3.12

They kind of trailed off into silence after that, and August was left to think about the day to come and what it really meant to be trapped on an island with no way off. Even with Rittan’s presence, the situation hadn’t changed.

There were no rest days, there was no time of the day that he could toss aside and enjoy himself; before August had woken up here, an hour had seemed like such a meaningless measure of time—all it seemed to be good for was to separate him from something he wanted. Like a wall that was always moving itself in front of him and forcing him to wait, or stall, or rush.

An hour passed the time he should have been sleeping, an hour until the job interview, an hour left before he could clock out, an hour until Eric finally got online, an hour until server maintenance was up, an hour until his food arrived, an hour’s drive to get to Alice, and a hidden hour spent together in her sheets before Alex would return.

An hour spent in Devil’s Nest was a costly thing; he had so few of them in a day, and to waste them basking in the sun or swimming the lake could be the last hour he ever had the opportunity to spend.

Perhaps there would come a time where that wasn’t the case, and maybe, if he spent his precious hours in just the right combination, there would be a day where he could sit in the sun and waste one—but he wasn’t there yet, and he hadn’t earnt it.

“The hole I woke up in,” August said, breaking the silence. “There was this metal ring sitting at the top of it. It was completely covered in these tiny engravings, a repeating pattern with lots of little symbols everywhere—that mean anything to you?”

Now that he thought about it, he hadn’t managed to use [Analysis] on it because he’d needed to flee the area. That was something on his list of things to eventually get around to; it might hold some clue as to why he’d ended up here.

“The ring I know nothing of,” Rittan admitted easily, “The symbols sound like they could have been runes; did the ring possess any qualities that were unusual?”

Its presence at the spot where he’d woken up and the strangely smooth soil spoke of something; he just wasn’t sure what it was.

“Yeah,” August said, “I think it may have been what brought me here.”

Gates, portals, passageways and paths—all things that existed in fictional worlds and transported people from one to another, from heaven to hell, to other planets, to mirror worlds and plains filled with strange abominations. Before he woke up here, August would have said it was a cute theory, but magic—or at least mana, was a very real thing here, and he’d already experienced enough craziness to believe it.

“Is it possible that the ring is a Spatial Gate, and you somehow entered the Threshold?” Rittan said, hesitating, “If there is an unconnected Diaspora here, then it’s possible that a mistaken connection was made somehow, and you came through.”

August couldn’t even fathom what he was talking about in the first place.

“What is—basically everything you just mentioned?” August said, frowning. “I mean, I’m picturing a teleporter of some kind? Am I close?”

Rittan stretched out, feet now running past the fire, while two of his hands picked at his hair, removing the bits and pieces that had gotten tangled from all of the vines he’d wrapped around himself.

“A Spatial Gate isn’t the same thing as Teleportation,” Rittan denied, shaking his head, “Teleportation is a forbidden science because of how it functions.”

Rittan twisted around in an attempt to get comfortable on the ground without kicking the walls of the shelter. August pulled his eyes up from the guys cock, scratching his cheek for a moment after he realised that Rittan had caught him looking. In his defence, they were less than a meter away, and neither of them had any clothes—It was unavoidable, really.

“A Spatial Gate is a form of linked space, organised into two distinct sections through which passage is permitted in one direction,” Rittan said, lifting two hands and holding them up, palms facing one another. “The first section is the Threshold, and the second is the Diaspora. The Threshold connects the two sections in linear space, and the Diaspora acts as a winch that locks the two together. The end result is an area of shortened space where you can step through one side and out of the other.”

August spent a moment trying to unpack everything about that sentence.

“Okay, two linked spaces; I think I’m following,” August said, summarising, “I didn’t enter any kind of—uh, Threshold—though, not that I can remember.”

“I—it is unlikely, I agree,” Rittan admitted. “The Threshold would have needed to be lined up with the Diaspora for it to function, and you would have seen the shielded space between—how was this ring aligned?”

“Flat on the ground,” August said, clapping his palm on the dirt. “The pit was the exact width of the ring; looked like it had burned it away or something.”

“The Threshold would have needed to come from directly above or directly below—both of which are unlikely,” Rittan said, shaking his head. “It was a foolish thought, I suppose.”

“Better than anything I could come up with,” August admitted, “You said Teleportation was forbidden before—Were even the vaunted but kind of dickish people of Gaia incapable of assailing the ship of Theseus?”

It was Rittan’s turn to look completely confused, which was the reason he’d said it in the first place—for the impatient, revenge was a dish best served immediately.

“I’m afraid you’ll need to explain this vessel,” Rittan said, amused. “How does it relate to such forbidden science?”

Rittan was clearly aware of the confusion being weaponised against him but seemed to be taking it goodnaturedly.

“It’s a problem from back home, but it’s been expanded upon several times,” August said, flapping his hand. “Say you removed each individual part of the ship and replaced it with an identical but brand new piece, one after another. Once you’re finally done and the last piece has been replaced, is it still the original ship? What if you could magically restore the rotted parts, rebuild the ship and then place the two side by side? Which ship is the original?”

Rittan’s eyes had lit up before he’d even made it halfway through the problem—they must have had their own version of it here.

“The teleportation I’ve heard about involves pulling you apart into component pieces, and then putting you back together in another place,” August said, summarising all of the fiction he’d ever absorbed, “Essentially ending your consciousness and then restoring your body at another location, and if that’s how it works here, then I can understand why it’s forbidden—Theseus remains unassailable.”

“You’re doing that on purpose,” Rittan said, amused. “Yes, discontinuity is something of a sore spot; the Children of Gaia have been systematically eradicating all notions of it for millennia.”

August tilted his head at that.

“Discontinuity?” August wondered. “What about sleep? From the perspective of the sleeper, it’s the discontinuation of self. They may well have died in their sleep and had their body replaced with ship parts—how could they know?”

“I’ve heard that said before—minus the ship replacement,” Rittan laughed, “But it’s a problem they solved a long time ago.”

Because of course they had.

“Let me guess,” August said, shaking his head at the insanity of the Gaian race. “They went in and turned sleep off because it was inconvenient?”

“Sleep is important, August,” Rittan said, amused once more. “Perspective has always been the root problem of discontinuity, and so they simply built an observer.”

It took a moment for him to understand just what that meant, but August wasn’t sure if it was better or worse when he did.

“The personal drone interface?” August said slowly. “You said they recorded everyone’s daily lives—they did that because they were afraid of what happened when they slept?”

“Uninterrupted recording, biometric scanning, and societal connectivity,” Rittan said, nodding. “The PDI was simply another step in their evolution.”