From: intraphase@gmail.com

The Golden Twilight

Aurian has kept moving; serving drinks, washing dishes, making telephone calls to get updates from the campaigns victory celebration held at the Fairfield Arena and hovering over Pierce when he seems distant. The news interrupts political discussions
succinctly detailing events in Skyline. Pierce follows Aurian over to the deep wide fireplace where Bitterman and Ferguson are talking quietly. Augustus puts his arm around his young niece and she stares at Bob. Doc has told her everything he can recount
and Tatianni is slow to come to grips with it. She has zero curiosity to see the disaster zone, making a firm decision to view it once at Pierce’s convenience and never return. She is glad Lisa and Michelle didn’t invite her
a year ago.
“Why would such a thing happen to such an important player of The Game?” Auri upset.
Bitterman takes a hefty slug of his whiskey, “We were asleep; everyone’s asleep at first. It all seemed like nonsense and fairy tales; a way of tricking
the mind into connecting dots that really had no relationship to each other. One minute you’
re standing there and the next second you’re in the past, present and future simultaneously. Timelines are nonexistent. Their spheres, of just shipped, information; expanding and contracting in brief glimpses of The Totality. It’s a lot like
swimming, first you learn to float, and then you start moving. What we never grasped was that the farther you go outward into all the futures, the further you move inward towards the one and only inevitable past. Johnny made it all the way inward to The
Monument. I never made it that far. Maybe if I did…” Pierce listening intently looks at Bitterman then over towards Ferguson and Trevor who has come over with Lisa. “From observing and interacting with it in several of its forms and locations The
Construct is inside the floating ring formed by the Triple Engines.”
Trevor asserts; “When inside The Core I saw Mr. Eight kick the floating ring off its hovering orbit. The processes way of saying the breakpoint; was, is, and shall be. Then the energy body picked up the ring and settled it back into place.” Trevor
looks towards Bob sincerely puzzled.
Bitterman adds, “The closer you get to The Core the harder it is to know who’s really there.
Mr. Eight could encounter someone and never know he did. I put bits of stuff in
my music and so did Johnny. The hard lessons learned were that power is a side effect of truth and The Core is not a barroom where gunslingers get tanked up before a shootout.
We were kids we thought it was an artist’s mafia and us its captains. How could we fathom the gear inside and outside The Circle?”
Augustus to Aurian, “Somehow it has to all work out, but nobody is perfectly or precisely sure how. There is always the possibility that everything had to happen. We can’t know for sure.”
Trevor stares at Bitterman wanting more insight. “Is it possible The Octagon is part of a much greater plan, possibly an echo of a future we haven’t envisioned?” Bob simply, quietly, “Yes.”
Michelle and Eight return to the northern screen porch. He goes to the shelf to see if The Core has replaced the pistol. An unopened box with a fresh 44.Magnum pistol has taken the place of the expended weapon. Michelle deposits the six spent rounds
from Pierces core update into an empty baby food jar, inscribing the date, putting it away next to several other labeled jars.
Mr. Eight joins the conversation at the fireplace standing next to Maurice and Moses who grew bored with the political analysis monopolizing every channel. “Where are Juzya and Azrok?”
The Old Chief leaning against the bookcase reading, “Still recuperating but
ready to relocate.”
Bitterman walks over to Mr. Eight extending his hand. “My sincerest apologies about this.”
Eight pretends to brush dust off his shoulder then cuffs into his black and gold intraphase uniform. The Pilot takes Bob’s hand shaking it firmly. “Even if I could apologize: I wouldn’t.”
Michelle alerts everyone gathered together to Morbiditus and Grigori’s late
night arrival and change in status from combatants to defectors. “Owing to their need to possess the presence; any intruders followed by manifestations of
the virus’s
presences, are to be shot on sight if they are attempting to leave with supplies of The Essence, stolen from Igor or Morbiditus.” Aurian and Lisa go to the third floor to ready their guest rooms. Moses and Maurice take up an offer from Bitterman and
Augustus to get a ride to the Reed Estate. Mr. Eight, Artrex and Aloysius follow close behind Lucian to Oldham AFB to prepare the S.X. Signet to switch lightmachs and swap locations with The Manta. Pierce asks Trevor, Friar Dormante and Aesop Mercurius
to join him at the kitchen table. Michelle follows them in sitting quietly after refreshing their hot drinks.
“You have to explore the plates sooner or later to understand the ships.”
Michelle broadly hints determined to speed up and deepen Trevor’s understanding of the missions ahead. Pierce shows the amber books to Aesop and Dormante who politely
refuse to touch them. Doc tells them of the God’s name paradox used to disable earlier sets of amber wells. Tapping the locking sequence on both books
the gold plates double the amount of ambient light in the room. The kitchen mirrors the grand dining
room, occupying the middle section of the ground floor, from the porticos central hallway to the eastern wall under the two Widow’s Watches, three floors above.
Near the hall is a central island with a rinsing sink circled by a horseshoe of counters below glass faced birch wood cabinets. The eastern end of the kitchen where the books are open has a porcelain wood stove and ten foot mahogany breakfast table,
with a beeswing red narra veneer top. Two hand carved oak rockers, with thick cushions, are on either side of the porcelain stove holding the coffee pot and muffins. Aesop and Dormante are equally afraid of the gold plates.
“Put all the plates inside to get an english translation.” Michelle leaves to sit on the front porch.
Dr. Vulchario enters the Silver Chalice, the center ring of his superbly polished operating theater where The Vulture 360 is gathered in rising rings of
combat hardened Drow Knots: their destructive potential marked by uniform dark brown coats, slouch
hats, leather riding boots, a whip and crop per general. Each slouch hat is adorned with a Gold Thunderbird marking its owner as permitted to enter the silver rings at the center of the Crystal Spring. This is the shining womb that
brought them forth
into glorious immortality. Each vortex paradome riding crop designates five million troops drawn from the clarifying processes of The Tower Of Absolutes essence purifying distillery. Vulchario is breathing slowly, turning methodically while thinking..
“Upon this great edifice, a ghostly figure has fallen down on our threshold, like a wounded star; following the destruction of the Witch Hossattanus.” Vulchario sways in the grip of sudden anger. “This penalty falls like a thunderbolt from heaven
demanding we conquer and possess the original five rings of creation. We slay our enemies’ citadels to the north, south, east and west”
Each assembled Drow Knot is an adept, a master of intraphase projection, who can create his own environment, weave a reality and radiate it; by manipulating
the force between chromatic tones in the living numbers, that are the life’s breath of The
Construct’s creation process.
“The accumulated bitterness of the enemy’s eight failures has brought this sword to our sides.”
The operating theatre’s air fills with cries and clamors of: “Trickery! Treachery! Treason!”
The whole theatre buzzes with a single mind controlled by its lord paramount Dr. Vulchario.
The master standing in the center of his creation raises his arms, flinging his
head back like an ancient sorcerer. “Let them face the final wrath, of the sword of empty shadows, spreading with the speed of light across all they deem holy.” Vulchario
let his hands drop, stopping before he had really begun: leaving each of The Vulture 360 with a cumulative fury and vociferous hunger.
Ivan sits on the lowest stair of the operating theatre staring across the empty space where the surgery table and instrument carts rest for him to imprint his presence on another survivor of the distillery. He rests his face on his hands, his elbows on
his knees groaning softly. He feels the desire to weep, something that he hasn’t felt inside the Crystal Spring in many journeys from the surface to the deepest wells. Taking the snow globe out of his jacket pocket he doesn’t bother to shake it,
Library City has removed Igor from this one due to its proximity to the disk.
Grigori has run away before with Morbiditus. Always the decision to place the disk haunts him before a great battle of protracted length. Each time it was left in Clocktown, on the high tower’s surface, Library City expanded physically,
intellectually, emotionally and most troublingly it gained ever more creative speed and efficiency. During times when there was little to threaten The Tower Of Absolute it would reach out and strike at the other power centers of Sealand
to test its
abilities. Ivan and Grigori using Disk-2 as a weapon, gained the tower, but they could not hold it and had to scale their way down and retreat; eventually discovering the Crystal Spring.
From a single home, then street Clocktown grew, each time piece invested with
a level of purity of The Essence only found in the Crystal Spring. Something about this disk and its relation with the others separate’s it, makes it more
fitting, more
select, more suitable to the human form.
Clocktown’s slow upward progression led to ten, fifteen, twenty story buildings until it finally reached one hundred and twenty-five stories. Rising from the spring to the surface that day brought an exultation never known before. From the spires
nest on Skyscraper V73 and its loft command Dr. Ivan Vulchario fought battles beyond the measure of any chronicled. It seemed useful to allow Library City to
learn the prominent tasks of its own self-defense and sharpen its sophisticated
strategies,
until it was superior to its threats; but surpassing all it continues to learn.

Alex and Harris come for fresh coffee and Trevor invites them to take the chairs opposite Aesop and Dormante. McBain is seated at the head of the table comfortable on the sturdy padding of the mahogany kitchen chair, his back to the eastern wall, the
stove to his right and Pierce to his left. The chair to his right has two stacks of books Michelle believes shall be helpful including a thick dictionary
and thesaurus. Major Danes wanders in, taking the end seat, to copy his notes from entering the
Crystal Spring, a few times over, hoping the exercise sheds new light on his observations. “How did you and Alex get kicked out of NID? Ted asks while drawing.
Alex casually, “Probably the same way you’ll get booted. They shall offer
you the top spot. When you refuse they’ll pretend you retired and set you up with an off budget task or position.”
Ted looks up, “Running the show at Oldham AFB is about the only serious assignment left.”
Pierce writes on and index card, “Translate Plates To American English,” sliding the plates into the translation book and retrieving them. He doesn’t notice too many changes excepting the stack seems heavier by four or five plates. Tucking the
schematic plates in their private drawer he puts the technical plates in the translation book. Retrieving them he notes this stack is heavier by three or four plates. He is not sure if it was assigning english as the basic language or the update.
Shuffling through the stack he finds a numbered series. Plate zero has an abstract inscription.
“A system of measuring, indexing and storing consciousness must be created for all forms.”
Pierce reads aloud before viewing the next plate titled: “One – Pure Self
– Natural.”
“Power, Strength, Endurance, Clarity, Vitality, Integrity, Rhythum, Balance, Momentum, Desire, Dedication, Discipline, Confident, Competent, Competitive. It’s the same index style code; but plates two through five are blank, except for a circle in
the right corner of plate five with four arrows on it: two pointed at each other, and two are pointed away from each other.”
Ted intrigued by the old disk’s master index code suggests; “Ask the technical book how to adjust the master index code or disks.” Pierce smirks, “Let’s hope we don’t blow it up.”
Doc writes up the question, “How do you adjust main indexes on The Origin disks?” closing and opening the book Pierce retrieves: “Name Disk – Name Triad – Propose Evaluate Resolve.”
Quickly inserting his second question, “What happens if the code malfunctions?”
The well replies, “Failure Deletes Disk.” on card one, card two replies, “Failure Deletes Beings.”
on card three, “Failure Studied Leads To Innovation.” Pierce has a churning
sensation inside and remembering Trevor’s recounting of events at The Core. “I’ve got it. I figured it out.”
Pierce writes a few notes and then slowly looks at Aesop, Dormante, Ted, Alex
and then Harris.
By the time he looks at Trevor with a knot in his cheek and a wry smile Trevor is ready to kick him. “Well?” Pierce solemnly in a tone of educating himself by slowly repeating something.
“The technical book is the communication device for the three engines inside the floating ring you talked about. It has to agree with the core which can be adjusted and…” Pierce looks at a plate depicting the core moving outward as a point inside
a circle, inside a square, inside a circle.
Trevor adds, “That is the basics, inside and outside the large circle are divided circles, Inside five circular descending stairs dividing the ring inward…”
Pierce gets revved up with insight, “If you count the five stairs and the ring you get six.”
“Where does the six come in?” asks Trevor looking lost.
“When the new disks were made at the Grand Canyon it was a five stage process but there is only one, just written index on disk one, and four blanks disks.” Pierce squirms, cracks his neck.

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