Dream awake, open the gate…

The echoes of her persona supporting mantras maintained her as the codestream flooded into her mind. She repeated the echo over and over as the ecstatic sensory overload crashed through her consciousness. She struggled for the mental anchor, the starting place; the repeated condition needed to ground her, cycle through her.

…Icon of truth, icon of actuality, icon of veracity, anchor me, hold me, steel me…

Althea found the anchor, circling cracks in the ceiling; she followed the route in and out, start to beginning – repeat it – initiated it. It was within her, was what she had seen, analyzed, comprehended, held, it carried her, an unbroken line, throughout the chaotic Macro network, strung along golden cables shifting through the widening codestream.

It was the first line, glowing, strong, brilliant and long, the stream flowed around, a narrow cord of calm that she could cast – would cast – and follow it in.

…Hold yourself in the stream flow, unknowing…

Her edges frayed against the contextual pull. She tightened her self as much as possible.

…Let the call go past…

Experiences burst on the edges of her consciousness – intense, raw – points in a pinwheel; sharing laughter in a crowd, touching, pulling, buffeted, straining up into a brilliant light; the touch of lips, soft skin under her fingers, warmth and hot wetness, taste of spices and blood, physical heat, deep heavy breathing; cold, harsh light, glass and stars, cold metallic taste of the air; loneliness, palpable, longing; looking out, a blue ball through the windows, huge, gorgeous; home, sweet, sour, hot tastes, smell of smoke, of sweat; murmurs all around, spicy liquid pouring down the throat; satisfaction, pleasure, voracious hunger, unsated, still.

…Points of light, streaming past, a galaxy of thought, stretched through infinity, tens, hundreds, thousands…

She had felt it before, imagining memories long past, reflections of perception – fantasies, truths. Minds linked minds sending images – thoughts, feelings, sensations – back to the mouth of the mind, to be swallowed, inserted, connected through the interface of surface consciousness.

…Trinary mind one zero neither, either… she could feel the power of it, the completeness, the belonging. All in unity…

Althea willed her focus on the rope through the storm of experiences, drawing close – fearing, rejecting the enthralling glimpses of other hearts, other souls, other lives. Fear was best – it would keep her on target. The outermost shell was even more glorious than she’d ever experienced before, with the ride through lives – more compelling than ever before.

…Be not lost, not in their being she commanded herself, let her perception reach along, stretch forward to the next depth, the next shell, imagining the next gate, willing it into existence.

…Trace the doorway open the door, open the window, open my mind…

Along and along she followed the line, the data tributary, until another attached and another – the line became thicker. She recognized the loop, the instructional base – the coalescing of mind.

…Unveil the cohesion, she called. The oneness, the self…

Reverse, reengineer, she continued to apply the instructions she’d had taught herself – which she could compel onto Macro code – it could not resist, it must not comprehend the difference, the change in command…

…Fill with wonder, she hinted, offered. And belonging…

Althea was caught, accepted. The glow filled her again. A brief flash of oneness, setting every grain in her being spinning with ecstasy, a moment’s stunning reward of what was to come…

…We will be unified trinary mind one zero either, neither…

…The following layer, she broke through easily. A sea of data: vaster, older, actions, reactions, massive data pushing, pressing. She forced her defenses tight, streamlined, focused, refocused – squeezed out emptiness.

…Beyond the earth, the sky the world, it was the connections of space, time, the wide scope, the truth of what was…

…Fall, fly stretch my thirsting thoughts, touch the unbroken skin of Makan…