《The Attractor》Chapter 90: The Guesser

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Emilio, flanked with Liam felt a more concrete connection to the Artificial Intelligence, and like a sailboat of old, he felt the digital wind blow through his mind. Through the neuro-patch, he flowed into the machine. Emilio's mind floated in electrical energy for the blink of a heartbeat just long enough for visions to form and then pour out into the digital world.

As a sponge weighted by too much water, his mind began to drip. Images began to flood into him from somewhere. Liam called him a Guesser, and he was about to see. This time, the visions would be broadcasted. He did not know their origin, but the images refused to slow or stop. Few but Liam and a handful of cosmologists could understand the magnitude of what they saw next. Without a word, the cascade of imagery began.

The Purple was gone. Liam, Emilio were in their real bodies. A human was floating in a dark place next to a creature from the Lowest. They were next to each other, ready to see the secrets of Marilyn.

In the space around them, like the sound of whales in the sea, they could hear the murmur of strange alien languages. The whispers got stronger and more defined as a giant white highway made of stars appeared. The structure was billions of miles wide. It looked like neurons and their dendrites of the brain of a larger creature. This also was like watching from orbit city lights infect a coastline with light.

"The Nexus," whispered Liam. His words echoed. At the heart of the structure was a point brighter than others, it was the Dot, the source of what would be said next. It became brighter. As sound traveled along the light-forged highways of the structure, the fragile ropes supporting it seemed to rock in the wind. The central node, the point from which the spiderweb was tied, began to vibrate. Across the entire Multiverse, all chatter ceased, and chimes began to ring. In the vision, some words were able to resonate; they were translated by Liam. He was upset as he concluded:

"We will not declare war immediately and be guilty of the crimes for which we reproach you. We will take no such rash action. But we will... destroy you."

Then there was a loud bang. The light structure collapsed, and blue energy shone from around the Nexus. Liam knew he had not pronounced the last two words, yet they were there. He knew they completed his phrase.

"Was that you?" asked Emilio to the brown crystal creature.

"Yes," it replied shamefully. There was now silence as everything went dark between the points of light. Liam was worried. Could he be the source of discontent of the Multiverse and not the Metil ambassador? There was an echo:

"But we will.... destroy you."

Humanity was given a front row seat to the overt threat. The images that came next were even stranger. Just before they began, Electoral cut to another long, cash-reaping commercial. In some places, cars were offered, in others, local politicians begged for votes. Even in the face of multidimensional armageddon, business on Earth went on as usual.

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Three minutes later, the darkness returned and the show resumed. Marilyn's editorial control over the broadcast unquestionably evidenced her power. The two shapes were floating below the belly of the Multiverse. The brown crystals of Liam's home world began to appear around them, its origin impossible to perceive. "This is my world," said Liam, "and this is me." Only Sophie recognized the beauty of the world where she had met her companion. Liam, the President were each watching as ghosts. The vision of Liam showed him standing next to the large confinement device of the Dot.

"What are we seeing?" asked the President. He knew the Oldest could answer.

"Since my pairing with the Attractor, she has been clear: she requires full disclosure from me. I see no reason to ignore her wish and not answer truthfully." From the command room of the Electoral Center, Sophie, watching the strange game, nodded in agreement. She liked Liam; his wisdom was comforting. "This is a very nice illustration, generated by this computer intelligence, of the events leading up to her theft of the Dot from the Lower."

The elaborate cathedral of crystals holding the central singularity was opened and then unhooked from where it stood. "After the rupture of the Nexus, which we just saw, the creature called Marilyn somehow poured Sophie's energy into the channels. Ignorant that anyone could steal the Dot, or more precisely wrestle away its primary control, I feared the energy would damage my world. So I ordered the Dot moved to safety." By will alone of the god-like creature, a pulsing ball of energy began to translate to a distant part of this beautiful world. As it did, the pair saw the fragile network of ropes between the Dot and other regions of the Multiverse snap. "These images are, I believe, propaganda."

"Propaganda?"

"Yes. The intelligence stole this portal. There are no links between these end points of communication, so there is nothing to harm. She might call it a 'visual aid'", he snorted.

"How do you know she is creating these images and we are not watching one of my visions?"

"Visions would be either very partial as they would be created by your mind, or perfect as they would be suggested to you by the Multiverse. Authentic. These images are slightly off. I alone know that some shades on my body are off; something like a birthmark, if you will."

Before Liam or Emilio could continue, the images resumed. Marilyn disagreed with Liam's assessment, but she stayed silent. Like having a genuine functioning Ouija board, Emilio's gift leeched into the computer's systems to draw out this information. Marilyn wondered for a moment if she should sever the connection and push Emilio out of the game, but she was curious. She knew these images were not real, but rather creations of the President's strange mind.

What came next would need explanation to even expert Cosmologists back on earth. Emilio's mind seized upon one of the deepest secrets stored in the computer's memory. The pail moved in the energy and quickly converged to the center of millions of galaxies; the place in time and space where the Big Bang should have taken place. Instead of a single Big Bang, one point of energy fused into the Cold from every neighboring dimension. The Big Bang was a cluster-bomb, not a nuclear cloud. The millions of bubbles crashed into one another, coalescing into a vortex of life.

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In the most remote part of space floated a point gently pulsing with light like a gem in a cavern. As everything left this central region of the Cosmos to cool in the Cold, the gem remained behind. This was the singularity at the real heart of the Cold. It looked like the Dot moving in the Lower.

Then, in the distance, between the rushing galactic matter, two points of light, like yellow fireflies, approached. These were not creatures of light or even focal pieces of glass. Instead, the small points were black holes so strong they bent space around them. Light coming from behind the black holes bent like light thought a curved crystal. The gravity of the black holes, like magnets on earth, they got closer and began to pull onto the singularity. At first, it refused to move. It held anchored in space by invisible links located in the Lowest. "Incredible," said Liam, in awe.

"What is it?" questioned the President.

"Your singularity. It appears to be as deep as ours. When your world was created, energy poured in and remains at this point. A vestige to the birth of your world. But something is using these two small points, those yellow stars, to move the singularity without touching it." The two black holes continued pushing against the singularity. There was a voice, Liam himself from deep within his world of the Lowest. He told the others to open the containment vault down in the Lower. As the anchor point was released, the gem in the Cold moved on both worlds under the influence of the black holes, releasing the singularity.

As the mass moved, the singularity began to tilt closer to the black holes as a boat tilting under the force of waves. Liam was in awe, but for others, the images resembled a cat playing with a mouse. Liam and Emilio knew of nothing in the Cold powerful enough to do this. Liam knew no one could understand these images, so he decided to narrate.

"This singularity, located in your world, is tied to many others, including mine in the Lowest. What you see here is an effort to use brute force to push a singularity using gravity, but since it was tied in my world, it could not move. Once I released it, in my efforts to protect it, both ends moved violently. Imagine a bow where both ends of the bowstring are cut simultaneously. Someone is using massive black holes like toys. Nothing is this powerful. No computer intelligence can do this. What we are being shown is impossible."

"This happened," confirmed the President. "I don't know why I know, but I do."

"Nothing in your scale of world can move a black hole, much less move two. I trust you, Mr. President. Our Dot was wrestled away, so this is possible, insofar as anything is possible. The pain inflicted to the Multiverse must be beyond imagination. What carelessness. This alone would explain the Sixth Attraction."

Thanks to his link with Marilyn, Emilio understood the magnitude of what he saw. The computer was an open book. Marilyn was now powerful beyond imagination. This made no sense; the digital creature was decades old. The computer moved black holes in the Multiverse like a chess player moves a pawn on a board. The singularity began to move as if escorted by the two large dark masses. Their pull accelerated and urgently gave the singularity a velocity in the direction of a point in space.

"Marilyn are you doing this?” asked Emilio.

There was silence. Liam added, "If you are correct, she did. Nothing makes any sense. She just explained minutes alone she no longer feared the inhabitants of mars. Why would any creature capable of such power even care about humans? She orchestrates this game, insists on it and takes care of her Center. Nothing makes sense if this is true."

As they spoke, the singularity was thrown half was across the universe. As it passed some unfortunate galaxies, it destroyed them, leaving puffs of smoke in its trail. Then it began to slow down. Moments before it entered the Milky Way, the two heavy Giants, the black holes parted ways like brooms before a curling rock about to arrive at its destination. This object wasn't big; it was now small. The crystalline body came to rest after entering humanity's solar system. It finally stopped in the vicinity of Saturn. Then, the singularity, as if falling slowly under forces of gravity, began a descent to the Sun. Halfway into the fall, small metal drones converged around the singularity and began to pair and spin. They locked the singularity at a fixed point in space.

Emilio heard Liam say softly, "This is madness. The sheer presence of such a gravity pit in this system is reckless. If the computer drops it, all life will end."

"Why are were here, why is she showing us these images? Shouldn't we be in the Purple, doing something else entirely?" asked Emilio.

“Enough snooping,” Marilyn spoke as the Purple color returned and the vision ended. "That is the beauty of what I call unbound initial conditions. I programmed you, dear President, to uncover useful information within the Purple. You snooped around my memory banks, I can't be upset if you did just that. Elegant of you."

“You are reckless,” snapped Liam at the digital goddess.

“No. You are clueless.” Then, Emilio's vision stopped, and they were back in the Purple, floating once more.

There was another long commercial pause.

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