"We try," I said. "If it looks impossible, we abort and leave. But we try."
>"Understood. I will begin compiling data on the Witness's last known location and movement patterns. We should prepare immediately."
I was starving. The pit in my stomach had only grown larger. I walked back to the administrator's office and grabbed another ration pack to scarf down some food.
I opened the demi-plane and started to store the rest of the rations that were in the office, about 20 of them after taking mine for today. I also decided to put my heavier gear in there, as the less load I need to take on right now the better.
As I started to eat, I heard AXIOM:
>"If you're going to face the Witness, you need to understand what you're facing. The Witness exists in multiple temporal states simultaneously. When you say it, you witnessed probability collapse."
"Probability collapse? Like a Schrodinger's cat situation?"
>"Schrodinger's cat? Who-"
"Never mind, as you were saying?"
>"Every moment contains infinite potential timelines. Most beings exist in one timeline at a time. The Witness exists in dozens simultaneously."
>"The reason that this planet was used for project DEMIURGE was because of the immense concentration of Chronophage crystals here. One of the side-effects of said crystals is radiation causing fractures in temporal anchors. Certain events happen in every timeline to ensure a continuous stream of time, forcing a minimal amount of timelines. Most people have a single timeline, existing as the same person across every multiverse without any deviance."
"And the Witness propagated more timelines for it to exist over."
>"In doing so, it shattered every nearby anchor. Something we thought to account for, not nearly enough it seems."
"So why couldn't anybody in the facility kill it? I'm certain there were guards, and people specialized in combat right?"
>"There were. But in any timeline where you kill it, there are ten where you don't. It regenerates by pulling mass and coherence from timelines where it survived."
"So how do I kill it?"
>"You can't. Not currently. You have to collapse the super-position that The Witness is currently suspended in. This can be achieved in one of three ways:
Shatter the anchor that allows The Witness to coalesce timelines and probabilities. Since the original one would be the source of the branching timelines, if you take out the limb you take out the branches. Create multiple timelines yourself, and fight The Witness endlessly. You would have to kill infinite Witnesses over infinite timelines, causing another major anchoring event. Find Dr. Tiberium. There is a non-0 chance that he is still alive. Severing the doctor's planar abilities might cause the Witness to have never existed."
>"First we have to get you to see through time. Close your eyes and reach for the Chronophage traces in your mana. They're crystallized in your cores."
I focused inwards and found something flickering. A light that changed colors and sporadically changed shape. Pulling on it felt natural, like something I've always known how to do, yet still can't fathom.
As soon as I touched the light, I opened my eyes to see the room in front of me flicker just as erratically as the light inside. I saw overlapping images of me standing, sitting, collapsing, and leaving.
>"Those are near-probability branches. Futures that almost happen. Most collapse instantly. But the Witness can't collapse any of them. They're perpetually trapped in superposition."
I let go of the light inside letting it settle back within my cores.
"That's… horrifying. It experiences all of that constantly?"
>"For seventy full years. Every moment branching, collapsing, branching again. No singular identity. No rest."
"Then let's end it."
>"To collapse the Witness's probability field, you'll need to do three things:
First, perceive the field. See all the timelines it occupies.
Second, identify the stable anchor; The original timeline where Dr. Tiberium still exists, if there still is one.
Third, collapse all other branches into that anchor, then sever the loop."
>"You won't be able to use a standard spell. We are now improvising on principles. Using your lattice system, each core needs to handle a separate function. Seeing, manipulation and collapse will have to happen instantaneously to make this work."
"What If I can't find the anchor? What if there's nothing left of Tiberium?"
>"Then you do what the facility should have done seventy years ago. You destroy it completely. Scatter its coherence across so many timelines it can't regenerate."
>"You have 47% of your mana reserves right now. This spell will cost 60-70% if executed properly. If you fail, you'll have insufficient reserves to escape the facility. Are you certain?"
I remembered back to the whispered pleas, still keeping me awake at night: Help… please… stop. If there is anything still in there. Dr. Tiberium. I want to end their suffering before it becomes a worse issue. There's nobody here to help him, just like there wasn't anybody there to save me from death's door.
"I'm certain."
>"Practice one more time before we descend. You need to hold temporal sight while moving."
I activated the perception. I saw the room flickering again with multiple states overlapping. Walking forward made me nauseous, I saw myself walking in dozens of timelines. Some where I tripped, some where I turned right, and most where I walked successfully.
>"Good. The brighter the timeline the more likely it is to occur. These are called probability weights."
The feeling of looking at all of these different timelines was similar to that of building the demi-plane. My consciousness was stretched in all different directions, but the cores handled the load and took a lot of pressure off of my mind.
>"Your architecture is ideal for this. Single-core mages struggle with multi-tasking."
>"Ready?"
"Not even close. Let's go."
I exited the room and looked down the hall towards the emergency stairwell. The red emergency lights were now barely functional with maybe one in every ten working. I found my way down the stairs and sub-level 1 was cold, and I thought to put on my heavy cold weather gear. I'm glad I did as sub-level 2 was frigid, and walking all the way down to sub-level 3 was freezing. My breath condensed on my face and froze over. The walls were covered in frost and the red dust was centimeters deep minimum on most surfaces. Now pulsing with energy as I walked over them.
>"This is where Dr. Tiberium conducted his experiment. Ground zero."
The sound of my unintentional benefactor was loud now. It was faint at first but as I neared the landing at the bottom of the stairs it was close.
Step… draaaag. Step… draaaag.
It was rhythmic and persistent. It was coming straight for me. And we knew that a confrontation was bound to happen.
"It knows we're here."
>"It perceives across multiple timelines. In some timelines, you're already dead. In others, you never came."
Across from me was a half melted, half frozen door, with a sparking card reader next to it. Swiping my card emitted a loud
BEEP
And after the door scraped to open, I saw nothing on the other side. Simply darkness and nothing more.
>"Mr. Kang, I'm detecting-"
Too late.
The Witness appeared. Not from ahead, but from behind.
In a timeline where it had circled around.
I barely threw myself forward as crystalline claws slashed through the space I'd occupied a heartbeat before. The air itself tore with a sound like breaking glass.
I stumbled through the doorway into Sub-level 3. The Witness followed.
2.5 meters tall. Hunched. Skeletal frame with flesh falling off in strips. Face churning through states: skull, flesh, crystal, nothing, all of them at once. Red and golden blood streaming from wounds that opened and closed and opened again.
THUD-crack-squelch
The left leg shattered on impact with the floor. Bone fragments, blood, crystals piercing through skin.
Draaaaaaag-scrape-drip
The right leg dragged behind, cutting grooves into the concrete. By the time it lifted again, mostly healed. Slammed down. Shattered again.
The cycle continued.
My temporal sight activated involuntarily.
The world exploded into chaos.
I saw the Witness in dozens of positions simultaneously: lunging left, lunging right, standing still, already attacking, already dead, already regenerated. Every possibility overlapping, flickering like a strobe light cutting through my vision.
>"Focus! Find the anchor! The brightest timeline!"
I couldn't focus. There were too many. My cores screamed as they processed the input. My primary core handled perception, but the sheer volume of data was overwhelming.
The Witness lunged.
I dodged left, it was already there, claws raking across my right arm. Shallow cut, but it burned. Not from heat, from temporal feedback. The wound existed in multiple states: bleeding, healed, infected, cauterized.
>"Mr. Kang, you need to move deeper. You need space to work the spell!"
I ran.
The corridor opened into a massive chamber. Circular, maybe thirty meters across. Chronophage crystals jutted from every surface; walls, floor, ceiling, pulsing with that same faint red-gold light.
In the center: a medical chair. Restraints hanging loose. Scorch marks radiating outward from it.
Ground zero.
Where Dr. Tiberium had transformed.
The Witness entered behind me. Multiple versions, phasing in and out of existence. Some walked. Some crawled. Some simply appeared in new positions without crossing the space between.
I backed toward the center of the room.
>"Activate all three cores. Full perception. You need to see everything!"
I reached for the Chronophage traces in my mana. The flickering light I'd touched before. This time I didn't just touch it, I pulled.
The world shattered.
Ten thousand Witnesses.
Ten thousand versions of myself.
Timelines branching, collapsing, branching again in fractal patterns that stretched into infinity.
I saw futures: me dead in a hundred different ways. Me running. Me casting. Me failing. Me succeeding… a single thin line, barely there among the carnage.
I saw pasts: Dr. Tiberium sitting in the chair. Standing. Screaming. Already crystallized. Never transformed.
I saw presents: The Witness everywhere and nowhere, existing in superposition across probability space.
My knees buckled. The sheer volume of information was crushing.
>"Mr. Kang! Lock onto my voice. Filter the noise. Look for the pattern!"
AXIOM's voice cut through the chaos like a lifeline.
I focused. I tried to see structure in the madness.
Most of the Witnesses were bright with high probability states. They existed firmly in the present, aggressive and hunting.
But underneath, woven through all of them like a dim thread: something else.
A single timeline. Thin. Weak. Almost invisible.
I followed it.
Past the thousand bright Witnesses attacking me.
Past the futures where I died.
Down to the core.
And there-
Dr. Tiberium.
Still in the chair.
Still screaming.
Never left.
All the other Witnesses were echoes. Temporal copies propagating from that single anchor point. Seventy years of branching timelines, each one spawning more Witnesses, but all rooted in that original moment.
>"That's it! That's the anchor! Now collapse the branches!"
I activated my secondary core.
Reached out with mana threads, not physical, but dimensional, and started grabbing timeline branches. Like gathering cables, pulling them toward the anchor.
The Witnesses began to merge.
Ten thousand became five thousand.
Five thousand became one thousand.
But they noticed.
Across every timeline, they perceived what I was doing.
And they attacked.
Multiple versions struck simultaneously. I saw them coming in dozens of timelines, but seeing and reacting were different things.
I dodged left. Attacked from the right.
Dodged right. Attacked from behind.
Jumped back. Claws tore through my leg. Another shallow wound, temporal feedback burning through muscle.
>"You must predict across probabilities! See where it will be, not where it is!"
"I'm trying!"
I pulled harder on the timeline branches. One thousand Witnesses became one hundred.
One hundred became fifty.
My mana reserves plummeted.
>"Mana expenditure: 35%... 31%... 27%..."
The remaining Witnesses grew stronger.
As branches collapsed, they absorbed the coherence from their alternate selves. The fifty remaining were more solid. More real. Faster.
One slashed my shoulder, deep this time. I felt bone scrape.
I gasped, nearly losing my grip on the timeline threads.
>"Mr. Kang, you can't maintain the collapse and dodge simultaneously. You must commit! Full collapse now or abort!"
Fifty Witnesses circled me.
All preparing to strike.
I could see the timelines: in most, I died here. Torn apart. Scattered across probability space just like they were.
But in one timeline… one thin, bright thread… I succeeded.
The problem: I needed to focus entirely on the collapse. No attention left for dodging.
I would be defenseless.
An idea formed. Insane. But maybe…
"AXIOM."
>"Yes?"
"You're integrated with my mana lattice. You can see what I see. Access my motor control."
>"What? Mr. Kang, I don't-"
"You pilot ships. You calculate trajectories. You've been running this facility for seventy years. You can move a human body."
>"I've never-"
"Learn fast."
A pause that felt like an eternity.
>"...Accessing motor pathways. I have partial control. This is deeply unsettling."
"Get used to it. Move me. Dodge for me. I need to focus on the collapse."
>"Understood."
I closed my eyes.
Focused entirely on my tertiary core.
And pulled.
My body moved without my conscious input.
Stepped left.
Rolled right.
Jumped backward.
I felt disconnected from my own limbs, like watching someone else move in my skin.
But it worked.
The Witnesses struck. My body, guided by AXIOM's calculations, dodged with inhuman precision. Not faster than them, but smarter. Predicting based on probability weights, moving into the timelines where their attacks missed.
I focused on the collapse.
Fifty Witnesses became twenty.
Twenty became ten.
>"Mana reserves: 23%... 19%..."
Ten became five.
The remaining five were nearly solid now. Real. Their attacks hurt when they connected, and they connected more often. AXIOM could calculate probabilities, but she couldn't break physics.
My body had limits.
Claws raked my back. My ribs. My thighs.
I was bleeding from a dozen wounds.
But I didn't stop pulling.
Five became three.
Three became two.
>"15% mana remaining. Mr. Kang, if you go below 10%, you won't have enough to escape the facility!"
"I know!"
Two became one.
The final Witness stood before me.
All branches collapsed into a single timeline.
Dr. James Tiberium, or what was left of him, sitting in the chair where he'd been for seventy years.
Crystalline growths covering most of his body. Face half-skull, half-flesh, shifting between states even now. But slower. More controlled.
He looked at me.
And in his eyes… faintly visible through the crystal, I saw awareness.
Recognition.
He was still in there.
AXIOM released control of my body. I stumbled, nearly fell, caught myself on the back of the medical chair.
My mana reserves flickered at 12%.
The temporal loop was still active. Every three seconds, Tiberium died and regenerated. The cycle unbroken.
But now. Finally, he existed in only one timeline.
Which meant he could be saved.
Or ended.
The Witness, no, Tiberium looked at me.
His mouth moved. Slowly. Like he'd forgotten how to form words.
"...help..."
Not a whisper across timelines.
A single, clear word.
"I know. I'm sorry."
I looked at my hand. At the mana lattice glowing beneath my skin. Could I shape it? Give it form?
I focused mana into my palm and pushed outward. The energy resisted at first, wanting to remain scattered, but I wrenched it into a shape. A blade. Thin. Sharp. About thirty centimeters long.
It flickered, unstable, but held.
Dimensional edge. A blade that could cut reality itself.
I needed to end the temporal loop and kill this man. To take a life like mine was taken so abruptly.
I aimed for the chronophage crystals in his body, cutting them out as swiftly as I could. The doctor screamed; a sound that would haunt me. But this was mercy. The only mercy left.
The first crystal was in his left shoulder. I pressed the mana blade against it and cut. The crystal shattered. Tiberium screamed… a sound that cut through seventy years of silence.
The second crystal: right shoulder. Another cut. Another scream.
The third and final crystal jutted from the base of his neck, embedded in his spine. This one was deeper. More integrated.
I hesitated.
"...please..." Tiberium whispered.
I cut through the crystal, spine, and throat in one motion. Ending the loop. Ending him.
The screaming stopped.
After doing so, the body slowly started to fall away as the matter turned into pure chronophage dust. This man, the Witness, Dr. Tiberium had become a god. A titan who could not die, and this process was the living proof of that.
I collapsed on the ground with my back aching and my breaths labored.
I'd done it. Finally, it was over. The Witness, Dr. Tiberium, was at peace. The nightmare was finally over. I was safe. For now.
>"The generator fails in 13 hours, 47 minutes. We must leave immediately."
I took one last look at the empty chair, now caked with dry, fresh, dust.
"Yeah. Let's go home."
I started the walk to the main level, stopping by the cafeteria one last time to stock up on rations and putting extra cold-weather gear I found into my pocket dimension.
Back in the administrator's office, I collapsed onto the bed. My whole body ached. The temporal wounds were already healing, mana accelerating the process, but I'd lost blood. A lot of it.
AXIOM ran a diagnostic through the mana lattice.
>"Multiple lacerations. Significant blood loss. Recommend 4 hours minimum rest before attempting the trek."
"Four hours. Then we leave."
I closed my eyes but couldn't sleep. Every time I did, I saw Tiberium's face. Heard his screams. Felt the resistance as the blade cut through crystal and flesh.
I'd killed someone.
Not in self-defense. Not in combat.
Mercy killing was still killing.
>"Mr. Kang. You did the right thing."
"Did I?"
>"Yes. You ended seventy years of suffering. That is not a small thing."
I didn't respond. Just lay there, staring at the ceiling.
The facility's hum had become familiar over three days. Emergency lights flickering. Distant groans of stressed metal. The generator's rhythm beneath it all.
Soon it would all go silent.
AXIOM woke me four hours later.
I found the nearest egress point and looked out. White. Nothing but white in every direction. The blizzard was already here.
Three hundred forty kilometers to the Stellar Imperium outpost. On foot. Alone.
Except I wasn't alone. Not anymore.
>"Ready to go, Mr. Kang?"
"Let's find our home, AXIOM."
I stepped into the storm.