Spires of Infinity (33 page)

Two of the large robots came to a stop blocking their path.

“Please identify,” one of them said in a deep, electronic voice that Gabriel could have sworn he last heard repeating, “danger Will Robinson!”

“My name is Gabriel Reeve. This is Sam.” He held up his badge. “This got us through the gate. Is that what you want?”

“Invalid identification type. Please identify.”

“Look, is there some sort of boss around here we can talk to? I’m looking for someone named Allie, I was told she’d be expecting me.”

“That would be me,” a disembodied voice said from between the two robots. A

girl in her early teens suddenly appeared between them. She was completely two dimensional, appearing flat like someone on a TV screen, and Gabriel could see right through her to the pavement behind. With big green eyes, she examined him like a piece of meat, pushing a stray lock of dark brown hair out of her face and tucking it behind one of her ears. “I have not been expecting
you
exactly, but I have been expecting
someone
.

I suppose you will do.”

Yelping, Sam jumped behind Gabriel, hiding and holding onto large handfuls of

his coat for dear life. Looking down at her as she peeked around his arm, he raised an eyebrow in question.

“She’s a ghost,” Sam whispered fiercely. “I
told
you this place was haunted!”

Allie threw back her head and laughed merrily.

“No,” Gabriel said. “Not a ghost. You’re a hologram, aren’t you?”

Allie stopped laughing abruptly, eyes wide in amazement. She gave him a more

thorough examination with a considering expression on her face.

“I doubt that word has been spoken in over five hundred years. How do you

know it?”

“Because I’m not from this world,” Gabriel grinned widely.

“Interesting, but not possible. I have not detected any Gate Jumps large enough to indicate travel from another world within your estimated lifetime. You must tell me how you came to be here, and why. What world are you from?”

Allie looked to each of the robots in turn and they returned to patrolling.

“I come from Earth.”

“Earth? That is not possible.”

“Why not?”

“Because time travel beyond ten thousand years into the past or the future has never been tested. Theoretically it should be no different than other Gate Jumps, but there is a miniscule chance that the system will overload. The further through time you travel the more of my memory it eats up to perform the calculations to make it possible. I have failsafes in place to prevent it, though they are easy enough to remove. It would, however, require this facility to operate at full capacity and I have been ordered in no uncertain terms that that is never to happen again.”

“Time travel,” Gabriel choked.

“Oh, I am sorry. Were you not aware? Earth was destroyed nearly ten billion

years ago. I believe the date was August twenty-first of the year 2154 AD of the local calendar, though my records from that period of history are greatly fragmented by extreme age and multiple attempts at copy.”

“What,” Gabriel cried, unsure which was more shocking, that Earth was gone, or that he was ten
billion
years in the future.

“Forgive me. I did not realize that you were unaware of the fact.”

“What are you anyway,” Gabriel asked pushing the question of Earth out of his

mind for the time being. “If I had to guess I’d say you’re probably an AI, or supercomputer that runs this place, right?”

“Right on both counts. That is exactly what I am. My name is Allison, or Allie, if you prefer, but you already knew that. I have not had people to talk to for a very long time. I have been hard at work on the problem that Millie gave me to—“

“Millie,” Gabriel cut in. “Millie Farseer?”

“The same. You read of her in a book perhaps?”

“No,” Gabriel scratched at the stubble on his jaw. “She’s the one that sent me here.”

“That is not possible. Not unless humans have developed the ability to live more than six hundred years while I was not looking. She was the last scientist of the team that lived here, and she left the facility to brave the radiation in search of food almost six centuries ago. Before she left, she gave me a problem to work on, and said that someone would be along for me to give my findings to. Have you come to hear my findings at last?”

The fact that the person the Northern Sage had sent him to meet with details of his mission had disappeared six hundred years ago was somewhat disconcerting. Although, if he’d given Gabriel a second chance, surely he could have given other people second chances as well.

“
Haunted
,” Sam hissed at him. “A
dead
woman sent you here!”

“Findings,” Gabriel asked, shaking Sam off of his coat with an annoyed growl.

“She’s not going to bite. Stop that! She’s just a machine, like the rest of these things—

well, probably a lot smarter than the rest of these things.”

“I will explain further inside. It is cold out here, and I am sure that you have had a very long journey. This way. Inside is completely shielded from radiation. You are probably feeling the effects of exposure by now.”

“Wait,” Sam said, looking between Gabriel and Allie. “Hold on. Are you telling me that he really
is
from a different world?”

Allie looked at Gabriel for a second, giving him another long, considering

examination before turning to Sam.

“Considering his knowledge of things that no one in the present day should know, I deduce that there is a high probability that he has either come from the distant past, another world entirely, perhaps both. He knows of holograms, AIs, and most

importantly, of Earth. Even when this facility was built knowledge of that planet was restricted to a few moldy old scholars, and computer data banks. It is the world where all humanity sprang from during an ancient and forgotten war, spreading out amongst the stars. So, in answer to your question, yes, I can say with ninety-one percent certainty that he is not from this world.”

“Well I’ll be damned,” Sam said, looking as though she’d been kicked in the

head. “Uh, sorry, I guess.”

Gabriel shrugged. “No problem.”

“Come. This way,” Allie began gliding backward toward the nearest Spire. She did not move her legs to walk, nor did she turn to look where she was going. “Your animals and belongings will be cared for. I think we need to have a very long talk.”

Chapter 29: The Dying Sun

“Sit, please,” Allie gestured toward a table in the conference room she’d brought them to.

Sitting in one of the chairs, Gabriel thought it was about time that he saw

something resembling civilization. The chair was made of sturdy plastic and metal like chairs in a school. There was even a whiteboard on one wall to complete the ambiance, and a large picture window opposite of it showing New Hope and the Quarantine Zone beyond.

Remaining on her feet, Allie watched Gabriel and Sam expectantly as they took

their seats. It seemed so strange and fantastical that a computer could be programmed with so many human expressions and mannerisms.

“Tell me,” Allie said. “How did you come here?”

Shrugging comfortably, Gabriel glanced over to see Sam leaning forward in her

chair with interest. In that position one good sneeze would free her cleavage completely of the low neckline of her skimpy shirt. Her wolf ears were perked forward, and Mister Mittens watched intently from her shoulders.
Now
they were interested in listening!

“There’s not much to tell, really,” Gabriel said. “I was crossing a street, and a douchebag bus driver ran me over. I had to have died, because there’s really no walking away from something like that.”

“Not to interrupt, but once something is dead, it is dead. Perhaps it is my nature as a computer that I do not believe in some greater power beyond this reality. I am programmed to believe only what I can quantify, and that is something that I cannot.”

“Fancy way of saying you’re an atheist. Anyway, everything went black and then I was falling out of the sky toward a lake and this guy called the Northern Sage said he had a job for. Then I was here, with instructions to meet someone named Millie Farseer.

She told me to come here and meet with you, but she was stingy on the details.”

Allie looked at him for a few seconds like he was crazy until Mister Mittens

spoke up.

“The Northern Sage, you say?”

“Celestial Mother!” An expression of delight suddenly appeared on Allie’s face.

It was like watching HDTV when the image would freeze due to static and then take up again a second later with a person’s face suddenly in a completely different expression.

“Your kitty talks! That is so
cute
! Come on, say something else.”

Mister Mittens rolled his eyes at the hologram. Every time he made a human

mannerism, Gabriel had to fight not to crack up over it.

“As I was saying,” the cat cleared his throat. “I have heard of this Northern Sage.

A children’s story about a man that lives between worlds, granting wishes for a price, and ferrying the souls of the dead to the afterlife.”

“He’s a jackass is what he is! I
never
would have wished to end up
here
.”

“This is very interesting,” Allie disappeared and reappeared at Sam’s side, poking a holographic finger at Mister Mittens as if trying to get him to talk again. Sam jumped in startlement, obviously still believing Allie to be a ghost.

“Tell me about the Spires of Infinity,” Gabriel said. “I want to know everything.”

“Everything will take a very long time to tell.”

“How about the Reader’s Digest version?”

Sam tugged on the arm of his coat and nodded toward the window meaningfully,

mouthing, “Apostle.”

“Oh, right. Hey, there’s someone named the Apostle who organized all of the

mutants in the Quarantine Zone, fought off the Imperial Army and is headed here with an army.”

“I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later,” Allie shrugged. “No worries, my walls have broken more than one army. I am currently running at one-percent capacity. That is enough to keep the lights working, the computers, the containment field on the singularity, and myself of course. Boosting to my maximum allowance of ten-percent will give me enough power for the shield and the wall guns. If I can withstand nuclear bombardment, I can withstand an army of primitives.”

“Singularity,” Gabriel cried at the same time that Sam cried, “you mean the Spires of Infinity are still draining the sun of energy?”

Looking from Sam to Gabriel, Allie looked unsure which to answer first.

Shrugging, she went back to poking Mister Mittens who was looking thoroughly annoyed by now.

“I suppose one question answers the other. This facility is built around a

gravitational singularity.”

“Singularity,” Gabriel repeated. “You mean there’s a black hole in the

basement?”

“Not a whole black hole, only the singularity, or core of a black hole. It is the point within a black hole at which gravity, mass and time become unmeasurable, or infinite for all intents and purposes. The containment field holds the singularity in check, preventing an actual black hole from forming around it. For explanation’s sake we will call it a black hole if that makes it easier for you? It is beneath the central spire. They are usually born when a star collapses in on itself, but the unique properties of this region of space allowed for the creation of one here. This facility was, firstly, built to generate power, ending reliance on dwindling fossil fuels.

“There was a secondary goal. Long ago, humans traveled the stars between

worlds, seeking new homes. That is how humanity first came to Ethos. As you may know, the universe has a speed limit, making it physically impossible for anything to travel faster than the speed of light. Using technology borrowed from an extinct alien civilization, they created the first star drives capable of instantaneous travel between two points in space. That technology has been lost, but the desire to follow in the footsteps of our ancestors spurred scientists to devise another way of faster than light travel.

“Using the existing gravitational anomaly in this region we created a micro

singularity beneath the facility, within a safe containment field. The gravity generated by this singularity is so great that it can tear the fabric of space and time. It is so dense that it actually bores a hole right through the universe to a place that exists outside of reality itself. From this place, you can step back inside at any location at any time provided you have a computer powerful enough to make the calculations. We call it Gate Jumping.

“A computer like you,” Gabriel said.

“Yup,” Allie tapped her chest proudly. “A computer like me.”

“So going back more than ten thousand years just isn’t possible,” Gabriel asked.

“Theoretically it is,” Allie shrugged, giving him an apologetic look, “but I am afraid that without regular maintenance, my computing capacity is not what it once was.

The calculations required could burn me out, and frankly, I enjoy living.”

Sighing, Gabriel looked to the window. He could feel Sam’s eyes on him. He

wasn’t exactly sure how he felt about this. The Spires of Infinity had been his ticket home in his mind for so long, but that had turned out not to be true. Besides, as much as he wanted to go home, he wouldn’t leave Sam behind for anything. Still, the revelation that his way home was a no go hit him pretty hard.

“What the hell are you two talking about,” Sam suddenly burst out, sounding

more than a little dazed. “I don’t understand
anything
!”

“Why is the facility still running,” Gabriel asked with a placating look at Sam who was visibly fidgeting about the conversation going
way
over her head. “I was told that it was shut down, and the panic resulting from the sudden loss of power caused the nuclear war.”