The Desolate Guardians (9 page)

The dome's lights shifted to bright white,
and a hum buzzed in over the stream.

She looked back and forth wildly. "
What'd
you do?
"

"Nothing!" I shouted back, frantic. "A ton of
this stuff is automatic. I didn't even - I mean, I did, I accessed
the interface, but - it's turning on!" I stared in horror as the
central platform of the gigantic metal whirlpool began ever so
slowly rotating.

I heard her voice rise to an uncommon tone of
emergency. "Where's it pointed?"

"Where's what pointed?!" I asked, panicking.
Was my meddling going to destroy someone's reality?

"The destination!" she shouted. "Where's it
going?"

Of course! I stared at the process files.
"It's pointed at the inner reality, the last place they went…"

"Tell me how to turn it off," she ordered,
her tone determined.

"I don't -" I already knew I couldn't turn
off the automated process without the proper passwords, but I
quickly did a few key word searches for
off
and
shut
down
and
terminate
… "That thing! That metal thing! The
circle with the four rods! You have to put it in the top. That's
the mechanical failsafe - it can't go off if that's in!"

Before I was even finished speaking, she
picked it up with both hands and began running… straight onto the
first metal ring, which was picking up speed. In seconds, she was
judging her jump to the next ring, which was moving at a different
speed…

It was eight tenths of a mile to the center,
and the files said the whole process took four minutes. How much
time had we wasted talking? I did some calculations, and… with a
sinking feeling, I realized: she would never make it.

Watching her leap from ring to ring, falling
once or twice at each abrupt change in speed, a wave of despair
passed over me. I hadn't been able to help
anyone
I'd read
about or talked to, I'd screwed up and cost Jonathan an eye, and
now
this?
I had the paralyzing sense I was about to watch
this woman die… and her son, or whoever it was she cared so deeply
for, would be left on their own… because of me.

Before I even knew what I was doing, the
crane nearest her was moving. Two bars crossed high above the
machinery, supporting the crane on its own mobile platform, and I
sent it at top speed after her. The two perpendicular beams moved
across open space on my map of the facility, chasing her heat
signature.

I thought, as I got closer, that she might
actually make it… until the inner rings began descending. The
entire system of rings shifted and dropped slowly, their vortex
configuration deepening. She stumbled, fell, and bounced down three
rings, before grunting in pain at the sudden shift in velocity on
her new inner ring - this one only a few feet wide, with a rising
curved wall of metal on one side and a steepening drop on the
other.

From my perspective on the map, she was
whirling around at incredible speed, and the camera in her headset
was no help. Did the crane have a camera? It did. Turning it on and
using that one, I slowly lowered the claw.

Come on…
how many videogames had I
played during my existence? This was just like any other Flash game
with a simple setup and devilishly difficult to master controls… it
just happened to have a life on the line, and possibly a
reality.

She whipped past.

I waited.

She whipped past.

I waited.

She whipped past - and I lowered the
claw.

Despite herself, she screamed once as she
impacted the metal on the next go around. Still, she clung to the
deactivation rods and forced out an order as the tines closed
around her. "Get me up there!"

I'd only intended to get her out and save
her, and we had less than thirty seconds left, but… even in my
panic, for some reason, I trusted her.

Lifting the claw in staggering jolts, I moved
her up alongside the central pillar, and up above the platform with
the bomb on it… only to find that it was spinning fastest of
all.

There was absolutely no way she would be able
to jump down and stay on - not with both hands around the awkward
metal object she carried.

"Get me above it," she shouted, and I lowered
her down as close as I could while trying to ignore the scant
seconds left. Even as I moved the claw lower, though, the rapidly
spinning platform began to drop. I understood where it was going -
down into the center of the device, the nadir of the mechanical
vortex - but I also knew that meant we were almost out of time.

Lowering the claw as smoothly as I could, I
brought her to just a foot or two above the sinking bomb, jolting
up and down a bit as I tried to get the dropping speed right. From
her camera perspective, the bomb was a whirling sphere of black and
chrome… and utterly impossible to interact with.

She tried to lower the four rods into place
twice, but then judged against it. "Spin me!" she shouted at the
top of her lungs, still barely audible over the intense roar of
machinery.

Could the claw do that? It could! Of course
it could… turning on the servos, I started giving her rotational
speed even as the bottom of the vortex dropped away. Chrome rings
melted into a vast well of purple light and waves of white. Through
her camera, I could see into eternity… and the platform was moving
down into it.

We were far past out of time.

Agonizingly slowly, the rotating bomb and
platform seemed to slow down… as her spinning grew to match. I
could hear her straining not to get sick or pass out… I knew her
spinning had to be subjecting her to painfully high
g
forces, but she remained ready despite the crushing intensity. The
purple below us imploded into bright white lines, and the
illusionary corridor widened… and the platform, from our
perspective, seemed to finally stop spinning.

It even went the other direction a little
bit, but I edged off the slightest bit of servo power, and she came
back to even with it.

"Open the claw," she shouted grimly, hardly
able to speak against the tremendous pressure.

"What? But you'll -"

"There's no choice."

I knew she was right, and I had to listen to
her order, but… I still felt horrible and empty as I gave the final
command. The claw opened.

Despite the chaos, she dropped eerily
straight down, and immediately fell across the top of the bomb to
keep herself from falling off. With a swift motion, she oriented
the four rods and shoved them down into interlocking access ports.
I saw all this through her headset camera, and I saw her descending
into an infinite tunnel from the crane camera… and I saw her heat
signature disappear from the base map.

"What do I do?" I asked her, at the last, the
roaring crescendo reaching a final peak. "I can't get you with the
crane…"

"You might be on your own now, friend," she
told me calmly, her strained and quiet voice oddly audible despite
the storm. "I needed to go there anyway. Maybe - just maybe - they
can help."

"Who?" I cried.

She sighed with worry, regret, and a dozen
other unidentifiable emotions, her hands gripping white on the bars
around the bomb. "I'm going home."

In a flash, the tunnel compacted, swirled,
and was gone.

The platform remained - with nothing on
it.

Slowly, the entire configuration began
powering down and resetting position, and I lifted the crane's claw
lest I damage something. I did all this automatically, without
thinking, because I could not think.

I sat and processed what had happened for
several minutes. I hadn't been there physically - I'd just been
watching video and listening to audio and rooting through files -
but I still felt as if I'd been through a life and death situation
and only barely survived.

I hadn't even had time to anticipate it... it
had all just happened. Six minutes ago, she'd been standing on the
edge, and, now, she was gone.

Shaken, I got up, and took a walk around the
office building. Outside, the same slithery creatures moved, and I
watched them for a time, lost in thought.

Who had she been? Who had she been trying to
keep safe? She'd been searching for
some people
, she'd said,
and that search had led her inward, to the inner shell of our
protected realities… the silent sanctum at the center. Who might be
able to help? The people she was looking for, or the people already
there?

Because there had to be people already there,
I imagined… that was the part I couldn't quite grapple with. She
was
going home…

And now I was alone. The darkness and
seclusion hadn't hit me, not with full effect, until I stood
standing there at the windows and realized I truly couldn't leave.
The only friend I'd ever made was gone, and the portal she'd used
to get to that underground complex…

…was still open.

Rushing back to the server room and my
computer, I went through each and every option I had at my disposal
in that distant base. Automated railcars in the tunnels,
operational cranes, what else? Was there anything that could
actually physically move something to her initial portal? There had
seemed to be children on the other side in the brief glimpse I'd
seen the other day… her family? That boy at the front…

What would they think if she didn't come
back?

Something else occurred to me. The gigantic
vortex device had to be able to pull things back as well as send.
How else were men and equipment moved between realities? While I
was still connected, could I use it to save
myself?
I could
go there, then go through the portal she'd left open!

Yes. The complex there had much more mapping
and targeting capability, and I even found an approximation of the
map I'd created by hand. Indeed, our entire bubble was a sphere of
dozens of realities with an outer shell separating us from the rest
of the multiverse, and an inner shell protecting one central
world.

The outer shell, on this map, was practically
covered with warning symbols and alert signs. Numerous entire
realities on the map were completely red. Had they been… destroyed?
Were these the cracks the flame entity had spoken of? There were so
many… what was holding back the darkness, save our lonely desolate
guardians? Individuals enduring beyond all imagination, the most
human of all, struggling to carry on at the walls…

Haunted, I focused on finding my coordinates.
The base already seemed to have my office on file, and I activated
the machine with the new destination. Apparently, a portal would
open for thirty seconds, and I would have a chance to step
through.

I watched through the crane cameras as the
entire cycle spun up again. Four or five minutes later, I dared not
hope as it declared the tunnel open and stable.

Rushing out into the office building proper,
I looked around for vast purple light - but found none. Racing
around, I went through every room and hallway - and found nothing.
Where was it?!

I stopped in place as I finally sighted
it.

A dim purple haze emanated from the fog
outside.

Staring out the window, my hope shriveled. It
was out there, with those slimy things… and getting out there would
require breaking a window. If I tried to reach it, and failed,
there would be no more safe haven.

Despondent, I watched the purple expire, and
then returned to my server room. I knew I couldn't ignore, for much
longer, the growing likelihood that I was going to die in that
room. Our little corner of the multiverse was falling apart, held
together only by the threadbare hardships of quietly heroic human
beings, and the only person trying to fix it had just disappeared
into an unknown situation with an extremely dangerous bomb, leaving
her kids behind and alone… and all I could think about was the slow
process of starvation and loneliness I was about to face. I could
protest and call for help all I wanted on the Internet, but nobody
would believe me, and their mockery would only make it worse.

And even if I made it out of here, the
Crushing Fist, whatever it entailed, was coming for us - something
bad enough that even ascendant living flames were scared of it.
This new threat was approaching, and there was nobody left to stop
the tide.

If only I could
do something…
but
being trapped here made that impossible… unless…

I looked at the base's more complete map of
realities again, and something hit me.

I already knew what the Crushing Fist was. It
was already here… it was already happening… had been happening for
more than a year. The exact mechanism, agenda, or plot behind it
was irrelevant. Humanity was under siege.

And there was nobody left to stop the tide…
meaning there was nobody watching me. I'd wondered why nobody had
ever come to check up on my activities, even as I'd begun blatantly
breaking into military networks. I was the only network manager
left. The bases were empty. Lone survivors manned the walls.

There was nobody left to fear.

Suddenly full of excited hope, rather than
despair, I logged into every network I could and implemented my
plan.

I
was trapped here, but that didn't
mean there weren't others out there like my only friend. There had
to be other people out there who knew something of our situation,
or who had minor capabilities we might cobble together, or who had
artifacts in their possession like her device that talked to souls.
There were nine hundred and twenty-four billion human beings alive
between the inner and outer shells, by all accounts… we weren't
done. Not yet.

Alive with electricity, I decided to step out
from my safe anonymity and
do something
for the first time
in my life. That's what she'd been trying to tell me, I guessed:
having something to care about meant taking risks, even unknowable
risks with very little hope to cling to.