Hitsuzen Nodality

[Oberon]

Author: Dion Tzavaras

Genre: Science Fiction

Violence? No

Sex? No

Word count: 2762

Stand-Alone/Novel? Part one of two.

Comments: Because I love writing in English, I wrote this story in English. No other comments other than... read it. ;)

 

HITSUZEN NODALITY

---------------------

 

Part One

 

Hitsuzen: An event that will happen as foreordained. A state of causality in which only one outcome is possible. A result which can be obtained only through a unique and pre-determined set of circumstances either in the past or future, and any other causalities will bring forth an entirely different outcome.

 

Nodality (noun): being, relating to, or located at or near a node.

 

* * * * * * *

 

As the flash of light subsided, she found herself confronted by a virtu-neuroform just standing in front of the Gate to the M-Node.

 

 

"Would you permit me to scan your actual sensory output, so as to determine your identity?" said the shimmering vaguely human-like virtu.

 

"Certainly!" said she, smiling despite the disorientation and "fuzziness" she felt clogging her senses after the eight thousand years jump to the Mythastrian multidimensional Node, the "root" of which was located in what could be called the relativistic "far future".

 

The virtu’s shimmering, blinking patterns which moved constantly all over its body changed rhythm, colour sequence and symbolic meaning. She didn't feel like interpreting "in totalitas" those mandala-like patterns at the moment. No more than a simple two-way verbal communication in basic linear fashion was necessary. In other words, through a spoken language.

 

"Would you also input the local time/space frame?" she asked, "trans-gate travelling always leaves me a bit disoriented".

 

"Most certainly, Madame Miriam. Please choose temporal consciousness frame. Linear, metalinear, quadradimensional, holographic, trans-holo, exotemporal, a-temporal…"

 

"Linear, if you please" she replied, massaging her temples.

 

"Your pleasure is my pleasure" it said in a pleasant, yet typical, voice.

 

The virtu’s shimmering patterns changed again and its form became more cohesive, more human-like.

 

"Would you also like me to input linear-space consciousness?" it said.

 

"Yes. Yes, please."

 

"Local linear past-present-future, linear space-time continuum. Input directly datastreamed into your local Noumi-Net virtu-brain. Transfer completed, Madame Miriam. Access it at your convenience".

 

The virtu’s form solidified completely. It looked asexual but definitely human, covered from head to toe in a black shimmering substance, its texture reminding her of obsidian-coloured reptilian scales.

The multi-colored patterns on its body solidified in definite patterns, reminding her of constellations in the night sky, yet much more symmetrical and interrelated than the random shapes of real constellations.

 

"Thank you" Miriam said.

 

"Allow me to escort you to the Conference room, madame" it said as it proceeded to walk back through the corridor that ended at the Trans-Temporal Gate. Miriam nodded and followed the virtu.

 

The corridor seemed to stretch forever. Its shape was organic with ridges at regular intervals. It was windowless but didn’t feel like closed space. It was more like a tube, its texture almost liquid, almost transparent, colored like a rainbow.

A liquid, pale, rainbow-colored wave moved in spirals along its ridges, lighting the area in spiroid, spectral forms. It felt as though Miriam and the virtu-neuroform were walking through the eye of a horizontal cyclone composed of iridescent, liquefied light.

 

Focusing on the Noumenal Net sub-node inside the quantum fields of her body's molecules, she incorporated the new data into her virtu-sensenet, her "spacesuit" as she called it, and in a few seconds she felt the quizziness and disorientation from the trans-gate crossing dissipate.

 

"Ah" she said to no one in particular and breathed deeply. She felt herself grounded in reality again. Her sense of time and space returned.

 

She had travelled over eight millenia forward from her last coordinates. In the three-dimensional universe, in the so-called "objective reality", she was in orbit around the Sun of the Solaria Panmegiste, the living organism composed of every consciousness, every particle of matter- energy in the solar system.

She was inside a visible Mythastrian Node Complex orbiting Core-Earth, the actual planet Earth, she reminded herself.

Never allowing herself to forget her old love for folklore she translated the coordinates in old Earth time/space units.

 

The day and date would be Saturday, August 16, 10,194 Anno Domini.

She and the virtu-neuroform reached the end of the corridor.

 

She had seen the Doors before, but she was nonetheless impressed again. Gigantic and imposing in the familiar inverso-gothic style, popular in certain schools of aesthetics of Core Earth at the time, they were the doors that led to the Node’s Conference Room.

 

The patterns on the virtu’s body became more frenetic and complex. It uttered a few unintelligible syllables and the doors to the Mythastrian Council Room began to open.

Golden light emanated from the room blinding her for an instant.

 

"Announcing Dama Absoluta Mythastriana, Miriam Oceanae Mater-Pleiadica" said the neuroform in a multi-lingual burst of light.

 

Its shape lost its cohesion and it vanished as the doors opened completely.

 

She entered the giant dome-shaped room. Its transparent roof allowed the full spectacle of the stars to be enjoyed.

She was filled with warm golden light, among an almost overwhelming throng of sensor-ations – shared sensations -, incomprehensible sounds, trillions of spoken and non-spoken languages from entities of unimaginable complexity, exquisite, eclectic simplicity and all in-between states of conscious "being".

She opened her senses more, searching for something more familiar.

 

What she looked for was here too. Sensations much closer to herself, her own kind.

 

There was applause, laughter, joy, humour.

 

And music.

 

Her favorite adagio from the 14th Symphony in E Diese Major, by the extrapolated intelli-form of Ludwig Van Beethoven the 3d, the composer "en vogue".

 

There also was another even more familiar sensation, like a much-needed anchor, a lighthouse, a warm fire.

 

He was here, somewhere, too.

 

"I chose the music" she heard inside her mind.

 

"I know" she thought, and, smiling, knew he had heard too.

 

"Look down!" he said again and his mental voice was mirthful.

 

"Down?"

 

"Yes. Please."

 

Miriam looked down. The smooth crystalline floor became transparent.

 

She saw the beautiful blue globe of Earth. The Node’s orbit had brought it over the Mediterranean Sea, blue and shimmering as it always had been. The North African coastline was green. The Italian peninsula was visible and then to the East she saw her favorite place on Core Earth.

 

The Aegean Sea and Hellas.

 

Was it still called so, she wondered. She commanded her Noumenal Node to zoom in.

 

The Acropolis Aeοnia was visible in the region of Attica, an extremely bright white light emanating from inside the temple, illuminating it, as well as the grove and forests surrounding the entire area.

Around it, 12 concentric circles composed of twelve blue lights each, showed the location of the Gates to null-space that led to different quarters of the Social Interaction Uniplex known as Athenai Hyperousiae, all of its "reality" in null-space, while the rest of the area was left to unadulterated, "wild" nature and its "spirits".

 

Many such lights and circles were strewn all over the Hellas Peninsula and the islands, but there were a few white ones too. She zoomed in some more towards the Aegean islands.

 

"Ah. I thought you’d look at this paticular one" he said in her mind again. His voice also transmitted his well-meaning amused and "triumphant" tone.

 

She laughed.

 

"Yes. Delos Urania."

 

"This is the original Delos. The original island. It’s mind-boggling really that it's still there. Its gate is visible quite clearly" he said.

 

Delos was part of a network of holy islands all over the galaxies connected by thousands of travel gates. Delos was connected to Oceana’s Verdant God Island, to the city of Nektàneva Arkàna on Nuvìia, to the Temples of Màlevo Sentìae Dèlidè on Silva-wa-Aèlica, to certain sub-sea brain cells of the Ultimate Ocean of Nefelirial, to the "Delos" of the other-dimensional "planet Earth" called Antastria and thousands of other islands and locations in space and time.

 

Thus, Delos Urania was one pan-multiversal island, one organism which some called "holy", composed of many seemingly disparate parts, yet much larger and more integrated than its individual component parts would suggest.

Still, for most inhabitants living on Earth and particularly in the Hellenic Social Interaction Uniplexes connected with millions of other such urban entities in the united galaxies, this "Delos" was the only original one, their own frame of conscious reference regarding Delos Urania's "centre". This was the centre of it all.

 

Miriam loved this part of the Earth because it reminded her of her home world of Oceana so much that it was almost like coming home. And home she was, in actuality. In the safest possible place of her own micro-universe, of her own self.

 

"I love you" she heard him whisper.

 

"I love you, too" she said, feeling his breath behind her shoulders. "Are you going to tell me what all this… secrecy is about?" she asked teasingly.

 

"Look at Athenai Hyperousiae again" he said. "You'll soon understand" he added cryptically and - Miriam thought - maddeningly.

 

She became aware then that a bubble of audible silence around her and him had muffled most of the voices in the rest of the conference hall, like a sphere isolating them from the rest of the Mythastrians had sprung into existence. A sphere with its own natural laws that made the rest of the happenings in the room seem part of a distant, unrelated to the local sphere, world. The throng of the discussions, the music and laughter sounded like they were coming from another, invisible world, like an organ chord from the stars, a complex chord, implicit rather than explicit, implied and unintelligible rather than actual and definite, yet distantly audible, pleasant and reassuring.

 

She looked around at all the familiar and non-familiar faces (and non-faces) inside the sphere of silence. Faces which were looking at her, for a reason she couldn't understand. Yet.

 

Everyone she knew was here this day, as far as she could tell. Every Mythastrian she had ever known. And among them, part of the sphere, her closest friends.

 

There was Volcana the Lamp-Bearer, white and hot, her whole being composed of living starfire.

 

The Phaeno of Nektàneva, High Priestess of the Phaenaic Order,

 

Her old pal the AI-Avatar, an A.I.ntellectual with a quirky philosophical bent who also loved to manually play music.

 

Oràn'aa'nàena K'ythri'dana'irèa, the beautiful blond Rovirian woman who was over ten thousand years old, yet looked like an eternal Aphrodite Anadyomenë.

 

Arctaeon, the "hunter" who had become an instrument of the will of Natural Earth's creatures.

 

The MagiCausaLineator the Prossable, his perennial, mischievous smile lighting up his face, betraying that a surprise - a pleasant one, hopefully, not some practical joke devised by him - was to be revealed soon.

 

Iaitkhu-Ialè and Μa-hàrnikh'àiye, the Sirian delphinoid captain and his wife whom she considered a mentor.

 

The Great White Mother, tall, willowy and syplh-like, the semi-transparent dome of her cranium containing one of the most advanced brains in the universe, as well as "mystically" created stars, a hint - some said - of actual star development in some unknown part of distant unexplored galaxies.

 

Sylphius O’DaonnanGloriana. The fairy-like wild "thing" of the timestream.

 

Ergo Ego Solipsistus Ego Ergo

 

Elihu of Oceana Galactica

 

Rahne-Valeri AnAndair

 

...and Kordrillia Leonessa Harkness, whose "deck of cards", symbols of the Archetypal Space, was unequivocally considered a synthesis of all sciences, of all predictive scientific thought, understandable as long as one could grasp the intricacies of probabilization matrices the material forms of which were simple, archaic "divinatory" cards.

 

They, among thousands of others she had met in… well…time immemorial and time yet to come, were her closest friends, her family. Each one, an endless story, each one a life, a being as important as an amoeba, as important as a star.

 

Yet, while Miriam could not remember any particular reason of celebration to justify this private…"party" in a non-private conference hall, the way they looked at her hinted at something more important than just a party, definitely * not * a practical joke of any sort, that was was already happening.

 

They were all so important to her, yet none was as important, or as close to her heart - one with her heart, her soul, really - than the man she had contacted so many thousands of years ago when he was a teenaged boy and she a 1500-year old extraterrestrial visitor to primitive Earth.

This was the man she loved more than life itself and she also knew what he had sacrificed to be with her, his "dream woman" from the stars.

 

Miriam knew he loved her equally and passionately and would love her till the end of time and space itself, till the last star in this universe stopped shining. *She* knew, because *he* had been there. Yet, now they were here, a love affair that had lasted for… for how long she couldn't really tell, as there was a point in time that could be designated as their "first contact", but there was no real linear progression she could use to define the passing of time between them.

 

They lived inside a universe full of myths, half-truths and truths, stars, light and shadows, quarks and galactic super-clusters, life, magic, awe and wonder…

 

…Mythastria.

 

"What am I supposed to look for?" she asked, in a mock "impatient" tone.

 

"Go back in time. Before the Exaltation of Homo Sapiens Transapiens, before the creation of Solaria PanMegiste, before the Noumenformation of the Earth, before…" he said but stopped at seeing her - actually impatient now - toss her silver-white hair.

 

"Go back where you came from" he added matter-of-factly.

 

"The late 20th century?"

 

"Uh-huh! I'd say…a couple of hours before you were summoned to come to the Node."

 

She commanded her local sub-node to show her the past. In a dizzingly bright light the entire scenery on the surface of the planet changed in a succession of images so incredibly fast that only an iridescent blaze of colour could be discerned by her locally adjusted senses.

Then the timetravelling stopped and a fairly big grey-white city appeared, primitive and polluted, yet strangely attractive, bright and even beautiful from this height, from the Mythastrians' vantage point.

 

Athens! Αθήναι in local lingo.

 

Only the Acropolis was the unique common characteristic between this city and the incredibly complex, transdimensional Athenai Hyperousiae of eight thousand years in the future. Only this old temple still remained in the objective, material reality of terrestrial nature as the regional centre of this ancient part of the planet. The Acropolis and the Gates to the transdimensional S.I.Uniplex of Athenai Hyperousiae in the 102nd century. The Acropolis and the three-dimensional "polis" of Athens around it, in the 20th century…

 

"Ah, now I understand!" Miriam said.

 

"Oh?" he said, visibly amused.

 

She chose to ignore the smug, yet endearing, expression on his face.

 

"Yes. It's the anniversary of the first time I contacted you!" she said.

 

"Yes. And… no" he replied evenly.

 

"I hate it when I don't know what is going on" she said, folding her arms in front of her chest. "And I hate it even more when you get oh-so-mysterious with me!"

 

"No, you don't. You actually love it. You love a mystery!"

 

"There's no mystery here" she said as matter-of-factly as she could, trying not to smile. "Everyone knows what the occasion is and I don't. That's no mystery. That's a game and I'm the fall guy. Or girl, if we are to get technical about it."

 

"Do you want me to tell you all about it, or would you rather find out all about it by yourself?"

 

"I'd rather croak than have you tell me!" she said, using archaic slang and hoping he'd "get" the implied "insult" of talking to him as if he still was the 18-year old boy she had contacted eight thousand years ago; or a few hours ago, depending on the relative timeframes of the observer and the observed that's also the observer of the observer that's also the observed.

 

She wasn't in the mood for abstract thinking at the moment and stopped herself from having her sub-node contact the Mythastrian Noumenal Network and have it solve the riddle instantly.

 

Then, the sphere was filled with music. A rustic Interamnian variation of "The Music of the Night" from The Phantom of Opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber, for Tranzmetronic Kleidocymbalon and Orchestra.

 

The AI-Avatar was probably the TranzKleid soloist, she thought, as she recognised the rather bombastic way in which he preferred to play this particular, and favourite, song.

 

"Be my guest, then, luv bunch" he said, also using slang, the smile never wavering from his face.

 

 

She glared at him for an instant, then turned her gaze at the scene of the ancient 20th century city sprawling under their feet through the transparent floor of the Mythastrian conference room.

 

* * * * * * *

End of Part One.

 

Dion Tzavaras 2008

Edited November 23, 2008 by Dain

[Nihilio]

Πολύ καλογραμμένο πρώτο μέρος, γεμάτο με πανέμορφες εικόνες, graceful infodump που δεν κουράζει και τον πλούτο του Μυθαστριανού σύμπαντος. Γενικά δεν πρόσεξα σοβαρά προβλήματα, πέρα από μερικά σημεία που το μάτι μου 'κόλλησε' και που πιστεύω ότι θα μπορούσαν να ξαναγραφούν.

Αναλυτικά τα σημεία αυτά είναι:

 

["Would you permit me to scan your actual sensory output, so as to determine your identity?"

Δεν ξέρω, αλλά αυτό το "would you permit" ακούγεται απίστευτα άκομψο. Ένα πιο formal "May I have your permission to ... please" θα ήταν το πιο κατάλληλο πιστεύω.

 

"Certainly!" said she, smiling despite the disorientation and "fuzziness" she felt clogging her senses after the eight thousand years jump to the Mythastrian multidimensional Node

Τεράστια πρόταση. Θα μπορούσες άνετα να τη σπάσεις σε 2-3 μικρότερες. Πχ: "Certainly, said she. She was smiling however disoriented and 'fuzzy' her jump have left her. And an eight thousand years jump to the Mythastrian multidimensional Node was taxing, to say the least."

 

The virtu’s shimmering, blinking patterns which moved constantly all over its body changed rhythm, colour sequence and symbolic meaning.

Κι εδώ η πρόταση είναι λίγο άχαρη, κυρίως εξαιτίας της δευτερεύουσας. Αν έκανες το 'changed' 'changing' ίσως να δούλευε λίγο καλύτερα.

 

"Allow me to escort you to the Conference room, madame" it said as it proceeded to walk back through the corridor

To proceeded είναι λίγο overkill. Too formal αν καταλαβαίνεις τι εννοώ.

part of a distant, unrelated to the local sphere, world.

Η σύνταξη εδώ με ξενίζει. Νομίζω ότι το "part of a distant world, one unrelated to the local sphere" θα ακουγόταν καλύτερα. Και συγχαρητήρια για την αμέσως επόμενη πρόταση που είναι απλά πανέμορφη.

 

ΥΓ: Ελπίζω να δούμε σύντομα και τη συνέχεια.

[Oberon]

Μιχάλη σ'ευχαριστώ πραγματικά για το εκτενές και πολύ επιβοηθητικό σχόλιο! Και σύμφωνώ με τα περισσότερα που μου υποδεικνύεις, μια που όσο και να προσπαθώ συχνά η σύνταξή μου είναι κάπως περίπλοκη και γεμάτη δευτερεύουσες φράσεις. Θα διορθώσω τις φράσεις στο τελικό rewrite.

 

Σχετικά με λέξεις όπως "proceeded" ή "permit" πιστεύω πως ταιριάζουν μια που η γλώσσα που χρησιμοποιώ στην ιστορία είναι μάλλον Βρετανικά Αγγλικά (γι'αυτό και έχω λέξεις όπως favrourite ή centre αντί για favorite ή center).

 

Θέλει βέβαια λίγο streamlining ακόμα γιατί κάποια σημεία είναι κάπως "ξύλινα" από λογοτεχνική άποψη, έστω κι αν η γλώσσα είναι σωστή.

 

Και το δεύτερο μέρος είναι μισογραμμένο ήδη και το ετοιμάζω, διορθώνοντας και ξαναδιορθώνοντας.

 

Ειδικά πάντως, με χαροποίησε το σχόλιό σου για το infdumping το οποίο προσπάθησα να μην είναι καθόλου "dumping" αλλά οι πληροφορίες για το σύμπαν αυτό να δίνονται χωρίς να κουράζουν.

 

Σ'ευχαριστώ και πάλι που διάβασες την ιστορία μου και τη σχολίασες.

Edited November 24, 2008 by Dain