Part 2: The Shrouded Gate

Light snows and freezing temperatures greeted Chicago as the first lights of dawn broke through the low cloud cover. It was mid-November, and the Windy City was no stranger to an arctic chill. With a flurry of snow descending, three million residents groggily woke and began their morning routine. Rapidly, the streets of the city came to life with pedestrians and cars. Office buildings unlocked their doors and shops all across town turned on their welcome signs. Amidst the din of downtown rush hour, a woman walked across a busy intersection and entered a bustling coffee shop.

Warm air met Sophie Jameson as she put down the fuzzy hood of her beige colored winter coat. The smell of coffee and fresh baked pastries stirred her stomach which growled quietly. Sophie brushed a strand of orange hair out of her eyes and let our a frustrated grumble. The line to the counter was at least a dozen people long, and the man currently at the front was engrossed in an exceptionally long order for jam stuffed donuts. Sophie pulled out her phone. 8:25. She ran the numbers quickly in her head. It was at least a fifteen minute walk from the coffee shop to her workplace, probably longer given the traffic. Her order was simple and would take only about five minutes to prepare, which left fifteen minutes of line waiting until she would be late. Sophie frowned. That was cutting it pretty close. She had only just recently started this job and didn’t want to be late. Still, the heady aroma and her own hunger bid her to stay.

Scanning the interior of the cozy cafe, Sophie became aware of something else that had caught her attention. It felt like a pull emanating from the back of her head, and as she followed it, her eyes landed on a booth at the rear of the shop. There were two people in the seat, the one facing away from her was a tall thin man, with black hair that reached past his shoulders and a dark navy suit. Sitting across from him, facing Sophie’s direction was a middle aged woman. Sophie squinted. Out of all the patrons in the store and their varied dress, this woman stood out. Around her neck was a large fur boa which sat atop a woolen shawl and woolen sweater, all of it colored a light grey. Her frizzy hair, silvery from middle age, was tied back into a great plume which seemed to blend into the background at it edges. Blinking and rubbing her eyes, Sophie still struggled to make out where the woman’s hair ended, and where the environment began.

Lifting a long cigarette holder to her age-thinned lips, the mysterious woman took a lengthy drag before breathing a cloud of smoke that shimmered like a soap bubble.

“This… isn’t like you.” She said, the sound of her voice somehow carrying across the noisy shop directly to Sophie’s ears. “You finally decide to meet face to face after all these years, wanting to apologize? Be honest, what are you really up to now?” The woman asked the man across from her.

“Nothing at all.” The man replied in a smooth, deep voice which also carried itself clearly to Sophie. “As I said, I have see the harm that my behavior in the past has caused to you, and I want to make amends!”

The woman picked up a cup of ornately decorated coffee and took a sip. She eyed the man suspiciously, her irises flashing a strange blue color.

“I think you’re only “making amends” so you can get my help in putting this mess back together.” She replied sharply. The man laid his hands on the table with an audible slap.

“Well yes, dear sister. Everything is indeed falling apart around us, so I think getting your cooperation to right our past mistakes would be rather crucial right now!” His voice was tinged with mild frustration.

“Your past mistakes, you mean.” The woman said, shaking her head. “And actually, the most important thing for me right now is trying to figure out what exactly your game is. You’re not one to just recant everything you’ve done. If I do decide to work with you on this, what are you going to do afterwards?” She took another sip of her drink.

“I promise, that it will not be like last time.” The man insisted, his head leaning forwards. “Right now, I’m only interested in averting the disaster that is coming for all of us! As I said before, this time I will be under your direction.”

“And what about that man? Jonas, was that his name?” The woman replied, ignoring her brother’s previous words. “You’ve never taken the advice of others, not even from your own family, and now you decide to listen to … him?”

“Need I repeat myself more?! I have had a genuine change of heart!” The man insisted, leaning out of his seat. “It was wrong to cast you out and steal the work you had done, I see that now! The important thing is that we work together and open that blasted door so we can find our brother and get this over with!”

“Now THAT is the most disingenuous apology that I’ve ever heard.” The woman scoffed. “You can’t even get out a single sentence of remorse without following it up with an order!” Then, she turned her head slightly, her strangely colorful eyes focusing in on Sophie. Her brother followed suit, their quarrel seemingly forgotten, as he turned and looked directly at Sophie. The young woman was taken aback at the sight of the man’s unnaturally deep sockets and glowing pupils. For what felt like an eternity, Sophie felt like her body was frozen, and her mind and soul were being pulled towards the pair of strange siblings.

“Ma’am!” A shout from the barista stirred the redhead from her trance. Tearing her gaze away from the booth with some force, Sophie stuttered out her usual order to a slightly annoyed cashier. Handing over her credit card to pay, she snuck a sideways glance towards the two siblings, but saw an empty booth. No people, no coffee cups, not even an indentation in the leather seat remained. It was as if they had vanished into the morning mist.

Sophie ended up getting her order rather quickly, and after another brisk walk through freezing temperatures, arrived at her office. With the low clouds hanging over the city, the glass and steel skyscraper appeared like a mountain, jutting impossible high into the shrouded heavens. Pushing past the other commuters, Sophie managed to get through the revolving door of her office building at just past 8:50. Hurriedly pulling her employee badge out from her purse, she scanned in and punched in floor fifty on the first elevator that arrived. When the car finally made it to her floor, Sophie rushed out and took a right turn, arriving at the familiar double doors that marked the entrance to her employer. River North Gallery and Display Solutions was affixed above the doors in large serifed letters. Scanning her badge a second time, the redhead quickly entered the office.

The first thing that caught her eye was the morning announcements bulletin. Scrolling across the futuristic flat-screen near the entrance was a simple notification of an all-personnel meeting to be held in the A-12 conference room in five minutes. Sophie noted the announcement as she ran past, sat her things down at her desk in the nearly empty workplace and dashed to the conference room. Luckily, she made just a minute before the meeting was set to begin. Blending into another group of arrivals, she quietly tiptoed to the back and took a seat along the wall. Soon, the chatter in the room died down, before the door opened one more time and a stern faced man in his late 40’s walked in. Sophie and everyone else in the room instantly recognized him as Gerald Davies, the chief operations officer and the only member of the c-suite to work at their location. If he was giving an announcement, that meant that there was going to be really big deal.

“Uh- good morning everyone,” He started, exhaustion showing in his voice “I’m gonna cut to the chase. Speaking frankly, we are currently behind schedule on our year-end deliverable. The big Christmas morning opening at the Art Institute is over two weeks behind, and to give the work crews enough time to actually set everything up, we need to finalize our plans for the layout, decor and exhibition content by the end of this week. Having said this, I know everyone would much rather be working to get their tasks done, than listen to me repeat that we need to get our tasks done.”

The room was silent and people shifted uncomfortably.

“Not pointing any fingers,” Gerald continued. “Most of the factors were out of our control, lots of shipment delays and clients rescheduling without warning. But that means we still have a problem we need to fix, which is why I have brought in a consultant to help us expedite the final stretch.”

Mummers went up around the room as designers, developers, artists, and engineers all exchanged nervous glances. Bringing in consultants this late in the project was usually a recipe for even more delays and setbacks, as getting them familiar with the situation could take half a month at least.

“It is with great honor that I welcome Miss Naomi Myrrine.” Gerald announced.

Sophie almost let out an audible gasp as she recognized the woman walking into the room as the same one from the coffee shop. She wore a pair of stylish sunglasses that she quickly removed before scanning the room with narrowed eyes.

“Hello.” The woman said. Her voice was quiet, but carried clearly across the room. “I am so pleased to be here and I’m really looking forwards to helping you close out this project.”

“For those of you who don’t know, Naomi Myrrine is a world renowned artist and a veteran art-show planner. She should bring a good deal of expertise to this endeavor and let us quickly and efficiently do what needs to be done.” Gerald said.

“You flatter me Mr. Davies.” Naomi replied with amusement. “I’m not a miracle worker, as much as some of my family thinks me to be.” She ended the sentence with a small chuckle. “But it is true I have experience in organizing large showcases of art and public galleries.”

“ Naomi will be temporarily taking the South East corner office,” Gerald elaborated. “She will be overseeing the logistics and overall integration of all the different aspects of the exhibition, so please do coordinate all cross team efforts with her, does that sound good?”

A wave of un-enthused yeses rose up from around the room.

“Great,” Gerald responded halfheartedly, as if he didn’t believe in his own speech. “If anyone has any questions, feel free to run them by Naomi or your manager, have a good day everyone.” And with that, he was out of the room.

Chairs rustled as the entirety of the office staff stood up from the large conference table and made for the door. Exiting the room, Sophie was about to head towards to her desk, when she felt a tap on her shoulder. Turning around, the new hire came face to face her manager wearing an indecisive look. “Hey Sophie, can I have a quick word?” She asked. Sophie’s heart thumped in her chest, but swallowing any outwards sense of unease she followed the older blond woman around the corner.

“I know this is a strange ask, and usually I wouldn’t be putting so much pressure on you.” Her manager began. “But seeing as we are down to the wire here, would you mind helping Naomi Myrrine get up to speed with our operations and project? I think this would be a good learning opportunity for you as well.” Sophie blinked in surprise before nodding sharply.

“Oh yeah, for sure.” She replied, glad to have gotten an opportunity rather than a reprimand for running late.

“Just make sure she understands what kind of project we’re dealing with and what our time table is, we don’t want any complications to drag us even further behind.” Her manager emphasized.

“Yeah, I can do that.” Sophie nodded.

Satisfied, her manager nodded back. “I know this has been hard to adjust to so soon after arriving, but just hang in there for a few more weeks this will all be over. We’ll have plenty of time for the holidays afterwards.” Then she smiled, and walked back around the corner towards the work floor.

Alone in a empty corner of the building for a moment, the new hire sighed and checked her phone. This was definitely not the best time to have started the new job. Sophie reflected. She hadn’t even gotten settled in on her first day before being thrown into the deep end into one of the most ambitious public art shows of the decade. Sometimes, life just does this I guess. She thought. The only thing there was left, was to do the job at hand and hope things worked out.

Returning to her usual desk, Sophie grabbed the company issued laptop from her bag and tentatively begun the walk towards the corner office. The hubbub of the work area quickly fell away as she turned the corner, past the printing room. A large piece of abstract wall art greeted her on the left, its vivid colors and billowing forms stretching end of the hallway. At the other end, she could barely make out a frosted glass door and a single silver plaque mounted beside it. With confidence, and also a little anxiety, Sophie strode across the yawning chasm, and made it to the door.

Up close, the entrance was quite imposing. It stretched from floor to celling and let a halo of diffuse daylight pour into the dim hallway. Through the frosted glass, Sophie struggled to make out any distinct shapes inside the room, only seeing blurry blobs of color that slowly shift and morph. Letting her imagination take over for a second, the redhead visualized she was on the border of some mystical portal to another world, about to make a daring leap. And, in a sense, she was. Naomi was evidently a world famous artist, and probably existed on an entirely different plane of perception and creativity than Sophie herself. Getting to meet and talk with someone who was such a legend in the art world was something that made Sophie a little giddy inside, she just hoped that her run in at the cafe earlier hadn’t biased Naomi’s opinion. Steeling herself for a good first impression, the new hire leaned in, and gently tapped her knuckles on the glass.

“It’s unlocked, come in.” A voice said plainly from inside. “I didn’t expect to get down to details this quickly.” It joked. Leaning on the handle embedded in the glass, Sophie pushed the heavy door aside and walked into the corner office.

A gigantic window, stretching at least two stories tall was the first thing Sophie saw as she stepped from the concrete hallway into the soft carpeted office. The room was immense, its high celling and wide footprint gave it the feel of a cathedral. The great window took up the southern and eastern walls, leaving two sides of the room to be painted in a blue-ish off white that melded seamlessly into the gray sky of a cloudy day. At the southwest corner was placed a similarly gray wooden desk, and in a minimalistic chair behind the sturdy table, sat Naomi Myrrine. The older woman looked up from her wide silver laptop and focused her gaze on Sophie.

“Give me a moment, please, take a seat, but don’t let the draft in.” She motioned to a chair. The new hire nodded reverently before quickly walking over and planting herself in the bowl shaped seat against the north wall. The soft fabric received her body gently, and Sophie was almost taken aback by how far in she sunk. From her new vantage point, half engulfed by mottled gray cloth, the room seemed absolutely gigantic.

Across the vast carpeted sea, behind the desk. Naomi finished typing a final sentence before closing her laptop and properly turning to Sophie. Once again, the young woman caught a flash of color in the gray irises, a hint of shocking magenta danced off her cornea for split second, and was gone.

“Please,” she said, holding out a hand “Move closer, we can’t exactly discuss business when you’re several miles away!” She laughed for a moment, before producing her long cigarette holder and taking a puff. Sophie slowly watched the plume drift away into the decorative wooden beams high above.

“Its electronic.” Naomi clarified, seeing Sophie’s gaze. “Just water vapor.” She then readjusted her woolen shawl. “So, where do we start about this great exhibition that we’re planning?” Sophie saw Naomi’s face light up as she said the words, faint wrinkles and crease lines folding up neatly to reveal a genuine smile of anticipation.

“Well, thats kind of what I wanted to talk about.” Sophie replied. “I- uh- my manager- and the rest of the team, thought it would be a good idea for me to just summarize our goals, and hopefully get you acquainted with the project.” She stammered out. Being in front of someone so much more her senior was still nerve wracking.

Luckily, Naomi nodded knowingly. “Yes, I understand that your higher ups know this is far to late to be contracting consultants and expecting on-time delivery. They’re having you prompt me first so that they can get the blame of failure off their hands as quickly as possible and onto either yours or mine.”

Sophie blinked in surprise, her heart rate jumping at the thought of being made a scapegoat, and it thumped even harder upon hearing how disparagingly this renowned artists spoke of the company.

“Sorry, that was rather cynical of me.” The older woman backtracked upon seeing Sophie’s face. “It’s just that, after spending as many years as I have in this field, you tend to get a bit jaded about those who you work around.” She took another puff of steam from her cigarette. “I mean no offense to you or this company, in fact I think its somewhat admirable that they took on such an ambitious project.”

Sophie’s eyes went wide. “So, you already know about it?” She half-whispered.

“Yes, I always do my due diligence before any project.” Naomi’s eye twinkled again, this time a vivid neon green as she turned around, reached into her bag and pulled out a large, light blue binder overflowing with papers.

“This is all the public information as well as stuff I found from some more…private sources.” She hinted before dropping the binder onto the desk with a audible thud. Taking her fingers and leafing effortlessly through the pages, she landed on a seemingly random sheet and began reading.

“Last April, the physics study preformed at the University of Chicago yielded several unexpected and shocking results. The experiment, which was a universe simulation running on a state of the art quantum computer: The Fermi 3.0, had run for much longer than originally scheduled and begun producing high complex patterns and structures. What were initially assumed to be anomalies in the program quickly turned out to be well ordered, high order constructs. Further analysis of the structures revealed them to possess characteristics associated with living organisms.”

Naomi stopped and perfectly flipped through several hundred pages without a glance, before continuing.

“In the half a year since the original Fermi 3 simulation paper was released, dozens of follow up analysis have been published in various scientific and philosophical journals around the world regarding its implications. Yet despite the widespread attention thats been paid to this experiment in academia, its results are still widely unknown in the public. But now, several scientists on the original Fermi 3 team are attempting to change that. Building on their previous work, this team has created a new program that simulates the evolution of a universe that is similar to ours, one that is capable of producing stars, planets and even complex simulated life. In the weeks since this new publication, The Art Institute of Chicago has reached out to the university and the research team about a potential exhibition to showcase this new simulation in a effort of public science communication, few details are known.”

Pausing for a moment, Naomi then heaved the rest of the binder over to one of the final pages.

“As of this morning, we have confirmation that the Art Institute and the University of Chicago have come to an agreement on a contractor for creating the Fermi 3 universe simulation exhibition. The downtown firm River North Gallery and Display Solutions was chosen for its long history of consulting and planning successful exhibitions in some of the most renowned venues in the world. However, the high degree of technical details relating to the cutting edge computers and algorithms used in the simulation may prove a challenge to the traditionally art oriented company. Only time will tell if we will get the show of a century as promised.”

The binder was shut with a thump and Naomi rested her arms on it pastel blue cover.

“A few scientists running simulations on their new toy discover what looks like complex life emerging in their programs. Excited, they do more tests with variations on the code, end up producing a program that can accurately model the universe down to individual cells. The Art Institute realizes the enormous potential of merging scientific breakthrough with art exhibition and strikes a deal with the university and goes about finding a contractor. Several months and many executive conferences later, your bosses are left holding bags they can’t afford to drop. Does that sound about right?” The older woman concluded.

Sophie could only stare with wide eyes and a mouth ajar.

“Y-yeah, thats about all that I know.” She stammered out.

“Great.” Naomi replied with a smile. “Now with that out of the way, lets get down to what we still have left to do before opening day.”

Sophie shook herself to clear her head. Naomi was so fast and yet so prepared, she hadn’t missed a single beat and seemed to understand everything perfectly. The new hire had hoped that she would be able to spend most of the day slowly introducing the artist to the basics of the project, but it seemed like she had been far outclassed in her understanding.

“Well, uhm.” Sophie said, carefully placing her own laptop on the table. “We have a basic layout planned for the space alloted to the exhibition, but its still very rough, and our engineers are having kind of a difficult time importing the simulation code onto the hardware provided by the museum” Sophie trailed off.

Naomi was silent and squinted at the screen. Scrolling through the images rapidly, the artist nodded to herself periodically for a minute or two before straightening up and turning back to Sophie.

“Did you make these designs?” She rotated the laptop around and pointed to one of the few sketches and layout documents that Sophie had done in her short time at the firm.

“Uh, yeah.” The new hire replied with surprise. “How did you know?”

“Its quite bold.” Naomi responded without answering Sophie’s bewilderment. “Gives some good space for walking and maintains enough sight lines, but still holds the room together.” The older woman nodded contently to herself.

“All of this work looks pretty good.” She panned through the rest of the photos. “But it feels like theres no agreement between most of it.”

“Yeah, thats kind of what I heard was the issue.” Sophie rubbed the back of her neck.

“Well, that shouldn’t be too much of a problem as long as everyone is willing to put in the work and reach some kind of compromise.” Naomi reassured her. The artist returned to combing through the designs and the room was silent for another minute.

“You know what?” She said after the pause. “What would you say if I were to give your work a featuring place in this exhibition?” She said.

Sophie’s eyes lit up in excitement. “You can do that?!” the words were out of her mouth before she could fully consider what she was saying.

“Well, no promises.” Naomi laughed. “But I definitely see potential in your work and I would hate for someone else to take your ideas and run with them without having you accredited.”

“Wow, I-I don’t know what to say!” Sophie cried with astonishment. “But what’s the catch-, I mean, do you really think I have that much potential?”

“Potential is hard to measure,” The older woman replied thoughtfully. “But I do know what its like to have your vision stolen, and you have a pretty good vision.”

The gears turned in Sophie’s mind and she instantly remembered the conversation she had heard in the coffee shop.

“O-oh, your brother…” The new hire trailed off.

“Yes, it wasn’t pretty.” The consultant responded. “But, this is not the time to discuss that.” She waved the train of questioning away. “Suffice it to say, that I will at least ensure you are involved in this project somehow and not completely left out.” Then she flashed a smile.

“Wow, thanks!” Sophie repeated. “I don’t know what to say!”

“No need.” Naomi replied. “For now if you could please let the senior designers know that I want to discuss a layout plan with them at 2pm, that would be great. And please get me the software access for this project, thank you.”

Sophie nodded with enthusiasm and grabbed the papers. “Of course!” She said, her voice still giddy.

“Afterwards, we can continue discussing that design you made, and maybe I can give you some pointers for the process of art in general.” She said before propping open her computer and resuming the work she had been doing before. Sophie, for her part, almost leaped out of the door with joy.

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Lunch and the early afternoon meetings passed quickly for Sophie. Buoyed up by the promise of such lucrative opportunity, her head swirled with daydreams and fantasies about the future career laid out before of her. Maybe Naomi will give me a recommendation for instant promotion! Or maybe this is going to make me world famous! My name might even be on national TV alongside the finest art and cutting edge science! Some rational part of Sophie’s mind knew that this was just speculation. Yes, it was a great boon that a renowned artists knew her name and had taken a liking to her work, but she wasn’t going to become a legend overnight. Still, sitting at her small desk with little to do but wait, she couldn’t help but wonder.

Before she even knew it, 2:30 had come around, and as half dozen senior designers walked out of the long hallway, Sophie sprung up from her desk and sprinted past them in the opposite direction. Running past the great mural of many colors, she was just about to knock on the door when Naomi’s frustrated voice emerged from within.

“Yes, it will involve opening the gate, and we’ll need another key.” She said, seemingly having a conversation over the phone. There was a lengthy pause as the other person replied.

“Its not going to be immedia-THAT’S WHY I’m here!” Her voice suddenly crescendoed. There was another moment of silence, “Yes, that does mean I have committed to helping you put this mess back together, but don’t think for one moment this means things will go back to the way they were. There’s going to be a long, painful conversation ahead, for all of us.”

Sophie stood off to the side with her lips pursed. She felt like she had eavesdropped onto something deeply personal and had a sneaking suspicion of who had been on the other end of the line. Still, she didn’t want to appear like she had heard any part of the conversation. And so, standing out view of the glass door, she dallied in the empty hallway for a few minutes, silently admiring the large painting hanging on the wall. Slowly, silently, she counted to three hundred in her head, then turned back to the door and carefully knocked.

“Come in please.” The artist replied, voice tinged with fatigue.

Her elation sightly dampened, Sophie pushed open the door and quickly took a seat in the upholstered chair opposite to Naomi. Without pausing for a moment, the artist stashed her phone, typed a few words, then snapped her laptop shut in one smooth motion.

“Well, the conversation with the designers went pretty well.” She said, her voice upbeat once again. “I think I managed to convince most of them to consider adding your design to the pool of potential candidates. We’ll probably have another meeting at the start of next week, same time, to finalize those plans, and choose a winner for the exhibition.”

Sophie blinked in amazement. To her knowledge, all of the highest level designers had been bickering about picking and choosing a layout for weeks. To have them agree to add hers to the running was almost a miracle. Did Naomi really have that kind of reputation to throw around in the design industry?!

“That-that’s great news” Sophie exclaimed, bewildered. “Do you think this means we will be able to complete the exhibition in time?”

The corner of the consultant’s mouth twitched as she glanced around the room. “There are other complications.” She said cautiously. “Mainly, regarding the actual software that constitute this instillation.”

“Oh, did you get access?” Sophie asked. She remembered shooting an email to her boss about it but didn’t know if it was approved.

“Yes I did, thank you.” Naomi answered. “But getting it display ready…will be something of a challenge. Fortunately, I have some experience in mathematical computing as well, so I can take a crack at it and see how it goes.” She gave Sophie a reassuring smile. “But yes, since this project is now also your debut work, we’re going to discuss is how to get you through this and give your design the best chance possible.”

Sophie nodded enthusiastically while placing her own computer on the table. “After what you said at our last meeting, I did a few more sketches of my floor plan. I fleshed it out, gave it some more detail.” She opened her laptop and turned it towards Naomi who leaned in close to examine the new drawings.

“I took a look at what some of the senior designers did, and tried to work some of their elements into my-“

Naomi raised a hand, interrupting her.

“No, don’t do that.” The consultant said bluntly.

“Wait, what?” Sophie sputtered. “I’ve seen a lot of their work, its beautiful! I think there’s a lot I can learn from them.”

“Learn, yes.” Naomi raised her head from screen and looked Sophie in the eyes. Strange colors once again flitted across the gray irises. “But do not copy without understanding.” She said seriously. “Your designs, your art, they should have a vision, an intentionality behind it. Elements that can augment that vision are great, feel free to learn from those who are more experienced. But do not take without comprehending what you are taking. Make sure you know why each element you borrowed was constructed the way it was, or else you will make a habit of simply taking blindly, and when that happens you will lose the very essence your art.”

Sophie considered the words carefully. What had she taken from the other designers? She had moved some of the pillars around based on one of the other sketches. The exact shape and sizes of the screens, she had taken those measurements from a large spread sheet. And finally the material, she had chosen the chrome finish from a colored piece that had caught her eye. But thinking more deeply about it, Sophie couldn’t quite articulate what made these elements seemed so appealing.

“I thought… you would want to see more progress, since those sketches and plans were so basic.” Sophie explained awkwardly.

“Progress will come in time.” Naomi replied. “Even in urgent situations like these, we cannot rush what is essential, and understanding your own vision is definitely essential.”

Sophie nodded slowly, trying to process the words that were being said. Understanding her own vision, that was a good point, what did she want to convey with this piece? The new hire pouted, her brows furrowing as she tried to imagine a grand image in her mind. What am I trying to evoke with the placement of the screens and abstract shapes? Some kind of giant forest of technology gone awry? An apocalyptic city skyline where man had been replaced with the new digital life?

Seeing Sophie’s contorted features, Naomi gave a small chuckle. “You won’t find your vision by scrunching your face up like that.” She popped open her sleek, unbranded laptop and began typing rapidly. “There, I’ve sent you some notes and references, some of my own experience I learned on my first job.”

Sophie spun around her own laptop and scrolled through her emails, squinting at the new documents she had just received. There were hundred of them, some had diagrams and others had photos. The text was laid out not unlike a textbook or some other published reference with page numbers and even a table of contents.

“These are…notes?” Sophie asked, perusing the large title pages more closely. The aesthetic of the pages bore the dated style of late last century, yet the titles of the sections: “Grand Design”, “Foundation Building.”, and “Negotiating with the critic, the self and others” remained provocative.

“They were meant to be published as a book a long time ago, but I never got around to finishing it.” Naomi pondered. “Reality got in the way of that. Still, I think they’re worth reading. They won’t give you the answers, but I think they can lead you to it.” She winked.

“You learned…all of this from your first job?” Sophie stared in fascination of the shear quantity of documents. “What was that like for you to write so many words about it?”

“I supposed you would like to know if there are any insider secrets I can share from my time that would be relevant to you.” Naomi replied. Sophie nodded bashfully. “I have to say that our paths started out pretty differently,” The artist began. “My first job was not a career choice per say, but rather a desperate way to survive. You have to understand that home was a not a place that brought warm memories for me. Mother was a real piece of work, it was terror wherever her gaze landed, and she never missed an opportunity to torment her children. But, I discovered I had a talent for creative work at a young age, and eventually my craft helped me both escape from that place, and keep my elder brother and I safe after we left.”

She pulled out her long electronic cigarette and took a slow puff “My younger brother…didn’t come with. Unfortunately, he became tied down with obligations, he never did leave the place we grew up in...” For a moment Naomi’s gaze turned somber, but the artist quickly blinked and returned to her story. “For the longest time, it was just the two us and my meager creations. But eventually, the means of survival became a long term project I grew invested in, then it became a passion, and then a commitment. We became successful, so successful that my brother and I began employing others to help and expand the scope and complexity of my work, and before I knew it, I was leader of a whole business.”

Sophie’s eyes widened at the dramatic story, struggling to imagine the seemingly high born woman seated in front of her as an impoverished youth, out on the streets barely scraping by.

“Yes, its quite the story I know.” Naomi said. “And frankly, a lot of the early part was a blur. I poured so much of myself into all those long years that they just blended together. I headed the endeavor for a long time, and in that time I worked through an absolute universe of problems.” She tapped at Sophie’s laptop which was still opened to the pages of the unfinished book.

“Most of what I surmised afterwards is all contained in there: work-flows, habits, ways of thinking that served me well.” Naomi commented.

“I see…but then, what happened to your magnum opus after that?” Sophie asked curiously. “Things didn’t work out so well?”

Naomi sighed. “My brother.” She said simply with derision. “He was the oldest of all of our siblings, and thought he had the right to control what we did. I guess it made him envious to see me in such a revered position, he had to throw me down and take that spot for himself.” The artist sighed. “Back before the coup, we all worked for the sake of the art, just to create something new. But my brother changed things, installed an upper echelon, became a king with his court of lackeys. Those that had depended on our work, suffered.”

“Wow…” Sophie gulped. Internally, she was skeptical if such an art company restructuring could cause that much suffering. But Naomi was being purposefully vague about the exact nature of the business. Perhaps there was something more going on beneath the allegory. “What happened then?” Sophie prodded hesitantly.

“Needless to say, I came away from that entire affair quite jaded and miserable, but creating was what kept me going, its always been what’s kept me going and what I hold most dear. Whether my brother realized it or not, those years had helped me find my footing, and although I weeped at needing to leave my great work, I eventually found a new start. I had the skills needed to carve out a new niche for myself in my own small piece of the world, and from there, its was a string of small, steady projects until I had something of my own again.”

“That’s…really harrowing.” Sophie nodded. The story of betrayal had shed light on why the artist had been so insistent about keeping control of one’s own work. Still, Sophie needed to know more. Why was she now on speaking terms with her brother again, and what was he pestering her about? She decided to risk exposing herself as a eavesdropper and opened her mouth. “…before this meeting, was that your brother on the phone?” Sophie probed.

“Yes.” Naomi replied. “Just as I expected, after all these years, he and his do-nothings underlings have bungled everything I’ve built and he’s now running to me for help, but frankly I’m surprised he even thought to apologize instead of barging and demanding I fix it, its very much not like him.”

“For an older brother, he sure doesn’t act like it.” Sophie tried levity to lighten the mood.

“Oh, you don’t know the half of it.” Naomi lamented. Turning around her own laptop, she pulled up a huge org chart of dozens of level and hundreds, if not thousands of names. Sophie squinted at the small text, but still couldn’t make but any legible words. “I had to build all of that from nothing.” Naomi continued. “And my brother stole it all from right under my nose.” She spat bitterly.

“…I…” Was all Sophie could muster. What else can I say to that!? She knew there had been some feuding in their family from the cafe conversation this morning, but she didn’t expect anything this dramatic to have been buried in the past. A part of her brain did wonder though, why Naomi was sharing all of this with her. Why was this renowned and allegedly secretive artist suddenly spilling these dark moments from her past to a complete stranger?!

“Keep in mind what I’ve told you.” Naomi said somberly, eyes returning to her own screen. “Your central vision is paramount, find it and don’t let anyone take it from you.” Giving the new hire one last glance, the artist stressed a smile and Sophie knew it was time for her to go. The meeting was short but she had something to go on now, a direction for leaning and improvement. Naomi’s story hung the back of her mind. Betrayed by the family she had worked with for years, Sophie would have to keep her cards close to her chest. Find your vision and do not let it go. She repeated to herself as she left the cloud-enveloped office.

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Night fell quickly on the city. It was the heart of winter and with the solstice just over a month away, the sun had long dipped below the horizon by the time Sophie walked out of her office and into the busy streets of Chicago’s river north. It was a short walk, a tram ride, and another quick jog back to her apartment. Throughout her trip, all around her, fellow travelers were bundled tight with faces buried in their scarves and coats. It was clear that no one wanted to stay in the freezing cold for long. Buzzing into her apartment high rise, Sophie sped past the front desk, up the elevator, and into her unit with uncanny speed.

The redhead wasn’t sure what force suddenly drove her into such an energetic frenzy, but after a quick dinner and a cup of hot tea, she knew that her attention was being inexorably pulled towards her work again, the strange pages of the half completed book floated in her mind, nagging at the edges of her attention. Sophie frowned to herself. This is only the second week! Am I really going to spend a whole night on a work assignment?! Still she couldn’t rationalize the urge away. There was an itch to look at her designs again, to improve them, to find the true vision among all the noise and pull it out. Before she knew it, Sophie was at her small desk by the window, popping open her laptop. Clicking into her emails, she opened the first page of Naomi’s “notes” and began reading.

Time passed slowly at first, the introductory words were relatively mundane, giving vague hints at the supposed experience of the author. If Sophie hadn’t heard that whole convoluted story from the source, she would have simply skimmed over it. But the deeper she read, the more she could see where the vague allusions on the printed page and the truth lined up. It really was something of a tragedy, the fall of a great and renowned figure, laid low by the ones she trusted. Then, finding solace in art, the sheer act of creation carrying her through the miserable time, and finally, her escape from the betrayal and the reclamation of her own life once again. It’s quite a compelling story once you got to know the details. Sophie thought as she flipped the final page of the long, and winding introduction.

With her cup of tea now consumed, and the night beginning to get late, Sophie took a deep breath and made a plan to get through the first chapter of actual content by bedtime. Her curiosity still burned, but bodily exhaustion also called her to sleep. However, soon as Sophie’s eyes read over the first words of the page, she knew she was in for something else. In her college days, the redhead had sloughed through plenty of dull design manuals as well as more modern authors trying to put their own artistic theories into use with usually flowery language. But out of all the musings on art and design that Sophie had ever read, this book stood out like the moon on a dark night sky.

Its honesty was the first thing that stood out. Its frank discussion about all the difficulties and tediums of the creative field seemed to speak directly to some of Sophie’s own life experiences. In addition, the book was also broad, even generic in its scope. It didn’t focus on visual art exclusively, but also gestured at the composition of music, the writing of plays and poems, architecture and even performance. It brought up so many disparate topics like the spacing of the stars between in the sky, the elegance of mathematical formulas, and the certain taste of a drink on a summer day. Yet for all of its intellectual leapfrogging, none of it ever seemed like self indulgence.

Every example was always followed by a pattern of analysis and then application, Naomi sometimes wrote with such confidence as to the supposed meanings or functionality behind even cosmic phenomena that Sophie was tempted to label a great deal of the words as speculation. But she couldn’t dismiss everything so easily. Hours began to run faster, pouring like water through a sieve, as more of the book unfolded before her. In Sophie’s mind, the ideas were already coming together in a tapestry of forms and concepts. Every time she read over another passage and drunk in its heady philosophy, she would take another look at her own work and see new areas of improvement, new anchor points for design, a great web of meaning started to come together, and in the heart of it all, the outline of a shape that was her central vision began to form. Even the pictures of the pages themselves were starting to change for Sophie, seeming to stretch and warp and bend as she gazed at the words, the ideas leaping into her mind like never before. Her eyes almost felt as though they were burning up, and so when she finally saw the coda marking the end of chapter one, Sophie clamped her eyes shut and leaned backwards in her chair.

The floating hazy afterimages of the letters still swarmed in her darkened vision, the last remnants of their knowledge dripping into her mind as they evaporated into the aether. Opening her eyes and closing her laptop, Sophie groaned, somehow, she had let herself get suckered into the book completely. It didn’t help that the first chapter had been quite monstrous in size, several dozen pages of small font, and it wasn’t as if the book had been a light read or a novel where one could skim the words. This was something approaching an academic text where each example was intricate and very detailed. Sophie recalled over twenty case studies, and she had read each of with dedication and intense scrutiny. Given all of that, it had to have been well past midnight. Taking out her phone to check her alarm, Sophie did a double take as the lock screen appeared. “8:46”

Sophie had been at the book for less than an hour. She blinked, standing up from her desk and hurriedly scanned the room in excitement. Her eyes widened, not out of fear, but from elation. At university, Sophie had felt miserable when she spent long nights pouring over books. But now even with this dense text, she had gone through a substantial fraction in less than one hour and still felt completely energized, all of the tiredness she had felt earlier seemed to have sloughed off as if it had never been there at all. Sophie stared at her hurried sketches, sketches that she now had a million ideas of how to improve, she couldn’t just tuck into a movie or TV show show with all those ideas churning within her skull. And so, sitting down again, she took our her desk easel and uncapped a black pen.

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The lines of ink came fast and thick, criss-crossing the sheets of paper with great speed and delicate precision. The vision of what she wanted, Sophie could see it now, the central vision crystallizing inside her head. All of the copied elements form the other designers were swept aside, leaving her strange forest of technology standing in the middle of the exhibition floor. In front of her eyes, Sophie could now see the central, subconscious idea that her various sketches were all pulling from. The unifying vision of her piece was revealed, its central theme: The Great Doorway. Sophie nodded to herself as the redesign took shape. This new art-form, this new technology was a entry point to something never before seen. She had wanted to accentuate its novelty and its disruptiveness, but had created an image of a strange environment taken over by technology instead. Sophie now realized that the design language and the implications for that first draft had been misguided. She couldn’t possibly know what would happen to the world long-term after this discovery, she couldn’t speculate on what that future might be, her only mission was to depict the door that lead there.

With the now solidified central vision burning in her brain, Sophie rearranged the layout. Smaller exhibits and context panels now played the part of doorkeepers, inviting the visitors into the exhibit proper. As they closed in towards the central displays, the entire room was poised to funnel them closer to the middle, where at last, they would step into the gate and see the great screens in all their glory, displaying the grandeur of the self-sustaining digital universe dance in front of their eyes. From there, the exit to the room was framed as another door, a gate that lead the visitors out of the show and into the future of the real world. Sophie smiled. There needed to be some small detailing done, but she was confident that this captured the theme of moving into a new age, a new world where nothing would be the same again.

Taking a deep breath Sophie leaned back, finally exhausted, still coming down from her emotional high. Naomi had been right. She realized. Once she found her central vision, the concept of a doorway, her mind had been unleashed. Smiling at her own progress and not bothering to check the clock again, Sophie simply turned around, collapsed into bed, and fell asleep.

The dream that came to Sophie that night was of her newly designed art installation. She found herself in the empty exhibition hall, gazing at the entrance door. Within, she could see the electronic lights dancing across vast expanses of metal and glass. Around her, the world began to fall away, dissolving into a gray, cloying fog that shrouded everything except the door before her. Recognizing her own design, and eager to get a better look at her unconscious inspiration, Sophie fearlessly stepped across the threshold as the glass doors quietly shut behind her.

Standing within the chamber, Sophie drank in the lights and sounds that now enveloped her. Everything was exactly as she had envisioned it in the waking world, except it was infinitely more detailed and refined. Each screen, every pillar and decorative panel was placed exactly where she had wanted them. Lights pulsed in sync with the music, channeled along seamless, glowing lines towards the raised platform at the center of the room, where a circle of enormous display screens stood facing inwards. The sights displayed around her were already dazzling. Self replicating patterns that did not repeat, intricately modeled galaxies spinning through a universe on vastly accelerated time scale, autonomous alien creatures that only existed within the confines of the digital world. Yet for all of this, Sophie knew what she would see when she stepped into the center would put all of that to shame, the most complicated and advanced simulation of them all. She didn’t understand any of the science or math behind it, she hadn’t even seen examples of it, but now, in this world of dream and illusion, she knew in her bones that her design was perfectly made to cradle this wondrous art.

Before she had even made the conscious impulse to move, Sophie found herself at the top step of the platform, and a moment later she was inside the circle. The great monoliths blinked to life with a mesmerizing display of patterns. Spinning where she stood, Sophie tried to take it all in, to drink in the dazzling colors more vivid than even the real world. As she watched, the patterns in every display settled down before each forming into a doorway of light against the black backgrounds. Then, slowly at first, but with accelerating speed, each of the portals began to move towards her, their radiance taking up more and more of each screen with each passing moment. Sophie for her part, did not run. Something about this felt right, this was where she was meant to be, she was going home. The light from the screens became impossibly bright, drowning out every other source of light in the room, and as the gateways finally filled her entire world, Sophie opened her eyes.

A single beam of sunlight pierced through a gap in her bedroom curtains and landed directly on Sophie’s face. The redhead blinked once, twice, then calmly sat up in bed. It didn’t feel like she had slept eight hours. In fact, it didn’t feel like she had slept more than a few minutes. Despite that, Sophie felt completely rested. No grogginess, no desire to fall back under her covers, she had more energy this morning than she usually did even after coffee. Looking at the clock, Sophie’s smile grew wider at her earliness, she had risen up half an hour before her alarm and was already fully awake. Stepping out of bed with spring, she stepped to her work desk and picked up the images she had been so feverishly working on the previous night.

The futuristic shapes of her exhibition design still held their charm and attraction in the daylight, and she smirked at her own handiwork. Yet, the more rational centers of her brain urged a tempering of expectations. After all, Naomi hadn’t promised her anything really, the senior designers would probably choose one of their own designs for the exhibition, maybe taking one or two suggestions from Sophie’s layout so that her name could be added to the list of designers who were behind the project. Something definitely worthy to put on a resume, but not anything that would make her an overnight sensation. No matter, Sophie was more proud of this work than she had been of anything else in short career, it was definitely a worthy springboard for her future, even if some of the preternatural inspiration had come to her in a feverish late night drawing spree.

Sophie managed to arrive at the office twenty minutes early. Swiping herself in, she quietly sat down at her desk and opened her laptop. But she couldn’t focus, her whole body was still jittery, excited to present her designs to Naomi. Imagined words of high praise and harsh critique ran through her mind. Will she be flattered if I tell her how inspirational that book was? Or will she chide me for being overeager again? Anything was possible, she supposed. She hadn’t gotten to know Naomi enough to really understand what her tastes were, and most of all, she didn’t quite understand what the consultant was actually looking for in a design. Surely revealing that her entry had more or less been birthed from feverish mania and then reinforced with a vivid dream would do her no favors in that department. But still, she had found a central vision and followed it hadn’t she?

As Sophie sat there pondering these questions, her ears picked up a loud argument that echoed down the long hallway and out into the workspace. With the workplace still empty and unable to keep her curiosity in check, Sophie tiptoed over to the entrance of the hallway and looked down its length. At the opposite end, on the other side of the frosted glass door, stood a tall dark silhouette. Sophie could tell instantly from the figure’s build that it wasn’t Naomi, but she could hear the artist’s voice coming from the office.

“It will still be until the end of this week before we can begin the installation.” Naomi half shouted at the mysterious figure. “That time-line is final, and it cannot be advanced, as you know!”

“It’s not good enough!” Growled the standing figure, Sophie instantly recognize the voice as belonging to that suited man at the cafe, Naomi’s brother. What is he going her?! At the office?! Her mind whirled. And why was he asking about their art exhibition progress!? The memories of Naomi’s words from the previous day surfaced in Sophie’s mind. Is he behind the entire exhibition, or does he plan to steal the credit, or even buy out our entire firm at the last moment!? Naomi did make him to be a ruthless plotter with a knack for underhanded plays. Anxiety and sudden paranoia drove Sophie to listen closer.

“You know as well as I do, that I can’t pull a key from thin air.” Naomi replied. “To get all three of us in one place, we need to be patient and play by the rules we agreed to, not that the passage of linear time actually affects our urgency.”

Sophie’s eyebrows scrunched up. What am I hearing? Something about a key and time not mattering, needing to play by the rules? She pressed herself closer along the massive mural, hoping get a clearer sound without revealing her presence.

“Keys to the gate were abundant in the past!” The standing man protested with indignation. “Surely there must be something that can allow us to traverse the threshold now!”

“This was the closest point to a key manifestation, as I said multiple times!” Naomi snapped back. “Besides, there would have been many more keys across all the worlds, if most of them were not currently on fire.”

The man slammed a fist on the table, making Sophie jump, but she kept quiet, covering her mouth and clinging to the wall for balance. A bead of sweat fell from her brow. There was a long pause.

“You said that you would be listening to my direction this time.” Naomi finally continued. Her voice was low, but tinged with anger and frustration right below the surface. “How about you prove it? Go take a hike and come back when I tell you it’s done.” She hissed the last words out with force, causing her brother to take a step back into view of the door.

“Fine.” Was his only answer, before the shadow of his figure vanished from the glass.

Sophie did a double take and leaned her head further out get a better view. Maybe it was just a trick of the light, the distortion of the frosted glass. But try as she might there was no sign of the tall suited man anywhere she could see. Then, as she unstuck herself from the wall, Naomi’s silhouette emerged into view and before Sophie could even take a single step back, the door opened.

Naomi stepped out into the hallway, eyes locked on Sophie with a warm smile on her face.

“Ah Sophie!” She said brightly. “I was expecting you, please come in, I trust you have a lot to discuss with me?”

Sophie could only nod awkwardly as sweat poured down her neck. A few moments later, Sophie once again found herself sitting in front of the older artist, laptop in hands. She nervously glanced at the consultant who’s head was once again buried in her screen. She gave no indication that she was going to confront Sophie over snooping, or that she even knew Sophie had heard the conversation. But it was impossible she hadn’t put the two and two together right? Did she think I just appeared in hallway seconds after she coincidentally finished a shouting match?! Speaking of which, Sophie took another quick scan of the room looking for any hidden doors or emergency stairs.

“So.” Naomi’s voice snapped her attention back to the moment. Sophie fidgeted her hand under the table. She still had no idea what she would say as an excuse if Naomi accused her. Another bead of sweat formed on her temple.

“How was the book?” the consultant asked with anticipation.

“The book-OH! Yeah, it was really good!” Sophie was caught off-guard for a second, before quickly remembering how inspirational the text had been last night.

“Good to hear.” Naomi smiled before she gestured at the new hire’s laptop. “But I get the feeling you have something to show me?”

Sophie nodded eagerly turned over her screen, very glad that she wasn’t going to be grilled on her snooping. Outside the window, the skyline looked very similar to yesterday. Despite the sunshine earlier, Low clouds now blanketed the city, hiding the great skyscrapers in a foggy mist. Reclining in front of the giant window, Naomi almost looked like she was dissolving into the clouds.

Sophie’s fidgeting resumed under the desk. Now it was the anxieties about her work that came back. Studying the artist’s face, the new hire found it hard to discern anything about the older woman’s mood. She was looking at the designs intensely, but did she like them? Several tense minutes passed with Sophie nervously sunken into the upholstered chair as Naomi scrutinized her designs.

At last, the artist looked up from the laptop with a quizzical expression on her face.

“I am interested, what ended up being the central vision for this design?” Her eyes were narrowed and shone with the strange prismatic colors again.

“Well, uhm, my central vision was that of a doorway.” Sophie began. “I think its a good unifying metaphor for what this technology kinda means to me, as far as I understand it. I wanted to give the impression that everyone coming to see this exhibit was stepping through, into a future world made possible by this technology. The central platform with all the surrounding screens should give that feel of being immersed somewhere completely new and alien.”

Naomi’s smile widened at the answer. “That’s exactly what I wanted to hear.” She said with great satisfaction. “It looks like you’ve found a central vision. Now all you have to do is add to it.” Sitting back up straight, she turned her own computer around to show Sophie.

“See this?” She pointed to the image on the screen. A rotating galaxy hung in the middle of a black void. “Now watch.” She said with excitement. Scrolling wheel in, Sophie watched as the camera zoomed in, past the great nebulae, past individual stars and onto a planet much like earth. Going even smaller, the view stopped on a single plant. Naomi pressed another key. Time sped up and the plant began to sprout, grow and bloom.

“I did some refactoring of the researcher’s code.” Naomi said. “Now I can simulate the entirety of their model universe down to the atomic scale, using just the equipment we’ve been allocated.” Sophie marveled at the intricate detailing on the leaf as it rotated. “Any planet, in any galaxy, emergently generated, explorable for every guest in the finest detail.” Naomi declared. “And I want to put this, on that.” She leveled her long cigarette at the central platform of Sophie’s design, still visible on the new hire’s laptop screen.

Sophie gasped. “Does this mea-!?” She sputtered.

“Yes.” Naomi nodded. “I am backing your design as the one to be selected for the final exhibition.” Sophie nearly leaped out of her seat in surprise and euphoria.

“Oh my god-! T-hank you for- thanks so much!” Sophie sputtered, trying to find the appropriate words of gratitude.

“No need.” Naomi held up a wiry hand as she took a long drag on her electronic smoke. “For now, I need you to specify some exact dimensions on your drawing before this design can be officially considered.” Her hands danced across her keyboard in rapid motion. “I just sent over the requirements, get those nailed down and sent to me before my 3pm meeting with the senior designers, and I will make sure your name is front and center on this entire project.”

Sophie jumped out of her chair and shook Naomi’s hand eagerly. “I’ll get those numbers to you before lunch!” She cried as she picked up her laptop and dashed from the room. Her head was a buzz with incredible emotions as she ran down the long hallway, a bright future laid out in her mind. Coincidentally, the overheard words shouted between Naomi and her brother were quickly forgotten.

The clock on the wall ticked past 4:00, then 4:15. Sophie pursed her lips together. How much longer would the meeting go on for? Surely it wasn’t a good sign that the designers were taking so long…right? Naomi had probably gotten push back on her assertion that the newbie’s design would be used for something so paramount, that much was expected. But Sophie was aware of the level of authority that the consultant wielded. She had gotten the corner office usually reserved for visiting executives. She had been placed as the key person at the center of the project, and she was the one favoring Sophie right now. Surely, what she promised so sincerely, she would be able to deliver right? Sophie continued fidgeting under the desk.

Then the sound of a glass door opened and a line of senior designers filed out of the long hallway. One of them, Bart Daniels stopped by her desk and awkwardly stuck out a hand.

“Uh, congratulations.” He said sheepishly. “That was really quite something you drew up, I never thought we’d have a prodigy in our firm.”

Sophie shook his hand, her eyes lighting up, mouth open wide in a smile. She had done it! It was really happening!

“Guess its gonna be a busy few weeks for you then.” He rubbed the back of his neck, his face was contorted in an ambivalent expression that was halfway between frustration and relief.

“Just uh, don’t be afraid to ask the other designers if you need help ok?” Then he turned and disappeared back into his office. For a moment, Sophie considered the expression that had played across the man’s face. A sudden anxiety rose in her chest. Am I being setup as the fall guy because they know the project is going to fail? Did the senior designers only approve of my proposal so they could pin the blame on some hapless new hire?

Sophie’s eyes scanned the room rapidly before she suddenly spotted Noami in her shawl and sweater approaching the desk.

“I think they took it rather well.” She said cheerfully. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure that whatever anyone’s misgivings, we’ll get this display out there on time.” Sophie’s worries were immediately eased. Naomi had just demonstrated that she could deliver on the lofty promises she made. Even if the senior designers were planning to pin the blame on Sophie’s head, Naomi wouldn’t give them the opportunity to do so. Satisfied, Sophie nodded enthusiastically. Her time in the spotlight had finally come.

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The next few weeks went by in several caffeine fueled, late night binges. As the new design lead for the project (or rather, as the co-design lead under Naomi), Sophie had been suddenly thrust into a phase of operations he had no knowledge of before. The amount of new responsibilities heaped onto her were enormous. Sketches and preliminary layouts had to be formalized, materials needed to be standardized for the contractors who were actually building the display, and in the end it all had to be converted into digital models for the final set of plans. Thankfully, Sophie was not solely responsible for doing all of the work, but she did have to sit through several very long and boring meetings almost everyday, some of them dragging very late into the night.

In addition to the new work, the amount of time she spent with her team and manager began to dwindle. She now only saw them intermittently, when she was not inside of Naomi’s office for long hours of discussions, meetings and refinement. It was not long before her entire time at the office became boxed within the two walls and glass window of the South-Eastern corner office. Sophie, for her part, didn’t mind it too much. The executive suite was incredibly roomy and open, but the view from its window always seemed to be shrouded in low handing clouds, even on the days where the sky seemed relatively clear elsewhere. Still, there was little Sophie could do to change the situation. The responsibility for getting the design out there was on her shoulders now, and she could not afford to drop it. So the days went on, with Sophie getting home at increasingly late hours each day. But at last, the work on the exhibition finally seemed to catch up with their optimistic schedule.

Gerald Davis, the chief of operations was joyous at the news of progress. Despite Sophie’s isolation from her colleagues, the executive’s fondness for her work only grew. In the high level meetings she now had to attend, he never missed an opportunity to brag about her work and how he had the one new-hire who was out preforming almost everyone else. And in the background, her efforts largely unnoticed, was Naomi herself. She continued to advise Sophie, giving her ideas and inspiration beyond even what her book covered, carefully honing Sophie’s creative eye and sense of aesthetics. The consultant still took meetings with senior members of the design and engineering teams, but only sporadically. The rest of her time was focused on cultivating Sophie’s skills. Of additional note was the fact that Naomi’s brother did not return in person nor call again, not that Sophie remembered him much anyways.

Yet even the act of transferring the final plans to the subcontractor did not end the toil. Sophie now had to make several treks to the Art Institute museum a week to keep an eye on the progress and verify the designs with the builders. It was tedious work, but at least she was allowed to stretch her legs around the city, and crucially Naomi accompanied her, lending some well needed tact and negotiating prowess to the inspections.

But the construction workers were quick and diligent, and so it was, that when the night of December 24th eventually rolled around, Sophie found herself in the modern wing of the museum again, contentedly staring at the finally finished display.

She took in a deep breath and smiled. Behind the canvas curtains and obscured from public view, her exhibition was buzzing with life. It was just as she had seen it in her dream, the layout was 100% perfect. Even her second draft had not captured the amount of details that were present in that vision. Yet with Naomi’s help, she had somehow, miraculously pulled out all those details from a weeks old dream and committed them to paper with perfect fidelity.

All the electronics had also been tested and were working properly. Of key importance was the supercooled quantum computer embedded in an hermetically sealed box below the raised platform. Sophie had been there on the day Naomi had arrived with a crew of engineers and had uploaded her re-factored program into the system, Sophie didn’t know the technical specifics, but the important thing to her was that everything was finally ready. The fully actualized, real exhibit, rendered in metal and glass. Sophie took it in with great pride.

However, as she marveled at the emptiness of it, Sophie was suddenly struck with the thought that she didn’t want to be here for the grand opening tomorrow. She wasn’t sure why, but there was something about the prospect of having the swarming public within this quiet, calming place that she didn’t quite want to see.

Outside, the rising full moon painted the hallway in a silvery glow. Sophie yawned. She would decide if she felt like coming in for the grand opening after she woke up tomorrow. After all, it was Christmas day, and there were no expectations for her to be here anyways. Satisfied with a smile on her face, Sophie pushed out of the exhibit hall and out of the museum’s door. She didn’t even make it a single block before a voice from across the street caught her attention.

“Do try to keep up, this is the crucial moment and you do not want to be left behind.”

Sophie stopped in her tracks. That voice! That’s Naomi’s brother! Sophie swung her head around towards the source of the sound. There, on the other side of street, her eyes caught a glimpse a tall man in a dark suit crossing the wide city street with an unnaturally quick gait. Sophie craned her neck and squinted. Besides him, was another man dressed in a light blue collared shirt with rolled up sleeves and a mop of messy hair atop his head. The second man’s posture was hunched over and Sophie recognized the body language of fear and anxiety. She heard him say something in a ragged voice, but couldn’t make out the words.

“Just a little bit more patience, and you will see.” The suited man responded in his characteristically rhythmic voice. “All my siblings will be gathered together at last, and soon this entire debacle will be over.”

Sophie’s heart leaped, hammering under her ribcage. That strange conversation I overheard weeks ago! He wants something to do something with the exhibition! Spinning on her heels, Sophie crouched behind a nearby trashcan and waited until the two men had turned towards the museum entrance. Then she sprinted across the last few seconds of the crossing light and back towards the same entrance.

Crossing another street towards the modern wing, Sophie’s mind ran through a million different nightmare possibilities. Maybe Naomi’s brother is here to steal my design in some weird plan of corporate espionage! Or maybe he wants to destroy it to ruin the reputation of the firm! Maybe even Naomi was in on it as well…Maybe he pressured her to reveal all the secrets! Making the last sprint towards the door, she prayed that her special access badge would work at this hour. Sure enough, the door clicked open and Sophie bolted inside.

Bright moon-beams poured down through the glass panels on the ceiling. In the absence of any other light, they bathed the entire wing in a deep blue tranquility. Sophie stood, confounded for a moment, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. To her left, the door to other exhibits remained untouched, and to her right she could see the tarps hanging motionless across her exhibition’s windows. Blinking the last of the blurriness from her vision, Sophie tentatively took a step forwards, her shoes clacking on the hard wood floor.

From above, on the second floor, a much louder clack answered her back. Sophie froze, eyes snapping onto the source of the sound. An open crosswalk spanning the space at the other end of the great hall. Everything was still for a moment. Then another clack pierced the silence, and from the doorway opposite of the exhibition gallery on the second floor, a dark shape emerged into the moonlight.

For a split second, Sophie took it for a bear, or some other large animal that had inexplicably gotten into the heart of the city. Then the thing stood up straight. Sophie took a step back in shock and covered her mouth to suppress a scream. The monstrous figure was gigantic, standing so tall that even under the high ceilings of the modern wing, it still had to hunch over. Its arms were long and sinewy ending in clawed hands, its waist was crustacean like, splitting into a cluster of columns that ended in long spikes. And at the top, attached to its shoulders was an enormous jaw, ringed with dozens of rows teeth and eyes, embedded into a flowing mane of fleshy tendrils

The thing turned to her, every orifice on its face shined with a sickly white glow. Sophie turned on her heels, all reason abandoned, her instincts taking over. She saw only blind panic and sprinted for the doors.

Behind her, the monstrosity casually lifted an arm.

Instantly, Sophie was stopped, every limb in her body paralyzed and locked into place as if by steel cables. Gradually, she was turned around by an unseen force until she was facing the terrifying creature again. Her lip quivered, she drew in a ragged breath to scream for help, but found her jaw and throat frozen as well.

The thing tilted its head slightly, seemingly in amusement of her predicament. From the same doorway, she saw the disheveled man emerged, carefully clinging to the railings, trying with difficulty to avoid looking at the towering monster.

Then the giant turned towards the exhibition doorway and spoke.

“Our special guest has arrived.” It chortled with the exact same voice as Naomi’s brother. A second later, A fog-shrouded mass of liquid metal poured from the previously untouched exhibition room. Sophie’s eyes could not go any wider, but her shock only increased as the amorphous mass slinked along the narrow walkway towards the stairs. Wisps of smoke poured into the air around it, some small nodules broke off from the main mass and drifted away while others fell back into the primary bulk as it shifted. Making its way to the other horrific monstrosity, the globule reared itself up and coalesced into a more recognizable shape. From out of the vanishing iridescent cloud, stepped Naomi Myrrine replete in her ostentatious style and long cigarette.

“Hello Sophie.” She said with pursed lips and saddened eyes.

Suddenly Sophie found her throat and mouth free again.

“HELP! GET ME OUT OF HERE! LET ME GO!” She cried, partially in hopes of getting any attention, partially to wake her up from what must have been a nightmare.

“Shhhh, don’t go doing that.” The tendril monster cooed and put a gigantic claw up to its huge jaws. Sophie’s voice was suddenly muted, reduced to nothing more than a muffled whine.

“Sophie, listen to me.” Naomi said, her voice was mournful and apologetic, without any of the enthusiasm and joy that had characterized her speech before. “I am sorry that you had find out this way, but as you probably guessed, there are ulterior motives at work behind this exhibition.”

Sophie paid the words no heed, her eyes scanned the room wildly, still trying to scream out for help in a muted voice. Naomi sighed quietly.

“Go finish preparing the door.” She finally said to the monster after a few moments. “The difficult steps have already been completed, even you shouldn’t be able to mess it up.” The giant looked at her for a moment but did not move, nor did it release Sophie from its telekinetic grasp. “You are following my lead now, remember?!” Naomi raised her voice, letting a strange thunderous roll slip out in her undertones. In response, the tentacled monster dropped its hands to its side and with single stride, disappeared into the exhibition hall. Sophie suddenly found her limbs mobile again, but before she could run, another force seized her. She blinked. She was no longer by the door, but now she was on top of the crosswalk facing Naomi. The man in the blue shirt was gone as well, the doors to the exhibition hall were shut, and ominous lights emanated from within.

“Sophie, listen to me.” Naomi said, placing her hands on the panicking redhead’s shoulder. Sophie winced in pain, the older woman’s grip was like a vise. “My brother and I, we need to borrow the exhibition for the next few minutes and then it will be restored unharmed. You can have your grand opening tomorrow, and you will never have to see me, or my brother ever again, does that sound fair?”

Sophie opened her mouth, sputtering incoherently. “WHA- WHAT IS- ??! WHAT IS THAT THING?!”

Naomi pinched the bridge of nose with her free hand. “My brother and I, we aren’t the sort of things that you would have any knowledge of. But out there, in the wider cosmos, it’s Armageddon right now.” She insisted. “Your species can’t perceive the threat, but unless we finish what we came here to do, the universe will cease to be.”

Sophie stared with bulging eyes of disbelief.

“What!?” was all she could squeak out. Naomi drew in a deep breath, before pulling the young woman into the exhibition hall. Sophie leaned backwards, dug her heels into the ground, but the artist seemed to shrug off the effort as she would a flea. The heavy glass and steel door slammed shut as soon as Sophie was pulled through, the lock setting itself with a solid clunk.

Before her, was the monstrous giant, turned away, standing atop the platform at the center of the room. It reached an arm to the floor and with seemingly no effort at all, pierced the wooden boards with a single sharp claw. Ripping up the broken flooring, it splintered the boards in a colossal fist while its other hand tore into the insulated steel computer housing as if it had been made of paper. A cloud of white fog erupted out as the liquid nitrogen began to boil away in the air. Sophie shivered at the sudden chill.

The monster paid the cold no mind. Quickly tossing aside the broken scraps, it reached into the cryogenic chamber and extracted a large tower of gold and copper plates bundled with wires. Naomi turned towards the giant and nodded, who seemed to answer back with a snap of its huge jaws. Raising up its other arm, the tip of its index claw shivered and then exploded into a cluster of glowing white strands. Each of the tendrils twitched, and darted forwards, quickly finding its purchase in amongst the intricate circuitry. A wave of energy seemed to course through the creature’s body and into the delicate contraption.

“Why is it- why are you doing this?” Sophie croaked softly as the lights around the main screen began flashing.

“It had to be this exhibit.” Naomi said apologetically. “Your work was the closest point to the manifestation of a void aperture.”

Sophie could only stare in confusion. Lights strobed around them as a sourceless wind began to pick up and blow.

“It’s….a long story, I’ve already told you parts of it in a way you would understand. But to put it bluntly, the “family business” that I told you about, was creating the universe. I am the creator of all realities, in all of time and space. But despite that, my brother and I are still bound by specific laws that I set down. The important one right now, is that we cannot leave our creation while inside of it. So we needed to wait for an exit to appear.” She gestured towards the of the ring of screens where Sophie could just about see something begin to form.

“But-I, I still don’t understand!” Sophie cried.

“I-we don’t need to perceive time linearly like you do.” Naomi explained, her voice tinged with frustration and remorse. “I was able to foresee that this project would contain the causal seed to create a portal to the void outside reality. I put myself in the right place at the right time to give you the push you needed to fully actualize that potential.” She turned to face Sophie directly. “All it took was the right quantum code, running at the right time, resonating through the right space, to harmonize with the universe and punch a hole in its fabric. You remember that book I gave you, and the dream you had that very same night? Those were the small pushes you needed to create your central vision: The doorway.”

Sophie began to tremble, shaking her head.

“No, it- its not, that wasn’t you!” Sophie screamed.

Naomi sighed, crossed her arms, and waved her left hand.

Instantly, brilliant white daylight poured into the room. Sophie covered her eyes and squinted. Through the tarps covering the unopened exhibit windows, she could see the hall outside illuminated in broad daylight. Sophie gasped, ran up to the glass and pressed her face against it. There’s people out there! Tourists, families and other museum visitors milled around outside, as clear as day, some even pointing to the tarps and conversing amongst themselves.

“HEY!” Sophie yelled, and banged on the glass. “HELP ME!” Outside, some of the people begun to turn their heads, eyes narrowing in confusion. Naomi dropped her arm, and instantly, the bustling afternoon crowd outside was replace by dim moonlight.

“That was four days ago outside.” The older woman said a matter-of-factly. “I knew that you would find your way back to the museum tonight, right now.”

Sophie turned to Naomi, the dawning realization of what she had just heard washing over her features. “You knew that if I saw your brother, that I would come back here…why did you do that!?” She cried. “You already got this exhibit from me! Why do you need me here for this?!”

Across the room, the humming rose to an apex and the monster released its tendrils from the intricate machine. In the center of the circle of screens, something fuzzy flashed once, twice, before fully coming into existence with a static shock that sent Sophie’s ears ringing. Picking up her dazed head, Sophie attempted to focus on the epicenter of the explosion, only to see that there was nothing there. Not a black or white space, but no space at all. It was as if the entire room had shrunk. Space that had previously been an area two meters wide, was now simply gone, removed from existence. It was like a visual blind-spot, except she was looking directly at it.

The towering monstrosity, the thing that had been Naomi’s brother, stalked around the warped space and grabbed the blue shirted man from a far corner.

“The door is open at last.” It said with an exhausted tone in its voice. “Its time to go.”

“W-Wait!” The man yelled, grabbing at the thing’s gigantic arm and dragging his heels. “That’s safe right? It won’t kill me?”

The monster stared down at the human with its myriad glowing eyes. “Now that would be rather pointless wouldn’t it? It replied sarcastically. “I would have dragged you all the way out here, across millions of worlds and time lines, just to kill you and have to retrieve another whining meat-bag? You’ll be fine.” It sneered. At the words, the man seemed to relax a little, his struggling against the floor ceased, but he still tugged at the giant’s arm for release.

Arriving at the top of the platform, the monster didn’t stop, merely pulling itself through the vanished space and dragging the man along right afterwards. Both disappeared from the world with an unceremonious fsssssst. A moment of quiet followed, and Naomi bent down, gently placed her hand on Sophie’s chin and turned it towards her. The redhead noticed that for the first time during the entire night, maybe for the first time ever, she saw a look of regret across the older woman’s face.

“I wanted you to come back here, so that you could understand what I’m doing and why I’m doing it.” She said softly in the warm voice Sophie had gotten so used to. “ I already told you that it was Armageddon out in the cosmos. Well, my creator, my mother, is the cause of it. To stop it, my bother and I need to meet with our third sibling, the one that did not follow us, the one that fell behind. He’s still wallowing somewhere beyond the walls of the universe, and to fix all of this, we need him. That’s why I came to you, that’s why I needed your work, to break open the fabric of the world and let us out so we could find him.”

Naomi paused, then she reached into the folds of her sweater and removed the long electronic cigarette before handing it to Sophie. “A token of my apology. My older brother, he wouldn’t do this, he never cared at all for you mortals, or his underlings, or his family, or anyone else really. Everything was always beneath him. But I need you to understand that I didn’t manipulate you for my own amusement like he would have. I had to make you do this! For the sake of everything you know and so much more. I need you to understand that all of this was for a good cause.”

Then, without waiting for answer from Sophie, she stood up, turned to face the impossible gash in space and melted back into a bubbling, shimmering mass of vaporous liquid metal. The unknowable matter slinked forwards to the precipice of the doorway before a portion of it turned to Sophie.

“If I were you…I wouldn’t look up at the sky anymore.” It said, in a voice that howled on an unfelt wind, and then it was gone. A moment later the room was plunged into total blackness.

----------------------------------------

Sophie cracked open her eyes with great difficulty. Her vision took a second to focus before she registered the familiar walls of her bedroom. She let out a sigh of relief. All a dream. She soothed herself. Looking around the room, Sophie knitted her eyebrows in confusion when she realized she had fallen asleep on the carpeted floor of her bedroom. Scratching her head, she was just about to push herself up when she felt something in her palm. Looking down, she opened her hand and saw a thin, black electronic smoke shaped as cigarette holder. Sophie’s blood turned to ice. Theres no way I have this! Her hand reactively recoiled, throwing the item across the room. Flipping once, it rolled to a stop next to the wall and sat there, not vanishing, as solid as the floor it was resting on.

Sophie drew in a sharp breath. Was it all real? Did all of that really happen last night?! She shot up and scrambled for her phone. The screen lit up with the date she had been dreading: December 25. Falling down on her bed, she concentrated hard to try and come up with some explanation for what she had been doing last night. But try as she might, Sophie could only remember those horrifying, unearthly events that had taken place in the museum. There seemed to be only one impossible conclusion. What she remembered had been real. The proof lay across the room on the carpet a mere six feet away. Then, if that was real… Naomi’s final words resurfaced in her mind. Apologies for Tomorrow…..TODAY! Her eyes went wide and she shot out of bed. The exhibition was destroyed! I need to get there to explain what happened! They must have security footage! Throwing on the heaviest coat she could find, Sophie grabbed her keys and sprinted out the door.

It was still early in the morning on Christmas day, and the streets were less buy than usual. Still it took her almost an hour to arrive at the museum. Shoving open the door to the modern gallery, Sophie dashed across the long hallway, now filled with sightseers, and towards the stairs. Flying up the steps as if possessed, Sophie readied herself for the ruin in broad daylight. She turned the last corner, bursting into the room and saw…that everything was perfectly fine. People milled in and out of the exhibition room, walking calmly and making small talk. Sophie blinked and ran into the room. Inside the exhibit itself, there was not a single screw out of place. The floor was not torn up, there was no destroyed supercomputer, and all the displays buzzed along to the gentle tune of per-selected background music.

Sophie let out a shaky breath, eyes feverishly scanning the room. Was I right? Was it really all a dream?! No, there’s no explanation for the cigarette! Sophie grabbed her forehead with both hands and took deep breaths. There was something else wrong with the room, she could feel it, something about how she she envisioned the displays wasn’t right. A moment later she figured it out. At the center of the room, on top of the raised platform where the central display was, there were no people. Everyone else milled about the rest of the space, interested in the smaller screens, but no one even approached what was supposed to be the main attraction.

Sophie squinted at the stage. That strange distortion from last night was gone, the space between the screens was completely normal, yet no one approached. It was as if the entire space was invisible. Curious, Sophie took a step up onto the platform and turned around to look at the inward facing screens. She balked in confusion. It was just live video footage of the exhibition room. Each screen showed a slightly different angle, but besides that, there was nothing noteworthy at all. None of the exploding stars, digital life, or evolving universes that Naomi had promised. Sophie stood dumbstruck in total bewilderment for a few moments. She paced around the raised platform, debating whether to call her manager, or the museum staff. What did this mean? Was it something that happened to the room last night?! She stalked up to the closest screen and examined it. These are touch screens… a vague memory from the weeks of planning bubbled to the fore front of her mind. Sophie leaned in close and swiped a finger across the surface.

The picture shifted, not like the motion from panning a camera, but instead, the entire view moved several meters to the left, through the wall, and out into the hallway. Sophie blinked in surprise and scanned the room, looking for any sings of a surveillance lens having smashed through concrete. Nothing was out of place. Turning back to the screen, she tentatively rotated the view until the image was focused on a person on the first floor, looking at a brochure. Sophie scanned the picture meticulously. The man was tapping his left foot, which was wearing a brown work boot. Sophie looked out from behind the screen. From her vantage point on the second floor, she could see that sure enough, that same man was in the exact spot, tapping his foot absentmindedly. Sophie felt dizzy. She didn’t know what to make the sight she was seeing. Taking control of the monitor again, she swept it through the walls with at a frantic pace, past the wiring and pipes, down into the main hall of the museum. Sure enough, people milled about looking at the exhibits, each person unique and just as life like as live recording should be.

It can simulate and entire universe down to the atomic scale. The errant comment rushed into the forefront of Sophie’s mind. Her hand trembled, her tongue felt dry in her mouth as she put both hands on the screen and swiped ferociously out of the museum, down the streets of the bustling city, across dozens of miles of traffic, up the side of her apartment building, and through the bedroom window. To her utter horror, everything was exactly as she had left it this morning. The clock on the wall ticked along, the gentle hum of the heater filled the speakers, and in a dark corner of the bedroom, she saw a long black cylinder.

The room spun around Sophie as she gripped the sturdy supports of the screen to stop from falling over. Her brain felt fuzzy and her skin was burning. Sweat poured down her face and neck. This can’t be happening. This cannot be real.

The final warning of the thing that called itself Naomi echoed in her head: Don’t look up at the sky in the coming weeks. Sophie gulped painfully and leaned even closer to the screen. With hands that threatened to shake themselves from her body, she quickly pulled the image up, past the clouds, beyond the atmosphere and moon, through the planets and stars until even the galaxy was nothing but a tiny speck among millions, then she flipped the view around.

At first, Sophie didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, the galaxies in the distance shined with perfect vividness, their colors more vibrant than she thought possible, and for a second she almost breathed a sigh of relief. Then something changed. Her breath caught in her throat, and Sophie flicked her gaze to it but saw only blank space. She squinted. Then there was another hint of motion in the other corner of the screen. Sophie spun her head and this time, she barely caught the last glow of a distant galaxy fading from view. She recoiled from the screen, heart thundering in her chest as she tried to take in the entire image in.

Next it was the upper left corner, two bright blue lights faded to black and did not return. Then, a bright globular orange shape in the center, dimmed into darkness, swallowed by the inky nothing like a stone thrown into a lake. Sophie’s lip trembled, more and more lights, of all shapes, sizes and distances went out, candles snuffed by dark hurricane. Everything Sophie knew about the universe, the speed of light, the permanence of the stars, everything she knew shouted at her that this could not be real, that this was just a program gone haywire, a glitch in the system. But the small dark object laying in the corner of her room told her otherwise. Everything she saw was impossibly, yet indubitably 100% accurate.

With a final gasp and whimper, Sophie’s legs finally gave out and she would have crashed into a heap if she hadn’t been holding the sturdy metal supports of the exhibit. Bile rose in her throat, and the terror she felt at the edges of her mind threatened to send her sprawling to the ground. Willing with the last of her strength, Sophie squeezed her eyes shut and fumbled around the back of the display. Her hand wrapped around a thick cable and she tore it out without hesitation.

There was a small buzz and zap as the expensive monitor shut off. Cracking her eyes open, Sophie was greeted by the glossy black of a dormant monitor. She let a shaky breath tumble from her lungs and stood for a moment, a wreck of a human, grabbing onto a few metal beams as if for dear life. Around her, several inquisitive and worried visitors had begun to gather.

“Miss!” One person shouted from behind her. “What are you doing with the display?”

Jumping back from the screen, the redhead thrashed her gaze around with wild eyes.

“Nothing!” She half shouted. “Everything is fine! Normal!” Sophie stumbled from dias in a hurry, shaking off the glances of the passersby and rushed out of the room. Flying down the stairs and back onto the snow streets, Sophie broke into a run. She had nowhere in mind, but her legs carried her towards home on pure instinct. And as she tore through the freezing Chicago streets of a Christmas morning, Sophie could now feel the inexorable force encroaching from above. Just beyond the clouds, past a minute shell of safety, there was a slow withering end for all things.

Bursting into her house, Sophie slammed the door and slid the dead bolt into place with heavy breaths. Everything now felt tainted, poisoned to the core. The impending dread slowly condensed into a cold pit which settled itself into the bottom of Sophie’s stomach. She felt the energy and strength drain from her hands and there was nothing she could do but curl up in her chair beside the window, staring out onto the doomed city below. Hours later, nightfall still found her unmoving against the cold glass. The evening news gently played on the television in the next unit over, but Sophie didn’t need to heed its words. She knew what would be the headlining story tonight, she had already seen it with her own eyes. Sophie’s mind once again began to spiral around the pit of dread. All the worries of office work, her career, and future plans were dust in the wind. Few in the world knew it yet, but when the dreadful, inevitable truth became common knowledge… Sophie shuddered and let out a wracking sob.

And at that same moment, high above the apartments of Chicago, through the clouds and past the planets and asteroids and comets, deep into the inky black of space, another star faded out of existence.