Time, and other inconsequential things

Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO

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"So, who do we have today?" asked Dr. Takashiro, with more than a little unease. None of the three dominants were exactly fun to deal with, Hayley herself was almost never ascendant.

The tech focused the monitor on the recumbent Hayley's eyes and through lids only barely slitted they could make out the emerald green.

"Damn! Krrn... his answers, gods, so infuriating."

Stepping in to the isolation chamber, the Doctor smiled and greeted the dominant personality. Its name a harsh almost click, followed by a buzz, ending on a brief hum with a rising tone.

"Good Morning Krrn. Might I speak with Hayley today?"

"The child has yet to choose and is thus too weak to manifest."

"Choose?"

"To accept and join, or refuse and pass."

"What does that choice represent?"

"If the host chooses to instantiate."

"And that means what?"

"The awareness of eternity, or the oblivion of the now." Krrn started a buzzing and dropped into a kneeling pose. Experience told Dr. Takashiro that he would get nothing more today. Sighing, he exited the suite. Hayley had been here a month and they knew little more now than they had the first day. Krrn claimed to be Vreen, a Monk Adept. Tyra was Anori, a mercenary thief that had left her home space long before they and the Chel exterminated each other. M!Tekk claimed to be of a species that wasn't even native to this arm of the galaxy, something called Chet!Tzu that had existed and passed beyond long before Earth's dinosaurs had reached their peak.

Each day the scanners reported the web work as spreading, growing more complex. Barely detectable at all, the best theory was that as Humanity used Atoms and Molecules to build their nanotechnology, this long-lost tech seemed to use Quarks directly.

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Hayley was nearly lost in what seemed an infinite void. An odd undefined lunar like orb hung at the center, it fascinated Hayley and called to her, but even more it somehow scared her. In the vast distance, other orb systems hung, separate but connected. Somehow she knew she was now smeared across the event horizon of a singularity set on a careful orbit, drifting between galaxies, it would be trillions of years before it's path intersected a source to fuel its eternal hunger and possibly disrupt their existence, otherwise they would exist until the end of Baryonic matter some 1.3x1032 years from now, when protons themselves decay.

Three bright orbs that burned fierce as Suns orbited the closest selenic orb, she didn't dare look too long on their brilliance, or she would drift closer. She could see the clustered dimmer sources, spinning in terminal orbits about those bright cores. Scattered in the void were the dim glows it didn't hurt to approach, but they mostly filled her with despair. Like the one next to her now. She reached out to brush fingers of light over the dim orbs nearby.

< what is happening? why can't I go home? just let me go home. > The voice a mere echo of what should have been strong and vibrant. Looking closer, images filled her of a small furred cub that found a half buried silvery metal rod and tried biting it, giving it entry.

Turning from that one she approached one that always made her feel better.

< hello child! how nice of you to visit. i think the grandchildren are due today. stay and eat with us when they arrive? > She always felt like she was visiting her grandmother in her rocker, even though she could see it was an aged Vreen lounging in a bubbling pool of mud. Each time she visited it was like a replay of some ancient memory. Events and dialog barely changing. Hayley drifted away, deep in thought.