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| Generated by Google Gemini Advanced text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 3, and by Vmake AI Image Extender |
Tinaya has a job to do. She’s standing in the Nexus cavity with Arqut. To
her, he’s a hologram, and to him, she’s the hologram. Omega and
Valencia want to activate their respective Nexa to full working order at
exactly the same time. They have each left one component disabled so they
can make their connections simultaneously at the end of a countdown. Tinaya
and Arqut will be handling that countdown by syncing up. They’re just
waiting for Valencia to finish septuple checking her systems to make sure
that this isn’t a huge disappointment. If they end up having messed
something up, and they fail to activate at the same time, it’s not the end
of the world, though. This is more for fun.
“What exactly is going to happen?” Spirit asks. It’s rather surprising how
little she knows about this stuff, given that she’s a Bridger. “Will we be
free to travel back and forth right away?”
“No,” Omega answered from the top of the stairs. “We have to wait for
approval. Each Nexus has its own term sequence; a unique identifier that
allows it to be recognized by the rest of the network.”
“Who exactly makes these approvals?” Spirit questions.
Omega gives Tinaya a look, because he can’t give one to his wife. “Well, we
don’t really know. When we built the first one decades ago, it just sort of
happened once we fulfilled the requirements.”
“So if we don’t get one of these sequences, we’ll know that you did
something wrong,” Spirit figures.
“Yes. It could be a faulty power relay, or even an open access panel. Things
don’t have to be perfect all the time, but they do at its first moment.”
“She’s ready,” Arqut announces.
Omega smiles. “Wonderful. Start at eleven.”
Tinaya and Arqut nod, and watch each other’s lips. “Eleven, ten, nine...”
They keep doing down until, “one, go!”
Omega pops his head over the desk in the control room, and looks through the
window. He switches his gaze between the Nexus chamber and the interface
screen.
“Did it not work?” Spirit asks him.
Omega reaches over to the PA microphone. “Everything is loaded, and we’re
online. I can see a number of other Nexa that I can shake hands with, but we
still haven’t been assigned a term sequence. How’s Val?”
“She seems to be seeing the same thing you are,” Arqut answers.
Technicolor lights fall down from the drum on the ceiling, and flood the
cavity. They expand beyond the confines of it, though, and spread throughout
the rest of the building, which it’s not supposed to do. Something really
is wrong. In a final flash, they find themselves swept away, and
dropped onto a floating platform in the middle of the ocean. It’s nighttime,
and eerie, but still somehow reassuring? All of them are here together. Even
though they still don’t know what the hell is going on, Tinaya instinctively
reaches over, and pulls Arqut into a hug. Omega and Valencia do the same.
Feeling left out, Spirit and Belahkay hug too, even though they were never
apart.
A stranger pulls up in a rowboat with one passenger. They tie off the boat,
and help the woman step out. They have to continue to help her when she
stumbles like a newborn foal. She smiles at the crowd. “It’s okay, it’s just
been a really long time since I’ve stood on a planet.” She clears her
throat, and composes herself. A deep breath helps her find her center of
gravity, and then she can begin the short walk towards them. “Good evening.
My name is Venus Opsocor, and this is my associate, Senona Riggur. I’ve
asked to borrow their space so that we may communicate, but understand that
you are not entitled to any wishes. We are only here as guests.”
Everyone just looks at each other, trying to figure out what they’re talking
about. Wishes?
Venus continues, “normally, when a Mark III Nexus model is adequately
constructed, I automatically assign a term sequence to you, and then move on
with my duties. It is not custom for me to speak with the builders directly.
But I decided to leave my pod this time due to the fact that two Nexa
activated at exactly the same time from their reference of time, which I
found interesting. Don’t worry, you’re not in trouble. I was just curious.”
“Are you the Nexus network?” Omega asks, stepping forward. “Like, are you
the embodiment of it?”
“I helped build the Nexa, and I maintain them as a central intelligence. The
network is just that, a network. I’m not the network itself, but I live in
it.”
“Wait, you actually invented them?” Valencia asks her in awe.
“It was mostly my partner, but yes,” Venus answers.
“They are a wonder of technology. Can I ask what prompted you—her?”
Venus isn’t sure if she wants to give them an answer, but she does. “In my
home galaxy, interstellar travel was difficult. Every journey required
traveling to a single location in the center, where a military force kept
the gates. Not everyone liked the system. They wanted anarchy. We built the
first Nexus network as a sort of compromise to appease them. They thought
that they were finally in control, and we...let them believe that. After our
civilization collapsed to a great war anyway, I decided to go out and find
others who might benefit from their own networks.”
“Fascinating,” Omega and Valencia utter simultaneously.
Venus widens her eyes, and tilts her forehead forward at an angle.
“Oh, right,” Omega says. “Our story. We were stranded on one of our
outposts. The ship could not be turned around, so we each built a Nexus to
reconnect. We activated at the same time for the symbolism. It’s nothing
crazy. We apologize if you having to come here put you out. We didn’t know
that it was such a rarity.”
“It’s not simply a rarity, it’s never happened before.” Venus looks around
at the group. “You’re from Salmonverse. Are you familiar with a woman named
Leona Matic?”
“She’s a celebrity in our culture,” Tinaya replies, “but we’ve never met.”
“I’ve met her,” Omega contends. “I might even call her a friend.”
“If you ever see her, could you pass along a message? Rules have changed
amongst my own people. I may not be able to speak with her again myself.”
“We would be happy to,” Valencia promises.
Venus reaches her hand behind her, silently prompting Senona to hand her
what looks like a shiny business card. “Can I trust you with this term
sequence? Leona will find help there if she ever needs anything, but you
would theoretically be able to steal it if you go before her.”
Tinaya reaches for the card. “You can trust me.”
Venus scans the crowd for a consensus on Tinaya’s trustworthiness, which
they appear to give, so she hands Tinaya the card. On it are the sixteen
symbols that she’s seen all over the place on the Nexa. Most term sequences
don’t seem to use every single glyph, but what does she know? “Remind her
that she will have to be accompanied by someone who has yet to make a wish
of their own,” Venus adds.
“What are these wishes?” Belahkay asks before being elbowed by Spirit.
Venus doesn’t answer. She just looks back at Senona, who nods. “Okay, you
may all use the quantum summoning console, even though you didn’t come here
on purpose. But try not to be greedy. Whatever you request, you take from
somewhere else. It does not conjure something from nothing. I’m setting your
return trip on a timer for eleven minutes. Be sure to ask for what you want
before then.” She and Senona get back in the rowboat, and disappear into the
darkness.
The group walks over to a pedestal sticking up from the platform. It has a
dialing pad, and a speaker, but nothing else. “Has anyone here seen anything
like this?” Spirit asks the group. “Strongs?”
Omega and Valencia Strong shake their heads. “Nope. This is all new to me,
and news to me.” Omega leans his chin forward. “Could I have a pair of cool
sunglasses, please?”
A tray slides out of the console, and materializes a pair of cool
sunglasses. “It’s like I’m inside the internet.” He puts them on,
and shows off. “How do I look?”
“Snazzy,” his wife answers. “Does anyone need anything?”
“I have everything I need right here.” Tinaya has had her arm wrapped around
Arqut’s like two snakes this whole time. Now she tightens it.
“I can’t imagine there’s anything we could ask for that we couldn’t procure
or fabricate ourselves,” Spirit determines.
“I’m more interested in these wishes,” Belahkay says. “I think they’re meant
to be greater than sunglasses.”
“What could be better...” Omega begins, before pulling off the glasses
dramatically. “...than these babies.”
They all mostly sit around for the next ten minutes. Belahkay jumps into the
water, but climbs back up when Spirit worries that he might end up stuck
here if he’s not on the platform when the imaginary timer hits zero. He
suggests that they need to find a way back here to get their wishes, but no
one else seems to care. They have finally reunited, and have a way to get
back to the ship. What else is there?
Just before their time is up, Spirit thinks to request a big beach towel
from the console. The technicolor lights overwhelm them again, and send them
back, but this time to the same place. While Spirit is drying off her love
interest like he’s a helpless child, Omega and Valencia go up to run a
diagnostic.
Tinaya prepares to make the jump back down to the planet to tell everyone
what’s happened when the Nexus powers up once more. “Are you doing that?”
“It’s not us,” the Strongs say, shaking their heads again.
The drum drops more light down towards the cavity, but this time, only red.
After it subsides, one woman is standing there, wearing a heavy parka. She
removes it, and looks around, surprised. She’s even more surprised when she
sees that she’s not alone. “Oh, cool. You have your own Nexus.”
“Who are you?” Tinaya demands to know, very suspicious of this interloper.
The woman steps out of the cavity, and holds out a hand. “Hi, I’m the
Caretaker.”
“You take care of what?” Tinaya asks, still concerned.
“Of your planet,” the Caretaker replies as if it should be obvious.
“We do fine on our own,” Tinaya explains.
“Great!” the Caretaker says. “Then my job should be easy. Sounds like I got
the luck of the draw here.”
“Omega, does this facility have a hock?”
“Nope.” The Caretaker disappears, but she returns a few seconds later. She
balances her hands on her knees, and catches her breath. “Coulda told me we
were on an airless moon. Thanks for that.”
“We didn’t know that you were going to teleport out of here, or even that
you could,” Tinaya argues. “Do you require medical assistance?”
“No, I’ll heal. I wasn’t out there for very long.” The Caretaker stands back
upright. “Let me start over. My real name is Vitalie Crawville, and I really
am here to help. I have no intention of taking control, or causing any harm.
I used to help people on Dardius, and now I’ve decided to quantum replicate
myself to spread myself around the galaxy. Well, around this galaxy,
I mean.”
“I know that name,” Spirit jumps in. “Vitalie Crawville. She was a secondary
god on the Elizabeth Warren. She was instrumental in creating the universe
of Ansutah. None of the Extremusians would exist without her.”
“Just to be clear,” Vitalie begins, “you don’t actually believe that I’m a
god, right?”
“No, that’s just what the Maramon called you, and we adopted it, because
it’s a fitting enough description to categorize people who were on that ship
on that day.”
“I don’t remember her from my studies,” Tinaya says to Spirit. “Is she
okay?”
“I have to assume so. She was friends with Leona,” Spirit answers.
“I should like to believe that I still am,” Vitalie counters.
Omega looks down at the tablet that he uses to interface with the Nexus.
“There’s no incoming address. Where did you come from?”
“The Nucleus.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Not many have.”
“I’m locked out. All of the destinations I could have selected before are
missing, and while I can see that we finally do have our own term
sequence, I can’t see what it is.”
Vitalie frowns. “If this occurred right when I arrived, then I’m sure it’s
my fault, but I certainly didn’t do it on purpose, and I don’t know how to
fix it. I’m terribly sorry.”
Omega frowns too while he’s tapping on his device. “Did you come here
through time as well as space?”
“I did,” Vitalie confirms.
“The Nexa weren’t designed for time travel,” Valencia insists.
“The one at the Nucleus was,” Vitalie reveals.
Omega shakes his head, very annoyed this time. “You’re going to have to
explain to me what the hell that is, what you did, and how to make it
right.”
“Hey, show some respect!” Spirit shouts. “I told you who she was.”
“I’m not from Ansutah, so I don’t give a crap that the Maramon call
her a god. She broke my new machine!”
“Omega,” Valencia says calmly, placing a hand upon his shoulder. “We’re back
together now, and we’ll figure it out together. It will all be fine, I
promise.”
He takes a deep breath in and grits his teeth before exhaling. “It’s just
that I had an idea of how this was gonna go today. But you’re right, we only
need time, and each other. But Miss Crawville, I will still need to know
what you do know about it.”
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