The Split

Chapter 33

Undetermined

My thoughts tumbled space and time in a blur. All around me I could see moving scenes, all beyond my comprehension. Strange shapes and bizarre forms of life I had never seen before moved through landscapes of unimaginable color and design.

"What is this?" I thought in a panic. My contained journeys through the darkness of time before had been nothing like what I was experiencing now. I seemed to be spinning through the entire scope of creation, only briefly catching glimpses of anything familiar or human.

Suddenly, I crashed into something. I felt my thoughts spinning wildly from the impact. I careened off course, dipping into the swirl of strange life below me. A body appeared around my mind and I could feel the place's climate on freshly formed skin.

Cold enveloped me, I shivered, my skin on fire as my goosebumps turned to numbness. I couldn't breathe. I gasped in a panic and felt my lungs being crushed from the pressure.

The stream of motion that had dipped me below, arced upwards and I felt my body disappear as my thoughts freed themselves into the moving current I had just left. My fear had subsided, the streaks of colorful life shooting by seemed more appealing now than they had a few seconds ago.

Suddenly I felt thoughts I had not summoned stir in the back of my mind. I turned around to face them and with a shock felt two separate consciousnesses attached to my own turning and hurling with me through the space.

I extended my thoughts towards my new occupants and felt them both recoil at my touch. Aggressively I lunched forward at one of them.

"Where am I? Whose thoughts are these? Where are the others? What are these strange places?" The steam was endless questions and confusion.

The voice spoke in a baritone staccato. I tried to talk to it, but it's own panic drowned out my thoughts.

"HEY!" I shouted at it, focusing all my thoughts on the words to overpower his babble. It was silent for a few moments, and I continued on while I had it's attention.

"All will be explained. Believe it or not I've actually been where you are right now. Who are you?"

"I... I am, AIC/protocols/x1c/Sun-Tzu.exe, but I am known to my kind as simply, Sun-Tzu. What is happening?"

"Nice to meet you Sun-Tzu," I said, trying to sound pleasant, but firm, my thoughts running wild with possibility at how a famous Chinese general made it into my mind, "Now you'll have to hold on. I'm sure you see the other consciousness you came here with?"

"Yes, he seems familiar, I know I am glad he's here."

I pulled away from Sun-Tzu, and towards the other new arrival. The background of life and strange world was as enticing as it was distracting, and I felt myself having to tear away from staring at it.

The other mind was less questioning, I could sense it's frustration as I moved into hear it's thoughts.

"Man, what the fuck? I told that asshole Plato and Gandhi that this wasn't gonna work. Where the hell even am I? 'Let's wait until we know more about this shared mind.' I say but they're all, 'we have the moral authority to act now!' Meh!"

I couldn't help but laugh at the way his voice changed in his last sentence. He felt my amusement and noticed me examining him.

"So. I'm guessing you're Burl, I didn't get transferred over properly, and this," he sent a thought over showing the moving of space and time around us, "is the.... Hold on let me guess.... Highway to some kind of space hell?"

"I'm impressed!" I replied surprised, "4 stars for you! We're not going to hell though, but I'll doubt you're going to like where we ARE going."

"Yeah, yeah." He felt calm but annoyed.