“Okay, easy there.” Sullivan decided this was probably worth getting up for. It took a few seconds, but he managed it without bashing his head onto anything metal. He pulled the chain and turned the light on. “Break it down for me, and use words an idiot can understand.”
“Domes are my area of expertise, but strings are a fascinating side note.” Fuller looked around in consternation, spotted a work boot under Barns’ bunk, hurried over, and pulled it out. He roughly jerked the laces out of the boot and tossed it back on the floor. He held up the shoelace. “What is this?”
“A shoelace?”
“It is the omnidirectional flow of magical energy between the host, in this case, Active magicals, and the parasitic symbiote, as in the multidimensional Power being.”
“Us on one end. Power on the other.”
“Yes.” He took an end in each hand and stretched it out. “It is still a mystery as for how it determines suitable selection criteria.”
“It picks some of us and not others. What part of it we connect to determines what magic we can do. Got it.” Sullivan had figured that out on his own, and he wasn’t a fancy Cog, either.
“Upon connection to the human host, what we think of as magic flows down this connection to the host, where it collects, and through an unknown process of exercise through the host’s life cycle, is grown, and upon cessation of biological function—”
“Death.”
“Yes, when we die…” Fuller let go of one end of the shoelace to let it dangle. “The being then collects the now-increased magical energy back to itself in order to continue its life cycle.” Fuller took all of the shoelace into one hand in a big clump.
If Sullivan had been a more mirthful man, he might have made a sound like a spaghetti noodle getting sucked up.
“Hold this.” Fuller held out the shoelace. Sullivan took it and stretched it out, curious as to what Fuller was so spun up about. “Now you are representing the connection between Actives and the symbiote. When I used my magic earlier to ascertain the nature of the magical connection of the specimen you collected from Axel Heiberg, I spoke of knots, as if the connection itself had been manipulated in some heretofore unknown manner. The normal magical geometries seemed chaotic, tied into knots, if you will, but they were not knots at all!” Fuller then went to Barns’ other boot and yanked the lace out of it too.
“Barns is going to be ticked when he sees somebody’s been messing with his stuff.”
The Cog didn’t even seem to hear him. “This second string represents a new entity. Which for the intents of this discussion I shall label the Enemy. Normally I prefer not to use language which predisposes an adversarial nature, but I’ve come to see the point of your usage of the term.” Fuller took the second lace, looped it around the cord stretched between Sullivan’s hands. He tied a basic knot on his side. Fuller’s loop slipped back and forth on the original shoelace. “The multiomnidirectional layering was not some new evolution in the connection between the host and the symbiot at all. There was no knot in our connection, only extra materials.”
“It was a hijacking.”
“A fine word in this case. The Enemy, to use your rough term, has entered the equation. The connection now extends into another dimension.” Fuller pulled harder on the lace and Sullivan could feel the tension, so he held on tighter to keep from losing it. “It is hijacking the flow of magic. Now what happens when biological functions cease?”
Sullivan let go of one end. Fuller pulled it toward himself and snagged the first shoelace before it pulled through his loop. Now it was pulled tight between them.
“Your hand representing the Power being is still making an effort to hold the string. The symbiote must decide. It is tethered to the Enemy now. It will be dragged toward the Enemy. Notice, I do not drop the other end which I have hijacked from you. Why? This host’s lifecycle has ended.”
Sullivan figured this must be like what college was like. “They ain’t really dead. Like the skinless man.”
“Correct. They are now biological tools, implements of this Enemy. They are anchors.” Fuller tugged hard on the shoelace, so Sullivan had to pull back harder. “And worse, especially because I lack a sufficient number of hands and extra shoes with which to demonstrate this principle, these hijacked anchors will now go on to loop around and entrap other host-bond connections! The process will increase at an exponential rate. When enough of these hosts become anchors, what will the symbiote do?”
Sullivan let the shoelace fall.
“Exactly. Deprived of enough vital energy, and being pulled inexorably toward its predator, it will cut the connections and flee.”
Now Fuller had all of the shoelaces, but Sullivan still had no ideas. “Thanks for the lesson, but I’d already sort of figured that. How’s that help us all not get hijacked like you hijacked Barns’ boots?”
Fuller sorted out the shoelaces until he held up the loop he’d tied. “This.”
Sullivan sighed. “You got me there, doc.”
“This is what the Chairman’s magnificent globe was designed to track. I was so distracted by the arrival of a biological specimen which still retained some measure of magical connection that I neglected to compare my notes to the design of the detector. Over the last few days, I have finally been able to layer the two together. This looping, this hijacking, that is what is displayed on that magnificent spherical device, an interruption in the normal cycle of magic. Now that I have seen the actual target, and not a mere representation of the target I can replicate—”
“You can build your own Enemy detector…”
“In a manner of speaking, yes, but better. The Imperium Cog’s spellbinding was brilliant, but it lacked creativity. It lacked true artistry.”
Sullivan had thought the big globe thing had been rather pretty, but he didn’t want to derail Fuller’s chain of thought. It wasn’t like the Cog was seeing things the same way as a regular man did, anyway. “That’s good news.”
“Far better than you realize, Mr. Sullivan. With your permission, I will require the skills of all the UBF employees, Southunder’s more mechanically capable crew members, and especially the Fixer Mr. Schirmer. I will need supplies procured once we land; I will provide a full list, and I will need a sufficient portion of the cargo hold for workspace. ”
“You get this thing built fast, and I’ll have dancing girls bring you breakfast in bed.”
Fuller smiled. “As you are well aware, the idea of harming any life here on spaceship Earth fills me with a most profound dread. There are rumors aboard this ship of what you intend to do, and I am fully aware of the dire consequences these actions will have against the people of Shanghai. It does not take a fool to know that my entreaties to search for a peaceful resolution will fall on deaf ears, nor am I deluded enough after seeing the Axel Heiberg specimen to think that such a resolution would be achievable in a time frame sufficient to not prevent the extinction of all life on spaceship Earth… Still, every act of violence diminishes us.”
“I figured we’d keep you hidden on the Traveler.”
“Obviously! That is not my point. I am aware that you wish to expose the Chairman as a charlatan, and by doing such a thing in an expedient manner, prevent as much killingry as possible.”
I don’t know about that. Sullivan figured there’d be plenty of killingry to go around. “I’ll try.”
“My point is that I will not simply spellbind you a device which will serve as an Enemy detectlocator. I intend to build you an Enemy detectlocateexposer. The loops will become visible to the naked eye. The truth will be laid bare for all to see!”