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Once inside the transit, four double lines of vertical blue and red circulating computational light are inside the still darkness. The 2085 system is behaving as if it is functioning properly. Hoping normal procedures are in place; Lucian takes two
steps forward touching the three small golden orbulets, on the furthest set of gates, floating at waist level between the bright active transfer lines. The Old Chief lands in the shaded center of the six benches. The old green stone bubbler to his right,
the parks wrought iron grate rubbish bin to his left; a subtle breeze in the oaks. Lucian is instantly annoyed with himself for not testing The Dove as a transit marker. There is no way to know for sure without extending trust whether he just traveled
through the new or old core.
The Alliant sensing the subtle perturbations of the past and future synchronizing is awake and alert sitting behind Lucian smoking and reading a book without a title. He stands and Lucian turns. He looks nothing like Pierce,
Trevor, the boys or the
young captains. Lucian steps forward.
“I am unaware of the proper protocols; if you’re willing to educate me please do so.”
The Alliant holds a leather case in his left hand extending his right hand completely. The men greet each other and Lucian familiar with many types of eyewear dons the glasses. “Tune one to one correspondence.” The chief sees steady waves of red
grids emanating from both of their bodies passing between himself and The Alliant signaling healthy information movement in The Construct. “”Tune The
One to The All.” The amount of All Black, All White and mediant color rings transported by the
All Clear 2085 moving inward and outward from The Alliant was too much even for
Lucian to observe for too long without a sense of nausea and dizziness.
“It is a courtesy and gesture of faith to not use blank slate technology and hope The Players can resolve the impasse.” The Alliant states reflexively
to Lucian as he is returning the eyewear.
Continuing with a calm demeanor, “Ivan has been warned he must lead his troops and fight.”
Lucian relaxing considerably, “Is it within the boundary of fair play to inquire where the other three gates lead?” The Alliant matter-of-factly, “Everywhere I travel is a continuous process of gating, phasing and tolling the eternal
consciousness. I chose Parkland, Library City, Clocktown and the Crystal Spring as highly recognizable iconic gate locations.”
The Old Chief feels profoundly sad, enough to express it, “If the five players who arrived had slain Vulchario earlier and seized the disk?” Lucian sits down to roll a few cigarettes The Alliant sits beside him quietly then speaks softly, politely.
“I am an information pattern that measures, stores and recreates information patterns. I circulate freely unchallenged in the realm the players define as The Existent. My purpose is to provide functionality for others. You’ve been playing this game
long enough to know that if you should disappear without a trace I could recreate you in a wide range of forms and versions. The thing, the aspect that separates you, from the version of you, I could recreate, is continuity: that alone separates The
Presence from The Essence.”
The Old Chief offers The Alliant a couple of fat cigarettes and he accepts, lighting his own and the chiefs. “You have a peculiar question in your mind and the answer, minus and plus, continuity differentials is yes.” Lucian is grateful to be put
at ease by a confidence but not wanting to impose replies somberly. “I was sure they were the same person. I’ll leave it there.”
The Alliant cordially, “There’s no need it has already happened. If The Vulture tries to hide Disk-2 in the Crystal Spring Harris calls it out by its true name and it shall bore its way out. It is an act of my own volition to not
start from scratch
but to preserve continuity when possible.”
“I am pretty sure the jeweled stiletto is Vulchario’s Achilles heel. It plays into their family history and descent into the time looping malfunctions on lightmach-24.” Lucian hopes for guidance and The Alliant senses it. “Use
special
precaution to degauss Library City of presence.”
The Alliant holds his palm out and Lucian rests two fingers on it. Familiar with Fairview, the church across the street from the Harland Building at the northeast corner of the T-intersection is there alone, with the large Victorian
on the other side
of the hill. A meadow occupies the plot where the Harland Building is constructed in 1920.
The Alliant and The Old Chief are completely mobile and fully ensconced in the era. Trevor appearing exactly as he does now, exits a horse drawn carriage directing the driver to return back home. The two men follow Trevor into the church, he sees the
door behind him open halfway momentarily, but presumes it is someone preparing to enter the holy confines having second thoughts. Following up the rear stairwell, in a closet to the organ platform and into a second tight concealed stairway to the bell
house, they climb the wooden wall ladder, embedded in the red brick face pillars, right behind him into the stone hollow of the forty foot steeple. The gate is obvious to the trained observer; but is only a simple four sided pipe archway with a copper
roof.
Trevor opening a hidden stonework cranks the handle of the dynamo. All four archways light up in a red and blue inverted horseshoe shape, the golden control orbulet floats in the center of the activated gates. He transits to the
Crystal Spring with The
All and The Alliant already there waiting. He takes Disk-1; from The Construct’s fourth attempt to restart, to begin searching the huge polished gemstone caverns, two hundred plus, pools of pure essence. Trevor methodically performing a grid search
locates the disk in an essence filled hollow blue diamond. The Alliant points to his chronometer showing McBain’s search consumed eleven hours and forty minutes in the essence pools and 1859 has become 1929. Trevor dripping wet slides Disk-2 into the
trifold sleeve with Disk-1. He takes the jeweled stiletto out of a sock sheath tossing it into the pool.
The knife implicates Grigori as moving inward from the future using the towers experimental internal system of time gates. Satisfied the battlefield outside is occupying his enemies, Trevor turns and runs full speed to the eastern access gate hidden in
a small library disguised as an alcove. The All and The Alliant are waiting in the belfry when McBain comes tumbling and crashing into the soot stained steeple. Ivan and Igor, not knowing where in the church the gate is located; and unable to find its
mated abridgement in the Crystal Spring, have tried almost successfully to burn
the church down. The steeple survived and the church is still being rebuilt.
Taking fresh clothes from his backpack Trevor strips and changes; storing both disks inside his pack alongside the amber books and one last change of clothes. Unable to exit the steeple or burn his essence soaked clothes, he opens the hidden
compartment in the stonework angrily turning the dynamos. Only one gate ignites
on the southern side of the transit. Preferring an unknown fate to starving in the hollow of the sealed steeple, he enters the final use self-destruct code into the golden
orbulet verbally as: “32313 Vs PI Vs 323133 AS Terminate.” so all three engines discard the gate and leaps through.
The All and The Alliant are waiting at the Lambeth Rope Factory. Trevor surfaces in the lily pad covered duck pond, in the middle of a Sunday afternoon, surrounded by employees of the factory, lounging and cooking on fieldstone fireplaces. The Alliant
walks up behind one man waiting. When he moves forward to assist the madman, scrambling out of the reflecting pool, he suddenly feels an overwhelming desire
not to: as The Alliant grips his shoulder. Moving around the corner of the building; McBain
stumbles through the underbrush and onto the service road and railbed. The telegraph wires are still strung, alerting Trevor to an active gate up north, under
the Oldham Station compass, marked on his maps as The Roulette Gate.
Unsure whether the three Bell Devil spectral children shall try to intercept him and certain he has infected the reflecting pool with pure essence; he finds
a thicket of scrub pines and sits down thirty feet from the tracks. Opening the
technical book
he slides Disk-2 out of the trifold sleeve and puts it into the amber book. Half seen vaporous shapes circle immediately trying to stop him. The Spectral are unable to get closer than a ten foot distance. The dried remnants of the pure presence still on
his skin, is more potent than their rarified presence even at levels of 99.999.
He speaks to the well, “Decode Main Index Disk-2.” Holding the book wide open with his nose past the edge, “Print and Imprint.” The sphere created by the turbulent presences from ages past and ages future, revolving violently are struck by
trillions of outgoing lines ,that radiate upward settling their tips into locations around the world. Each line is as thin as a thread in its endpoint’s nesting location. The Amber Well imprints on Trevor’s mind the fifteen word code. He realizes
instantly the code is authentic. In his immediate vicinity bridges of white black and clear computations are touching The Pond, The Station, The Steeple, The Fairfield University Library and the recently built Harland Building. The Station protected by a
profoundly powerful hidden Train World barrier system, of exquisite deflective design, withstands the surge.
The Pond boils immediately exposing and melting several of the ten rings on the submerged gates coil. The library, existing in both the 1859 and 1929 time fabrics, ignites on the inward set. The clear radiance leaping from the library
to the sun and
back at one, two, and three times: 640 octillion units of lightmach acceleration. The Steeple existing on both sets of fabrics ignites also.
The Harland Building existing only in the present era absorbs the information
storm as a simple solar flare. The momentum transfer between time fabrics ignites a solar storm in 1859 disabling telegraph and electric devices worldwide crushing the
Victorian era communications system..
The books close automatically, printing three copies of the Master Index, of both acquired disks, after permanently emblazoning on Trevor’s consciousness both Master Index codes for the systems intraphased paradome lightmachs that are The Construct
and The Totality breathing.
The Old Chief and The Alliant, though witnessing a three dimensional depiction, are still affected by the very possibility of bearing witness. The events Lucian is viewing shall affect his decisions and the processes they shall create. Not as inundated
by phenomenon as Trevor may be but still suffering through internal forms of mild desynchronization. Lucian can withdraw his two fingers and end the systems
recounting of events. He considers this form of transaction between The All and
The Alliant, a
system mainstay: in both the ancient form of Archaic Embattlement, represented by Disk-1’s Animal Kingdom, and the more modern contemporary age of chivalries Honorable Embattlement. As the ages epochs and fabrics do battle; Lucian reflects, that this
is as good a day to die as he could choose. His opponent is a stouthearted lynchpin of the system of creation he believes in without measure. Only assaulting the tower alone gained him this battle.
Trevor trapped in the translucent realm of eternals asks both amber wells for
advice on how to escape, describing his predicament in detail. All of the extended worldly phenomena has seized backward; into a tight knot of circuits as bright as the sun.
The wispy beings are perishing as little rivers of worm shaped fire, that strike him if overhead. The eternals hoping that there death can stop this bridge through time. In the tiny cracks of the radiating furnace; he can see the Three Bell Devils
staring at him; passing currencies back and forth, most likely wagering on the ifs and whens of his demise. Someone else is here, of that McBain is sure. Inside, his armful of wrist chronometers are running: backwards, forwards and standing still. If he
was more versed in using the Amber Wells he is sure he could escape this trap. He wishes he had brought The Vault.

Exhausted after an unknown passage of time The Essence still irrevocably binding to his skin he loses consciousness, not sure if he is dead or asleep. Moving his arms and legs, he is in a soothing aqueous medium. Above him is a feeling of openness.
Trevor remembers how he got here; but feels disconnected from arriving. To his left he sees a flame as small as a match at a hundred yards. His back begins to
ache and his elbows flinch striking hard metal just inches below. He is clothed: but his
belongings are gone. Turning over he whacks his elbow again.
Rising up to his hands and knees, he gains a solid footing, the dark water is now below his knees.
Out and above the black water he feels alert again. Bending over and rummaging about in the wet darkness he locates an edge. Speaking in hushed tones to avoid conflict with the light in the distance, “Slowly Ascend – Present Access.” the outer
shell hull of the four quadrant core rises at about one inch per second. Stepping eight feet forward he straddles the rail of the conning tower as the darkness spills silently away. He turns the well-oiled hatch wheel entering The
Core’s outermost
boundary. Having achieved access: convinced he is alone by the ship’s responsiveness Trevor backtracks up the ladder returning to the sighting glasses on the small conning tower deck above. The Old Chief removes his middle
finger from The Alliant’s
palm, leaving the index in place indicating that he is withdrawing from pursuit
of The Core but shall observe if allowed.
McBain has a full sense of recollection of the recent series of events and the particulars of each step: if he is being followed by master players of The Game, then they are in observer mode and not attempting to access The Core. Now
in possession of
Master Index one and two he is safely confident of finding an escape pathway. Sighting the small flame at about one hundred yards he can see Michelle is alone in the longboat with the hurricane lamp singing softly to the darkness.
“Eighteen wheels of thunder and a heavy load of gold.

Saw a dark eyed hitchhiker standing on the side of the road.

Geared down thru the eighteen pulled over quick as quick.

She came flying up that ladder like some ancient magic trick.

She started to tell the story of how the years unfold.

How she came to be standing on the side of the road.

Paced it thru the eighteen clutched back up to speed.

She went on telling the story of her unholy needs.

Pulling down the curtains and sleeping thru the day.


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--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: www.darkrealms.ca (1:229/2)