With only ten days left in this extravaganza, how ever will I finish? This novel is looooooooong… but I will do it! I swear to you, even if it is 120,000 words, or 130,000 or 150,000 words, I shall be done with it by November 30th! At any rate, Cydia is introduced in a mess of advanced technology in this entry; things move rather quickly, but will slow down as soon as they’re in Variable’s house. I wanted to rush into Cydia and make it seem bustling and alive, so that I could contrast it with the harsh reality of its deadness later on.

Word Count: 66,733

“You’re not human!” Ames shouted, backing away from the man and startling Graham.

“Excellent observation!” Variable said. “But incorrect. I most certainly am human, but I am in a fetch. Have you never seen a fetch before? This is quite a common model; I must look like fool for wearing these rags. My apologies to you both, but it is my duty to tend to those who come through the portal. You’re the first in a long time.”

“Fetch?” Graham said. “I’ve heard that word before. Ames, stop shaking – I think it’s safe. It’s odd, but safe.” Ames looked at Graham first and then at Variable, who she would continue to find odd throughout their stay in Cydia. She, too, recognized the word – fetch. “Ford said it,” Graham said, “talking about Cydia. He asked if I was using a fetch. Variable, sir, where are we?”

“Right now? You are in City Square, the largest building in the vicinity. Come, come with me, I shall show you around – you won’t regret it! We rarely ever get visitors, it’s been hundreds of years I’d say, and so I would love to take advantage of this glorious moment.”

That’s twice they’ve got it wrong, Graham thought. “No, I didn’t want to know where in town we were – what planet are we on? If it seems like a strange question to ask, know that my friend and I have been through quite a bit recently and just aren’t sure anymore. If you think we’re crazy of have amnesia, that’s fine, just tell us where we are.”

“Crazy? Of course you aren’t, there are many planets to be from. This is Cydia! It is by no means a humble world so do not assume that its people are humble. I can explain more as we walk – both of you, come!” Variable began pacing across the bridge to the exit. Graham and Ames reluctantly followed not knowing whether the strange, silhouetted being was malevolent or benign. Ames in particular walked with cautious steps, not wanting to make the wrong move in a strange world – she was, Graham thought, the toughest woman on Talos to attempt to rescue him from a genocidal prison, but confronted with a world filled to the brim with technology beyond her comprehension put her into a pseudo future shock; her mind could not handle what she saw – it was so far removed from anything on Talos that it appeared to her as magic, and magic did not exist.

Crossing the bridge proved difficult for both Ames and Graham, but obviously not for Variable, who had done it many times over. The distance from the bridge to the ground shocked the two world travelers; in fact, there was no ground in sight, signaling that City Square was both infinitely tall and infinitely deep. A drop off the bridge would be fatal – Graham began to think that if “fatal” had multiple degrees, a drop from the bridge was more fatal than a drop from off one of Lanford City’s trains, which rose high above the city’s district wall. But perhaps more frightening than the distance down from the bridge was the utter lack of any sort of fence to contain travelers within the path.

Eventually they all crossed the bridge and walked out the exit; both Graham and Ames now knew they had not seen even half of a fraction of Cydia’s true visage, for in front of them was a city only a portion of the size of Lanford, yet infinitely grander. Skyscrapers rose into the heavens, or what heavens there were left to be above the skyscrapers; they were already close to space. Graham felt a notable difference in the amount of gravity on Cydia; either the group was very far from the center of the planet – which was likely – or the planet was incomprehensibly small – also likely, given the size of the city. The city, though it had tall buildings and flashing lights, looked as if it could fit on a large rock.

Graham would soon find out how correct his assumptions were. Not far had they walked before the edge of the city was clearly in view, and indeed the entire metropolis floated upon a rock – a buoyant chunk of terra hovering above a gaseous purple mixture, with no visible ground below. Variable led them down a stoop of perfectly carved metal stairs.

“Watch your step,” he said. “And don’t worry about the drop over there. We’ve got a barrier in place, so you can’t fall off the border. Though I don’t know why you’d be worried if you did – all for the better, I say! Ah, but I’m getting far ahead of myself. Where are either of you two from?” Had his face been visible, Graham and Ames would have seen his questioning look – beyond the silhouette was a truly curious man who had waited eons for a presence to exit the portal.

Ames, eager to conquer her fear of Cydia and seem more impressive at adaptation than Graham, who did not seem to be scared in the slightest, spoke first. “I’m from Talos. I don’t know how far it is from Cydia, but it’s my home. Specifically, Lanford City. I’m sure you’ve never heard of it.”

“Talos, eh?” Variable said, facing away from the group and continuing to walk forward. “So, you’re one of them,” he said, much quieter. “Sorry, I don’t know much about Talos, but I’ve certainly heard the name before. What about you?” he asked, referencing Graham.

“Earth,” he said after some slight hesitation. Wary of the type of reaction he’d hear about Earth –for the advanced people of Cydia were obviously in tune with the workings of a few other planets outside of their own – he almost regretted mentioning that he was from Earth. Variable’s reaction reinforced his opinion.

“I sure haven’t heard that one for a while! If my memory serves me well – and it does, mind you, because I was a part of the collective for a while – we had many dealings with Earth a long time ago. I remember being around for those. Interesting times; glad to see you back. Well, not you, of course, but somebody from your planet.” They had left the stoop in front of City Square and could not turn around and look at the structure on its own. It dwarfed every other building on that floating island exponentially, and its purpose was almost clear to Graham. He thought it might be an interstellar elevator, like they had been planning to build on Earth in Japan. Such an elevator would begin on the ground and extend outward into space; NASA and other space administrations could use this elevator to easily bring parts into space. Although the plan did not consider human travel along this “space elevator,” its designer did one day intend to modify the elevator to include space tourism.

The challenge, of course, was making space tourism safe – the elevator had no problems remaining safe, but the risk of falling down to Earth was great. Without a steady orbit, humans would plummet back down to Earth no matter how far away they got, until some other heavenly body’s gravity captured them. Either way, the prospective fate for the space tourist was grim. When Graham had tumbled into Talos, the situation had not been resolved, and the space elevator hadn’t even been build – he doubted that only a few weeks later it was somehow constructed and in operation, which is why Cydia’s City Square was such a marvel; they had perfected an art that, during those very moments on Earth, Graham’s people could only dream of.

Variable moved onward, towards the city limits, which were not far off from the stoop – everything was tightly packed and condensed on the floating island. In the distance Graham could see other floating islands, sparkling with light of their own, indicating other cities floating around a massive gaseous space. He wondered if there were any beings living within the gas, in the clouds and between the storms, if it such a life was too dangerous for even a Cydian. Variable seemed to have no fear of death, based on how easily he had walked across the fenceless bridge.

Graham felt more likened to Cydia than he did to Talos – technology, while much different, felt more similar to Earth. Earth, he gathered, was the median of Talos and Cydia, the realm with the “comfortable” level of technological advancement. He wondered if variable hid his face under the artificial silhouette skin because he was truly miserable on Cydia – but, then again, on every planet, in every age, in every life, there was misery somewhere. There was misery on Earth for Graham as his friend moved away, as his family slowly dislodged him from their network, as electricity began to die out and the economy began to crash.

And there was no doubt that misery abounded in Talos – and not even more so Graham imagined that the people in Talos, specifically Lanford City, were suffering most of all.

This was why it was not hard for him to imagine that Variable, too, must be miserable. To wait out one’s days for someone to tumble through an interstellar door, to wait hundreds of years, and hence through multiple generations, must have been hard on the man. Graham could only imagine his pain prior to being called to the portal, and his sheer excitement upon discovering that two foreigners had stumbled out of it.

The path leading up to the dense city was dark and foreboding, and as they moved further away from City Square the light dimmed down and eventually all was lost in pitch-black darkness. In response to this sudden darkness, Ames and Graham pivoted around to look at the bright lights escaping from City Square, hoping to adjust their eyes to the dark light. But before this could happen, Variable tapped each of them on the shoulder, startling them and causing them to jump upward in fear.

“No need to be afraid, it is only me. I am taking you to a place where you can stay, travelers. If you need anything, simply ask – do not worry about payment, we can discuss such matters later. For now, I have a gift for each of you. Although you cannot see it, you will be able to shortly.” Variable reached into his tuxedo pocket and pulled out two slim pairs of frameless glasses, and then handed one each to Graham and Ames. “Please put these glasses on. You are probably shrouded in darkness right now without need. These glasses will enable you to see.”

Graham felt around and took the glasses, then put them on – he was never accustomed to wearing glasses; having a foreign object rest upon his face was a strange feeling; the same went for Ames as well. As soon as the glasses were on, Variable came back with more orders: “Rub your finger across the top of the lenses. The glasses are electronic; they’ll boot up once you run your finger across the top.”

Graham did so, and suddenly the logo of an operating system flashed across both lenses. Within another millisecond after this animation the glasses had successfully booted up. New objects appeared in Graham’s field of vision, including several street lamps that, in truth, were not lamps at all but floating spheres of lights.

Oddly enough, the light from these spheres bounced off of objects and provided light to the scenery around him. Graham was not sure what he was seeing; he removed the glasses, and the floating spheres of light disappeared. He put the glasses back on, and they came back – but the glasses were not a screen, and the lights did not travel with the glasses. Graham was confounded. Elements of reality suddenly popped into existence with the glasses on; it was bizarre and unreal. Graham put on the glasses and looked back at the City Square building. Suddenly, there were billboards around the building advertising several products Graham had never heard of, and probably wouldn’t be able to understand.

Ames was having trouble figuring out how to turn the glasses on. Her fingers fumbled around, and several times she thought the glasses might be broken. She asked where the steam went, and nobody could properly explain that the steam did not go anywhere, for there was no steam involved in powering the device, as there was no steam involved in powering the taser-like devices that the knights had had back in Lanford City. Still, despite this comparison, she struggled with the glasses. Eventually, she managed to turn them on – according to Variable, one had to activate the glasses for the first time with their own finger, as their fingerprint would be recorded for security purposes. This fingerprint scanner was far more accurate than any scanner currently found on Earth, enough so that it not only picked up a person’s fingerprint, but also any electromagnetic impulses given off by the finger – the purpose of this second feature would soon become apparent to Graham and Ames.

Once Ames had gotten her glasses up and running she relapsed back into shock, but recovered far quicker than before, indicating that she was getting used to Cydia – at least what they had seen so far of it, those two small glimpses of Cydian life. Variable continued to lead the way now that both parties could see in the darkness, yet never bothered to explain how the glasses enabled these extrasensory perceptions. Like the strange taser device found in Lanford, these glasses, too, were a complete mystery, and a mystery that neither Ames nor Graham had time to solve.

Graham did not mention his objectives to variable yet, wishing to strengthen his relationship with this lucky first Cydian. Variable was silent for the majority of the trip into the city, acting only as a compass to guide them to a safe place. The city glowed far brighter with the advent of the glasses than without, and both Ames and Graham constantly took them off and put them back on to make sure they were not hallucinating the brightness of Cydia.

“These are amazing,” Graham said. “There is nothing like this on Earth – nothing even close. Variable, why are you not using them? How did you see in the dark?”

Variable, who had become accustomed to the silence and, with the silence between he and the travelers broken, spoke with a certain anxiety in his voice, “I don’t need the glasses; my body has them built-in, you could say. I can never turn them off, though, as a result. Keep walking with me, please; it’s not much farther to our abode. You will be able to meet several of my colleagues, who will help you adjust to our world a little bit more if it suits you. If not, you can feel free to lounge about.”

They had not traveled much farther before Variable realized he had forgotten something. “Shit,” Variable recited in anger, then mumbled quietly, “something is wrong if I forgot we need to take the light tram.” He moved forward with caution, wondering if he’d forgotten anything else, for to forget anything in his condition was a sign of horrible things to come – Variable, and everyone like him, did not simple forget their memories; no, their memories had to be erased, which was cause for much alarm inside Variable’s mind.

The further they walked into the city, the smaller the tar roads became, until eventually spaces in between skyscrapers were narrow slits fit only for one person to walk through, as thin as the hallways had been in the Black District back in Lanford. Luckily Graham was used to this, and it did not bother him. But it clearly bothered Ames.

Ames spoke silently to Graham, “You don’t find it weird that we’re blindly following this man?”

“We don’t have a choice; we’re lost here and he’s the only guy who knew about our existence. He knew about the portal. He knew about Talos, and he even knew about Earth.”

“I meant trust – how do we know we can trust him?”

“We don’t, Jessica. But we’re in no position to be choosy right now. We’re lost and weaponless in a strange place, and he’s the only man who has offered us help.” Graham began to get the feeling that even if he had said all of this loudly, Variable wouldn’t have noticed. In fact, variable was beginning to pull away from the group. He walked faster and faster, and Graham began to fear that he and Ames would lose him in an upcoming crowd of people.

The fear expanded when the crowd turned out to be a crossroads. There were no vehicles in Cydia, only a huge pedestrian walkway at the center of the city, branching out like tree roots to the outer reaches of the floating island. Variable walked faster, his suit flapping in the breeze caused by his sheer speed.

Through the pedestrian walkway they crossed. Graham and Ames bore witness to several of the strangest looking creatures, all decidedly human, yet at the same time decidedly inhuman. There were several characters bearing resemblance to Variable, and more characters who had a different appearance, but amongst their group the same. The more Graham looked at the groups of people walking through the walkway, the more he began to believe that the bodies on Cydia were as a fashion accessory, that plastic surgery had advanced far enough that the entire body could be molded freely, into any shape or form one desired.

Variable stopped and turned around. “I am sorry, my friends, but it seems I miscalculated. We need to take the light tram to my abode if we are to get there in any decent time. There is a terminal just up ahead, so please keep following. I realize my walking speed is very quick. I can lower my pace if you’d like.”

“No, there’s no need – we can keep up,” Graham said.

“Good, good. I also understand this must all be sudden to you, but it is my job to do this, you see, even if it is not a very exciting job, and one I have not done for the longest time. I must admit I’m a bit rusty; I’ve never dealt with foreigners before. Which is odd, because I am sort of like a foreigner myself!”

Variable cheerfully led the way underground to an area that looked like a New York City subway station. Graham was exceedingly familiar with the subway system, but variable reassured him that, coming from Earth, there was no possibility that he would be familiar with what he was about to see. They dove further downward into the island; Graham worried they might pop out of the bottom and fall to their dooms, but this never occurred. Instead, the metal stairs emptied out into a large, open room with a tall ceiling. In the center of the room was a thick line of light that passed from an electron gun at one end through a prism on the other. At regular intervals the line of light had strange bulges where the path traced by the light became circular, as though large beads had been strung along a thread of light.

Variable stepped up to one of the bulged of light while Graham and Ames stood motionless at the bottom of the stairs. With a confident wave, variable urged them to move closer, and to step into the bulge of light, assuring them that it was perfectly safe and harmless – and, like obedient tourists, Graham and Ames unconditionally believed him.