Sophie and Liam felt a deceptive intent arise deep within Marilyn. The digital creature was hiding something. Before they would speak, the trio resumed its travel. They plunged closer in the direction of the red-colored worm, Sophie and Marilyn's world. They braced for the impact, but like a plane enters a cloud, they quickly crossed into the tube. The moment they touched the outer skin, their view changed. They now stood inside of a large library. Here there was no ceiling, no floor. Only endless stacks of books.

As if they came alive, each book slipped out of its shelf, as if opened by magic. Pages ripped from the books and exploded violently. The stacks of paper spread apart like serpents and images instead of word-filled paper. Each page was animated, like a small computer display and not simply paper.

Like the worms of the previous vision, attached by invisible strings, the stacks of cards floated in a carefully orchestrated ballet. There was a very precise order which must not be disturbed. To Sophie, the images within a book were related in an essential way. The stacks reminded her of some old silent movies created by flipping stacks of cards quickly under a light, or a flipbook made by a child to create a rudimentary cartoon. Here, video images were flipped in succession creating something else: a dynamic movie.

Then pages began to fly out of sequence. They flipped and moved with no discernible sense, like butterflies in a courtyard. Some images flew closer. As the pages floated, she could see images appeared on both sides of the paper, but both sides of the page showed completely different scenes. They were images of her world, of Earth. On them was nothing she could recognize.

"Liam, what is this?" asked the girl.

"In my world, in the Lowest, we call this a Clutch. There are dimensional clutches and temporal clutches." The two-sided papers with a different image on each side continued to dance around the room. Liam knew he needed to explain more simply to the girl. "A map is nothing more than the two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional thing. So the map, an object of fewer dimensions is used to represent something of a higher dimension. We call this a clutch because it's imperfect. It helps the reader, but we want to keep in mind how the map is just a map. In that example, since the map reduces the space, we call this a dimensional clutch." Around them, the images were vibrating. "The same way, an image is an instant representation of something ongoing. A video recorded by a machine is only a series of flat images. We call making a video a temporal clutch."

"So what is this, a clutch?"

"I think this is both a temporal and dimensional clutch, but in a very elaborate form."

"What does it mean?" she asked.

Marilyn spoke. "He is wrong Sophie; this is not what he calls a clutch."

"Then what is it?" asked Sophie.

"No living creature has ever seen this, including myself." Corrected Liam.

"What is it?" Repeated Sophie to the digital creature.

"I will explain with a single condition. You must promise to bring me home once the Multiverse has finished giving us this information. I do not want to be stranded."

"Of course." Her answer reassured Marilyn.

"Focus on a single card," began Marilyn. "Look at only one image random." As she did, the book opened, and as if she had picked a card in a magician's deck, the sheet slipped partially out of the stack. It stabilized in the air in front of her. At first, the paper, like a fly trapped in an invisible spider web, was wiggling. Then it calmed down. The page began to flip from its front to its back every second each time with a succession of different images. The paper was alive and appeared nervous.

On one side was a ship about to hit an iceberg on the Barren Sea. The page flipped. On the other was a captain ready to move the ship. The paper flipped back to the iceberg. Then back to the front page where this time a different captain at the helm of the ship. The card flipped around to the past. This time Sophie saw was a lottery ball on a television channel. Then it flipped again, and again faster than Sophie could read. Each time the images were different.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

"I don't get it." Sophie finally said.

"Your brain sees time in a linear fashion. The past is gone, and the future has yet to happen. Unlike you, those pages are how the Multiverse operates. To it, every part of time happens at the same time. The past, the future, they are all connected. On each side of these pages are linked events. I would say one is the cause; the other is the consequence if we must believe any portion of Liam's silly theory."

"What does it mean?"

"Imagine your life worked this way. Imagine if you could play with these tiles and subtly change how things work in your life to get to the best outcome you can conceive of; the one where Laurent sees your grandchildren. The one where you are the happiest."

"Then why not do that?"

"As you can imagine, for a specific outcome to occur would require more manipulation and thus more pages. Each page here is a causal request, a change or a deviation from the normal timeline."

"How do you know this?" asked Liam.

"This is not the time," interrupted Sophie. "I need to know."

"Thank you, dear. The Multiverse tries to deviate life from its true road as little as possible. Once it sets up the desired consequence, then it bends around itself locally. Remember that Pi variant I uncovered? That's the Multiverse's bend. The God Bias once did not exist on Earth. Back a century ago, the bias was zero. The Multiverse did not involve itself. Then, slowly the Bias increased."

"When did it begin?"

"Hopkins uncovered the bias in 2046, so yes well before your birth my young friend."

"Is that it?"

"No," answered the computer, "the moment I say something else, I think we will move from this place."

Liam bit his tongue to remain silent.

"What is it?"

"Look around and think of a known public figure." The girl did. Hundreds of sheets floated. On one side was an of image of Lo, her favorite singer. On one he was driving a car, on the other, he fell from the stage.

"You met Lo, right?" asked Marilyn.

"Yes, on the Colbert show. What a fool I made of myself."

"Think of that event." Nothing happened. "Think of any event where you were not there. The writing of Alice in Wonderland." She did, and the sheet floated to her. "Try thinking again of any event where you were there." She did, and nothing happened. She could see herself. To the Multiverse, Sophie did not exist.

"What," before she could finish the words, as predicted by the computer, the trio was swept away one more time.

They were back in the valley looking at the sea of light worms, but over the worms were millions of the library books. The reddish colored worm, the one supposed to be the Cold, was covered at some bends with the paper. As the red infection appeared on one part of the worm, the books like white blood cells converged. Then the infection passed.

"What do you see?" asked Liam.

The girl kept her vision to herself. Then there it was. On one tip of the red worm, the pages all swarmed. But this time, the infection jumped on the pages and counter-infected what normally should have cured the problem. The red color turned deep red, then purple and black. "The pages are dying; the world is dying."

"I know," answered Marilyn.

"What should I do? What does all of this mean?" She looked around. Down in the valley, the worms were dying; lights were growing dim. She was seeing the end of time.

"Marilyn, Liam, what is going on?"

"Sophie, can I ask a favor, do you trust me?" Liam asked, solemnly.

"Of course."

"Can you, for a moment, contemplate leaving Marilyn here?"

As he finished his words, there was a murmur of light down in the valley. As if Liam was given the Multiverse hope.

"Are you hurting the Multiverse?" asked the girl. The question created more light and seemed to reverse the flow. "Does it want me to leave you here?" In the blink of an eye, they had their answer.

Sophie opened her eyes. She was back in the Electoral Complex. Smiling down on her was Milly the journalist and two of her cameras. She was dangling the white plush toy. "Welcome back." The room was darker than usual, but there was air to breathe.

"Liam, are you there?" she said out loud. Within her, his voice answered.

"Yes."

Life was popping back on each screen; light was returning to the televisions in the room. On them was the smiling face of Marilyn.

"You're back!" exclaimed George.

"Yes, my dear father, I am. Yes, I am. That was a close one. The game goes on!" Exclaimed Marilyn loudly over every speaker in the Center. "The game goes on!"

Here Ends Book 1 of 2 of The Attractor