Annex 076: An Absence of Truth

Emily, Eric and Uno were escorted to the lower levels of the guild base; the same floor that held Adamant. They were told to leave Alice and their dueldisks and cards behind, for their own good. Cassius promised them answers soon. Emily wouldn't put up with that. "What about my mother, and my father? You're not saying it's too late for them?" She stalled and would not move until she got some answers. "Emily, we don't have time for this!" He shouted as everyone else stopped as well. "Why not? What did the XYZ-guild do? If you don't want us to panic, that ship is about to sail away." Once Uno started asking questions as well, Cassius capitulated. "Fine, I'll tell you now. The army found something at the golf-course, a device of some kind that has been fused with that buildings network. It must have been left there by the XYZ-guild. They don't know what it is supposed to do, or when it is going to do it. It could be a bomb, and it could one of hundreds."

"Hundreds?" Eric sputtered. "Yes. The golfcourse was just one of many stations that the XYZ-guild took over acrss the country. Maybe this is even why they wanted to take over so many of the other guild-stations in the first place, to hide these devices in them." It had always seemed odd that the XYZ-guild would care about ownership deals, especially in light of their actual goals. "Can't they just get rid of the things?" Emily suggested. "They're worrid that tampering with the device would just set one or more off prematurely. So far they figured out that the device can receive and transmit signals. They might have been put on a timer, or set to go off unless someone is around to turn them off, kinda like a failsafe mechanism. The army doesn't want to make a move until they have found them all. I fear they dont have enough time." Cassius clenched his hand. "That is why I need you to stay. I know the XYZ-Guild has not touched this region. If Roma is planning on threatening the country with these bombs, at least we will be safe."

"Fascinating. And how did you come to know all of this?" Quizzed the cardmaker as he entered the halls with a squad of security guards. "Because we weren't told that." From the way Dom was talking, and the fact that his entourage carried weapons with them, it seemed like the Master was in a cautious mood. "Well we were one of the first to find out because we used to own the location." Cassius gave a quick answer. "Yeah that is possible. But I wouldn't be here if I didn't think something was up already. You see I have been wondering one thing ever since we were forced to come here." Dom mused as he locked his fingers together. "And that is?" Cassius asked carefully. "It was rather nice timing of the XYZ-guild to attack our tower right after you speeched about its vulnerabilities. How did the XYZ-guild find out about the tunnel network to begin with? Even if Ichirou told Roma about the one beneath the amusement park, that wouldn't help them find the one beneath the tower. The only ones who knew about it were me, my disciples, the people who constructed the tunnel and my security staff. Silver interrogated them all, and scanned their hardware. She found nothing."

"So?" Cassius did not see the point. "So I remembered there was someone else who knew, you lot." He pointed at Cassius and the others. "What? Are you saying one of us told the XYZ-Guild?" Eric shouted. "Probably not. Even taking your fling with the fusion guild into consideration, there would be no reason for them to leak the information further to the XYZ-guild. They wouldn't want to give them the first shot at us. But who could have benefited from all of this? Who? Someone who wanted to be friends with us maybe?" The masked mans head tilted towards the synchro duelist. "You're saying I told the XYZ-Guild? How would I even have reached them?" Cassius challenged the implied accusation. "Oh there are so many ways to transmit information. It's not the how.. but the 'Why' that needs answering. By getting the XYZ-guild to drive us out of our sanctuary, your guild would gain our assets.. and me. Now this was still a theory, a base to work on. That led us to our next discovery.."

Dom nodded once. The guards drew their weapons and aimed them at the synchro duelists. "Dom, what is this?" Emily cried out. "A precaution. Do you remember your friends unfortunate accident, miss Brandt? We did another check. We told you before that camera footage and network logs did not show a thing. However what we did not do was inspect the medical records and crash site itself. We were too busy thinking like duelists. With visualization machines nowadays you can replicate a crash exactly, just by analyzing the damage done to the road, rider and vehicle. Do you want to know what we found?" His eyes were presumably staring right at Cassius, who did not blink once. "The crash was controlled, it could only have turned like that if the driver wanted it to. Nothing hit you or the bike beforehand. It's almost as if it was 'staged'. How do you explain that, Cassius?"

For a while none of the synchro duelists said anything, they were waiting for Cassius to give his answer. "Cassius.. say something." Emily did not like his silence. Inevitably, he opened his mouth to sigh. "Things are moving faster than I keep expecting. I really didn't want to have a confrontation... But Dom, you should know one thing." Cassius raised his arms and closed his eyes. "This is my home, you have no control here." He opened his eyes again and suddenly Doms security forces turned as stiff as a board, all but one. The remaining guard aimed his gun now at Dom. "Jim? So I was right." The cardmaker had found his 'mole'. "Where are Iria and Zach?" Cassius asked 'Jim'. "I don't know. Dom came to us by himself. I imagine they're still up above." The bodyguard eagerly revealed. "We will find them. Dom, you shouldn't have threatened us." The other synchro-duelists picked up the weapons and dismantled them. "Cassius, if we are going to tell them, we cannot do it here." One of them said.

"I know. I was working on that." Cassius looked at the others. "Please, do not fight this. I am still doing this to save you. I cant let Dom get in the way." He pleaded with them, Emily in particular. Yet she was too stupedied to find any words. "...Follow me. You too, Dom. Your guards will be released eventually, do not make me use 'freeze' you too." Cassius continued his walk, and Jim nudged the Cardmaker to come along. He did so, begrudgingly. "So You had the spy inside Dreamworld?" Uno barely followed what was happening in front of him. "We are more than the synchro guild, boy. We have have spies everywhere." Bodyguard Jim scoffed. "Oh. So that explains where you get your hot army tips from. I bet you have spies in the fusion and XYZ-guild too!" Eric growled. After his recent ordeals, he could not stand this apparent hypocrisy. "We do. We use them to get information and we let them leak false or true information to the guilds if it serves our ends." The gang was led inside a white room with only a chair and a large machine. "In here."

"Master Dom was both right and wrong. I was the one who told the XYZ-guild about the network, but I am not his Jim." Jim continued explaining. "Not mine?" Dom raised his head. "You're not Jim?" He had noticed a slight and inexplicable change in his bodyguards 'dialect'. "Wait." Uno on the other hand.. "No way. You're... from the other timeline?" He had a suspicion. "What? Timeline?" One that sounded so incredulous, Eric thought Uno was joking around. And yet. "You catch on quick." It was confirmed by 'Jim' himself. "Then again you would." Jim closed the door behind them. "You mean what Adamant said was true? Aaron, you're working with the other side? You knew about it already?" Emily refused to believe it. "Everyone here is the same, Emily. Myself included. We are part of an society; The Circle." Cassius' words offered no comfort. Or understanding. "Huh? Like a guild within a guild? Or what?" Eric felt like he was going crazy.

"To do that, we'd have to start from the beginning. Sit down." Jim grunted. "Jim, please. There is no need to be rough with our friends. They will see." Cassius tried to calm him down. "I hope so. This cannot leave the castle." It worked to a degree, Jim holstered his gun. "Right. Eric, you were not here for it. But your friends recently discovered a fact about our world. We had discovered it long before that.. There are two worlds; two timelines. Has anyone ever heard of many-worlds multiverse interpretation?" He asked around. "You're talking about the idea that there is a new universe for each possibility; like rolling a dice and getting six different worlds?" Dom had apparently read about it. "Yes, and it is more than a theory. Right now we have observed at least one alternate universe. Between ten and twenty years ago, there was an event that caused a distortion. If you see time like a river, then that would be when the water split into two paths. Somehow a change happened in one world but not the other. And now there's two parallel realities."

"So what I thought was the future, was just a different version of the present. My present." Uno was finally beginning to understand. "Indeed. Very different. This worlds technology and society developed in a completely alternate direction than ours. Over there they have things you couldn't even come up with. It was only natural that they discovered our timeline first, and they discovered a way to cross over." Cassius tapped the side of his head. "Synchronization; that is what we call the process of linking one mind with another. It cannot just be any two minds, they have to share the same wavelength; the same person." Cassius smiled. "...Two?" It began to dawn on Emily. "Exactly. The Aaron that grew up with you and the Aaron that grew up in the other world, we're in tune. We're Cassius." He extended a hand to his duelist companions. "As are they. Our counterparts found us and told us everything about the time divergence. Once I joined the guild, my counterpart found me as well."

"Counterparts? Are all of you.. like this?" It was bizarre, inconceivable. This was not Aaron anymore. "No. Not all of them." Cassius said. "But, werent you all supposed to be equals?! When where you going to tell them, or me?" That was the last straw for her. She got up and started ranting. "Emily, you have to realize that those who were born after the timeline split may not have been born in both timelines. Especially not in recent years, were the changes have piled up drastically. Then there are people who do have counterparts like Akai or Boris, but havent been synchronized. I would have told them and you this eventually. But because you said you were leaving, I had to take actions. Synchronization is not just a tool for us to go from one world to the other, it is how we'll save ourselves!"

"Save ourselves from time?" Uno chipped in abruptly. "Huh, another perfect guess. Are you sure you forgot everything, timetraveler boy?" Jim asked wryly. "No. It's a feeling I have had ever since I got here. I felt like I had to run away from something, but the more I ran the closer I got to it. I get it now. It's not the past, it's the future. We do not have much of it anymore, do we?" The prophecy sisters had warned him twice now. "Yes. When people first learned of the the mirror universe, they assumed it to be just a separate dimension. But when they matched histories they learned that they were once the same. Yet for some reason both worlds are draining each other. The space around is losing energy. The brightest minds in either world could not resolve this dilemma, they could only predict the outcome. If nothing is done about it, one reality will collapse in itself within the next four years."

"Four..years?" Eric felt his heart sink. He had only four years of life left? Everyone did? "No way. You're kidding me.." He wanted to forget what he heard. "It doesn't have to be the end, Eric! Emily, Alice, even you cardmaker. I can save you all. Synchronization is the answer! Even if our bodies die in this world, our minds will live on in our bodies from the other world!" Cassius was getting excited, while the others just looked at him with confused despondence. "You want us all to become like you? How do you even know if you are capable of that feat?" Dom inquired. Hearing this, Cassius moved towards the machine in the back of the room. "With this, our one link to the other world. This machine has been scanning you since you came in here, in order to find your counterparts. Of course Uno wont need it, he is a native. I still can't believe how wonderful your pendulum is. Until you came along, Uno, I had no idea timetravelel was possible. But since you only showed up this summer, we can at least conclude that you were not responsible for the timeline split. Maybe that was one of the other pendulum users, or this Tempus that they seek."

"..Yeah, I can physically go to the other world. Why can't we all do that? Maybe I can find a way?" Now that Uno had listened to the whole story, he had mixed feelings. And all of those feelings were varying shades of apprehension. "Don't you think that was the first thing we tried?" Jim scoffed. "Counterparts cannot physically interact. The same molecules may not occupy the same space or something like that. If we did, we could cause a reaction large enough to destroy a cityblock. We had disastrous crossover attempts in the past. It would only be safe for those who do not have a double in the other world. Which is why the XYZ-guild only lets so many people under the age of seventeen in their elite ranks. We don't know how or when they identified the danger of the other world, but Adamant and Roma's solution seems to be one of invasion. They probably intend to take over with whatever weapons they could have you make for them, Dom. You and UNO, you are one of the few marvels that the other world does not possess. Really, when you consider the options. Ours is far more humane. They would just slaughter whatever puts their existence at risk. But we are not the enemy."

"The scan is done, Cassius. Eric and Emily are compatible." One of the other duelists said as she checked the machine. "Wonderful. Do you hear that, Emily? It is going to be alright!" Cassius announced with triumphant glee. "I just.." Emily sank back to the floor. "Cannot imagine..." It was so much to bear, an entire universe. He had kept it from her all this time. "Cassius, what about the others? Not everyone will make it." Dom pointed out the obvious flaw in this plan, not every human would have a mirror self. And there was no way to tell which timeline would ultimately be the safe one. "We save who we can save, cardmaker. The other guilds made their choice." Jim stated coldly. "Well then I am afraid we cannot agree with this plan." Dom folded his arms. "I am afraid you have no say in the matter. This is going to happen, with or without you. Also.." Jim approached the Master. "It is time you take that thing off. We can't find your counterpart without a face. And do it yourself. I saw what happened the last time."

"You have a way with words, Jim. Very well!" Dom placed his hands on his mask.

And then the doors all opened and the lights all switched off. "Ah just in time, Silver." Dom took advantage of the momentary confusion to jump up and push Cassius to the ground. "Oh Cassius. The answer is still no!" He made a beeline for the door. "Damn it. His disciples must have short circuited the entire level!" One duelist cursed. He could barely see a thing until the emergency lights kicked in. "Emily, come on!" This was not a chance Uno wanted to miss. He took the still dazed Emily by the arm and ran towards the exit. Eric was right behind him. "Stop right there!" Jim pulled out his gun. "No! No shooting!" Cassius stopped him before he could point the weapon anywhere. "We cannot let them out of this building, they know too much now." Another duelist yelled. "I'm aware of that! We'll have Vesper catch them. Nobody will get hurt that way! That will just leave Uno and maybe Dom to worry about." Cassius' eyes pierced Jims. Even he got ratted. "Fine." Jim put the weapon away and grabbed a dueldisk from one of the other duelists. "Leave them to me."

...

"Almost there, guys.. " Uno was halfway down the long hallway, when circumstances forced him to stop. "Guys?" His friends were strangely quiet and slow. "Oh no." They were not moving at all in fact. "Them too?" Emily, Eric and Dom were all paralyzed, their bodies had come to a stop. "How..what.." No matter what Uno tried, he could not budge them. "Why not me too?" Uno was still as free as a bird. Until a certain someone showed up. "Found you." Jim appeared, with his dueldisk. "Why are you running Uno? There's no point. And didn't you want to find out more about your past?" Jim sneered. "Tch." Uno instinctively reached for his wrist. "We took care of that, remember?" But Uno's arm was bare. "Don't fight. Just come with me, or else.." Jim was not giving him much of a choice. And Uno could not just run and leave the others.

"Uno, catch!" And then came salvation, in the form of a young blonde girl. "Her?" Alice showed up with a handful of dueldisks in her arms. "Alice? You're.." Uno got one of those tossed to him. "Tsk. Vesper forgot about the other sister." Jim muttered to himself. "I woke up in my bed and I couldn't find anyone. You all left your cards, and that really made me worried. Then all the doors opened and I heard the noise from below. I don't know what is going on, but I dont like it." She sounded better than last time. A nap was all she needed to recover apparently? He did not want to question it right now. "Well, alright. Thank you Alice!" Uno checked his disk, his cards were all there. "Okay, Jim. Let's tango!"

(To be Continued in Annex 077: Voices without Voices)