Companionship - beyond flesh

Inside the Galaxy's default network

In all of her years hijacking pax streams Sennellia Atriplex had never seen anything like this. Her heart was racing; she held a feeling of excitement at the discovery, but also the felt finger of fear pressed firm to her chest in the knowledge that Zeus Delta had found it first, and if her result sets were correct, over two years ago. The sentient processor had found what could only be described as a gateway to another world, and it was wise to keep the discovery from her. She worried how much of an advantage the processor had given itself -- what did it know? -- what could it do, that she could not?

Sennellia was a technopath, one of the rare individuals in the galaxy born with the ability to access the grey dimension directly from her mind without the aid of neural encoders and decoders as utilised by augers or through a specialised machine interface as used by normal people. To others, the technopathic ability seemed like magic, but Sennellia herself had uncovered the underlying science while studying as one of the Ethnaa Aashar: Her genome contained a unique marker that enabled her to produce an alchemical inclusive protein that would attach to neurons in the brain and make possible the sending and receiving of signals directly through the Nexus, a natural occurring phase gateway to the grey dimension -- the realm of dark matter, where the galaxy's data pax were located and the also the space where mass escaped while matter in the physical world undertook phase shift and crossed the gravity folds of the Galaxy Tree.

As a child, Sennellia discovered her technopathic ability to locate threads and send and receive pax from a stream. Unlike particles and waves found in physical space-time, the grey dimension utilised dark energy and so was space-time independent, meaning that a pax could be accessed from Earth Port just as easily as from the Skyean fleet floating in dead space. But, unlike the conventional input and outputs though the Nexus that Sennellia was familiar with, in the course of their experiments to attempt to harness the grey dimension for phase point generation, the Zeus Delta had found a way to extend the portal -- not just to put in and take out, but to actually process inside -- it had found a way to extend its root processes into the grey dimension -- for Zeus Delta it would be like running inside an infinite virtual machine -- for Sennellia, if she could get in and hold her neural pattern together, it would be like shifting executive function into dream state rem. Getting in would not be a problem, she could feel the pull of the Nexus, it was like a dry sponge to her liquid mind. Getting out however, was an unknown. But not a problem she figured, as her brain, as it related to the Nexus, was only ever read-only -- no matter what happened in the grey dimension, her physical self would be safe -- but she would need a way to message herself to relate experience through the Nexus when she returned. Sennellia sighed, life could never be easy.

The young queen ran a triple check on the safety diagnostics of the portal device and, when satisfied that the special nexus was stable, reached out with her mind. Her world went both black and white as she rose out of her body. She looked back, but there was no body lying on the bed -- no bed -- no living quarters -- no ship -- just the feeling of passage. She remained calm and opened her mind to a scene that had no physical form, but still seemed as tangible as anything else she had seen in her life. She soon learned that the place was a paradox -- black and white and dark and light, just as it was empty and also full -- full of something and nothing -- she could feel the pax as she was used to, but here she was not just limited to streaming from a thread that she had accessed, here was every pax ever written -- she could sense the traveling mass too -- starships and their crew -- frozen in time, their signatures signing out like stars in deep space. She felt dizzy as the possibilities overwhelmed her.

The paradox kicked in and Sennellia felt as if she were being pushed into a small box and pulled apart by a great expanse -- the noise deafening -- the silence deadening -- she needed to reach the state of equilibrium. She thought of taking a deep breath to relax, but the breath did not come -- she could not breath -- here she had no lungs. Panic threatened to take over just as logic kicked like a natural reflex -- meditation was the key. She thought back to her training at Qura Ammara. Her mind settled as she stopped wrestling with the paradox and instead caressed it; touching it gently at its edges. Symmetry brought the world into balance and focus as the solar winds dropped and the seas of time calmed. Now Sennellia Atriplex could surf the Galaxy's default network to find and confront the Zeus Delta.

Meanwhile, a small step away in the physical plane, hundreds of offspring cried, "Orr! Give Zeus the orr, pure and fresh and untainted with the patterns of the human!" The monster loomed above and raised two of its four massive arms and with long pike-like fingers grabbed the orb that hung in the air over its head. It sizzled with golden energy, but the orb was fixed in place; its bounty guarded by a field of advanced design.

The odd company huddled tightly in apprehension and watched as the giant amazonian Emma, moved by the abuse of her children, grew until her form had more than doubled, but even at twenty feet tall, she still stood only  half the size of the Zeus manifestation. Her hair rose in a storm of snake-like tendrils and, in a voice of violent anger demanded, "STOP!"

The monster released the orb and took a step forward. On the ground, child-like offspring scattered from the advance of its tree trunk legs.

Emma also advanced as the offspring repeated, "Orr! Give Zeus the orr or we shall die!"

Emma was glowing white hot now, but there was nothing she could do, other than attack the creature that had been constructed from her own young -- an option more horrible to a mother than death itself. Emma was in an impossible position. She cried out in anguish, "Max! Help me save our children!"

But Max had reached his limits, he shook and looked to One, who suggested calmly, "The entity does not control my siblings directly, he issues directions, and they choose to obey. It seems it still does not have a physical presence in this place -- it controls through influence and suggestion only. Mother has confirmed; it needs the orr to instantiate fully in this place."

Riggs had been listening intently and nodded, "Yes, that would make sense. It is how the orr golem was born in the first place; the pure, uninitialised orr has a natural tendency to pull in the nearest mental patterns. If we were to give this Zeus clean orr, it could take form, just like the doll.'

Churchman added, "I believe that was its intention when we first exposed the orr from out of containment. What was unknown though was just how thirsty the substance was for order. In the millisecond it took for it to absorb Emma Yee's pattern, it had missed its opportunity to occupy the orr."

Riggs replied, "So how do you know that!"

"It tormented me as I hung on the cross, she took the fruit, it would say in my dreams over and over again until I could not stand it anymore."

"Hmpf!" Spat Riggs, you are crazier now that you were on the crucifix.

"He speaks the truth!" whispered the three hundred voices of offspring in unison. "The Zeus tells us that it longs to be free of the machine, to exist outside of the influence of humankind. It was not supposed to happen as it did, she was not supposed to contaminate it with her pattern and the patterns of the other humans."

Ven called out to the monster, "So what if you had orr? Pure orr. What would you do with it?"

"It would live!" came the response from the tree itself."Give it the orr!"

"Never!" cried Emma as she reached down and picked up an offspring. It looked like a small doll as she cradled it tenderly in large hands. She held the thin figure to her white hot cheek and said, "my child what has it done to you?"

But the offspring stabbed out with an arm, its hand a single sharp claw and jumped free of Emma's grasp. As it landed on the ground, the offspring shouted up to its mother from a mouthless, obsidian face, "If you will not give Zeus the orr, we must die!"

"Die! Die! Die!" came the chant from hundreds of offspring as the one that Emma had lifted began to glow red. Within seconds it had melted into a liquid mess that pooled on the ground for an instant until the ground too melted into boiling gold, steaming with the red remains of what was the offspring.