***
That evening, Matthew was back at it again. His thoughts were occasionally troubled by the morning’s family event, but he put it out of his mind the best way he knew how—by focusing on his project.
Gary was with him at the moment, having dropped by a few minutes earlier to see what sort of progress he had made.
“Let me show you what I’ve got so far,” said Matt. Lifting the enchanted metal cubes from the table, he said a few words in Lycian, activating them. They rose in the air and took up their positions; eight cubes, one at each corner of a now larger cube that was two feet on each side. With another word, he switched them into their active state, and the sides became blacker than black. “I call it the ‘FT’,” he declared. “The Fool’s Tesseract, since it isn’t really a true tesseract.”
“Nonetheless, it’s fascinating,” agreed Gary. “What does it do, exactly?”
Matthew walked him through an explanation of the translation panes. There were six of them now, forming the sides of the cube. He took his time describing how they worked, and then added, “The interesting thing, is that all six of them open onto the same pocket dimension, and I can control its size.”
“Its size?”
Matt nodded. “Yeah. This is the first time I’ve activated them all at once, but while each opening is four square feet in area, they currently open into a pocket dimension that’s only one inch cubed in volume, each side of it being one inch square.”
“So, whatever enters is being compressed?”
“Precisely,” said Matt. “The idea is that whatever they throw at me will become compressed in the much smaller pocket dimension. Then later, when I want to return the favor, I can invert the translation panes and throw everything back at them. Like this.” He uttered the phrase to switch the operating mode of the enchantment.
There was a roar and the world went white, then black.
When Matthew opened his eyes again, he was staring up at a starry sky. Turning his head, he almost lost consciousness again as a blinding wave of pain assaulted him. Feedback sickness? he thought. How did that happen?
“Are you awake?”
It was Gary’s voice. The android was on the ground nearby, beginning to struggle to his feet.
Matthew was confused. “What happened?”
“My sensors recorded most of the event, but the simplest explanation is that your FT exploded,” said the machine.
“How did we get outside? We were in the workshop. Did you drag me out here?”
“No,” said Gary. “This is where you landed. As for your shop, there isn’t much left of it.”
Ignoring the pain, Matthew levered himself up onto his elbows and glanced around. He was in the castle’s east courtyard, but his shop was gone. Well, not entirely gone—there were pieces of it all over the yard. Where it had previously stood, the FT was still hanging in the air, having changed colors, from black to a shimmering gray. “Well, that’s interesting,” he observed.
Voices were shouting across the yard now as guards and other servants began trying to find the cause of the commotion.
***
The next day Matthew spent in bed, resting and trying to get over his feedback sickness. The force of the explosion had been great enough to break his personal shield but hadn’t quite been enough to do him any serious harm after that, other than the scrapes and bruises he had acquired tumbling across the open ground. Thankfully, none of the larger pieces of his workshop had landed on him after the initial blast.
He’d had to make a lengthy explanation to his parents and family earlier, and now Moira had come to visit him. She leaned over his bed, looking down with a smirk on her face.
“You blew yourself up again,” she greeted him.
“I have a gift,” he replied.
“On the bright side, you didn’t lose any arms or legs this time,” she noted.
Matthew frowned. “I didn’t blow myself up the time I cut my arm off. You’re comparing apples and oranges.”
“The head groomsman spent half the night rounding up the horses,” she added.
“I didn’t blow up the stable,” he objected.
“The blast scared them so badly some of them kicked down the stall doors,” his sister explained. “You really have a talent for mayhem. I’m starting to wish you had gone to Dunbar with me. The whole thing would have been over lot quicker if you had blown up the city.”
He laughed. “I hear you did just fine on your own. I’m not sure the world could handle it if we both got rowdy in the same geographic region at the same time.”
“Try to be more careful next time,” she told him, as her face became serious, “at least until I can figure out how to make a copy of you.” Then her eyes darted off to one side. “Father’s coming. I think he wants to discuss your design. I’ll be going.”
She rose and opened the door as just as their father reached it. He stepped in and gave her a hug before letting her leave, as was his habit. Then he turned serious eyes on his son.
“What happened?”
Matthew recounted what he knew of the event before adding, “It was what I wanted to happen with the final version, but what I don’t understand is where the force of the explosion came from. Nothing was directed at it before I inverted it. There shouldn’t have been anything inside to produce that kind of result, other than some air.”
“Did you notice anything before you turned it inside out?” asked Mordecai.
“There was a draft in the shop, but it wasn’t enough to really make me wonder about it,” said Matthew.
“So, it was probably drawing air into it the whole time it was active.”
“Maybe,” Matt admitted, “but what would cause that? There was no attractive force.”
“Air pressure,” declared Mort. “The interface of your… what did you call it before?”
“Fool’s Tesseract.”
His father chuckled. “The name was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Anyway, the interface of your translation pane was unidirectional, so it served as if it were effectively a vacuum, even though the space inside it was filling with compressed gas. The ambient pressure was driving air into it. How long was it active?”
“A few minutes at most.”
“If it had been longer, you might not have survived. It goes without saying, but you can’t test this thing at Castle Cameron any more. In fact, I’m not sure if you should continue working on it at all. It seems extremely dangerous.”
Matt’s face grew stubborn. “I’m not giving up on it. Besides, the idea is I’ll be inside it, between the translation panes, when it’s inverted. Any destruction will occur outside, while the user is completely protected.”
“Are you that merciless, son?” said his father. “It sounds as if you intend to offer these people no quarter.”
“I won’t be using it on people,” insisted Matthew. “Just against those metal android soldiers—hopefully.”
“Gary says that most of those machines contain the souls of real people,” observed Mordecai. “If you destroy them, won’t it be the same thing? Is there no chance you can talk to them, offer them an opportunity to return the egg without resorting to violence?”
“Every time I’ve been there, I was attacked. Without warning, without any attempt at communication. They’ve never shown any compunction about killing me. They did kill Karen’s aunt, and her dog. Then they took Karen, and who knows what they planned to do with her. They’ve forfeited any right to negotiation,” said Matthew. “If you want me to make it back alive, you shouldn’t suggest I try deal-making. All the evidence so far shows that they can’t be trusted.”
Mordecai sighed, “You’re probably right, but I wanted to spare you the worst if I could.”
“The worst?”
“The greatest strength allows you to obtain what you want without hurting others. Too often I’ve been weak, and forced to use powers that were ill-suited to the task at hand. As a result, a lot of people have died, and the
ir deaths are my responsibility. It weighs on you, like a heavy stone, and the weight of it can crush your soul. The last thing I ever wanted was for you to experience that. Yet it’s already happened to your sister.”
“Was what happened in Dunbar really that bad?” asked Matthew. “Moira seems different.”
His father looked down, uncomfortable. “What happened was unfortunate. She did what she had to, but half a city died for it. The enemy had backed her into a corner. I’m afraid that in your case, this is unnecessary. You’re putting yourself in the corner. Whatever happens will be entirely due to your decisions.”
“They started it,” protested Matt. “They took Desacus. I won’t allow that.”
Mordecai looked sad. “Then you’d better be prepared to deal with the consequences. Violence marks the soul, even when done in self-defense. In this case, you’ll bear the burden without even that to expiate your actions.”
“You’ve really cheered me up,” Matthew answered sarcastically.
His father shook his head. “I wasn’t trying to.”
Chapter 42
Gary was studying the parchment in his metal hands. On it were runes, laid out in elaborate triangular patterns, with occasional notes in Barion beside them explaining their function. It was the enchantment Matthew had created for his Fool’s Tesseract. The android pointed to one portion. “These are numbers?”
Matthew nodded. He had already explained each symbol to the AGI in careful detail.
“Why not just write them as standard numbers?” asked Gary. “Why the need to create a separate set of symbols? What makes these figures special, such that they control or focus your magic?”
“Technically, you’re correct,” said the young wizard. “The runes were created to symbolize different things, but we use them independently of normal words and numbers to help keep things separate in our minds. Otherwise, mages might find themselves performing magic unintentionally, while speaking or writing.”
“But if you, or someone else, created the runes, what gives them power?”
“I do, or whatever wizard uses them does.”
Gary shook his head. “But what if that other person doesn’t know your symbols? Does it still work, then?”
“Depending on the enchantment,” explained Matthew. “Many of them last forever, and they can be used by people who don’t know what they mean. But to create a new enchantment, the mage must understand the runes they’re using, or create new ones that they do understand.”
“Did you create any of these?” asked the machine.
“Actually, yes,” said Matt. “Translation magic has never been done by humans before. The Illeniel She’Har used it, but they had a completely different system called spellweaving, so I had to create some of those runes from scratch to handle the new concepts.”
“So you create the rune, you imbue it with meaning in your mind, and somehow the universe learns your intention. You realize how crazy that sounds?” observed Gary. “It’s as though reality is already programmable, much like the programmable matter that the ANSIS project is striving to create. But that’s not the strangest part—the strange part is that there’s no sign of whoever set it all up originally.”
“Enchanting?” asked Matthew.
“No!” declared Gary. “This entire reality, and not just this one. From what you described before, there’s an entire multiverse, with some parts of it having aythar and other parts not having it. Somehow your aythar expands and spreads, like a living thing, but it hasn’t reached everywhere. My world was still ‘dark,’ as you described it, along with many others.”
“Well, if aythar is a result of a change in the organization of the quantum foam, it’s just a natural shift…,” began Matthew.
Gary shook his head. “No, not if we’re talking about infinities. You say there’s no time in the place between realities, but the important thing is this: if this is a one-way process, then everything should already possess the same aythar. The fact that there are still ‘dark’ universes means that it isn’t a one-way process. In fact, it may mean that there’s an active opposition.”
“An enemy, you mean?”
“You said you felt a presence when you shift between worlds, like you became part of a greater mind, right?” asked Gary.
“Definitely,” agreed Matthew.
“And it wanted you to spread the ‘light,’ your aythar, to these dark worlds.”
He nodded. “Mm hmm.”
“Then in some fashion, you, or perhaps all mages, are agents of this greater intelligence,” concluded the machine. “And the obverse is probably also true. Whatever it is that has kept your ‘type’ of reality from becoming the norm everywhere, that force must also have agents. It must be simultaneously changing some worlds back to its preferred type.”
Matt gave him a cynical look. “You’re starting to sound rather mystical.”
Gary nodded. “I am, aren’t I? It’s kind of ironic, really. Here I am, in a land of magic and mystery, and it’s me, the machine, that’s positing the existence of gods and devils to explain what he observes. You’re the one who should be religious.”
The young wizard laughed. “A lot of people are, but when you grow up with a father who is known as the ‘god-slayer,’ religion starts to seem a little silly. My Dad told me it was quite a shock for him when he finally decided that the gods he grew up with were not really gods at all. From my perspective, I tend to view these new agencies you’re dreaming up with the same sort of skepticism. I’m not saying they don’t exist, but whatever they are, they aren’t gods, just more powerful players. It’s a matter of scale, just like this war between the nano-scale machines of your world and the planck-scale magic of mine. Even if these super-intelligent agents of yours exist, there’s probably something even larger beyond them, moving them on its game board.
“Enough of that, though,” said Matthew, hoping to redirect the conversation. “You said you had some thoughts about my design.”
“It’s a matter of scale,” said Gary. “These runes you have here…” He pointed at the schematic. “Those numbers spell out the dimensions of this pocket dimension you create, right?”
“Mm hmm,” agreed Matthew.
“Then, if you change them, you can alter the size of that pocket dimension,” continued the AGI.
“Naturally.”
“Then it’s lucky you chose the size you did, or you might have destroyed the castle, Washbrook, and perhaps even a sizable part of the surrounding countryside,” finished Gary.
That got his attention. Matt leaned forward. “How?”
“You learned about nuclear weapons on my world and how they were used against the She’Har. Being ignorant of physics, you might not have realized it, but if you make the size small enough, it would induce nuclear fusion, even if only a small amount of matter was drawn into it. Any fusion reaction would result in a massive explosion when the energy was released,” said Gary.
Matt was stunned, but a thought immediately occurred to him. “What if I set this to zero?”
“That reduces the interior dimension to an undefined singularity; what we would call a black hole in my world’s parlance.”
“And what would that do?”
Gary shrugged, an awkward gesture for the military android body to attempt. “Ironically, nothing. Once you go that small, when you release it whatever was inside would be released as a micro-black hole. It wouldn’t be able to expand or cause damage. Instead, it would be almost unnoticeable, and it would evaporate over a short scale of time.”
“Oh,” said Matthew, noticeably disappointed.
“But aside from that, the smaller you go, excluding a singularity, the more devastating the results will be—I think.”
Matt arched a brow at him. “You think?”
“There are some exotic states of matter that lie between plasma fusion and a black hole-type singularity. None of them are well understood, so I don’t really know what the result would be if they
were suddenly released. I’m just guessing that they would be bad,” explained the machine.
“Then I guess you had better go over these numbers with me,” said Matthew. “To make sure I don’t overshoot my mark.”
***
Angela Kruger, UN President and preeminent leader of the world, was not having a good day. The most recent events involving DEMON incursions had sent shockwaves through the political sphere and she was beginning to worry about losing a vote of no confidence.
Through most of her term, the job had been routine; almost boring. In the current age of prosperity and technological wonders, most of the age-old drivers of insecurity and turmoil had been vanquished. Poverty was a thing people read about in history texts, disease was laughable, and famine almost impossible.
War, and the threat of the unknown, the ‘other,’ was the remaining driver that was now causing her problems. The first demon-war had been one of the great motivators behind the strengthening of the UN into the political force it was today. People hadn’t been able to upload in those days. The billions who had lived on earth had been flesh and blood, and with that mortality had come fear.
In the years since, uploading and virtual immortality had changed society into something almost unrecognizable. Even the UN had become almost an afterthought, as humans living within the virtual world had ever fewer needs to worry about. It was only now, under threat of another DEMON invasion, that the UN and its supervision of humanity’s main military force had become important once again.
“They’re screaming for my resignation, Director Aiseman,” she told the man sitting across from her. “They walked into a secure facility with impunity, took Dr. Miller’s test subject, and then just vanished. Surely you can see how this looks for me? The last thing the people want right now is the appearance of weakness.”
“There are other gestures you can make,” insisted the Defense Director. “Fully activating ANSIS is not advisable. We can’t be certain we won’t be creating a problem bigger than the one we’re facing.”
“Dr. Miller doesn’t seem to share your reservations,” observed the President. “And never mind the fact that according to your own evidence, we have a super-intelligent AI agent loose in the network doing god knows what. If the news of that gets out they’ll have my ass for certain.”