Dysphoria- Permanence Read online

  HYMN OF THE MULTIVERSE 7

  Terra Whiteman 2019

  All rights reserved

  O

  PROCESSING

  Yahweh Telei—;

  AFTER FIFTEEN ATTEMPTS AT GETTING an uncontaminated sample, I finally succeeded. The sample was separated and dropped into tubes, then dissolved in acid. I shook the tubes thoroughly and let them sit in a rack on my desk. I swiveled in my chair and read the calibration report from the X-Ray Fluorescence Analyzer. The numbers looked decent.

  Qaira and I had built the instrument several weeks ago from whatever parts we could spare (which wasn’t much after having to leave most supplies at Enigmus), and absolute precision was wishful thinking. I just needed an idea of what these samples contained, therefore this makeshift machine would suffice. Probably.

  Maybe.

  Atop the secondary tier of my desk sat Lelain’s petrified head. I’d been trying for weeks to identify the type of stone into which Framers turned with little success. Due to the previous (failed) attempts, he was now completely missing his nose. I’d turned him to face the wall, as the guilt of desecrating a corpse and the terrifying look permanently frozen on his face were both extremely distracting. If only attica had been able to find a match when I’d asked for a composite query. Sigh.

  The wooden door of my study suddenly ricocheted off the concrete wall and I nearly jumped out of my seat. Qaira stormed in, muttering obscenities under his breath, rummaging around through our stock supplies. His clothes were covered in avian feces. I had to try very hard not to grin.

  “Where is the detergent?” he asked after a few moments of searching.

  “What do you need it for?” I asked, teasingly.

  He shot me a look, not at all amused.

  Qaira had been in a bad mood since all of our alcohol, drugs and mood enhancers ran out last month. With being stuck on a post-civ world in the far reaches of Apaeria Minor, there wasn’t much to cultivate. Going on off-world supply runs posed the risk of detection, so that was out of the question. The only inhabitants of this world now were flora and mildly-hostile fauna. Judging by the mess, it appeared Qaira attempted to scout for herbal replacements and was swarmed by a flock of azgans, large birds that were both territorial and aggressive.

  “Top right corner, at the back,” I said, returning to my work. “Did you at least kill a few and nab us a substantial dinner?” Because we were all sick of absorption, but not enough to stomach any more bark soup or root juice.

  “Two of them,” said Qaira, grabbing the detergent and heading for the door. “Fucking over-sized, psychotic chickens. I hate this place.”

  The door slammed shut, and I let out a scoff.

  “Don’t mind him,” I assured Lelain’s head. “He’ll be in a better mood after a shower.”

  I

  LONGEUR

  Regalis Sarine-376—;

  I COMBED THROUGH THE EXTRACTORS’ DATA as Lelain’s avatar solemnly watched on. I ignored its tormenting glow, and it flickered intermittently with grid interference.

  The Archives at Teleram was exclusive to Inspectors and Auditors, although I was given access with Dracian’s approval rather than having to wait days, if not months, for the extractions to be made available on grid.

  They were able to recover Lelain’s journey to Halcyon, all the way until his final moments when Leid Koseling burned through his stream and permanently shredded most of his proficiencies. There were fractures in his lore, so the report stated. Whatever that meant.

  Opening Lelain’s archives brought him to life, so to speak. His image provided visual context for the Extractors and other investigators. For me, it was punishment. I wanted to deactivate the avatar but didn’t have the permissions necessary, nor did I want to admit to the Archivists that I couldn’t stomach the sight of my dead partner.

  Instead I avoided the avatar’s general direction and downloaded the data from one of the hundreds of panels. The panels formed dozens of rows, spanning every inch of the Archives, all the way to the front desk. Once I retracted everything I need, I deactivated the panel, watching Lelain’s avatar fade. He’d looked so sad. It made me sad as well.

  And then angry, because I was not to blame for Lelain’s death. He had made his own fate, even when I’d asked him not to go. His conviction had burned too strong. Lelain shouldn’t have gone, but he’d been right—;

  I should have killed our mongrel captive when I’d had the chance. This had been a learning experience for everyone.

  I composed myself and walked to the desk, showing the auditor what I’d extracted. With a simple nod, she lifted the departure restriction. I left, very relieved, to the private vector.

  *

  Dracian was charting a timeline in grid when I returned to his aperture. We chose to conduct our investigation within his walls, as privacy restrictions were much higher for a Framer with Inspector status. I was just a measly member of Authority, which allowed other Authority members access into data streams created from my console, in my vector. We weren’t doing anything technically classified, but it wasn’t a stretch to suspect other nosy members of the Insipian Qualification Directive might be curious as to what we’ve uncovered so far. Thus, Dracian’s place it was.

  I’d gotten used to the jarring scenery, at least. The lava bubbles still ascended from the floor, but the theme along the pane had switched to a panoramic view of Starvar’s event horizon. The vines still hung along the corners, coiled around the pillars. It was all very ataractic, admittedly. My aperture felt lonely now, without Lelain. Dracian wasn’t quite as amicable, but he was company nonetheless.

  Upon my arrival he briefly glanced over his shoulder, then did a double take. He studied me, surprised. “Oh. For a second I thought someone breached security.”

  I’d finally had the time to modify my carapace. The end result wasn’t nearly as good as if I’d had a choice in the prototype design, but anything was better than a generic shell. This would have to do until my credits reset; we were only allowed a new carapace every several hundred years and dying had emptied my account.

  “It looks good,” he said upon realizing I’d taken minor offense to his remark. Then he weaved to a subject change. “Were you able to get an extraction?”

  “Yes,” I said, taking a seat at the console. “I wish you’d gone instead.”

  Dracian said nothing, immersed in the grid once again. I’d grown used to his aloof demeanor.

  His child-like disguise no longer had any effect on me. He was an old soul, having existed far longer than most of Authority (being able to make 786 shifts attested to that). Although he did not relay much of his history and any records concerning him had a confidentiality lock, I’d come to realize his child-like carapace was a display of irony. Dracian was strange like that.

  “The report on the Exodian debris came back,” said Dracian after a lengthy duration of silence. I’d occupied myself with watching Lelain’s extracted cast and barely heard him. Halcyon’s sky was beautiful; even more beautiful was the ocean of diamond sand. Lelain had loved places like this. He’d have captured it for an aperture theme.

  “And what did it turn up?”

  “Nothing,” he said, disappointed. “No more than what we already know, anyway.”

  I placed the images of Enigmus and Halcyon parallel to one another. Halcyon’s landscape was a white desert; Enigmus’s constructs were reduced to a similar form of scenery, except black. “May I share something with you?”

  “Sure.”

  I embedded my cast to his stream. We both compared sceneries together. I waited to see if Dracian would come to the same conclusion I’d had.

  “Those towers are a small piece of a larger picture,” he said, quietly
. I smiled, knowing now that we would make an excellent team. “It was left on Halcyon intentionally. By who, and what for?”

  “Our captive mentioned their proxies,” I said, falling silent and thinking on that a little.

  Dracian turned to me, inquisitive. “Proxies?”

  “The first of their kind. I took it to mean the Framer-Rhazekan hybrids from Philo. They must have moved there, escaped there, which is why we missed them.”

  “They put a guard around the city, masking their presence, as they did with Enigmus,” he said, more to himself than me, as I had already deduced as much. “That woman, their Queen, isn’t a proxy. They don’t have the same physiology.”

  “But she appears to have the same abilities,” I said. “How is that?”

  “Does this warrant an investigation?” Dracian asked, lifting his brows. He almost seemed excited at the idea of visiting a sim world.

  I shrugged. “Depends on your perceived level of threat.”

  He waved a hand, dismissing me. “They’ve left that world, likely not to return. I also doubt they’d risk coming out of hiding now. If they had the capabilities of a proper offensive, they wouldn’t be hiding in the first place.” Dracian left the console, removing his headset. The prolonged wearing of it had left his hair a chaotic mess of silver and white. “We will need permission from Teleram to enter Sim-1. I’ll need to submit a full report on our findings and the purpose of our investigation.”

  His enthusiasm disarmed me. “You actually think they’ll let us go?”

  “Not alone.” He smiled, and I knew Drace well enough to recognize he only smiled like that whenever he had a very good plan. “And nothing the Vel’Haru have will be able to defend against more than two Framers, Regalis.”

  I turned back to the console and slipped the visor over the bridge of my nose. “I’ll work on the report, then. After this.”

  “Time is of the essence, Sari,” he said, vacating the aperture in a burst of fractal light.

  I immediately hated that nickname, and would make sure to tell him so once he returned from wherever.

  Back to Lelain’s cast. I reviewed the part where he and Lassiter approached the towers. The random staircase was peculiar, but irrelevant to the—

  Wait. What was that?

  I rewound again, watching carefully as a groan fractured Halcyon’s sky. I was less interested in that than the sound immediately following it. A whisper. Then, a scream.

  It soared between my partners and was gone the next instant. They hadn’t seen it. Or perhaps they were too focused on their mission. Whatever the case, the spectral scream was accompanied by silvery-crimson threads; tailsparks moving so quickly that they hadn’t even registered them. They had come from the towers.

  I spliced the cast and analyzed the wave mechanics in grid. The results came back within moments, and it was just as I feared. That scream was connected to the Insipian base-wave.

  Oh, shatterstar. What the pulse was that?

  II

  BLACK CROWN

  (WHITE AMBITION)

  Leid Koseling—;

  BREATHE.

  Just breathe.

  I stood on the shore’s edge, watching the sky turn from red to royal blue as dusk fell over the valley. It was cold here; far colder than Sanctum. I hugged my fur serape closer, keeping the wind from my neck, ignoring the tickling of my cheeks as threads of hair whipped about in the mounting night winds.

  It was really cold here, but the scenery made it worth it. To me, at least.

  Gantzt was a world in the Solemnar System of Apaeria Minor, two thousand lightyears from The Atrium. It was once inhabited by a mid-civ colony up until seven hundred years ago, when a supervolcano in the northern pole erupted and shrouded most of the world in ash. The atmosphere was thin, and despite it being so cold the UV was deadly to unprotected skin (not ours, of course). It wasn’t long before most of the mid-civ population packed up and left, while those without the means to travel off-world suffered a slow, icy death.

  The darkness had subsided a bit, although the world was still in an ice-age. We had set up camp in an abandoned fortress built to last, with cement and treated petrified wood. It was the warmest region on the planet, but nonetheless each morning the valley was covered in frost, the lake’s surface draped in a thin sheet of ice. I endured the valley’s briskness to watch the sun rise and set each day, observing the shadows play across monstrous pieces of old-civ tech that hung from escarpments in the distance.

  As dusk came and went I left my perch on an old log, shivering into my serape. I ripped off a thick extension of the wood, tossing it into the air twice before letting it absorb into my skin. Each step taken made threads of silver and crimson that webbed and weaved across the ground, as if the world itself had veins. The darkness made the codes visible, running everywhere I looked. I had to focus hard not to see them, and dialing them down was always a struggle. Pausing at the bridge that led into the fortress, I checked the perimeter shield and found that it still stood.

  Good.

  I retreated inside.

  *

  Within the fortress walls, most of the scholars huddled around a bonfire; a bulky, cleaned azgan carcass rotated on a pike above the flames, powered by Zira. Adrial and Aela leaned on one another atop a stone bench at the spit, laughing and smiling. Yahweh and Pariah were discussing something heatedly. Their hand gestures and facial expressions relayed it had something to do with the wavelength machinery that they were in the process of designing.

  Where was Qaira?

  “He’s off sulking somewhere,” said Zira, noticing my wandering gaze. “If you find him, tell him the food’s almost ready. He’s ignoring our telepathy.”

  “I’m not going after him,” I said with a gentle roll of my eyes. “He’ll come out of hiding when he’s hungry enough.”

  Zira shrugged and turned the spit. “He doesn’t seem to like it here.”

  “Do you like it here?” I asked.

  “No, not really.”

  “No one does.” Except for me. “But your adaptability is miles above his.”

  Zira only smirked and said nothing else. I sat beside Yahweh and Pariah, who stopped debating the moment my presence was made known. Yahweh offered his mug. “Root juice?”

  I scrunched my nose. “I’m fine, thank you.”

  “Someone needs to drink it,” said Pariah, frowning. “I didn’t make nine gallons just for fun.”

  I grinned. “If you can ferment it, I’m willing to bet Adrial would drink it all on his own.”

  “Do we have enough spare parts for a distillation apparatus?” asked Pariah.

  “Maybe,” murmured Yahweh. “If you could make us alcohol, you’d definitely be the most popular scholar around.”

  “Yes, because that means anything,” I said, leaning into a palm. Alcohol did sound lovely, though.

  Yahweh fell into thoughtful silence, watching the flames lick at the azgan’s browning flesh. I studied him with a pang in my heart.

  As cheerful and safe as we all were now, none of this would last. Everyone knew it, yet we tried our best to keep our existential dread suppressed with research and hope. Even with our best attempts it still hung in the air, smothering us at every opportunity. The others thought Qaira was sulking, but really he was worried and saw little worth in partaking in comradery when our lives were hanging in the balance.

  And, Yahweh. The image of him lying in his laboratory on Ezekiel, a shard of glass lodged through his torso, blood seeping from his lips… It still haunts me to this day. I would not be able to take his death again. I couldn’t allow it. Not him.

  Not any of them.

  My eyes wandered to Adrial. He was already looking at me, concern etched across his face. Aela was still speaking to him, unaware of his attention shift.

  I had to be careful. My thoughts were leaking.

  ***

  Qaira Eltruan—;

  Determinant, II’

  Non-vanishing elements
, g(rs)

  Vanishing elements, g^rs

  Metric tensor...?

  Metric tensor. That’s what I was missing, as I had no idea what vectors to use. Insipia’s dimensional manifolds were something I knew nothing about.

  I stepped back from the wall and took a minute to massage my head. I’d spent more than half the day, each day, whittling away at this equation and had only gotten five percent closer to solving it.

  The equation from Sarine’s floating prison box had become an obsessive drive. Being unable to solve it kept me awake at night. There was something to it, undoubtedly. If I was able to figure out the answer, it would help us. How it would help us I didn’t know, as I had no clue what it pertained to other than how light and energy moved from one place to another. Where those places were supposed to represent remained a mystery.

  The northern wall of my room was covered in numbers, variables and scribbles of equations subsequently crossed out. No one had thought to bring any parchment from Enigmus, and using attica was out of the question because I didn’t want to make my chaotic thoughts public just yet.

  Tae stood in the corner, watching me scornfully.

  I ignored her. If no eye contact was given, she would leave me alone.

  I knew she wasn’t real, but she might as well have been. We’d run out of drugs to placate that fucked up part of my mind, so now I was forced to deal with her. Deal with me.

  I heard the door creak open behind me, but I didn’t turn around. I already knew who was there.

  “I brought you food,” said Leid.

  I grimaced at the thought. Yes, I was hungry, but could still smell bird shit everywhere, no matter how many times I bathed. “Set it on the table.”

  “Please make sure to eat,” she urged. “You’re no good to us starved.”

  I lifted a brow, looking at her from over my shoulder. “Us?”