The Observers

Resonance

"Through the light, you are safe," came the voice, the calm taking me up and out, off the floor. I found myself waking from the dream, hearing the voice - still, undamped.

I heard the jazz again, and it meant something new to me. The calm was in that jazz, part of it - another instrument in its orchestration. It permeated me, filled me with its strength as a warm bath soothes a lasting, aching soreness.

I was on my feet, but they did not feel the concrete floor. I floated in the current of the music, and it gentled me to a new door, far down the Hallway. The door was inexpressive, blankly painted in a drab greenish-gray, with a plain, grey handle - some maintenance accessway for some bland, old building. A glow seeped through a crack in the bottom, where the weather seal had been broken - or, perhaps, was designed that way.

I saw my arm reach out, my hand twist the knob. Only when my body stepped through did the music stop, and my senses resume.

It was a narrow room, with about three feet on either side of the doorway. Forward it stretched some length, about twenty feet, ahead. Then, the room staggered into strata - stairs leading up to some square, concrete platform, with some dangling device coming from the high ceiling. About twenty feet high, a projector jutted from the ceiling, centered to that walkway leading up to the stairs; it was a lone stalactite in an edgy cave, pointing its lens back towards the door.

On it whirred:

"Hello," boomed the Suit, stifling the pinched room from his looming desk. "This is the Delineation Room. Behind you is a contraption vital to our operations."

...and?

"It is no mistake you have arrived here. As an Operator, you have proven capable enough to entrust with a higher level of risk."

The image changed, and the whiteboard appeared again. It was decorated with a sharp, thick, black, vertical line down the middle, and green or red squiggles to its left or right, respectively. A black arrow shot orthogonal to the line, through it, and finished with its tip - a scratchy 'X' - in the red mess.

"In a resting planar topography, two dimensions align like so," Suit gestured to the board. "Crossing a threshold is impossible, as the relation is not a matter of displacement in space - rather, it is one in time."

Suit flipped the whiteboard. The other side bore two vertical bars bordering a mixed green-and-red zone, with the same red-right and green-left setup as before. The portion of the arrow in the mixed zone zig-zagged, then returned straight in the red - and ended in the anticipated 'V' point.

"This is the RMD - the Resonance Merging Device. It manipulates the phenomenon of frequency resonance to locally harmonize an inter-planar stability zone by creating a standing wave of sufficient constructive interference. Everything has a natural frequency - the so-called "fabric of reality" is no different. Before the technology of quantum teleportation, the RMD was used to study near-instantaneous travel. Since the Arrival, however, we have employed RMDs to contain the Observers... by pocketing them away in an adjacent dimension."

This is insane. This technology shouldn't even exist - and he's saying it has for 24 years?!

"Such is our imprudence and desperation."

The image returned Suit to his desk.

"Now, we have a dire problem."

I could hardly understand the man. How did he want me to solve his problems? With my 'Spark,' or something?

"The Observers in the adjacent dimension have become powerful. In conjunction with the spontaneous harmonization of dimensions, this poses a major threat."

Suit glanced away - the first crack of anxiety to disgrace the poise of the rigid man - then resumed his spiel.

"Their growth has been... unrestricted. If they cross over to our plane... imagine a massive Observer crossing - even peaking through - to a populated area..."

Dear God...

"Save us all, Alexander. Your mission is nothing less."

Suit produced a glass, as if from nowhere, and swigged it down.

"Your first assignment is a relatively smaller entity that we've pinpointed in dense woodlands. Good luck, Alexander." The projector whirred off.

Then, the room changed. It was something barely perceived, a note of bass barely within range of hearing. It was like an unscratchable itch, frustratingly close; only my military discipline saved me from outright succumbing to the utter impulse to curl up and plug my ears.

Slowly, however, something unbelievable stole away all of my attention: the room began to ripple and tear. It was not the wall - the barren concrete bore no cracks. It was the room itself - the space inside began to waver and crackle. Light burst in and out as a seam burned to life, the blinding birth of a new reality distilled into a single room. I noticed that it was the dangling device that concocted this effect, ripping the space into a new world as the tear began to widen into a hole. Light bounced around the room, and the place lit up as if by sunlight. Indeed, sunlight did pour through the hole; I shielded my eyes, and saw the whites and browns and light-greens of an aspen grove stretch before me.