Chapter 86: In Unlikely Places
Perspective: Shadow
The machine's brass bulk dominated the room, its hatch was closed and the cables that connected to it radiated enough warmth to distort the light around them. All this was evidence enough that Shadow was too late, only further consolidated by the waves that rippled through the fabric of reality.
In the centre of the room stood a large chair facing the machine, this chair now slowly turned around, revealing Dr. Veronica Mercury wearing the lightweight powered armour that served as a platform for her additional limbs. However, she looked far from the evil scientist about to gloatingly confirm that Shadow was indeed too late. No, she sat slumped deep into the chair, her eyes only half-open. In the first few moments she barely seemed to notice Shadow standing in front of her. Once she did, her posture straightened out, if only slightly. Dr. Mercury looked on silently like a convict at the chopping block who had accepted her sentence.
Shadow slowly began walking towards her. "The Entity's gone, you know."
Dr. Mercury took a few moments to process what she just heard. She blinked. "How?"
"That talk you and Claw had about the crystals and how I'm similar to the Entity. Freak listened in and manipulated our friend Destiny into helping him remove the Entity from this world. He's running the show now and his plan is only slightly better than the Entity's."
This fully woke Dr. Mercury up from her daze. Her eyes opened properly, and she stood up from her chair.
Shadow asked: "For how long has the machine been active, and how long until it does irreversible damage to other worlds?"
Dr. Mercury answered: "Roughly half an hour since activation. For the first worlds to be pulled close enough to merge, it will take six hours at the very maximum." She paused. "How did you get in here?"
Shadow walked past Dr. Mercury and inspected the machine. Within it thousands of dimensional crystals resonated with the static grey in their centre, each crystal tethered to a world, slowly reeling it closer to Nexus.
"We launched an assault on the Tower and pushed our way through. We've also got people topside clearing a path to the throne room. How did you not know this?"
Dr. Mercury walked to Shadow's side. "I have been locked in here for the last few days. I was told to make sure that the machine works, but at that point I knew its true purpose already. I assumed the Entity wanted to keep an eye on me."
Shadow asked: "So, I assume there's no safe way of deactivating this thing?"
"There is not, at least from here. The only way is through the switch in the throne room, tampering with the machine will most likely lead to failure. Nexus collapsing in on itself and taking the other worlds with it, that kind of failure."
Shadow nodded. "I assumed as much. Anything special about that switch?"
Dr. Mercury pointed to some blueprints on a table. "The switch has protective obsidian panels that can be used to cover it in case someone tries what you're trying at the moment. You'd need to break those to get to it. Of course, that doesn't stop anyone from turning it back on. And with Freak there to guard it… I can't imagine how strong he'll be, even if he only stole a fraction of the Entity's influence on reality."
That left them exactly where they were just moments ago, even if they managed to flip the switch back, Freak could just activate the machine again. With the Entity they had been opposites, order and chaos, fear was an entirely different beast. Shadow didn't even know if she could harm Freak at all, especially now.
"So, that's it, huh?" Shadow asked.
"Yeah," Dr. Mercury muttered. Her face took on the same defeated look Shadow had seen on her when she first came in.
Trying to think of something else other than their impending doom, Shadow looked at Dr. Mercury. She was different from the scientists they had met earlier, none of that undying devotion that made them throw their lives away in desperate defence. It was true, she knew the real story behind the machine, but that couldn't be everything.
She asked: "So, how'd you end up here?"
Dr. Mercury shrugged. "Same way most people do. My world was one of the first to be absorbed. Of course, we didn't know that at the time, from our perspective nothing changed. Just that there were suddenly people telling us to join them. Some of us were distrustful, that's when they shifted to 'join or die'."
Shadow made a gesture at the various pieces of research equipment in the room. "Did you learn this here, or back in your world?"
Sitting back down in the chair, Dr. Mercury sighed. "I soon realized that the worlds the Tower conquered were similar to what I was used to, just most of them were much bigger than mine, and so empty and simple. The most they had in terms of technology were pistons and redstone, with some steam-driven machinery and high magic strewn in between. My world was different. I mean no disrespect, but it might be hard to imagine just how different."
Shadow said: "Try me. I think I know where this is going. Besides, my world is very different too."
She projected a chair for herself and sat down in it. It felt wrong to have a conversation about someone's personal background while the clock was ticking down, but she had a feeling that this was important, and it was not like there were any better options.
Dr. Mercury began: "My world was a small one. Once you walk enough, you end up where you began. As for its inhabitants, we didn't really have people living simple lives like you see in most other worlds. Everyone pursued some discipline, whether scientific, magical, or both. My father was a fourth-paradigm thaumaturge, my mother was a storage technician. I got my father's last name because they both agreed it had a better ring to it. But that's beside the point. I grew up helping my mother lay cables and set up crafting systems in people's homes, then back in our compound I assembled runes and matched elements with my father. As I grew up I started getting into interdisciplinary automation design, as well as programming, the two go nicely together. Still not lost?"
Shadow shook her head. "I'm familiar with the concepts."
Dr. Mercury continued. "Alright. So, the year I turned twenty was when our world was absorbed. Our settlement initially refused to join but was quickly forced to surrender. We didn't have much in the way of weapons, at least none that could defeat that many soldiers. Both my parents died in the struggles. I later heard that other parts of our world had similar success in resisting. The thaumaturges couldn't even agree what their discipline is exactly, so they couldn't really mount an effective coordinated defence. Many of the various factions of industrialists tried using their tools as weapons, with limited success. The blood mages either immediately joined or fought to the death. Even the followers of draconic evolution failed, the Entity simply wore down their shields. The only ones who might have had a chance were the equivalists of old, but that trade died out generations ago."
So far that seemed very in line with what Shadow had heard from other survivors she had talked with. Useful individuals were recruited, rebellious ones were killed, the rest was left in the Nexus wilderness to figure things out for themselves.
She asked: "So, how did you go from there to running the Tower's science operations?"
Dr. Mercury reached behind her neck. "That is a bit of a jump, I admit. The Tower's organizational structure was a bit different back then, a lot more low-tech, anything more complex ran on some kind of magic. The people from our world were what would eventually become the science division. It wasn't all bad for us, we more or less were allowed to continue doing the things we did, just that we now had someone above us giving orders. You have to remember, with Forgelight's prosperous unification propaganda we thought we were working towards something great, even if some of the methods employed were questionable. I was assigned to be a research assistant to a more science-minded Tower mage. Over the years we revolutionised the Tower's internal communication and dimensional monitoring.
"One day I was taken to the side, and they introduced me to a long-running project that had hit a stall. It was this damn machine. The mages were stumped and were now looking for new insight. I of course took it as a challenge. At that point I was too far in, too close to the Entity's notice to ever have any chance of quitting and living to tell the tale."
Shadow asked: "Fire told me you had some personal projects too, correct?"
Suddenly Dr. Mercury seemed nervous. "Yes… those. You see, back in my world I always wanted to found my own discipline, just like the different industrial disciplines branched from one. I got the opportunity here, in my spare time when I was part of the machine team, before I got promoted to leader when… when my predecessor was absorbed by the Entity."
Shadow raised her eyebrows. "What was the field?"
Dr. Mercury looked down. "Arcano-neural interfaces, but most know it as technological necromancy, but that's just one of the applications. Corpses can be implanted with pre-programmed energy crystals that control the bodies. I know about the implications-"
Shadow interrupted her: "You don't need to justify yourself to me. My moral compass points towards my brother almost exclusively. If he died, I probably would destroy everything."
After taking a sigh of relief, Dr. Mercury said: "I know, I saw what happened at the portal facility. But thank you for understanding. I get where people's apprehension to using corpses comes from, many worlds have afterlives, but Nexus is not one of those." Another deep breath. "However, one useful thing came out of my research that isn't morally dubious."
Dr. Mercury stood up and turned around. She pointed at the back of her neck, where a green crystal was prominently embedded in her armour.
"This crystal is connected to my spine and allows me to control my armour. I haven't put anything like it in anyone else, it's still experimental."
The conversation had done little to distract Shadow from the situation, she just couldn't stop thinking about whether they were missing something.
Shadow said: "So, you did a lot of research on me and the Entity. You're sure there's nothing in there we could possibly use against Freak now?"
Dr. Mercury suddenly stood up and started pacing. "Well, we'd need to make the machine permanently unusable, but for that I'd need to open it up… which I can't do while it's running…" Her head shot up and she looked right at Shadow. "I'd also need your help."
"What do you mean when you say you need my help?" Shadow asked.
Dr. Mercury ran over to a diagram of the machine's insides and pointed. "The machine works by amplifying the influence of the sample of the Entity's void plasma in its centre. That's what causes it to pull on the crystals. In theory, if I could switch it with your equivalent, we could instead make the machine collapse Nexus, and only Nexus."
Shadow was slightly sceptical. "That works?"
"I did enough research on you to know that it will, or at least that it won't harm any other worlds. Trust me, I lost a lot of sleep thanks to you."
Shadow laughed, more awkwardly than intended.
Dr. Mercury walked over to a cupboard and started rummaging, after a few moments producing a perfect sphere of glass, which she handed to Shadow.
Shadow eyed the sphere. "So, I just cut a piece of myself off and put it in there?"
Dr. Mercury answered: "Look, I came up with the plan while telling you my abridged life story, I don't pretend I have all the steps figured out."
"Alright, I will try it."
Shadow focused on the Void like when she phased through the door, this time concentrating the effect on her left hand. Her palm passed through the glass. Once inside she pushed the Void to the surface, disintegrating her hand and leaving behind a vaguely hand-shaped gap in reality. She then, very carefully, tried separating this part of her from the rest of her being. The gap shivered when she pulled her hand back, but soon stabilized into an irregularly expanding and contracting sphere. Her physical hand quickly reformed. Shadow handed the sphere to Dr. Mercury, its contents complied with the movement without ever touching the glass.
Dr. Mercury clutched her head. "Ugh, it never gets any less headache-inducing."
Shadow said: "So, now that's done, how do we proceed? We collapsed the corridor behind us to get rid of the bedrock golems, how do we get to the throne room?"
"Oh, that's easy." Dr. Mercury said and pulled something from a holster.
"This is a portal device that I created, it's based on the readings I have of you and the Entity. It should allow you to bypass the shielding structure."
She demonstratively made two portals appear, one directly in front of her, another across the room, then walked in through one, and out the other. Shadow expanded her senses to see how it worked.
She mused. "Huh. Temporarily making a section of space fold to connect to a different one, not a novel concept but I haven't seen it applied before."
Dr. Mercury asked: "Do you want it?"
Shadow shook her head. "No, you using it taught me everything I needed to know about how to replicate it."
"Good. For everything to work you need to make sure that the machine is switched off and stays that way for a while. I will remain here until I can make the switch. It might be good to tell your allies not to attack me on sight once I portal out of here." Dr. Mercury said.
Shadow turned to the gate. "Thank you for helping us with this, Veronica."
Shadow conjured up a portal through the gate, just before she was about to step through, Dr. Mercury spoke again.
"So, Shadow. Once this is over, would you consider taking me to your world? I'd like to continue my studies, within the moral framework of your world of course."
Shadow briefly thought it over. "If you help us pull this off, you have more than earned it."
Dr. Mercury quickly asked: "Just one more thing, now that the important things are agreed on, what's up with the gi?"
Shadow glanced down. She had completely forgotten to transform her clothes back into her robes, which she promptly did.
"Just seemed more appropriate for what I did while coming here, I can give you the details once we've left this place behind us."
With that Shadow stepped through the portal and emerged on the other side of the gate.
On arrival, she saw Amanda atop the rubble-pile, shifting those stones she could. Kay stood a ways back, non-committally turning over rocks with his sword and refusing to look up. Tyron chattered into the radio in dour communication with their forces. And, of course, her brother, Fire, knelt on the ground, his zweihander balanced on his knee, a look of profound helplessness in his eyes, all paths in his plan were exhausted. At the sound of the portal opening, all looked up at her with expectation.
Shadow took a breath. "The machine is already running, but Dr. Mercury is helping us shut it down, and Nexus along with it. We need to get to the switch."
No further words were needed, both Amanda and Kay immediately vacated the rubble, Tyron joined them at her side. Fire snapped out of his trance, suddenly presented with a new option after none remained. Shadow opened another portal, this time to the last reported location of the topside forces. They had little time left, but they would use it to the fullest.
