The Tunnel - Part 7

Once inside the temple, Atesta found herself in a dark room with stars all around her. It was so beautiful.  At first she thought she was floating, but she was able to walk.  The room seemed to have no walls because she walked for a while and nothing in the room changed.

She did not know what to do next. She sat down to think and to observe.  She looked for a sign from her father but there was nothing in the room but open space and stars far far away.  She pulled the cube from her sack and opened it to see if there was a clue there but the ball inside was dark.  She thought about the old man's map trying to remember any patterns to no avail.  She did notice that it looked like she was inside the old man's model of the universe.  She wondered if the old man's hand gestures would work here.  She stood up and tried.

First she moved her right hand from her heart outwards and the stars began to move around.  Then she tried her left hand and time began to move backwards. Now she needed to figure out how to find the portal connecting this world to Calarrossa.

She was trying to remember the old man's hand movements so she swiped right with her right hand and her hand closed, then she opened her hand and made a circle in the air clockwise, she then moved her hand forward as she closed her hand and made the tips of her fingers touch.

With these movements she repositioned the stars in a way that this world and Calarrossa where in front her and in front of each other.  One large and the other very small and very far away.  

With her left hand she began doing a downward zig zag in the air and things began to go back in time.  She slowed the movement to slow the passage of time and then, all of a sudden, there it was, the bright portal connecting the two worlds showed up.  With her right hand, still in the air, she open her fingers to bring the entrance to the portal closer to her until she was standing right at the entrance.

The entrance to the portal reminded her of what she saw at the waterfall, back when she started her journey, when the sun went through the water at dusk and revealed the tunnel. 

So, as soon she stepped in the portal, she felt very light and she could no longer see her body.  All she could see was Calarrossa approaching.  After a few minutes, she was at the other end of the portal standing in Calarrossa in what looked like a stone fort in the middle of a beautiful and very green meadow.

There was nobody around. She went outside the fort and saw a pristine and beautiful world.  The colors were like in her world but more vibrant and full.  There were also strange things in this world.  For example, the trees had two trunks and formed arches, all the flowers seemed to grow in pairs and their colors were very unique and surreal, the mountains in the horizon were orange and purple, the sky was a beautiful deep blue with three large moons of different colors, and then, she saw it. A shinny city far away next to the mountains.

Atesta could see that it was a beautiful, gleaming city with tall shinny buildings. However, strangely, she noticed that she did not have the sense of foreboding about her father anymore.  She felt uneasy about that.  She knew it was probably not a good sign.  So she hurried and began to walk towards the city.

As she approached the city, she noticed that there was a very tall wall around it with people walking on top of it.  The tall seemed to be made of one solid piece of something like concrete or metal or plastic.  It came out the ground and curved upwards. There were no marks on it or seams or anything. Just a smooth surface, impossible to climb or escalate, going up at least 10 stories.

As she approached the people on top of the wall noticed her and started pointing.  More and more people gathered until finally somebody in what seemed like a uniform stepped into what looked like a platform with a hand rail and floated over the wall and down to were Atesta was.  Atesta was mesmerized by the vehicle, the beautiful clothes the guards wearing and his tall, elegant and regal demeanor.

She was wondering if they spoke the same language.  The guard ask her who she was, where she came from, and why she was here and she was able to understand.  She thought of the ring she was still wearing.

Atesta told him her name, that she was a traveler from another world on a special mission.  She did not feel comfortable yet revealing what her mission was in case her father was in trouble.  She figured that her father would have done anything to secure the cube to save her.

Atesta added that she was hungry, thirsty, and tired and asked if they could help her.  The guard instructed Atesta to step on the platform and floated up and over the wall.  As they went up, she could see, in the distance, the fort in the meadow and, strangely, a very faint beam of light emanating from the top straight into the sky.  It was the portal.

As they came up over the wall, she saw incredible things.  She saw a very technologically advanced society with people everywhere floating in platforms like the one she was on going from building to building, parks with families playing, with no pollution, or garbage, and everything was pristine.

The guard took her to the tallest building of all. A building that looked like a tall needle with a spire on top.  They approached the middle of the structure and one of the glass panels opened up.  The guard told her that this is were she would stay while she was in Calarrossa and that the ruler of the planet would like to meet her tomorrow morning.  He said he would be back in the morning to get her there.  Before she could ask any questions, the guard vanished in front of her eyes.

She turned around and looked at her accommodations.  There was food, water, a closet full of clothes, a beautiful bed, a big bathroom, and a view of the city like she had never seen before.  She could now understand why a thing like the cube and its healing properties could have come from a place like this.  They certainly were technologically advanced.

She ate, bathed, and put some clean clothes.  It was hard to pick because they were all so beautiful.  Strangely they all fit her perfectly.  She chose a soft gown that went to the floor and she fell asleep almost immediately as soon as he touched the bed as the day was becoming night.

A few hours later, a massive explosion in the middle of the night woke her up.  She ran to the window and what she saw outside the walls frightened her.

TO BE CONTINUED ...

The Tunnel - Part 6

What Atesta saw was a 3-dimensional model of the universe but with a dimension of time added to ti.  The old man was able, with his right hand, move around the model.  Up, down, right, left, in, out, around, and over.  With his left hand he was able to move time backwards and forwards.  What she saw was hard to comprehend at first.

In certain areas of the universe, at a certain level of detail, and at certain times, Atesta would see colorful and bright lines connecting worlds appear and disappear. She also noticed that some of the planets in some solar systems where blue and others green.  The old man explained that blue planets had developed life but only the green ones had developed human-based intelligence.  He showed her that today there were only 13 green planets, but when he moved the time back 100,000 years, the green planets dwindled down to only one, but if he kept going backwards another 100,000 years, the grew into the hundreds.

Atesta asked what had happened for the green worlds of old to vanish and for only one to survive.  The old man said he was not sure but he had heard from travelers legends that talked about some sort of event that prevented life from replicating in all those worlds so they died down slowly.  Except for this one planet, Calarrossa.

Atesta asked the old man if it was possible to travel to any of these worlds at different points in time. He explained that traveling was only possible one of two ways.  The first was at the precise time when the bright lines connecting different worlds appeared and the second was to transport our consciousness to a compatible being in those worlds temporarily.

He explained that the former option is straightforward but that it could take years for a portal to open between the right 2 worlds.  The latter option could be done anytime but it was more challenging.  Under this option, the traveller would have to arrive in the right partner and that was as of yet a random and yet unexplained process.  Compatibility with the host is critical if the host is to join and help the visitor with whatever the visitor was there to do.

He had heard of instances were the transfer was so fought with incompatibilities that it resulted in the death of both the host and the visitor.  This option is not be taken lightly.

And now, Atesta was ready for the big questions.  She asked the old man that if her father was in Calarrossa, how did he get there? And, more importantly, was it in in this time period or sometime in the past?

The old man said he did not know.  He showed her father that there was a portal that opened and closed between this world and Calarrossa about 175 years ago.  He also showed him what it takes to do a conciseness transfer in the present time.  The old man said he did not know which option he chose and that he has not seen him ever since he left.

Atesta knew she would probably had to try both, but which should she do first.  Going back to Calarrossa 175 years ago seems safer but also risky because we do not know if the cube had already been developed.  The consciousness transfer seemed riskier, the cube was definitely there, but what if the transfer went wrong.

Atesta's father had taught her how to build decision trees when they found themselves exploring areas or caves back home that they had never been to before.  Decision trees that documented possible outcomes at specific events with their probability for success.  Multi-level trees always helped them clarify what the best decision was in complex situations.  She knew her father had approached this decision this way.

The key decision the tree had to help her clarify was whether to go back 175 years or go now.  The key variables were whether the cube would be there, whether ability to return was there, the possibility of danger and of a hostile environment, the timing because at the time Atesta was dying.

She knew her father has done the same thing.  Going back 175 years and returning in case the cube wasn't there to try the consciousness transfer seemed the safer thing to do.  A consciousness transfer may not give her the chance to come back and try the other option.  The first option also had a great advantage.  The time in this timeline would stop until she came back.  She knew this was key for her father's decision.

So, she decided to go back through the portal first and she asked the old man how she could do this.  The old man and Atesta set out on foot towards the sand dunes.  On the other side of the first dune, the old man pointed to a structure in the distance in the form of a temple.  It had spires that went up into the sky from every corner and a bigger one from the top of the cupola.

The old man told her that this was as far as he could go and gave her a sack with some food, water, and her cube.  And with sadness in his face, he touched Atesta's forehead and said something she could not understand.  Atesta hugged him and headed down the dune towards the temple.

As she approached the temple, she noticed that there were no doors or windows.  It was a solid structure the color of sand.  She walked around it and on one of the walls she saw a carving in the stone that caught her attention.  It was her father's carving.  She knew what to do.  She walked through the wall right through the carving.

TO BE CONTINUED ...

The Tunnel - Part 5

Atesta stared at the book for a while.  She then got her cube out of her sack and opened it.  The ball inside was began pulsating at the same speed, color, and intensity as the book, in perfect synchrony. The old man was smiling.  He knew he had found her.

She opened the book, and realized the book did not have any pages.  It was more like a box in the shape of a book. As soon as she opened the glass cover, the wooden cube next to her began to float in the air and before she could do anything, the cube moved into the cavity inside the book disappearing completely.  A moment later a ring floated out of the book.  The old man instructed her to put it on.

At that moment, the old man began to explain that he had been waiting for her for a long time.  Atesta was startled because all of a sudden she was able to understand him.  He also said, he had met her father when he came through here a few years ago.

The old man explained to Atesta that the book had been in his family for generations.  Nobody really knew how far back but his family's job from time immemorial was to help travelers coming through the portal in the water and to help them with their quests.

Over the years, he had been fortunate to meet a lot of travelers coming from all over the galaxy searching for all kinds of things.  Some were looking for fortune, others for love, and others for great adventure.  But at the end, he was only able to help those that were doing something out of selfless love for somebody else.  They were the only ones able to open the book and wear the ring.  For the others, he was only able to provide some food and shelter for a few days before they set off to continue their search for whatever they were searching.

Atesta asked the old man if he knew where his father was.  She explained where she came from, how she fell gravely ill, and how her father set out to find a cure after the curandero in town had relay a story passed on from his grandfather about a thing in a far way land that could cure her.

She also told him that she now felt somehow that her father was in trouble and that she was here to find him and to bringing home.  The old man told her that he also felt that her father was in grave danger.

The old man got up and told Atesta that soon it will be dark and that they should go to his casbah to get some rest and that tomorrow they could talk about what they could do to find and help her father.

The next day, the old man was at the big table next to the fireplace where some food was already waiting for her.  The old man was bent over an unfolded old map.  She asked him what the map was.

He explained that over generations his family had been documenting the different worlds the travelers came from in this galactic and inter-dimensional map.  Even though all the travelers were human, his family had developed a system to classify the worlds they came from and their subtle differences.

The system had been used over millennia and it relied on very methodical and structured conversations with the travelers.  These conversations, with those that they had been able to secure a ring from the book, would cover things like language structure, physiology and cognitive development, cultural and societal developments, technological advancements, architectural preferences, biodiversity in their worlds, physical characteristics of their worlds like weather, geography, natural phenomena, and if the time allowed it, they would discuss their history as well.  With all this information they developed a classification method and discovered that all these travelers came from only 13 different worlds.  What was interesting is that they discovered that there were 3 distinct trees-of-life.  Three independent biological beginnings that, over time, had mixed and populated all 13 worlds. They had discovered where 2 of those trees-of-life started but have been unable to find the origins of the third. This was the old man's quest.

The old man told Atesta that he thought his father was not in this world.  He thought Atesta's father was in world number 7.  A world their people called Calarrossa. A world that had achieved remarkable advances in science and technology but that remain oppressed in a feudal system with one ruler that had ruled the entire world for 1000 years.

Atesta asked why he thought her father was there.  The old man told her that he told her father about the stories he had heard about the cube and its amazing healing properties.  He also told him about how there was only one cube in all of Calarrossa and it was well protected.  He told him that the cube was developed by the best scientists there and that once the cube was finalized, Caslo, the dictator and ruler in Calarrossa, had imprisoned them all to keep the cube secret for himself.  A way for him to rule Calarrossa forever and to retain power over his world.

Atesta told the old man that she needed to go there and asked if he could help her.  The old man wanted to show her something on the map so he asked her to come closer.  What she saw fundamentally changed her understanding of how the universe worked.

TO BE CONTINUED ...