Soul Engine

By Luca Nobleman

Phezz retrieved the last vial of poison from his belt. His mother had ceremoniously extracted the venomous substance from the tusks of his family’s herd of hairy and tortoise-like Jamjins for hunting. It seemed like a lifetime ago. During the peaceful times—before the Last Battle—before his brother activated the planet’s core defense weapon, destroying his home planet. Visions of his mother curing the poison, making it potent, permeated his mind.

No time to reminisce. You have a job to do.

Finally, he found the location of the Timekeeper’s Iotatron, and so he would travel back in time, stop his brother, and spare his planet.

He had saved the last bits of poison for this exact moment.

Phezz slipped past the third Iotatron sentry as the woman slumped to the ground. The Jamjin poison from the dart he blew into her neck would keep her asleep for the next few critical hours.

Phezz crawled across the ceiling of the facility—holding his dart straw. This was easy for him. His sharp claws and bushy tail allowed for ultimate climbing and balance. Earth dwellers claimed his race, Xintixa, resembled an overgrown creature from their world called a squirrel. He didn’t tell the Earth dwellers what their race resembled from his former planet.

Upon reaching the end of the hallway, he reconfigured the wires in the door panel, unlocking it, then swung through the threshold and landed on all four paws. The Iotatron stood before him—a cylinder of pure gold, half the room’s length and triple his height. A small window on the side of the machine faced him. He stepped up to the glass and peered into the depths of the machine. A sphere of utter blackness swirled with immense speed within. An ethereal light seemed to permeate its borders, bending and twisting along its surface—a stabilized black hole.

Phezz lifted the Quantum Spark Regulator from his pocket—the one he had stolen from the Warrant Chaser back on Plathia. Warrant Chasers and others from the Order of Time used the device to move linearly through spacetime but never backward. He wasn’t sure if the Timekeepers even knew of the Quantum Spark Regulator’s other more powerful functions.

His experiments with time dilation had proven that the device could trigger reverse flow in the local Higgs field if exposed to enough gravitons, thus initiating time travel.

Without a moment to spare, he tore the keypad off the front of the machine and plugged the device into the primary port. Typing in the code he had encrypted earlier, he initiated the first phase of the sequence: calibration of the manifolds.

Through the centuries, the spacetime lingo of Earth had persisted. They were the first planet to unlock the knowledge. At least, that’s what most of the galaxy believed.

Sparkles of light pulsed from the black hole—the manifolds synchronized.

A voice suddenly rang out from behind. It was not organic but a soft digital female voice.

“It won’t change the outcome, Phezznibbet Maplebark. Your planet will be destroyed no matter how many times you intervene.”

Phezz turned, gripping an antler knife.

From the shadow of the dark room, emerged a tall mechanical being. Long arms and legs draped down from a short torso. Its keen blue eyes penetrated a round metal head, seeming to peer directly into Phezz’s psyche.

A series of clicks and beeps initiated the second phase: calibration and coupling.

“Who are you?” Phezz readied himself to fight.

“I am Iota, the keeper of this machine.”

The device in his paw warbled again—third-phase activation: neural linking. The machine containing the black hole shuddered.

“How do you know who I am?” Phezz eyed the droid curiously. “And how do you know what I plan to do with it?”

“I have met you here before… many times.”

The droid pointed to the black hole, urging him to look.

Phezz turned toward the large machine. As phase four activated, shimmering copies of himself suddenly appeared around the room—dozens of apparitions, all in his image, in various poses activating the Iotatron.

“What…” Phezz hesitated. “What’s going on?”

“These are your other realities.” The female droid stepped toward one apparition who pried open a floorboard containing wiring. “We are never meant to alter the past. We can’t. Those who die are meant to die.” Her fingers passed through the image.

“Meant to die? How can you be so callous?” Phezz gripped his knife tighter.

“There is much you do not understand about the soul, Phezznibbet.” The droid touched another of the ghosts.

Phezz felt a heaviness in his heart. “But so many souls suffered and tragically ended that day.”

“Oh my, Phezznibbet. A soul does not end. It is only perfected—changed from a mortal to an immortal state. If anything, it has broken free of the body’s prison.”

“How would you know? You’re a machine.” Phezz growled as the final phase triggered.

“A machine with a soul,” it corrected, “because I am the galaxy’s Keeper of Souls.”

Soul?

One of the ghosts suddenly vanished as it activated the device in its reality.

“Did I succeed in those other timelines?”

“You succeeded in traveling back in time, yes. But only to witness the destruction of your home world again and again.”

Phezz looked down, tears stinging in his eyes. “But I need to save them… to see them again.”

The machine reached down and delicately lifted his chin.

“Oh, you will, my friend—one day.”

Phezz blinked, tears dropping onto the empty vials at his waist. He saw his mother smile.

Understanding the truth the Iota revealed, he hesitantly inched his claw over the switch and, after a brief pause, deactivated the device.

The droid rested its hand on his shoulder. “You are the first to heed my words… Maybe there is a place for you here after all.”

“Here?” Phezz sniffed.

The droid suddenly glowed brilliantly. “Yes, here. As a Timekeeper.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Luca Nobleman is an author, surgeon, and nerd. To what nerdiness level? Pikachu? He crocheted his own once. Magic the Gathering? His wife rents a storage unit for all his cards. Star Wars action figures? His desk could maybe fit one more K2SO. But it’s okay, because his four children sure like having an extra grown kid in the house. Luca is the author and audiobook/podcast voice for the Dreaming Machines novel series.

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