[Chronicles of a Traveler] book 3 chapter 24
I wasn’t certain how to react to the woman or the video of myself, this had happened decades ago in this world and I wasn’t exactly sure how long it had been since I started remembering my travels again, at least a few years. But the flow of time between worlds wasn’t even, some moved faster, others slower, and that was before you included my own time and any effects there. In short it was effectively impossible to give a real answer to how long it had been since that video had been taken in my own time frame. It could have been the last thing I did before losing my memories, or it could have happened thousands of worlds ago.
The look on the woman watching me through the computer was eerily similar to the priestess who I’d first spoken to after receiving my implant. Intense and focused, only instead of reverence was excitement and curiosity. I also feared disappointing her, except this time I knew I was going to, as I couldn’t answer any questions she had.
“I’m afraid I won’t be of much help,” I said carefully, “I’ve lost my memories of that time, of anything before a few years ago in fact.”
“How could someone like you lose your memories?” She asked, cocking her head.
“That’s a long story,” I admitted, scratching the back of my head before giving her the overview of my situation.
“So the multiple worlds theory is correct?” was her response, catching me off guard.
“That’s your take away from that?” one of the RDA agents commented, seemingly as surprised as I was.
“What else would I take from that?” She asked simply, “there have been multiple theories about his nature, someone from another world was one option, though, admittedly, a low probability one.”
“Well, unfortunately, it means I won’t be able to answer any questions,” I said after a moment, “I’m willing to help, but not sure how much help I’ll be.”
“Hmmm, it does mean most of my questions are unlikely to get answers,” the woman agreed, looking down at her desk, “still, for the sake of completeness I’ll ask them anyways.”
And that’s how I spent the next two hours of my life, repeatedly saying I don’t know to the same question asked a dozen different ways, before moving on to the next. Halfway through, after the agents had left, I had to call them back because the laptop was running out of batteries. I was tempted to just let it die, to get myself a break, but I was afraid the woman would decide to start from the beginning again if that happened. So instead I answered the questions, asked the agents to get me some food after a couple hours and eating the cheap fast food burger combo they got me, and ground through it. Most of the questions were about the Returning Rain and Repeaters, some were about me, my life and powers, which I was generally vague on. I was happy to help, but still didn’t want to reveal too much about myself.
“As expected, not much of use,” the woman said finally, looking over her documents, though I doubted she had gotten anything out of the past few hours of questioning, “which I suppose brings us to the next issue, what use are you actually... beyond killing repeaters that is.”
“I mean, I am a skilled scientist with credentials that are, literally, out of this world,” I remarked, “if I could study the rain, or better yet a Repeater, for some time I will likely be of more help than by going out and fighting.”
“You said you had sensors implanted in your collar bone?” the woman asked, “technically, the most beneficial thing for us to do would be to cut those out of you so we can reverse engineer them.”
I tensed for a moment at her statement, logically that would be the highest potential benefit for her. But I wouldn’t make it easy, wanting to keep my implants to myself. Not to mention the fact that the Harmony would complain about me introducing technology to a world it didn’t originate from.
“But it’s unlikely that will work,” she added after a moment, “for one I imagine you could easily break out of that facility by yourself, and attempting to do so would only sour our relationship. So I’ll see what I can do to set you up with a lab.”
And with that the screen went dead, leaving me once more looking surprised. I had wanted to ask her questions as well, but seems I wouldn’t get the chance. I didn’t expect her to have much information for me, not if all they had was that one short video of me, but if she got to pepper me with questions for hours, I figured I was due a few in return.
With a sigh I stood and made my way to the door only for it to open before I got there.
“We’ve been told to set you up with a hotel room and some cash,” the agent said idly.
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An hour later I was laying on the bed of some cheap hotel in town. It wasn’t too bad, thankfully, but neither was it a five-star resort. I was told that they’d come speak with me tomorrow and I should remain here. They hadn’t outright said I was being watched, but the Harmony claimed to have noticed a couple men watching me when I went down to grab dinner at the hotel restaurant.
“Do you think you caused the Returning Rain?” the Harmony asked as I lay on the bed, still fully dressed.
“Do you think I did?” I countered.
“It’s not an unlikely option,” it replied, “imagine if you were in a full-blown war with the Conductor.”
“I think I already am,” I snorted, but the Harmony pushed through, ignoring me.
“He’s busy refining his Harmonic Entities, and you need something comparable, something that can’t be controlled by Harmonic Entities, can be summoned at need and has the ability to aid you in combat. A Repeater seems like it would fit that role nicely.”
“What makes you think they can’t be controlled?”
“They don’t have a physical brain. There’s no medium for me, or another Harmonic Entity to infect. They clearly think but I don’t see any way to access it.”
“They can clearly hear and see,” I pointed out, “why not use those as vectors?”
“Because I need to know what’s on the other end in order to infect it,” the Harmony replied, “that’s why I couldn’t infect your implant, I didn’t know it existed, and don’t know how it interfaces with your brain. It’s like trying to follow someone to an island when you don’t know boats exist. I followed the trail to the dock, didn’t understand what it was, and wasn’t able to do so.”
“You managed to figure out transferring between sound and human brains in multiple different worlds.”
“Because sound and brains I both know about, and understand. With access to a brain I can analyze the medium, with a body I can experiment with and understand sound, and with those I can figure out a way to move between them. But if I can’t observe the destination medium...”
“Right,” I nodded, “you know, the more I learn about you, the more limits I find in your abilities. At first you seemed like an all-powerful parasitic entity designed to end universes, but now you’re a song that sings itself into people within very limited conditions.”
“You aren’t wrong, but the same is true of you,” it riposted, “you seemed like an impossibility, a mind with no memories that could take itself back. But now I know you’re a confused man who is stumbling through worlds, barely understanding what’s going on.”
“Some team we make,” I chuckled, the Harmony bobbing in agreement.
“Neither of us is complete, what we should be.”
“So... should I attempt to control the Repeaters?”
“Assuming our guess that you created them is even true, your past self couldn’t control them. It’s unlikely the current you can either.”
“I’m not sure I even released them anyways,” I admitted, “doesn’t seem like something I’d do.”
“It may have been accidental, maybe you were testing with them only to find them to be a failure and were pulled away from this world before you realized they were a danger,” the Harmony offered, “or you could have simply been more callous then than you are now. If you were desperate to find a way to fight against the Conductor you may have taken risks you wouldn’t otherwise. It seems to be a path that many travelers go down, desperation leading to taking risks that result in other worlds baring the cost.”
“I hope that never happens to me,” I said with a shiver.
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“This is your lab,” the man said, gesturing to a pretty standard, if rather empty, lab. The most unusual part was a sliding glass door that led to an open air courtyard of sorts, presumably to have better access to the rain.
“Seems a bit... empty,” I remarked.
“We had it set up last night,” he replied, “but we weren’t sure what you needed. If you show results then we can likely get you more, better equipment.”
“I’m pretty sure I can do better with my implants than use any of this,” I said dryly, inspecting a rack of beakers that made this place look like a chemistry lab.
“This computer has access to the International Repeater Agency database,” the man continued, gesturing to a computer set up in one corner, “most of it anyways. Beyond that, here’s a cash card that has several hundred bucks preloaded, should be enough to sustain you for a while. A cell phone, and a car are also to be provided, though you might have to wait a day for the car to arrive. The phone is here on the desk with the cash card.”
Not bothering to wait for me to reply the man turned and left, leaving me alone in the lab.
“Well, it’s a start,” I said with a shrug, moving over to the computer, “only thing to do is browse the database, at least until it rains again.”
“How much you want to bet they censored the information about you, or at least restricted your access to that?”
“I wouldn’t take that bet,” I shook my head.
“I figure they’re keep it in their back pocket, in case they need leverage.”
“Shame, well, nothing for it.”
With that I began my second major research session on the Returning Rain.
I had access to quite a bit more information this time, before I was working off Wikipedia pages and news articles, but now I had actual reports and documentation. Drier, but more informative.
One thing I discovered quickly was that the Reverse Moon that appeared during a Returning Rain event was changing as time went on. It shouldn’t have been too surprising, I witnessed lava flows when I’d seen it before, but I was surprised by how much it had changed. Early photos showed it as being far more solid than what it was today, mostly solid stone compared to the molten moon of today. As I tabbed through the photos I found myself scowling, there was something about them that had my mind searching, though I didn’t know what.
After going through them all I found myself agreeing with the general conclusion of what many papers in the database had posited, that we were witnessing a moon forming in reverse, at a massively increased speed. When the Inverse Moon first appeared it was almost fully formed, and the one now was as it would have been thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of years before as it slowly cooled.
As for why this was the case, the theories were far wilder, once more ranging from the spiritual to the simply insane. Some said we were witnessing a parallel reality where time flowed backwards compared to ours, this was absurd because time only flowed in one way. It could flow at different speeds, but it only had one direction.
Another claimed it was a threat from an angry god, showing how it could easily unmake our world. And a third claimed it was a temporal mirror, showing us further back in time as we traveled into the future. Nothing that held any real water, but they were clearly grasping for an answer to something beyond their understanding. And while I did want to dismiss these theories outright, I found that, if I was being honest, I couldn’t do so for the same reason they couldn’t, I simply didn’t know enough about what was going on.
I was able to answer some of my questions, confirming that there weren’t any animal Repeaters, only humans, all Repeaters were violent and Rainborne more so, though they often had better tactical sense and would retreat or hide when needed.
So for the next few days I busied myself reading through the database, waiting for it to rain. Thankfully the RDA didn’t bother me, nor did its international counterpart, they understood that there was only so much I could do without actually having something to observe.
It wasn’t until my sixth day in this world when I was driving to the lab, content to spend the next day reading the database again, when I noticed a drop of rain hit the windshield of my car.
“Oh, looks like we get to actually work today,” the Harmony said, looking out the side window where a moon of molten lava hovered in the sky, completely unannounced.
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