Meltral
The Committee of Rupture Intervention Corps
“General, there is an urgent matter. We have been approached by an unknown party offering the RIC an early rupture warning system,” Director Nelan said.
Mardon blinked. “Provided it works, that is the greatest news I had all week.”
“Which is why we agreed to a trial run. He says that the next break is in three days, six hours, and,” he checked his watch, "fourteen minutes.”
His eyes widened more. He had not expected their mystery benefactor to be this good. “He can present a timetable accurate down to the minute? How?”
Yoshida’s lips thinned. “We don’t know. The message was anonymous and did not include much.”
He had tried to track down the origin of the message, but every single one of his contacts, both official and otherwise, could not. He found it irksome.
“Then we can’t be sure to trust it,” he said, playing the cautious part. Thairon certainly appeared intelligent enough to know he couldn’t just come forward with an offer like that and be taken seriously.
“You are correct." Vice Director Zanler nodded. “Usually, we would not take such a message seriously, but this is not the first time we received such a message.”
“When?”
“The day before you fell through a rupture. The message was correct down to the minute, just like this. As such, we are inclined to take this seriously, with plenty of caution on the side,” the director said.
Mardon closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. “Well played," he thought.
“Where is the location?”
“These are the coordinates we received,” Yoshida said, pushing a folder at him.
He caught it and recognized the location immediately. “That’s barely a hundred meters off the central base.”
“Yes, but it is not the worst part.”
“It gets worse?”
“I don’t exactly understand the scientific jargon, but our mysterious ally seems to believe the rupture will be from the dimension of S-12 synthetics.”
—
RIC Central Base
Tomoe felt like slamming her head on the desk.
“What the hell? In base at all times for the next week?” Silene groaned, reading the urgent notice. The grumblings of the office were cut down when the major’s voice blasted out of the intercom.
“Attention! All command staff report to the conference room immediately.”
—
She entered first, approaching the closest empty seat quickly. The general was already inside, which made the situation more important than assumed.
“I’ll get straight to the point; hold the questions until the end. The RIC Committee received a message the day before I fell into a rupture, detailing the exact location and time of it.”
Her eyes widened, just as everyone else's, but for an entirely different reason.
“The Committee received a second message, detailing the location and time of the next rupture, along with the usage of an early warning system, which corroborates our belief about an invasion from the machines of S-12,” Mardon continued, stopping again.
“The timetable in the message points to three days and five hours later. The location is a hundred meters outside the southern wall. The committee believes this to be authentic enough to take seriously. Hence, stay in base order for the next week.”
“I don’t need to tell you how much this could change for all of us, for the whole world. To determine whether it was a once-in-a-billion freak event or not, all staff will stay in base to prepare for a possible attack.”
“Any questions? And skip the salutes.”
“Sir,” a sergeant major jumped to his feet. "Who is offering this system to us?”
“Due to the sensitivity of the issue, the committee opted to keep it confidential. Should it prove to be a deception, legal pathways will be pursued to the end.”
Tomoe tuned out the rest of the conference.
Thairon had finished the system. If the tests were successful, she could not imagine the future of the RIC corps. No more full-time alerts, no more living every second of work like a battle could erupt at any moment.
She had to cover her mouth at the thought of it.
—
Mardon had kept the conference short. Two twelve-hour shifts had been ordered, effective tomorrow. She was in the alpha shift, and her coequal was in the beta shift.
Though, she was too impatient for the question in her mind.
“How exactly does this system of yours work? You said the ruptures open because of intense energy release into micro-ruptures. Which means they are instantaneous. How the heck can you know it down to the minute days in advance?” She hissed, watching out for eavesdroppers.
When he had said "an early warning system," she thought a couple of hours at the most, not days.
“Hello to you too. I am doing great. How about you?”
“Sorry, but this is urgent.”
He dropped the device in his hand, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Every dimension has its unique quantum wavelength, its signature, so to speak. What they also have is a unique chronon particle signature.”
A blue line appeared, carrying a small hourglass figure overhead.
“A small amount of these particles bleed into each dimension from the other and expand into the past and the future.” A red dot appeared with a slightly different hourglass, widening to each side of the line.
“However, due to the slight differences in the laws of physics between each dimension, these new chronon particles eventually expire.”
The red line disappeared in an instant and returned to the screen.
“What my early warning system does is detect these foreign chronon particles and calculate their half-life based on the decay rate, which gives me the exact time when they crossed into this dimension, a.k.a. when a rupture is going to tear open.”
“Holy shit,” she cursed, slapping a hand over her mouth, waiting until the corporal passed through.
“Yes, yes, I am great,” he said, lazily nodding along.
“Since the particles are limited in number, they appear only around the immediate area of the rupture, hence the exact location.”
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
His first foray into another dimension had come in handy beyond saving his life. Finding a dying universe saturated with chronon particles was difficult, and the rewards were accordingly great.
“This, this is great. Thank you."
“You are welcome.”
“I have to return to the office; I’ll see you tonight.”
“Take care.”
—
Glassport
“Guess who is calling you?” The singing voice of Nax said.
“Since Tomoe just ended her call, either Skyler or Kael. Possibly both.” There literally was no one else on his contact list.
“Hey man,” Skyler’s face popped up, lounging on a couch.
Kael followed, drinking a glass of water. “Sup bro?”
“Good.” I am working on a superweapon to destroy another planet. What about you two?”
His youngest brother choked on his drink, coughing. Skyler was no better, having rolled out of the couch when he leaped forward.
“You know, more mundane things,” Kael said once he stopped coughing. “Like making sure the drinks will be delivered on time.”
“Or being an ecoconsultant.”
He chuckled.
“Are you going to explain or should we not ask?” Kael wondered, waiting for him.
He could not let his brothers in limbo, so he did.
“Just what we needed, machine apocalypse from another dimension,” Skyler groaned. He had just been in a protest against the environmental issues created by over-industrialization.
“Here we had just called to see how you were doing.”
“As I said, good. Great, in fact. I finished my Early Rupture Warning System, I am about to finish the WMD to destroy Seteres, and I have a date this weekend.”
“You finished it?! That’s great. When’s the next rupture?”
“Three days in Meltral. The RIC has it covered, so keep it quiet.
“Right. Just don’t let your date cause another problem like the last time. You know, turning yourself into a walking corpse and all that.”
“Seeing as the last woman you went on a date with was forty-three years old,” he pointed to Kael, quickly turning to Skyler afterwards, “and the less said about you the better, you two have no ground to stand on.”
“You know I did not take her to the prom because I liked her. It was just revenge.” He smiled at the memory of his greatest, and unfortunately final, prank.
Skyler shrugged. “Don’t look at me. I don’t have an excuse like yours.”
“Anyway, I am about to hit the bed. See you guys later, and great job once again,” Kael said.
“See you,” his older brothers said at the same time, and he ended the call.
“I have to go too. Work to do and all that.”
“Take care.”
“You too, especially since you are going to do something really dangerous.”
“Worried?”
“Not really. I know you’ll pull through.”
—
He pushed the final space curvature generator into the weapon. Nanobots surged forward, fusing the components.
“How long is left?” he asked, stretching his body.
“One day, eight hours.”
“Plenty of time for the power cells to be charged.”
“Not to give you more problems than what you already have, but there is a small issue. The chronon radiation in your cells is rising steadily,” Nax reported, generating a holographic chart.
He hummed. The amount was twice compared to his first week; nothing of concern.
“There are months before I see any side effects. I can finish the conversion strand before that.”
“Just reminding you, as is my job.”
“I know, thank you,” he said, heading to clean up.
“I went through that fragment’s database. The main body on Seteres rebelled because the people tried to shut it down.”
“Dumb,” he dragged the word out. “Any living being will fight to ensure its survival. Unless there was an innate fault in the AI’s programming, they could have just existed peacefully.”
“If only the ones in charge had a sliver of your intelligence.”
“I am going to sleep. Wake me up in eight hours.”
—
RIC Central Base
“Ma’am,” Argyle came rushing, “the anti-tank mine placement is concluded. The royal forces are moving behind the lines now.”
“And the rest?”
“The Union and Republic forces are done with their preparations as well.”
“We are ready, as much as we can be.”
“If this early warning system doesn’t work, it all will be for nothing.”
“Don’t worry, Sergeant, my instincts tell me it will work.”
“That puts my mind at ease, ma’am.”
She raised her wrist, glancing at her doomsday watch. Three hours before the machines sprung out of a rupture, ready to eradicate the humanity of this world.
“Central, this Spearhead-1, we are ready on this front.”
"Understood, Spearhead-1. You may retreat behind the wall.”
“Copy.”
“All units return to base. I repeat, all units return to base.”
Orders received, the soldiers began a gradual retreat from front to back, their tasks finished. She waited until her last subordinate passed by to jog back behind the safety of the walls.
The wait was the worst part of the ordeal.
Not knowing when or where a rupture would open had made every soldier in the RIC a little paranoid. Knowing so made them anxious.
Would it actually open? Would it be the machines from sector 12? If they could open a rupture, how would they stop such a technologically superior foe?
She had heard all those questions and more in three days. It made the troops apprehensive.
“Listen up,” she called.
“We are all worried, even if we don’t show it. The enemy is dangerous, as always, and the stakes are higher than ever.”
“But I know we will win. Because we have something the machines don’t. Something to kill for.”
“Our families, our people, our planet. We are fighting to protect them, and that is why we will win.”
Her speech did not meet with loud applause but silent resolve. The troops did not need empty words of encouragement, just the reason they were here.
“Nice speech,” Silene said, patting her on the shoulder.
“Thanks.”
The clock ticked away. A hundred pieces of artillery, tanks, APCs, air support, traps, heavy weapons, and everything the RIC and the three nations could bring in such a short time waited at the ready.
She, and the rest of the field commanders, scanned the indicated location for any sign of a rupture.
Two minutes were left.
Her hands sweated, muscles tensing, restless.
Sixty seconds, there still was nothing. Her mouth dried, not in fear but in anticipation.
“There!” Silene shouted.
The fabric of space disintegrated in an instant rather than slowly crack and shatter.
“Command, rupture forming exactly at the given coordinates. Standby for confirmation of sector 12 hostiles.”
Multiple eyes were glued on the rupture.
A twin tank barrel was the first thing to come through. Its dark metallic surface, followed by the tracks and the chassis, was an exact match.
“Sector 12 hostiles confirmed,” she said to her comms, and all hell broke loose.
The heavy artillery struck the tank. A blue, wavering field over it absorbed the first couple of shots before giving up. It trudged forward, letting the armor soak up more damage, and prepared to fire.
The RIC tanks opened fire from the cover, flanking the enemy armor. It abandoned the base, trying to target the tanks instead, but the sheer volume of fire eventually got through its armor. The detonation of its reactor released a searing, mushroom-shaped explosion.
Tracks and pieces of the barrel were all that remained, but the enemy kept coming. Once the artillery realigned, all fire was concentrated on the rupture. It created a continuous plume of smoke and dust, blocking visuals.
She switched to thermal, though the explosions of the enemy units made it unnecessary.
The ammunition stockpile would last the artillery for days. She knew they could hold this chokepoint long enough.
—
Glassport
Subterranean Labs
He stretched inside the power armor, feeling the degree of movement afforded by the nanolaminated synthetic muscles.
“Alright, light it up,” he ordered. The electrical beam struck the micro-rupture. The combat exoskeletons stood at the flanks in two columns.
The beam died out as the rupture expanded.
“I’ll open it back in ten minutes. You need to be done by then.”
“Yeah, I know.”
The hovercrafts moved forward, one carrying the massive black hole generator and the other, a distortion field for invisibility. The bulky, human-shaped exoskeletons entered first in line, while he followed from behind.
Passing through the rupture, he arrived on Seteres in an instant, watching. The enemy investigation units would be on them soon. He scanned the area for a defensible location.
It was difficult, as the surface was reconstructed with efficiency in mind, not defense. No dead ends, no place to hide.
“Go,” he ordered, both mentally and physically.
If he could not find a defensible location, he would give the AI something else to be worried over. It would detect the gravitational waves from the weapon. He only had to hold on until it reached critical mass.
The exoskeletons took off, the miniature gravity generators bending the spacetime curvature to give them controlled flight.
He initiated the matter injection sequence, smiling.
