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eternal return
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"Emil, please." A small voice whispered across the dark room. There were screens and cables, instruments and papers. A single cold desk lamp that illuminated a scientists journals, and logs.
There was a woman. Face pale and delicate except for the hardness of her eyes, so concentrated as they reflected the cold, fluorescent light of a hologram before her. She was opposite from another figure, a man. Eye glasses caught in the same glow, turning his eyes into iridescent rectangles.
They snapped to her.
"Chloe," Emil said in frustration, "You're asking me to give you answers for questions you and I both don't know how to ask." His hair was in knots and winds, a dark curly mass that escaped his ears.
"You're the only hope I have left." said Chloe. "Please."
Emil answered by squinting through his microscope again, his back turned over the table like it had for several hours.
The lab always held a constant hum of computers and processor, a dull white noise that settled underneath your mind once you were really submersed. Chloe barely recognized it now, the sound of Emil's frustrated sigh the only sound in the room.
The hologram flickered between them, a blue crystal suspended in a force field.
"It's looks alien. Space debris maybe." Emil said, throwing his glasses on the table, like a cornermen throwing in a towel.
"It has a memory." Chloe explained, her words more of intuition than fact. "It has recognition, an intelligence." She circled around the table, around it.
"Intelligence?" Emil frowned, "Then it is a computer."
"It's more than that." Chloe said once she reached Emil's side. "It's an archive. A portal."
He turned to her, "If you know all this, why do you need me?"
"I need you to unlock its archives so I can understand." Chloe explained vaguely.
A chorus hummed.
Emil lifted a heavy black brow.
She took a deep breath, "When I first came in contact with this rock, it was inert. Much like it is now." Chloe studied it closely, lashes fluttering in the blue light. "But I've seen the portal open. I've seen things--" She shook her head. "Some things I can't even start to explain."
"Try." Emil said evenly.
She turned to him, "This portal showed me another world. Several worlds. Days in the past, days in the future and some places I could never dream of on my own."
"A link to alternate timelines." Emil's eyes glasses over. He picked up his glasses and went to work.
"Please," Chloe followed him to his microscope, "Can you explain to me how this thing could possibly hold all this information, these realities. It felt so real. Please don't tell me I was hallucinating--"
"Take a piece of paper." Emil said from behind the magnified lense.
Chloe paused.
"Take a piece of paper." Emil said again, this time looking up from the instrument. He pointed to his notebook.
She followed his direction, tearing a sheet out.
"Take a piece of paper. Fold it, and the creases are there." Emil watched as she folded it in her hands.
"Unfold it, and the memory of that crease still exists."
She unfolded it as he instructed, and watched, the paper choosing to bend in the middle once more, craving to lapse back into its previous state.
"The universe, a simple piece of paper," Emil weighed the sheet of creased pulp in his hand, " practically everything under the sun has a memory." Emil compared the two objects, "This crystal, this paper..."
Emil smiled, and then folded the paper over again.
And then again.
Again.
Over and over.
Crumbled, and then crunched.
Finally, after Emil was finished, he had modeled his notebook paper into a very tightly wound ball.
He placed it beside the glowing blue rock, then stepped aside.
"Rock and paper are not much different." Emil's eyes brightened. "Imagine that each crease I made on that single sheet of paper is a time line, a memory. A collective memory. All wound up in this shared space, some creases touching, collapsing over one another so closely that they almost fall into a single line."
Emil picked up his ball of paper, and then flattened it out.
"Here, we try to erase what we have done. Deny that the past has happened. But universal law doesn't like that. Everything has a memory. Even this simple sheet of paper."
Ontop of the table, the crinkled white paper refused Emil's workings, puckering at it folds and modifications. It coiled and twisted in defiance, its message profound, and pure.
Chloe beamed inside, revelation washing over her. "It's so simple."
"Of course it is. Most things are."Emil continued, "But when we interfere... dimensions become confusing to us. So does our memory of it. The human capacity is imperfect. We're not able to recognize the varied existences of other dimensions, of time. Memory is displaced with us."
"De ja vu?"
He nodded. "Memories thought to exist before they were experienced. A common phenomenon."
Her eyes focused very closely, and then far off. "I felt this... strong connection. A bond almost."
Emil watched her carefully, another idea formulating to the surface. He spoke, "Keep folding the same paper, and you end up with a complex space. The connections between creases, the bond between the folds... their relationships are twisted and entwined. And you'll find it difficult, very difficult to break apart. There are some cultures that believe the mind isn't the only part of the human body capable of memory."
"The body?"
"The heart."
Collectively, the murmur of processors around the lab deepened.
The desk lamp dimmed.
Chloe looked over to Emil who had an equally curious expression.
The room blossomed into a deep blue.
Very interesting.
ReplyDeleteI'm intrigued by Chloe's seeming connection to the crystal. I assume it's the crystal Clark used to create his fortress? In any event, it seems as if, in this reality, Clark never existed, or at least he never encountered Chloe. Either way, I'm curious as to how and why Chloe came into possession of it.
Also, why did it activate for her the first time when it showed her all of the images of other places and times? Is it connected to Clark's crystal in the universe we've come to know from the show? If so, is that why it seems to recognize Chloe, because she's had contact with the AI that resides within the crystal?
Could all of this be happening because of something Clark did? Did he somehow alter reality and Chloe's been given the opportunity to set things right? Is the crystal itself trying to perform a task?
At the end, it looked as if the crystal had activated again, is that the case? If so, is it trying to remind Chloe of something, bring an unconscious memory to the surface? Or, is it going to transport her to another reality, one in which she may not have existed or perhaps died?
Geez, I'm just full of questions, aren't I? I can't help it, though. You've got me so intrigued as to what's really going on here.
I love how descriptive you are with Emil. He's a very underutilized character, in my opinion. I'm curious as to how Chloe knows him. He doesn't seem like the kinda guy she'd just meet on the street or bump into at the store.
Anyway, I hope this isn't just a throw-away piece, because I think it's got great potential. Even if you don't plan on doing anything with it, I'm glad you shared it.
Another win Elliott! :-)
ReplyDeleteI've never read the flow of events of time described as the analogy you gave with the example of folding a sheet of paper, this was awesome!
I too am confused about the blue crystal, is it the knowledge crystal that built Clark's fortress or is it the blue crystal that held Lara's information on it from season 7 or is it a unique blue crystal of your own creation?
Good stuff, thanks for posting!