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Wendy stood in a sterile room with white walls lacking any sort of décor. One of the walls had a glass window, one thick and strong enough to make bullets harmlessly bounce off its surface, and on the other side, there were six people sitting in chairs with their arms and legs strapped down as if they were about to be tortured. They were old: their skin sagged, their hairlines were more suggestions than lines, and their faces were filled with wrinkles. Despite them being human, Wendy couldn’t read their minds. She wasn’t sure of the exact reason, but she suspected it had something to do with the jars holding the brains of the six individuals. Their skulls had been opened up, and their brains had been replaced by crystals Sam had provided.
Speaking of Sam, he was floating beside Wendy, and his legs were crossed with his ankles resting against his thighs. Wendy was pretty sure Sam had a fleshy brain inside of his head, but she wasn’t brave enough to read his mind; she had been too thoroughly traumatized by Nwaps. Even though the tapeworm was gone now, Wendy didn’t know that, and even if she did, she’d still leave Sam’s thoughts alone. He was her boss now, and her livelihood as a human depended on him unless she wanted to live in Et Serpentium.
“Proceed,” Sam said.
Wendy placed her hand on the counter in front of her. It had a granite surface, and instead of buttons, there were circles of various colors—depending on which crystal had been used to create them—that Wendy interacted with using her Sahasrara. As Wendy formed connections with the various buttons, the six bound individuals stiffened and made various sounds. Their eyes had been removed along with their brains, but their eye sockets weren’t empty, translucent purple spheres filling them in. The spheres glowed and shone, purple circles of light appearing on the walls and ceiling where the individuals’ faces were pointing.
Wendy glanced to the side of the counter where there were six displays made of marble. Their glossy surfaces flickered, and various images appeared on them as if the marble were electronic screens. A frown appeared on Wendy’s face when she realized she couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing: there were various lines and colors and swirls completely unintuitive to understand. However, Sam must’ve had a method to make sense of the noise; otherwise, would he have started such an unethical experiment?
Wendy’s eyes shifted to the other side of the room. There was an electronic screen there split into six different portions, each portion containing the vital signs of one of the elderly test subjects. According to the numbers on the screen, the test subjects’ heartrates had spiked, increasing at a rapid rate. Considering how old they were, Wendy didn’t think they could hold out much longer experiencing whatever it was Sam was doing to them before their hearts gave out. Wendy turned her head to look at Sam, but upon seeing how his face was expressionless as he observed the experiment, Wendy focused her attention back onto her job. It wasn’t a good feeling to see someone die, but it wouldn’t be the first time she was in charge of an experimental procedure that claimed lives.
One of the test subjects gasped, and their body jerked about, their limbs pressing futilely against the restraints. Their mouth opened wide as a terrified scream burst out from deep within their body. One of the marble surfaces flashed with dark colors, colors Wendy didn’t have any names for, and a moment later, the marble surface returned to its mundane appearance as the elderly man’s screams came to an abrupt halt. Wendy turned her head to look at the electronic screen monitoring the test subjects’ vital signs. One of the test subjects had died, which Wendy found unsurprising considering the scream he had let out before kicking the bucket. The other test subjects were faring well; despite someone dying beside them, they acted as if they hadn’t noticed a thing.
Wendy looked at Sam. “Were you expecting something like that to happen?” she asked. If she had interacted with the counter and forcefully shut off the man’s crystal brain as he was screaming, perhaps he could’ve survived. Maybe. “What killed him?”
“I don’t know,” Sam said. He had suspected a foray into another dimension would be dangerous, but he hadn’t expected someone to die less than a few minutes after entering. Then again, time didn’t necessarily have to behave in the same way in another dimension; the experiment might’ve just started, but the test subjects could’ve been in there for years. As someone who crossed dimensions successfully, he knew how easy it was to lose one’s sense of self when entering another dimension, but he didn’t think it was that dangerous.
“Maybe you should stop using dimensional specks to teleport yourself around,” Vercedei said. “Look at what happened to that guy.”
Sam looked beyond the glass window at the dead man, the corpse’s head slumping down with its chin almost touching its chest. A line of drool leaked out the corner of its mouth, and the occasional droplet would fall and splatter against the test subject’s pants. Sam picked up the mundane marble slab on the side with his telekinesis and brought it close enough to grab with his hand. By connecting with it through his Sahasrara, he could see and experience what the test subject had from the beginning of the experiment to the man’s moment of death, so Sam did just that.
The Mother had said even if Sam could see the higher dimension, he wouldn’t be able to understand it, and that certainly seemed to be the case. When he connected with the marble slab, a myriad of colors filled his mind. They distorted and twisted, some colors shrinking as others grew. Occasionally, some regions would remain still, and Sam assumed the test subject had stopped moving his head around. Although the device Werchbite had created would allow the user to see the higher dimensions, the test subjects themselves weren’t very good at manipulating their consciousnesses to explore the area. If they were skilled, they wouldn’t have had to sell the very end of their lives to ensure their children’s and grandchildren’s financial stability.
As Sam had suspected, time passed differently in the higher dimension. Although he had only viewed the recording for a brief moment, it felt like several hours had passed with the colors swirling about him. Then, the colors were ripped in half as if they were on a sheet of paper that had been torn by a knife stabbing it from behind. A gaping void filled Sam’s vision, and the rest of the colors were pushed away as darkness engulfed Sam’s vision. It was oddly similar to the final moments of the time he had lived as a rodent; he had been eaten by a snake.
“He was barely even there,” Sam said, pushing the marble slab away. It floated onto the counter back in its original place. “And he was still eaten.” Sam looked at the octopus pressed flat against his shoulder. “What do you think that was?”
“Just an ordinary snapper,” the Mother said. “It’s a scavenger that’ll eat anything that can fit in its mouth, and a human consciousness is a very small existence.”
“An ordinary snapper?” Sam asked, raising an eyebrow. His gaze shifted onto the other room across the glass window. The five test subjects may have had accelerated heartrates, but they were obviously still alive. “Why isn’t it snapping them up too?”
“Distance,” the Mother said. “They may be in the same room on Oterra, but when their consciousness entered the higher dimension, they arrived in different regions. Unless they can overlap with one another on Oterra, they won’t end up in the same place. It’s not like they know how to enter a specific dimensional speck.”
“So, am I simply lucky for not having met a snapper after all my forays into the higher dimension?” Sam asked. He had traveled through the dimensional specks quite extensively while removing Nwaps from the Venusians.
“Well, yes and no,” the Mother said. “Since you were simply dimension crossing, you barely spent any time in the higher dimension, certainly not long enough for any predator to notice you. However, there was always the chance you’d be unlucky enough to appear right before the mouth of a hungry snapper, so in that sense, I suppose you could consider yourself lucky. Rather, it’d be more appropriate to say you’d be quite unlucky to meet a snapper while crossing dimensions.”
Another one of the test subjects gasped and let out a scream, his heartrate spiking on the electronic monitor to Wendy’s left. Sam and Wendy both shifted their gaze onto the marble slab representing the man’s vision, and its surface returned to normal as the man’s screams came to a halt.
“Stop the exploration,” Sam said. He might’ve been fine using humans as test subjects, but that didn’t mean he was going to treat them as expendable. It was clear lingering within the higher dimension was a bad idea, and until he could interpret what he saw within the marble slabs, he’d simply be feeding snappers and various other predators with nothing to show for it. “I need to reevaluate some things.”
Wendy interacted with the countertop, bringing the so-called exploration—not human experiment—to a halt. The eyes of the test subjects—should they be referred to as scouts?—stopped glowing, the purple circles of light disappearing from the walls and ceiling. Their tense bodies relaxed, and they took in shaky breaths. They looked around; although their eyes had been replaced by the crystalline spheres, they could still see, and their brains could interpret the visuals presented to them by the spheres. Of course, their sight was slightly different from a regular person with biological eyes, but that didn’t stop them from seeing the two corpses strapped to the chairs beside them.
“Take them out,” Wendy said, glancing at Sam, who nodded at her. She turned her attention back onto the countertop. “We’re done for now.”
The metal doors to the test subjects’ room opened, and several graylings walked inside, unstrapping and transporting the corpses first before releasing the remaining individuals. “Come this way,” the graylings said, leading the surviving test subjects away.
Wendy exhaled and turned her head towards Sam. It was much easier working for the queen since Wendy could read the monarch’s mind without worrying about losing her life—or sanity. With Sam, she had to read his facial expressions, which was originally difficult for her but had become even more trying since Sam only sported a deadpan expression as of late. “What’s next?”
Sam floated closer to the electronic screen and tapped on it, bringing up detailed statistics about the test subjects’ vital signs. Then, he extended his hand with his palm facing the ceiling. The marble slabs flew through the air and landed on his hand. Wendy watched Sam’s eyes turn dull as his awareness focused on the content stored within the marble. Wendy was curious, but if she was going to encounter whatever had slain the test subjects by connecting with the marble slabs, she’d rather not know anything about the region Sam was exploring.
“Continue finding more volunteers,” Sam said and placed the marble slabs down. “We’ll resume the exploration at a later date.” He nodded at Wendy. “You’re free to go.”
As Wendy left the room, Sam turned his head towards the electronic screen once again. “Is it possible to arm them?” Sam asked his familiars using his mind. If there were predators in the higher dimension, then the test subjects needed a method to defend themselves if they were to get any meaningful exploration done. However, as someone who had only lived in the third dimension, Sam couldn’t imagine what kind of weapon would be useful for fending off creatures located in higher ones; as such, he had no choice but to ask his familiars, the only higher-dimensional beings he knew.
“Can you be hurt by a shadow?” the Mother asked. “When you send those people up there, they’re almost equivalent to a shadow, unable to interact with anything but easily gotten rid of with some light.”
“So, that’s a no?” Sam asked. He looked at the twin-headed snake wrapped around his arm. “What about you, Werchbite? You’re the reliable one.”
“What?” Raindu asked before the twin-headed snake could respond. “What’s that supposed to mean? The rest of us are unreliable?”
“I never said that,” Sam said. “It’s just that Werchbite tends to offer more solutions than problems.”
“We’re problematic?” Raindu asked.
“Just a little,” Sam said, nodding his head. He poked Raindu’s chest. “Are you going to show me the meaning of problematic now, proving my point?”
Raindu snorted as the words it was about to say was taken right out of its mouth. “Later.”
“The best I can do is create an emitter,” Werchbite said. “It’ll keep predators away, but if they’re curious enough, they’ll eat your test subjects anyway. It’s not easy to defeat a higher-dimensional creature in their own territory.”
Considering most calamities were a pain in the butt when they descended to Oterra and limited themselves, Sam could imagine they were even bigger pains when they didn’t have to play by three-dimensional rules. It was a pleasant surprise Werchbite could create something to protect the future test subjects from harm, even if it was only a slight dissuasion. “That’s good enough,” Sam said. The test subjects had recorded quite a lot of information on the higher dimension. As for whether the information would simply remain as uninterpreted noise or something of value, it was up to Sam. “Let’s get a few graylings in here to record what you need.”
“Fine,” Birdbrained said upon seeing both Sam and Werchbite turn to stare at it. “I’ll call a few over.”
The Mother shuddered as the Birdbrained, Sam, and Werchbite turned their heads to stare at her. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll get a few blue avians to work as delivery agents once again.”
“Perfect,” Sam said and smiled at the octopus. “Don’t act so reluctant. We both know the sooner I’m done with scouting the higher dimension, the sooner I’ll sublimate myself to become a higher-dimensional being. That’s what you wanted, no?”
Sam’s familiars—other than the octopus—sighed. No matter how many times they warned Sam about the dangers of going along with the Mother’s suggestion, he didn’t listen. Well, he listened, but he very obviously dismissed their concerns after saying he would take them into consideration. Living for an incredibly long amount of time had turned Sam independent and very stubborn. Once he set his mind on something, the memories of the lives he lived would agree with him, reinforcing that thought until it manifested in reality.
It didn’t take long for his familiars to acquire the necessary items to make the snapper repellent, as Werchbite coined the item, but it took much longer for Sam to make any sense of the colorful swirls representing the higher dimensions. In fact, a few days had passed since the first exploration, and he hadn’t made much progress.
“Why don’t you get some help?” the Mother asked. “The higher dimensions exist, and they might be different from this one, but they’re still ruled by clear logic. You might’ve lived trillions of lives, but you’re still just one individual. Form a team or create a group to assist you.”
“I was considering it,” Sam said. As the head of the largest company in the world, why did he have to rely on himself to get things done? For a bit, he had believed he was the only one capable of exploring the higher dimensions thanks to his unlocked chakras and the knowledge from his multiple lives, but if humans, reptilians, mantids, Venusians, and blue avians all united to achieve the same goal, they could definitely get further than he could if he worked by himself. “My thoughts were too narrow, and I failed to see the bigger picture.”
“Is it time for me to work again?” Birdbrained asked. Whenever Sam needed something done involving organizing a large group of people, the graylings were always his first resort. The colorless eagle could only blame itself for being too useful when it came to large-scale projects.
“Yep,” Sam said. A company’s main purpose might’ve been to make money, but Sam didn’t need wealth, not when he had already experienced everything Oterra had to offer. “Ark’s main focus is shifting to dimensional exploration. Let everyone know.”