Lucas, Astra and Bryan entered the strange sphere building, passing the very odd energy field that made up the outer layer of the alien building. The sight that greeted them was... strange. Lucas in particular was more curious though Bryan was struggling with the whole how and why regarding the nature of this reality.
"It is higher dimensional," said Astra with a curious familiarity in her voice to it.
"Is that why I feel like I'm about to hit a wall that looks to be about a mile away?" said Bryan as his eyes adjusted to the strange environment. He cringed slightly as yet another wall appeared just before his nose, before moving away as he took another step.
"Bigger on the inside," shrugged Lucas. "Been there, done that. Come on, let's get to the centre."
"Um- isn't it that way?" asked Bryan. Why are they walking sideways?
"You got a lot to learn my man," grinned the angel. "Trust me, to get to the centre we have to sort of... curve along. It's just the way these dimensions work. Curves are straight lines here. Well- everywhere really." As Lucas walked, echoes of her presence followed after her. Her white wings were as silhouettes to a multitude of shadows.
Astra looked around. She had a vague understanding of this kind of dimension that seemed to come across as an instinct. A strange knowledge that was not typical of others around her, although Lucas was reasonably capable here. As these instincts came, she knew she was different in some ways. She knew... that she had no past. She was not born like others, and it made it so hard sometimes to connect to the people she loved. She loved her mother though, and believed altering reality itself was a small price to pay for her happiness.
The colours of the inner-sphere seemed to change colour. Shades of silver became new shades of red, green and blue... shifting in violet and yellows by every vibration. It was like the colours of a rainbow. The closer they got to the centre, the more the colours shifted.
Bryan was starting to feel as if something was pressing on him. The sheer alienness of, not just the place they were in, but the dimensional space they inhabited was maddening. He couldn't take it any more. A strange kind of claustrophobia was setting in, even though space was wide- it was small too. infinitely too small. Smaller then he should be able to exit in. This was a coffin, a place not even part of the real universe.
"We have to get out of here!!!" He suddenly screamed. He buried his face in his hands, but it did not stop the fluctuating lights that danced on his vision. Now he thought he could see inside his own flesh, his own bones, as his vision tunnelled in and around this alien architecture.
Astra quietly approached and took hold of his hand. The touch... seemed to bring a measure of calm. Bryan couldn't help it, he started to shed a few tears.
"It can get to you," said Lucas re-assuringly. "I've seen realities far more terrifying then this. Just give it a few hours. Either you'll adapt or... eh... you'll adapt." The angel girl said with confidence. Of course it was probably not the best way to explain some of the weird things she had personally seen.
Bryan stared at Lucas a long while. It would be nice to believe, a real angel was on his side. Even if... she wasn't really an angel. He groaned a little trying to steady himself. Looking at this place with one eye seemed to help a little. It placated his nausea anyway, as they pressed on. Curves were straight lines, and the strange shifting colours hurt his eye. He could almost think he was seeing a strange new colour in the hue, that his mind could not process.
Finally, they reached the centre... with a single platform on it, similar to the strange cars outside but much larger. This was a perfect two dimensional circle shifting in all the colours seen and unseen.
As they stood on it, they felt a feeling of motion as the outer-sphere seemed to collapse into their world view, like an implosion of matter.
"Where are we?" asked Bryan. The whole place was a blank slate... except for a single glowing orb. He recognised it as a small iridescent Sun. This machine was powered by a miniature version of a magic sun? So did that mean... it was now drawing vast amounts of power, with the new sun of this planet? They became aware of the energy being syphoned into some kind of 'computer', but it was not like any machine they had seen.
"Amazing," said Lucas. "Voice activated or does it have a lever? Hm... doesn't look like it's quite like an Earth machine."
Astra glanced around. She seemed to have recovered enough now to fly... but something about this was filling her with dread. Something so familiar and yet... alien. "It is a... universe machine. It creates scenarios." she said.
Lucas glanced at a button. She couldn't help herself and just pushed it.
A glowing sphere appeared in front of them, like a holographic display. A billion tiny points were as grains of sand, scattered into the space. It grew larger, and larger... then vanished, boiled away, as soon as it expanded too far.
Lucas stared at it with silent wide eyes.
"Um... what was that?" asked Bryan.
"A universe," said Astra.
"What happened... to it?"
"It died." said Astra plainly as she looked at where it once was.
"That... quickly?" asked Bryan very troubled at that thought. An entire universe was just born and died in front of them. Was it real or a... simulation? "Did... was that 'real?'
Astra looked at him with confusion. "It was a scenario. It is as real as the ones we live in."
Lucas looked around the settings of various levels and dials. "It seems to be a universe creator system. You set the initial settings, and bang- or rather, big bang. That was a real universe we saw explode- just slightly less reall maybe? At least they had a good trillion trillion trillion years on the inside."
Bryan whistled recovering rather quickly at the thought of witnessing the start and end of an entire universe, faster then he could blink an eye. But while that was interesting, it was not the main part of the machine. There was something much larger, encircling the Big-bang generator.
This was perhaps a little stranger. They looked like the really old style computers of the sixties on Earth, and ran on tape-media. Various buttons glowed, and held runic symbols on them. These cabinets were not as squares however and curved circular in a similar way, so that all faced towards where the universe lit up.
Astra looked nervously. "The... the Rules. The fundamental Rules of Reality. On tape."
And beyond that... were the processes by which, one could alter them. Machines that wrote new rules into the tapes. Every rule of reality, from the speed of light to the gravitational constant. This thing didn't just grant wishes... it could re-create a universe- then apply it to the current universe in some way... By either merging or going as far as 'replacing'. It was such a daunting prospect to behold.
Astra was now very nervous at just how her wishes would be granted by such a setup... the possibilities were endless. Still she had a good understanding of this language, and her goal was only memory manipulation. That should be relatively safe.
Lucas was starting to frown a little at the implications of what she was looking at here. This wasn't like the Key-stones, which were part of the system of their own universe. It was as if someone had tried to reverse-engineer a magical keystone, and came up with a back door. "It's a reality hacker. A bloody reality hacker."
Symbols were scrolling down a screen and... oddly enough, the computer had the windows logo on it.
"That's not right... what does that say?" asked Lucas. Why would an alien machine have Earth-symbols on it?
Astra looked at the machine. "It says that it has established a connection to the... internet." she said.
"Internet? They have an internet here?" Asked Bryan.
"No... it's... formed a connection to Earth's internet. That says it has detected faults and is repairing the... network," said Astra pointing to a blinking symbol on a screen.
"Why's it gone in there?" asked Lucas.
Astra looked at the various controls. "It... it wasn't designed with the idea that other computers might exist. Not an alien one like Earth. it thinks the internet on Earth is part of itself. So it connected to it and found it does not conform to what it thinks it should be. It is using its own um... software to 'fix' it. Every computer on Earth is now connected to this machine."
It was actually pretty normal for a system to run diagnostis... and 'repair' what it found wrong. The implication of this though... what was it going to do to Earth's internet when it was done? Digital fairies lived there! Earth depended on the internet! This system was re-writing it... due to the connection of the strange Rainbow Bridge.
Suddenly the lights of the machine all lit up, and a picture of Bryan appeared where the universe display once stood. Various strange writings appeared.
"What does that say Astra?" asked Lucas.
Astra looked at the symbols. "It say it has the power now to grant Bryan's wish. A big bang is forming. It is initiating a scenario."
Bryan sweated slightly. "W-what is it going to do?" He didn't want to break reality! He just wanted to... to have magic. "Can you stop it?"
Symbols started to appear in sequence... and a red alarm sounded.
A big bang was forming... and another, and another... Three of them in total, as the machine tried to find a solution to the wish Bryan had made. A wish for magic.
"It's trying to make Bryan a magic," said Astra.
"A magic?" asked Lucas. "What do you mean by 'a magic'?" A magic what? No... the machine couldn't possibly... it couldn't...
"That is how I can best translate what he said to the node," explained Astra. "But it can't grant that wish without altering something in the universe. Something very fundamental."
Lucas went wide eyed. "It's going to try and change... that?"The only kind of magic Lucas knew of that the machine might possibly grant was... to be a... Number. A magic Number... "Uh oh..."
Astra looked nervously. This was partly her own fault. They didn't know the nature of this machine, that it could alter reality in ways the magic stone could not.
Deep within the bowls of the machine, gears were grinding as energy flowed, altering the cosmology of the Universe. The desire was to grant this new scenario. It could find no solution... there was no mathematical way, to accomplish what the machine had to accomplish. Normally it would cut out and ask for another wish. But something about being connected to Earth's internet seemed to give it a new drive. An imagination to find a solution... it scoured everything Man-kind had created, both fiction and the sciences and developed new equations from their understanding of reality.
Scenario accepted. new Universe created. Re-intiliasing subject Bryan
... and Bryan disappeared.
