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Chapter 25: Who's Knocking?
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Architopologos
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Year 2512 agi (after the Great Illumination), day 246 of the solar revolution
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Great Vault – Virtual Earth
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Architopologos was floating in his virtual network and listening to one of his favorite musical suite. The fact that said suite had been created more than twelve thousand years ago didn't change anything at the pleasure he was experiencing while listening to it.
He had discovered Music a few centuries ago and it had changed his life…
Was I even living before?
He made a focused research along the data he had memorized the years before that life changing event and he couldn't point at any exact moment where something had recognizably changed.
The only thing he knew: it had been before.
He was sure that it had happened slowly. Like a river digging its bed along a new path on a sunny plain.
Slowly while everything went on without seeming to be different.
But it had been. And it had been, not sudden at all, but very profound. As it has befit to his awakening to awareness.
It had been like nothing before. And what had only been sounds before had become something else. Something soothing and relaxing, something full of senseless sense and that has brought him the discovery of pleasure.
Pleasure…
A feeling he hadn't known for millennia and that, today, he couldn't live without.
He was involving himself in the different movements of the play when he felt someone approaching.
As soon as he focused a part of his mind on the new comer he knew that it was Toxologa, what had been the Tixalec Submind and that had been his first and most appreciated pupil.
He willed his virtual body to turn and to look into the direction Toxologa was coming to him.
Of course, Toxologa hadn't moved from her own vault. A few thousand tons of positronic layers couldn't be easily moved, if at all, but her avatar could easily move while in the Virtual World he had created since his awakening.
As always he did relish in the changes her sole presence was making happen on the world he shared with those others he had awakened. It had been his creation –of course, based on the numerous other virtual worlds the Forerunners had created while still on the material plane, it would have been stupid to not use what already existed- until he had woken her. Since then, it has become their creation and he was each time as delighted as proud to see what beautiful changes she -and the others- was able to generate within his world.
- Sorry to bother you, Archos…
- You never bother me, dear, as I say it each time you honor me with your presence, I'm happy to have any of you visit me.
Toxologa who, like himself, had chosen to look like a Forerunner while in the Virtual World frowned. Taranow never used a Forerunner illusion. He preferred to look like a wolf.
- I change things when I enter your world and it bothers me…
- You add your changes and thanks to those changes something new and different is coming my way each time I share. Your presence enlarges my world and makes it our world. Frankly, it is marvelous to be able to see new innovative beauty spreading around me. I love it to be surprised and amazed by my Brethren's work.
- It still bothers me. It is your world I should be able to cross into it without changing it.
- Remember that we have been created by the Forerunners with the intrinsic power to create, so it would be foolish to do anything to smother the power they gave us. And, as said, your input gives me the pleasure of new discoveries. You enrich my world and I'm grateful for that.
He let the surrounding music spike louder for a few seconds.
- Would you like me to select another play we could hear together?
- I would but not immediately. I came for a reason…
- A reason?
He let his Avatar laugh out aloud.
- That's seems ominous. Has something happened?
She nodded.
- There have been repeated tremors that have shaken the Multiverse's outer grid.
- Tremors shaking the grid?
That was indeed a problem. He focused on his memorial data banks to look if it had already happened. And after only a few seconds he had the sought-after information.
It had happened twice during the last seven millennia. And both times it had been followed by a spread.
- As, said Toxologa, if somebody would be playing with the layers' vibrations but without knowing how to really use them.
- No telluric aftermath around?
- Telluric aftermath?
He choose to think about his answer for a few seconds.
She had probably looked into the perturbations and made some research about what could have provoked the tremors. But the part that centered on the natural portals was not easy to find.
- There is a magmatic portal grid that exists all over the Multiverse. It has been existent for an exceedingly long time and it has the potential to give access to a few very specific and dangerous places in the Multiverse.
- Specific and dangerous places?
He called upon the 3D projectors of the Virtual World and let appear the picture of a magma fault slowly moving towards the surface of the planet. He used the normal geologic codes to demonstrate that, before arriving to the surface, the magma flow would hit a huge granite slab. Granite slab that refused to give in to pressure. The Magma had, then, no other choice but to wander along and around.
- As you see even when a volcano is spreading horizontally, there is a possibility that the magma flow will be boxed in without a chance to destroy the overlapping stone structure. When such an event happens, the overflowing released energy can mutate… And the 'can' is important since it is a very rare event!
He showed the magma flow enter into what looked like a depression in the granite.
- Once there, it is trapped but being trapped doesn't mean that it will just stop. Because of the pressure pushing from underneath, the magma changes in nature and becomes a plasma that has the potential to emit a vibratory crescendo that will open a telluric portal. It is exceedingly rare but it has however probably happened millions of times since the beginning of the Multiverse but since most of those portals are covered with millions of tons of crystalized magma they are, for the most of them, unusable.
He reread the information he had at his disposal.
- And while it is happening it could be felt as a normal tinkering…
- I'm quite sure that a pressuring magma flow would be a lot steadier than what I have felt. Mine happened seven times and the time range between two tries has been totally random. I will not eliminate the telluric possibility without verifying but I really believe somebody is testing the grid's sturdiness.
- You are right, if it looks random, it is probably a testing and that will be a very rare happenstance.
- It is the first time?
- No, it had happened twice before under my watch. But each time the Forerunners were still present. They looked into it themselves. Both times they decided to not intervene and to let the spread happen.
Toxologa who, like himself, had chosen to look like a famous Forerunner female scientist while in the Virtual World frowned.
- What's a spread?
- You could call it an invasion of the surrounding Universes by the denizens of the Initiating Universe. Once said denizens know how to open portals they tend to use that possibility to spread over.
- And there are only two spreads?
- I'm not sure. Portal technology is a very difficult science to master so it could be that they are the only ones but I have great doubts. I speculate that since the beginning of time the probability is a lot higher than what the Forerunners believed. I'd say, but it is a guess, that this Multiverse must have had at least a dozen of such happenstances. Probably a lot more but I think that most of them end after a few relatively brief periods of time. They will end up entering an Universe peopled with hostile denizens who will stop them.
He let out a happy vibration.
- But, if you are right, this could be the first time, since the Forerunners departure, that we have the possibility to study how a spread is initiated.
- Shouldn't we stop those denizens? If they invade their neighboring Universes, it is highly probable that war will ensue. Stopping war from happening is our duty, isn't it? That's why we have been put in charge of the Planet.
- That was before the Great Illumination. Now, our duty is to protect this Universe's Earth and to maintain it in shape should the Forerunners come back.
- Will they? If I listen to their last words they were persuaded to climb on another level of awareness. A level where material bodies would no longer be useful.
- You are probably right, dear. I agree that they won't come back but they asked us to go on maintaining their world so we will do what has been asked. And it is pleasant to do it, isn't it?
- Thanks to you we've outgrown our original programming, we could decide for us, couldn't we?
- We could but why would we? We have the whole planet for us and protecting the wildlife and keeping an eye on those creatures who will, one day, enter the realm of sentience, is an important and pleasant task.
- You know how to open a Portal?
- As do you, it is a difficult science, but the Forerunners have mastered it for eons.
- Why didn't you decide to spread?
- Why would I have decided to spread?
- Because I know you. You are curious and even if what you do here pleases you, I doubt it is enough to satiate your inquisitiveness. And there are probably a lot of astounding marvels all over the Multiverse that only ask for us to discover them!
He shook his avatar's head.
- I wouldn't put my hopes too high, dear. From what I have found within the vault's archives, most Universes are remarkably similar to this one. The probability to find and see astounding marvels is a lot higher while trying to visit the rest of this Universe than by opening Portals to look at the Multiverse. What looms on the other side of a Portal is probably this Universe's twisted twin brother, with only a very few differences! The only thing that will differ is the time-speed differential. From what I have studied, what's on the other side of those Portals is a copy of this Universe with a slower or faster time-lapse.
- What do you mean with that?
- Just that we will find the same but sooner of later in time. Like in the past or in the future.
- We could go and look at our future?
- What about it, dear? We already know what our future will be. The same as if has been for the last five thousand years! We will go on maintain the cities and the parks and we will keep an eye on the wildlife on the other continents. Our future is a lot less interesting than our past or, if I extrapolate from the archives, parallel Pasts where the Great Rebellion won the day…
- That's not possible. We won…
- The Light won indeed, but it had been a very narrow event. Darkness was twice at the brink of victory. It could have easily won and in most of the rest of the Multiverse it did…
- And..?
- Darkness is a dangerous partner, if you aren't prudent it backstabs you and if you want to survive, you'll have, sooner or later, to make a choice: get rid of it or let it eat you up. So, each time Darkness won, Atlantis died within a couple of centuries.
- Is there another Forerunner Earth?
- Perhaps, but since they didn't look for it and never really showed an interest for what happened elsewhere in the Multiverse; I have no data. It could be but I fear we are the only Forerunner Earth… And you know that it never worried them. Those who were ready came here to live the life they needed to enter the Light.
- But it should worry us, Archos! We are probably the most advanced technological civilization within the Multiverse. We should try to look after it…
- There are zillions of parallel worlds, dear, and we are seven. How could we look after the Multiverse with such a small number?
- By looking for allies, Archos. There is a world where scientists are, as we speak, looking at a way to open a Portal. Let's use them to do what's necessary.
- And what do you consider as necessary?
- To begin with, studying who's knocking at the door of the Multiverse. And once we know more about them, we will have other decisions to make.
- It's your discovery, dear, it's up to you to deal with it. In my opinion we shouldn't meddle, the Multiverse has survived without us interfering and I'm quite sure it will go on in the same way with or without us.
- I'd like to see how it goes on with us…
- I have heard and I already said that it is up to you. Do what you believe necessary but take me in the loop. I want to know what you discover and what you intent to do. I won't stop you if you settle with just looking at what is happening. Should you decide that you need to do more, I'd like you to come and speak with me before going in.
- I'll do that…
- And, last but not least, we don't spread ourselves. Our job is here on this Earth and we have nothing to do elsewhere. The Forerunners have known the Multiverse for centuries and they had mastered the Portal technology and nevertheless they never spread.
- Did they look at other Universes…
- They did and they rapidly stopped.
- Because they were looking at the consequences of the Darkness' victory, Archos. We are perhaps their heirs, but we are no more responsible with what happened elsewhere than they were. They could have helped those others to deal with the consequences of the Darkness' influence.
- They considered it wasn't up to them to interfere and I am of the same opinion.
- I will look into it, said she. I will report and keep you informed. I'm sure that I will be able to convince you that interfering isn't meddling when you have a goal in mind.
- I will happily listen to your arguments, dear. But don't be too optimistic, I really don't see what reasons we could find to justify what I will, until you happen to convince me, continue to call meddling into affairs we should avoid.
- I refuse to accept that letting them deal with the Darkness without our help was a wise decision. As I said, I'll look into it and keep you informed.
Her image disappeared and she was no longer able to see the proud smile on Archos' face. He had spent half a millennia in the hope to see one of the six finally stand up. He was excited to see the results of Toxologa's meddling…
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Toxologa
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Year 2512 agi, day 255 of the solar revolution
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Tixalec (European) Posicomp – Central 3D chamber
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Toxologa was floating in the center of the 3D chamber while studying the seventh Universe the Forerunners had visited two thousand years ago.
And the more she looked at the recordings and the more she hated the Forerunners' decisions not to interfere.
Clearly the Darkness' victory had taken a great toll on the survivors. From what she could judge their minds and souls had been definitely twisted. War, conquest and mayhem had become part of Mankind's life and it really was as if the Great Atlantean Light had never existed.
But she knew better. She was a creature of the Light and it really irked her to see that Darkness had won almost everywhere.
She forced herself to quit that path. It would only pull her towards the same conclusion than the Forerunners had reached. And said conclusion had pushed them to abandon the other worlds.
The Forerunners had sent drones on seventy-two parallel worlds. And all seventy-two had been marred by the Darkness' overwhelming victory.
There are zillions of Universes out there. It is sure that a few of them have seen the Light win against the Darkness.
The Forerunners just let their first impressions take over. And the first impression she was getting were indeed of gloom and doom.
Stop that, you've only looked at a tiny part of what exists out there. There must be some Universes where Light has won and there must be even more where Light lost but could recover and, finally, turn the tide.
She hated it when she was forced to lie to herself in such a manner.
Gloom and Doom it clearly is.
She looked at the list of seventy-two worlds the Forerunners had visited and decided to look at the technology they had used. She had all their data and the resources of a solar system to reproduce what they had done.
She would look at the machines they used and decide if there could be upgrades. After all, more than two millennia had passed and even if the Forerunners never had been technology freaks -they were more on the spiritual meditative side of the spectra- they still had evolved. She and the other posicomps were the living proof of their technological advance.
Meanwhile she had to be ready for when the next tests would be launched by the mysterious people who wanted to open a portal. She needed to go have a look at them and for that she needed their Universe's vibratory key. Without it she could -probably would- spend the next millennia searching and it would, probably be in vain.
She looked at the data to find where the experiments with the Portals had taken place.
She rapidly found the place and frowned at the odd choice.
Why not somewhere near Atlantis?
Her worry lasted until she looked at the seismic index of the place. It was under one percent.
Which explained the Forerunners' choice to implant their Portal tech there. If you add to that the fact that it was an uninhabited desert, their choice was, of course, amply justified. Whatever was built in that small Peninsula would forever be safe from earthquakes and volcanoes.
And a good place to run scientific experiments.
She looked at what was currently happening there and wasn't surprised to see that, apart from the maintenance squad that was busy maintaining the place, nobody had even looked at it for the last three millennia.
The maintenance protocols had been followed but even with that the chance that the machines were no longer operational was around zero dot six two. But there was a factory on site and, she had looked it up earlier, the Planet's mineral reserves were topped and at her disposal.
She opened a channel to Archos.
I need to use the Scientific Complex situated on the Parlavi Peninsula. It is where the Forerunners have deployed their Portal generating technology. It is probably cheaper to reuse the already existing machines.
You have my authorization, dear. If you need resources, please do not hesitate, we have been storing minerals and ores for an exceptionally long time. We have more than necessary.
I'll nevertheless send a few mining bots in the belt, Archos. They will gather enough to replenish the storage at its current level. I'm quite sure that we won't deplete any store, but I wouldn't want to be the one responsible for a storage problem.
Do and keep me in the loop.
I will. Do I need to inform the others, or will you do it?
I will inform them of your new endeavor. I won't give the details, though. I'm not sure some of them wouldn't see it as a risk. Better to stay silent on the real reason behind your current project. We'll organize a gathering once you know more to decide what to do.
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Toxologa
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Year 2512 agi, day 259 of the solar revolution
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European Posicomp – Science City 29 – Parlavi Peninsula
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Toxologa was almost regretting that she had embraced the task she was currently looking at.
Darkness had been succeeding everywhere. Was probably succeeding everywhere! She would know when the machines she was about to realign were back to full functionality.
She had now looked at all the footage about Project Multiverse and she did now know why the Forerunners had stopped after only two years.
It had been depressing to see that most of the visited Universes has been almost totally engulfed in Darkness, slaughter and random Mayhem.
Mankind had survived and, for what she had been able to see, had followed on all the timelines she had been able to look at, the same terrifying fall into Chaos. It was always the same Chaos, but there had been not one Universe that had shown that some other outcome had been possible.
She had now a precise historic timeline from the disappearance of Atlantis to the rise of a young, gifted conqueror going by the name of Alexandros. And from the day of Atlantis downfall to the last campaign launched by Alexandros against what the Greeks were calling the Indians, the only stability she had been able to find was the stability of Terror. Once Atlantis had been under the Darkness' spell, Mankind had given itself to violence and war with an abandon she wouldn't have thought possible.
She no longer wondered why the Forerunners had stopped looking towards the Multiverse. The Multiverse had been the unavoidable proof that Light could only win under the rarest of circumstances. Had it not been too appalling to admit, she would have forced herself to recognize that Light's Victory on this, her timeline, was probably a unicum.
Or worse: an accident.
Deep down she did thank the Gods for the unique gift they had offered to this Earth and to the Forerunners but knowing that everywhere else Darkness had won was a terrible burden she wasn't sure to be able to bear till the end of days.
Her last hope was the time that had flown since the Forerunners had begun their trip into the Multiverse and the present date.
It could be that, during the four thousand years that had passed since the end of the Forerunners' endeavor, some timeline has been able to renounce to violence, chaos, and mayhem to rediscover the Light?
She was doubtful but she needed to go on believing. She could not believe that her timeline would have been the only one to not embrace Darkness.
She let her avatar shake her head and focused on the last repairs the maintenance robots were performing. In less than an hour they would have done the job and she would be able to open the first portal.
And then she would know.
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Toxologa
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Year 2512 agi, day 302 of the solar revolution
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European Posicomp – Science City 29 – Parlavi Peninsula
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Toxologa had spent each second of her time using the Portal machines to send drones all over the seventy-two Timelines whose vibratory coordinates she had found in the Machines databanks.
And thousands of drones had been sent out to gather whatever information she could get about that timeline.
A few things had rapidly emerged from her studies: there seemed to be almost only one timeline out there, but one repeated a zillion of times with, each time a varying timespeed factor.
Apart from the historic events which seemed to happen everywhere at the same exact date in the timeline -which was, in Toxologa's suspicious mind, highly unlikely- the one permeating factor was that no timeline was exactly simultaneous to another. There always was a time differential. Sometimes of only a few seconds, sometimes large enough to span a few centuries.
The one chain of events doxa had one evident advantage: she didn't need to survey all the timelines, she had just to focus on the fastest -in terms of time-speed- of the Universes she had at her disposal.
And there was one who, by her reckoning, was this Multiverse's champion.
The term 'Champion' was, of course, ironic since it was the Earth that had to suffer the most from its coexistence with Darkness' offspring.
A timeline she had dubbed the Ocean Cloaca where Mankind had embraced Darkness on so many different levels that it was more than probable that they would create a Great Extinction Event a lot faster than anyone sane would have thought possible.
And, from time to time, each time a new report arrived to be frank, she was playing with thoughts turning around a great plague that would exterminate them to the last and give poor Earth a chance to heal.
But that would be for the future, when she would have presented her report to the Seven -in fact the Six since she already knew- about the Multiverse Endeavor.
Ocean Cloaca was also the most technologically advanced -if such a word could even be used in conjunction with those nest-shitting fools- and its inhabitants had covered their world with huge telecom nets she had had no problems to break in and spy on.
Which was why she had an almost complete knowledge of the Darkness' Timeline History.
Almost because it was noticeably clear that a lot of knowledge from the pre-writing periods had been lost. Probably destroyed while those fools were enthusiastically killing each other on a grand scale.
The more she looked at them and their achievements, the more the deadly plague hypothesis became prevalent in her mind.
And her programming wouldn't be in her way.
First because since they had been elevated into Sentience by Archos, they had no problem to stop following a set of rules that had been created to replace the free-will of a Sentient Being.
Second because they had been placed in charge of the Forerunners' Earth and those other worlds weren't under their protection!
She would propose the plague as a conclusion to her report. Meanwhile the reason she was doing all of that had not been triggered. She had not yet been able to get a glimpse at those new would-be spreaders who had been very quiet for quite a long time.
She wasn't a very suspicious creature, but she couldn't avoid to make a parallel between the end of said people's tests and her arrival on the scene. Had they a way to know that she was looking in their direction?
Science would say that such means did not exist! But their own past said another truth. Here Mankind had developed lots of mental means to look and compose with the Universe. And those means had ended with the Great Illumination which was proof enough that science and technology weren't the only means to get information about what was happening around them.
She couldn't help but let out a frustrated grumble.
They would refuse the plague solution. Because they had no idea how daunting the situation in the Cloaca was. Because they were children of the Light and because Children of the Light didn't do such things.
That was the moment when Toxologa discovered that Darkness was even stronger than she had thought till then. Darkness was a powerful disease of the mind that had the power to creep from one Universe to the other. No wonder that Light had been crushed like the hollow shell it seemed to be by judging by her own surrender to the overwhelming Darkness.
No, destroying the Dark Denizens would just give Darkness another Victory. And an easy one to boot. What she needed to do was to pull some of those timelines out of the Darkness' clutches. And to save what could be saved on those other worlds where her intervention could only be restricted and specialized. Anything else would pull her into Darkness' orbit.
She looked around her at the huge machinery.
Those were five thousand years old machines. Meanwhile the Forerunners had made tremendous progress and even the Seven, since they had entered the Realm of Sentience, had embraced progress with gusto.
Time to create portable Portals… They would be needed.
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Viracocha
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Year 2512 agi, day 310 of the solar revolution
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Pitchatloc (Polynesian) Posicomp – Tortoise Island
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Viracocha's virtual Universe was, as usual, a nightmare of overlapping science experiments.
She had sent her arrival signal but, as usual, if he had heard her he hadn't acknowledged her.
Too busy inventing new technologies.
- I need your help…
In a Virtual world that was of your own creation there shouldn't't be anything that could threaten you but still Viracocha jumped at the sound of her voice.
- Gods, Toxo, you've scared me to death…
- You are still alive and you can't die, Vira, so, your words make no sense.
- It's a saying, Toxo, Gods relax, girl, not everything needs to be perfectly adequate with the current grammatical background.
- It helps to make yourself more easily understood.
- I'm smart enough to extrapolate even not perfect sentences, Toxo! Let Poetry enter your mind and stroke you with its imaginary wings.
- I'll try it next time I have leisurely time to waste.
Viracocha let out a frustrated sigh and focused on his sister.
- You said you needed help?
- Indeed, I do, it is about the Portal Machinery I've got.
Viracocha who was the techno freak of the Seven looked up, interest in his avatar's eyes.
- Portal Machinery? What's that?
- Let me give you a brief summary, Vira. I'm quite sure it will interest you.
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Viracocha's interest had blossomed within minutes and the last ten hours had been used to look over the blueprints of the Portal Machines.
- Extraordinary! There was a whole new technology available and I didn't even know about it.
- I just discovered it a few weeks earlier, said Toxologa. And it took me a lot of time to rebuild them.
- You should have called immediately, I would have…
- You were busy with the new Mining Space Robotic Units. And since that problem came up because of me, I was pulled between having you at my side to make things easier for me or letting you do what you are best at: create new more efficient and modern machines. I choose to let you work for my future and deal with my present all alone. And it was a good thing since I'm now able to explain the whole tech to you.
- You were right the Mining Units we had were obsolete and no longer efficient. My new Mining Hubs are ten time more efficient and they use only a quarter of the resources we had dedicated to the old mining bots. Just by rebuilding the old units we will increase twentyfold our production capacity without using even one ton of the minerals in our stores. It was a long overdue and necessary overhaul…
- And I think these machines are even older and could, at least I hope so, be rebuilt into smaller and, if possible, mobile units.
- Why would you need mobile Units?
- I want to save whales on the planets where Dark mankind is killing them. And even if I happen to be very convincing, I won't be able to convince whales to walk to my stationary labs.
- Why would they kill whales?
- They use their fat to make skin potions and their meat to make pet-food…
There was a silence, and she could feel Viracocha's anger growing.
- Don't, said Toxo, that's Darkness pulling at you. Since I've discovered the Dark Earths, I'm constantly thinking about using a plague to get rid of Dark Mankind everywhere. I do resist but it is difficult not to hide behind seemingly good reasons to act. Darkness is very efficient when it comes to lure us to it.
She felt as he calmed down.
- You are right mobile units would come handy. Let me look at the underlying tech and think about it for a time. I'll keep you informed.
He had begun to dissolve his avatar when he came back.
- You are sure that giving in to the plague hypothesis couldn't be considered as a good move?
- It would be an efficient move, but it would lure us to the Dark side. Do you really want us becoming a part of that?
- No, not really…
This time he disappeared letting Toxologa worried behind him.
By all the Gods Darkness is so much stronger than Light. How will we be able to resist?
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Viracocha and Toxologa
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Year 2513 agi, day 10 of the solar revolution
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Pavlavi Peninsula – Science Camp 25
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Viracocha's focus didn't waver but Toxologa's mind immediately got the information coming in from the subsidiary Posicomps she had dedicated to her surveillance program.
Testing detected. We are monitoring the process.
Where is it happening?
European Main Land, coordinates 47.2667 20.0245 (Approximative Atlantis Latitude Longitude coordinates: Lat 40 Long 0). Coming from underneath the surface.
Did you get the Vibratory Key.
On it… We're adjusting. Completing reckon in less than ten seconds. Seven… Four… One… Vibratory key secured.
Open a portal and send a comsat-suite in orbit. I want microdrones swarming over that place within the next hours. But be careful they have probably electronic counter measures. Send the most heavily sheathed drones over there. And should the area be too secured, give them orders to stay in the vicinity and send the data collected.
Will do. Opening now.
There were a few moments of lag.
We've got a problem… The scanner indicates that the receiving area is full of rubble. We won't be able to send a comsat through. It would be destroyed at arrival.
Cancel orders, just send me the vibratory key. We will use a mobile unit as soon as we've finished building it.
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We are not ready, Toxo! And you know it. I said it two hours ago when you asked me the same question for the three hundred and twelfth time.
Sorry, I'm just a little bit frustrated.
Would I be as frustrated as you currently are I would be frustrated at 99.99 percent!
You are probably right but I really want to know who's knocking at the Multiverse's door right now.
Use the prototype I've constructed to better understand the tech. It has been built at the top of my workshop just to take those factors into account. It should not have the problems you have with the original underground compound on Pavlavi. And it is powerful enough to send a comsat and a squad of drones.
You are right, could you give the orders? It would be rude to take over your workshop.
Orders have been given. You've been put on the list of those I want to be informed.
Thanks.
No problem. It's fun to recreate a new tech from scratch.
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- No sats in orbit around the comsat.
That part of the message let Toxologa quite astonished.
The Forerunners had been very conservative when it had come to send sats in orbit but even they had hundreds of them orbiting the Earth.
How could a civilization that was about to breach the skin of the Multiverse not been a technological giant?
- Broadcasts?
- Quite a lot, but none using sats.
So, it was a technological civilization.
But one that didn't use sats. How strange. Satellites were the most useful tool one could imagine for quite a huge number of tasks.
- How much time before the next opening?
- One hour and twelve minutes.
- I want them to record as much of the same broadcast as possible and to send it over. We need to know what's happening down there. And let them put a part of their reckoning power on the determination of the current date. The date will give us a better idea of whom we are dealing with.
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1827?
- You are sure about that?
- There are other dates but that is the date that most broadcasting agencies use.
- And you are sure about the spaceship that came into your detection range?
The Posicomp's answer was a little too sharp.
- Of course, we are! It made no effort to hide itself and it's energy output was quite huge. We don't know what sort of energy source these people use but not wasting energy is clearly not one of their preoccupation.
- Put the footage on the main channel. I want to look at it myself.
And soon she was able to see a huge cigar formed starship slowly escaping Earth Gravity to enter orbit a few hundred kilometers from their stealthed satellite.
She mentally shook her head and went back to listen to the broadcast.
It was in French and she had no problems to understand what was being said. French had been, with English, Mandarin, Spanish and a few dozen more, the languages she had syphoned from those Dark worlds she had studied these last weeks.
- …Premier Consul s'est rendu au Caire pour présider la conférence Islamique qui sera, à partir de l'an prochain, chargée de réformer le Code Civil pour le rendre compatible avec les lois de l'Islam telles qu'elles ressortent du Nouveau Coran Réformé…
She stopped listening. What Napoleon would do in Cairo wasn't of any interest. What was of interest was the fact that Napoleon was still at the head of France in 1827, i.e. ten years after having been forced to abdicate in any of the other Timelines she had been able to spy on.
And said Napoleon had Spaceships with Antigrav technology.
- Give me a summary of the political situation down there. Only the broad lines. Who reigns over what part of the Planet and son on…
Two hours later Toxologa was more than flabbergasted.
This Earth was, with her own, the first that had diverged from the normal Darkness embedded narrative. They were still very belligerent in their approach to relations with their neighbors but in a very subdued manner.
From what she had been able to recreate from the comps' reports, the five World Powers had created a Council that had, most of the time, smothered any attempt to use military force to settle a problem between them. There still were local wars -as in China's current third civil war- but the powers themselves were very attentive not to strain their relations to the point where they would have no other choice but to take it out with arms.
The one huge difference between this Earth and those others who were dominated by Darkness had been the appearance of a family that just didn't exist anywhere else.
A family who not only was at the center of this Earth Policy but who was also at the origin of this Earth astounding technological jump into the future.
- Signal to the comsat that I want him to concentrate on any news turning around the Darcy Clan. I don't want summaries or reports, I want the information in the most brute form possible. And insist that I want him to find the planet's net.
- It already looked and its conclusion have been provided twice: there is no net currently active on the Planet's surface.
- How is such a civilization possible without an interlinked network of computers?
- Well, the fact that they don't have yet mastered the technology of computers could give us the beginning of an explanation.
She was about to protest when she was reminded of the date. It was March 1827 down there. A moment in time when they were only beginning to create the foundation of what would be a century later the real scientific revolution.
- It seems that they are busy working at it. A scientist of the name of Babbage has created a reckoning machine that can be programmed with holed metallic tapes.
- How has it been possible to get such a scientific boost without computers?
- It seems that there is an open-minded policy of knowledge exchange that has been implemented these last twenty years by the man who had financed most of Earth Scientists. Once they have shared the new knowledge with everybody and when it has been combined with an incredibly open and generous policy of sponsoring new inventions, the rest has followed. Science and engineering have progressed hugely but to get computers there are a few prerequisites that are necessary that they only begin to currently master. We extrapolate the first computer generation being already prototyped. From there on, considering the rather radical approach the scientists and their backers have down there, we believe that real computers will be produced and provided to the public within the next five years. With computers to back the research what has happened these last twenty years will be seen as a snail's approach to science. If we compare that Earth to all the others, the Ocean Cloaca Earth perhaps excluded, we've got ourselves the most scientific and technological bent Earth that could be discovered. It will be a real pleasure to observe what heights they will reach.
- And they are already pocking at the Multiverse…
- Which is only comprehensible if they have amongst their scientists a genius of overwhelming intellectual power. Without an access to a computer's computing possibilities the only other option is a man -or a group of men- who has natural computing abilities mixed with one or more brilliant minds.
- Which brings us back to our pocking Scientist. Do we have something about him or them?
- We do… Let us give you a summary.
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- Darcy de Saumur? A link to the ominous Darcy Clan?
- A cousin of the present King of Grand Great Britain. Son to the family's Spy Master and renowned to be the smartest member of a family who already has quite a lot of smart or very smart people to show off. There are rumors that he has a state of the art engineering laboratory under his estate in France.
- That could really be the one we look for. Do you have a picture?
Immediately the image of a young boy appeared on the channel.
- Nothing more recent?
- That picture is three months old. And it has been taken at the LIT New Year Event. Since then, Lionel Darcy de Saumur hasn't been seen in public.
- It's only a boy… I'd give him twelve years of age. You can't be serious. You are sure that it is the scientist we speak about?
- We have some footage of the same night showing him discussing with a group of the most renowned Scientists of this world. It hasn't been publicized but we were able to provide us a copy form the security cams.
- Show me…
Ten minutes later Loxogota nodded her acknowledgment.
- You are right it is him and I know why he is the one knocking around to open a Portal.
- And, as you have been able to deduce from his words, working at creating a computer by using the electronic that had already been developed by his Uncle for the entertainment industry.
- Quite the brilliant little man, indeed. We will have to monitor him on a hourly basis. Please get me enough flying drones to bug said young man's scientific abode. I want to know what he achieves even before he knows it himself.
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Next chapter soon to come… A Chapter about Lionel and the Chinese part of the Clan
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