“Well,” she said, then continued, “Actually, crap, crap, CRAP! This is just more CRAP piled on top of a pile of CRAP that is on top of more CRAP.”
Letting it all go didn’t help matters. She froze in place, feeling the weight of the universe on her shoulders. She didn’t know what to do.
Eventually, she took a small step and stopped. Then another step. Another. She put enough together until she was trudging down the trail.
Seething anger had replaced her good mood. Jon followed, pushing the chair with their possessions piled on top. One wheel had developed a squeak.
Sally wasn’t a petite girl. For most of her life, she’d managed to keep her weight and temper under control. Living in a small rural town had helped her keep in shape, working various physical jobs on local farms. This meant that although she wasn’t a violent person, she could be formidable if she needed to be. There was only one time when she’d gotten violent, that was when she’d put Tommy Miller’s head through a fence when he didn’t take no for an answer. She felt that way now, there was some Tommy Miller doing whatever he wanted without expecting consequences.
Ohhh, there will be consequences! Yes, there will!
Trudge, squeak, trudge, squeak... on they went.
Who would do something like this to her? Why would they do it? What was the point? She was so very pissed at whoever had set this up.
Maybe she was powerless, maybe she was an ant trying to bring down an elephant, but by God, she was one angry ant! Something had made a lifelong enemy.
Slowly Sally reigned in her anger and started to become aware of her surroundings. The walls were further apart than before and the trail was becoming a road. Peering ahead she could see that it eventually widened into a large open area.
Sally looked up. There was a ceiling far above them now. It was so high that the haze in the air made it difficult to see. Maybe it was faintly glowing too, the same way that the walls in the hallways and atriums did. She couldn’t tell, but it wasn’t dark.
She walked on with less stomping than before. Jon followed.
Eventually, he said, “We should probably stop and you should eat and drink something. My sensor shows this area keeps opening up and becomes similar to a covered stadium, but miles across. You do not absolutely need more water than we have, yet, but it would be good if we found a source. In retrospect, we should have packed some.”
Sally had calmed enough to listen to his advice. She ate and drank the IV bag dry. She had been perspiring a little and had no need to pee. It looked like she was going to be thirsty if they kept up the current pace, since the IV bag took quite a while to fill. Jon was right, they should have brought extra water.
She looked over at Jon. “I'm sorry about how I acted back there. What you said was really upsetting. I'm also sure you could go a lot faster without me, but I guess we should stick together. Because, well... I don’t know.”
“Let me check, hmm, hmm, tsk, tsk. Nope. I checked my schedule and I have nothing else to do.”
Sally barked out a laugh and then thought for a bit.
“That actually sounded almost normal. The way you talk seems to be changing. How come?”
For a moment Sally regretted the question, Jon tended to hit her with way too much detail, to him nothing was simple. But she’d already asked.
Jon answered in the flat tone he usually used when he was conveying facts. “I mentioned to you that the main point of my existence is to store, retrieve and verify data. To do this I have a limited ability to analyze and emulate a normal interface with the entities with whom I am conversing. Speaking with you is very far from the typical way I interface. It is a very slow method of information transfer. I am stressing the capabilities of the emulation system, and have to utilize a fairly large portion of my correlation engine to comb through Earth files such as plays, novels, movies, university studies, and so forth, to find a reasonable way of interfacing with you. I use your responses to try and optimize the process.”
Sally understood most of that. It appeared he was telling her that talking to her wasn’t easy for him and he was trying different things to see what worked the best.
“I’m sure you are better at talking to me than I would be trying to talk in whatever way you are more used to,” she responded.
“Word.”
“Umm... don’t do that. Nobody talks that way, anymore.”
“Okay.”
They cleaned up, retied the food bags, and walked on.
Sally guesstimated that it took about four hours before much changed. They were now traversing a very large open area. The trail behind them had faded out of sight, so they seemed to be surrounded by walls looking much like a huge arena. New structures ahead of them slowly grew larger as they continued on. These objects, which might be some sort of weird buildings, were scattered around the center of the immense arena. After all the distance they had walked, they were still miles away from the opposite side.
Jon’s sensor had flown ahead. Sally assumed it was looking at the buildings.
“Any idea what those are?” she asked.
“The initial scan showed them to be large indeterminate structures made of various materials. A closer examination and searching through my databases show that they are, in fact, large indeterminate structures made of various materials.”
“Oh.”
They walked on. The IV bag had partially refilled, so Sally emptied it. She was fairly thirsty all the time, now. Her thoughts began to wander. Her feet hurt. Why were there no bugs? Did she smell bad? She let her mind drift through these and other similar world-shattering thoughts. Anything except how much time had passed on Earth.
Eventually, one structure loomed above them. Close up, it looked like a half-constructed building made of multi-colored girders that had partially tipped over and sunk into the floor. It was huge, but tiny when compared to the open space of the arena.
The floor they were walking on was the same as everywhere outside the rooms. Some sort of smooth hard substance. Around the building was an accumulation of dirt and a variety of scrub plants, like the atriums. The dirt tailed off as if it had been blown around by a wind, but so far, the air had been still, with maybe an occasional breath of movement.
Jon broke the silence. “This is an interesting artifact. No two girders are made of the same substance, and almost all the elements are represented, along with a large number of extremely exotic materials. This structure should be exploding, burning, freezing, glowing, and radiating, but my tests show that it is safe.”
Sally wasn’t really listening. She sat on some dirt with her back to one of the beams and wiped the sweat off her face. “You don’t say.”
“Yes, I do. That beam you are leaning against should be stripping your skin off and you should be in excruciating agony while you scream out your last seconds.
“In addition to that, there are no two joints the same in this entire structure. Rivets, glue, melting, interlocking puzzle pieces, and so on. There are even some for which I can find no previous record.”
“Well, now you won’t be able to say that about those anymore.”
Sally was exhausted. She should be more alert. What Jon was telling her was probably important, but really, all she wanted was some water and sleep. So far, it appeared that she wasn’t cut out for the life of an adventurer. Maybe when she got in better shape. She laughed, that was sort of a mantra for her life, wasn’t it? She never seemed to get into the shape she wanted to be in.
She took a breath. “So... is this going to be the thing that turns us into another pair of dead bodies?”
“No. My remote and local sensors indicate we are safe. These structures are very intriguing, and as we approached I maintained an ongoing investigation to ensure my conclusions concerning our safety, among other things, were valid. I cycled through my online sensors and reconfigured them for maximum resolution. The technology used here is something I have no record of, and this fascinates me.”
The long-winded Jon was back. Idly she thought that it was odd that he used the word fascinates. Probably his new way of talking.
Sally gathered some energy and waved her arm, indicating the structure. “Is any of this water?”
Probably that was a stupid question, but heck, nothing here made sense, anyway.
Jon’s answer surprised her. “Actually, yes. There are tons of it available, except it is currently in various solid forms. One moment.”
Jon went still. The sensor hand flew by, and Sally watched it move a short distance away and up to a beam that, honestly, looked just like all the other beams. The hand flew around it a few times, bathing it with various lights, some of which were so bright that it hurt to watch. It then flew to the lower end of the beam and after a moment something fell down, bonging off of one of the other beams. The hand then flew to the top of the beam, sped up and hit the junction. Something shattered and the beam dropped, hit some beams below it, and burst into a huge blob of water which splashed down to the ground. When the water hit the floor, dirt and plants blew everywhere. Some of the water even made it far enough to splash on her, Jon, and the chair.
“Ta-daaa. Water.” It would have helped if Jon had used some expression, but he said it in his typical monotone.
Sally had leaped up when the water hit her. “Ahhhh! Are you nuts?” she yelled with some emotion.
“I calculated that enough water would be captured in pockets in the lower structure to supply us for quite a while. Besides I wanted to test my estimates for how high you would jump.”
Sally unleashed a torrent of language that her aunt wouldn’t have approved of. Then she stomped over and found a pool of water that was in the crook of a junction of two beams and drank until she was sated. The water had some dust in it, but she was almost certain that Jon would have warned her if it wasn’t safe. Not that there was really much choice anyway.
She gave a little cheer and told herself, “Go filters! Do your stuff.”
The drink helped her calm down, somewhat, but her hair was wet from the splash, and even though her clothes were waterproof, there was water beading on them. The whole area she was squooshing through was wet. The dirt had turned into mud, and there was at least one huge puddle large enough to be called a lake. She sighed and looked around.
“Maybe we should find a little less damp area for our camp. I can dry off and we can figure out what we want to do,” she suggested.
They moved a few hundred feet away to another part of the structure where there was a buildup of dry dirt and scrub brush. There they unloaded the chair onto the dirt. Sally spread out her blankets to make her bed, and sat on it. This was okay, not as good as grass, but better than lying on the hard floor.
Jon was just standing in one spot, gazing off into the distance.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“My drone is gathering information. I am cataloging it and checking for similarities in my archives.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“It is what I do.”
Sally broke out some food and ate. While she was doing this, Jon took some grass from one of his bags and threw it on one of the patches of mud.
She looked at him. “Isn’t that sort of a waste of time? Once the water is gone the grass won’t have any more to grow with.”
“That grass is not based on the biology you are used to. It will be fine.”
Jon was hard to figure out. Sometimes he was really robotic, sometimes he talked like a normal person, and here he was sounding like an older brother who was teasing you about something he knew and you didn’t.
She opened the bag that contained some smaller sticks, removed one, and chewed on it to clean her teeth. Probably Jon could be a dentist, but she didn’t want to find out.
Sally sighed. There were so many details to take care of when you were on your own.
She walked a little way away, hid behind a pillar, and took care of business. When she was done she washed, climbed into the blankets, and immediately fell asleep.