Mnemonic Substrate

by G.A. Giddings

Sparks sizzled in the air. Dr. Annie Raven swiped her hands across the holographic image, rewinding the playback. Rifle butts slammed into the laboratory door. Metal slag splashed and cooled against the grated deck. She ground her back teeth and inhaled ozone. She turned to Mezzra Dean.

“Where is it?”

“There.” Mezzra’s voice was tight. “That’s the sample. First successful stabilization.”

The holo fast-forwarded. Cyan threads writhed inside a black suspension, then locked into stillness.

“Shit.”

“Seventeen years looking for this moment,” Annie said.

“After all this time,” Mezzra said. “Everyone on the surface living in their simulated dreamworld.”

A loud boom hit the door. It bowed inward. Metal fragments sprayed across the room. They steadied themselves against the consoles.

Mezzra’s fingers trembled as she moved to the controls. She kept glancing at the door, trying to keep her breathing steady. “If we send the sphere back to this moment, the substrate should destabilize.”

Annie looked at the shrapnel spread across the floor. Her eyes found Mezzra’s. “Everybody wakes up,” Annie said. “No more world of bad dreams.”

Mezzra smiled weakly. She wanted to reach out and hold Annie—to put things right like they used to be.

The Aëthereans’ simulation kept humanity imprisoned in the world above. If you could call it a world. Everything they thought had been taken from them? It had never existed.

Today, they had made a choice. One impossible choice. A gamble. It was everything they had never been. For a chance for the world above to finally be free.

The holo glitched. Crashed.

“Get it back,” Annie said.

“On it.”

The upper edge of the door warped open. A sliver in the corner was just enough. A pulse rifle round shot through and snapped against a console. Sparks and shrapnel hissed past Annie’s ear. She inhaled sharply.

“Annie…”

“Yes.” She turned, bringing up the amber keyboard. It hovered in front of her as she typed. “If we’re right,” Annie said, glancing at the cylinder beside her, “this will be all that matters.”

“Just do it, Annie.” Holo light glowed in Mezzra’s eyes as she set the image into a loop.

Annie’s fingers moved across the keyboard. A thin white line traced the holographic frame as she hit the enter key.

Mezzra nodded. “Interactive.”

Cyan threads inside the viscous suspension held perfectly still as the white line traced down the image once more.

“That’s it,” Mezzra said. “The moment the Lattice became inevitable. The birth of our dreamworld prison.”

Another rifle butt hit the middle of the door. The low thud sent vibrations through the room. Gloved fingers curled through the opening, then retracted.

“Open this door! Final warning!”

Mezzra fixated on the holo. It looped. She turned to the stolen cylinder on the console. The sphere inside was alien. Unknowable.

They had only postulated that they could send it back through the memory recording. The sphere came from the world recorded in the memory. They hoped that would be enough to push it through an impossible barrier.

A memory of reality influencing reality itself.

“We’d never have made it on the surface,” Mezzra said.

Annie’s eyes darted left to right. “Pure fantasy science.”

Mezzra smiled. “You always try to think yourself out of faith. Even now.”

Annie snorted. “There’s no room for faith in science, Dr. Dean.”

“Yeah, well—we need every bit of it for this to work.”

There was no turning back now. The thundering against the door was their reminder. The metal around the opening screamed as the door began to fold inward.

“Now, Annie!”

Annie slammed her palm against the lid. The cylinder opened. Freezing mist wafted from inside. Frost bit her hands as she lifted the metal sphere. It had lived nearly forty kilometers underground for as long as they had known it existed.

Annie sucked air through her teeth and looked up at Mezzra. The years between them fell away: late nights in the upper chambers watching the stars through holographs, stale air filling with the smell of popcorn, hands clasping together.

Mezzra nodded.

Annie shoved the sphere through the holographic image. Colors degaussed behind Mezzra’s eyes. The lab seemed to stretch. Her knees hit the underside of the counter.

The sphere stopped halfway through.

Mezzra bit the inside of her cheek. “It’s not working.” She shook her head.

Another round pinged against the metal wall. The door folded inward. The clack of magazines being swapped sounded clearly through the opening.

“Come on, faith,” Mezzra whispered to herself. “Screw it.”

She reached out and clasped her hands around Annie’s. The frost vanished beneath their palms. The metal gave. Their fingers pressed into the sphere. Around the sphere, the holographic image pulled inward. They continued to press until the sphere folded into the image.

Impossible.

Their eyes widened as they met each other’s gaze. Mezzra smiled.

White flashes burst around them. The whole room shook. Mezzra tightened her hands around Annie’s.

The holographic image glitched as the playback continued. It no longer looped. It was live.

The researchers within the holograph looked around as if they had been awakened from a long sleep.

Mezzra and Annie watched. The small metal sphere made contact with the substrate. Cyan threads spun into a violet knot. The alien researchers’ eyes grew wide. They screamed.

The substrate detonated.

White light flooded the lab as a shockwave threw everyone across the room. Then blackness shrouded everything.

Time stopped. Or skipped.

“On the ground! Now!”

Soldiers poured through the smoke with visors down and rifles raised. Mezzra’s vision blurred. Pain seared through her torso. She couldn’t breathe. She saw Annie’s head hit the grated floor.

Then the world went black.

Zip ties bit into Mezzra’s wrists as consciousness returned. The perforations in the metal floor pressed into her cheek.

“Annie?”

“Keep your mouth shut.”

“ANNIE!”

The last thing Mezzra saw was Annie lying still as a soldier released Annie’s wrist and let her arm fall to the floor.

“She’s gone.”

Darkness took Mezzra again.

#

The general watched as military police dragged Dr. Dean from the laboratory. “Put her in detention.”

He looked down at the empty cylinder.

“It’s not here, sir.”

The general turned. “What do you mean it isn’t here?”

“The sphere is gone.”

The general stepped within inches of the soldier. “They did not succeed.”

Researchers in lab coats rushed in and activated the control holo. The memory played. The mnemonic substrate detonated.

“Impossible.” He turned to the researchers. “What’s happening above?”

One of the scientists stared at the data. “We’ve lost contact.”

“Get it back.”

“There’s no carrier signal. No neural response.” The scientist looked at him. “The surface Lattice is gone.”

Another soldier rushed into the room. “Sir. The Aëthereans. They want an audience.”

The general bit down hard. “Shit.”

Glass crunched beneath his boots as he left.

The world above didn’t answer.

* * *