Finding Truths - Prologue
He had to get out of here. They'd come. Long before they were supposed to. He was unprepared. All of them were unprepared.
He activated the jump, looking back at the door in terror as it
buckled, letting out a small sigh of relief when he heard the pad
warming up.
...
Nothing happened.
...
He screamed.
***
Another alarm. Erin groaned as he snapped his door open again. Would
this place give him no sleep? The hallway outside was bustling, men and
women running by far faster than they did in normal alarms. He frowned
and shut his door again, hitting the panel next to it. The connection
took a few minutes to establish, but Glory's face soon appeared in it.
"Yes, sir?"
"What's going on?" He asked.
"We've lost another connection, sir."
Erin looked up, pleading with the gods. "Which one?"
Glory paused, and Erin's gaze snapped back to her, his eyes widening in
horror. "It was... I'm sorry sir, it was Center."
A little part of Erin died.
***
The room was hushed. That was unusual, for The Empire's Parliament. At
least, it would've been under any other circumstance. Considering the
news Erin had just given though, it was no surprise. He walked off stage
quickly, taking the glass of water offered to him by Glory and walking
on, waiting for her report as she fell in behind him. Glory was a decent
assistant. Mark IV Android assistant, to be exact. Technically the
best. Right now, decent was all Erin could manage.
"Ystaerial
has reported in. The Evacuation of Prime isn't going as well as you'd
hoped, even with the news we brought. Beta is pulling strings, but the
governments of both Gamma and Alpha are resisting. Heavily." Glory said
quickly, reading off the list on her pad.
"Center?"
"No word. All attempts to re-establish connections have resulted in blown continuum circuits."
Erin rubbed his forehead. "With Center down, we only have access to
this half of the Verse. Any success with bridging the gap?"
"We have contact with Yin, but no matter transit. Other connections have failed so far."
"Call in our best. All of them. We need everyone working on this. How's work going on the Transit Pulse?"
"We've succeeded in blocking transit between local universes, but it has limited effect on outside transit."
"Limited how?"
"It slows the process down by a few seconds."
"Requisition them more resources from the Council. Tell them that's our
most important project right now. It might end up saving us."
"Me, Sir...?"
"Yes. Congratulations on your promotion. Get to work."
***
I'm not even sure it matters what year it is anymore. When we lost Origin, our concept of time kinda
just... reset. With the level of interconnection we've built up between
universes, time is really dependent on your perception. My Home,
Center, was the first place discovered after Origin. It's not even a
real universe. It's a pocket dimension, made on accident in our first
attempt to Jump Universes. We ended up there, and that ended up being
our hub for travel. Most of the other universes we've connected with
aren't quite full universes either. We've encountered a total of 6
Truths (the full universes). We don't mess with the Truths. They have
their own things going on, and it's banned by the UTA (Universal Transit
Agency) to interact with them. Origin was the only Truth we were
allowed to interact with, and after we lost it, the most we get to do is
see a Truth when we pass through one on the occasional Jump. I've seen
two of the Truths. The first one was nothing more than a boiling mass of
seething antimatter, and in the second, our Jump Point was so far out
all we could see all around was a starry sky. A really starry sky.
We
only inhabit those places that are broken. The half-universes. The
Lies. Not that we really call them lies, that's just what I call them.
Full-universes are Truths, so broken universes are Lies? I think it
makes sense...
They're really called The Broken. We think that maybe they're the
leftovers of real universes, or maybe the creations of our jumps. We
barely understand the technology, so it really wouldn't surprise me that
they're accidents caused through misuse.
***
One of those days, then. The one where the annoying Director informed him that he was being moved. Again.
He'd just gotten this assignment. What right did they have to transfer
him to another one?! He'd taken it up with the Director, but the staredown he'd gotten had made him leave the room in a huff.
He slipped the last computer crystal into his case, closing it and
latching it carefully, the lock automatically sealing the whole thing
closed. He glanced about his 4 day old office and sighed, taking the
case with him and leaving the building, ignoring the requests for
attention he got from quite a few of the other employees of the place.
He really didn't belong in Hale anyways. Too much sun, and his white
hair and pale skin were sensitive to the broken sky's imitation
sunlight. Hale was the seventh Broken that they'd discovered. Jumping
could be programmed to go anywhere. TO just dump people in a random
universe, but there were safeties against that. They had to scrounge
through the dilapidated equipment that had been left over from whoever
invented the damned things for addresses. Not that they were really
addresses. Jumping was more a game of... perfection.
Silvis, or Vis for short, was a Jump coordinator. One of the best. He
had a depth of understanding of the Jump platforms that many others
could only boast of. He'd just gotten a job at the Injin
Frame Company. They were the ones who found the new places. The ones
who deactivated the fail-safes and Jumped all over the universes. As
long as you had a return platform, and you knew where Center was, you
could get back without any difficulties.
Erin's job was to design those jump points. He didn't do any of the actual jumping, but he found places for others to go.
As soon as he stepped out of the building, the doors sliding shut behind with a nearly inaudible hissss, he noticed the car parked right in front of the building. Cars were rare now-a-days. With so many people flititng
about in Hale, there wasn't enough room for cars, so everyone took the
transit systems. Which made room for cars, ironically enough.
An
android stepped out of the back seat as soon as he appeared, and stood
to the side. He paused for a moment before continuing forwards, stepping
up to her.
"Good evening, Mr. Vis. My name is Glory. We have need of your assistance."
***
I
never liked the jump coordinators. They were an arrogant bunch, and
rightfully so, a lot of the time. They had enough intelligence to make
all of our Mark IV androids look inept, but they didn't have any of the
built in moral compunctions. If they wanted something, they got it.
Hell, with what they did, and how well they generally did it, they
deserved the things they usually got.
But
Vis... he put the rest of them to shame. Made them look like a bunch of
bumbling babies in a toy factory. He could pop a jumper down 50 feet in
the air on a tight rope the size of a single thread, and then get them
back again before they hit the ground. Give him some time, and he could
figure out an entire area just through jump mapping.
It
was hard for him though. He came with all the skills, and none of the
self-confidence. He had to teach that to himself, and even then, it was a
fragile thing. Those first few weeks we worked together on getting back
to Center, he nearly broke down 11 times. I was able to convince him to
keep going on, but I knew he was only listening because he knew I had
family on the other side of the Verse.
When we did get through though... we wished we hadn't. And we were glad we only got messaging.
***
Erin's
face was grim. The message was repeating over and over, in his own
brothers voice. "Don't come. This half is lost. I've sealed the jump
system- Don't come. This half is lost. I've sealed the Jump System-
Don't - " Glory shut the recording off.
"This half is lost...?" He asked wearily. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?!"
"We
don't know sir. Initial Jump mapping showed..." Glory paused. "It
showed carnage sir. Vis isn't quite sure what he's looking at, but he
thinks..." She shook her head. "He thinks the jump platform is being
used as an... altar of some sort. A sacrificial altar."
Erin groaned. "Anything else?"
"No, sir. As soon as the message came through, Vis freaked and locked the gate down. Said something about protocol 9 before running out of the room."
"Protocol 9?" Erin asked warily. "Any idea what that is...?"
"No..."
Vis
walked into the room, looking shaken. "Protocol 9 is one of the 11
emergency protocols the Jump guild has given all of it's members." He
said, taking a chair. "Glory, could I get some water please?"
Glory
nodded and left. Vis turned to Erin. "It's only supposed to be used in
case of invasion. Specifically, invasion from one of the Truths.
Specifically, invasion from Earis."
"Earis? You mean the truth where our gate pops out right onto another planet, instead of a station out in space?"
"Yes. It's inhabited by a rather volatile race. Decently advanced, although their techology
is... crude. They must have discovered the Gate and activated it while
we had a mapping session being performed. Which didn't give us the
chance to shut down the gate before they could get through."
Vis sighed. "You realise what this means, right? Almost all of
our food came from the other half. With our population as is, and our
stocks as is... we've got maybe 6 months before we need to start
rationing, and a year before we run out of the chance to survive."
Erin nodded grimly. "I'll talk to the Council. I have a plan."
***
"Not a chance in hell!" Councilor Victus roared, standing from his seat and slamming his fist into his table. "We have those rules for a reason! We don't interfere!"
Erin
growled and stood up to his full height. "We're going to die if we
don't do something!" He pointed at the screen sitting behind him. "Vis
has already set everything up. We won't even be impacting an
established civilization! He took the effort to find a planet that was
uninhabited by any intelligent beings. We just need approval!"
The other council members began arguing among themselves loudly, ignoring Erin's pleas for order.
A shar rapping emitted from the desk in the center. The eldest Councilor, Prim Urula, stood up, wobbling a bit. Her wrinkled face and stark white hair made her look wise. Erin's opinion was that she was.
"You
have approval." She said. The other council members cried in outrage.
She slammed her gavel more. "You've all forgotten! Emergency act 3
explicitly states that 'Should contact with Center be lost, and the Metallic half of the Verse be on the verge of collapse, the prime Councillor is to appoint an Emperor to rule things' and I appoint him!"
Erin blinked. "What...?" She turned to him, ignoring the cries from her fellow councilors. "Congratulations on your Promotion, Emperor Erin," and winked.