Book 2: The False Ascendant

Lisandro felt his heart beat in his chest, its rhythm as rapid as Dedere’s tapping foot.

“The moment of reckoning has come,” she said. “Let’s see if ol’ Prophet was right about this one.”

Lisandro could tell that Dedere was extremely agitated because she never fidgeted. He could guess why: The patient had taken three minutes longer than anticipated to exit the loop, almost double the time expected. In other words, this experiment was going to be twice as expensive as they planned for.

He didn’t know why it had gone for so long; they’d have to do an in-depth analysis after the fact, poring over the dilation loop record. They’d added new scenarios, but their break points hadn’t changed. If the patient stopped showing signs of improvement for more than six months of time within the loop, the experiment was supposed to elapse. The same thing would happen if they showed extreme distress, akin to a complete mental breakdown, sustained for at least two months. If the latter happened, they would exit the loop and remain sedated until their memories from within the loop were treated by a Remorse practitioner.

The two of them couldn’t help but get their hopes up the longer the experiment went on. Theoretically, spending more time inside the Infinity Loop dilation chamber should mean that the patient had awakened as a practitioner and was making steady progress...but they couldn’t dispel the doubt in their hearts that they’d missed something.

It was thus with great excitement and anxiety that Lisandro pressed the Infinity Loop’s “Release” key.

They heard a loud hum come from the power supply next to the capsule, a towering black box covered in blinking lights. The humming persisted for a good forty-five seconds before petering out to a soft whine, ultimately dissipating after a minute.

Dedere walked over to Lisandro and put a hand on his shoulder, squeezing. “I opened the capsule hood last time,” she whispered. “Good luck.”

Just when Lisandro had steeled himself to walk over, a voice came through over the room’s speaker system: “Sedate the patient immediately.”

Lisandro and Dedere’s expressions paled; Lisandro spun around without missing a beat, his finger aiming toward the glosscomp display. He swiped through a menu, his finger eventually landing on “Sedate.”

After pressing it, the researcher sagged in relief. Dedere, meanwhile, folded her arms across her chest and glared at the capsule.

“Dr. Prophin, did something happen?”

Silence. Then, a hesitant response: “It was just a feeling.”

“Just a feeling” was likely putting it lightly. In Lisandro’s experience, if the Prophet had a feeling strong enough to act upon, it wasn’t “just” a feeling, but a premonition. Lisandro turned around in his chair and stood up before walking over to the capsule, his face coming up against the glass window. From that distance, he could much more clearly see the features of the sleeping young man within, patient Dunai.

“What should we do with him?” Lisandro asked.

“Just keep him there for the time being. I’ll come over myself to conduct some augury. In the meantime, see what you can gather from the dilation loop footage. Start toward the end; see if you can find out how much power he was able to awaken.”

Lisandro’s mouth thinned to a small line. “Okay,” he replied softly. If that’s what their adviser wanted to do, then he wouldn’t complain. They’d have to wake up the patient sooner or later, though; his mother was waiting.

“And Dedere, if you weren’t doing so already, prepare to conduct an affinity reading.”

—

Dr. Eustatius Prophin massaged his wrinkled forehead as he stared intently at the display monitoring the experiment room. For the past five minutes, he had felt an ever-growing sense of foreboding.

He got up from his desk and walked briskly towards the experiment room, a cozy, underground chamber surrounded by dampening void shields cast by peak Dark practitioners. All information between the experiment room and the outside world came through a fist-sized camera-speaker hub linked directly to his personal glosscomp.

The void shielding was potent enough to mask the large energy draw of the capsule, its power tower concentrating the energy of twenty different reactors, each stored in a pocket dimension. The design was as unprecedented as it was costly; without funding from the Guard, it would have been impossible. But along with generous funding from the Eldemari’s coffers came an equally heavy expectation: results.

Dr. Prophin’s feet sped down the metal stairs, leading him to the front of a nondescript room. He knocked once, then waited. The door opened, revealing the austere, white insides of the experiment room.

—

Ian felt as though he was drifting in a pool of lukewarm water, his sense of self fuzzy, his memory clouded. It was difficult to focus on anything.

After an unknown period of time, he found that he was able to sense his surroundings. It felt like his lids were weighed down by boulders, but with his Death affinity, he could see even without opening his eyes.

He was in a small room, probably underground, judging by the small vital signatures wriggling beyond the walls. He next noticed that he was lying in an ovular pod, beyond which were three other individuals.

He tried to focus on them: two were young, and one was old, with graying vitality concentrated in his joints and heart. Unfortunately, wrangling his concentration felt like trying to hold onto wet sand, and he felt himself continuously drifting off.

After a small eternity, he saw that one of the young people came over, pressing up against the egg-shaped enclosure. He seemed to have pressed something, and stepped away quickly as the roof of the pod opened up. Ian realized that he could sense an air current brushing over his skin, along with muffled voices. He flinched, his fingers twitching as his body regained feeling.

“...you’re sure he won’t...” an indistinct voice said.

“Yes,” someone else replied, voice loud and firm. Ian realized it was the old man, syncing the words with his mouth.

“Professor, shouldn’t we get more protection?” a female voice asked hesitantly. “If it’s just us...”

The old man shook his head resolutely. “No one is allowed down here. Besides, if I said it’s fine, it’s fine. Don’t you trust my augury?”

Ian felt like he was getting a better picture of his current situation, though his mind still felt like mush. The old man was probably an End or Beginning practitioner, and had either predicted something with a Beginning augury, or by interpreting lines of fate.

Ian felt a bit of muted excitement swelling in his heart. He tried to remember how he’d moved on from the previous layer, but his most recent memories felt indistinct. He didn’t feel any kind of ill will from the people in the room, and was both curious as to why he was here, and resigned to figuring out yet another layer of the loop.

Time continued to pass slowly, and Ian felt himself fading in and out, gathering bits and pieces of conversation. All of a sudden, as though drenched by a bucket of cold water, he jolted up, breathing heavily. Memories of the last layer, of the mountains and the knife, Germaine and Euryphel, came forth, like some kind of surreal dream.

Ian opened his eyes and regarded the people in the room, his gaze cautious and appraising.

“Who are you people?” he asked, his heart pounding. He slowed his breathing in an attempt to calm himself down.

Even as he asked the question, he felt himself grow dizzy, his entire body starting to shudder, seeming to ignore his conscious mind. He looked down, seeing the world with both his eyes and his decemancy.

After being in the loop for so long, he had forgotten what the real world looked, felt, smelled, and sounded like. With every new layer of the loop, he always had a hope, a suspicion, that he had escaped. But now, he was certain: comparing the loop–still immediately fresh in his memory–with the world around him, he realized that the loop was but an imitation. It was almost real, but...if he had to describe it, the loop’s version of reality lacked a certain harshness. It was like a slightly hazy reflection of the real world.

“Mr. Dunai!” a voice called out. Seeing that he had Ian’s attention, the old man continued, “Do you know where you are?”

Ian found himself at a loss for words. His mind began to flash hurriedly through all of the possible scenarios he had thought up: was he under a life-death oath? Did they have someone he knew held hostage as leverage? Was he really a participant in some Selejan experiment?

“Selejo?”

The young man nodded quickly. “Do you remember anything about how you came here?”

“No. Should I?”

The young man shook his head. “You shouldn’t. The first thing we do is, erm...”

The old man gave his compatriot a judgmental look before turning his attention back toward Ian. “We still need to run a few tests before we can let you go,” he said, gesturing to the young woman at his side. “First we’ll want to perform a potentioreading.”

Ian froze for a moment, unsure of whether to laugh or cry. “What if I refuse?” he said, gauging their reactions.

The old man’s expression became cold. “I had an inkling you might say something like that. Well, to be frank, you agreed to this study under oath.”

Ian felt his stomach drop.

“What kind of oath?”

The young woman spoke up. “You and your mother entered into a joint-fulfillment oath. If you renege on our experiment before its conclusion, your mother will enter into a coma for five years as collateral.”

Ian gaped.

“Don’t act so shocked,” the woman said. “Given the amount of resources required for this experiment, you’re fortunate it’s only a joint-fulfillment oath.”

Ian actually thought that the woman’s words were quite reasonable, given what he’d learned about dilation chambers in the loop: They were exorbitantly expensive to use. If he used the dilation chamber and refused to go through with the remainder of their experiments, the researchers would face a serious loss.

“There’s no getting around a potentioreading?” Ian asked, his voice wavering. “Actually, disregard that question. What about patient confidentiality?”

The old man smiled. “Your results will be kept anonymous to the public, of course.”

The shock of exiting the loop was still coursing through Ian’s body, his thoughts racing in all different directions. He grabbed his head as though trying to forcefully settle his mind, gritting his teeth. He wanted time alone to think, to calm down, to...to...

The woman researcher began to approach with a potentioreader. As she grew close, Ian instinctively leaned away into the wall of the pod, his head banging painfully against its smooth surface.

“Can you all give me some time to think!?” he shouted, a spark of violet flashing in his eyes.

The woman recoiled and moved back, looking to the old man for guidance. After a moment of contemplation, he replied: “We’ll give you a few minutes, but we can’t leave the room. Is that acceptable?”

Ian snorted. “That’s fine.” He turned away, his face turning red with shame. He hated feeling so out of sorts. With a start, he realized that he’d even gathered and released a bit of Death energy. He dispelled it immediately, directing what little he’d gathered into the surroundings.

After the three researchers left him to himself, they began to pore over a glosspad. He could hear his own voice coming from the device, along with the voices of others. They seemed to be watching the loop recording, and from the sound of it, it was from when he was in the school layer. He wondered how much of his dilation-loop-recorded memories they had already watched.

Honestly, from their reactions so far...it doesn’t seem like they’ve seen much. Otherwise he would have expected them to be more cautious, more deferential. Upon waking, he hadn’t sensed even a lick of the fear he anticipated.

As the minutes ticked by, Ian slowly felt himself calm down. But even as his heart stopped pounding and his muscles relaxed, questions ceaselessly entered his mind. When was it? Was he still in school? And Y’jeni, why was Mother here!? He had hoped that upon waking, he would remember some of the context for how he ended up in the loop, but that seemed like wishful thinking.

After around fifteen minutes passed, Ian was mentally prepared to take the potentioreading. If he refused, his mother would go into a coma; besides, given the loop recording, they’d be able to see the potentioreading in the school loop layer.

He peered his head out of the pod and tried to grab the attention of the others. Unexpectedly, they appeared not to hear him at all, their expressions completely engrossed in the screen shared between them.

Ian rolled his eyes and sighed. I guess they’ve seen a bit more, he thought to himself. He had tuned out the sound of the recording, and wasn’t sure what they had seen, only that they had been skipping around.

“Hello!” he finally bellowed, raising his voice.

The trio jolted as though struck by lightning, all three whipping around to face him.

The shock with which they looked at him made him feel almost bashful. He chuckled awkwardly before turning away. “Like what you saw?”

“You spent 222 weeks in the loop,” Dedere murmured, her face pale. “We couldn’t see very much.”

Ian laughed lightly. “222 weeks. What a nice number.” He turned back toward the researchers, making eye contact with the old man. “But from your reactions, I figure you’ve seen enough to understand the current situation.”

The old man narrowed his eyes imperceptibly. “Perhaps...regardless, you have taken an oath, the terms of which state that you will not harm any of the researcher staff or equipment, and you will submit yourself to all of our post-dilation-chamber diagnostic tests.”

Ian’s mouth curled downward. “Bring over the potentioreader, then; let’s get this over with.”