The Infinity Bridge

Part 6

11.

The projector whirred to life. Tiny motes of dust danced in the bright light as it shone on the wall. There was a rich smell in the air, an odd mix of cinnamon and oil. The Alpha android carefully adjusted a dial on the side of the projector. The reel that span on its top had no film tape within it.

Images began to flicker across the wall, faint and speckled, with a dilute worn quality to them. They were twisted forms, beings once human but now evolved down a different path. The images were mercifully faint, cloaked in grainy gloom.

‘Your report is fifteen cycles premature, Alpha,’ a voice screeched from the flickering image on the wall. It was like a knife dragging down glass.

‘My apologies, your eminence,’ Alpha replied. ‘There has been a possible development on this alternate that warranted the break from protocol.’

‘Report swiftly, I have other business to attend to.’

‘We have strong suspicions that this alternate is housing an InfinityBridge.’

The image flickered silently. Alpha could sense the distortion in the air created by the communication channel. Finally the grating voice spoke again.

‘This is excellent. I shall inform the Dark Council of this development. Needless to say if there is an InfinityBridge there is an activation code. Are you in possession of it?’

‘Not as yet, your eminence, but I have an android allocated to the mission. We shall prevail.’

‘Ensure that you do. The world-wide devastation will provide such succulent energy, Alpha. Do not fail.’

The twisted figure faded from view. Alpha switched the projector off and wiped away the traces of oil that ran from his nose. The pressure within the area of the Paradox Window machine was significant. He noticed with irritation that his watch had begun to move backwards.

Alpha packed away the Paradox Window projector into its box and straightened the dark room. Delta should have acquired the activation codes by now and Merlin’s lackeys should be dead.

On the table the synthetic skin that covered his hand lay, like a macabre glove. Alpha flexed the brass fingers of his hand, observing the myriad cogs and gears in his wrist and palm. Twenty years of inferior lubrication in this alternate had left it feeling stiff. He would welcome the prospect of the masters crossing over, and the rewards that would come with such an event.

Well, rewards for him and the vanguard; destruction and a terrible demise for all others in this backward world.

***

A light drizzle speckled Albert Jones’s face as he lay in the ferns. For an instant he could not understand why he was on a forest floor, covered in soil, feeling like he had been shoved through a giant mincer.