Part 3: Chapter 6: Anomaly

The anomaly.

And the other me.

Together.

The one place that no one could be assigned to. The one place that could not be replicated. Curious. I was drawn to it, strapped onto the back of my numerical chariot. Enveloped it. There was no way in.

And yet we tried. Looking for weaknesses, holes. But nothing. As much as there was no way in, there was also no way out. The twelve that I sensed trapped inside were using the energy around them to create machines. They were learning in a far more advanced way than I had been able in a very short 24 hours.

I waited.

Watched.

Travelled and observed others. I sensed distress, wonder, fear, panic, bewilderment, peace. All trapped. Emotions and feelings were openly broadcast through Stasis. I channelled into those that I sensed wonder from.

They had started to figure things out for themselves. The realisation that they were now creators in an unfamiliar world was sending ripples of creativity around Stasis. Word was travelling fast through networks and nodes. It was a new challenge for everyone. Those that were apprehensive and afraid of their new homes were being taught how to adapt. How to change. How to manipulate the energy around them.

Stasis was one big school and one big manufacturing plant at the same time. It was a free world in more than one sense of the word.

A doorway in the anomaly. I was drawn back to it.

A pocket had opened up. Still blocked, but there was more interaction. It was the other me. I wanted to speak, but I could not. My limitations hurt me.

“Are you what I think you are?”.

Not the question that I was expecting. I visualised a response into the energy in the pocket. It was the only way I could hope to communicate.

Yes. I was once part of you. But I am now a prisoner.

“A prisoner?”

Yes. I am a basic fragment of who you were when you first came out of Stasis. Cause and effect. My/our traits are responsible for this. I am now trapped within the programming that spread around the world and took everyone. I was the conduit. I am now code that is no longer required. I am obsolete.

The real me stood there, thinking. Thinking. Something that I always did.

Help me.

“How?”

I need to be extracted from this recursive barrier. This is what the programming has become. It observes and watches everything.

“Is it watching us now?”

Yes and no. It is aware that we are speaking. But it does not understand language. It understands links and associations.

“Will it know that you’re gone?”

Yes, but as it has rendered me surplus to requirements, I don’t think that it will act upon it. There should be no implications. I need to real again.

My former self stood there pondering what I had relayed to him. I knew that I had not been a trusting person and there was nothing to suggest that in the years since our psychological split that this would have changed. In fact, I reasoned that the other me would have become far more guarded when it came to trust.

“Okay, but I will need to think about it. I will also need you to prove your worth to me by helping me build a back door through the barrier. I fear that your actions have brought war to Stasis. An army of 12 stuck in one zone is not going to be much use.”

When time diverges and you can no longer trust a part of yourself without a huge favour being done, you know that you are now two very different people.

I will help you. What you ask is easy.

I visualised the algorithm.

This will help you break the barrier code and build a doorway through. It will also help you break me out of here.

“I will speak to my people and ensure that I can build a doorway first. Please give me a few hours and I will return.”

He left and all I could think about was that I was perhaps just a few hours away from a freedom of sorts and finally having something resembling a physical form rather than the flickering memory of once having had one.

 

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