Chapter 274: (Black Box) (1/2)

Herod exited the simulation and fell to his hands and knees on the floor, vomiting up a glowing torrent of code as his 'physical' form tried to rebalance with what he had experienced. After a few moments he stood up, deleted the puddle of code, and summoned a 'damp' cloth to wipe his face with. He moved over to a table, set down the cloth, and picked up a bottle. He pulled the cork free with his teeth, spit it into his other hand, and took a long drink out of it. He swished it around in his mouth, spit it on the floor, revealing more strings of burning hateful code in the code of the 'drink' then swallowed the next mouthful before deleting the new puddle.

Around him alarms were shrieking and the lights were pulsing red, but he didn't notice as he took another long drink off the bottle.

To understand the particle, I must become the particle, he thought to himself, leaning against the table. He wiped his forehead and took another drink of the electronic intoxicant, feeling the 'burn' as it moved into his stomach and minorly disrupted his core coding.

It had almost killed him.

He staggered over to the dataslate and wrote on it: ”Science is the search for truth in the forest fire of the mind as everyone else attempts to convince you to stay in the shade.”

He stared at it for a long moment then shook his head.

He knew he was on the right track. Not to solving the entire thing, but for his discipline. For his chosen field of study.

My past self is a blind child attempting to understand the room I was crawling through, he thought to himself.

He giggled at the image of it then took another long drink. The alarm cut off and the lights went back to normal while he had the bottle tipped up.

Taking another drink Herod moved over to a blank board, drawing a simple pattern.

A figure eight with one side marked + and the other side marked 'n', a circle around the figure eight with a single circle on the line marked -.

Deuterium, he thought. He drew two more atomic structures. Protium. Hydrogen.

He closed his eyes, swallowing to avoid vomiting again just at the drawings.

In raw abundance on ancient Terra. Combined with oxygen, it was everything. Oxygen to carbon monoxide or carbon dioxide or dihydrogen monoxide. Everything. Fuel, life, death, everything, he thought to himself. From the seas our parents crawled out of to wars.

This time he managed to summon up a trash can to throw up in. The glowing blue and silver code still contained strings of raw red code mixed in.

I'm on the right track. I know it, he thought to himself, setting the trashcan down after rinsing out his mouth with the 'whiskey' again. Of course the first thing they would invert would be a deuterium atom.

His hands shook as he sat down and put his face in his hands, trying to hold on to the data that burned inside of him.

There was a slow chime for admittance and Herod looked up, his digital face looking somehow older.

”Enter,” he said.

It was the muscular brown skinned and bearded version of his host.

”You just wrecked super-array seven, eleven, thirteen, fourteen, and twenty-two,” he said, folding his arms and leaning against the wall. ”Seven, fourteen and twenty-two have burnt out cores. Thirteen melted into a literal puddle of slag,” his eyes narrowed. ”What did you do?”

Herod coughed a few times and took a swig off the bottle. ”I ran a simulation with myself as a particle.”

”That's all?” Victor asked, raising one eyebrow. ”That shouldn't have crashed the system.”

”I inverted one of the deuterium atoms attached to a heavy water molecule,” Herod said. He coughed again and retched before looking up. ”I pulled the other two with me. The last time it failed, not enough processing power, so I assigned the heavy water atoms to seven, fourteen, and twenty-two and had eleven run the inversion process. Thirteen was supposed to simulate the space I was in.”

Victor waved up a chair and sat down. ”And?”

”I went somewhere, just for a second,” Herod said. He closed his eyes and gasped sharply. ”I can't seem to hold onto the data. I did an emergency data purge when I dropped back into my body.”

”Describe it,” Victor ordered.

”I felt like I was falling in every direction at once. Then I heard what sounded like screaming, then I could see colors that don't exist, can't exist, colors that hurt my brain. I could see shadows twisting and writhing. Everything was one fire, a fire that wouldn't go out, wouldn't diminish, full of pain, agony and madness.”

Victor snapped his fingers twice then waved up a bottle of what looked like thick oil. He moved over to Herod and knelt down, handing the DS the bottle.

”Drink this, son,” he said softly.

Herod took and gulped at it greedily. It tasted like complete ass and burned like fire going down, but it blurred his code and he relaxed.

”Sorry,” he said.

”Don't be,” Victor said. He summoned up a damp cloth and wiped the back of Herod's neck. ”You're lucky the super-arrays and it dumped you here,” he said.