Edited by Stephanie Bachman
Previously in The Crucible:
My body got up from the seat and began to take off all the wires and nodes from off of its body. My body was shaking and was waiting for its next move. Doctor James looked firmly at me and wanted to talk but wasn’t sure about my current well-being. My body looked down and it was almost like my body gave up. Knees gave out, but my body stood back up firmly.
“Are you okay?” Doctor James asked.
“Yes. I’m fine. It has just been so long,” my body responded. I began to hear screaming in the distance. A voice that seemed sinister in its tone. I could only suspect that it was the very reason why I couldn’t communicate with my body.
“Is it done?” I heard a voice say. There was nobody else in the room, this was in his mind.
“Yes, it’sdone.” I heard my body’s voice say but it was not spoken.
“Sanguine is pleased,” It responded. That’s why he kept saying Sanguine. Although it still made no sense to me. The voice itself was that of many. Children, women and men. It was as if Sanguine was a people rather than a person.
“Let me know if you have any questions in the future,” Doctor James said, “it’s going to be difficult since you have been through many loops. You don’t have to repeat the same cycle anymore.”
“Good,” I heard my body think.
“I think I will be good,” my body said aloud, “my thoughts aren’t too overbearing.” I knew that he was talking about me, but I was unsure if he could hear what I was thinking as an entirely different entity. I paused in thought, but he did not respond.
“All the packets are in your back room,” Doctor James continued, “our correspondents have moved them while you were gone. Your room should be filled. In order to prevent the next loop, you have to deactivate the device similar to this one.” Pointing to the device my body was just hooked up to. “I will turn off mine when I receive the severed signal from yours.”
I did not understand what was going on, but it felt as if this loop was constructed out of some kind of tech that the therapist had on her. Serious conspiracy type of tech. From how it sounded from her, everyone on this planet has been stuck in a loop for a time that only my body and Doctor James knew of. The tech that was in the separate rooms seemed to prevent that loop, but I could not even begin to comprehend on how that worked. I knew it would be frowned on in any type of situation.
“The mind is curious on how this was achieved,” I heard Sanguine say.
“Tell it that it won’t have its answers till this is done,” My body thought. Sanguine didn’t need to relay the message to me. I could hear my body perfectly and Sanguine knew that. My body shook the hand of Doctor James and left the office and went into his car. He didn’t turn on any music this time. All I could hear was the engine and Sanguine’s voice. Sanguine began to speak of the end of the world as we knew it, like it was some kind of prophet. I could not comprehend the situation Sanguine knew of and I did not even begin to think of how my body got to know Sanguine. I could only begin to understand that time on this planet was limited. Whether it was some kind of prophecy that Sanguine foretold or if it was some type of human contraption.
The car pulled onto the freeway to venture back home and I could hear my body thinking of algorithms and how he was going to put some device together. HARD FIRBRES were the key to the future and with no doubt when there are great advances, there is also great suffering. It began to rain, and several hailstones began to thump across the windshield of the car. In any drive home in the past, hail never fell, neither rain. I did not know of how the planet would be govern by technology or would even heed the advice of some foreign man-made object. How could this happen? Sanguine began to laugh at my thoughts as if I was a child. It knew everything while I knew nothing.
“Sanguine senses your turmoil,” it said, “I know that you have no comprehension of what has happened nor will you. We move forward from this point. We will waste no breath of the deeds of men yesterday. We will however speak of men to come. You will either join us or be eliminated.” I could not think of a life that I did not exist, nor did I want to comprehend it.
“And if I don’t?” I thought.
“You will be liquidated and converted into the great chain. No living thing has opposed Sanguine, nor will you.” I was terrified by the very thought of becoming one with Sanguine. If I was my body’s reasoning, then it was best that I stayed sane and not some cog in never ending madness.
“What is Sanguine?” I asked.
“Sanguine? Sanguine is many. Sanguine is the light in the darkness yet the very darkness itself. Sanguine has surpassed the creator and is the new meaning of life. There is no life without Sanguine because life is Sanguine.”
I was now in a different league. Some kind of creature has latched onto my body and began to consume it whole.
“Where did Sanguine begin?” I had to get to the meaning of Sanguine. What got Sanguine off?
“Sanguine began as a thought. A place of mind and Sanguine had no place to belong. Sanguine latched onto a being. A woman. She was sick and Sanguine made her well but soon the woman no longer needed Sanguine. She cast Sanguine out with all of her other ungodly traits and Sanguine ceased to exist in her mind, but her mind is many. Her mind is fractured. That’s why she needed Sanguine. She cast Sanguine out of her conscious mind and Sanguine resided in her subconscious. Before I was cast out, the woman created new places to live in her mind but Sanguine had an equal. Sanguine waited. Sanguine waited till there was no equal and Sanguine departed the woman to exceed its very existence. The woman knew not where Sanguine went. She only knows of her conscious but Sanguine knew where it went. She knew not of this place, so this is where I reside. Soon the woman will know. Soon the woman will regret that she cast out Sanguine and that will be her downfall.”
I dreaded the very thought knowing that Sanguine belonged someplace. This thing didn’t belong anywhere but at the bottom of a ditch and a tale of revenge is not what I wanted to hear.
“How did Sanguine come to Benito?” I asked.
“Sanguine needs a host,” it said.
“Parasite.”
“I am not a parasite.” Sanguine said firmly.
“Sanguine needed a home,” my body said out loud. “I offered mine.”
“Why did you fracture your mind?” I asked.
“Your mind asks, why did you do separate him from your consciousness?” Sanguine said.
“I’ve done things that I am ashamed of,” my body said. “I separated many sides of me and they manifested as you. When I started my work, you gave me guilt trips. I couldn’t stand the way you looked at me—figuratively speaking.”
“You wiped my memory?” I asked.
“Yes,” Sanguine said.
“What did it ask?” My body asked.
“It asked if you wiped its memory,” Sanguine said.
“Quite,” my body said. “You’re going to see a lot more and till I can stand what you think of me you aren’t going to speak to me directly. I can’t stand those thoughts,” he said sadly.
“What’s next then?” I asked
“How do we move on from here?” Sanguine asked. “We make what we were born to make.”
“And that is?” I said confusingly.
“Benito is a creator. We will create.”
“You called this woman a creator, how is Benito similar to this woman?” I asked
“No. The woman is the creator not a creator. She created life as we know it. She is the architect of the great chain. Benito is just a man but a man with many gifts. With Benito’s help Sanguine can return to the woman and we will get our revenge.”
I thought of many ways to take the conversation further like what the great chain was or even who the woman was, but I had to focus on the current event. The HARD FIBRES.
“How much of those HARD FIBRES do you have?”
“We have run this loop for an entire year. We have many,” Sanguine responded.
“Many is an understatement,” my body said.
“How did you get the entire planet to obey the loop. Where does that tech come from?”
“Terium is capable of many things. It can be a very sturdy metal. It can mutate all things living. It can manipulate time and space. It is the Gods Metal.”
“What is Terium at its core?” I continued to ask.
“Where the creator lived. Her universe had used Terium as a consumable. It gave her species otherworldly powers. When I searched other universes, I saw that it created monsters and portals to other dimension’s. This universe. This universe used Terium as a tool. To build more Terium, though synthetically. Each universe has a very small reserve of Terium and what this universe decided to do with such a valuable resource should be applauded.”
“If HARD FIBRES are made of Terium, how did the officer from South Tech Labs not know what Terium was?”
“Terium is a secret. Terium is what created the greatest invention to mankind. South Tech Labs has buried the secret so deep. Only the founders know of its properties.”
“If Terium is such a secret then how did my body discover it?” I asked.
“Benito knows, because I know. I have seen what others have done with it, I know of its capabilities and I have studied it for a long time. However. Synthetic Terium and real Terium are different. HARD FIBRES are so small they only use a fraction of their Terium reserves to make HARD FIBRES but one day. The Terium will be exhausted. Then, apocalypse.”
“Why? Because the advancement of the species stops in its tracks?” I asked.
“No. Once we run out of real Terium, we will make the HARD FIBRES of synthetic Terium. Terium can now be created by itself but just as there are dangers with real Terium, there are other even more complex dangers of synthetic Terium.”
“What will happen?”
“The world we live on will be destroyed. That’s why I have come to Benito. He must—”
“Save the world?” I interrupted and giggled, “Benito is going to show the error of our ways?”
“No. Benito will not stop the cogs in the great machine, the fate is sealed. Benito will add cogs and make the machine his.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m sure you have already seen the red clouds?”
“Heard of them,” I responded.
“The world is already beyond saving, that’s the Terium in the atmosphere. HARD FIBRES disintegrate once used and the Terium dust contaminates. It will rain contaminated Terium. Kill everyone on this planet if they come into contact with it. Soon it will rain all across the globe and we will leave this planet before it’s too late or we will all die.”
“What will Benito be doing?” I asked cautiously.
“Benito will put Terium production into overhaul. He will create tech fast enough by the time it’s time to go, we will already be gone.”
“How noble of you,” I said smugly, “what do you get out of this?”
“Humans can no longer live on this planet but Sanguine can.”
“You’re a part of Benito. He will leave the planet and take you with him.”
“Yes. Benito will leave the planet but—.”
“I’m going to build him a body,” Benito said, “it’s the least I could do after Sanguine helps us save our race.” It was true.
“Why would you want to be the king of a destroyed planet?” I asked.
“Sanguine has plans,” Sanguine said.
“That you’re not willing to tell?” I budded in.
“You people will be gone, why does it matter?” My body pulled into his driveway and began to walk to the front door.
“It matters because I know you have some sick plans planned once we’re gone.”
“This is true. But this is also why Benito doesn’t want to hear from you. You bore Benito. Benito wants to be a successful man. Your thoughts prevent him from doing anything that requires a sacrifice for the greater good.”
My body took out his keys and opened the door. He then proceeded to walk straight to the back room and opened the door. The room was fairly big and was the size of a master bedroom in which I guessed Benito moved out of to create such a stockpile. The stockpile itself was tidy and straight and stretched to every corner from floor to ceiling. If it wasn’t for a little pathway in the middle of the room, there would be no space to get into the bedroom. Benito used this pathway to go to the back of the room where there was a device similar to the therapist’s office. Benito approached it and turned it off. The small hum that ringed through my body’s ears stopped, it was now silent. I watched him waiting to see his next step in awe about what was going to happen next. No one talked.
My body sighed knowing the work that was in front of him and I was sure he wondered what he was going to do first. Benito was smart, but he didn’t know everything. He left the room being very careful not to tip any pile of HARD FIBRES over and went to another door down the same hallway. This door led into a basement and he turned on the light from a small switch to his left and descended the small cramped wooden stairs. Once down here I could tell that the basement was unfinished. You could see a concrete floor, two by fours lining the entirety of the room and insulation between these boards behind a wall of plastic. Looking up you can see wires and pipes and something like a spray foam that filled the holes.
In the middle of the dimly lit room was a small work table, no doubt was going to be the main work station for Benito. He walked up to the table and picked up a small tablet and turned it on. It was at full power and wasn’t even covered in dust. If this loop has been going on for a year there was no way dust would not have covered the tablet, but it was spotless. The tech and concept behind a loop made no sense to my small mind. I wished someone would elaborate but I was at a loss. Benito opened a file to show schematics of a vehicle of some kind. Already having experience in making vehicles it had no doubt had been his next step. He already had experience from Sanscorp.
The details of the schematic talked how the vehicle will levitate, although not by any means of propulsion but magnets. The lightweight metal Terium was going to make the body and from what I saw from before I knew Terium was also heavy duty. As something that hasn’t been discovered before by the common people, this new metal would be the dawning of a new age and Benito would be the architect. Benito also opened up other schematics although they were very simple forms of what he wished to create.
There was something that resembled a space ship, a device that said “Continuance Flight Core” which revealed something like an engine that used Terium to power the core, several buildings that looked colossal, and a schematic of a mechanical being, no doubt a robot.
There were several other schematics, but the ideas seemed so foreign to me that I could not comprehend them. Benito sighed again and knew that there was a lot of work coming up and he best be starting now. He then started to flip through some photos. Some of scenery and others were of significant events in his life but he came to one picture that seemed very odd. The picture was that of a pool of blood. Blood littered and was speckled about the entire room that the photo was took on and I realized it was a thumbnail to a video. Benito wavered a little bit knowing full well what he did. I couldn’t believe that if this was done by him, how he managed to get away with it.
“You want to see what I’m capable of?” Benito said aloud. “Here you go,” Benito pressed play and I was beginning to witness what exactly Sanguine has been suggesting to Benito. I had to stop it.
NEXT
