NOVEL NEXT A Whole Universe
David awoke to find himself changed.
His last memory was Walker throwing him with what felt like a little too much strength, an unimaginable pressure as his body was squeezed into a pencil-like form, then total darkness. There were moments when he felt like he was fighting something. Something weak, and wrong, and totally out of its depth. Something that didn’t feel like it should be there.
Then, darkness, followed by light.
He looked around, although calling it looking would be wrong. It was more like a feeling.
In every direction, he felt the vast expanse of his own body stretching out, reaching for more. It was an empty plane, filled only with the totality of himself. No stars, no planets, no life. Just David, the boundless kinetic energy around him, and his own growing self.
But, as he continued to gain a sense of his own form, he also felt a profound and dejecting sense of solitude. He was alone. A solitary consciousness, living its life with no purpose, no true sensations, big or small. Only he, himself, and I.
He attempted to reach out with his newfound senses, but all around him, all he felt were walls—placeholders, where connections should be. Things were not right, not as they should be. He was one with the universe, a singular entity, and so alone.
That is, until he felt something move.
Focusing his senses as best he could, he found a single lifeform—something filled with matter and blazing to his new “eyes.”
Looking back, he remembered. This was Walker, and though his form was nude and damaged, he’d never looked better. Except for the smears of red caking his body. But how did he talk to him? And, why was his…original self, moving so slowly?
No matter, he thought to himself, I will practice.
Taking hold of the metaphysical state near the edges of his control, David twisted space. The fabric of reality was putty in his hands. While each movement was difficult, he learned how to better control the vast reaches of his body with his new “hands.”
Space, of which he’d had very literal actual knowledge in his previous, albeit short, life, was quite different than what he’d expected. It was a part of the fabric of reality. But he realized, in this place, he was reality itself. With each movement and new way of moving space, he better learned to control his strength. Better knew when to shift up instead of down. How much strength to use. And as he continued to train, honing his abilities in this new body, he felt a sense of joy in the work. This was Creation. This was power.
He wasn’t just dealing with cosmic power anymore; he was cosmic power incarnate. Each new movement, each step taken, further brought him into attunement with his new life. David's shackles fell away, and in their place, something else was born—something glorious. He wasn’t growing stronger. He was growing more into himself.
This boundless form he’d taken on was his calling, his truest self. A powerful moment of clarity dawned on his mind: As astounding as this new life was, he needed a purpose—something to drive him forward. Not to mention, though he was a mind-breakingly large figure now, he could still get lonely. Remembering why he was practicing with the fundamentals of space control, he moved his mind back to Walker. His original, and sadly far more nondescript form.
Pinching space at a good enough distance to not hurt Walker’s ultimately frail body, he produced his first sounds for another person. It was more difficult than he’d imagined as he’d had to space each sound appropriately so it wouldn’t come all at once.
“Hey bud, how you feeling?”
He watched as Walker’s eyes widened in slow motion….and he continued to watch…and even longer. Finally, his mouth began to move.
“What…who…is…speaking.”
“It’s David, well, I guess I’m still David. Although I don’t think that name fits anymore.”
Walker appeared to think for a long period of time, although, at this point, David knew that wasn’t the case. He was accelerated to a high degree. But there was something more to it. He had an intrinsic feeling for time now, as if a clock were constantly winding and unwinding in the back of his mind. This didn’t feel like a time slowdown. This felt like Walker was just…slower than him. Mentally. He started to pay attention again as Walker finally started speaking.
“Well…That’s…fair…I…guess…”
David mentally sighed. This was going to take forever.
Walker and David spoke back and forth. For Walker it all happened within the space of ten minutes, but for David, it was closer to an hour. They agreed to call him by something else, and David specifically stated he would not be called Symphony. The Omniverse may see him as Symphony, but he did not. Instead, he went with something unique that called out to him.
“Bob.”
Walker shook his head in slow motion, “No…way…you’re…being…called…that.”
David, who would like to be called Bob, but apparently that was too much, rolled his mental eyes at that. He was pretty tired of having to wait for Walker to respond every couple minutes, so while Walker spent ten minutes explaining why Bob wouldn’t work, which was David’s goal in the first place, he instead focused on working with Dimensionality.
When Walker had first created the Universal strand, he’d combined three particular strands together. Space, Time, and Dimensionality. It was strange for him to think that Walker had done all of these things, as he had memories of doing it himself. The consciousness separation brought upon him by the nature of being a reflection, no longer applied. Yes, he recognized that he’d now had a mental schism for what it meant to be, him. But he also still felt like Walker, deep within, and felt it was important to recognize that fact.
Regardless, he’d begun to control Space and all of its nuances within his body, but now it was time to test out Dimensionality. When he had worked with it in the past, the explosive results had stopped him from doing anything further. Not to mention, his clothes had attacked him, which wasn’t a pleasant memory to consider. But now, without his need for clothing in the slightest, he thought it might be interesting to see what else he could do.
“Bob…is…terrible.” He heard Walker say as he pushed his mind toward the periphery yet again. It took a little longer this time as he was still expanding. To better understand what this expansion felt like, he chose to make comparisons to his previous memories.
Feeling his body felt like seeing. Vision.
Sound, such as the ones Walker was trying to make, felt like vibrations. He wasn’t hearing Walker so much as he was hearing the vibrations Walker was causing.
Controlling space felt like reaching out a hand and touching something. So if he was controlling space with one hand, didn’t that mean he could control Dimensionality, or Time, with another?
“I…don’t…want…to…tell…people…the…universe…is…named…Bob.”
David smirked to himself at that, and recognized another new facet of his life. He’d retained his emotions. There was no guarantee that merging with a universe would allow him to maintain his own sense of self. He was no longer human, but had managed to bring along numerous human-like traits. And yet, there were no hormones, no pituitary gland to help him manage things as a human body would have. That meant there was a chance he could spiral and lose control of himself if he wasn’t careful. The human mind was built on a house of cards. Pull one, and it all falls down.
It was a conundrum, and one he didn’t much appreciate.
David, who now knew a few likely names Walker would give him due to their penchant for theming things, reached out to another facet of his body. When grabbing space, it felt like lifting and moving a rock, albeit one that you could shape.
Dimensionality was far different. This felt more like running his hands through a running creekbed. It didn’t matter how much they tried; a person couldn’t really grab water. and attempting to grasp water.
Not without freezing it, that is.
Perhaps that was the trick to Dimensionality after all.
“Orion…would…be…a…good…name.”
David mentally smirked again at having guessed right. He replied quickly, “Orion, in the stories, dated Artemis, who is now a person you know personally. I do not believe she nor I would appreciate that fact.”
As he considered that, Walker froze, so David returned to his project. Now that he knew he couldn’t alter Dimensionality the same way he could space, it made him wonder if he just needed to pour it out. Grasping the metaphysical edges of his expansion again, he grasped onto the dimensional elements within it, and pulled.
A series of broken portals erupted across the universe, far enough away that Walker had no chance of seeing them. However, David felt something he hadn’t expected.
Pain.
But why would it be painful? And what are these things?
David felt a large group of bat-like creatures appear, violating the integrity of his body. They flew through the broken portal before it could close shut. But, now in the vacuum of space and unprotected as they were, they instantly imploded, small droplets of blood and tissue floating across the edges of his boundless space.
Fucking gross, He thought to himself.
“You…have…a…point. Maybe…we…should…think…about…this…more…later”
David looked back at Walker, growing more skilled at traversing his mind across his body than he’d been before. “True, Walker. So, you need to make a system, correct? Where would you like to start?”
That should buy me some time, David thought as he returned to the periphery. The pieces of the creatures who had come through were already floating away, driven by the energy of his own expansion and the explosions caused by the portals closing themselves away.
So, don’t do that again.
But if he couldn’t pull on Dimensionality, what was the trick? There had to be something special involved here. In a moment of inspiration, David changed tactics. Instead of trying to force things a certain way, maybe he had to shift his thinking. Or at least, the way he was thinking.
What was Dimensionality? Time and space are easy to understand in a sense, but dimensionality has always been a bit more tricky. Reality from Earth and likely the fourth rendition were built upon the idea of three dimensions: length, Width, and Height. And yet, that seemed to fit better with space or matter than the idea of Dimensionality itself.
He learned from a physics nerd he used to spend time with in college that time was considered the fourth dimension. According to that theory, space occupied the first three dimensions. Time occupied the fourth, which meant that the fifth was whatever the Evolvers had called Dimensionality. After all, they named it, but that didn’t mean that’s what it was.
His mind went back to the clothing yet again. Playing around with the dimensionality strand allowed his own clothing to not only come alive, but to gain a form of consciousness. To fundamentally alter what they are. Is that all it is?
Is the 5th dimension, dimensionality itself, a set of rules that can be altered? If so, what were the rules? Gravity? Could he permanently alter time itself as a lesser dimension?
“I…think…we…need…to…start…with…the…skill…system…but…that…means…I…need…to…create…an…A.I.”
Was that what they did?
A.I.’s altered systems. Systems were a lesson in architecture. A system or series of built-in rules that are applied across a universe.
That meant if he could find a way to alter dimensionality, he could find a way to build fluid and dynamic systems. Ones that didn’t necessarily need oversight, but instead could be managed as simply as he did with the space strand. He just needed to find a way to connect to the fifth dimension.
And he had an idea for how to do that.
“Walker, I think we need a supreme A.I.”
Walker looked around for a moment, “What?”