Ocean in the Sea Read online

  “Well shit, he was serious,” muttered Shanzea. She turned to Valruun. “Good luck, Val. I’ll find you as fast as I can.” Her body fell. At the same time Valruun grew still on the gurney staring, with empty eyes at the ceiling above.

  “Do not delay,” Senjiita warned Jenny and Lewis. “The recalibration approaches.” With that, the old Chinese farmer crumpled into a heap.

  Herman, in Kingery’s body, stepped quickly forward and grabbed Jenny’s shoulder. “WAIT! Don’t jump. I know what Tanandor is planning, and it doesn’t end well if we jump. We have to enter the recalibration.”

  Jenny blinked several times. “Are you insane? We’ll be deleted.”

  “DON’T JUMP,” he emphasized. “There’s another way. I can shunt us to a sandbox. We can stay together. Don’t go with them when you can go with me. It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”

  Jenny paused. She was sick of Arsus and Randuu, sick of their manipulation and control. She needed to be away from them. Lewis was right, this was exactly what she wanted. But she couldn’t do it.

  “I’m sorry.” She looked away. “I wish I could but I… can’t trust that you know what you’re doing. Not for this. The risk is too great. I won’t enter a recalibration. You shouldn’t either.”

  “But I KNOW what I’m doing! TRUST ME!”

  She shook her head. “I can’t trust you. Not for this. You don’t know what your asking. If you can. If you survive. Find me in the ring.”

  “Jenny, don’t…”

  He caught her corpse as it dropped in his arms. He felt his heart sink. His one ally. His only friend. The only other Human. “I’ll find you if I can,” he whispered.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Fortunately for Colonel Barokinte, Technical Specialist Masterson had already left for the mainframe before the CPU failure. Being competent, Masterson hadn’t bothered with the backup processors, ignoring repair protocol and using valuable new replacement circuit boards instead. It was the fastest way to get the system back online.

  As screens flickered to life across the command center, the worried crew returned their attention to their keyboards. Hardwired cameras came back first, while computers continued to boot, displaying long strings of indecipherable assembly code. As the main screen’s default camera lit up, the crew grew silent and all heads turned to the image of Earth.

  Onscreen, a dome of hazy fog grew from the surface as if a ghostly new planet was rising out of Europe. White, like a fogged window or frosted glass, shadowy flecks seemed to move inside of it, nearly indiscernible but still indicative of planetary mass. It was more than energy, it was the crust of the earth, and layers of the mantel below. From their perspective, it looked like all matter within the sphere was being ripped apart and shredded into dust. Considering the size of the sphere, the other end must be deep in the core of the planet.

  “It’s eating the earth,” groaned one of the radar technicians.

  The Colonel frowned at the comparison, but it was apt. “Status?”

  “It’s expanding rapidly,” replied an engineer. “Half the planet’s already gone, and our rotation is bringing us toward it. At its current altitude and rate of expansion we’ll intersect the apogee in eight point three seconds, mark!”

  “Fire Orbital Jets,” screamed Barokinte. “Get us HIGHER NOW!”

  A crewman jumped, slamming his palm down on the emergency thruster station and releasing the console. Still booting, it did not respond. It wouldn’t matter anyway, and the USSF Starmen knew it. Men and women stood at their stations, rising in degrees of fear and disbelief. All reacted differently to the threat of impending destruction, but these were scientists and engineers – trained professionals vetted by the NSA and hand-picked by the US Space Force. They did not panic in the face of death. Most had seen it before.

  Some stared in shock, knowing this could be the end. Some fell back on their faith and their religion. Others kept in mind that the energy rushing toward had to be alien. Surely the Germans were incapable of this, and even if they were, they would not do it to themselves. Among this group, there was hope and wonder, and in a few cases rage. Rage that an alien species might treat them like this. Anger that a race advanced enough to create a weapon this horrible would use it on a species barely into the space age.

  These were the thoughts of Markus Barokinte as the dome of chaotic haze swept ever closer to annihilating them. Humanity was worthy. True, half the world lay in virtual slavery to the Germans and the Japanese, and perhaps they deserved annihilation to wipe that blight clean and give everyone else a second chance, but not America. America was still free. The battle hadn’t been lost, and now it was being taken from them before they could win it.

  “It has been an honor and a privilege,” he told his crew.

  A Rock to Step Over

  As the recalibration swept over him, Herman felt the world shift and fly apart. Time stretched and moved in jittering spasms producing a warbling doppler effect reminiscent of a strobe light in mosh pit. The perception did not last long. In seconds, his body blew into quantum foam, ending its corporeal existence – along with the rest of reality – although from his perspective, it was the world that vanished, replaced by a vista of endless white nothingness in all directions.

  He took a deep breath. There was air. Maybe that was part of the default configuration. Everything else was pre-formatted unused memory, a virgin simulation yet to be populated, just as Tanandor had promised. Nice neat rows of zeros in every direction. If Jenny had come, they’d have filled this place together. Water under the bridge, but it stung. He thought for sure she’d accept his offer. In retrospect, he couldn’t blame her. This was the unknown. Here be dragons, but only if you made them, and he’d had the benefit of foresight. Valon had told him what to expect, and there’d been no time to explain all of that. He might as well have asked her to die with him.

  So here he was. In a white out. An endless empty whirlpool for the creative impulses of anyone who could dream. Creativity was never his best attribute but… His pondering abruptly halted. “What the f…”

  A distant dot appeared on the otherwise blank horizon. Herman squinted, surprised at the intrusion. He hadn’t created it. Without thinking, his curiosity moved him in that direction. There shouldn’t be anyone else in here. The transition filter in the library was set to reject simulants. Only jumpers could access the sandbox. As he grew closer the figure became clearer.

  It was a tall pale blue bipedal humanoid. His limbs were long and lean and he wore a simple loincloth decorated with beads and shells – a Paradisian retaining its first cognition of personal appearance. It couldn’t be Valon, not after their last meeting, and therefore it had to be another jumper. He suddenly realized who.

  “Heticus,” Herman snarled. He’d given him all that damn ketamine. The crazy bastard must have been unconscious on the space station when the recalibration hit. He’d been sucked in to the sandbox. Until the recalibration completed, neither of them could leave. They were trapped with each other.

  “Kyrov nach atul,” shouted Heticus. “Utrael or et achma!”

  It sounded like a threat. Herman slowed his pace, thinking of what Valon had told him regarding sandbox operation. Focusing his mind, he opened a portal in front of Heticus and sealed it shut as the Nastarii stepped through. Where Heticus had stood, white emptiness warbled with rippling distortion that faded away into the horizon.

  Herman sighed in relief. He wasn’t sure that would work. Heticus was gone, but not dead. Locked in a sub-partition, the crazy bastard wouldn’t be a problem, but it did leave the question of what to do with him later. It might seem prudent to leave him in limbo, but that wasn’t fair. Heticus might be an asshole, but leaving him trapped forever was worse than killing him, and although the Garibaldi part of Herman was more than willing to do so, the Lewis majority refused to accept the temptation.

  Maybe a timer? Yes. He nodded to himself. Something to set Heticus free after a nice long
time. Herman set it at a hundred years. That ought to do it. By then he’d be long gone. Now he had other things to consider – a world to create and problems to solve. He couldn’t survive in here like this.

  Where to start? The environment? According to Tanandor, his connection to the local Attistar was automatic. All he had to do was imagine what he wanted and the system would take care of the rest. Best to build something to stand on first.

  Closing his eyes, he imagined an island covered with tropical plants. A small island, only a few miles in diameter, and in the center stood a tall mountain with a flat top and a great view. Willing it so, he felt a push against his feet and opened his eyes. A pillar of stone rose beneath him, lifting him up. Foliage sprung from the landscape as the white emptiness melted away from the shore of his makeshift island. Stone and sand and ferns and palms popped up all around, all sitting in an endless sea of glowing white nothing.

  “Time in the sandbox,” Valon had told him, “will match your perceptions and help you along. It is relative to you. The chemical reactions of the life you create and their adaptation and evolution are unnecessary details. They take shape according to your will. In the sandbox, reality is more managed than defined. Its definition takes the perception of its creator. The dream becomes reality, and the reality forms the pallet for the story.”

  A story he didn’t really own, thought Herman. Ownership was an illusion. Anything he created in here was a reflection of himself, and he had not created his own story, therefore anything he created was a continuance of his own path. A path created by Valon’s manipulation of the Attistar to identify the perfect patsy for whatever he wanted. What path would his life have taken if it had been left unmolested?

  Pacing over the top of the flat mountain, Herman considered his options. The Attistar in the sandbox was the same as the one outside, and if one were to consider the concept of ‘outside’ as irrelevant, then all of the data in this simulation was accessible to this sub-system, this Attistar. Everything in the ring. Therefore why bother ‘creating’ a new simulation. He could duplicate one that already existed and skip the work.

  Furthermore, following this reasoning, why not duplicate his own simulation? That would show him the future as it should have been. It’s what the simulations were made for. Perfect! The idea excited him. To see what might have been. He had a question, now he needed help realizing the answer.

  “Attistar,” Herman spoke aloud, “I need a, um… figurehead. An avatar. How about…” He dug around in his head for some inspiration. He considered using the form of Kaya Aoka, but he didn’t want the distraction of a beautiful face right now. “Thomas Yangley.” The Professor he’d met on the plane to Seattle. “Take his form.”

  An elderly male in a blue jacket and slacks appeared before Herman and adjusted his glasses. He was exactly as Herman remembered him from the flight to Seattle. The old man stared at Herman and said nothing.

  “You’re the Attistar, correct?” asked Herman.

  Professor Yangly responded in his original voice. “I am a cognitive personality construct scoped for verbal interaction and transactional interface with the Attistar’s initialization subroutines for this sandbox”. Professor Yangly nodded to Herman. “You are currently identified as the administrator of this limited sub-simulation.”

  “Can you access my origin universe? My simulation?” Herman asked. “The one I came from?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not the Nazi-dominated world that’s being recalibrated. The simulation I was born in?”

  “Affirmative,” said the Professor. “I have read-only access to the data in your origin conduit.”

  “Read-only… so you can’t modify it?”

  “Not from here, no.”

  “But you can copy it?”

  “Affirmative. It is relatively minor in scope.”

  “Okay.” Herman took a deep breath. “Copy it. Recreate it. And run it from the day before my wife died. Can you do that?”

  “The temporal coordinates have been specified, but not the geological loci,” said the Professor. “Where would you like to begin, and do you wish to inhabit a localized simulant or a personalized construct?”

  Right. He needed a body. Normally the Attistar would pick one for him when he jumped, but the sandbox was his to control. Here he could choose. “I guess I don’t care that much right now.” He shrugged and looked down at himself. He was still in the form of Kingery, the last hose he’d inhabited. “This one will work. Kingery. Starman First Class Kingery. And put me somewhere geographically near Brenda.”

  “Are you ready to engage?”

  “Yeah. Do it.”

  The universe of Lewis Herman’s reality came into existence in concentric waves of creation. Oceans and contents rose. Wirefame reliefs filled with textures and attributes. Buildings rose. Simulants took position. Soccer Moms cheered their children on. Businessmen argued and fought for power and prestige. Airplanes appeared in the sky. Cats and dogs materialized on streets and in backyards. Ships sailed the seas. Farmers planted and harvested. Pizza delivery drivers wove through the traffic.

  Beyond Earth, the universe took shape. Not a real universe, because that was unnecessary, but the illusion of one complete in every spectrum and every variable that humanity could detect. Earth was the focus and the Attistar was frugal with its resources. Not that it needed to be frugal, but because its design still retained code from an ancient bygone era in which it did not possess infinite processing capacity and memory.

  The stars were only lights. The galaxy was a glowing fog of them. The universe was a painting slapped onto the surface of a hologram extending in every direction.

  And next to the railroad tracks on a cold Minnesota night, Starman Kingery appeared in his official uniform. He looked down. “Oops.” With a snap of his fingers his clothing transformed into a heavy coat and slacks. As the headlights of a car approached, he thought better of his visibility here and made himself intangible and invisible. There was no point in letting Brenda see him. He didn’t want to pollute the simulation’s outcome more than once. Only one variable required modification to see his proper future.

  A train whistle blew from down the tracks and the crossing arms started to drop over the intersection. Rather than slowing, the car sped up. It was an old model without self-drive or AI. If Brenda had been in Lewis’s car, it would have made her stop, but this machine was strictly manual. It turned sharply to get around the side of the crossing arms and thumped onto the metal rails. The train sounded again. Halfway across, the wheels lost traction on the icy ground and started spinning.

  Inside, a woman talked, leaving a message for her husband at the movie theater where he sat waiting for her. In the back, a boy sat in his car seat, oblivious to what was happening. But Brenda knew. Her face was pale as she desperately played with the shifter, moving from drive to reverse and back, hoping to rock the vehicle into motion.

  Suddenly the tires caught and the car burst forward, crossing the tracks just as the train barreled past behind her. Invisible and intangible, the unrendered mentality of Starman Kingery watched the car shrink in the distance down the dark street beyond. This was the one change he would make until he left the sandbox. Everything else he would let cook-off as nature took its course.

  Watch, but do not interfere. Observe, but do not take part. Not until the end, and then he would have his answer. Who he would have been and what kind of man his son would have become? Now he would know.

  Long Story Short

  At the kitchen table in Scott Herman’s kitchen, an older and wiser version of Starman Kingery watched Scott’s face change from confusion to despair to hope to and back to confusion. Through it, Kingery held his own expression neutral. The poor kid had absorbed a lot. Who could blame him if he blew a gasket? He’d taken the information impressively well. Considering his statistically average position in this simulation, Scotty had received a truth no simulant would deign to accept, given a choice.

 
; Kingery winced in sympathy. “It’s okay, Scott. You don’t have to believe any of it if you don’t want to.”

  “Well thanks,” Scott tried not to gag. He swallowed hard and looked back at the coffee pot. It had started brewing again a few minutes ago and gurgled to completion. Getting up, he poured the dark brew into the two cups on the counter and brought them over. “It’s fake.” He stared at the coffee. “It’s not real. I’m not real.” Shaking his head he looked up at Kingery. “I have to believe, don’t I? You made me feel it. How could I NOT believe after that?”

  Kingery took the cup. “Cheers.”

  “My real father wouldn’t have done this,” Scott said accusingly. “Dad wouldn’t have told me this. None of it. He would have died with the secret.”

  “Yes,” agreed Kingery. “You’re right. I am not Lewis.” He laughed. “I am definitely not Lewis. You know your father as a son knows his father. And I know Lewis as a man knows a warped reflection. He is someone I could have been, but not the one that I have become. For all his weaknesses, I do care about him. Lewis was me. He was what I would have become under these circumstances, and therefore I weep for him.”

  “Why?” Scotty ground his teeth. “Because of the divorce? You could have changed that, right? You could have kept him sane with a snap of your fingers. Why weep for him when you could have DONE something?”

  “I could have, but I didn’t want to.” Kingery pinched his lips. “You don’t know what was happening behind Lewis Herman’s façade of normalcy. He did his best, Scott. He tried to be one of you. He struggled to be normal, but that was never in his cards. And when it came time for you to choose between them, you sided with your mother. I don’t blame you for that. Lewis does, but his thoughts are deep and dark and beyond your ability to fathom, I assure you. It is a place no one should go, least of all someone as weak as Lewis Herman. It was his destiny to be a broken man. He is what I would have become. Depressed and miserable.”