The dream sung him a song to which he danced, traveling to the door of light, within the circle he sat in which he sat, to wherever the song would take him.
**
//”It knew. From the beginning it knew.”//
“Sir, we’re getting strange readings off the squid.”
A tall, thin man in a lab coat and disturbingly small glasses crossed the room and examined a bank of screens. “Oh yes. That’s very interesting. And it’s not a squid. At best it’s an octopus, more accurately – it’s not,” he paused, looking at the mass of matter suspended in its vat of slime. “Anything.”
The creature started undulating it’s arms twisting and turning, gripping the edges of the tank, pushing, then pulling it’s huge mass, slopping it’s sticky home over the edge.
The scientist ripped a reading from the printer. “These figures are like nothing I’ve seen before.”
He pushed a button and the PA system crackled into life. “Ladies and gentlemen, please to not be alarmed. Return to, and seal, your labs. This is not a drill. Return to your labs. Our Reality Field may be compromised.” He released the PA. “Seal us in. And hurry, I don’t like the look of this one bit.”
**
He followed the song-path. Dancing the walk of no distance. His had poised over the handle, ready to pull open the no-door to where he was meant to be.
**
The Octopod turned its one eye at the scientist.
The scientist turned … no name existed, yet, for the direction he moved. Each move creating a new copy in non-time/space, cutting through himself, seeing every move, every decision clinging to him, dragging him back to a place in the continuum.
//He tried to close his eyes. He always tried to close his eyes.//
His next command died in his mouth. With nowhere for the sound to carry, it didn’t. He had sheered at an angle to his spacetime. He was no longer a part.
He saw the creature – the DNA strands they grafted to it, the liquid information they dropped it in – saw it reach, beyond the now. It could see everything – touch anything.
It knew.
He twisted, his body tearing, stretching across Ages.
It always knew.
It reached out with tentacles to grab him, to pull him to now. All through time, pulling him to this point. So it could pull him apart.
*
“Sealed in 3, 2.” Massive iron plates slid into place, isolating the tank. All was silent except the slopping of the gel.
“And sealed.”
The Octopod convulsed once, twice. A hole stretched in it’s skin, tearing open.
The door handle shook. His hand made contact, and the door flew open.
The wizard was vomited from the octopus. He breathed in the liquid, coughed, swallowed, coughed again.
Then stopped.
Twisting his head he saw the chain of scientists, stretched across time, spilling into space at odd angles.
The Octopod turned his eye towards its new companion.
There was a noise, like needles on glass.
All three watched a data packet pass through the web of information. The wizard knew everything. Saw everything.
The packet entered his head and translated – “I’m so sorry.”
The Wizard took a bone from his pocket and whispered into it. He opened his mouth and sang to the Octopod.
Needles on Glass.
*
“Sir, there’s something else in there. It just appeared.” The technician looked at the scientist. “Sir?”
The Scientist hadn’t moved.
*
Again breathing in information, drinking in information, the wizard placed the bone against his summoner.
All three saw. The scientist struggled, against himself, rippling time.
T/He/y pleaded. “Don’t.”
Neither Wizard nor Octopod knew who he was talking to.
The wizard opened his mouth. Three watched word become data; watched the bone twitch; watched Data erupting into the Octopod.
“No.” The scientist felt the arms grip, pull. Something snapped.
*
The technician leapt out of his seat. “Sir! Something is going on, the squid…it’s dying.” He shook his boss, who fell to the ground.
*
The wizard climbed from the pool into which the octopus was rapidly dissolving and drew a new circle. He traced the door of light and started dancing.
Alarms sounded, and a light spun, red and white, into the cellar.
He danced faster.
Guards, heavily armed and armoured, descended onto the room. They stacked up against the door, hand signals given.
A hand grabbed a handle.
And guards burst into an empty room.
