Twin Earth

Feeling as if my new clothes were too long for me, I rolled up the legs a little and marvelled at the softness of the fabric. It felt like silk and seemed just as delicate, but as I tried pulling at it to see if it would rip, it didn’t. It was incredibly tough.

‘Is this natural?’ I wondered to myself, draping the fabric through my fingers and standing back up. Either way, I still felt like a prat wearing it.

“Are you coming?” Rachel asked, heading out the door.

“Sure,” I muttered, following Rachel and glancing both ways down the corridor to see if anyone was watching.

“You look fine. Stop worrying,” Rachel groaned, taking the lead and marching off down the corridor.

“Where are we going exactly?” I asked, jogging to catch up with her. A few metres along, the corridor began to slope downwards in a spiral towards another level. Even the shimmering glow of the lights grew dimmer as we slowly headed underground to where I didn’t know.

“Down here is... a room. I can’t really explain it or what it does, but there’s this group of people called the Order who meet there to discuss ideas or issues their people have. I don’t really understand it myself as I wasn’t invited to participate, but, well... you’ll see.”

“Okaaay,” I muttered, confused.

Eventually the corridor came to an end and in front of us was an entrance set into a curved wall. It was more like an archway with a space below it that had the same liquid texture as the window in my room. I couldn’t see through the archway, but either side were two transparent screens that looked onto a darkened room filled with millions of tiny lights flashing all different colours of the spectrum. It looked similar to a sensory room I had been in once as a child, one of those chill-out rooms that are filled with optic fibre lights to calm you down, but I didn’t feel particularly calm right now.

“How do we get in?” I asked, looking at Rachel who was closely inspecting the blackened-out door.

“I’m not sure. I was with that woman last time, the one you met? She waved her hand around here somewhere and did something to open it.”

“It looks like oil,” I remarked, touching the wall in front of me and marvelling at how it bounced and rippled as I disturbed its structure. “What do you think it’s made of? It’s like the window in my room, but black.”

“I think... I may be wrong, but to me it looks like manipulated bio technology, like the door on the ionohex but organic. If you look closely when you disturb it, the structure acts like connective tissue.”

“Organic? That’s impossible as well as deeply disturbing.”

“Is it? Magnus himself has been at the forefront of developing nano-bio computers on Earth using nano-fabricated networks. Maybe this is similar somehow.”

“Like a smart skin? but... why? A door isn’t a computer. It doesn’t have to compute anything.”

“Not necessarily, but in a way it has to maintain itself and form a function. Why not make it a living thing?” Rachel replied in awe as she poked at the liquid a few times more.

“What about electrically modulated liquid crystals?” I suggested.

“Like television quantum dots? But how would they stay suspended like this? And they wouldn’t be as dark as this would they?” Rachel frowned.

“Don’t they go clear when they’re heated though, and it would explain the movie screen I first saw?”

“Or, maybe it’s a mix of the two,” Rachel cooed.

“What like fullerene liquid crystals?”

“Well, I was thinking more like your quantum dots could be adhering to the cells in the tissue like structure here.”

“Whatever it is we should try and take some samples, for when we get home, to show Trevor and Magnus. This technology could advance our technical abilities by decades,” I remarked.

“I’m not sure they’d be happy with us stealing their technology.”

“Maybe not steal, but I think it’s our duty to obtain it, don’t you? We could ask them first.”

But before Rachel could reply, the door rippled and then dissipated in front of us, revealing the darkened room beyond. Rachel immediately stepped inside and waited for me to join her, but I was too intrigued as to where the liquid had gone and instead paused half way through to inspect the archway in more detail.

“Tom, stop it. If the door is prevented from closing it might become too de-coherent and lose its ability to restructure itself.”

“How do you know that?” I asked surprised, looking at Rachel.

“Because I did the exact same thing earlier and was told as such,” Rachel quipped.

Raising my eyebrows and bowing to pressure, I passed through the door and watched as it once again rippled into being, hiding the corridor beyond.

“Please,” a voice advised approaching from the darkness. Turning around, I finally took in the whole room and was surprised to see eight resting platforms, like those in my room, arranged in a semi-circle in the centre of the room. The colourful optic lights flickered around us, but I couldn’t see exactly where they were coming from, instead they appeared and then disappeared throughout the room, sometimes so close to my eyes it made me blink in surprise. The voice belonged to the man I had met after my language initiation, and he was now looming over me with his skinny frame handing me what looked like a virtual reality headset.

“What is this place?” I asked, confused.

“It is the place we meet for discussion. Please, put these over your eyes and ears once you have laid down.”

“Why do I have to lie down? Where’s your headset?”

“Tom, stop freaking out and just do as he says,” Rachel quipped.

“But why do we have to wear this head gear and they don’t? What the hell is...” I started but was interrupted by the man.

“You do not have the same digital imprint that we have inside our bodies. You are different. These will help you see what we see.”

“Okay, because that makes so much more sense,” I mumbled sarcastically.

“What is your problem?” Rachel moaned, pulling me towards one of the beds.

“My problem? Why do you trust these people? How is any of this helping us get back home?”

“It’s not about trust. Arguing with them isn’t going to help. Aren’t you a least bit curious about any of this technology? Maybe they can help us with the anomaly and the problems on Earth. Did you think about that?”

Realising I was caught out I gave up my argument, but I still felt wary of our new friends.

Reluctantly I watched Rachel climb onto one of the resting platforms and pull on her headset, and then I too did the same.