1. Things Now

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1. Things Now

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Kallom-4000's temporal registry denoted a span of one hundred forty-seven Earth days post my retrieval from that desert. However, the reliability of the temporal measurement harbored severe uncertainties. Despite being integrated with a highly precise chronosynchronizer, Kallom-4000 elucidated the probability of decohering phenomena not solely afflicting my being, but pervasively impacting the entire spaceship, including Kallom-4000 verself.

The assertion of a trans-reality leap, as ludicrous as it may seem, harbored implications profound enough to cast a shadow of doubt over the fidelity of our chronosynchronizer's readings. The device, though a marvel of precision in timekeeping, holds its accuracy relative to the fabric of the reality it operates within. Its readings, while precise, are indexically anchored to the quantum-temporal coordinates of its residing Universe. Thus, a leap across the bounds of disparate realities posed an enigma most perplexing: the chronosynchronizer's temporal readouts, while accurate within the new reality's framework, could be vastly disparate from the time frame of our origin reality. It follows that our mission could have started, for instance, forty-five million years ago, taking into account our starting reality, but, after some reality jump we are unaware about, it now states only one hundred forty-seven days.

That was enough to shatter all my hopes for temporal fidelity.

In conventional settings, the chronosynchronizer within Kallom-4000 would adeptly recalibrate amidst even the most anomalous space-time configurations. However, the mysterious problem enveloping our circumstance transcended the zenith of our speculative and empirical understanding, rendering the recalibration capabilities of the device inadequate.

Regardless of the enigmatic nature of time within that realm, it bestowed upon me ample stretches to traverse the every nook and cranny of that spacecraft. Even though at the time of my initial tour I had been raptured by decohesion, after a few days there inside I familiarized myself with all the levels. As referred previously, that spacecraft, which in the documents was referred to as omniship RT-874, had five levels, all accessible through elevators using some kind of teleport technology. One extra level, called the Zeroth Level, could be accessible through an elevator by the center of the bridge, but such elevator remained deactivated and could be only reactivated by Captain RĂĽdolf, who was missing like all the other crewmembers but Kallom-4000 and I.

After carefully studying those levels, I came to the following conclusion. The fifth level, called the Burrow, was actually a hangar. Its sole intention was to store a smaller spaceship, also referred to as omniship in the documents, named ZF-78. The omniship, as already shown in the previous chapter, was not present. That was a mystery that Kallom-4000 was not fully able to explain. Ve explained me the fact that the ZF-78’s signature disappeared from the hangar minutes after the crash, but beyond that ve had no information.

The fourth level, the Park, seemed to be nothing beyond this: a park, a place intended for leisure for the crew. Still, I could not gather my mind around its procedurally generated technology. Even though something very common and ordinary in runs, whose size of a three-dimensional world was of trivial matter, I was not inside a virtual reality—as far as I could tell. Nonetheless, despite our meticulous investigations, neither Kallom-4000 nor I were able to furnish any plausible explanation, nor could we detect any Quantum Resonance Stabilizers that could have underpinned Kallom-4000’s initial hypothesis.

The third level, called the Quarters, consisted of individual one hundred square meter apartments designed to cater to each crew member's personal needs and privacy. These living quarters were positioned in two rows, arranged in a grid of two by five. Adjacent to these personal quarters was the expansive one thousand square meter lounge. A versatile space, the lounge was designed not only for relaxation and socialization but also for holding meetings. Its vastness catered to a variety of activities, from serene solitude in one corner to a bustling group interaction in another.

What I could never fail to notice was the sheer enormity of the rooms within that RT-874. The concept that each crew member had individual apartments as big as one hundred square meters was absurd to consider. Throughout my experiences aboard countless other vessels, I had never encountered such expansive spaces dedicated to a single individual. Most ships, from my past adventures, prioritized functional compactness over luxury. Spaces were designed to conserve and efficiently use every available inch, optimizing for the ship's missions rather than individual comfort. Yet, here, it was as if luxury and space were of paramount importance, a stark contrast to every other spaceship I had ever set foot in. The extravagance in everything inside was bewildering, like that enormous lounge, leading me to wonder about the true purpose and origin of that behemoth vessel.

While most syrakian vessels utilize malinkri modules to immerse syrakis in virtual realities, allowing each individual to experience vast virtual spaces limited only by the module’s memory capacity, the RT-874 appeared to lack any such module. What was truly startling was not the absence of the module, but the fact that I found myself in a human replacer. If I was not inside a virtual reality, as seemed to be the case aboard RT-874, then inhabiting a human body made little sense. Typically, if the vessel's AI algorithms or nenthors could not fully manage their tasks, and the physical presence of a syraki was required, we would not utilize fragile human replacers. Instead, we would employ far superior engineered vectors, be they biological or otherwise, tailored to the specific demands of the role.

The second level, known as the Research Center, intrigued me the most. I sensed that if there were answers to be found on that vessel, the Research Center held the greatest likelihood of harboring them. Only that I could not understand what the research was all about. The level was subdivided among seven units, and they were, from left to right, top to bottom:

Sick Bay - 250 m² Room 0554 - 100 m² Exopsychology Lab - 400 m² Species Container A - 250 m² Species Container B - 250 m² Cold Storage - 200 m² Laboratory - 700 m²

The picture I first drew as I entered that level, and by reading those neon-like titles, was that I had finally understood the purpose of that mission. It was so obvious, how could I have not realized it until that moment? However, my nascent hypotheses crumbled almost instantaneously as I ventured further into those compartments. Despite their titles, the internal configurations of these rooms bore little to no resemblance to any context I could relate to, let alone understand.

The names suggested research areas, perhaps dealing with exobiology, xenopsychology, xenochemistry, astroecology, extraterrestrial physiology, or xenogeology. But upon entry, the spaces seemed to mock my expectations. Instruments and modules were unidentifiable, and the architecture itself defied syrakian standards of design. There were no data banks detailing the experiments or procedures that might take place in the compartments, nor was Kallom-4000 able to provide insights. Every unit became a puzzle, a cipher within an enigma, each more confounding than the last. Complicating matters further, Room 0554 was sealed, secured by an enigmatic encryption protocol. Kallom-4000 was unable to unlock it. Ve speculated that the room had likely been locked in the aftermath of the incident.