J. Mitchell - The Severed Tower

“Am I human?”

“You are human and more. Your body was re-formed from the energy of the Strange Lands. As such, you inherited the same chaotic, improbable nature. You are the person you were—and you are something else. A life-form of pure quantum distinguishability. Your biological structure is beyond unique, adaptive in ways that defy even the power of evolution. You are still mortal. Left alone, you would age and grow and eventually die, just as anyone else. You are human in every sense. Yet you are not human at all. You are of the Strange Lands, yet independent of it. You are both an Anomaly and an artifact. You are the final piece of the Tower, the remainder of a vast equation, and now you have returned.”

“And you… brought me here? All this way?”

“Without you, the chaos cannot be ordered. We have repeated the effort among millions of Deviations. Arranged countless seemingly irrelevant events, altered probabilities, all to bring you home. Holt, Mira, the Librarian, the Oracle, Ravan, the White Helix, Gideon, and hundreds of other small decisions or actions that led directly, one after the other, to your return. And you must return in every Deviation.”

Zoey looked back into the space around her. The millions of Deviations were all gone, wiped away, and the world was full of only bright white light now. But something was wrong about that. It took Zoey a moment to figure out what.

“Why haven’t we been wiped away?” Zoey asked, looking at all the brightness.

“Because in this Deviation there is an aberration.”

Zoey looked back at herself. “What’s an aberration?”

“Something unplanned for or paradoxical. Something that should not be,” her twin said. “You know him as Benjamin Aubertine.”

It took a moment for Zoey to connect the name in her mind, and when she did it didn’t seem possible. “ Ben? Mira’s friend? He’s… here? ”

“Correct. Which should be impossible.”

“Why? He had plutonium, didn’t he?”

“A radioactive substance is necessary to pass through the Vortex, but it will not aid in entering the Severed Tower. Attempting to do so always results in the individual’s energy being absorbed into our own.”

Zoey thought about that a moment. It was contrary to what Mira had said. “I thought… people had made it inside the Tower before.”

“Correct. In this Deviation, seven in total, but none have ever returned from doing so. Their energy and consciousness are now a part of us. Anyone who has ever claimed otherwise speaks falsehoods. There is no exit from the Tower.”

“Then… Ben is part of you, too?”

“No. He is an aberration. Like you, he remains. It is a paradox.”

“Why?” Zoey asked. Something about this seemed important.

“He has with him an artifact, the one artifact in all the universe whose power supersedes our own. It has the power to shift probabilities in the favor of whomever possesses it, and currently it is shifting probabilities to keep him alive. It is preventing him from being absorbed into our essence.”

The Tower must have meant the Chance Generator. The bad artifact that had almost turned Holt into someone else. Another question occurred to her, a possibility, a glimmer of hope.

“Why is he here?” Zoey asked, wiping the rest of her tears away, looking at all the white around her where the various platforms had been erased. Her Deviation, for the moment, still existed.

“We do not understand the question,” the mirror image stated.

“ Why is he here? There must be a reason.”

“Why must there be a reason, Zoey?”

“Because it’s different! It can’t be a coincidence!”

“Where the Tower is not concerned, there are only coincidences, Zoey.”

“But out of all these realities,” Zoey stood up and motioned to all the white, “all these possibilities, he’s here in just this one!”

“It is irrelevant.”

“No! Stop! You’re supposed to be smart!”

“Our intelligence is infinite, Zoey.”

“Then stop thinking in straight lines!” Zoey shouted in anguish. She had to find a way to save them, to make everything okay again. She had to.

Her twin hesitated, remaining quiet a second or two—and for something as intelligent as it was, two seconds was an eternity.

“You… theorize that we think linearly, ” the mirror image finally said. “Interesting. No other Deviation has ever made this analysis. It is… wholly unique.”

Zoey pressed on, her excitement building. “Don’t you see!? This one is different than all the others! Which makes it important! ”

“What are you proposing, Zoey?”

Now it was Zoey’s turn to hesitate. It was a good question. What was she proposing? There was a solution there, she knew it. She just had to figure out what might be different in her Deviation that she could use. There seemed to be only one thing.

“The… Chance Generator,” she said. “It’s keeping Ben alive?”

“Correct. Though, even here, its power will wane. The artifact will expend its energy, and when that happens, balance will be restored.”

The excitement she felt a moment ago faltered. If what the Tower was saying was true, it meant time was running out. If the Chance Generator died, then everything would continue as it was. Her Deviation would be wiped away like all the others, and Mira and Holt and Max would be truly gone.

Again, everything seemed to point to one thing. “What if… what would happen if I took it? What would happen if Ben gave me the Chance Generator?”

Again her mirror image hesitated. “An… intriguing proposition. The restoration of balance would still only be delayed, but, as the remainder, you would… inhabit a unique opportunity.”

“What opportunity?” Zoey felt the hope building again.

“You are part of the Tower. Its singular piece. Balance would still be restored, the energy of the singularity would still be released, but the Probability Influencer would… shield you from the discharge. You would not be swept away with everything else. You would, again, remain, and, more so, you could direct the energy as it was released.”

“Direct it how?”

“For a brief, limited amount of time, thirty-nine seconds to be precise, you could use it to shape time and space, though only in how it relates directly to your experience in this Deviation.”

“I could save them!”

“Understand, Zoey, that balance must be restored. It is a mathematical necessity, and you are part of the same equation. Though the Probability Influencer will shield you from the initial realignment, you are still an aberration to this Deviation. Where you are concerned, things must be balanced as well. Making this choice does not remove that requirement.”

Zoey thought she understood. It was a grim solution, but, without question, a much better one than the alternative. Everyone she loved would still be alive. She could undo all the damage she had done.

“I understand,” she said.

In the distance, amid all the white, a rectangle of pure blackness opened, like some kind of shadowy door. It began to grow, as if racing toward her. Zoey watched it warily.

“There is one variable that remains,” her twin said. “The aberration. He has become reliant on the Probability Influencer. He will not give it up willingly, and you do not have the physical strength to take it from him.”

Zoey nodded, seeing the problem, but there had to be a way. “I have to try.”

“Are you sure this is what you want?” her twin asked pointedly. “If you somehow take the artifact from the aberration, the energy of the singularity will be released and the Tower will be yours to control. You can shape the timeline how you see fit, to an extent. But… you do know where this path leads, don’t you, Zoey?”