2. The Warning

Template: Scene

Source: .writer/books/5. đź“ť Manuscript/2. The Spaceship/2. The Warning.org

1. Short Description

Mike sees verself in the middle of a strange technological room and has a bad time when he almost suffered decohesion.

2. Notes

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3. Status

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4. Image

2. The Warning

/Short description of the image./

5. Content

My heart raced. My mind went blank by panic and I felt hollow. It crossed me that perhaps my presence in that place provoked some type of disturbance. I instinctively knew, like a long-lost memory roaring back from a distant past, that I should stop that steady rise towards the irreversible level no matter what. It did not take long until a female smooth voice, one that I had not heard until that moment, resonated through the chamber, echoing like a harbinger of impending doom.

WARNING! COUNTERMEASURES MUST BE APPLIED IMMEDIATELY. DECOHESION IMMINENT.

What should I do? I trembled, looking around and frightened as a cornered animal. “Help!” I cried. “I need help! Please! Someone!”

There was no one.

The big screen still displayed "Booting Kallom-4000…” For some reason, the words “decohesion imminent” made me terribly anxious. It was a fear I could not fathom, but I knew, someway, to be reasonable. With the indicators still rising up, I realized I had to do something — anything! I had to fight that looming terror growing upon me. Then the whole room plunged into a sudden dark as the lights went off in a pulsating red and an apocalyptic alarm was triggered: wee woo, wee woo, wee woo, wee woo… What is happening?

“Make it stop! Make it stop!”

WARNING! COUNTERMEASURES MUST BE APPLIED IMMEDIATELY. DECOHESION IMMINENT.

Desperately inspecting that panel “Cohesion System” again, my shaking hands went instinctively to that rotary dial called “Milliarium Aureum Principle’s Modulator Control.” I did not know why the device seduced me, among so many others, it was simply a consequence of my despair. The dial went from "min." to "max.," throughout the way indicating many smaller positions mysterious to me, from left to right: "1.12 i/n," "1.18 i/n," "2.12 i/n," "2.18 i/n," "3.12 i/n"…

Wee woo. Wee woo. Wee woo. Wee woo.

WARNING! COUNTERMEASURES MUST BE APPLIED IMMEDIATELY. DECOHESION IMMINENT.

Wee woo. Wee woo. Wee woo. Wee woo.

I started turning the dial towards the maximum level, my anxiety so heightened I was about to faint. I felt that was all I could do. I did not even reach the last level when I realized the pointers on both indicators were rising not slower, but even faster, like a pressure cooker about to explode at any moment. I messed up. Oh heavens! It seemed I just worsened my situation. Soon it was as if I could not stand on my feet facing was about to be.

“Help!” I screamed. “Help!”

I immediately pulled my hand from the dial, as if to flee its curse, and could not do anything else but watch the scene unfold in its pulsating alarm. I had that deep sense that I had doomed myself, condemned me to a fate infinite worse than my most terrifying nightmare. Oh no! Even though I did not know what exactly, I knew it was real! Decohesion imminent, that expression would not escape my mind, the source of fixation.

The small triangle in the Decohesion Probability Indicator climbed across the bar and my eyes alongside with it. Please! Please! Stop! Suddenly, both the indicators reached their maximum levels at the same time. Basically at the same time, the Decohesion Probability Indicator reached “decohesion imminent”, and the Decohesion Deviation Indicator reached “irreversible.” The image was etched in my mind. My horror was such that I felt like my eyes plunged into the hollowness inside of me. I fell to the ground as I could not withstand what I was just about to do to myself.

The female voice announced the countdown as the alarm screamed loudly in the room:

DECOHESION IMMINENT. WARNING. DECOHESION IMMINENT. WARNING. 11… 10… 9… 8… 7… Help! 6… 5… 4… Oh no! 3… 2… Help! 1…

All of a sudden, an immense relief basked upon me when I saw both indicators going down again. Slowly, both of them, but steady. The siren stopped, and with a gentle hum, the lights flickered back into the room, casting a comforting glow that washed away part of my extreme tension. Then the female voice sounded again, that time making me feel so good:

DECOHESION NOT IMMINENT. COUNTERMEASURES HAVE BEEN APPLIED. SYSTEM UNDER CONTROL. RECOVERING SAFE STANDARDS. ONE MATHBOOSTER LOST.

The indicators continued to fall until both of them rested in their blue levels, the safest accordingly to their own descriptions. There they stayed. I could not describe how relieved I felt, as tears moisturized my eyes.

After experiencing all that, I had that gut feeling that that spaceship hid mysteries I could not yet understand. Looking around the abandoned room filled with technology, it struck me familiar, but also so different, sheltering an atmosphere of riddles whose enigmas felt so unique.

A few seconds later, an welcoming sound came from that enormous screen depicting “Booting Kallom-4000…” Some process had just finished. I snapped my eyes to it. Many data was being displayed all at once on the surface of the screen, like rivers of streams of characters and numbers. Then, it all stopped, only remaining in the very center of the screen the image of concentric circles drawn in blue and that would not stop rotating. It seemed like a holographic eye always staring at me.

“Welcome to the bridge of Omniship RT-874, Mr. Mike Rajhalo Spencer,” a male smooth voice sounded. “I am Kallom-4000, Theravada’s ID-2254. I am the MAI - main artificial intelligence assistant in this omniship.”

That was the exact same voice, which I heard so many times inside my head, guiding me towards that black sphere when I was in the desert. I had no idea how it sounded there, in that room.

“Mr... Mi-... Mik... Mi... Mike... Mike Rajhalo Spencer? Who is that?”

“It is your name, sir. You are a systems operator officer assigned to the Theravada's crew for this mission." Pausing briefly, likely assessing my confusion, he continued: “I know you have many questions. I am here to help you to the best of my abilities, sir.”

My reality began to disintegrate, fraying at the edges like an old photograph. All that was too much for me. Kallom-4000's voice, calling my name, turned into a distant echo, as if coming from the end of a long tunnel. My vision started to narrow, the periphery darkening until all I could see was a small circle of the rotating blue holographic eye on the screen. It felt as though I was falling, descending into an abyss that had suddenly opened beneath me.

"I... can't..." I whispered, the words barely escaping my lips.

My reality faded into darkness, like the long night of the Universe.