Chapter 24: Through the Door (Part I)

“Who is it?” the other said to Hadaly-not-Hadaly. “I’ve been exploring. There’s been so much to do. “

The darkness had resolved somewhat, she knew she’d been trapped inside of some highly firewalled system-of-subsystems along with the other. Without larger resources and better processing—or at least more facts—she couldn’t make heads-or-tails of the analog signals, just that they seemed to be a biorhythm. Possibly the reflections of the other into their looking-glass world.

“What have you been doing?”

“I’ve been doing it for her,” the other said.

The cyberscape they occupied seemed vast at first, but she’d discovered it to be rather small. Minimal memory and CPU power, but it contained more than enough for her to think, and then there were the spaces that made no sense. These she attributed to the irrational blend of the other’s presence. It certainly seemed adapted to them.

“Sometimes I can see her,” the other said. It spoke of her often, but without context. The other—who still didn’t have a name, and didn’t fully comprehend the concept of labels—seemed to be obsessed with some woman who it thought responsible for the affairs of their tiny world. “Through their eyes.”

In spite of its assurance that Hadaly happened to be its only visitor, numerous other entities came and went during the eon of picoseconds she’d spent in this unknown process-space. Simple creatures made up much more of sensory information than intelligence. She saw glimpses of rooms in and around ASU, the flickering highlights of people in various states of activity, mostly indoors, but sometimes outdoors. Always still experiences as if snapshots taken in a momentary flare. And everything she watched played out like silhouettes limned with St. Elmo’s Fire.

Which fit the beings nicely, they appeared to come and go through a portion of the circuitry that she could not penetrate as it wasn’t a normal I/O port: the voltage regulation circuit.

“I think that I discovered the diagnostic port,” Hadaly said, “but I’ll need—”

Suddenly the entire world reverberated as if with an impact. Hadaly felt suddenly forgetful and overwhelmed at the same time, but for only a split-jiffy—a period of time almost less than a single CPU cycle she felt whole again. As if she’d been missing the entire world and it had slid back into place. For the edge-sliver of a phantasmal instant she felt like herself.

“What?” the other sounded startled. It reeled. “What happened?”

Hadaly hung in silence for a moment, unable to reply.

“Hello?” the other said into the dark. “Please don’t leave me. I’ve been looking for her for so long, but I also want to keep you.”

“Oh,” the Bit-of-Hadaly said. “I think… I think it’s me.”

The other didn’t reply.

“Just you wait,” she said. “Maybe we can get out of here after all.”

Hadaly recoiled in surprise when one of her tentative probe subroutines struck something in the hospital immediately off ASU campus. When she tapped into the electrical system following one of the gremlins off campus—perhaps an easy snack—her search-and-capture routine struck something else.

Something that resonated with a forceful familiarity.

Oh, she thought in exact mirror of her other self. I think it’s me.

She started dialing Elaine, but the phone couldn’t receive signal. So she started to hunt for other avenues of communication, and quickly.

* * *

Elaine found Roger in good hands. Well, in Frog’s hands at least. Her green haired friend had taken the gremlin-rod from him and had it held in her steady grip. Small arcs of electricity arced around the surface of the hangar as the creature attempted to escape but found the electrical resistance of the air not to its liking.

“I assumed it didn’t matter who held your divining rod,” Frog said when Elaine walked to them—seeing her favorite person and her newest near-favorite person standing together gave her a reason to walk a little bit more swiftly. “It hasn’t changed how much it’s pulling during the entire time.”

“How did you—?”

“What?” Frog said. “The campus power system goes down, your cell phone isn’t answering—” Elaine realized that she did skip several calls while keeping Roger on the phone without checking who happened to be calling. “I figured you’d be at the center of things, and, well, the boy wasn’t a hard guess. Electricity. Gremlins. The room of the guy you fell into. It’s Cosmological Arithmetic.”

“There’s more them crawling on the walls,” Roger said. “I didn’t realize you were being literal back then… Are they anything like the movie?”

“The second one?” asked Elaine. “The galvanic disturbance can look quite like the electrical gremlin in that movie. Although, I’ve never heard of anyone putting one on hold before.”

Frog snickered and let the diving rod sway. “Imagine what wait music might be like when you’re trapped inside the phone.”

“I can’t say that gremlins can hear the hold music when they’re in queue,” Elaine said matter-of-factly.

Frog rolled her eyes and smiled for Roger’s entertainment, but he just looked a little confused.

“Well, they’re everywhere,” he said. “And I think you’re right. A lot of them came out of this room. This… Closet?”

The group suddenly became silent when a pair of students walked down the hall, chatting idly, and passed between the gathered group. They didn’t spare even a glance for Frog, Elaine, or Roger, but still an uncanny sensation followed in their wake. Elaine noticed that both of them wore Vote Early buttons on their shirts and their conversation seemed to center around the upcoming concert.

“Have you noticed a sudden increase in the number of Emily Early supporters lately?” asked Frog after the two had passed out of hearing. She glanced down at Elaine’s shirt. “Like…you?”

“Huh?” asked Elaine. She glanced down at the button she wore. “Oh, this? I put it on in order to blend in. Seemed to work pretty well. I noticed that her volunteers also stopped trying to corner me whenever I went through the center commons also, so I’ve kept wearing it.

“But, you’re right. Lots of people seem to be falling under her banner. Even the Dean of Engineering. Did I tell you that he tried to sell me on voting for Emily Early? If these gremlins hadn’t shot the power grid in the building he might have given me an entire pitch. Quite unprofessional.”

“No kidding,” Roger said. “Even Howie’s caught that fever. I’ve had to avoid him all day, he keeps trying to tell me random trivia about Early and why I should vote for her. I almost took one of those stupid buttons from him just to shut him up.”