ARC OF THE IMMORTALS Book 2

Time Rifts-20: Unintended Consequences

Repeating the Same Actions Expecting Different Results — Insanity?

Recap of Chapter 19 Entering the Arc: Touzdae and Jac, each in separate realities use an almost exact mirror of one another’s plan to jump into the arc. Each reality uses 1500 Needlcrafts in sync with Mu-1 and Mu-2 engines to jump into the arc. Each duplicate is perfectly synced inside the other’s bodies. Touzdae’s Mu dominates. They begin fist-a-cuffs amongst themselves.

When Jac appears they attack him. He separates from them and creates a neutral space or separate reality where no one can see him. No one, except Touzdae, joins him in the neutral space. She goes toward him. The space collapses and the two Mu’s separate outside the arc in different realities.

Jac meets with the Captain and an engineering team to discuss building a Neutral Space Generator. Touzdae meets with a kindly scientist to talk about the realities. He claims that Mu-2 the ship both he and Touzdae occupy is dominant and will destroy the other reality.

Touzdae is saddened by this.

Current Episode:

The two gigantic and identical ships Mu 1 and 2 jumped into the arc. Both sides used 50% non-doppelgänger Needlecraft pilots. Again merging Mu-One into the Two. Each crew blended with the other and Mu-Two were angry-dominant out-of-control fighters. The fighters emerged and attacked their neighbors, doppelgängers and non-doppelgängers alike. In the third jump, Jac, captured, and held in the starboard sphere of the Mu by six Gypsums, as he was in the second jump. Touzdae jumped her Needlecraft to Mu-One. Her craft docked in an emergency outer hatch near an Entu Monk enclave. As Touzdae approached the enclave, the separation began. Decompiled on a molecular level, she re-compiled in an attosecondª on the same corridor in the Mu-2. Both Mu-s dematerialized in their dimensions outside the arc. Jac remained captive on the Mu-2 in a small chamber at the bottom of the sphere along the starboard side of the ship.

He scraped away residue on an inner portal and peered out beyond the chamber. He couldn’t see much. He employed his third eye for clear sight. The six Gypsums made adjustments to their controls releasing him. Jac decompiled. He found himself at the bottom of the sphere underneath the holographic false bottom on Mu-1.

“The Gypsums held Jac longer than expected. Why?” Touzdae wanted to know.

“Yes — the data shows it. He may be the key to their survival in the future. With focused intent look more at the emotional underbelly of this alternate reality.” DKr.* Malley said withholding information on purpose.

This is a test, Touzdae thought.

After a few minutes Touzdae looked up from her meditation. “Something about this culture, the people on this ship are blocking my empathic and telepathic abilities. It’s the opposite way of the Mu that I know on the other side.”

“When the two sides merged the first time our people here were fighting with them and with each other. Even the ones without doppelgängers were fighting. I interviewed a small sample of doppelgängers and non-doppelgängers. My ad hoc conclusion is that the people on Mu-One deal with conflict in an overt manner. The people on this ship suppress conflict to give an appearance of peace. When confronted with the Mu-One population all the inner conflict goes to the surface. And we project it,” the dockter paused for a sip of his carbonated sarsaparilla drink.

“ — On someone else,” Touzdae interjected.

“That’s it — precisely,” he remarked. And continued: “When there is no one but each other to project conflict then it’s driven deep into the psyche.”

DKr. Malley continued, “All conflict in the Mu two, as you call it, is in a closed system that is inaccessible. Conflict is overt on Mu-1. So while there appears to be a great peace here, it is a lie. Peace on the surface, seething darkness below here on Mu-two. Thus violence.

“The Gypsums are the only species on board that seem balanced. There are only twelve of them. Of that twelve, six do not have doppelgängers,” Malley paused for dramatic effect.

“Do you think the Gypsums are out to use Jac to return to Mu-One?”

“That is a possibility.”

The gravity neutralizer laboratory tested did not work in the field.

The tallest of the Gypsums, Osiz, pulled the others around him. They touched foreheads. Jac struggled in the chamber. Osiz stepped to a dais and leaned into a viewport. With a small hand gesture, the other three Gypsums manipulated the controls.

Jac collapsed to the deck of the chamber. A few seconds later he vanished. It was the end of the first jump. Everything was supposed to work according to plan. It was all contrary; nothing worked.

Jac returned. He awakened in the bottom of the starboard sphere of Mu-One. He gazed upward at the holographic structure. The area was pulsing with a soft bluish-white light. He rolled over.

At the center of the dome’s bottom was the Lingham Stone, but it had changed. It was less pointed and more egg-like. As Jac stood the light stopped pulsing and became brighter.

“You existed in this reality thousands of years ago. That could be between five and six thousand years ago. You died.”

“Did I die from suicide?”

“No,” he paused for effect. “Murdered. It was the only recorded murder in the history of Antares Prime and Beta. Theta has had two murders altogether — they occurred during a trickster period. Both times.”

“No, I don’t believe you.”

“You’ve heard of the word and the act of murder then?”

“Yes, in advanced schooling on Theta. Murder One is killing one individual by plan. Black Passion is Murder Two. It happens under voluntary or involuntary circumstances,” Touzdae said.

She continued. “There was a faction on the rogue planet of Gata that had a few murders both planned and by black passion. That was thousands of generations ago. And on Gata, there is the Virtual Reality Game in which there are many murders. But it is a fantasy, or so I thought.

“I would have known if my doppelgänger had been murdered.” Touzdae stood up.

“I can prove it,” DKr. Vishop Malley said proud of himself. “I have built a device like the Time Hoppers at the Obz Station only with many safety protocols built in.”

“How do you know about the Hoppers and the Obz Station?”

“Two sources. Listening posts where I pirate information. About 500 years ago I stumbled upon the full plans of the station and its complete functions. I translated them in the many years from then until recently from the Obz language.”

ª attosecond is the smallest measurement of time — from What is an Attosecond.

*DKr. is an abbreviation for Docktor. Docktors are at the top in their fields of science and research. Whereas Dr. (Doctor) or Doctors are top in their field in the art and science of healing.

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