Vitrus Perphen, Captain of the Library guard turned the knob to his superior’s office. Sweat made this action difficult. Such an emergency had never happened before.
Now it had. Under his watch.
There to greet him was High Captain Tomas Hadelock, an unreasonably narrow man, his figure almost as pointed and sharp as his gaze.
“Sir,” Vitrus saluted. “We’ve had a major breach.”
Hadelock tapped his pen twice, took a breath, and looked at the guard. “What do you mean by ‘major’? Is it a few rats? Because by my reckoning, any breach by humans is catastrophic.”
“Sir,” Vitrus repeated. “We’ve had a catastrophic breach. Three individuals.”
“Three?!” Hadelock stood from his desk. “What level?”
“Just level one, sir.”
Hadelock paced over to a cutaway map of the library. A blue light flickered on revealing the lower levels in invisible ink. Floors that held artifacts and texts too valuable to leave on public display. “How long ago was this?”
“Only a minute…”
Before he could say ‘sir’ Vitrus’s comm sprang to life. “Captain! The intruders have been detected on level six.”
Hadelock gifted Vitrus a look of infinite disappointment, wrapped in bitter expectance. “How?”
The comm buzzed. “Don’t know sir. We ran them into a dead end and then—“
“Then what?” Hadelock growled
“Well, sir… they ran through a door….” The guard on the comm said.
“You said it was a dead end.”
“It was, sir.”
“So what you’re telling me,” Hadelock said through gritted teeth “is that the intruders ran through a door that doesn’t exist and found themselves all the way down one level above where we contain alpha subject?”
That is precisely what they were telling him, but no one wanted to say it, so the comm remained silent, Vitrus remained silent. Hadelock did not remain silence. “Get down there!” He looked as though he was about to throw his entire desk at Vitrus.
Vitrus stuttered. “Sir, no-one has authorization to be down there.”
“I’m giving you authorization,” Hadelock hissed. “I don’t trust the automated security. It’s even denser than you are.”
~~~
Titus did several double takes then a triple take for good measure. “There wasn’t a…there wasn’t a–”
Alex smiled. “Door? No. Takes a lot more psionic energy then routing an existing one, but then how are you supposed to get to and from worlds that haven’t invented doors, eh?”
“It can take quite a bit of energy.” Colin looked as though he’d had three dozen too many drinks and doubled over. “Add on to that the psionic mess of a signal you gave me. You’ve certainly had someone else in there. ”
Alex moved to Titus and pulled out a small torch. She moved it from one eye to the other. “We got a bit side tracked earlier. It does seem something about you has left you open to some kind of psionic signal…
Then, because it would otherwise be far too simple; Titus’s check-up was again interrupted by the buzz of lightspears.
Surrounded. They were surrounded, and this time there were far fewer means of egress. A wall of crackling red spears closed in on them.
“Halt!”
“As opposed to what? Running face first into your spears?” Alex asked.
The guard paused and considered this. “Matter of procedure. Don’t matter, you’re surrounded.”
“You’re right about one thing,” Alex grinned.
“What’s that?”
“It doesn’t matter that we’re surrounded” Colin smiled. He feinted to the left, a guard followed.
Alex swept the legs and had the guards balance been even the slightest bit worse, they would have toppled like a ring of dominos. As it stood, they managed to remain standing. Mostly. One tripped just enough to let the interlopers out of the circle.
There, No longer surrounded.
Alex grabbed a longsword from a nearby display case. She hated the idea of disgracing such an artifact, but in her heart she knew she hated the idea of getting stabbed with a laser staff while Colin was in danger even more. She took a stance, and engaged.
The guards delayed, Alex locked herself in the room with Colin and Titus.
“We’re safe in here, for now, they won’t disgrace these artifacts with their presence.”
“Well, I take it we’re disgracing them, sorry for that. We’ll get out of here soon.” Alex didn’t bother reminding Titus that an explosion also would have disgraced the artifacts. There were more important matters.
“Are you going to open another door?” Titus asked
“Not until we’ve saved Colin.”
“Are you kidding me? I see it now! I see you bleed! You aren’t some kind of heavenly messengers. Look at him, he’s already dead! ”
“Not while I’m around.”
“Well that’s a very heroic way of thinking but–”
“No, I mean that he and I share a mutual null-causality. We literally cannot die if the other is around to save us” Alex said this more to reassure herself than explain anything to Titus.
In 1935 CE, on your earth, a scientist put forth a thought experiment.to display the absurdity of quantum mechanics. Put a cat in a box. While unobserved the cat would be alive and dead, only once the box is opened would reality settle on the cat’s fate. There are many follies in this experiment but most obvious is that there is an observer in the box: the cat themself.
Titus, being a guard from Third Alexandria, had no knowlege of Quantum physics or Austria, and certainly not Austrian physicist Erwin Shrodinger. Even more certain was that he had never read the Edellian Philoso-physicist Alsh Vedixa’s Multiversal best-seller A Treatise on Mutual Null Causality and its Applications in Narrative Space.
If he had, he would understand what Alex was saying: Due to their Mutual Null Causality, reality considers Alex and Colin to be the same cat. Alex observes that she is alive, therefore Colin must also be alive. It may not make sense, but neither does the universe.
“Hold this.” Alex handed Titus the half a meter wide box she had pulled from her pocket and began to dress Colin’s wound. “Interesting, you’d think those spears would cauterize.”
Titus looked up from the alien medical supplies. “They’re specifically designed not to.” He was happy that his military knowledge might be pertinent.
“Impressive. Pass me one of those blue packets?”
Titus looked in the box and found some small blue rectangles that appeared to be filled with some kind of gel. He tried reading the label but the language was as alien as his current situation. He handed the mystery pack over.
“Lovely. Thanks.” Alex ripped a corner of the packet and spread the slightly bioluminescent contents along the edge of Colin’s wound.
“So he’s going to be ok?”
“Okay as he’s ever been,” Alex didn’t bother looking up from her stitching to answer .“ There.” Alex stood and took the medical kit back from Titus. “Now we wait.”
Colin sat up. “Wait for what?” he groaned.
“How are you feeling?” Alex gestured for Colin to take it slow.
“Like I was stabbed with a laser spear.” Colin slurred.
“We’re safe in here, but we need a door” Alex had stored the first aid kit back in he trouser pocket and smoothed the dress over it.
“Well, I might be able to help with…” Colin staggered over in pain. Titus caught him.
“You’re still weak. I can handle it but not while I was panicking about you bleeding out.”
Titus raised an eyebrow as they passed through the door. “That was panic?”
~~~
A level above, Captain Hadelock stormed down the hallway, his boots crushing the remains of a saber’s empty, shattered case. This could not stand, at this rate, the intruders would reach an artifact so valuable, so important, that it had lay secret for millennia.