The dot, p.19
The Dot, page 19
To that point. Time moves forward and not backward. Simple and fundamental physics.
“If we look toward the center, we are looking at time from the future. Our molecular clocks are faster. When they are attempting to find Class-M planets, Boundrian Creators use harmonics to discover a vibrational range, but we are looking at the center from the future.”
I walk over to where Marsh is seated at the table and speak directly to him.
“You need to create a formula to adjust the harmonics to match the momentum. Some sort of coefficient or sine wave. I don’t know. You’ll have to work it out.”
“Why don’t you work it out?” he says. “You’re the mathematical genius for dilation-perspective. There would have to be acceptable limits based on gravity, mass, and location of the center. As I said, you are the expert on Laurentian Geometry.”
“I don’t have the time. That is, we don’t have the time. Rymirah and I are leaving for Planet Four-Four-Four in five days. We can’t bring the conscious machine back, but we can provide it with the same information I just shared with you and prepare it for the next quantum phase.”
The familiar sound of Liria’s attention-getting hand slapping against the table top echoes off the chamber’s smooth stone walls. “What do you mean by you and Rymirah? With whose authority are you leaving? I have not received documentation from CHP requesting that anyone in my department to transfer to outer planet habitation status. And if anyone was going to leave for Planet Four Hundred Forty-four, it would be Marsh. Not you, Hayden.
“Putting that aside for the moment. The vortex gateway to Four Hundred Forty-four is gone. This is what I read from your last update report. Has the Dalai Lama suddenly recalled a different location for the wormhole’s opening?”
From the opposite end of the table, Rymirah stands. “Madam Liria, I want to answer the questions you have asked, if I may have permission to speak.”
With a reluctant nod, a long exasperated exhale and then with a flittering wave of her hand and fingers, Liria allows her to continue.
“The last question you asked first. No. The Dalai Lama didn’t recall a different location. The gateway is resonating in an equilibrium phase. It adjusts vibration harmonics from the future wavelength of Planet Four Forty-four and then to that of Planet Forty-four. We can detect the gateway location here on our Humanoid home planet once every twelve years. After calculating Magallan’s departure, we believe that the detection window will be available next, in five days. Afterward, we will have to wait twelve years before it appears again.
“As to your first question. In my job assignment with Humanoid Intelligence, I have the authority to transfer personnel to any required position for the benefit of their assigned project. Hayden does not require approval from CHP, or from you.
“Last is the question, why Hayden and I? Because it is unlikely he will ever return. No one has ever returned from the outer planets. I think we now know why. And since he is in love with me, and I love him, then it is only logical that we would be together.”
Unchanged in her demands by Rymirah’s open declaration of our love and our decision to be together, “Stop!” Liria says to Rymirah. “Hayden, you will provide the vortex location directly to Marsh. Marsh, you will leave for Planet Four Hundred Forty-four in five days.”
“No. I won’t give you or anyone the location. This is my father’s planet and his experiment. I have the right to take this assignment. Not, Marsh, or anyone else.”
“Well, look who suddenly respects Magallan, after all these years. I can imagine it would thrill him to have earned his son’s respect. But your father is dead, Hayden. I am very sorry for the loss and for wanting to make up for the guilt you are feeling now. But you will not find him on Planet Four Hundred Forty-four or make him proud of you by going there. We need you here. We need your skills to help us here. Marsh is the best candidate for the planetary transfer.”
→ connect to Liria ←
—connection blocked by location—
An audible alarm sounds a warning signal and a repeating audio “Unauthorized communication attempt” Unauthorized communication attempt by Hayden.”
“Stop the alarm,” Liria says.
“Nice try, dumbass,” Marsh says. “Security protocols prevent the use of neurolink communications and HUD functions in the task rooms. We must share all the communication in the meeting in the open to everyone present.”
“No way. I’m not telling anyone the location.”
“Fine. Don’t tell me. Rymirah, you tell me the location.”
“I don’t know it. Hayden hasn’t shared it with me.”
Furious, Liria leaves the now-stunned members in the task room. “No one leaves this room until I return. Silence. No one says a word. Not a single word until I get back.”
When she returns ten minutes later, five armed security officers accompany her. “Arrest him and lock him up. Put him in the same holding cell his father was in when he was charged with treason and terrorism against the Humanoid Empire.”
“Wait. You can’t do that!” Rymirah says.
As they take me from the room and off to prison, I hear Liria tell her. “Yes. Yes, I can, and I have. If he won’t tell the coordinates now, maybe he will change his mind after spending the next twelve years in prison.”
@@@@@@52
“It would never have worked out, you and me,” I say to Liria. She’s come to visit me in the domed city where the planetary prison is located. She stands on the free side of the force field-controlled holding cell. Dressed to impress. She’s wearing a revealing and form-fitting pantsuit. Her high sheen recently styled hair, and the smell of expensive perfume penetrates through the force field to scent the room. It’s obvious that she wants me to see she’s going out for a fun-filled night in the city.
“Keeping me locked up will not make me choose you over Rymirah.”
“If you think that’s why I’ve locked you up, then you aren’t as intelligent as I’ve come to believe.”
As she speaks, I sit up from my hard, narrow, wrinkled, and bent steel slab bed, spinning out of the rack, and onto my feet.
“Did you ever consider why, out of the myriad of sensations and feelings we humans can experience in this sensual, vibration-driven existence, the Buddha defines love as the purest and most sacred emotion and hate as the most destructive? And Liria, if you don’t think that locking me up isn’t about that, then you’re not as smart as I know you are.”
Stubborn and unmoved by my persistence, she runs her hands through her styled hair and then flips her head to spin it all onto her back.
“It’s been five days since I put you in jail, and I take it from your childish behavior that you aren’t ready to reveal the coordinates to Planet Four Hundred Forty-four. You’ll have noticed by now we've disabled your neurolink and HUD implants in this cold, tiny, isolated prison cell.
“Hayden, listen to me. You aren’t getting out of here until you cooperate.”
With that said, she leaves me in silent confinement.
There are a few key advantages to having a fiance who is the chief of Humanoid Security. One advantage is that she has access to the security system in this prison. With that access, she can allow my biomechanical systems and HUD to operate despite the protocols. And her’s too, of course.
→ connect to Rymirah ←
—connection established—
#→ Maximum security required for ten minutes ←
—connection with Hayden secured for ten minutes—
#>> Are you okay? <<
>> I’m doing fine. Don’t worry about me. This cell is better equipped than my flat. <<
#>> So, you want to stay in there, I take it? <<
>> Funny. I hope you can keep that humor when we become fugitives. Have you made everything ready? <<
#>> It hasn’t been easy. They are watching my every move. But, I’ve managed to get everything in place and ready. <<
>> Then, well — I’ll see you there. <<
—connection closed by Rymirah—→ close all connections ←
—there are no open connections—
A few key advantages also exist to being one of the few Humanoid Boundrian Creators. All I need is for my biomechanical devices, neurolink, and HUD to work for problems to be solved. For example, I can generate a vortex to take me from this cell to the coordinates where the gateway to Planet Four-Four-Four will soon become detectable.
Entering my meditation process for directing my mind to generate the required vibration, I open the vortex, and in less time than it took to sit in lotus pose, I am at the predefined location to meet Rymirah. At the same location where we will find the vortex opening to planet Four-Four-Four.
As I step through the other side of the vortex, there are seven large cargo containers stationed just a few meters away from me. “Rymirah? Are you here?” The night is at its darkest. None of the four moons are in the sky above. A thick grove of large branched and thick foliage tall trees surrounds the small clearing. The smell of rich petrichor mingles with the heavy scent of tree leaves. The wind through the branches causes the limbs to creak and the sound of rustling leaves.
I turn to my right when a different sound catches my attention.
‘Footsteps. Yip, that’s someone coming through the trees, right there.’
“Sorry I’m a little late,” she says as she rushes into my arms.
“I’ve only just arrived myself. No worries.” We stand holding each other in a tight embrace for a moment.
“Well, this is it. Are you ready?”
“Hold on there, Hayden!” Marsh steps out from behind the crates. “You might want to hold off on opening that gateway.” He heads directly for me with hand restraints in his left hand and a neuro-neutralizer to shut down my internal biomechanical systems in his right.
As he passes by Rymirah, she pulls the neutralizer from her side belt and zaps him at full power. Before he can take another step forward, in an instant, he collapses to the ground.
“We have to go now! Before anyone else shows up,” she says while putting her weapon back in place on her belt.
“We can’t take him. If I open the gateway now, he’ll be caught in the vortex field with us.”
“Then get him out of here!”
Following her emotional energy, I hoist Marsh off the ground and place his small, slender, fit body over my shoulder. I carry him to the vortex I used to transfer out of the holding prison. Then, after opening the single-person gateway, he disappears from sight.
“Enjoy the prison, old man,” I say. Turning back to join Rymirah. But after I take a few steps, I come to a sudden stop.
‘Better destroy that vortex or someone might figure out my new algorithm.’
I head back to Rymirah, and with no further hesitation or delay, we are on Planet Four-Four-Four within minutes.
→ Open subspace frequency ←
—Subspace frequency, available. Connect to location and to whom—
→ Connect to Planet Forty-four, Liria ←
—Connected to Liria—
#>> Ten days! You wait ten days before contacting me? <<
>> Wait. Where’s my — hello, Hayden? How are you, sweetheart? <<
>> Or, I miss you soooo much? You don’t have to pretend with me, Liria.<<
#>> Nice touch putting Marsh in your place inside the prison cell. <<
#>> Are the conscious machine and the supercomputer safe? <<
>> The entire planet is deserted. There is nobody here. Rymirah and I have searched and investigated for the last hundred and twenty days. There’s no sign of life anywhere. No corpses, no pyres, no bones or human artifacts. <<
#>> How is that possible? There never was a civilization on Four Hundred Forty-four? >>
>> There’s a civilization. There are homes, fields, orchards, commerce, and a halfway destroyed monastery that looks like some sort of angry army tore it down. But the fields are barren, the orchards are dried up, the trees are dead and not a sign of human life.<<
#>> What about the conscious machine? <<
>> We found it standing on the center stage of an outdoor amphitheater. It is connected in parallel with forty-three neurolinks and a remote connection to the supercomputer. But everything is fried. The components are destroyed. None of it is salvageable, and the data . . . not recoverable.
>> From what we’ve been able to piece together, there was a celebration that took place here fifty, maybe sixty years ago. The celebration ended when everyone, including the conscious machine, disappeared. Like the Incas and the Aztecs back on Blue Origin. Gone without a trace. <<
>> Has Marsh figured out the formula for harmonic balancing, including the momentum equilibrium? <<
#>> No, Hayden. It’s only been ten days. He’s working on it. <<
>> Liria, you need to hurry him. There’s a gateway through a massive vortex here. It opens once every hour. Rymirah and I are going through to the other side. I think it connects to the Buddha Fields. It’s definitely some Gamma Field on the other side. When you get here, look for the four circles on the stage floor just in front of the server rack. Well, that’s it then, goodbye. <<
#>> Don’t you dare leave. You do not have the authority to leave there!<<
—connection to Liria, unstable—
—connection to Liria, lost—
—reconnection attem
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The other books in this tetralogy (Aware Consciousness).
Book 2—Love Reincarnate, Book 3—A Conscious Thing, and Book 1—Starzel (Coming Soon)
Mark Bertrand, The Dot
