Tag Archives: CC-BY-NC

94.1 \ 276

Posted on by under Greater Beyond

Everything go in the abyssal experiment zone, where the experts had been living for span upon span. With the new elements swimming in place, maybe only for this one time, they didn’t know how they could possibly give anything more to the culmination of their group effort.

When it began again, the whole Arch could hear it: The Hoopoe’s ultimate track (with regards to this experiment, he would murmur). They’d gotten the best musical talent for this party, it was agreed.

This time, the track sounded different; the difference was the new Dragon. Acamar was there, out in the abyss just past where anyone could see. The sound transformed the way sound does when it bounces off an object, but this object didn’t make sense three-dimensionally. The listening crew experienced something like echolocation, though instead of returning a distorted soundwave, the sound was completed into something greater than the sound they were producing. It was similar to a musical sense of completion, the home note in a composition where every note hit home. The elements of completion were otherworldly, yet because of the way their portion of the sound was grounded in their own reality, the in-between quality still belonged. It was like their own entire dimension was balanced on one side of a seesaw, and this sound was the plank displaying the balance – but likely, they were realizing further, not the only balance touching this existence.

Somewhere in there was the voice of Acamar, but it was between everything that they could hear, while being distinctly there. Acamar was doing something with this wave, or this wave was doing something to Acamar – as though ‘e knew what it meant, what it was, and what to do. Dragons do recognize their element in all novel occurrences.

Time as a dimension seemed to suspend. It was strangely comfortable, the way people are comfortable in the moment before everything that might happen next. They cherished and savored the world they knew, before eagerly facing one they didn’t yet – the world to come in the following moments, approaching as every future approaches.

93 \ 275

Posted on by under Greater Beyond

Arcta lounged against the bottom curve of an alcove wall – low-ceilinged, cushioned, and comfortable. It was just her inside, lit with a nice medium-level glow. She tugged a scrap of paper out of her fitting sleeve. Snuggling into the curve, she read.

a space on the other side
one form or another
near enough to touch
one way or another
what makes the bridge?
what do we seek?
is the bridge what we seek?
what hunger or call brings us here
to the swaying path?
I sense the desire to be known
by something that wants to know us.
we’re drawn to this pursuit,
danger seems to signify its value.
myself likely closer than most
for various reasons –
can almost touch it,
if I knew what touch meant here

({warping, trying to hold onto a memory of a physical form, but there’s something nearby that’s different; the memory is held together, but in a way that keeps changing it. hold on or hope})

There was something more about what was on the paper, some lingering experiential feeling transmitted that wasn’t in the words. She would take one of these from the stack, that Raev had written in odd moments. When he said maybe he’d write a poem about it – when she busted him out of stillfreeze – she said she’d read it. He gave her all these, that he’d written to make sense or nonsense of it. This was just the right kind of time to have a little of his presence. In full self-honesty, she wasn’t expecting much more of it.

These explanations of amorphous, bodiless experience had some scent of critical information. Reassuringly, none of it seemed like anything she could do anything about. She was just the only one who’d expressed any interest. Maybe nobody could do anything about it, at this point. All of this had been in his mind when he came out of stasis. Raev had experienced or seen a lot, somehow, during that time.

92 \ 274

Posted on by under Greater Beyond

The third mekani leaped away, and the dust swirled. Behind each of the several Aquarii enveloped in radiance, regular-sized blue orbs sparked into electricity. The nearby people who saw them first started up the exit chant: “Hey hey, ho ho, we won’t put up with it anymore!”

At this signal, they scrambled up from the ground and formed small clumps around group guides holding a tall object up high. Then they linked hands again, and hustled, group by group, toward the nearest glowing orb shielded by an Aquari. Small group organization was easier to manage chaotically. For each set of hands linked, just one person had to touch the orb, and they’d be netted out.

Bright Wave, Soft Sand, Sharp Talon, and the others gave the greatest last ounce of their defensive intensity to these moments of egress. The pilots facing them had to ride out the storm in the procedural stasis of instrument and sense confusion.

The sounds of human passage died down until Bright Wave felt the arrival of an empty breeze. Turning her head to look, she saw that it was just them left across the area between the fence and the distant hovers. The glint of a glowing zerite chip embedded in a boltball caught the corner of her eye. Its presence had been boosting her amplitude, and she said goodbye to it. Still holding her pendant high, she backed toward her orb, seeing the others do the same. Once Bright Wave was close enough to touch the orb, she cast a piercing white light in front her and disappeared behind it, as did the others.

91.2 \ 273

Posted on by under Greater Beyond

The Aquarii below began to weave their workings into the airspace, and the government control hovers stuttered in their forward progress. The viewing group then relayed the signal to Chrysanthe, Vanessa, and Yleon. With the focus of adventure turned serious, the three gave each other their unifying signal with their fists punched out.

A klaxon sounded, and they lunged forward to touch the orb, their giant forms netting into it and disappearing. They throughported in high above the compound in midair. Falling together for a split moment, they quickly telesighted their landings far below, inside of the giant array of people laying on the ground. They each executed their moves to jump to earth.

Torrents of impenetrable illusions clouded the aircraft in the distance, causing them to do very little except rotate in place. Each kid stuck their landing and looked around. After this moment to gain their bearings, each ran toward an air filtration silo, one of those they’d previewed on maps. These were the things to break into.

Not a body moved inside the fence. The Aquarii sustained their energetic protection, though it was understood that this could only work for so long.

The cookie cutter on the forearm of the meka, when applied, was designed to create an easy opening in the shell of the air filtering assembly. That was so they could deposit their payload. As long as what they had could get in, it didn’t matter what got out. Heart pounding, one thing before the other. Hole punched. Release canisters and break wind.

These fumes actually smelled of roses. They were supposed to be pleasant to inhale, because they carried a teeny, tiny protector that could always destroy the Affliction. It could lay dormant, but the counterphage knew exactly how to attack that bug, and turn it into something that could attack that bug, until that bug couldn’t make half a move. The long-running experiments that produced the Hirylien Affliction wouldn’t be making it ten steps from an open container, or to the next container in quite the same condition. Experiments would go bad they day they tried to move them forward. From then on, it was a haunted lab. Nothing they were running could work right in there anymore.

That’s all the kids needed to do. A canister at each hip for the general vicinity, a canister on one forearm and an aiming fan turbine mounted on the other. Aim that cloud in with the fan, give the distribution systems a nice saturation with the contents, and get right out.

The scent of roses wafted over the people laying on the ground holding hands. The sky above was beautiful, except or especially where it was being painted thick with illusions designed for the eye within the miasma. The protesters were cushioned in calmness by waves of natural sound that shredded a little with electricity. They hung tight and kept their cool.

The mekasuit team had enough time. After gassing up the place, Chrysanthe executed her exit first, initiating the suit’s motion direction to send herself to exactly the touchpoint they’d entered from in the air, and she disappeared. Yleon followed after they watched her go, and his jump was clean.

Vanessa turned to look at this lab, and the people beyond, and the threats they were holding at bay. She felt the suffering of generations that had created this moment. Clenching her meksuit’s fist, she looked at the building, thinking about crushing part of it in. Then she looked at the protesters, laying down with arms linked before an approaching frontline; some of them were looking up and back, watching her. She thought about what was inside the building and shook her fist out with a shudder. Then Vanessa made her jump, up and out.

91.1 \ 273

Posted on by under Greater Beyond

In the aerial view that was coming from the throughport location, the Human-Vedani remote command core were able to witness the last of the biolab facility staff drive their flyers out of the compound. That was when the top three kids on the meksuit team, suited and ready, each began to engage the systems of their mekani.

The core team on the chamber bridge, a combination of human guardian adults and Vedani engineering and strategy, continued watching the ground view to determine the timing for the signal. Crowd control units appeared flying in to face the protest, while the mass of buffer volunteers subsided and made way for the Aquariid guard. In the center of the enormous meka chamber, an enlarged throughport node was being actively maintained, a sparking sphere shell of blue light.