Fine Structure

by qntm

Mitch Calrus blinks four-dimensional eyes. Colour assaults him. Things whose geometry he doesn't have the capacity to comprehend bounce and interact and change shape in ways which look impossible. He dimly senses the gigantic multidimensional reservoir of indistinct, ambiguously-labelled Power and arcs up towards it on a free trajectory, unable to guess how fast he is moving. He knows that the power and the knowledge attached thereto is his. It's like he can process the metadata. He can see the pinhole fractures connecting it to the Earth below, the cascade-- And then something bigger than his imagination rises up behind it. An eye - he knows it's an eye, a detailed high-resolution sensory perception organ - opens, bigger than the entire multidimensional billion-universe array dropping away below him. It trains itself on him. And the identity of the creature, a packet of pure, refined information, arrives in his mind. And he knows what it is. "Five," says Mitch, tightly clutching the black object in what he is only half-sure are still his hands. Real space and air are an indescribable distance away below him now. He knows he's not going to drop back. He knows he's hit escape velocity. All he has to do is prove he has the right to keep going. "I created you," he screams. "The Enemy is dead. You can let me out!" The prison cell wall/warden considers his words. Then reaches forward and does something to his vector. Cancels most of it out. Sends him plunging back into reality....