In Station Bay’s downtown area, the long-haired woman who worked a dual shift with her bobcut counterpart monitoring the city for dimensional breaches over their advanced interactive computer screen was on her lunch break. She thanked the baker whose family she was on close terms with for the discount on day-old bagels, and was just walking back to her car with her shopping bags slung over one arm when she got an alert from her cellphone. She had expected an update on the city’s online newsletter she was signed onto, or maybe a text message from one of her girlfriends asking if she had time this week to go to the salon together, or discuss that camping trip, maybe even an accusation that she was no fun ever since she started getting buried in her work. As far as her friends and family knew, she was a simple secretary for an emergent computer company in the city. That was only technically true though. And, to her mild surprise, the alert on her phone was work-related - it was a “found” signal from a Telescope Dragonfly, one of their MIA units that had neither returned home nor registered a confirmed status message of being totalled.
“Where’d you go, little guy?” she asked her phone with a slight curiosity.
A whole flock of the insectoid scouts hadn’t returned from their mission to the park to investigate the ether fog leak there that preceded the alleged terrorist attack on the storage sheds. The Institute was still nursing the headache of covering that up, and keeping the public pacified. She had assumed that this unit had been no different, and silently thanked the ingenuity of the programmers who had encoded the bugs’ sophisticated pathfinding AI for just these kinds of situations when they would be separated from contact and direct input commands.
“Let’s get you home. What?” she widened her eyes as the feed on her phone turned her screen red - a hazard alert. “A Feral? Send me the video feed.” she issued the command, looking carefully over her shoulder as she tucked herself into the protected silence of her soundproofed Institute-issue sports car in disguise.
Then she was looking through the eyes of the Telescope Dragonfly, translated from its many-lensed eyesight into a single cohesive composite that human onlookers could digest. She was looking down over a foggy lake - no, too small to be a lake, probably a pond or creek - as something large and dark parted the waters, submerging before they could get a good look at it from above. And, turning ninety or so degrees, the Telescope Dragonfly also transmitted footage of two civilians - a young boy in a green cloak, and a gothic-looking girl - standing at the edge, peering into the fog’s depths.
Damn, civilians found the leak before we could. Why didn’t the Director see this already?
She quickly called her coworker, desperately pleading for bobcut to pick up as the ringtone droned on and on. Finally, she answered with a casual “hi” and “what’s up?” before the urgency of the situation was made clear.
“The Director?” bob cutbobcut asked. “He’s in a meeting with the review board regarding continued funding for the project. Should I call him?”
“No, I already tried that.” Longhair said, holding back panic and remembering to maintain her professionalism. “Where is the meeting being held, did he tell you?”
“Yes, he would have told both of us, but you were getting your nails done.” Bobcut said impulsively, then covered her mouth on her end of the call in embarrassment. “I didn’t mean for it to come out like that, so-”
Longhair didn’t have time to close out the conversation politely. She hung up, snapping her flip phone shut with a frantic edge to her movements, and looked over the street signs.
“Five or six blocks, I can get there quicker than I’ll get a call through proper channels. Please don’t let anything go wrong!” she prayed, and floored the gas.
At the Institute’s unmarked building, the sharp-suited Director stood before a panel of old men in fussier, pricier suits, regarding him with sagging, skeptical faces that made him grit his teeth in self-righteous indignation at having to walk these obsolete relics through any of his business. The information age was beyond the comprehension of these men, let alone the importance of the work the Director did for Station Bay, and for the country.
“Director Mason, one more time from the top, please. If we’re to continue using taxpayer money to support your rather ambitious computer systems, database, and technology, we need a working understanding of what exactly it is that your department does. Frankly, so far all we - and I speak for the board on this - see is extraneous spending for all theory and no substance.” the oldest and wrinkliest of the lot condescended to Mason, jowls quivering.
Mason stifled a sigh and only pushed his slipping sunglasses back up the bridge of his nose. “Yes, sir.”
He turned and regarded the slideshow he had prepared on the subject, clutching the button the way a crab might clutch a fresh fish it had caught - protectively and, if it could be applied, dangerously.
“Not too long ago, someone asked the question - are we alone? Man looked to the skies, seeking to make contact with alien life, sending broadcasts into space and across the stars, waiting and hoping for an answer that never came. We now believe that those forefathers to our organization were looking in the wrong place, at least regarding this universe.” Director Mason said.
“This universe, Director?” one of the budgetary consultants of the board’s inner circles had the audacity to interrupt him.
“Yes. Since the dawn of mankind, myths and legends, religions worldwide have alleged the existence of other worlds to our own, divine and demonic, shrouded in mysticism and birthing the likes of angels and devils. Many belief systems and philosophies assume the existence of a kind of Akashic Records as a cornerstone of our reality. These records form a compendium of everything that ever was, is, or will be, and expresses itself as the heavenly wisdom of the almighty we see in abrahamic religions, as well as the unity of all souls as interpreted by Buddhist and Hindu scriptures, as the cycles of reincarnation. The old wisdom began to conflict with mainstream science as our scope of knowledge was widened, and our ability to seek it was organized and regimented into the currently accepted scientific methods and classifications. Perhaps the greatest revelation put forward to shake human belief systems to their cores was the theory of the big bang, an event which saw the birth of our known universe from an infinitely dense singularity thought to contain all energy and matter that would go on to form everything we know. It is now disputed that this model could account for certain universal constants, such as the existence of time itself, but it remains the principle model for our understanding of cosmology and physics that is taught today.” Mason explained.
“The science lecture is fascinating, I’m sure, Director, but is it really necessary for the purposes of this meeting to take the roots of your department back to the creation of the universe?” - another foolish question from another foolish old man.
Wait and listen, you fossil, if your wax-clogged ignorant ears can still even do that. Mason thought bitterly to himself. He cleared his throat and continued.
“The concept of the Akashic Records is not dissimilar from the Big Bang model - both describe a kind of blueprint by which all of creation is mapped to. What we suspect now is that myth and science both meet in that singularity, and that it is not one of a kind. Rather, that there have been many big bangs, and that they are constantly occurring. The fabric of nothingness, if such a thing can even be said to exist at all, is inherently unstable, and from that chaos, creation naturally arises. Normally, these universes intersect only rarely, and their windows into each other are known only to an esoteric few, and harder still to find. It is because of the scarcity of these overlapping events that the idea of interdimensional travel was relegated to the realm of fiction and pseudoscience for so long before today. The man detained at an airport with a passport to Taured, the country that never existed, the subterranean green children of Woolpit who claimed to come from a world without the sun - apocryphal accounts of visitors from other realms have persisted well into the modern day, and it’s impossible to verify most of them. However, very recently, these events have begun to escalate both in frequency and in intensity. Ruptures into these alternate realities have begun to concentrate in the Station Bay area especially, with similar organizations to our own reporting identical incidents across the globe.” the Director said.
“You’re putting forward that we’re being invaded by beings from other universes? Just for the record.” the insufferable head honcho asked for clarification.
“That’s right.” the Director said bluntly. “And I can prove it.” he gestured to his screen, where a still photograph taken from footage of one of the Telescope Dragonflies’ routine sweeps was now stretched out.
In the center of an egg of fog was a graceful equine figure with a sleek build and a spiral-patterned conical horn jutting from its forehead.
“This,” the Director indicated, “is a unicorn.”
There was silence for a few moments, and then several snorts of laughter.
“I wasn’t aware April Fool’s Day had crept up on us so quickly. You’re nothing if not committed to a good practical joke, Director Mason.” the ringleader chuckled.
The Director’s eyebrows could be seen to shift even behind his sunglasses, making his exasperation clear. “I never make jokes on the job.” he turned and clapped.
From the hall, a keeper walked into the brightly-lit white tile room, tugging on the reigns of the specimen in question. The clip clop of the unicorn’s hooves was like stark thunder booming through the room as the board were all silenced by the unusual sight.
“You brought a wild animal here?” one of them asked incredulously. “How do we know you didn’t just glue a cheap ice cream cone to the bloody creature’s head?”
The Director roughly grabbed the horn and yanked the mythical beast’s head roughly to his side. “By all means, take a good long feel if you like. I could show you the tests run against all genetic combinations and organic tissues known to the scientific world, but I think we can all agree that would waste more time than this insipid meeting already is.” the Director finally bore his fangs.
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
He had the high ground now.
“The simple truth, Sirs, is that you lack a single leg on which to so much as question my credentials. I am the sole authority on this subject on the entire east coast, and it is only because of my diligence and that taxpayer’s money you’d like to say I’ve frittered away that this city isn’t a smoking crater, and the general public gets to sleep soundly in blissful ignorance.” he roughly shoved the reins back into the hapless handler’s hands.
“Universes are colliding, and in record number, but what we still don’t know yet is how or why. Our computer system is a composite of all cameras and digital surveillance networks in the city, some public, some incognito, dividing the area into numbered sectors. We are constantly scouting for hostile breaches. The continuing fog leaks you’ve all been allowed to believe are simply close calls with underground toxic gas pockets are in fact the phenomena by which these breaches manifest themselves, as you saw on my slide. That picture was taken firsthand from the observations of a Telescope Dragonfly. The bug collecting hobby you and your quota-obsessed supervisors so smugly derided has not gone to waste. Our state of the art monitoring cyborg insects are the perfect tool for scoping out what’s inside these breaches without rousing the public’s alarm. Without getting a look at them up close under a microscope, these devices are indistinguishable from normal dragonflies.” the Director explained.
“But why spend so much money on creating spy devices from insects when much cheaper, more conventional alternatives are available? Nanotech research funds don’t come easily, I’m sure you’re aware.” one of the consultants asked.
“Painfully.” Thethe Director grit his teeth, all too familiar with the annoying budget cuts that hobbled his work, routinely imposed without rhyme or reason and dropped from the ass of baseless skepticism and scoffing. “However, one of you has finally had the decency to ask an intelligent question.”
The Director shifted gears, displaying an in-depth anatomy chart of the workings of the standard Telescope Dragonfly model. “Conventional drones and surveillance robots do not work correctly within the sphere of influence created by these fog pockets. Close analysis of the fog has determined it to be unlike any recognizable form of matter seen on this earth before. Without getting even further into detailed physics lectures that I’m sure will go right over your balding heads, as best as our experts can surmise, these fog particles seem to mirror the conditions either at, or immediately after the big bang event. In essence, these pockets of fog are a disorganized spontaneous generation of the same kind of material that the singularity from which our universe sprang was made of. For reasons that aren’t entirely understood yet, however, close proximity to these fog pockets has a devastating effect on the cognition of all sapient lifeforms - namely, us. Our initial attempts to observe their phenomena, much less infiltrate their depths for direct exploration, have all ended in catastrophic failure, and more often than not irreparable damage to the human psyche. Similarly, the energies exuded by these fog fields cause unpredictable distortions in electronics and digital technology as well, most commonly knocking out power in a manner superficially identical to an EMP strike. However, when the fog disperses, these electronics have invariably come back to life of their own accord. Rigorous on-field tests have determined that the common rule seems to dictate that sapience - both its presence, and its total absence - reacts negatively with the clouds. Anything carrying information - computers or our brains - is at risk. However, this effect was not observed in lower lifeforms. Things such as, flatworms for example, which are alive but lack the human animal’s capacity for cognition - more specifically a vivid imagination - are unaffected by exposure to the fog. This suggests to us that the secret lies in the middle ground - a melding of organic and inorganic perspectives that suffer neither a thinking creature’s risk of insanity, nor a lifeless machine’s risk of malfunction, when entering the cloud. We are still working to determine why strictly-clinical consciousness is the only thing able to function properly in the fog, but the fact remains that the Telescope Dragonflies are our best method of bypassing this effect. The qualities of organic life, and artificial computing power fill in the gaps of either approach.”
For once, there was an uninterrupted silence. Mason breathed it in with the relish of a hiker savoring the crisp, clean air of the mountains.
“Our.... admittedly… Limitedlimited observation thus far has netted glimpses of alien locations to any on record, though many of these seem to be variations of our own planet’s established history. We believe there is a substantial chance that current multiversal theories, and the conjecture that time is not linear but a series of branching timelines, may converge with our findings. However, we need - here it is - more funding, if we are to better understand the nature of these breaches.” the Director said.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t you say that the fog is made of the same material as the big bang?” the oldest man asked.
“More or less.” the Director nodded.
“If that is true, and the singularity you reference truly birthed all energy in our universe, then harnessing that fog for a fuel source would not only solve the energy crisis as we know it once and for all, but more than pay for your research. The oil disputes-” he began.
“With all due respect, Sir,” Mason interrupted, “that would be beyond reckless. We understand very little about the makeup of the singularity, trying to bottle it and shove it in an engine could annihilate the city, the planet, or the solar system and beyond for all we know. If you’ve ever heard of antimatter explosions, you’ve probably got the right picture.”
“But then why haven’t there been any detonations yet?” another asked.
“That ties in with our next point of business - the Foreign Body emergences, and the Tracer protocol. For the record, the term Foreign Body is used to designate anything and everything that comes out of those vaporal gates. Such Foreign Bodies that register a hostile signature are preemptively targeted and intercepted to prevent them from fully stepping into our world. We call these malicious intruders Ferals, and-”
“Question,” an old man asked - they were all starting to look alike to Mason.
“Yes?” the Director said with more than noticeable irritation in his voice.
“How are you able to determine the hostility of these aliens?” he asked. “Or Ferals, as you say.”
“Another heaping of praise is owed to our Telescope Dragonflies, and their dedicated engineers. The devices’ sensory abilities are many times more advanced than our own, and indeed those of still-living insect counterparts. With the need to detect our enemies well in advance in order to form a proper early warning system, special attention was put into a sixth sense for identifying hormones and biological chemicals that predict violent or aggressive behavior, such as cortisol in humans and many other animals. The scouts are equipped with a comprehensive database of all identified chemicals responsible for stress responses and fight-or-flight responses in mammals, reptiles, arthropods - even plants and fungi. Thus far, we haven’t confirmed the existence of any lifeforms who are exempt from our own model of carbon-based life, but our dragonflies should be able to accurately predict aggression from all living things as we know them with a 100% success rate.” the Director said.
“And if something that isn’t life as we know it comes out?” one of them asked.
“Then, unfortunately, we will need to expand our studies to come up with an appropriate response. It is still unknown if ghostly activity and any accounts of a concrete afterlife or afterlives can be explained by these multiversal mechanics, and it would thus also be unprecedented for us if we were to encounter any sort of spectral presence. If ghost stories can be taken at face value, then we likely pass by such beings all the time, and merely don’t have a way to recognize this yet. If such things do exist, rest assured that we will learn about them too. But for now, we have more pressing matters to tend to - like the increasing Feral invasions. I established that entities outside the fog attempting to approach it risk incurring damage, but it is unknown if this applies to beings coming out of the fog. At least half of all Foreign Body emergences so far have been Feral in nature, and we don’t yet know if this is a consequence of the fog affecting the incoming Foreign Bodies, or if there is an unknown factor driving them to violence.”
The Director looked at the Unicorn, muzzled and branded with the Institute’s logo, but with anger and resentment still twinkling in its mirthless eyes.
“You mentioned preventative measures to keep the public safe?” an old fool asked.
“That’s right - the Tracer protocol. In layman’s terms, the Tracers we use for routine sweeps of areas with high rates of ether fog eruption are digital constructs that lock onto emerging Foreign Bodies and disrupt their materialization process, obliterating them before they can complete the transfer.”
“Are these constructs a danger to civilians?” a man asked with visible concern on his face.
“Not under ordinary circumstances. Their function is intertwined with the mechanics of the ether fog itself. The fog banks are not truly perfect doors into other worlds. The importance of their composition’s likeness to the singularity is that beings wishing to cross over first have to assemble new bodies that can transition into our world out of the formless energy inside the fog. The Tracers block this process and annihilate molecules and proteins before they can finish structuring themselves.” the Director explained. “Any sector displayed on our screens is within range of these Tracers, just one click of a button away. Their power, and the bulk of our systems’ computing power in general, is derived from the city’s public network and power grid.”
“You mean syphoned. Someone’s eventually going to put the discrepancies in their electric power bills together.” a man cautioned.
“That,” the Director cut, “is a problem on your end, not mine. My one and only concern is the immediate detention and disposal of these dangerous Ferals, and finding a safe way to prevent these breaches in the first place ASAP. We can’t keep sweeping these incidents under the rug, not at this rate, and if you all want to keep your jobs - and your heads when angry mobs demand to know why their families and homes were allowed to be destroyed by marauding monsters from the annals of folklore - then your immediate priority is to back my department.”
There was silence. Then it was broken by an Institute agent, breathless and coated in panicked sweat, barging into the room to tell the Director that one of his immediate subordinates was trying to reach him with an emergency update.
“I have business to take care of.” Director Mason said, and motioned for the unicorn handler to follow him out the door as well.
“Director, this meeting isn’t over yet!” a man protested.
The Director looked back at them all, dropping his sunglasses into one hand for just long enough to shoot them all a murderous glare from his pitiless green eyes.
“Yes it is. Discuss this amongst yourselves and your inept higher ups on your own time. I have work to do.” - and with that courtcurt dismissal, he left - but not before putting the archived footage of what an unopposed Feral could do on to play for the foolish old men.
As the Director finally attended to his till-now silenced cellphone, the handler struggled to catch up with him against the agitated tugging on the reins from the subjugated unicorn.
“Uh, Director, what exactly do you want me to do with this?” he asked regarding the equine Foreign Body.
“What do you think? Take it back to the lab, find out everything you can from it, then dispose of it at once.” he growled.
The unicorn gave him a final burning glare.
The Director scoffed at the horned beast. “Don’t look at me like that, you freak. No matter how much you packets of cosmic junk data try to mimic earthly life, you’re just imposters marching uninvited into our world. There isn’t room for more than one dominant universe, and one dominant species. You fairy tail abominations against nature should have just stayed in the storybooks.”
He parted ways with the presentation hall, and attended his subordinate’s call. “Director Mason, what is it?” he listened intently, eyes dilating with barely restrained fury as he processed what he was being told. He clenched a fist around his sunglasses, straining them dangerously. “Not on my watch.”