Spheria (25 page)

Chapter 29 - The Deleted File

"What is a diary as a rule? A document useful to the person who keeps it. Dull to the contemporary who reads it and invaluable to the student, centuries afterwards, who treasures it." - Walter Scott

INTERN’S LOG BY OLIVIA HOLLAND

5/30: First day on the job. Everyone seems very nice. My boss Max is a little intense, but the rest of the staff seems normal. Everyone is super dedicated to this project, and I'm happy to be part of the team. It appears that they’ll have me doing a statistical analysis of data all summer, but it’s better than working at McDonald’s. Since this is my first “real job” I've decided to keep this work journal, and this is the first entry. I’ll try to update it weekly when things aren't too busy.

6/02: Loser! That’s what he is. I’m sitting here preparing a nonlinear regression on a data set Max sent me, and I get an email from Randy. The bastard broke up with me! I get that the long distance thing wasn't working, but that’s spineless. Six years of emotional investment down the drain. His loss. I need to drag Ashley out for a drink tonight. Maybe I can head home sick. I don’t feel like working right now.

6/03: Oh my head! I can’t believe it’s like my fourth day, and I’m at work hungover. I hope nobody can tell, although it’s hard to act awake. Max was way too cheerful when he arrived, and I tried to be pleasant as much I could, which was hard. He seems a bit nervous around me, which is cute. Eventually, he's going to realize I've not produced anything meaningful, and with days like this… ugh. Luckily I don’t have any deadlines yet, so I’m just going to browse the web today rather than look at spreadsheets. My eyes just can’t take it.

6/09: Okay, so I’m over Randy. Finally, I think. I've at least stopped dwelling on it while at work. Ashley has been great. We hang out every night now, and it’s been a real help. I think we’re much closer roommates now, which is great since my family is in Boston. Our relationship helps me get through the evenings. At work, I've found that I can get lost in data and have no room for outside thoughts to creep in. I meditate on this a lot. It’s been therapeutic, and I’m enjoying it. Ashley would call me a nerd. Maybe she's right.

6/14: Really, I need to take back what I wrote last time. I think I'm losing my vision, or going cross-eyed, or both. There is so much data from this project; it’s unfathomable. It’s amazing how much is produced. And they’re only key level metrics, not every piece of data from the simulation, which would be incomprehensible. Speaking of that, sometimes I feel like I'm that guy on the Matrix that can look at the green numbers flowing down the screen and see a world there. I even installed a Matrix screen saver that looks like that. I crack myself up.

6/16: 6 past one isn't late. I got back from my lunch break, and Lee was standing near my desk. I asked him what’s up, and he said he liked my screen saver. He said it’s a nice reminder about how science fiction foreshadows reality. What if we are a simulation, and Spheria is a simulation in a simulation? What if the Polyans evolved sufficiently to run their own simulation? What if we could have simulations of simulations of simulations and it went to infinity? My head hurts thinking about it. It’s crazy working with all these people who are way smarter than me.
 

6/24: Curious. Now and then I notice some strange glitch, some unusual piece of data in the sea of numbers. It’s not something that I've been able to correlate into a meaningful trend, at least not yet. I mentioned this to Max, and he said it’s probably just some random noise in the system and that I should ignore drastic outliers. This comment seems a little odd to me coming from someone who is so much of a perfectionist.

7/04: Only one here working on Independence day. :( Ashley says I need to get a new boyfriend. I think she's right. Work is fun, but it’s not contributing to my social life at all. If I didn’t enjoy crunching numbers so much, I'd never have worked so many consecutive days even forgetting there was a weekend in there somewhere. But I’m not unique. Most of the team is here on weekends. I’m it today, though. It’s lonely and eerie also. I swear there are new electronic noises I've never heard before. A ghost in the machine?

7/08: Datasets are my life! I was analyzing yet another, and I noticed more noise. But I swear I've seen this before. I did some digging through old datasets, and I found two more with the same sequence. Something is off here. If it was noise, the probability of this happening more than once, according to my calculations, is 0.0006 percent. Spock would be proud of me. My only explanation is there is some kind of data “leak” from another system into the metrics accumulator. But that shouldn’t be possible. The Spheria Project has its own isolated network for the specific purpose of preventing contamination, and hackers.

7/09: Eccentricities abound in these files. Yet, there is some organization to their randomness. It’s as if there is a very low level of data bleed, and at a consistent rate. It only appears when sampling the data at a certain scale. The odd thing is I think I started to make sense of the noise, like there are actually patterns within it.

7/10: 2. That’s the number of days I've been focused on investigating this… noise? Dana and Max both asked for updates, and I had to tell them my machine was too slow, and Excel kept crashing, which was perfectly believable. Dana said if I see anything unusual, she wanted to be the first to know, even before I tell Max. Her manner made me suspicious, as if she knew something but wasn't letting on. I wonder if she thinks Max is doing something inappropriate.

7/14: 4 days with no progress. I had to get some real work done this last week, so I finally got a breather. I'm going to spend the remainder of the day digging into these anomalies. Wish me luck. Right, now I’m talking to myself.

7/15: 6 more pages of numbers and Eureka! I found a pattern in the data. Nothing complete, but I figured out how to decrypt the data into human readable form. It’s definitely not random noise. In fact, it has got to be bleed from some other system. Time to wear my hacker hat. I have enough information to follow the white rabbit down the hole.

7/17: 5 more hours of digging and I’m in! Maybe I should have minded my own business. If the records I found aren’t fake, then I might be in a serious breach of national security. I need to tell someone at once, but I don’t know who to tell first. I know Dana would want to know first, but I think I should tell Max. I don’t know who to trust. In case something happens to me, I hacked their password database and added my own. Wow! is the passcode. Ashley, keep this safe and give this to the police if I disappear.

Chapter 30 - God Like You

"Leroy bet me I couldn't find a pot of gold at the end,
 
and I told him that was a stupid bet because the rainbow was enough." - Rita Mae Brown

The Source dimmed by the time they reached the opening. Sa∙ma peered in, and could almost see the glow of the strange plants below, or at least he believed so.

“You first,” commanded Fa∙ro.

Sa∙ma entered the passage. Ga∙zo came next, followed by Fa∙ro, and last, by Za∙zo. They felt their way forward in the darkness. The floor seemed rougher than Sa∙ma remembered. Maybe he took less time to pay attention before. He wasn't in a huge hurry now. He didn’t want to encounter the cave god again this soon, who clearly had said, “Come back when it’s done.” And he didn’t say to bring others.

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Sa∙ma mumbled for the fifth time.

“Say that again and I will have your legs removed,” said Fa∙ro. “If what you claim is true, then I must reunite with my brethren. It’s my destiny to take a place next to the other gods.”

“I know you have seven legs, but you…” Sa∙ma thought better of it and didn’t finish.

“But you, what?”

“I meant… ‘so you,’ so you… are… the only one worthy to pass through the portal to the Qubessence.”

“Exactly. More than worthy. Required. I must join the gods. I'm not meant to be here among you lower castes. It’s a disgrace being trapped on the surface of Spheria.”

They emerged into the twisting maze of passages with the glowing plants. The ones that Sa∙ma had broken had healed themselves, as the light beams were no longer shining. He concentrated on his artifact, but couldn’t sense anything unusual ahead. The portal must be closed, and this was bad news. Fa∙ro wouldn’t be pleased, assuming Sa∙ma could even find the same room again.

“Stop stalling and take me there.”

Sa∙ma thought he remembered which plant he broke, and hit it with his leg. A light beam shot out and illuminated the wall next to them. It was the wrong one.

Fa∙ro glared at him. “If… you… stall… again… I… will… kill… you… myself.”

“I don’t mean to delay; it’s hard to remember.”

“The first time you came you didn’t have to remember. You said you were drawn to the god. How?”

“It was a feeling.”

“What kind of feeling? Why would
you
have this feeling and not
me
?”

“I don’t know.” Sa∙ma focused on his artifact. He couldn’t sense the way to the cavern. He did notice, almost imperceptibly, a slight difference in one of the plants. He hit it.

A light beam shined down a corridor.

“This way,” he said.

They followed the beam down the passage. The hulking form of Fa∙ro behind Sa∙ma cast eerie shadows in the distance. It was as if a giant Polyan was swooping down to consume Sa∙ma. He shivered.

When the light beam ended on a wall, Sa∙ma stopped and concentrated once more on the artifact. Again, one of the plants was different, and he hit it. A new light beam emerged. In this manner, they continued five more times. At the seventh intersection, Fa∙ro, having watched Sa∙ma pause and focus at each turn, made the connection. He grabbed the artifact and ripped it off Sa∙ma’s core.

“Nooo,” groaned Sa∙ma, and reached for it. Fa∙ro slapped him and flung him against the wall, from which he fell upside down. Ga∙zo and Za∙zo jumped on Sa∙ma, pinning his legs to the ground.

Fa∙ro attached the artifact to his own core. Immediately he saw the world shift and become strange. The shapes forming the world became distinct, like they all had outlines around them. He looked about, and the heightened sensation made him dizzy. He sat and took in the subtle differences.

“Should we kill him?” asked Ga∙zo.

“No,” answered Fa∙ro. “Not yet. Let’s find this room.”

The others waited while he took in every shape, every polygon, every surface and every plant. Then he noticed it. One plant was different: more jagged rather than pristine and smooth. He reached over and plucked it from the wall. A bright light pointed the way down the final passage.

Fa∙ro bolted down it.

Ga∙zo and Za∙zo lifted Sa∙ma to his feet and prodded him to move. He reluctantly made his way forward. The world seemed sterile and bland without his artifact. He’d grown accustomed to its imagery, desensitized to it even. Now he realized how things were without it, and how much he’d come to rely on it. He felt as sick as Fa∙ro, but for opposite reasons. He shuddered again. Ga∙zo pushed him, and he staggered and fell. Then got to his feet and continued, all the while prodded from behind.

Finally, they emerged into the octagonal chamber. The walls were brown stone, and the ceiling was black. Fa∙ro stood in the center peering intently upwards. He was using the artifact to inspect every surface, every seam. He extended a leg up, which was large enough to touch the ceiling. He tapped on it in a few places, then turned to Sa∙ma.

“Where is it?”

“The Qubessence?”

“Yes, the Qubessence!”

“The cave must be finished. The portal is closed.”

Fa∙ro stomped in place. He stomped around the perimeter of the room. He stomped into the passage and returned carrying a stone. He hurled this at Sa∙ma, knocking him over. Sa∙ma began to stand and another stone send him rolling. He felt as if his core might’ve cracked and he lay there flat, his legs splayed out. Then Ga∙zo was upon him, pinning his four legs and lowering his core onto the top of Sa∙ma’s body. The point made contact, and Sa∙ma felt a searing pain as his life force began to drain into Ga∙zo.

“Stop,” commanded Fa∙ro.

Ga∙zo pulled away. The pain subsided.

“I want to rip each of his legs off one by one. I want to throw his core into a river. No, that’d be too easy. I want to throw him into the Rift where he can fall to eternity. But, the Workers obey him. And he is the Lumen Master; he’s got useful information that I do not yet possess.”

Sa∙ma wasn’t so sure life among the brutality of Fa∙ro and Ga∙zo was the best option. He didn’t yet know how, but he swore to himself to spend the rest of his days finding a way to correct this path they were on.