A Shrouded World (Book 7): Hvergelmir Read online

  I stare at him, wondering if he really opened an emergency exit in flight. There are protections against that kind of thing, but knowing Trip, he probably circumvented them without even knowing what he was doing. And a DC-14 has to be from another world, because there sure as hell weren’t any of those built in my timeline.

  “Are you all right?” I ask Mike.

  “Just dandy,” Mike answers, shaking his head.

  “What about you, BT? Do you want to give it a shot?” I ask.

  “No fucking way,” he responds.

  “Suit yourself,” I say, shrugging.

  I grab the relic, which had fallen to the bottom of the table’s bowl. It’s incredibly light, as if it were made of titanium, the surface chilly to the touch. I’d ask Trip how to activate it, but I know we’d end up with a conversation miles away from what I want to know. I hold it over the table and close my eyes, visualizing the relic in my hand. I picture it being enveloped by the halo of light. There comes a warmth and a buzzing in my hand. Opening my eyes, the relic slowly starts rotating, surrounded by light.

  “That’s a neat trick,” Mikes says.

  “It’s really not that difficult. I just visualized it and voila,” I reply.

  “So, what now?”

  “I practice throwing lightning bolts from my fingertips.”

  “This screen over here changed when you did that,” BT says.

  I walk over to one of the control stations arranged around the room and look at the monitor associated with it. There’s some kind of menu on the screen.

  2

  Main Menu

  Creation and History of Iteration 512

  Present Worlds of Iteration 512

  Past Worlds of Iteration 512

  Present Lifeforms of Iteration 512

  Past Lifeforms of Iteration 512

  For other Iterations, select and input Iteration number.

  Historical Lifeform Creation Archives

  Iteration 512 Control Menu

  I stare at the menu, wishing I could just download all of the information into my head. It’s not like I have enough brain cells for all that, but it would be helpful, understanding what’s gone on and how this all fits together. On the station, there’s a pad of some kind in the center, like a giant laptop mouse control. I place my finger on it and the top menu item becomes highlighted. Running my finger down highlights subsequent options. I stop on “Historical life form creation archives” and tap my finger. The menu changes.

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  Historical life form creation archives

  Director Creation

  Overseer Evolution

  Traveler Evolution

  Enforcer Evolution

  Melanform Lifeform

  Well now, this is interesting.

  I notice the menu has “creation” or the “director and evolution” for all except the whistlers, who are listed as a “lifeform” instead of a creation or having evolved. I select the “Director creation” option.

  4

  Director Creation

  The directors were created to oversee the administration of the Iterations as they came into being. Their position was to facilitate the birth of lifeforms and watch over their evolution, linking the worlds to the Iteration regardless of advancement level. No direct intervention was allowed unless necessary to protect the safety of other lifeforms. They were to foster and monitor growth. In the event a budding world became devoid of life, they were to prune the world from the Iteration. Their main function was to travel the Iterations in search of life and bring that world into the light. Interacting with lifeforms wasn’t forbidden, but was not encouraged. Each lifeform was to evolve on their own without interference.

  There’s more, but it only really pertains to rules and tasks set before these directors. Reading this, I have a few questions. Like, who created these directors? And all of the writing is in past tense; to me, that implies that they aren’t around anymore. So, what happened to them? At the end is a “Return to previous menu.” This time, I select the “Overseer Evolution.”

  5

  Overseer Evolution

  Once part of the Directors and former administrators, the Overseers branched off when their ideas differed from the directives given. They were once a subset of Directors who administered the polices set forth by the Travelers. Their core beliefs arose from the notion that worlds should be controlled and managed, and that lifeforms should be guided during their evolution. Any who do not meet their guidelines should be redirected toward a defined evolution path. Failing that, the world should be reset or pruned, depending on the circumstances. The fate of the lifeforms was to be determined by the General Council, which came into being upon the separation of the Overseers from the Directors.

  With the Enforcers, they waged a battle against the remaining Directors, gaining control of the Iterations. Further policies came into being that allowed for experimentation within connected worlds which, ideally, would create the perfect evolutionary path for all lifeforms to follow. With the banishment of the Travelers, they redesigned the systems for their own purposes. However, to date, they are unable to break into the core code. Thus, their overall control remains limited.

  During the war with the Travelers, many waypoint locations were lost from memory, and new methods had to be created in order to gain access to the worlds. Without waypoint access, control of a world is limited to Reset and Visitation. Pruning of a world isn’t viable, unless full access can be gained. This has led to originally unintended events, such as the creation of decay. See Melanforms.

  Over time, this departure from the Directors has caused the Overseers to undergo their own evolution, drastically changing in shape and function from the original Director form.

  6

  Traveler Evolution

  Once a part of the Directors, the Travelers were tasked with maintaining the Original Directives. Their philosophy remained true to the concept of limited involvement in a lifeform’s evolutionary process. They were the original scouts who journeyed through Iterations, searching for lifeforms in various levels of advancement. They joined the worlds to the Iterations, the lifeforce flowing to its source, and the lifeforms benefitting from the return flow. In addition, they created new Iterations when necessary for the sustainment of life.

  Travelers were judges appointed to determine whether involvement was necessary and carry it out, if required, including dictating when a pruning was necessary. In their travels, they came across an advanced lifeform, the Melanforms. That alien race had advanced to the point where they could develop wormholes, thus avoiding the normal travel through portals. The Melanforms were able to transition between Iterations, infecting various systems populated by other lifeforms, it was the Travelers who were able to effectively seal off the Melanforms from the rest of the Creations, limiting their ability to cause decay.

  In the war against the Administrators and Enforcers, the Travelers lost control of the systems and were cast down, locked into a world of their own. Evidence exists that one escaped and attempted to free the others from containment. Whether that is true is unknown. However, somehow a door was again opened, allowing the Melanforms to create portals and escape their prison.

  While detailed information regarding their continued existence is not currently known, it is believed the Travelers have retained much of their original form and function as when they had been Directors.

  7

  Enforcer Evolution

  The Enforcers, also known as Daemons, were the division of Directors who dealt with anomalies that occurred within the system. Much of this had to do with lifeforms who expanded into territories occupied by other lifeforms and sought their destruction. Enforcers were sent at the behest of Travelers to curb the expansionists.

  When the Melanforms were discovered and their destructive ways uncovered, the Enforcers were called in to limit the foraging lifeforms. Time and time again, the Melanforms eluded the Enforcers through the creation of wormholes. Those
creations cost the Melanforms many lives, but they reproduced at alarming rates. The Enforcers were finally able to corner a large section of Melanforms and a battle ensued. During that battle, the Enforcers lost many of their kind, though they brought the expansion of the Melanforms to a halt. This allowed the Travelers to finally corral the invasive life forms and seal them off.

  Following the battle and the loss of so many of their members, the Enforcers agreed with the Overseers that lifeform evolution should be a guided process in order to minimize the risk of another war occurring, and joined them in their fight for control. After helping the Overseers regain control, the Overseers refused a return to the original directives, causing a rift between the two factions. The Enforcers fled, wanting nothing to do with administering the realms any longer. They roamed the worlds, treating them as their own playgrounds.

  In all historical evolution, the Enforcers became the ones most radically changed. To this day, no two Daemons are alike.

  I look over to Mike, who is reading through this lengthy prose. From what I’ve read, it’s not so different from the government system established for the land I lived in. Three branches with differing responsibilities and powers, all meant to act with one another. I can’t tell if there were measures put into place to prevent overreaching control of one over the other, but I can only imagine there were. Only through forming an alliance of two could they have overthrown the third. The Overseers then took complete control when the Enforcers decided to completely disengage.

  “Looks like someone pulled a coup,” Mike says.

  “Looks like,” I agree. “So, Kalandar and that other demon were Enforcers. I wonder why they didn’t say anything. Or at least Kalandar. The other one was a little focused on my demise.”

  “With this information, I’m surprised that he didn’t treat Trip a little differently. I suppose the Enforcers could have gone through something like selective amnesia and not known who or what they are,” Mike comments.

  “I suppose so. I mean, look at Trip. He doesn’t know where he is half the time, let alone know he’s a Traveler.”

  “Hit the next one,” Mike says, pointing.

  8

  Melanform Lifeform

  Discovered by the Travelers, Melanforms were locked out of the other Iterations following a battle with the Enforcers. Previously, they had been able to open portals into other Iterations and worlds, bringing about the demise of those populations through a variety of means. Once a majority of the lifeforms had been eradicated, they invaded, gathering materials and pillaging the planet of resources. They were also able to transfer light belonging to these conquered worlds back into their own, thus rendering the planet non-sustainable. Once the light of an attached world was taken into the Melanform worlds, the planet decayed and the reality surrounding it was broken, sending it into the void.

  Recent events of unknown origin have begun to allow the Melanforms to reach out once again beyond their worlds. While imprisoned, their populations grew to enormous sizes. Once they were again able to visit other worlds, the decay of those worlds continued at a frenzied rate, just as it once had.

  The Melanform worlds encompass all of Iteration F4T, which is currently disconnected from the flow of light.

  Okay, well, that’s a lot of information. There is even more on the screens, as it details a lot of further information, but that’s the gist of everything. And it’s all written in past tense, so my prior assumption was false. The Directors were comprised of three different organizations which split and evolved into three different species. There’s the Travelers, which I’m now pretty sure Trip is/was a part of. The Overseers we know, and the Enforcers are the demons we’ve met. And I know about the whistlers.

  I search through the iterations, attempting to find the whistler homeworlds, but the denoted Iteration doesn’t seem to exist in the records. That could be due to the imprisonment that the Travelers imposed on them, and that universe might not have a direct portal. But, since they’re now free to move about, I wonder why I’m not able to pull up their homeworld, or worlds, if that’s the case. It’s entirely possible it’s buried in a different menu somewhere.

  Just to keep things fresh in my mind—there are multiple iterations that branch off from a central core. Each iteration is a universe with multiple worlds within. While Mike and I may come from a very similar world, if not nearly exact, they each reside in different universes…or Iterations. Whether the other universes run in parallel with regards to time, or, are, in fact, differing timelines of the same thing, is in question. I’m not going down that rabbit hole just yet, as there’s enough to figure out for the moment.

  I at least see why the whistlers want control of a waypoint and its subsequent Iteration control point. They want to bring their worlds back into the flow of life and siphon that off for their own. At least, that’s my assumption. If they can do that, they’ll control the entire flow of light. If they’re able to do that, then they’ll eventually be able to invade every lifeform world and ravage it for their own purposes. In effect, there won’t be any other lifeforms at all. Plus, if they get control of one of the Iteration control points, they’ll be able to determine where every viable world is. No wonder the Overseers want to reverse the process and confine them again.

  In a way, the Overseers and we are working toward the same goal: the imprisonment of the whistlers. But in another view, the Overseers and whistlers are doing very similar things. The whistlers are exterminating entire worlds; the Overseers are doing the same, only their methods are a little different. Instead of wiping the surface clean, the Overseers are erasing people and resetting environments, which kind of amounts to the same thing, in my opinion. And for that reason, I’m not even going to suggest aligning with them. Besides, they don’t seem overly eager to open any kind of dialogue.

  Several pieces of the puzzle fall into place with this information. Again, it appears that the Overseers are working toward the same solution we are with regard to attempting to quarantine the whistlers. However, they’re also working against us. They want Trip so they can figure out what he did and try to reverse it, leaving them in complete control to manipulate lifeforms for their own experiments. So, it’s kind of a three-way fight. The Overseers have power, the whistlers have the numbers and a technology that allows them to travel anywhere to wipe out civilizations, and then there’s us. We have neither strength nor numbers, so what do we have? The brains? I chuckle at that thought. Luck is the nearest I can figure.

  Now, if we could figure out what happened to the Travelers, we might be able to do something. As it stands, we’re just trying to stay alive and have mostly been leaves drifting in a river’s wild current. We’ve fought the whistlers numerous times. While beating them in our engagements, we lost one world, and the one we last entered is on the verge of spinning off into the void.

  From what I can determine, as a world decays, it goes through various predictable cycles. The changes we saw in Atlantis carried us through several realities; there was our long separation in the building, and there have been instances where I was transported either to other worlds or different variations of the same world. There was the one time I was taken to my own world, or a deviation of it. The degree of decay seems to indicate how much that environment will fluctuate.

  On the last world, the changes were numerous and drastic. I arrived on a mountain chain that had volcanic activity, but when I was able to get down to the town of Valhalla, there was no sign of it. There was the cave where I fought the cultists attempting to summon a demon, which changed to a battlefield when I returned at a later time. There was also the abrupt transition when fighting the zombie horde, and I found myself in a newly created town without people. That’s not to mention waking in a decaying town with night runners on the prowl.

  My current thinking is that, as a world decays, different variations of it start to surface. That may depend on how many times it’s been reset, a moment of each reset bubbling to the surface o
f the current reality. Kind of like a montage of previous lives flickering into reality. That may not be the case, but it makes sense to me. So, as long as we’re on actively decaying worlds, which seems to be where we keep getting directed, we can expect this kind of instability to continue. It isn’t easy having to adapt to sudden and drastically changing environments.

  It also brings into question the very nature of reality. Are the bubbles that surface “real?” Will the events that happen to us in each one transfer when a new reality is formed or are we transitioned back to the present one? Based on my experience so far, the answer is yes to the latter. That means all of us have to be ready for an abrupt change in our surroundings and what we might face there.

  Thinking again about the Overseers and whistlers, I look down at my carbine and mag and a half of ammo. I shake my head, contemplating how in the hell we’re supposed to take on worlds of whistlers and the power of the Overseers with such meager equipment. This is not what you fight Gods with. Hell, we’ll use what ammo we have just trying to get past the whistlers outside these walls.