Parallel Read online

  Contents

  Copyright Page

  Title Page

  Dedication

  CHAPTER ONE Hari

  CHAPTER TWO Ryol

  CHAPTER THREE Falia

  CHAPTER FOUR Ryol

  CHAPTER FIVE Hari

  CHAPTER SIX Ryol

  CHAPTER SEVEN Hari

  CHAPTER EIGHT Falia

  CHAPTER NINE Ryol

  CHAPTER TEN Hari

  CHAPTER ELEVEN Falia

  CHAPTER TWELVE Ryol

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN Hari

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN Falia

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN Ryol

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN Hari

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Falia

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Ryol

  CHAPTER NINETEEN Falia

  CHAPTER TWENTY Chereal

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  PARALLEL

  by Anthony Vicino

  Copyright 2014 by Anthony Vicino

  Smashwords Edition

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  PARALLEL

  Anthony Vicino

  To the power of choice.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Hari

  “Um…”

  “What?”

  “Oh, nothing. It’s just…not very big.”

  Hari placed the object on the table. “Is that surprising?”

  “Hm.” Gerald bent over the device, his reflection distorted by the shiny metallic cylinder. “I suppose, yes. Yes, in fact, it is quite surprising.”

  “I could make it bigger if you’d like?”

  “No, no, I’m sure it’s fine. Especially if it can do what you claim.”

  “Oh, I assure you, it can.” Hari rubbed two thin hands together as if trying to spark a fire.

  “So it works?”

  “Of course it works.” Hari’s face contorted into a look of mischief all too familiar to Gerald. “I mean, theoretically. I haven’t actually tried it. Yet. Shall we find out?”

  Gerald looked up from the device; his thinning eyebrows disappeared beneath the furrows of a wrinkled forehead. A sliver of pink tongue escaped from between his lips, adding a bit of moisture to the otherwise chapped blimps of cartilage. Gerald performed slow mental gymnastics before offering a reply.

  Hari shifted in place, his sneaker squeaking on the sterile linoleum floor.

  “I suppose,” Gerald said at last. “Is it safe?” he quickly added.

  Hari quirked his lips to one side and shrugged with the ignorance of youth. He snatched the device from the table and shoved a wire, which had slipped haphazardly through the casing, back into place. The innards of the device were densely packed, giving it a surprising heft despite its size. Future models would cut down on the weight; consumers enjoy light new products.

  That’s a shame, Hari thought. The substantialness of the device lent it a feel of quality craftsmanship. In that way, Gerald might be onto something; bigger may in fact be better.

  “Wait,” Gerald said suddenly, shaking his head. “I don’t want to be anywhere near you when you blow yourself up.” He waddled across the room and withdrew a pair of safety goggles from a drawer, as if the thin shield of plastic covering his eyes might offer a modicum of protection in the event of an explosion.

  Hari thought that to be an optimistic projection of the goggles’ true capacity.

  “It’s new technology in a virgin field of scientific exploration,” Hari said, forcibly loosening his grip on the device as he took aim at the blank patch of wall on the opposite side of the laboratory. “But the reward certainly justifies the risk. Our names will be immortalized in the annals of history alongside Newton and Einstein.”

  “Yes, that’s lovely.” Gerald threw his hands up in a show of defeat. “Assuming we don’t blow ourselves up, that is.”

  “Well, in that case we’ll have to settle for our names in tomorrow’s paper.”

  “Legends for a day.”

  “Better than nothing.”

  “By the way, have you decided on a name?”

  “That’s a good question.” Hari stared off into space, his arm lowering of its own accord. “How about…the Key?”

  Gerald frowned. His lips joined his eyebrows in their disappearing act behind the sea of wrinkles his puckered face had become. “Not very scientific.”

  “Oh, but think of all the doors we’re about to open.” Hari aimed the Key at the opposite wall once again.

  “More like a box,” Gerald muttered. “Pandora’s box.”

  The old man conjured a lighter from his pocket. The device was buffed to such a high sheen that Hari could make out his own distorted reflection in the metal sides from across the room if he squinted hard enough. It symbolized the sort of luck that could be stuffed into a pocket and forgotten about until the time came to withdraw said mystical quality.

  Gerald railed against anything with even the faintest whiff of religion, rejecting any and all belief systems that were not rooted firmly in the scientific process. But after smoking two packs a day for the better part of forty years and winning a three-year skirmish with lung cancer, Gerald had started feeling luckier than any man suffering such circumstances had a right to.

  Gerald stored that luck in his lighter.

  Hari did not point out the hypocrisy in his mentor’s affectation. Right then he needed all the luck he could get. Hari would rub a rosary, throw a couple Stars of David, lead a séance, and lick a few rabbit feet if he thought it might help.

  He doubted any of that would, so he simply bit his lip. An army of butterflies performed advanced aerial maneuvers in his stomach. Reflexively turning away, and wincing slightly, Hari pressed the Key’s single red button.

  The Key shot a blue beam of light that splashed against the far wall. A high-pitched whine pierced the otherwise quiet room typically reserved for thoughtful silence indicative of academia. The Key vibrated rapidly in Hari’s hand.

  Hari’s churning stomach quieted in the wake of blood rushing to his face. His cheeks rose closer to his ears than ever before.

  With an anticlimactic sputter the stream of light withdrew back into the Key.

  Hari turned; the maniacal grin he’d been wearing ebbed away slowly. “I don’t think it worked.”

  “It was a lovely light show, though,” Gerald said, plopping down onto the worn brown couch near the door.

  Hari turned the Key over in his hand as if the answer might be hidden on the other side. “Needs more power.”

  “Maybe you should make it bigger.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Ryol

  Rift detected. The words emerged in Ryol’s head without sound.

  Without turning from her workstation, she diverted a small sliver of attention to Aurora and responded to the computer’s news with a thought. Inform Jardiv I’ll be there presently.

  He awaits your arrival.

  Ryol rose from her station and drew a complicated pattern in the air with her fingers. She thought of the last Rift a week prior and her subsequent off-dimension visit to the small world of Melonia. They were a kind people, long since having surpassed the need for war, with an ingenuity for technological advancements that exceeded their technical understanding. As was often the case as Recruiter, they suspected Ryol of supernatural powers.

  Ryol had found it to be a function of the premature civilization’s way of thinking to explain the unknown via the supernatural, rather than by technological means.

  That was fine. It made her job simpler. In the hundred years since she’d been assigned the missive of Recruiter, she’d yet to discover a civilization capable of understanding the Lenoreans’ technological prowess
. In that way, her people were superior to the rest of their known Universe.

  Ryol did nothing to disprove the Melonians’ theory. They needed more time. Two or three more centuries and they would be ready to join the Alliance.

  Aurora pushed a screen across Ryol’s retina. Her lilac pupil dilated into nothingness. She waved a flippant hand, shifting minimal attention to the oversight of the program’s search, and relocating it to the back of her mind where it would continue scanning without interruption.

  Ryol twisted her palm towards the ground and the office lights dimmed. Shadows danced where previously there had only been light. She inspected the room which had changed so drastically only in perception.

  Let us see what this new world has to offer, she thought.

  Ryol queried Aurora. Relocate: Operations Center.

  Stand by.

  Ryol shifted all unaccounted attention towards the task. She could walk, but that came with the risk of being detained by individuals curious about the trade agreements occurring in the Neutral Zone. Twelve delegates from twelve dimensions comprised the Alliance. The Madam Leader of the Lenoreans, the thirteenth dimension represented, presided over the gathering to decide the fate of the Graesians.

  Ryol had recruited the Graesians into the Alliance herself. She felt a maternal interest in their fate, and so she had observed the meeting through her mind-link with the Madam Leader.

  That would have to wait. Even with her prodigious amounts of attention, and Aurora’s assistance, she could not focus on all the tasks before her while allocating portions of her mind to the events unfolding in the Neutral Zone.

  The Rift was her primary task now.

  The translocation band attached to Ryol’s upper arm vibrated. She studied the blue metal that made instantaneous travel possible. The Lenoreans had proven the theoretical basis for the technology generations earlier, but the device hadn’t become a reality until the Oleidians joined the Alliance with their abundance of precious Zoridiun.

  Such was the benefit of the Alliance to the Lenoreans.

  Ryol’s arm tingled in response to the vibrations of the shining translocator. She closed her eyes. Darkness covered her.

  The Universe tugged at the molecules comprising her existence. Tore them apart, dispersed them across the planet, before reassembling them in the brightly lit Operations Center.

  Streams of incomprehensible data pouring down the liquid monitors overhead pooled in a wide basin at Ryol’s feet. The separate pieces of data merged, forming complicated strings that Aurora translated into meaningful information in Ryol’s mind.

  “A primitive people, I think you’ll agree,” Jardiv said, appearing beside Ryol at the information pool. He stood rigidly, studying her with a sharp analytical stare that made him the ideal Keeper. “They opened the trans-dimensional portal for less than one millionth of one second.”

  An absurdly short period of time, Ryol reflected. “Is it possible they stumbled upon the effect by accident? Perhaps an anomalous event?” The muscles in Ryol’s face betrayed none of the interest she felt.

  “No, Recruiter. It was an intentional, if not ineffective breach.” Jardiv knelt and dipped a finger in the pool. Images coalesced, riding the ripples that spread from his finger.

  Ryol interpreted the new information and nodded. “It would be premature to open a line of communication with this people. I will personally monitor their progress. Do not let this consume any more of the System’s attention. Remove it and return the System to its original search parameters.

  “Yes, Recruiter.” Jardiv dipped his chin in acknowledgment.

  Ryol closed her eyes.

  Observation Chamber, Aurora.

  Stand by.

  The familiar tingle of the translocator made the flesh along Ryol’s arm shiver. When she opened her eyes again, she stood in a room of pure darkness.

  She scrawled intricate passages in the air. The room responded with a symphony of light.

  Temporal viewing required vast amounts of energy, especially when it involved a different dimension, but her position required diligence. She could not adequately report her findings to the Madam Leader without witnessing the events herself.

  Beyond the requirements of her position, however, something else existed. A piqued curiosity. This new world shared an astonishing number of similarities with Lenora. She’d never encountered such a place. A thought niggled at the back of her mind—a thought she refused to assign more than a passing fraction of attention to, but a thought that existed nonetheless.

  Ryol required more analysis before she would allow herself to venture down those avenues of thought and hope, but she could not deny the possibility that they had discovered the first world capable of sustaining Lenorean life without the need for terraforming. And if that were true, then their world might also have Eitr.

  The Lenoreans did not have long before they ran out of the rare substance that powered their world. It was that search for Eitr that had led the Lenoreans to discover alternate realities existing beyond the veil of time and space.

  Ryol redirected her attention to a new line of analysis as the room ceased its realignment. Aurora simulated an immersive rendering of the moment leading to this new world’s Event Zero.

  An alien room, with many objects made of metals and glass, appeared around her. The furniture created from sharp angles and flat panels lacked the subtlety and sophistication of the Lenoreans’ work. Even so, they possessed a similarity Ryol was unaccustomed to seeing in foreign objects. These designs, based on the same physiological principles as the Lenoreans’, made her heart race with excitement.

  Her heart quickened and her hands became slicked with sweat. She canceled all programs running in the back of her mind. She redirected all her focus to the individual standing in the center of the room, frozen in time.

  Blue light leapt from a box in his hand. It traced a straight line across the room before terminating at a blank wall.

  The emotions of this species were unfamiliar to Ryol, but if they were at all similar to the Lenoreans, the parted lips with exposed teeth indicated a state of happiness.

  Or rage.

  She hoped for happiness.

  Never, in the thousands of worlds Ryol had explored, had she discovered a civilization sharing such striking physical characteristics with the Lenoreans. Though undoubtedly at different phases of their evolutionary development, the possibilities were endless.

  I must inform the Madam Leader immediately.

  Ryol studied the scene a while longer. She could not repress the spring of emotion bubbling in her stomach. It swelled inside her, searching for an escape. She did the only thing she could think of to release the happiness—she parted her lips, exposing the white enamel of teeth below, and smiled.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Falia

  Falia listened with hands folded in her lap. That was her strength, her gift. Others presumed she possessed an unlimited capacity for attention, but that was incorrect. True, her ability to subdivide her attention was unrivaled, but it had limits. Presently, those limits were in no danger of being tested.

  Heads of state from across the known Universe jockeyed for position. Each raised their voice, desperate to be heard over the others. An interesting phenomenon considering nobody in the room spoke the same language. Without the Lenorean computer, Aurora, handling translations, there would be no communicating between the species.

  Despite the cacophony of voices, Falia remained quiet and listened.

  “This threat of aggression is unacceptable.” Delegate Oleid, an enormous being with boulders for muscles and flecks of onyx for eyes, had a voice that sounded like rocks being dragged across one another. “The Graesians have violated the Mandate. They should be removed from the Alliance.”

  Delegate Graes flapped iridescent wings that lifted him effortlessly. He stood on spindly legs, towering over the rest of the congregation, all of whom remained seated with the exception of the Oleidian Delegate. F
alia observed faint purple lines crisscrossing the Graesian’s wings. Blood vessels. The intricate complexity of life throughout the Dimensions never ceased to amaze her.

  “We will not be chided like children for insuring the survival of our race,” Delegate Graes said in a series of buzzing clicks that caused the hairs on Falia’s neck to prickle. “Diplomats believe they can rule without force, but I tell you it is not so. You allow my people to suffer, when you”—Graes turned a long, knobby finger to Falia—“have the means to save them. My people will show you the folly of your ways.”

  The time for listening had come to an end.

  Falia stood.

  She lacked the Graesian’s impressive physicality, but she bore a silent dignity that commanded the silence of the room. Falia held Delegate Graes’ gaze until his bravado faltered.

  “The Lenoreans brought the Graesians into the Alliance for the benefit of your people despite the threat posed by your warring ways. Planet Graes teetered on the brink of calamity. If left to its own devices, it would have imploded centuries ago. This council, seeing that we could save your people, made an exception by allowing your admittance into the Alliance. We’d hoped to impart a more civilized conduct upon your people, but alas, we knew that we would fail.” Falia infused her voice with a symphony of melodies and rhythms designed to spread calm. Delegate Graes slumped into his chair, the tension ebbing from his features. “I’m afraid we can no longer make exceptions for Graes. The threat against all known and yet unknown Dimensions is too great with what the Graesians have learned from the Alliance in the past three centuries. Our first responsibility is to maintain peace and safety throughout the Universe. It is with this in mind, and a burden in my heart, that I banish the Graesians from the Alliance, and place them under immediate Inter-Dimensional Embargo.”

  Silence descended on the room in a blanket of tension. Falia did not speak. She allowed the silence to build, coaxing it like a conductor until the white noise, penetrated only by nervous breathing, was deafening in its oppression. Falia’s blood throbbed in her chest at what the Graesian was forcing her to do. She would not, however, allow emotion to permeate the room and cloud the minds of the Delegates. They had their own emotions to contend with. They did not need hers infecting their decisions.