The Underworld

Below Time and Space

What happened next would require 2.1414159 seconds, approximately. At that precise moment, as the Center and earth both lost power, Electoral, the powerful collective artificial intelligence, was, in the blink of an eye, gone from the Cold.

Marilyn was no longer in her digital world. Sophie was sleeping.

Gone was earth,the game or the dimensions.

Marilyn feared the girl had drawn her down to the Purple. At least there, she might gain access to the Nexus. Her fear was insufficient to cover what would come next.

As quickly as Sophie closed her eyes in the pod, she was now floating in an endless cosmic void. The transition to this new place was instantaneous. There had been a delay the last time she used the pod in the Electoral Center to get to her dad, but not this time. As the Sixth Attraction was nearing, she felt herself changing. In the Center, when Marilyn forced her into the trance, she evolved. Then, as she traveled to meet Liam, she also returned a different person. Her waves were getting stronger, and like an Ironman athlete hardening her muscles with the passing months of extended training, her self-confidence and power were growing.

They were about three weeks away from her birthday, from the finale of the Electoral 2072 competition, and more importantly, from what Liam and Marilyn called The Sixth Attraction.

She looked around at her new surroundings. She was floating weightlessly in the void of space. Around her were the colorful points of light forming billions of galaxies. This was no ordinary teleportation into space: the level of detail she could perceive was surreal. They were not in a different place. Here space itself was different.

Sophie could see the nebulas, she felt the clouds of stars or even pulsars pouring dust into black holes. Her mind was as sharp as that of a God. She was given a front row seat to this vast creation. The young girl had no physical body. Her mind was floating in the brightest of night skies. Around her was the white streak of the spiral arm of the Milky Way. In the distance, she could even see the other arm. Between the arms floated the giant light ball covering the galaxy's central black hole. Somehow, this sea of light was alive, and she could see her universe in true perspective.

It took a moment for her to settle in. The beauty was boundless. Sophie's mind was floating in our solar system. Beneath her invisible feet was the orange rock that humans had named mars. It was the size of a fruit. The sun was nothing more than a bright white light behind her.

There were dust formations of deep purple color. Bordeaux streaks like liquid highways interlaced the dust. The Milky Way seemed alive with energy; she wondered what that was. The spectacle was breathtaking and made even Electoral's welcoming images at the start of her simulations appear amateurish.

She knew she held the power of a God and that was not acceptable. She was Sophie Lapierre, and she was here for a reason. In the vastness, there was perfection and calm. Gazing out at the vista before her, Sophie worked to calm herself.

The young Attractor slowly returned to her old self. The contemplative feeling was soon replaced with a sense of duty and purpose. She had a job to do, and it was not what others expected. Celestial tourism would have to wait.

"Liam, can you see this?" asked the girl.

"I can," managed to reply the voice of the Oldest. Liam was searching for the right word to address Sophie. One came to mind: "Attractor." The title was suiting. Sophie was undoubtedly the Attractor, the first in millions of years. Liam was in awe. Sophie had now drawn him with her to this place. In his wildest dreams, which, in an eternity, can exceed reality he'd never dreamt or imagined such wonders. In less than a week inside the head of the girl, he had changed.

Before, he considered himself as part of the Attraction, a guide of sorts. Now he knew better. He was a tool Sophie needed, a piece of a larger puzzle and nothing more. The mission had never been about him, but even as the oldest and wisest being in the Multiverse, he had not anticipated becoming so ancillary. The realization did not sting. If anything, it reassured him. The Rho waves made Sophie electrifying in all aspects. His dream of visiting other words had been replaced by his friendship with the girl. It was the greatest gift in all of creation, as well as its heaviest burdens. Liam had discovered unconditional love. For this girl, he would die in a heartbeat.

"Marilyn, are you here?" Sophie asked. The question surprised Liam.

"I am," said the deeper female voice. The artificial intelligence was not happy, and there was something less human to its voice. "Are you out of your mind?"

"Get over it!" snapped the girl to the artificial intelligence. Sophie was undisturbed by the of Marilyn's grumpiness; she seemed to have expected it. "There are worse places to visit." No one intimidated the Attractor, not even the computer.

Finally gathering her wits, Marilyn continued in a softer tone, "My power holds the Center on mars. It's essentially a large sand castle. If I stay here, even for a moment, your lives are all in danger. Air will vanish in a minute at most in the command room. Your tube is not airtight."

"For the first time in a long time, you are not in charge, I am. If I understand how this works, we are in no danger. Let the Multiverse manage it; it obviously has all of this well planned. Simply enjoy the ride. If we die, at least enjoy your last moments."

The logic was flawless.

Liam was in awe of Sophie.

"I said you and your father were in danger. I did not include myself. There is no way I am gone from my servers." Sophie didn't care. Around the trio was breathtaking beauty. The feeling of apprehension quickly subsided in Marilyn's mind, rechanneling the computer's disbelief of her new condition. The view was enough to silence the world's most imaginative astronomer. Marilyn lived locked in her digital world. She could not perceive images or colors directly. She instinctively produced images for humans, but from her side of the screen, the universe was nothing more than a sea of data packets. Communication, speech, or even video was to her nothing more than zeros and ones. The girl had slipped her essence in a human consciousness. In a fraction of a second, the software creature was gifted with human sight. Unfortunately, her mind was also no longer able to multi-task.

Then, Marilyn felt something grow from deep within her mind. A new feeling. The sights around her were too much to handle. The beauty, the colors, were giving birth to new emotions previously unknown to her. They bubbled up uncontrollably, chaotically. Unable to control herself, from within the girl's head, Marilyn began to wept tears of joy. The computer's joy was infectious. Liam felt proud of how fast he had adapted to the new world. Unlike the machine, he had kept most of his composure when arriving into the Cold. But he was older; Marilyn was still a child, even in man's years.

"Take a deep breath," suggested the girl.

As if Marilyn had lungs or even knew what breathing was, she tried, and it seemed to work. Liam offered, "Count prime numbers. It works for other AI's adapting to a more biological condition." There was no time to wonder what Liam had just said. Marilyn merely began to count. There was one, that was a prime. Then three, then five. Slowly, as she struggled with basic math, she calmed herself.

"I'm having...problems with primes past 131." She said out loud. Sophie did not remember what prime numbers were, nor did she care. The trio was still in Earth's dimension, the place called the Cold. Sophie looked around. Below them stood Mars. It was the size and color of an orange. On its orbit was Phobos, the deformed moon. Behind her, a deep blue light winked. It was unmistakable. Earth, fragile and precious. When Marilyn saw the planets, the tears retuned. "I am sorry," she apologized. "I am so stupid," she offered, "I am being childish." There was a refreshing quality to her vulnerability. A minute later Marilyn simply concluded, "Thank you."

"Do you feel better?"

"Yes, much better. These emotions are new to me. The stars are so beautiful," continued Marilyn. "I have learned to control and manipulate the emotions of humans, and here I am, acting like a child unable to cope with the most basic of them."

"I also am finding this situation very hard to handle," replied Liam, "Baptizing this dimension the Cold was not my wisest moment."

Sophie chuckled. Her friends were quickly adjusting. "Guys, can I get some silence? I have some work to do." A young human girl just told the two most powerful creatures in the universe to shut up. They did. Silence returned to the grandiose of space of this misnamed dimension.

Sophie spoke out in her kind voice. She spoke to the cosmos Liam called the Multiverse and simply demanded, "Show me what needs to be seen."

The invisible passengers understood the girl's plan. This little human was trying to talk to the Multiverse. "Show me," she repeated. There was no emotion in her voice.

The Multiverse did not hear her. If Marilyn and Liam were right and there was, in fact, an Attraction coming, her waves were the key to this equation. Sophie knew what she had to do but was trying not to go there yet. She'd wondered what to do.

Marilyn, using her software, even mapped out that road for her with lights. But Sophie was not here to serve as the Multiverse's cop. She was not a person to tell others what to do, much less alter the actions of an entire world. In her mind, she even refused to place her world's needs above those of the Purple. If they wanted to destroy the earth, who was she to stand in the way?

After much reflection, things became clear to her. Instead of guessing what the Multiverse wanted, why not simply ask it? Maybe it wanted the earth to die, or maybe Marilyn was too dangerous to exist. Sophie's way was always simple. She refused to be deceitful, closed or secretive. Whatever the Multiverse wanted, she probably would do.

Her demand in the vacuum felt weak.

The trio patiently waited in silence, but nothing happened. Liam and Marilyn observed in silence.

Sophie knew she needed to speak louder or speak in a way only the Multiverse could hear. Her waves were the key. In this vastness, she needed to throw a stone in this pond, and she knew of only one way. On the day she landed in the catapult at the Electoral Center, Marilyn had used music to push her into a trance. The music resonated with her feelings and moved her to a place where her emotions took over. She needed that push into full emotional existence to spur the Rho waves into action. She looked at her surroundings. There was much beauty but nothing which would make her laugh.

Sophie knew of a place, a door deep within her mind behind which was something sure to make her feel. She hesitated for a moment, but there was no real choice. She closed her mind's eye and returned to the private darkness of her inner self. As she did, darkness also befell her two silent companions. They would see the memories Sophie was about to unlock.

There was silence in the new darkness. Below them was a dark oil. They felt humidity and a cold that chilled bones. They were slipping into a nightmare.

There it was.

In the distance, a small wooden door floated against no wall.

They drew closer.

The wood was old and the paint covering it cracked. The door had no handle and pulsed in and out as if breathing. Across it were chains and a large padlock. It was sweating blood, in others places only black tar. Such a sight in a young mind was horrific. The scene alone was terrifying to the girl, who forced herself to keep moving closer. Behind the wood was a memory, part of Sophie's darkest past. There was no need to be a psychotherapist to know what memory was locked away. She drew closer and was hesitant to open it, but today was different. There was no time to waste. She needed to feel.

Marilyn and Liam both saw a young hand extend and touch the humid wood. As the tip of the finger sank into the wood, it rotted away. The trio was transported to a dark rainy road in the State of Indiana. Thunder clapped high in the sky. Strong rain was drumming against the roof of the small electric car. The vehicle's wiper blades were struggling to keep up.

Sophie was much younger; she was only ten. The girl was strapped into a large seatbelt to the back seat of her father's car. In the front, her parents struggled with the difficult road conditions. Marilyn and Liam were powerless observers. Lightning hit a tree on the side of the road, and sparks filled the sky. There was another car; it veered away, pushing Laurent off the road. It all happened in the blink of an eye.

Sophie and her friends did not see the scene from a distance; they were somehow reliving it from the back seat. They were inside the girl's terrified brain. Outside loud noises exploded. Her seatbelt was strapped on too tight; she couldn't move. Sophie knew what came next but was powerless to prevent it. Laurent and her mother were sitting in the front seat, their hands extended in every direction. She recognized her mother's red dress; she had died in it. The red would later help cover the dark splatters of blood.

Then it happened. The car ran off the road and crashed down into a ditch. As it rolled down, a large branch ripped in the side door. The spike crushed her mother's body and impaled her unborn child. The liquid and blood splashed out. As clearly as a child can recall a traumatic event, she saw the wood drive out the unborn brother's body into her father's legs. The window smashed in, and shards of glasses flew in every direction. A second branch punched in the other side and ripped Laurent's left shoulder.

This was sheer horror, and the memory of this powerless child was sparing no details. In the back seat, the ten-year-old Sophie was in complete hysteria. The images worked, they filled an emotional void inside her heart. The horror continued to the next scene as firefighter arrived to cut the metal.

Deep within herself, she felt the Rho waves boil up. This time they were not fueled by love, they were fuel by despair and pain. She felt a river of energy below her feet. This was more than she could contain, her mind was ready to explode. No one should see these images, much less relive them. Liam and Marilyn understood in a heartbeat the deep trauma residing in this poor girl.

The swirl of emotions within Sophie quickly became a tsunami too powerful to be contained. Every fiber of her being filled with the invisible Rho waves. If she had eyes, they would have long ago filled with tears. Then, in her vision, she saw the fire. The death of her father in the ambulance as his skin burned away. It was too late; she could not stop the images. As the horror continued, the Rho waves began to swirl around her in the shape of a vortex.

The power surged, and like a nuclear bomb, she was ready to explode in the underworld. She was a lit beacon, blazing outward for the Multiverse to see. The raw waves were jagged and varied as they'd been fueled by painful emotions, but this was all she had. She could not speak or even open her eyes. Blood and violence everywhere. Suffering perfused her. She saw her father's deformed body, and she remembered their sad house in the United States.

There was a kaleidoscope of awful images inside her heart. Sophie saw one negative thing after the next. Nothing could help. She felt despair and fear. She was unable to prevent herself from falling into an abyss of sadness. She missed her mother and wished she had died in the car alongside her. Like a driver falling prey to road rage, she was out of control. Her brother was also dead. He'd been crushed before he'd even drawn his first breath. There was no closing the door she had just opened.

The pain was too much. She began to cry alone in the darkness.

She was losing control, and the waves were not helping.

Then the entire vision restarted fresh from the start. The accident would happen again. She was caught in an endless loop like the Hell Mall-ik had saved Laurent from. She saw herself back buckled to the backseat of the car, ready to crash again. Her parents were back in the front seat. But this time Sophie appeared younger and more vulnerable. This time an eight-year-old was losing it. Outside, the Rho waves swirled night in the sky fueling the storm.

She panicked and began to hyperventilate as sparks flew in the sky.

Then she heard it. "Sophie," said a faint but unmistakable voice from deep within herself.

"Mommy?" she cried.

"Yes, darling." The voice was not coming from her mother standing in the front seat but from inside her head. "Yes, it's me."

The voice felt like an anchor in her storm. The little girl closed her eyes as the car flew off the road. Liam and Marilyn were crushed by the intensity of the situation. They were unable to help, watching powerlessly the most dramatic event they each had ever seen.

The girl lost all restraint and fell deep into sorrow. "Stop crying, my angel. It heard you. Close the door. Please open your eyes for me, my angel," her mother asked gently. The girl, lost in pain, could only cling to her mother's voice and try to do as she was asked. Only that voice made any sense. Only a mother's voice could penetrate the darkness that was swallowing her. It echoed deep inside her. "Please save your father and tell him I miss him so much. Open your eyes please."

Liam could not believe what he was hearing. Sophie's mother was trying to rescue her daughter. She spoke of the door and saving the world. Liam was proven wrong, even after millions of years. He was still able to be overwhelmed by emotions and he too began to weep. Marilyn, unable to fathom the river of emotions, was also crying in silence. They were also victim to this vortex of energy.

"Open your eyes, my love," said the mother more forcibly. Then, as only a mother could, she commanded, "Sophie Maud Ginette Lapierre," barked a mother about to ground her child, "open your eyes this instant young lady!"

The daughter did.

The lights of the Cosmos returned.

As if millions of supernova exploded at once, there was a loud bang in the underworlds of the Multiverse. A floodgate of energy was released from her body. Every living creature stood in the cold of a summon. Sophie had rung a bell; a cold wave of energy poured out of her. It spread in the shape of a bubble in all directions. This was the most powerful force ever created since the birth of the Multiverse.

She, a little human girl from Indiana, had just summoned the Multiverse.