Read Online Dark Matter by Brett Adams - Free Book Online
Authors: Brett Adams
Tags: Literary, thriller, Paranormal, Mystery, Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, supernatural, Nazi, Speculative Fiction, Thrillers & Suspense, Brain, forgiveness, Biology, ancient sect
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no
longer in command.
The surface became clear as glass, and
finally the errand-orb flung its light beyond the sphere. The light sprang into
an endless dark, and for Rasputin, it was as though he witnessed the birth of
the universe flaming into life.
But it was not an empty universe.
Out beyond the sphere, the sky was flocked
by objects beyond counting, which were tugged by unseen currents.
He tried to fix his eye on something,
anything, floating in the void, and was shocked to discover his own face.
It shimmered on an ovoid blob drifting just
beyond the sphere’s surface. The blob had a sheen like opal-lustre, and over
this film played images of him, seated and laughing, holding a black cane
topped by a pink bow. It was his last day in hospital, which meant...
The blob is a memory.
With wonder he cast his gaze further into
the deep and saw more remembered things afloat. Some contorted like wax in a
lava lamp, full-bodied sense bundles. Others drifted, mere shards of preserved
vision. Everywhere clots of the stuff tangled in a profusion of colour,
submarine detritus in ocean-refracted sunlight.
It dawned on him where this journey had
brought him.
In his quest for Churchill’s book, he had
first travelled the corridors of time, and then hunted in the maze of
serendipity, only to find its vestiges. But here all was laid bare. His mind’s
eye was a telescope trained on the heavens of his being, able to probe the
farthest galaxy. Travel was no longer necessary. He had only to bring the thing
desired into focus in its great lens.
At last he turned to the orb at his side.
“The book?” he said.
It pulsed.
Rasputin gritted his teeth and commanded:
“The Second World War. I read it last year. I want the preface. All of it.”
A thin, red arc crackled across the orb’s
surface. For an instant it seemed a vast, luminescent marble.
It smiled at me.
Then everything moved.
The great eye gyrated, sifting the skies
for one object. When seconds later it was trained upon a pinpoint glint, it
flung its focus out, and drew on that lone ray of light as upon a tether.
And so it came, a single memory, a bundle
of five-fold sense, compressed but complete. It came near, shy but curious, in
a first contact of sorts.
It was motionless a moment, and then its
surface peeled back like opening petals to reveal a book.
Without lifting a hand, he opened the cover
and leafed to the beginning of the preface. Words stood stark on the page. None
were obscured by ink. Even a small, brown speckle, a stain left by someone
during the book’s life in the library, was preserved in the memory.
He smiled and began to read.
The smile remained while he read every
word, reveling in the sense of power it brought him. It was the same feeling
that had intoxicated him, so briefly, when sketching alone the night after his
interview. But now he had bottled the lightning.
As he read, his consciousness drifted back
into the lounge of his flat. The words, he found, were on his lips. Jordy stood
at the bookshelf holding the real book in his hands, glancing at it now and
then without moving his head, a wicked grin affixed.
But just before the transition back into
the real world was complete and his sense of the dazzling errand carrier waned
altogether, he saw colour flicker across its surface. He felt its attention
turn from him, from his centre of consciousness, to the constellations of his
memory.
He had the strangest sense it was curious .
The thought terrified him. Fear tugged at
the last words to fall from his lips.
“...the awful unfolding science of the
future.”
Jordy was a statue for the time it took
Rasputin’s heart to squeeze a few hundred mils of blood through its chambers.
“Word,” he said suddenly, and snapped the cover
of the book closed. “For,” he said, and bent to slide it into the hole it had
left on the shelf. “Word,” he finished, and stood up straight.
Rasputin sighed.
“I know,” he conceded.
“Don’t
longer in command.
The surface became clear as glass, and
finally the errand-orb flung its light beyond the sphere. The light sprang into
an endless dark, and for Rasputin, it was as though he witnessed the birth of
the universe flaming into life.
But it was not an empty universe.
Out beyond the sphere, the sky was flocked
by objects beyond counting, which were tugged by unseen currents.
He tried to fix his eye on something,
anything, floating in the void, and was shocked to discover his own face.
It shimmered on an ovoid blob drifting just
beyond the sphere’s surface. The blob had a sheen like opal-lustre, and over
this film played images of him, seated and laughing, holding a black cane
topped by a pink bow. It was his last day in hospital, which meant...
The blob is a memory.
With wonder he cast his gaze further into
the deep and saw more remembered things afloat. Some contorted like wax in a
lava lamp, full-bodied sense bundles. Others drifted, mere shards of preserved
vision. Everywhere clots of the stuff tangled in a profusion of colour,
submarine detritus in ocean-refracted sunlight.
It dawned on him where this journey had
brought him.
In his quest for Churchill’s book, he had
first travelled the corridors of time, and then hunted in the maze of
serendipity, only to find its vestiges. But here all was laid bare. His mind’s
eye was a telescope trained on the heavens of his being, able to probe the
farthest galaxy. Travel was no longer necessary. He had only to bring the thing
desired into focus in its great lens.
At last he turned to the orb at his side.
“The book?” he said.
It pulsed.
Rasputin gritted his teeth and commanded:
“The Second World War. I read it last year. I want the preface. All of it.”
A thin, red arc crackled across the orb’s
surface. For an instant it seemed a vast, luminescent marble.
It smiled at me.
Then everything moved.
The great eye gyrated, sifting the skies
for one object. When seconds later it was trained upon a pinpoint glint, it
flung its focus out, and drew on that lone ray of light as upon a tether.
And so it came, a single memory, a bundle
of five-fold sense, compressed but complete. It came near, shy but curious, in
a first contact of sorts.
It was motionless a moment, and then its
surface peeled back like opening petals to reveal a book.
Without lifting a hand, he opened the cover
and leafed to the beginning of the preface. Words stood stark on the page. None
were obscured by ink. Even a small, brown speckle, a stain left by someone
during the book’s life in the library, was preserved in the memory.
He smiled and began to read.
The smile remained while he read every
word, reveling in the sense of power it brought him. It was the same feeling
that had intoxicated him, so briefly, when sketching alone the night after his
interview. But now he had bottled the lightning.
As he read, his consciousness drifted back
into the lounge of his flat. The words, he found, were on his lips. Jordy stood
at the bookshelf holding the real book in his hands, glancing at it now and
then without moving his head, a wicked grin affixed.
But just before the transition back into
the real world was complete and his sense of the dazzling errand carrier waned
altogether, he saw colour flicker across its surface. He felt its attention
turn from him, from his centre of consciousness, to the constellations of his
memory.
He had the strangest sense it was curious .
The thought terrified him. Fear tugged at
the last words to fall from his lips.
“...the awful unfolding science of the
future.”
Jordy was a statue for the time it took
Rasputin’s heart to squeeze a few hundred mils of blood through its chambers.
“Word,” he said suddenly, and snapped the cover
of the book closed. “For,” he said, and bent to slide it into the hole it had
left on the shelf. “Word,” he finished, and stood up straight.
Rasputin sighed.
“I know,” he conceded.
“Don’t
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