A Prison of Worlds (The Chained Worlds Chronicles Book 1) (21 page)

“Um,
hold on.  I thought nanites were outlawed.”

“Yes,
things were very comfortable until the Australian Meltdown.”  I mouthed the
term to myself.  I had heard about some riots during it, but had never bothered
to look it up.  It had ominous written all over it.  “An Australian nanite lab
had a batch of nanites go bad.  Within a day, the entire continent had been
reduced to its constituent parts.  It was more a miracle than anything else
that the thing wasn't programmed to bind to water.  It stopped at the coast and
the UN bathed the land in plasma hot enough to break the nanites down into
their own molecular parts.”

I
was staring at this point.  I had known this planet had some history, but that
was pretty bad, almost as bad as what had devastated my own world.  “So it was
banned after that?”

“Mostly,”
he paused again before continuing.  “Keep in mind that nanites did everything
for us from factories to medicine to robots.  Everyone alive at that point had
medical nanites in them.  It took a decade to convert from a nanite based
society, and it might have stalled if there hadn't been additional nanite
plagues.  Smaller, but by that point everything was high profile.”

“So
no nanites anymore.”  Now I felt bad about buying my black market patch kits. 
Just not enough to throw them out.

“Mostly. 
The medical nanites were really tough to extract without killing the host and
the research needed to remove them safely was banned on Earth.  So everyone
with medical nanites have to report to their doctor weekly, and there are some
really ugly fail-safes in their homes in case something mutates.”

“So
you're saying humanity had immortality and a good dose of invulnerability, and
gave it up.”

“Mostly.” 
Okay, now I knew he was doing that on purpose.  “We have medical treatment that
can give a fair approximation of immortality. Regeneration and cloning therapy
can heal almost as well as the supernaturals that revealed themselves recently,
but they aren't nearly as portable and often it’s a race to get to the
hospital.”  He sat in thought for another moment.  “Although they are doing
really impressive things with resuscitation treatments.  Still, if anyone is
really desperate to live forever and be able to regrow limbs without cloning or
being changed into the undead, they always have the option to move to Mars. 
Nanites and research with nanites are legal out there and they haven't had a
catastrophic disaster... yet.”

“Fair
enough.”  I sat quietly in thought and wondered how I hadn't noticed the immortal
humans wandering about.  Sure, almost everyone looked young... Okay, I should
have noticed that the only older looking people I have seen are the vampires
and the shifters but it didn't register.  Actually, I think I have seen old
people in the Blight and of course Eddie Prince looked pretty haggard.  I
suppose the rebels and the social drop outs don't get free health care.  There
was probably a story behind why Kingston looked how he did.

It
crossed my mind why in a non-aging society there wasn't a population problem,
and it occurred to me to wonder if a low birthrate offset it.  Did the sheer
number of the near end-of-world apocalypses account for the apparently average
population volume?

I
had given up my contemplation when we reached our destination.  Jeremy parked
his vehicle in a convenient location on the almost barren street.  I suppose
the floating hazard lights and the condemned holographic signs floating around
the entire block discouraged people from getting too close.  How about that?

“So
if this magical room of horrors is going to go critical in some unknown time in
the future, how can you be sure it won't pop while we are down there?” my human
companion asked in an overly patient tone.

“I'm
psychic, I can usually tell when the world going to end,” I replied flippantly
as I climbed down the ladder into the sewer system.  Yep, it still stank.

“Well
then, I don't suppose you can buy me the next winning lottery ticket,” Jeremy
asked as he settled next to me.  He took two sets of nose plugs out of his
pocket and handed me a pair.

“Only
if the world will end if we don't win,” I sallied back as I stuck the plugs in
my nose.  They became soft from my body heat and sealed seamlessly against my
skin.  I took a deep breath and enjoyed the lack of stench.  Did I mention that
Jeremy is my best friend?  The plugs are one of the many things he does all the
time to earn that title.

“Won't
the police have set up surveillance?” he asked, as we retraced my path to the
large underground chamber that had been set up as the circle matrix.

“I
am sure they tried as hard as their little hearts allowed, but with the amount
of magic floating around down there they won't get anything working, unless
they train a monkey to turn a film reel.”

“I
thought you said they were going to set up some force fields?”

“That's
what I suggested,” I said as I rounded the bend and came to a glowing blue wall
that had not been there previously.  I held out a hand to stop my companion
from breaking his nose on the field in front of us.  “And it looked like they
set it up.  It's pretty far from the circle barrier.  Also, they almost
certainly called in the military to do it.  The military has pretty good
shielding.  Set up right, it's pretty resistant to magic, as long as it's not
right on top of a node.  Sensory systems though... it doesn’t take much disruption
to turn order into chaos.”

Jeremy
kicked a bit of dried sludge at the barrier and fat sparks erupted from where
the matter was repulsed.  Not vaporized, just kicked back with a bit of
energy.  Nice to know the authorities in the city took into account someone
accidentally wandering down here.  In the deserted sewer.  I was actually
surprised they hadn't placed a human down here.  Perhaps they were short staffed
or had actually taken my warning to heart.

“So
if there's a force field here, why exactly are we down here?”

“You’re
my backup plan.  Do you remember when you first met me?”

“How
could I forget?  Your clothes were almost completely charred off and you were
staggering out of an alley way.”

“Yeah,
those were the good days,” he just looked at me.  “Okay, maybe not.  Anyway, do
you remember where that alley is?” Again he simply looked at me.  I suppose
that was a stupid question.  I think he has something very close to a
photographic memory, though I am not sure if it's natural or from his implant. 
He comes from a family of geniuses, so I suppose it may be natural.  “There
exists in that alley, on the ground, a large rune.  When I use certain
abilities, I am shunted directly there.”

“Is
that what happened last time?” he asked in a measured tone.  He had first seen
me drunkenly meandering out of the alley looking like my clothes had been
burned off, but what he didn't realize was I had actually spent several hours
laying in a pile of trash with my skin and everything down to my muscles vaporized
into nothing.  I hadn't known you could be so paralyzed with agony until I was
huddled there waiting for my skin to grow back.  That had been my first and
only attempt to use my native ability to move between dimensions, and when I
had gotten a tiny glimpse of how thoroughly I had been trapped in this city. 
Supernatural creatures have a huge pain tolerance, but I think I had reached my
maximum that night.

“Yes,”
I quietly replied.  He didn't need the details.  If it gave me nightmares then
it wasn't good to dwell on.

“How
does that effect this?” he nodded towards the force field.

“Well,
hopefully not at all.   You're my backup plan in case the shit hits the fan.” 
While I was saying this I tried to clear the muck away from the sewer wall by
scraping my shoe on it.  I would need a place to sit.  “I can separate my
spirit from my body...”

“Astral
projection?  It's real?” he interjected somewhat startled.  I looked at him.  “Right,
of course it's real.”

“Yes,
of course it is,” I mimicked him with a smile.  “If it all goes well, I can
move through the field and circle barrier and take a look at the wards and
circles inside, and pop back to my body.”  The circle barrier was
questionable.  It depended on how the creator had defined it.

“What
if things don't go so well?”

“I
haven't tried this since I was... stuck here. There's a chance that once I am
not anchored by my body I could be drawn to that alleyway you found me in.  If
that happens I won't be able to get back in my body until it takes up the same
space as my spirit.”

“Which
will be glued to the rune in that alley.”

I
shrugged uncomfortably.  “Yeah.  That.”

“I
am glad you're trusting me with this,” he said with a slight smile.  “How will
I recognize the rune?”

“Oh,
come on! How many runes do you think there are in the damn city?” I exclaimed
indignantly before I saw his smile widen.  Ah, a joke.  I hate being on the
wrong end of them. “Right.  Ha ha.  For your reference, it will look like a
larger version of one of the symbols on my chest.  You may remember from that
night.”

He
frowned and nodded.  Likely he was still trying to connect the dots.  He's a
smart one, but he doesn't have all the pieces and I really didn't feel like
discussing it.  I sat down on a slightly cleaner area on the floor and closed
my eyes.  Gathering my concentration, I forced my sense of self to move without
actually moving.  It really is as strange as it sounds, and you may have to be
a teeny bit crazy to get it to work.  After a moment of resistance, I felt
myself break free, and it immediately felt like I was caught in a strong
current.  Looking around, I found I was in the tunnel with my body sitting on
the floor and Jeremy standing over it with a concerned look on his face. 
Everything more than 20 feet was lost in a fog, blurred beyond recognition. 

I
was slowly moving backward despite my feet not moving.  Travel on the astral
plane is more a matter of perspective.  In theory, you can will yourself
anywhere you want instantly and not have to go through the distance in
between.  In practice, even though you have no physical body, it's safer to
force yourself to think that you do.  Those of us that evolved inside a body
tend to dissipate when they forget that.  Of course, there's a fuzzy line in
between tricking yourself into believing you have a body and spreading out to
kingdom come.  Between these extremes lies the part where the astral plane is
useful.

Seeing
the world move around me, I realized that the anchor rune must be drawing me
out, and I did my best to firmly concentrate on the concept of a physical
body.  Because, of course, a solid body did not float away on its own.  As I
forced myself to believe this, I gradually stopped drifting and came to rest
next to the wall.  I sighed with relief and made a point not to notice that
this very action was impossible.  If I had gone through the wall, it would have
been very difficult to convince myself that I was solid enough not to feel the
pull.

At
this point, Jeremy was out of my limited visual range but I was through the
force field the city had set up.  In fact, I didn't even see it from this
plane.  That was good; it told me that the police barrier was purely a physical
phenomenon.  I turned down the tunnel and headed toward the circle master's
sanctuary. I made a point to pretend to feel the ground beneath my feet as I
moved.  I needed as much reinforcement as possible.  Keeping to the physical
body concept limited me, but it also protected me.  Unfortunately, it was also
going to be pretty tiring to play pretend without a break until I was back in
my body.

I
could tell when I stepped into the large chamber as the walls gave way to the
ever-present fog.  It didn't have the same impact as before simply because I
was cocooned within the fuzziness around me.  No matter how large the room was,
my personal space was a twenty foot bubble around me.  Moving deeper into the
room, the circle barrier was barely visible as little more than a shimmering
bubble.  I took a deep breath and stepped through it.  Only a faint resistance
met my stride.  The fact I made it through told me that the circle had been
defined as a purely physical effect.  It wouldn't have taken almost any effort
to fortify it against magic and spirits.  If that had been the case, I would
have had a terrible time getting through.  If it was possible at all. 
Ironically, the wards I had in my home were the complete reverse, barely able
to give a vampire a rash but should be completely solid versus the less than physical.

The
world started to move around me once again, telling me that I had let my
attention stray.  Letting myself imagine the feel of the ground beneath my feet
and the air through my lungs, I came to a halt once more.  I had to hurry
before I began to drift off.

I
crisscrossed the area inside the bubble, getting a feel for the area.  As
before, I noted the matrix of circles were all linked and the central circle had
a hastily inscribed trigger effect attached to it.  I could tell it was done in
a hurry, because when compared with the perfect symmetry of the other arches
and circles etched on the floor, the trigger was slightly off-center and the
depth varied slightly.  Still obviously done by a master, but apparently one
who was in a hurry.