Absolute Power (Book 1): Origins (28 page)

“I have a connection,” Henry’s voice was nearly unintelligible over the roar.

A second later there was a flash of light then absolute silence.  The machine had created a portal.  The event horizon shimmered and rolled.  Its rippling edge stretched outward.  The computers picked up the expansion a second after Eve spotted it.  Henry saw the read out and hit the intercom button.

“Collapse the portal,” he shouted.  Jess and Kelley had stopped arguing and were staring.

Eve didn’t see, but more felt the portal expanding.  Its presence was like a pressure in the room.  When she tried to close it, she discovered that it was more powerful than she expected.  She concentrated harder, but by that time it had grown, and with it so had the energy behind it.  The edge of the portal was threatening to swallow Eve.

“Koji I need your help,” she yelled hoping he could hear her.

He didn’t, but he had already been working to close the portal himself.  Even with both of them combined it wouldn’t be enough.  Eve changed her strategy.  Instead of closing the artificial portal, she created another one to envelope the first.  It was the largest portal she had created, nearly swallowing the entire room.  Still it needed to be bigger as the first one continued to increase in size.  The event horizon breached the testing chamber setting off an alarm.  Henry worked frantically to come up with a solution, but the equation was changing with each expansion.  Eve couldn’t keep up with the energy output.  By the time she ran out of strength, her portal had enclosed a small section of R&D.  The artificial portal grew until its event horizon merged with Eve’s.

There was an explosion of darkness and sound that tore through everything, but went nowhere.  Eve was knocked backwards.  The protective glass of the observation room blew out, the slivers stopped in mid-air.  A wall had begun to disintegrate; its molecules were breaking apart, and observable to the naked eye.

At the last second Henry had grabbed Jess and Kelley, shoving them to the ground.  He positioned himself to take the brunt of the blast, but it never came.  In front of him, shards of glass floated, defying the laws of physics.  With one finger, he touched a nearby piece.  It spun and bobbed as if there was no gravity.  Behind him, Jess and Kelley got to their feet and watched.

“That’s impossible,” Kelley said.

“But it’s happening,” Henry retorted, “so it’s not.”

Kelley went to a computer and jabbed at the buttons.  Nothing happened.  The screen was frozen with the last second of read outs.  “According to this there were two portals,” Kelley said.  “And they combined.”

That was enough to catch Henry’s attention.  He turned to study the screen and tested the computer as well.  It was frozen, or broken, or suspended like the glass.  “Who knows what could happen if two portals combined,” he said.

“This,” Jess murmured.  “Oh, god, the kids.”  She had spotted Eve laying on the ground of the testing chamber.  Without thinking, Jess leapt through the broken window sending floating shards in every direction.  The ceiling of the room was on fire, but the flames were stationary.  When she reached Eve, she checked for a pulse and breathed a sigh of relief.  “Eve,” she said, “Eve, wake up.”

Henry was next to her in a second and used his sensors to scan Eve.  “Nothing’s broken,” Henry said.  “Unconscious, coma?  I can’t tell, especially if we take into account our current situation.”  He spun around suddenly.  “Where’s Koji?”  The two of them dashed around the metal frame that was now twisted and flashed with electricity. They found Koji surrounded by some strange energy discharge.  His body had been thrown back against the wall, and now he was pinned there, frozen like everything else.

But he was conscious.  “Jess,” he cried.  Tears were dripping down his cheek.

Jess reached out for him, but Henry pulled her back.  “Don’t touch him,” he yelled.  “He’s in a state of flux.  Touching him could be very, very bad.”

“Henry,” Jess had started to cry, “Henry, please.”

“Doctor Schreier,” Kelley called from the other room.

“Stay with him, Jess,” Henry said.  “I’ll do everything I can to fix this.”  Leaving Jess, he went to see what Kelley wanted.

The Director was holding a notepad and copying information from the computer screen.  When Henry came in he said, “I’ve been analyzing the data.  It looks like we’re in a temporal anomaly.”

“That’s obvious,” Henry snapped.  He took a glance at Kelley’s notes.  “Recursive…  If we’re going to get out of here, I’m going to need to know what resources we have.”  Kelley was silent, so Henry looked up at him.

The Director raised an eyebrow.  “Now you’re giving orders?”  He scoffed.

Henry folded his arms and sat down on a chair.  “Okay, sir,” he growled.  “Tell me what you want me to do.”

“You field operatives hate me because I don’t give you everything you want,” Kelley said.  “More leave.  More resources.  Less conflict.  Less oversight.  Do you think taking care of an entire society doesn’t have costs?  Costs that we pay with services.  For over twenty years, I’ve reviewed millions of decisions that affect the lives of thousands.  And in that time our death rate has been less than two percent compared to AJ Rodgers’ thirty-five.  So take Colonel Porter’s warhorse mentality and shove it, I know what I’m doing.”

“Are you done?”  Henry asked.  “Can we get to work?”

Kelley shook his head in frustration.  “You’re going to spend a long time as a Sergeant,” he said.  He left, using the door to get to the testing chamber.  Jess had pulled Eve across the room closer to Koji.  She was sitting with Eve’s head in her lap talking softly.  “I need Fugen to help search the area,” Kelley said to her.

Jess glared up at the man.  “Well, you’re out of luck Director,” she snarled.  “I can’t reach him.  We’re cut off from everything.  This is your fault.  You wanted so badly to build this secret project that you were willing to put these kids’ lives in danger.  If they die, it’s on you.”

“I don’t know how you found out about this, but you should know it’s classified Ultra,” Kelley warned her.

“Yes, I know,” Jess snapped back.  “When you put restricted clearance on two kids’ files, it’s a big sign you’re doing something wrong.  If anything happens to any of us it’s all on you, and I’ll make sure everyone knows.”

Without saying a word, Kelley turned and left the room.  There was no point arguing with someone who was acting irrationally.  The project was classified Ultra, and she’d never say anything to anyone.  It was up to Director Kelley to take stock of the surrounding area.  The portals had cut a perfect sphere out of the R&D building.  At the end of one of the halls, the world just ceased to exist.  It was replaced with a black void.  Kelley picked up a piece of debris and tossed it into the darkness.  It disappeared, and he made a mental note to stay clear.

Like in the observation room, all the other computers were frozen.  None of them had been monitoring the test, so they didn’t show any pertinent information.  The various other technical equipment had also ceased to work.  Their outlook was becoming bleak.  One of the rooms that had been trapped with them was an electrical room.  It was a junction that ran the height of the facility.  Looking up and down the ladder, Kelley discovered that part of the level above and below had come with them.  He went down and was startled to find that there was no floor.  Only the top half was there; the tops of filing cabinets, part of a potted plant and the lighting.  Despite the absence of a power supply the overhead florescent lights were still on, but they couldn’t illuminate the darkness below.  The top level wasn’t any safer.  Its ceiling was gone.  To keep his head from touching the void, Kelley crawled on his hands and knees.  At times, he was required to change course because climbing over an obstacle meant getting too close to the edge.  Inside a partial office was where he finally found something useful.

“Hello,” Kelley called out.  There was something moving in the corner shadows, and it was obviously a person.  “It’s Director Kelley,” he announced himself.  “Were you in R&D during the accident?”

“I caused the accident,” a familiar voice replied.

“How did you do that?”  Kelley asked.

“By letting you go unhindered,” it said.  A man leapt from the shadows, grabbing Kelley by the throat.  The force knocked him onto his back.  “You made me do it.”  The face staring down at him was old and wrinkled, but it was Henry Schreier.  He had aged forty years.  Kelley shoved the Doctor back into a desk and struggled to regain his breath.

“What are you doing up here?”  He asked.

Henry scrambled away, tucking himself into a corner.  “Hiding,” he answered.

“Why?”  Kelley asked.

“Because…,” Henry started to answer.  “I don’t know anymore.  I just want it all to end.”

“We haven’t even begun working on a solution,” Kelley said.

“I’ve been working on it for thirty-six years,” Henry cried.  “I can’t die.  I can’t starve, but I keep getting older.”  He held out his wrinkled hands.  “Look at me, wasting away.  The connections to my cybernetic systems are degrading.  I’m going crazy.”

Kelley watched as Henry tugged at his hair.  “I can see that,” Kelley retorted.  “And you say you’ve been here thirty-six years?  Maybe you should come to the observation room with me, and we can sort this out.”

“We can’t leave; we can’t go anywhere,” Henry said.  “They’ll get you, forty-six.  Like Forty-two or… or no, not like Kelley thirty and Jess eighteen.”

“If I’m interpreting your ranting correctly, you’re saying there are multiples of us?”  Kelley asked.

“This is a singularity,” Henry laughed.  “Everything is here.  Everything has happened.  And it will all happen again.  We all end up here, for some reason, but I guess that’s the nature of a singularity.”  He laughed again, though there seemed to be a semblance of rationality mixed in with sorrow.  “Eve seven was twenty-eight years old when she came here.  Eve fifty was sixteen and twelve, thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four…”

“Where did all these incarnations go?”  Kelley asked.

“Multiple dimensions, multiple personalities, and time does strange things to people,” Henry answered.  “They get killed.  They kill themselves.  I said I would stay.  Once, we got together to figure a way out, but Kelley ten showed up and killed them.  I said I would stay, to warn the others.  I’ve been here so long.  I know how to hide.  I know who’s evil.  And I know how to protect myself.”  He pulled a pistol and pointed it at Kelley.

Kelley tried to scoot away.  “Let’s keep calm,” he said.

“I’ll keep calm if you stop moving,” Henry said.  Director Kelley put up his hands and stopped.  “Why did you initiate this test?”  He asked.

“What?”  Kelley understood the question but not the reasoning.  He was afraid that the wrong answer would get him shot.  Henry waved the gun, indicating not answering would have the same results.  “It was an experiment based on data we gathered from Miss Levitas’ tests.”

“How old is Eve?”  Henry asked.

“We estimate that she’s around fourteen,” Kelley answered.

“Who is the Controller?”  Henry asked.  Kelley shook his head.

“Hubris?”  Henry shouted.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kelley pleaded.

“What would you say if I told you they were rebuilding the Killer?” Henry watched Kelley’s reaction carefully.

“You’re talking about GESH,” Kelley said concerned.  “That’s classified Ultra.”

Now Henry chuckled and set the pistol down.  “To go back to those innocent times,” he said more to himself.  “No war.  My friends are still alive.  Hell, I’d give my arm to get The One back.”

“The One is gone in your dimension?”  Kelley asked.

“The One is gone in most dimensions,” Henry said.  Something struck him as odd, and his brow furrowed.  “That’s a mathematical improbability.  If the dimensional convergence is truly random… But it’s obviously not.  There must be a commonality.  We have to see your Henry.”  He got up onto all fours and crawled out from his hole carrying the pistol like it was a toy.

Kelley didn’t have much choice, so followed along until they were downstairs.  Before they entered the observation room, he grabbed Crazy Henry by the arm.  “Maybe I should make the introductions,” he said.  The rationale was lost on the insane man, but he shrugged his shoulders and let Kelley take the lead.  Henry was sitting at a desk with all the blank paper he could find.  The papers were covered with equations, and his pencil was little more than a nub.  “Doctor Schreier,” Kelley announced himself, but Henry ignored him.  “May I introduce Doctor Schreier?”

That got his attention, and he looked up.  Crazy Henry waved with his gun hand, giving a wild smile.  “How far have you gotten in your equations?”  He asked.  “Have you seen the Mobius strip?  Are you theorizing about matter conversion?”  He grabbed a chair from the corner and sat unnervingly close to the other Henry.  Then without asking, he rifled through the pages of notes.  “Oh, I see, you’re about to figure out we’re in a singularity.”

“Singularity,” Henry exclaimed.  He looked at the numbers again, disregarding the fact that he was sitting side by side with his doppelganger.  “That would explain you.”

“And the others,” Crazy Henry said with a nod.

“Others?”  Henry asked.

Kelley gave him a brief answer before they were caught up in Crazy Henry’s insanity.  “There have been dozens of versions of us, apparently,” he said.  “Your double says they either killed each other or themselves.”