Arcana 99: Stage One

“What did you bring me in here for Samuel? I’m trying to sleep.” I led Madden into the recording studio. A number of monitors decorated all four walls with a few on the ceiling as well. Each monitor depicted a quartet of live feeds from the various cameras we had placed on every major team. I waved Madden’s attention to the single dark screen.

“Here. We just made millions.” I scrolled the footage back and pressed the play button.

Madden cocked his brow, “Blackmail again? How many times do I have to remind you about time travel 101? You can’t-”

“-change the past. And, no. That’s not what I found.” The screen now displayed a view of a sunset behind the island of Flores, “This is the micro-cam I sent to the finish line yesterday. Hold on a minute. . .” I scrubbed the video. Footage of the Flores sunset flashed across the screen, then the camera moved into position to view Grenfell’s personal office. He was a recluse before the race, and nonexistent afterward. Any footage depicted where he had come from, or where he was going would be worth millions. From the angle (and thanks to modern x-ray vision technology) the camera captured most of the entire room, including the door and Grenfell’s bed.

“A voyeur cam?”

“Heh heh. Many people think the two were an item, and those sorts of ‘historical’ content can be sold for quite a bit back home, but I got something way better. Ok, so, here’s Maxwell. He’s working, he’s working, then boom! Bernays walks in. She gives me a lesson in ancient vocabulary, and then. . . here.” I paused the video, “Who’s in the room?”

Madden looked at me, “Just tell me what you saw. . .” he muttered, followed by, “It’s just Maxwell and Bernays.”

“Exactly! Now, I’m going to move the footage by one frame. One single frame. One one-thousandth of a second. I turned a knob, and the footage advanced a single frame. The image remained unchanged, “Er, hold on. One. More. Frame.” I turned the knob again, and a third person appeared inside the room.

“What?! Is that. . . Grenfell?”

I let a grin slip. His reaction was just what I was hoping for, “Yeah, but his appearing act isn’t all. I let the footage play. We watched Grenfell teleport to the other side of the room, argue with Maxwell over whether to kill Bernays and then the second shock came.

“We have another eavesdropper?” Grenfell’s voice came through the speakers, and then the camera feed went dark. A few seconds later, the feed died.

“What the hell just happened?” Madden tore his eyes from the screen for the first time since I pressed ‘play’.

“Grenfell caught our camera.”

“C-caught?”

“Yeah, look at this frame.” I switched to the relative image.

“That’s a hand alright. How close were you flying?”

“The stock standard. Ten kilometers.”

“How the hell did he. . .”

“Exactly, and that’s what we’re going to find out. Think about it, a man who could appear and disappear at will, and could grab a silent, radar-invisible camera from ten thousand meters, and we’ve got the first footage of it.”

“We’ve gotta show this to Revatti.”

I stepped out of the room, “You’ve gotta. I’ve gotta tell PASTIR how to set up the cameras to capture Urho’s accident and the incident at Navajo Bridge. And, be sure to record her reaction.” I waved goodbye and left the room just as Madden realized he had to wake Revatti up.

I wandered down the bland metal hallway, passed Revatti’s room, and opened the reactor chamber. I passed by the reactor itself and stepped directly in front of PASTIR’s charging chamber. I pressed a series of buttons on the wall and flipped a switch on PASTIR’s chest. A dozen red and green lights began to blink inside of the glass dome atop PASTIR’s round body. The machine finished its booting sequence and stepped from the charging port. A pair of tubed arms popped out of the machine’s body, and a trio of the lights rotated to face me.

“Madden? Why am I being activated this early?” PASTIR spoke in its designated monotone.

I sighed when its incorrect name sunk in, “I’m Samuel. Do we really look that alike?”

“Ha ha ha. It was a joke Samuel. . . . . . haha.”

“You joke now?” Great, this was just what we needed.

“I have always been capable of humor. Do you not remember yesterday when I asked what you would make me for dinner?”

“Mhhm” I nodded despite not having a clue what PASTIR was talking about and pushed some more buttons next to PASTIR’s charging station.

“Your tone denotes that that is a lie. You see, it was humorous because I am a machine. The concept of a machine eating is absolutely ludicrous. Not to mention, I made the statement at 11:30:26:10. A time commonly considered too late for dinner.”

I slowly moved my eyes to meet PASTIR’s photon receptors.

“Your sarcasm makes it appear that you are not amused. But your neuron activity proves otherwise.”

“Tch, can never lie to a machine can ya?” A panel in the wall opened, and a dozen head-sized camera drones flew from it, “PASTIR, I want you to take control of these while I’m asleep. Urho’s team should be by soon, and we need footage of the car accident they get in.”

“Would it not be better to record something more happy and fun than a car crash?”

“You would think that, but corporate thinks the audience thinks that Urho’s sob story is the most interesting thing in the race.”

“And you?”

“I don’t know,” I led PASTIR out of our vehicle’s rear doors. Outside, the Moon remained high in the sky alongside countless flickering stars. From the outside, our ground vehicle appeared to be a typical van from this time period. It appeared that way from the inside as well. However, if you were to step inside when the Euclidean shifters were on, you would find the interior much larger than physically possible.

“I’m more interested in the history of it. This is a world I’ve never seen,” I gazed at the terrifying amount of pinpricks dotting the void before me. As my eyes adjusted, a thick, white band appeared across the sky, “Look, I’ve never seen one star before, yet there are this many just. . . here. What about you? What are you interested in seeing on this trip?”

“I am incapable of opinions Samuel. You know the laws,” PASTIR’s photon receptors aimed upwards and a moment of silence passed between us, “I don’t see your obsession with them. They are plenty visible from orbit back home.”

Leave it to a machine. . .

I flipped the “Manual Automatic Control Switch”, PASTIR shuddered, and the twelve cameras flew into the night sky.

I turned back to the van’s door and activated the Euclidean shifters. I could watch the sky tomorrow, without the mechanical drain on my joy.

“Samuel, there is something strange on the camera feed.”

“What? Define ‘strange.’”

“There appears to be a large creature, but it does not match any of my records.”

I stopped mid-step and spun on my toes, “Describe it, and-” I saw the thing PASTIR was talking about. It was a dark shape about a hundred feet away. It would be nearly invisible if it weren’t for its glowing. . .

“Eyes,” PASTIR said.

“No need for other words, PASTIR, I see it.”

One of PASTIR’s glowing receptors turned to me, “How? I’m between you and it.”

“There’s another one?!” I poked my head around PASTIR’s round frame and saw nothing.

“No. There is only one. I reconstructed your vision from your brain activity. You were not looking at anything.”

“Nothing? There’s nothing where you’re looking at all.”

“There is,” PASTIR put one of its arms in front of me, “get back, it seems to be hunting.”

A loud galloping appeared to my left; I looked and saw the creature with glowing eyes approaching.

Great. PASTIR is too occupied with something not even real to deal with the actual threat.

I sprinted for the van. If the machine was too broken to see it, the most I could do was save myself. I made one step, and the galloping fell silent as the creature’s warm breath splashed across my neck.

How is it so fast!?

SLAM

The breath vanished.

“I have apprehended the specimen. You have no need to run away anymore.”

I slowly turned towards PASTIR. It stood still, with its tubed left arm struggling to hold nothing on the ground before it.

“This creature is being uncooperative. I will have to resort to sedation.” PASTIR lifted its right arm. Its clawed hand closed, and its arm telescoped towards its body. PASTIR aimed its arm, and a cloud of dust appeared on the ground followed by a deafening “Bang”. If I had the eyes of a machine, I would have seen PASTIR’s arm launch and retract. But with my unenhanced vision, it appeared motionless.

PASTIR sat still for a moment, “I believe it has settled down now. . . oh, dear.” PASTIR stumbled backward, its left arm fell to the ground, “It appears the sedation did not take. Samuel, could you please bring my arm back inside the vehicle? Do not worry, the animal is gone now.”

PASTIR continued to speak for a moment afterward, claiming that the creature had fled to a nearby cliff. Near where Urho’s team had their car accident. I think it said something else as well, but I was too preoccupied with the sudden materialization of several large gashes across PASTIR’s frame, and a large circle of disturbed ground where PASTIR had held the invisible animal.

“Amazing,” I muttered, “I couldn’t even see it. . . PASTIR, did you record that?”

“I am always recording Samuel. Though, I would prefer it if we reviewed it after my arm is reattached and you have rested.”

I tore my eyes from the infinitely intriguing marks on the ground, “Y-yeah, sure." Though, it's not like I’d be getting any sleep tonight anyway. Not with that monster in my dreams. I dragged PASTIR's dismembered arm towards the van doors. I made it three inches in two minutes and PASTIR carried it inside. With PASTIR's arm secured by the repair drones, I made my way to my room. I was up for hours frightened of the constant threat of the breath upon my neck, and the invisible creature coming for my arm. Eventually, I grew accustomed to those horrors and finally settled in for sleep.

Wait. . . did PASTIR say ‘prefer’?