John opened his eyes. The silence of the room, shrouded in darkness, was broken by the ringing of the alarm clock. The central control system had been activated on schedule, and the Tech-Covering that darkened the windows turned off, allowing the rays of sunlight to seep inside. In a few moments, the entire room was flooded with light on that April morning. John ran his hand over the surface of the bedside table, and the ringing stopped. All night, thoughts had kept Jonathan from finding a path to peace, preventing him from entering the realm of Morpheus. His mind was torn between the pain of memories, fears of the present, and anxieties about the future. There was only a week left until the official launch of the Fracture Machine. John and three Wanderers were preparing for a way that could lead them to two outcomes: death or the coveted Center. After all, the path of a Wanderer ends either in death or in reaching the Center of Primordial Space.
"It must be this way. It's natural," John reassured himself. He had chosen this path, agreeing to embark on a one-way way. But that was a long time ago. Five years ago, he signed the contract and said "yes," and now only seven days remained until the way began. He had no one in this world, only a sister who had long begun her own life. And John felt like a lost ghost wandering through this world in search of the peace he could not find.
The Wanderer got out of bed and headed to the shower. The sterility of the room weighed him down, as everything in it and in the Fracture Project Compound was devoid of individuality. The sterile floor tiles, wall panels, laboratories, and equipment — everything that existed, except for his mind, was sterile. Placing his palm on the smooth panel in the shower stall, a stream of water hit his chest from above. Droplets ran down his body in thin streams, cascading to the floor. He stood still, waiting for the water to wash away his thoughts. This anticipation offered him hope — albeit an empty one — that the water would cleanse away what kept him awake at night. He closed his eyes, listening to the sounds surrounding him that morning.
The droplets splashing against his body blended with the voices of students drifting in from the partially open window. They, like him, had entered the project but had not been admitted to the final stage. But they continue to learn and train in the hope that after the first quartet, they will become the next Wanderers. And there was also the voice from the loudspeakers, announcing the start of another machine check. And there was the question: what was louder? His thoughts or the sounds of the world around him awakening, filling with the life and energy of the coming day?
Seven days. In waiting — it's an eternity. But on the other hand, when you want to spend your last days in this world with your family — it's a second. This day was supposed to be the last day of preparation before the launch of the Fracture Machine. In an hour, John was scheduled for the final deep check of his Implant. It had been implanted after he passed his final exams when he earned the title of Wanderer. The Implant was a key component of the traveler system between worlds. Through the central nervous system, the implant provided access to the protective suit and the Apparatus, but more importantly, it protected the wanderer's mind during their way. Its function was crucial because if the implant failed, the consequences of each subsequent fracture would become increasingly severe for the mind.
John left the shower, put on the training suit he had worn for most of his training, and exited the room. The sun continued to flood the room with light. After closing the door, the Wanderer's room became completely sterile. The elevator quickly ascended to his floor and just as quickly descended to the ground level, where the training hall and cafeteria were located. As he walked through the empty corridors leading to the cafeteria, John caught the aroma of freshly prepared food. It smelled of rice, meat, and some kind of sauce.
Numerous metal tables, arranged in a checkerboard pattern throughout the space, were empty. He approached the counter, where trays of food emanated an incomparable aroma. John took a plate and put a few spoonfuls of rice and two medium pieces of meat on it, then headed to one of the tables by the windows overlooking the courtyard. On the other side of the glass, John noticed several students from the new class of Wanderers passing by in their training suits, and everything looked just as sterile, perhaps too sterile.
Ten minutes later, as John was finishing his tea, he heard footsteps behind him. Swallowing a piece of bread, he turned around. Samantha Fisher was approaching him through the empty hall. Her long blond hair was tied up in a bun at the back of her head, and her skin seemed to glow under the sunlight. Samantha was one of the few in whom recessive genes had prevailed. It was rare to see a girl with light hair and fair skin on the street. She was carrying several notebooks in her hands.
"Hi, John! How are you?" Samantha lightly touched his shoulder, walked around the table, and sat down across from him.
"Good morning," John smiled back at her. Samantha adjusted her glasses and opened one of the notebooks. "What's this?"
"My project," she glanced at him and continued flipping through the pages.
John kept sitting and watching her as the light falling from the window divided her face into two halves: dark and light. Fragments of the past flashed before his inner eye: how they met for the first time in the introductory lecture several years ago, their first conversation, and how she smiled at him at the end. The flashes of memory plunged him deeper into the past, a time when everything was different, when the unknown was not yet frightening, and when the launch of the machine was something distant.
"Have you said goodbye to your family yet?" Samantha paused, looking from one page to another. "Here was the mistake."
"Not yet," John replied. "What's the project?"
Samantha pulled at her hair tie, and the shimmering golden curls fell onto her shoulders in the sunlight.
"I'm thinking about how to get back after we reach the Center. You know..." she removed the cap from her pen and set it aside. "The probability that we'll reach the Center is extremely low. And it's unknown whether we'll be able to return home even if we do reach it. But..."
"But what?" John leaned closer to her.
"You know that stupid rule. If we leave a world, we sever all ties with it, including time. We don't know how many transitions we'll make and how long we'll be on the way. There's a chance that when we reach the Center, our civilization may no longer exist... Or, relatively speaking, it may not have even come into being yet."
"I try not to think about that."
"But still..." she lowered her head again and began reading her notes.
John had always admired her intellect. He knew she was one of the best students in the group, if not the best, and perhaps smarter than several scientists in the project. During training, she never solved a problem with force, only with her mind. She was gifted from birth. A future as the Chairman might await her; she could make numerous discoveries, create the impossible for their world. But she chose a path into the unknown. Why? John always thought about this — why the Wanderer? Why the Center of Primordial Space? But in any case, she had already made her choice.
"What's the essence of the project?"
"It's related to the fracture procedure of our Apparatus." The nib of her pen lightly touched the paper and moved across several numbers. "It extracts energy from Primordial Space, thus charging itself, updates the map, calculates the trajectory of the next world, establishes coordinates, and creates the split. And I have a question: what if we modify it when we reach the center..."
"If," John interrupted her.
"What?" "If we reach it."
"A big question with a predictable answer... but I agree. If we reach it, will we be able to create a fracture back to our world using the knowledge we gain at the Сenter?"
"And why do you think there is any knowledge there?" John picked up a cup of tea and took a sip.
"Well, there must be something there..."
"That's the problem, Sam. We don't know. And that's what our way is about — to find out what's there."
"There are many possibilities, but there's a tiny chance that we'll gain knowledge there."
"Until we find out."
"But still."
"And then what? We know that the connection to the world will be severed, time will flow differently for us and for them. How do you plan to return with time taken into account?"
"That's the problem. I've almost solved it. I just need to figure out the energy issue."
"There isn't enough of it," John set the cup on the tray.
"Even more. 'Not enough' can be attributed to the Fracture Machine. If we're talking about the Translocation Apparatus in Primordial Space, it currently cannot absorb that much energy." Samantha looked back at her notes. "This means that too is erroneous," and she crossed out the entire line of formulas.
John peered into her blue eyes, watching her fully immerse herself in calculations. Silence reigned in the hall, occasionally broken by the sound of her pen on paper. Nothing could disturb her; even their words dissolved within her. Observing the process of creation, John felt as if he were in two worlds at once: in his world and in reality. The Consolidated Nation has five billion people, and among them, perhaps Samantha was the only girl who stirred a storm of feelings within him, igniting a certain chemistry in his mind and body. Samantha was special. If someone were to ask what exactly made her special, he would reply: she was absolutely unique.
Sometimes he felt a desire to take her hand, pull her close, touch her cheeks, and look into her eyes, to remain in that moment forever. To make the second last an eternity and to spend countless seconds with her. But all Jonathan could do was think about it, imagine it differently, dream of the impossible. He would never be able to experience what he wanted to feel for her. Fate had not allowed him to feel that. Fate had decided to play an ironic joke. The most John could feel for Samantha was admiration and respect. Friendship, trust, and peace... a semblance of peace. And it was so simple that it became complicated to understand. He only had this path with her.
Watching Samantha cross out words and write new ones, as numbers changed from one to another, John didn't notice how the world around him became empty. How the flow of people outside the windows ceased, and all sounds vanished. He turned around. There was no smell of food anymore, nor any food itself. Suddenly, their table became the only one in the hall.
"Something is wrong here," John addressed Samantha, but the girl had disappeared along with her notebooks.
John jumped up from the table, took a few steps toward the exit, but there was no exit. The doorway through which he had entered vanished without a trace. And with it, the walls and windows disappeared. Jonathan found himself in an infinitely empty space that began to dissolve around him. The lights in the lamps dimmed, allowing darkness to creep closer and closer to the Wanderer. In an instant, darkness consumed him. And throughout infinity, a voice echoed: "Implant operational check complete."
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