Baikal.is /episode 3

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Merry wakes up in Moscow – still the middle of the night. Sveta is sleeping. He snuggles up to her. Whispers – I just had the weirdest dream. Lies there a few minutes waiting to get back to sleep – then jumps up out of bed. Looking around – notices blurred edges, notices how shadows and objects don’t quite meet together as they should; sounds too. Moves his hand through the air in front of his face – watches the jerky movements he’s never noticed before. Then freezes – notices the hologram on his arm. It’s still there – but instead of the symbols moving smoothly they lurch from one thing to another.

No, this is going to do my head in.

Ok Sveta or Baikal – whoever you are – I got the message.

               

Coy silence – playing hard to get – is that it? Ok – I can figure this out – use the picture, but how? Let it guide me. Bring the two positions close together. Feel my true location – where I really am – right now. Ok – I can definitely feel something going down – something deep within – but how to translate that into action? Hum…

Sveta seems to be having a nightmare – they’re coming, no, leave me alone – hears steps outside – feels a chill.

The light flickers. The hologram starts throbbing, sending pins and needles up Merry's arm.
Shit – this is getting serious. Sergei.. Kolchak... Baikal – anyone out there – I appear to be in danger.

Guys break in and without a word start firing at Merry, again and again. As his body falls back towards the bed – another pv [point of viewing] opens – swivels – he’s watching from the side – a little above – and then the DJ mixing effect as the time jumps back and forwards a few seconds – the bullets going back into the guns, coming out again – the body rising and falling from/to the bed.

Somehow, in spite of the mayhem – Merry figures out how to detach from one time sequence –  notices non-time running alongside, where a kind of quantum haze prevents things such as bullets from materializing.

Got it. Thanks Baikal. Better late than never. [Merry simply shifts pv using the killers’ murderous intent as a catapult to swing sideways, out of time, into a band of quantum indeterminacy. Somehow he senses a part of himself that had been in cahoots with that murderous intent, but instead of fearing it, hating it or fighting it desperately – he allows it to pass through unresisted, like a wave moving along Baikal – 1 - 2 - 3 she can handle it, he knows, and behold, Baikal isms, the wave is gone – its energy dissipated, reabsorbed into the life-force of the great lake.]

Excellent Merry – nicely done.

You – left me to die at their hands.

Did I? Are you dead?

Er… Looking at hands, body, legs – not exactly.

Any holes? Any blood?

No.

Then what’s the problem?

But I might have been.

Might have been? Are you serious? Do you want to watch a replay of what you just did?

Er…

Look...                     Does that look like the actions of a guy who can’t look after himself?

But I was close to dying.

Were you?

Well, yes.

And what of it?

Actually, I don’t like being shot at point blank by masked gunmen – if it’s anything to you.

You asked to go back in – I forewarned you – and you had to learn the only way.

You mean the hard way.

I mean the real way – how to detach from the 3D feed and quantum-ize.

Holy shit.

You did well, with a little help from our end.

Oh – downcast.

A little, not a lot – oh for God's sake – get a grip. At the quantum level everyone, everything is entangled – so drop this ego shit about "doing it all yourself", on your terms. That’s not how reality revolves.

Oh – got ya.

It’s like an induction motor. It spins. Wheels within wheels – either connected or not, just as long as we don’t fixate on the single pv version of the 3D-t.

-t? as in

As in time or telemetry – the linear version. Now get some rest. I’ll take you to your quarters.

Are you going to be all cold and formal with me Sveta?

Like I told you Merry – I’m not exactly Sveta, am I?

I can feel that – and yet…

I look like her – yes. Do you find me desirable?

Not when you put it like that.

Look Merry – let’s just settle down and get things started. You have a story to write. I have to keep you alive.

You?

Like Sergei told you.

You mean –

It’s obvious, isn’t it?

I just can’t imagine how all this – [looking at the beauty of Baikal] can be contained in this. [pointing at her]

Well, when you start writing you might find these questions start yielding answers – but you know as well as I do – they have to come directly from her.

Her?

The quantum stream. Who else.

Yeah – that figures.

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