novelburst
Chapter 433 Do you want the short answer, or...?
Chapter 433 Do you want the short answer, or...?
"And it was Fay who brought it up to my attention."
Hearing those words, Fay turned her head over and looked at me.
At this point, she didn't really need to contribute much to keep the maglev running. In all honesty, I didn't need to bother with it either, given how the onboard AI has long since surpassed our ability to process the vectors of movements necessary to keep our momentum growing just like we grew our distance to the barrier.
It was only the influence of this barrier that barred me from leaving everything to the AI, with how we had to use our own perception to notice whether this damn place would try to slow us down or bar us from moving away from the barrier.
'It won't be long before we will be able to leave it to the AI, though,' I thought, sensing how with each change of what the barrier focused on, its influence grew smaller and smaller.
It wasn't that the barrier itself was growing weaker. We were simply moving faster and faster while also moving further and further away from it. And exactly the same as it was with gravity, the strange, space-bending quality of this barrier grew weaker with the distance from its target.
And, just like I've noticed, tested, and confirmed, it couldn't really handle the speeds that our vehicle could comfortably reach.
"So that's why, back then…" Fay muttered after a long while of staring right at the side of my face.
"Yeah," I nodded my head, "you noticing the starlight was the first clue. That's why I reacted the way I did, back then. Later on, I was too worried that bringing it up would somehow alert the mechanism of the barrier to my plans to actually do so, hence my lack of explanation or apology.
And for that," I turned my head, leaving our fate in the virtual hands of the AI for just a short moment, "Fay, Claudy, I apologize."
"Apology accepted," Claudy replied, even though it wouldn't take a genius of socializing to realize my apology was directed less at him and more at Fay. "But what made you think that this barrier could somehow read our minds or listen in to our words?"
Claudy brought his eyebrows together while giving me a confused stare.
I nearly laughed out.
"What? How come it's my question that's ridiculous enough for you to laugh but not the assumption that some ancient barrier is somewhat… conscious?"
"I laughed because you greatly overestimated how hard I allowed myself to think about it," I admitted through poorly concealed tears of amusement. "Claudy, I had no idea how this barrier worked, save for how it could bar us from leaving. But how did it do so? At first, I thought it was somehow bending the space.
Later," I turned my chin and nodded it towards my wife, "Fay pointed out it could be also messing up with the time or our perception of it."
I turned my head back and jerked the control stick to the side, once again wrestling our hovercraft from the slowing pull of the starlight field and opting to rush ever further away from the barrier.
By now, the distances that each cycle allowed us to cover changed from a measly few to fewteen meters to spans of land ranging as far as entire miles. We were not only moving far faster, allowing us to cover a lot more ground within the same window of time as before, but the distance we gained in relation to the barrier meant that its influence was also growing weaker.
"I still don't see how it has anything to do with our thoughts or words," Claudy refused to buckle… or maybe he still failed to see the connection that felt obvious to me.
'Everyone's thoughts go in different ways. The fact that he doesn't notice the connection doesn't mean he's stupid. It only means he thinks differently to how I do.'
I took a moment to remind myself of a truth that came with my recent developments in my own perception of the world around me and the people in it.
Your journey continues with empire
"The simple answer is, I had no idea how this barrier worked so I decided to introduce the least amount of factors that could possibly work against us," I explained in the simplest way I could before leaning my head over my shoulder and, with a few clicks on the pad at the furthermost end of my left armrest, turning one of the displays into a mirror to look at our imperial companion without looking away from the path ahead.
"Do you want the long answer?"
Claudy stared back into my reflection for a moment before shaking his head as he sighed.
"Nah, I've heard enough. We can catch up on this topic at some later point. In the meantime, though…" he turned his eyes away, nearly tempting me to actually turn my head and check what was it that gained his attention.
"It seems that our guest is waking up."
This time I really had to struggle not to look away. A struggle that soon proved necessary, as I had to momentarily accept our vessel falling within the clutches of the barrier's influence, as yet another pillar of direct starlight cut straight through the path we would take if we followed the same cycle again.
'Are those working in relation to the barrier?' As obvious as it might be, I somehow never considered this clearly artificial barrier in the middle of the plain to have anything to do with the wandering spots of the lethal, direct starlight. And save for this very first instance of the two working in tandem, there was virtually no reason to even introduce that kind of hypothesis.
Still, whether it was a trap of those two potentially different and likely separate forces working in tandem or if it was just an unlucky coincidence, didn't really matter. For the very second we passed by the moving cone of the direct light of the stars, I pulled the control stick all the way back to the neutral position before jerking it as far to the left as the device allowed.
"Guys? What do we do?" Claudy asked, forcing my thoughts back to yet another potential threat that we would soon be forced to either handle or contain. "If she wakes up in those bounds…" Claudy grabbed at his straps and shook them a bit, "I don't think she will be in a mood good enough to talk with us."
'A valid point,' I thought, not voicing my praise simply because I already delved deep into my analytical side, trying my best to find a solution to this new problem while maintaining enough focus to keep us safe on this perilous journey.
And then, right as I was about to change the direction of our acceleration yet again, it dawned on me.
"It's a good point, but you don't need to worry about it," I announced, before putting a wide smile on my lips as I gripped the control stick even harder and gave Fay a slightly wicked, mischievous smile. "Just give us a sign when she wakes up properly, and we will make it so that she understands the importance of those security straps herself!"