Read Online The Desolate Guardians by Matt Dymerski - Free Book Online

planet."
    "God…"
    "That's what it calls itself, yes."
    She turned her head and looked at him for a
moment as they ran, but I wasn't sure what she was thinking. "We
can't save the rest, can we?"
    "It'll never let you near them again," he
coughed. His stance weakened, and he half-fell. "It doesn't even
want to let you take me. "
    "We're almost out," she insisted, practically
dragging him. "It's right -"
    She stopped without warning, and dropped his
hand.
    "What are you doing?!" I shouted. "Go!"
    "He's dead."
    "But you're not! Get out of there!"
    "I'm already here. I'm safe. If he'd lasted
just a few more seconds… god damnit , I almost had him." She
looked slowly in a circle at the plant life and blank-eyed people
clustered along the edges of the toxic creek. Although I couldn't
see her face, I could practically feel the anger flowing from
her.
    The view included a gaping irregular oval in
space next to her. Beyond, several children of varying ages waited
and watched.
    She said it once more, this time to herself.
"God. Damnit."
    I saw her reach up, and then… the feed went
blank.
    Her audio resumed maybe twenty minutes later.
I leapt to the comm. "Are you alright?"
    "I need to figure out what this little metal
thing is," she replied, her tone as calm as before, like nothing
had happened. "Can you investigate on your end?"
    "Sure," I told her, wondering how she could
just be alright after enduring that situation and having a
man die inches from safety.
    Once I was left to myself again, I couldn't
quite bring myself to work. The thought of all those people on that
planet being absorbed into a giant plant brain ecosystem… were they
in pain? Were they conscious? They had to be… the man had said I'm free with such relief…
    Was there nothing we could do for them?
    I thought about what that first lonely soul
had said, the man whose untraceable message had started me down
this insane path. Just death… just death was better than
worse fates.
    I had an idea, but I tucked it away for some
future situation. How twisted was existence when the best thing you
could do to help was to ask a race of sentient flames to go
somewhere and burn people alive rather than let them remain
mentally imprisoned forever in a megalomaniacal plant that thought
it was God?
    I filed away those dark thoughts and focused
on figuring out where I was in the structure of realities.
    If I don't get out of here soon, I think I'm
going to go insane…

Chapter Five
    After what seemed like endless hours mapping
connections between systems, I'd finally done it.
    I'd figured out where I was.
    I'd also discovered something very strange
about the sphere of protected realities we were in: there was
another smaller sphere in the center that I couldn't contact or
connect to. I'd worked through the night verifying it, but I didn't
feel tired at all. I was too excited to share the news with my
strange colleague, and possibly get rescued from my inescapable
office.
    "There's a central reality," I told her, the
moment she logged on to our chat server. "It's walled off by
another shell of realities around it."
    "I know," she said quietly. "And the metal
square I found is a sort of message."
    "What's it say?"
    "Nothing - not in words, anyway. It acts like
a compass. My -" She paused. "It's pointed inward, toward the inner
worlds. I can use it as a guide, to move in that direction."
    I would have leapt for joy, if I'd been able.
"That's where I'm stuck! I'm somewhere along the inner shell."
    She remained quiet for several moments. "That
makes sense. You'd almost have to be, if you're somewhere with such
widespread access."
    "Maybe Command is in there?" I suggested. "Or someone who knows what's going on."
    This time, she said nothing at all, instead
signing off the chat server.
    This time, she turned on her headset before
traveling. A vast oval rift in space sat open before her, and she
regarded the other side. "This look like your place?"
    Beyond sat concrete hallways