New Origin

NEW ORIGIN

BY Christopher Mitchell

Scripture stood in front of her life’s work, entranced. The whirring of the generator, the whizzing of the steel ball reaching terminal velocity inside the upright circular track. The air reeked of ozone, making Scripture think of rainy days, when her brilliant father had danced with her in thunderstorms. She thought of how those moments shaped her entire life, how her father’s pursuit for knowledge had been carried on by her. She abandoned those warm thoughts when, from within the circular construction, a ripple of light emerged.

It was working. Thirteen years later, in the wake of failure after failure, she’d finally done it. She’d created a link between other worlds.

Scripture’s heart leapt in her chest; this would certainly get the Grand Cleric’s attention now. She’d spent years pitching idea after idea, begging for funding, pleading with Easton McKenna. The Primacy’s financial backing could have helped her acquire the resources and equipment necessary to create their own origin source from anywhere in the world. They would finally be able to traverse the Aether, without the rules of The Terms to hinder them.

She’d never understood why humans weren’t allowed to leave their small rock, and why both her compatriots in the Primacy and their Faction adversaries were stringent on this rule. How else could they learn of the cosmos if they couldn’t leapfrog through it as the Elders had eons before? She longed to meet just one of those ancient ones, to hear their stories and see an infant universe giving birth to endless stars. 

Warning sirens blared as the steel sphere—nearly the size of a semi-truck tire—reached terminal velocity. The metal was a crude alternative to the standard type used in origin sources, but she’d accounted for this in her mathematics. She’d increased the power output of the generator and doubled the number of magnets around the circular frame. It had taken millions of dollars in material—some hers, some from her generous benefactor— to do what her ancestors had accomplished with mud and borrowed metal from the stars.

Just a little more, she thought as she flipped a few more switches and lifted an acrylic lid over a large red button. She didn’t want a repeat of last year’s experiment, which had nearly killed her, so her hand hovered over the system’s kill switch, ready to press it at the slightest hint of error. No shuddering came from within the construction, and the sphere seemed stable—it had leapt from its track and taken out the east wing five years ago.

Every trial, every error had brought her closer to her end goal, and now, all those failings had led her to this moment. This one, glorious moment.

More power.

She let her hand move from the kill switch and turn a nearby dial, allowing for just a few more joules of energy. It was working, the light now expanding from a delicate ripple to a fully shimmering pool of darkness suspended in the center of the track. She put her hand back over the kill switch, these last few moments being the most crucial and the most dangerous.

A green light at the top of the structure came blindingly into existence, and Scripture used her free hand to activate the final switch. A beam of light shot from a point on the far wall and refracted through a prism, tearing the light apart. Hues of yellow and green shone brilliantly against the surrounding ends of violet and red, but her only concern was with those colors she couldn’t see. She picked up the ultraviolet and infrared light on her observation monitor as they bounced from specially positioned mirrors and back into the heart of the doorway.

The moment the light touched that shimmering mass, it began to move and convulse like waves in a storm. The violence of the scene intensified, small spouts of matter expelling from the opening and instantly destabilizing, returning to antimatter and disappearing in seconds.

The smell of ozone was replaced with a scent that smelled somewhat like crushed grapes, and a deep, low hum emanated from the rippling doorway. The hum did its best to drown out the screaming velocity of the steel ball and the roaring generator, pushed beyond its limits for this one inevitable moment. Scripture stood in rapt attention, watching and waiting for the slightest hint of error, but this time, she was certain of the math.

Finally, the noises and lights balanced out, and she let her hand fall from over the kill switch.

Scripture’s whole body tensed in elation, and she squealed audibly at her success. It had worked. She was now the proud owner of her very own doorway to the universe. She’d accomplished what no other human had done before her. She’d created, with her own hands, something Gods had once made to travel the cosmos.

Now that the easy part was over, the experiments could begin.

She started small, tossing a rock on a string through the doorway and pulling it back through.

Ok. She thought to herself, making scribbles in her journals. Return is possible upon entry. She’d been concerned it would be a one-way trip, what with the…adjustments… she’d had to make to the original design and its unorthodox parts. Her eyes moved to the panel at the base of the structure, and her heart panged with guilt.

Very unorthodox parts…

She shook away the memory of hands covered in orange ichor; of scooping the shroud’s heart and liver from its chest cavity in between retching. It was a mercy, to be honest…Sickle hadn’t left much for Scripture to work with. While the Primacy enforcer-for-hire couldn’t keep a partner alive for longer than two missions, the woman was an artist when it came to carrying out her assignments.

Scripture was preparing for the next task when her phone rang; she’d been waiting for this call.

Shadow’s voice came over the line, cold and unfeeling. “They know.”

Scripture’s heart lurched. She’d hoped she’d have more time before this phone call. “How long?”

“You have ten minutes before agents break down your doors. Get the feed going.”

Shadow’s financial support had been crucial to her success, and now Scripture did whatever her anonymous donor asked.

She put the phone on speaker and activated the device Shadow had given her. It was covered in a series of gauges, sensors, and cameras, and she tied the string’s end to a loop on the device and tossed it through.

Shadow’s voice came through the speaker a moment later, carrying with it a hint of emotion Scripture had never heard before. “Interesting.”

Scripture tensed. Was that… curiosity she heard in Shadow’s voice? “What is it?”

“Atmospheric levels within tolerance.”  Shadow sounded curious.  “Temperature is a little on the low side, about sixty-Fahrenheit…it’s also night there, based on visibility. Shadow sounded impressed. “From what I can tell by star placement and pattern in the night sky, Scripture, you’ve opened a door to a world around Orion’s fist.”

Scripture’s heart leapt in her chest. Orion’s fist was Bellatrix, a star over two hundred light-years from Earth. And the device she’d tossed through that doorway had made that trek in seconds. Not only that, but she’d found a planet in the crucial band where life could grow, the distance from its star not too far and not too close…and she’d been the one to make it all happen.

Her excitement was crushed as Shadow’s voice descended once again from the phone’s speaker. “Send in the next variable.”

This had been the part Scripture dreaded the most.

She recovered the telemetry device from what she officially now dubbed as New Origin, then reached into a nearby cage, removing a small ball of fur from within. It had been her only friend these past two decades—her only true friend. She’d named it Mittens for its white paws.

She squeezed Mittens tightly. “I’m so sorry, little one.” Tears pooled at the corners of her eyes. She called out to Shadow over the phone speaker. “Do I have to do this? Is there another way?”

Shadow’s voice was iron. “What would your father say if he could see you now?”

Scripture knew what he would say; he said it before every experiment.

“Innovation isn’t achieved without the need for sacrifice.” Mittens mewed at her, and Scripture pretended they were the sounds of forgiveness.

Shadow cut into Scripture’s sniffling, their voice terse. “Five minutes until they arrive.”

Scripture sighed, tied the string around the cat’s paw, and gave it a quick, loving squeeze. Scripture tossed the cat into the shimmering black of the new origin source and waited.

The string started to unspool as Mittens moved about in an unknown world. It continued to push as seconds ticked away, her window for escape closing. She looked up at the clock, showing fifteen past midnight, then stared intently at the rope, hoping that—

The string suddenly jerked from side to side then rose in the air, convulsing in fits before falling to the base of the doorway. Scripture had just enough time to blink before the whole scene was over, and she frantically pulled at the string to bring Mittens back to this side of the Aether.

The end of the rope cleared the ramp, the ends split and frayed, a gristly coating of blood and offal clinging in clumps to the synthetic braids and leaving a trail as she pulled.

She choked back a sob and numbly jotted notes. Tears marred the pages as they fell from her cheeks and onto the journal. She ignored them.

Location, she wrote in her journal entry, inhabited. Flora/Fauna: Present. Disposition: Hostile. She underlined hostile three times, glancing momentarily at the frayed and bloodied rope.

She felt a hollowness forming deep within and embraced it. Her father had always said that science was as unforgiving as the universe they inhabited, and she now understood why… she would make the cat’s death worth it.

“You’re out of time.” Shadow’s voice broke Scripture from her scribbling, cracking in a moment of distress. “Shut it down and secure the components.”

Scripture moved to comply. Now that she had the mathematics and architecture memorized, she could dismantle and move her experiments elsewhere. She had enjoyed her time as a primacy Cleric, using the untold secrets of the Aether to discover new and interesting things about new and interesting places, but it was time for a change. Now she’d just slip out the back of the lab and—

An explosion from the exterior door told her the Primacy was here, and she was completely out of time. It would take them time to clear her home above, but they were here, nonetheless.

 She grabbed her bug-out bag and raced to the power box at the base of the structure, spinning the locking bar up and away to get at the precious components within. The door hissed with a pneumatic release, and Scripture stared hauntingly into its machinations.

The shroud’s heart pulsed rapidly in its housing, anchored in place by two sturdy rods of metal. The liver shone with a brilliant orange light, the concentrated iron of the beast’s genetic makeup making it the perfect energy stabilizer to sustain the amount of Scripture needed for the device’s internal workings.

She had time to unclasp the liver and stow it in her bag before the lab door exploded inward. Segments of the wooden frame sprayed shrapnel about the room, and Scripture felt something hot tear into the back of her shoulder. The momentum sent her stumbling forward, and she had the sense to drop the bag and catch her fall with her hands. She spun, abandoning the heart and the bag, opting to put as much distance between her and her intruders as possible.

Between the searing pain in her arm and the shouts of Primacy soldiers behind her, she didn’t notice her feet tangled in the bloodied rope. She lost her footing, teetering on unbalanced legs, then felt a sensation of intense heat wash over her entire body. The hum of mechanical components in her lab was instantly replaced with… were those crickets? But the tone was wrong…deeper maybe? She had to chase away her brain’s deductive reasoning and let her eyes adjust to the diminished light of—

Wait…

Scripture stifled the panic welling in her throat. She realized, with rising fear, what had happened…

She had slipped through New Origin’s doorway and now stood upon a planet trillions of miles from her home world.

Stars permeated the night sky, an orangish-red planet suspended high against the malbec backdrop of the universe. The planet cast a rust-colored hue on the landscape below, and Scripture shivered against the cool wind that cut through her thin lab coat and blew her dark brown hair into her eyes.

Something passed in front of the large planet on leathery wings. She wasn’t sure of the species, but she was certain of two things: the first, whatever was flying through the air was very far away from her. That realization made her breathe a sigh of relief and simultaneously register the second certainty. Whatever it was, it was very, very large.

“Dragons.” She whispered breathlessly, then heard something move in the rocky outcroppings nearby.

She took a step back, then froze, realizing that she would tumble back through the portal and into the hands of Primacy soldiers if she wasn’t careful. But shapes started to appear from the crags and crevices of this world’s surface; shadows with elongated arms and legs loping forward hesitantly at first, then stopping a few hundred meters shy of Scripture’s position.

An image filled her mind, registering these shapes with something infinitely familiar to her. It was an image of a shroud, Scripture removing first its liver, then its heart, to one day power the machine that would take its creator through the cosmos and back to their origin.

Scripture listened to the huffing of keen noses taking in her scent. Her analytical brain wondered if the organs she’d placed in the machine had functioned as a homing beacon for the newly established origin-source. She was busy cataloging the data in her mind when she heard a huffing a low growl to her left. She had enough time to turn and let out a cry before the shroud attacked, and her screams broke through the howls of the others and the deep chirping of alien creatures.

***

Hammer was the first through the breach. He swept left, completing the drill that was now muscle memory. His partner, Anvil, broke off to the right and called out his all-clear, letting everyone know on the other side of the entryway it was now safe to enter. He had just enough time to see Scripture trip and disappear through the origin source before a dozen Primacy Drones swept in behind him, filling the space with personnel until everyone was in position.

Ink appeared in the doorway, the High Cleric barking orders for drones to secure all files and catalog all material. “And someone,” She shouted, “shut this fucking hunk of sacrilege down before something comes back through.”

Choruses of acknowledgement rained down on Ink, and they moved.

Hammer, however, stared into the heart of the doorway, noticing the movement of rope that had disappeared through it.

“Ink?” Hammer called to her, then pointed at the rope. “Looks like we can still reach her.”

At that moment, the rope began to buck and sway, shifting violently back and forth as something on the other side of that doorway took out its frustration on the nylon cord.

Hammer moved on instinct. “Anvil!” He heard his partner’s acknowledgment as he raced for the rope. He reached for it, feeling the bite and heat of braided string as it tried to jerk out of his hand. “Someone get ready to shut down the machine!”

Anvil grabbed the rope too, and they heaved. About a foot of rope came back through before something pulled on it—hard—and the skin on their hands was ripped free. More hands joined in until, slowly, the rope returned from its point of origin and back into the lab. The bloody form of Scripture appeared from the doorway; a shroud sat perched atop her still body.

It gnawed at the soft parts of her, leaving her a stain of red gelatin and meat. The nightmare looked up with pure black eyes, dark grey skin coated in a fine layer of blood and gristle and bone.

Hammer dropped the rope. “Kill it! Kill the doorway!”

Two more shrouds tore through the origin before the portal was blotted out of existence. They managed to snare a soldier each before they were put down, tearing out throats with claws on too-long arms. Hammer raised his shoulder mount and fired. The gears and servos in the rifle’s buttstock adjusted for the pain in his hands, recalibrating for his lighter grip. He held the trigger until he heard the resounding click of a depleted tungsten rod. The shroud lay in a heap and didn’t move, a pool of crimson blood slowly shifting to the dull brown-orange of rust.

Hammer lowered his rifle, feeling his stomach swing in nauseous fits. Scripture was still moving; she was still alive somehow.

 “Medic!” he called and rushed up to her, ripping supplies from his own first aid kit.

Scripture stopped him. “W-Worked.” She said in convulsive fits. She was a mess, her skin ashen-grey, her lips pale blue and quivering. Against her current state, she grabbed Hammer’s hands and squeezed them. “I-It’s yours now…we d-did it…”

She passed out, and Hammer did what he could to save her, but her wounds were extensive.

While he worked, Scripture felt herself carried up and away from her body. It was over, and she’d managed to make one of the greatest scientific discoveries mankind would ever see, at the cost of her own life.

Innovation isn’t achieved, she thought, a new world blossoming around her, without the need of sacrifice.

Up ahead, she could see her father. He was waiting for her, and he was smiling.

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