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| Generated by Google ImageFX text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 3 |
It’s morning on this side of Castlebourne. While this planet does have an
atmosphere, and there is technically a sky above them, it’s not all that
pretty. It’s kind of hazy and depressing. Each geodesic dome comes with its
own holographic projection on the inner shell to simulate whatever visual
environment is desired. When not under the darkness of night, Dojodome is
typically kept between dawn and sunrise, just because that’s what Darko
happens to like, and this is his territory. There are tens of thousands of
other domes here, which serve varying purposes, but the trainees have never
left this one. They have never been allowed to so much as see anyone else
who lives here. They are currently over a hundred years in the future from
where they were living, so no one wants them to gain any insight into what’s
to come. They don’t have any problem with this, as they have plenty of work
to do here. They are expecting to receive details on their first mission
soon, but Darko hasn’t been provided with a specific date. He hasn’t really
been teaching them since the Sunshine Sticker Ceremony a few days ago. They
have shed their bags of rocks, and have just been practicing their skills as
they see fit. At the moment, the four of them are doing some tai chi
together to greet the day.
They all stop and stand up straight when a magnolia tree appears on the
other side of the room, and fades in and out of view before disappearing for
good, leaving them with four strangers. “Greetings,” one of them begins,
stepping forward. “My name is Goswin Montagne. I am here to acquaint you
with the rest of your team, and give you your first assignment.”
“Where’s the tree?” Andrei questions. “Where’s Princess Honeypea?”
“She doesn’t appreciate what we’re doing here,” one of the other guys says.
“She’s a lover, not a fighter. That’s why I love her.”
Goswin isn’t happy with his friend’s flourishes. “This is Briar de Vries. He
is here to represent the interests of the Garden Dimension, and will only be
serving in this capacity. He does not have authority over you.” He points to
the other guy. “This is Atticus Morel, a.k.a. Gatekeeper. He is your
leader, and does have authority over you. He has some experience
dealing with powerful tyrants like the one we believe you are up against.
Lastly, we have Catania Porter. She can take you anywhere you need to go,
and get you anything you need. She’s not a fighter, don’t ask her to be.”
Catania doesn’t say anything. A handheld device beeps from her pocket, so
she takes it out, and starts fiddling with it.
Goswin sees her do this. “She’s not ignoring you, she’s just really busy.
She’s basically a real life Santa Claus, if you’ve ever heard of him, so
she’ll be occupying herself with the needs of other clients during her
downtime.”
Darko walks over, and stands right in front of Catania. She ignores him.
“Please leave her alone,” Goswin requests.
“You first,” Darko spits back. He reaches up, and places a hand over
Catania’s device. He gently pushes it down, and turtles his head into his
own shoulders, trying to make eye contact with her. “You’re not gonna say
anything?”
Catania sighs. “Hello, son.”
“How long has it been for you?”
“Three years.”
“About the same for me,” Darko agrees.
“This is your mother?” Goswin asks, shocked. He looks into the aether.
“Magnolia, what the hell did you do?”
“It’s fine,” Darko says. “She goes where she’s needed, and...she’s needed
here. But I’m not.” He takes a sad breath, and heads for the entrance to the
other room. “Enjoy your mission. Thank you for being my students.”
“Thank you, teacher,” Selma, Andrei, and Ayata say in perfect sync.
He turns back around and slides the door closed with a slight bow.
Catania is studying the floor awkwardly before going back to what she was
doing on her device.
“I’m sorry about that,” Goswin goes on. “I’ll speak with him after the
briefing. Is there somewhere we can do that?”
“We can hold it in the chashitsu; or tea room,” Selma suggests. “Ayata,
could you lead them there? I’ll make the tea.”
Most chashitsu are fairly small, only fit for a few people sitting on the
floor. This being a giant complex filled with all sorts of Japanese
architecture, some modifications have been made in certain places. The
chashitsu that comes off the main dojo is large enough for a dozen people in
chairs. There are larger places for larger gatherings, but they’re farther
away, and shouldn’t be necessary for this purpose. Ayata seats everyone
around the table, then goes over to help distribute the tea. Goswin lays out
the plans for a mission in Fort Underhill. If The First Explorer is truly a
threat to the entire universe, they need to understand the vulnerabilities
in the interdimensional barriers. Team Gatekeeper, as Goswin is calling it,
will be responsible for security while these inspections are going on. It
may be nothing. They may have nothing to do but stand around and look
menacing. But it also may be everything.
Goswin has holographic maps and diagrams to give them an idea of where
they’ll be working. Something catches Selma’s eye. “What’s this?”
“That’s the barrier that separates Fort Underhill Proper from the Sixth
Key,” he replies. Fort Underhill is the name of a universe that a woman
named Hogarth Pudeyonavic created. She actually built a whole universe with
her immense power and technological prowess. How exactly she accomplished
this is not something that anyone here can comprehend, but that’s not the
point. It was initially a single cosmic structure, but when the parallel
realities in the original universe collapsed, all inhabitants of them
were shunted into Fort Underill, in some sort of separate half of this. They
don’t know how one would go about cutting a universe in half either, but
that’s how it’s been explained to them. It’s like a cell that got stuck in
the middle of cleaving into two new cells; separate, but forever
connected to each other. That’s not really what the map looks like, though.
From here, it just looks like a little tumor.
“We were told that the Sixth Key and Fort Underhill were basically two
halves of the same universe,” Selma contends. “Why does this look like the
former is only a tiny fraction of the size of the latter?”
“You’re thinking in three dimensions. It’s a hyperdimensional structure.”
“You’re the one who drew this. I mean, someone else did; not me. This is a
three-dimensional representation of the universe. Why did they make my home
smaller than its other half? Unless it’s not really half.”
Goswin exchanges a look with Atticus. “I can’t explain that.”
“Because you don’t know, or because we are not authorized to know?”
Selma presses.
“Let’s go with the second one,” Goswin replies.
“That’s not good enough for me.” Selma is getting really worried now. If
it’s as simple as the image before them not rendering correctly, why
wouldn’t he just say that? The fact that he’s refusing to clarify makes it
seem like something is seriously wrong. “This is all I can think about now,
and my gut tells me that it’s immensely important. We can’t do our jobs if
we don’t know what we’re dealing with. How can we protect the universe if we
don’t know how big it is? What are you not telling us about it?”
Goswin sighs. “It’s not my place to say, and even if I try to say it, it
won’t make sense. Demand your answers from the good people of the Sixth Key.
They’re the only ones who can really explain it.”
Selma isn’t satisfied with that response, but still, she leans back in her
chair, and drops the subject. They continue to go over the plan, describing
the layout of the embassy that acts as the link between the two “halves” of
Fort Underhill. They call it Connexion. After an hour of prep time, it’s
time to go on and get on with it. Despite the fact that Goswin never managed
to get the sentient tree to explain its reasoning for recruiting Catania
Porter while knowing full well her complicated relationship with her son,
when he requests transportation to the other universe, that request is
granted.
All but Goswin himself find themselves inside of a gargantuan building. If
money still existed, no expense would have been spared in the construction
of this place. Greek columns tower above them, possibly all the way into
infinity. A two story fountain sprays water in large arches, but never
splashes out of the pool, and is somehow completely silent. Abstract statues
are scattered throughout the room. A three-meter wide staircase leads
somewhere mysteriously covered in fog, perhaps as a somewhat literal
interpretation of the stairway to heaven? A third group of people is in the
middle of a meeting at a bar in the corner. They notice the newcomers.
One of the women hops off of her stool, and walks over with an outstretched
hand. “You must be Team Gatekeeper.”
“Is that what we’re called?” Andrei asks.
“I’m Hogarth Pudeyonavic.” Oh. The Creator. Maybe those stairs really do
lead to heaven. “Come on over,” she urges her people. Ellie Underhill,
Lowell Benton, Nerakali Preston, Gilbert Boyce, and of course, the love of
my life, Hilde Unger.” She plants a kiss on her partner’s lips.
Ellie and Lowell, they know. The two of them were present during the Rock
Meetings, though they didn’t say much. The magical tree obviously felt like
it was only right that Fort Underhill Proper be represented, but they didn’t
seem to have any dog in that fight. Selma still doesn’t quite know why the
universe is named after Ellie if she’s not the creator. How did that come
about?
“It’s nice to meet you all,” Atticus responds. He goes about introducing
everyone in Team Gatekeeper. He then proceeds to single Selma out. “She had
a question about transdimensional scale.”
“I did?” Selma asks, not because she didn’t have a question, but because she
does not know what that term means. She’s not a genius scientist. “I had
a question.”
“Ah,” Hogarth says. “Well. If you’re on this side of the membrane, I suppose
you were bound to find out. Gilly, would you do the honors?”
Gilbert strides over to a set of double doors. He musters all of his
strength to pull them open. On the other side is decidedly
not another room. It’s outer space, showing a spiral galaxy floating
around in the blackness, complete with a supermassive blackhole at its
center, and a gas cloud halo around the edge and surfaces. That’s what it
looks like anyway. It must be yet another hologram. He reaches up and runs
his hand along the face of the threshold. The space ripples and flows like
water, or maybe plasma. Even Catania stops looking for side gigs to admire
the beauty.
“What’s this?” Andrei asks, drawn to it as a moth is to a flame.
“That...is the Sixth Key,” Hogarth answers.
“I don’t understand,” he says.
Hogarth sighs to prepare herself. “There are decillions of people in the
galaxy you see before you. They were all saved from annihilation when the
parallel realities were destroyed. As you might imagine, that was not an
easy task, and I am not at liberty to discuss details, but what I can tell
you is that one way of saving energy to perform this miracle was to shunt
everyone into another spatial dimension first.”
“What are you saying?” Selma demands to know.
Hogarth jerks her head towards the open doors. “They shrunk you, to put it
quite reductively. In there is an entire galaxy, along with some void space
around it. Many light years separate one end from the other, but only from
the perspective of those inside of it. From our frame of
reference, it is but a few meters across.”
Ayata falls to her knees, and retches on the floor. Lowell instinctively
reaches down, and holds her hair back for her. Andrei lurches in that
direction, but the gravity of what they’re seeing holds him back. Their
whole galaxy is the size of a bedroom? Everything they’ve been fighting for
is just right there in front of them. It seems so petty and silly now, even
though intellectually, they’re aware that it’s still populated by real
people with real problems. They’re only tiny from here. Down there, they
mean everything. How could they not know? They have all been living here for
the last half century, and they never even felt like something was
different? Now they need to question everything about their whole lives. Is
anything in the universe what they thought it was?
“I know, it’s a tough pill to swallow,” Hogarth goes on. “But nothing has
changed. Everything and everyone you care about is still in there. It’s
still just as profoundly crucial and indispensable as it ever was. Just
think of this as a mountain...which it is. We’re on the crest of Mount
Hilde. Down below, the people look like ants, but that’s just because we’re
really far away. When you get closer, they look bigger.”
“I think we all know it’s not that simple,” Selma argues.
Hogarth nods. “Yes, we do. I get it, you need time to digest. This
is a hotel, and accommodations have been prepared for you. When
you’re ready, we’ll get to work. Someone is spying on us from a frame of
reference even greater than ours. We wanna know who the hell it is, and what
they want.”
Nerakali has since gone over to Ayata with a bucket, in case she needs to
let more out. Selma gives her a bottle of water too. She spits some into the
bucket, swallows some, and spits again to continue the cycle. A robot has
come out of the wall to clean the floor, and everyone starts mindlessly
watching it work amidst the silence.
After a few minutes, Selma breaks out of her trance. “Someone escort her to
her room so she can freshen up. Get her medical attention if she needs it.”
She walks over, and closes the doors to their galaxy for now. “The rest of
my team will secure the perimeter. While they’re doing that, I need full
blueprints to this facility, as well as its specifications. Also, get me a
comprehensive list of everyone with access to this building, and to the
magic door.”
