written By J.Nila
(Jesus Antonio Nila IV)
Speculative Sci-fi
Chapter 1: Cognitive Banter and Parallel Paralysis
“Magi-One-Bar! Magi-One Bar! Sim! Sim! TAKE US WITH YOU! Zim! Zim!”
The deep matter of the vocal beam distracted all resonances. The people knew not to observe it in action, or it would cause a reaction. But they were reactive people. Go figure, thought Magi.
“Float up, Xia... Float up to the next life or die in flame... Die in fire. Float up and smoke up. Lost in spirit twice, won't we all?” questioned the young merchant.
“We cannot disclose the X & Y, but we will be local. Good luck. God’s blessing. Universe Mother. Love of All... All of love.”
The two parted ways as the grey began to deteriorate their perception of one another. Distance became the language through which their constants would be interpreted. Humanity’s consciousness lingered in the abyss... the void of deep black matter.
“Gate X1829097653883002983664664838738408737 has been closed,” said IO. “Nothing is going to come in or out. What is left of those people will soon be ash and dust. Dust that will fly high. Bless them. Blessed be.”
Magi-One-Bar’s face was marked with a large grin. They floated up into the skylight. Sweet scents filled their minds. Senses vibrating, transcending, becoming one with many, becoming one with one.
“Who are we to judge what is between us? Yoot!?” Magi-One-Bar remarked with a snarl.
“Haha!” laughed IO. “Yoot!”
“Do we forage forward to find the foreigner, Magi?”
“Yes, we must hasten our speed. Onward, towards the foreigner.”
The essence of their reality was made of sense perception. Deep space, once observed as a pitch-black void, was now an effervescent, illuminating purple and yellow echoplex. It reverberated with not color, but the consciousness that weaves its luster. Crowded reflections burst into flowering and miraculous hues of violet.
The silver carpet hid the patrons from the intense radiation and distortion of reality through which they were traveling. The silver carpet measured only eight feet by six feet... and that was all. All they could walk on, all they could sit on. Any movement potentially pulled them outward or inward into the dark goods of reality.
IO began to kneel on one knee and count his toes, flicking them forward and backward in a rhythmic pattern, accompanied by an intense fluttering of his fingers.
Magi-One-Bar began laughing, maintaining a sovereign expression.
“You are impatient, my brother. Does the moment betray you? What lies in a mind so lost in the moments of what has already come or what will be?”
1.
They laughed loudly and pointed at each other, excited and filled with vigor.
“Shall we spend the time questioning all of our faces, Magi?” said IO teasingly.
Four more nights, and they would be at the new realm. The journey was almost death-defying. The stillness required and the impact on their bodies would leave them very few days in the realm after recovery. Such a confined space would eliminate their ability to fully stretch or lie down.
They would also have to procure food during their journey, a task that could only be achieved using a single specialized technique. The ability to Mana Call would exhaust Magi and IO, but it was something they had done all their lives.
Thousands of years of teaching had taken away technology. The Earth began to distinguish perception from vision, elaborating into the mapping and veins of patterns of chance. Anomalies of the bizarre and infuriatingly vast.
“We have seventeen sips of water, IO. Remember the last time we had such a lake?” said Magi-One-Bar.
“Such a lake...” IO chuckled and began folding his toes back into a reverse rhythmic pattern.
Magi began to observe the pattern IO was making with his toes, expressing curiosity and wonder.
“Ahhh, I see!” exclaimed Magi excitedly. “You're using the bent PRANA methodologies on this journey. You think the feeling of compression is less damaging to the body than pulling? I would definitely agree about the pull, yet so many hours of pressing have left me sore on too many occasions.”
IO looked up at Magi.
“I feel the press deeply but slowly, concentrating also on the palm of my hand. The temperature between the feet and hand. The ways in which the curves groove and what will eventually resemble a blur of shadow.”
“Yes...” said Magi, pressing his palm against his fingers. “I can press for many hours still. I think four days may Divine us into quite another sort of spectacle for time dilation.”
The pattern of blue and yellow veins vibrated in the cosmic background. The two old men smiled and looked out into the distance, remembering the many journeys they had been on with their friends and families.
The many friends they had. The many families they had. The things they would teach their children. The things their children would teach them.
Magi closed his eyes.
“I enjoy the flicker of my eyelids. The pressing of palms against the floor. I sense the vibration of my muscles absorbing the energy. I do not grow sore in the beginning, but fill with large bursts of laughter and energy.”
2.
X1829097653883002983664664838738408737 was locked behind an illusive gate. Something that was not really a gate at all.
Earth had spent 3,457 years perfecting a cognition that would surpass all others, illuminating a new frontier beyond the bounds of what was once called the physical world.
“Murmur more if you want to hear the divine, IO. Don't mumble, but murmur. I know from aura-speak that one who presses their toes will need a strong vocal posture to obtain proper projection of the ether.”
The surrounding veins of yellow interlocked into the vast violet background. Fluctuating light flickered in and out of what appeared to be geometric shadows. The shapes lay in between the essence of the flicker, yet not inside it.
Many people had traveled through the X1829097653883002983664664838738408737 Gate. It would never be opened again after the fires. The friends did not grieve the deaths of their friends but rejoiced in a strange stream of vocal tones and eye movements.
In the past, this particular gate had been used for vast networks of game-like sense interactions. Tall, systematically placed gardens surrounded by membranes of slime-mold-like textures. Pulsating in between them were thousands of small green flowers. Butterflies and moths danced together.
Only the strongest among several weaker stat systems were able to make the physical journey to meet them. The friends had been the first aliens to make contact outside of their universe.
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Planets collided, and distant stars exploded in massive, chaotic bursts of energy.
There was no hope for their physical bodies. Yet the friends knew they must make contact before their departure into the next realms. Some sign of compassion in a universe they had only known as cold. Lost in isolation. Prevented from feeling the warmth of others.
Nine nations out of twelve coordinated their travels. So far removed from the controllers of their technology, they were synonymous with the very environment itself.
So the men performed their spiritual diplomatic duty. It was also their curse and their challenge. These things were only offered to the lowest of their kin.
No valuable thing was considered a gain when traveling within the universe. Any action taken upon the universe outside of their controlled realm was a sin. Yet it was necessary for the survival of their world.
So they sent only those they thought little of. To the companion worlds, they would study, teach, and archive.
They were men from another world, alien to their natural perceptions. To IO and Magi-One-Bar... they were all but nothing.
They were not allowed to confront their own egos, but only to trick them. Like children raised in the divine houses, not one was ever allowed to talk with or feed the inside voice. Instead, they were taught to train a second one and a third.
3.
The culture had no room for imperfections. Their civilization was unsustainable if not properly guided. So everything that could be done had always been granted.
Many would never distinguish between what can be done, what could be done, what must be done, or what one wants to do. It was simply that whatever was possible must have already been pre-permissioned by the controllers above.
There was no questioning or revolt. Just a simple principle: if one could climb the mountain, the mountain was allowed to be climbed. If one fell, they were not allowed to climb the mountain again. Not that they would ever get another chance to.
So there was almost no need for direction or questions of intent or agency. The ability to do something was permission.
So much had advanced that the controllers would never allow a rule to be broken. So there were none.
Sometimes the controllers surprised them. The controllers could be teachers, tricksters, and helpers. They could never truly know which role their controllers would play.
The background was now a consistent hue of violet. The yellow veins of the background melted and flexed inward and outward. Hollow air lay between them. Crusted edges darkened as yellow folded into yellow. The light within the veins danced across what appeared to be the sky.
The men knew there was no sky at all, but rather cosmic radiation.
IO began taking his sip. The first sip of water for the journey. He held the water gently to his lips, feeling it slowly trickle into his mouth. His focus relaxed as he took a small swallow. His posture remained present and upright.
IO’s mind filled with presence. Where his ancestors had experienced anxiety, fear, and pleasure, IO experienced more than anyone in his bloodline before him.
His mind did not need to evade reason or meaning. His behaviors could not be twisted by desire. Every faculty of his mind was filtered through a chain of tactile tricks, memories, and resistors. Traditions of the mentalscape passed down from generation to generation, evolved from coping mechanisms once thought to be illnesses.
What a human mind was and wasn't. It was no longer a question.
People of the Earth chose to travel beyond their localities.
Humanity once dreamed of greatness. Then they became patient, persistent in wisdom. They followed the energy in a different direction.
Thousands of years would not claim all that was recognizable. Yet anything one would recognize would surely never serve the same purpose as it was originally intended to.
The silver rug itself was made from the remnants of earthen materials. They could only imagine how many things the rug must have been before it had become what they knew it to be now.
In fact, without its specific properties, it would not even be able to become the vessel that was needed. Its entire history, and everything that came before it, was just as important, if not more so, when compared to the journey it would soon deliver.
All came from something before. The world no longer seemed young enough for such primal thoughts. All was old enough to have come from something else, infinitely.
4.
The first sip wet IO’s mouth, but it would not quench his thirst.
The surrounding landscape was created by a technology so advanced that the men could not comprehend it. Their understanding of the mechanics and techniques was advanced. Like players in a video game, they were phenomenal. Yet they could not point to the code that created the functions themselves, nor could they create such a thing.
IO knew the water was not enough. It was all strategy, a skill that was selected during youth. An advantage for technological use.
The landscape could hold water as they traveled. The seventeen sips were not the most they could take. They were, however, the safest amount for such a journey.
Their weight distribution, the way they handled their breath, and their body positions all dictated the length and success of their journey.
The traveling vessel would hold a small amount of water, yes. Food was a luxurious dissolvent of abysmal value. Not one morsel of food would ever survive the outrageous environment, the hostility of which could not be fully conceived.
The human body had evolved for such things, but not everything had followed them, including sustenance.
The pair sat resting in an upright posture, sharing what little room they had as the cosmic burn surrounded their bodies.
Such things were unimaginably dangerous, something humans of the past would have feared. The human psyche was not ready for the ether in the beginning. Even the thought of such dangerous ways would baffle and dismay.
It was completely normal for the young to learn dangerous things quickly. Even as a small boy, Magi would climb out from his universe and jump from one planet to another using a ruby carpet.
He could jump from one side of the rug to the other without slipping, causing a slipstream of time that would project his body forward to the next planet.
To young Magi, it was as simple as a boy skipping rocks.
Death was at the boy’s heel. He did not care at first. Maybe he just didn't understand it fully.
All the evolution had given him the instincts to survive such insanely curious feats that his ancestors would have lost their minds over. To them, a toddler walking in a shadow realm would have been more than enough to worry them.
Magi slumbered and dreamed of his first encounter with the outer realms.
The room glistened with warm, crystalline light. Every shadow pressed up against his fingers in the oddest way, as if the shadows were slightly angled the wrong way and stuck to his hands.
He could not expand his shadow, but it was there. Like a pitch-black ink pressed up against glass.
He stared at his fingers for hours, lying on the floor of his chambers and wondering about the beautiful universe he would discover. Wondering what mysteries were hidden in the deep matter of his mind.
5.
