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“OK let’s follow your logic, a six stage process represented by five plates, but you said blank disk five has a unique already written function. An off and on switch flipping the code maybe.”
Danes “I get the part where the technical book talks to the three engines. What or who does the translation book talk to.” Pierce nervously blurts out trying to think of two complex subjects at once, “The translation book is 2085 the whole space
inside is an info-ship, the point, the sphere around it, the monument, the floating ring, the ships lined up on the wall consoles and it is truly 2085 - The Future and The Construct. Do you notice the 2085 at The Octagon is very savvy?”
“These new well books are training the new 2085 then?” Ted asserts from years of familiarity with NID computer labs. Pierce and Trevor are looking at the amber books as if they just found a lost puppy trapped in a drain pipe. Frank comfortable with
all this information gathers his best summary question. “If one book talks technical adjustments to The Core and the Three Engines in the floating ring: and the other book translates things system wide to every part of the ship and the ships customers:
then where is the new ship the books are programming; and why did it give you five blank plates with one switch?” Dormante and Aesop are chain smoking and
drinking from flasks even though a dozen bottles of strong liquor are on a nearby counter in
plain sight.
“Try to remember what we saw at the Grand Canyon Doc; it must be the key riddle for the Disk-5 code switch.” Trevor is leaning forward arms on the table head scrunched downward as if he could use his will to help Pierce to solve the puzzle. Doc
slowly, “There were three, then two, then three, then one, then three…” Trevor led so close to understanding all his dreams and the moment of sheer terror at the canyon, “No Doc! There were three, then two, then three, then one, then three, then
three again: but with the three lines pointed towards the ten thirty horizon. 323133 not 32313.” Pierce draws the sequence 323133 on an index card including the lines extending outward off of the card inscribing: “Analyze System Function – Expound
Triads”
The New Engines reply for The New Core and The New Origin Point: “Acquire Disk Five.”
Pierce waving his hands about, “Well that totally sucked,” gets up pouring a hot coffee and drinking it down to fast, coming back to the table to stare at Harris but refusing to ask a question.
“But did it really suck? What happened to the books the last time that The Core revealed the abstract formulas it uses to talk to The Origin?” Trevor not having any ego or self-esteem overly invested in learning to operate the books, disks or
system they build: and gravely remembering the activities earlier in their one single night: which has been fourteen months in the natural world, “The Amber
Books revealed the master index and someone put a run of PI between each letter
using; “
Propose – Evaluate – Resolve” and then put ; “Master Index Equals God,” on the three cards, disabling the Three Engines in The Ring, and slowing the old system down, crashing the travel gates: and stopping a new system from being built… Now
it… The Mystery… It has adapted.” Trevor spoke slowly his eyes squinting moving from Harris to Pierce when talking about the old system crashing. Doc feels cold. “Before you two nervous nellies totally go off the deep end try to remember I’ve
been ending up sleeping in The Octagon since November 9, 1965. That’s a whopping, heartbreaking: 5477 days. One of those nights with a tarpaulin over my head, which Lucian has courteously removed.” Harris pours everyone a half a tumbler of whiskey
passing out the glasses, one per man. Dormante and Aesop are listening, fascinated, speechless.
“Ask the technical book for the list of Master Indexes.” Harris rolls up his sleeves, bolts down the half tumbler of whiskey, circling the table, scanning openly; expecting the same from each participant. Pierce puts the question on an index card, �
��List Master Index Names” slipping it in.
The technical book outputs: “Point / Line / Circle / Spiral / Sphere-Point AS Inward-Outward.”
Harris pours everyone a second drink. “Put the technical reply into the 2085 translation book.”
Doc acquiescing gets the reply: “Pure Self / Full Self / True Self / Whole Self / Natural Self.”
Harris looks to everyone drinking or nursing their drinks. “It is a simple,
robust, powerful system; that was built so that an eight year old could operate
it: does that ring a bell?”
Alex starts laughing and Harris nudges him politely. Ted looks up from his detailed drawings.
“Do you want that one Trevor?” McBain still sorting his earlier thoughts,
“No go for it Ted.”
“The system represents itself as the three boys, the three engines and the three bells. The night we borrowed power from The Core by using the divided ATM
in Body Fortresses mode and then crawled in at slow motion, you were at the Grand Canyon,
communicating to the future, or said physically, the outside, the beyond of the
construct. Well when the deal was done, Artrex, the native kid; came out of the
magnetic pit and he was carrying two infants.” Ted waves for a drink.
Trevor gets up, grabs clean tumblers and pours him and Danes a third of a glass. “So your saying quite a few of us have come out of that pit or some other pit over the years. Do I read you correctly on that? I don’t have any amazing super powers
that I am aware of.” Trevor points out.
“I have been to the Grand Canyon lots of times; the only thing I came home with was blisters.”
Brother Aesop, Father Dormante, and even Pierce; laughs at Major Ted’s dry deadpan delivery.
Trevor sitting, folds his arms narrowing his gaze, “Get to the point Ted, stop being clever.”
McBain does not discuss his lack of parents ever; considering the images he carries of Father Timothy McCredie and Sister Elaina Francis, more than enough to bridge the gap. Ted says humbly. “My point is the interloper at Vulchario’s little castle of
nightmares came from a pit.”
Mac looks at Ted his open palms near his ears. Ted innocently, “I think he’s with us that’s all.”
Harris thoughtfully: “Artrex came out of the pit with two infants, a set of
three, yet he is eight years of system time older. There is no one in this room
that didn’t come out of a pit. Grigori and Ivan Vulchario have surrendered; you do not
comprehend the crux of The Alliant’s arrival.”
“I’m really not able to focus on everybody’s family lineage. I’m like
a bloodhound scented on Disk-3…” McBain stammers wondering if he is still trapped on the grey longboat, “Disk-2.”
Looking at Harris sternly, “I’ve been waking up inside this system every night for twenty-five years, and I’m not standing there listening to classical music, or having books read to me, or getting answers to magical questions. I am supposed to
be at training camp for the Olympics.
So if your trying to lead me to water like a thirsty horse whose lost his way then it’s your own shadow that your chasing, to quote the venerable Zen master of dreaming, Dr. Ruhig.”
“Fair enough, sometimes it helps to talk something through…” Harris looks over at Pierce.
“I queried the books for the meaning of “AS” in the earlier code segment asking the index names: “Sphere-Point AS Inward-Outward.” the book output “AS = Assigned Symmetry.”
Trevor unwinding from his rant, “If it uses AS to code chances are it uses IS to code too.”
Pierce finishing his third half tumbler of whiskey looks at Aesop and Dormante reaching over absent mindedly to sample the contents of Aesop’s flasks. The Friar slaps his hand over Pierces’.
“No there’s flu medicine in there it would sicken you.” Doc, doe eyed, caught in the headlights.
“No problem gentlemen, anybody else need a fresh round?” Pierce availing himself of a distraction to lighten the tension gets up to pour a drink thinking “IS equals blank symmetry?”
Ted tries one last time, “You would have to be there to understand I suppose.”
Trevor struggling, “From my perspective Artrex was at the Grand Canyon; and
then vanished, reappearing according to your perspective; in the pit. I accept that. If you are making a leap of logic that twenty-five years ago, The Alliant
emerged from
the same magnetic pit, or some other variation of devices, carrying myself and Pierce, than that is a big leap. Yes it would be a bitter pill to swallow; on the other hand I see no proof or eyewitness. I agree The Alliant is a factor.”
Aurian and Lisa were still awake as three AM became four AM after readying the two large bedrooms on either side of the wide hall at the eastern end of the house; talking in the small foyer area between bedrooms; they are sitting on an ivory brocade
settee looking out the stained glass framed double doors towards the harbor. Up
and down the stairs several times to check on Trevor and Pierce they are drinking chamomile tea after showering and changing into nightwear.
“I’ve been having terrible dreams lately. Yesterday it was all that has happened here tonight except I was busy with my Dad and the election aftermath.
In the dream there were paramilitary black troopers assaulting Misty Hob with tear gas,
battering rams and automatic weapons.”
Auri and Lisa still moist; their creamy champagne hair flattened and stringy, wrapped in thick white terry cloth bathrobes look like delicate nymphs, washed in from a deep fathomless sea, as they sit gazing out towards the descending hills, crowded by
the Weeping Willows, that are as white as snow in the sunshine from the reflected light; of the hunter’s full moon.
“The way the storms have bent the trees together it looks as though they are old folks huddled together whispering secrets.” Lisa returns the opera glasses to Aurian so she can watch the ailing S.X. Skytrax slide back and forth
on lightmach-25 as
the intraphased system decays in fractional increments towards chaos and then an absolute null, void of forms or wills. “It’s moving now.”
Aurian hands the glasses back as the bowl shaped Skytrax divides into two segments. A ninety degree wedge shaped ribbed husk to dock the lost S.X. Rover and the multi environment triple layer hull of The Signet moving inland towards
The Octagon. Aurian
a student of dreams asks;
“Have you had any dreams of the young captains? I dreamed they’re both sick like the ships.”
Lisa pulls Auri’s hand to lead her up to the third floor hallway out to the
telescope porch;
“No I haven’t but Trevor told me Juzya has the three cloud sickness like your uncle Augustus.”
“At least we know who is running the real world now, or at least shall be running it.” Auri quips startling Lisa about to open the door. “Well that’s why I was asking.” Lisa says opening the door and uncovering a barrel shaped wide viewing
scope. Looking closely she sees the buoys
marking the recovery zones and seven types of frigate ships and four ocean going tugboats.
“More and more as election day neared I would wake up at The Octagon. I am frozen in place at first then drift out of my body. Once I am free of my body the dream runs like a movie. They assembly is engaged in special procedures to save my father and
Johnny LeMond. The ending is very dramatic with bridges appearing, a vast fleet
of ships over the woods, natural phenomena in the sky and huge amounts of people cooperating.” Lisa lets go of the scope so Aurian can view the small fleet. “Well Johnny
is gone and this world is just as deadly as the others, although I think our mutual friend, Monsieur Boris Le Spidier, the high wire walker has a few edges that Artrex and Aloysius don’t.” Lisa laughs hard enough for her robe to fall open quickly
tying it.
“He is a pistol that one. The players fear him. Time slows to a crawl as death approaches him.
He uses it like a primordial radar system to find kill zones and escape routes.
The smoother it feels the better it is all the way to effortless. In the dream he was the ringleader. The players marched in an X-shaped, one player crossing the tiny place
where the four granite floor pieces of The Octagon meet. He was like a traffic cop sequencing them through one player at a time.”
Aurian gently spins the telescope on its mount. “Do you think your dad dies
too?”
Lisa points towards the northeast Widow’s Watch letting her robe slip to the deck. Aurian’s body trembles under her robe. She drops the robe moaning. Lisa points to the tiny house again. Aurian takes a deep breath, holding both large firm breasts
curled skyward before relenting. She
turns head bowed, body quivering. Lisa follows her into the Widows Watch’s well of sorrows.
Lucian and Artrex in the S.X. Signet follow Aloysius and Mr. Eight in the S.X. Hunter over to The Octagon. The Core and 2085 confirm that Juzya Kydd is not stable. Moving from ship core to ship core Mr. Eight has determined Azrok Steppe is failing also.
Transiting the lightmachs Lucian berths The Signet a few yards north and parallel to The Manta. Mr. Eight docks The Archer above both ships midline, trying to form a pyramid circuit that can draw momentum from the three auxiliary dynamos circling below.
The Old Chief has forty million AR20 airborne assault forces he hopes can capture or disable the colossal zeppelins guarding The Vultures twenty-five million strong eastern deployment. In his military mind Lucian’s list of priorities are simple:
record Disk-2 or capture Disk-2, quickly summon The Rover to assist in the capture of The Tower Of Absolute intact as a forward command post if possible.
The Old Chief wonders if The Vulture shall hide out the duration of the battle in the protective sanctuary of the Crystal Spring. Before The Core began
to fail the ships were a safe harbor to ride out the storm when the fabrics of time that record
events cycled into their original positions.
Every time Ivan has hidden in the depths of the tower he has won the battle through stalemate.
Linking unbounded amounts of troops together as one expansive monumental attacking force to suddenly overwhelm Vulchario has destroyed Mr. Eight and Aloysius’s ability to use The Core to move troops. Artrex could still move a host of legions if The
Core wasn’t dying. Once the transfer from an old origin point to a new one begins the process must complete.
Lucian satisfied The Octagon is secured by the current troop strength assesses his immediate needs. Loading small items from the neatly stacked crates of supplies he examines his clothes and face in one of the golden bells and steps to the center of
the safe area. Requesting a 2085 service call he warns Mr. Eight of his departure. “The Eagle – All Transit 64 – The Dove.”

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