The Writers' Circle

Wesker Fielding began his day as he had done many times before, first stopping by the Discount Store at preciously 8:35 to pick up a newspaper and several NICACIN snack-bars, he skirted passed the disappointing assortment of vegetable-matter, and as usual he flirted with the tiller, small talk which that never more than 5 minutes, then at 8.45 he boarded the cross-shuttle to Forsenison Avenue, where he presently began reading the The Times, he was soon absorbed in an article about a political scandel involving the local MP Dermont De Luca as the cross-shuttle glided silently passed the living Quarters and into a sub-tunnel. Its destination the City Centre. Wesker was interested in the current policital scene, as a change of government might just cost him his job, he was so engrossed that with the article had almost miss his stop, it was fortunate that a fellow GlobaTech employee, Mac Salts, was watching him with interest
	"NERF, it's our stop" he said with a sing-song voice "you read the De Luca scandal?"
	Wesker murmured a weak assent, feeling irritable at the NERF comment, 15 years of this shit? he thought, he despised the way NERF had become a term of derision  among other Globatech employees; although being among the lowest paid they were by far the hardest working, the acronym (Nexus Engineering and Realtime Forensics) meant keeping nano glitches and time-lags to a minimum within the Nexus program. 
	"NERF?--"
	"Yeah, I've read it..." he snapped, he stood and brushed himself down, looking on Mac's genial features, he felt the acrimony wash away  
	"So Mac, what do you suppose a man could want with 2,000 Neo-Quarto Wires and Psi particle CPU?" asked Wesker tapping his paper as if by emphasis. 
	"They say it goes deeper" whispered Mac Salts "much deeper then just De Luca. Could even go as far as the FSA, I wouldn't be surprised if they were up to something, in fact I'll put my money on it" pulling Wesker by the arm they both alighted the cross-shuttle onto a crowded architect-designed service platform. It was a refreshingly breezy morning, the Autumnal sun only just warming up the earth.
	"A Psi particle CPU is only theoretical" Whesker shook his head dubiously 
	"Theoretical yes, in this universe-- on the 'Inside- Inside'" said Mac pointedly "but don't forget we've already confirmed the presence of Dirac's Sea in 115- Nebula of the Capaeum Galaxy in Nexus, who's to say a Psi CPU isn't possible?"
	"That's inside Nexus!" Wesker remarked, he hated it when people gave more than necessary elements of reality to Nexus, it was similar to ascribing animals with human emotions; it's just a observational program, nothing more. 
	"The one particle which parallelism doesn't apply to a unique particle without an equal counterpart, under observation they simply break down into lesser Koan and Pion particles, but in Nexus they're stable, and as far as we know their potential is untapped--" 
	"I know all this! just because I'm a NERF operative doesn't mean I have shit for brains Mac!" he growled, feeling once again that bitter sting of pride, Mac Salts was a GEOTECH-operative, a respectable role he wasn't too modest to boast about, monitoring geomorphic qualities and growth over long time-frames; the data is used to understand the formation of life in the most inhospitable environments. 
	"But how could De Luca get his hand on a Psi particle CPU in our universe-- on the 'inside-inside'? it must be rumour! I mean where could he? how could he?"
	"Think of the computing power, astronomical!-- our state of technological stability would collapse completely" whistled Derek pulling out his holographic ID, and eying a young blonde wearing a blue-chequered-sash and white beret, a uniform standard to Globatech employees. They approached the entrance to the monstrous perspex and granite building, Globatech's Headquarters. 
	"All I know is...I think this could be major" observed Wesker almost to himself
	"Yes, if it's true" agreed Derek and added, "come to think of it there is a meeting today--"
	Wesker shrugged his shoulders "It's more than likely a warning not to give into rumours. Delineate from our duties. Start a process to measure the Psi particle balance or something ridiculous like that" he laughed. Mac wasn't smiling as he placed his personal items onto a revolving ion-meta-LED plate and stepped inside a metallic frame,  he was scanned with green inter-operative topographic lasers, Mac's skeleton was then displayed on a zorconium-isophate screen and rotated along the X-Y-Z axis. The machine beeped giving him a green clearance. Wesker followed suit, although shielding his eyes from the lasers, thinking to himself, that one of these days he'll wear reflective sunglasses to work, just to see what will happen- for the hell of it- could light up like a disco ball-- he'd pull a pose, one hand in the air like Elvis. The machine beeped. Green. All clear.
	WELCOME TO GLOBATECH PLEASE DISTINGUISH ANY AIR BORNE CHEMICALS AND HAVE A PLEASANT DAY- chimed the automated welcome message, suddenly the air around them burst into life, the hum of talk and laughter, beyond the many the employees , and couriers, carting services parts, a service-bot tramped around the corner scanning the new arrivals 
	Oh Jesus! thought Whesker, but it was too late the service-bot had spotted him, its eyes gleaming, its effeminate pouting lips, its spray on plastic pseudo hairline- and with a many swirls and pleat to dodge the human traffic, it was making a beeline straight for him. 
	"And there she is" said Mac pointing up at wall-to-wall screens that wrapped around the entire foray, giving it the appearance of an entertainment complex, the only difference being the Globatech logos and uninteresting swirls of colours the scenes of still-life they displayed non-stop "just to think how many billions of lives are at our fingertips and all the tetra-bits of information to be collected and stored, analysed, the secrets of the universe, and the greatest is yet to discovered-- Singularity!" said Mac exictedly 
	"Good Morning, would you like me to take your coat sir?" droned the service-bot in an irritably dull non-expression, usually reserved for hebephrenics
	Wesker ignored it. 
	"Singularity's a dream--" he said disinterested
	"Would you like me to take your coat sir?" the service-bot repeated
	"Jesus! Answer it Whesker, or we'll never be rid of it" Mac was waving his coat in-front of its unblinking eyes in the style of a matador. Pulling faces.   
	Wesker firmly gripped the service-bot on both sides of its shoulders, it crunched metallic whinnies as he pushed downwards only wishing it could feel pain, every damned day for the last 15 years! he thought, he looked into optical scanner- and gave a resound "No!You damn automaton! I never want--" he released his grip, as the service-bot curtly interrupted with,
	"Very good, sir!"---- the emotionless robot stomped off looking neither pleased nor displeased, only searching to service some newly arrived employee, all of whom looked upon it with a kind of hatred.
	"Ha! Look at him go! Hey, did I tell you invert-filter failed on my station the other day? I'm think I'm one of the few people to have seen the Nexus universe as it truly stands, you know the sky is yellow, the grass is purple, and the people are a kind of black shade mottled with green"
	"So... the colours are completely inverted to our own? Jeez! That's interesting. Just to think if our atoms were anti-matter like theirs and not matter, we'd have yellow skies too..." Whesker whistled looking up at the screens 
	"Or maybe we wouldn't-- who knows how they see? Perhaps their bio-optics are inverted too, we might have yellow skies too them! No seriously think about it, I told you there was a meeting didn't I? We'll take the elevator"

	 It was sometime later that 300 or so employees were seated in the Meeting Hall reserved for special speeches and presentations. Beyond the endless sea of blue and white uniforms, Whesker could discern punctuated patches of black, these were Globatech guards, a usual enough precaution when the Head of the company is on site, only today the held much larger weapons these were not the standard-type guns, but AKMR-Zero-phase stun-guns, a military armament- the receiver of such a shot suffers convulsions for a full 5 minutes, often suffering from strokes or aneurysms, but what were they doing here? Why were they so well armed?
	"That's Edwin Callaghan" pointed Mac "head of Globatech"
	"The guy who looks like Jimmy Carter?" asked Whesker squinting to focus at the distant dais.
	"No that's Bob Turner," said Mac pointedly "He's Callaghan's right hand man, and all those stern looking fellows sat at the back of the dais there, they're Globatech's theoreticians, look, he's approaching the stand now"
    	"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen" the Hall reverberated with a hollow sound from the microphone "I am thankful you could all make it here today, I'm Edwin Callaghan, I have called you all here to speak of the Nexus, there are to be some changes to system which need to brought to your attention immediately"
 	"Since the birth of Nexus there has been many amazing discoveries -- New theories. New technologies. We now know the exact co-ordinates of life in our universe-- we have sent signals to these planets and only await a response, we understand the birth and evolution of our own universe. Thanks to the efforts of everyone here Globatech Research... we have played God and won..."
	"But... ladies and gentlemen it is my grave duty to inform you all, that after more than a thousand years in operation, the Nexus program... has finally come to end" 
	Stunned gasps of shock bristled through the hall.
	"Now, now! Please calm down! I'm sure some of you have predicted this day would come" he eyed the crowd ominously and signaled to guards to stand back.
	Unease, was not the word, this was the only job Whesker had ever had, but he pushed this thought to the back of his mind, because what was more unnerving, were the guards that were quietly streaming into back of the hall and posting themselves at the exits. He glanced at Mac. He hadn't noticed. The microphone screeched and the speech and continued:
	"I know a lot of you might be wondering if this has anything to do with the De Luca scandal, I can tell you that sincerely it has not" he coughed and looked at his watch, "It is the approaching Time-Constance-Equilibrium I speak of, I know some of you are aware of this, but most are not so I will reiterate for those who don't; when the Nexus program was created in 2668, the initial time-scale was set at around 10,000,000:1, so that for each year that passed 10 million would pass within the Nexus, as the corporation then passed in hands from Sir Terence Abbot, Sir Peter Able to C.S Rutherford-- Infr-Research, Diocede, to Globatech and so on, each with different goals, and in a world who's need were constantly shifting with the advent of new technological advances; much greater research was needed- so over the years the time-scale was slowly decreased to allow for more precise data-storage, so that now, as you know, it stands at just 500:1, this is where we seem to have a hit a barrier within the program--  and at precisely 10:49 today Nexus will pass beyond our present time-- "
	"It is imperative that this does not happen, since tomorrow does not yet exist, it stands that it can not exist in a universe which we have created, this in effect could create a paradox... or the program might simply crash- either event is undesirable more so the former, and since the Nexus is an exact replica of our own universe, it would we wise that we should take no chances here. As to the contradictory reports concerning the recent Psi particle CPU and De Luca, we all know this an impossibility, a fabrication, or... " here he looked nervous as shuffled his papers and turned to confer with eggheads behind him,   
	"Ahem! One possible theory our theoreticians believe is that as the TCE approaches, the fabric of real-time is becoming distorted, they think perhaps the MASTER computer could be projecting out into our world, stealing not-yet-present future events from Nexus and emitting them in our reality, we believe these will be resolved once--"
 	"Bullshit!" came a cry from the front, immediately three or four of the guards fell on him and wrestled him to the ground,
	"You're lying! --God-damn it!!" his muffled cry now only coming through in waves of terror 
	ZZFTTTT-
	It was the sound an AMKR, and for moment it looked for all the world the protestor was back on his feet, but as soon as he gained his balance, he performed an awkward back-flip, arms flailing, the hall was filled with scraping and whinnies of metallic chairs being kicked and pushed in his convulsions.   
	Everyone was on their feet now panicking, pushing over chairs, shouting protests, never before had they been treated like criminal in Globatech, 
	"YOU WILL ALL SHUT DOWN YOUR STATIONS!"
	Suddenly, Whesker felt as if his spine would break under the force of his arm being violently forced behind his back and thrust upwards as an AMKR was planted firmly behind his head. A brutal looking guard also approached Mac, motioning with his gun for him to 'hit the floor', Mac calmly flashed a Orange Holo-badge and guard the moved on to find some new employee.
	"Jesus Mac! Did you know about this?" screamed Wesker above the raucous
	"Of course!" he grinned impishly "Why, it was my job to make sure you got here on time! Time is a very important factor today Whesker!"
	"You snake! you son-of-a-bitch! why didn't -- "  
	"IF YOU COMPLY YOU WILL NOT BE HARMED!" interrupted Edwin Callaghan in the microphone as the Globatech employees were rounded up like cattle "THIS IS YOUR FINAL DUTY! YOU WILL SHUT-DOWN IMMEDIATELY! YOU WILL EACH BE ACCOMPANIED TO YOUR STATIONS!"

	The door slid back at the pressure of Wesker's fingertips as the guard nudged him in the back with the tip of his gun impatiently,
	"Sit down! Confirm your ID shut-down your segment" he ordered 
	15 zirconium-isophate matrix screens enclosed the small room in a cupola shaped dome, some screens displayed worlds of nebulae, others fields of verdant green, two or three flashed a swirling vortex of purple and green gases. Ahead stood the Control Screen, with an onion-skin thin hovering holograph Ident-Grid assigned to Whesker's fingerprints and life-signs. Wesker sat and let out a long drawn out sigh.  
	"Confirm your ID and shut-down your segment operative Fielding" repeated the guard, emotionless.
	"Yes..." he replied distantly, but an uneasy feeling was beginning to crawl with cold tap of sweat, it ran up and down his spine-- through his comfortable executive leather swivel-chair he was presently sitting, a chair stained with many familiar coffee stains-- he looked onto his desk where office toys such as the zero-gravity tetrahedra danced memorising patterns, it's base labelled SINGLE UNIT, the self heating therma-mugs, the copies of Robotics Weekly and scattered NIACIN snack bar wrappers --everything was the same-- but he  into he as if niggling conscience, vertigo, like the feeling of standing on the edge of cliff, it was not the digitized lives of the many billions of lifeforms which were soon to be destroyed at his very touch that rankled him, no it was something else, it was something much more potent and dreadful.
	"Wait let's think about this, even for a moment, I can't just shut a whole universe down!" he paused, he eyes scanning the screens as if he was pulling something together "Now, how do we know we're not influenced by the Nexus...?" Wesker was trying to recall the fail-safes, but this was unnecessary, as the guard came prepared:
	"When Nexus was created in 2668, physical markers in the form of two granite obelisks were planted 500ft underground at the Pillars of Hercules in Morocco and Karnak Egypt; within the program. If Nexus had any influence on our world, then we would know, the physical markers would be present... they are not!" and the guard's spiel continued this way as if he was reciting by rote "If human follows the exact same path, then it follows the outcome would be exact, as have they have proven -time and time again, so the markers WOULD be there" 
	This stumped Wesker, it was true and, this was one of many fail-safes designed during the creation of Nexus,
   	"And our agents have searched the exact co-ordinates and found nothing!" It is only a matter of time before the TCE, if that happens, there could be a paradox, I can't let that happen, these are my orders, we have the greatest theoreticians in the world, don't forget you're only a NERF" pushing the stun AMKR- to his temple "Now confirm!"
	"Wait.... Wait! Goddamnit!" screamed Wesker, raising his hands to the green fields and swirling vortexes. 
	"There's no time!" growled the guard sternly, he looked uneasily at screens as if he could see the approaching paradox.
	"If the fail-safe markers.. the underground obelisks... if they were made of electrons and protons they would be annihilated by the inside-outside particle make-up and create nothing but a small explosion, so it's no wonder our agents found nothing, if you consider another MASTER computer to be an 'outside-inside machine' higher up in the universal hierarchy, there would be nothing to find, right?"  
	"You're talking nonsense! The markers still register on our screen" pointing Control Screen becoming more impatient
	"Yes on OUR screen, the markers have been tagged by an electronic signal, after the initial creation MASTER was the only authorised for two other physical creations within the Nexus, can we trust the MASTER computer? can an inside-inside machine really create anti-proton-electron matter? Or would it only create the antithesis which would be annihilated?" 
	"The technicians would know that!" that his resolve faltering now 
	"The program wasn't made for creation, beyond the initial Chaos Program!" retorted Wesker "It's only an observational machine" The guard sat on his haunches, trying to come to grips but still keeping his gun aimed lazily at Wesker.
	Wesker taking advantage of this lapse in tapped in entering co-ordinates  he brought into view a MASTER computer within the Nexus to the screens above them, a great looming obsidian monstrosity, with neo-quart wires running iridescent hues down the flank of its frame, coolants that hissed and pumped liquid nitrogen, in the centre was an ivory and brass-plate that clearly read NEXUS--
 	"Would you look at that..." said the guard gaping "So what you saying is.... our universe could also be... THE Nexus?"
	"Exactly! Don't you see? They too have created their own Nexus program also called Nexus in 2668 A.D-- the exact same time we did, this an artificial world-within-a world! who knows how deeply this goes?"
	Tears welling up the guards eyes as if the full weight of decisions above and beyond the call of his duty was weighing him down, he began to swagger, as if any moment he would faint, intellectually he couldn't get to grips with it, he perhaps knew what a paradox was, and had the fear of it drilled into him by the NNA authorities, but this was something else completely 
	"I never believed it possible" he cupped his head in his hands and placed his zero-phase stunner on the ground, he then crawled to the corner where he crouched, all the fight gone out of him now, he was serene and child-like, his ruddy-complexion showing signs of inner turmoil.
	Wesker meanwhile was growing more sure of himself by the minute "That's why I can't authorize the shut-down! Do you understand?" he said, trying to recall everything he had learned over the past 15 years, he had never questioned it before, but it seemed so obvious to him now, that there was a good probability they too were inside a Nexus program, and that if the shut-down goes ahead, it would follow that each MASTER would in turn would be shut down, if indeed... the chain went unbroken.  
	"Look, the original MASTER computer must have been created in an inside-outside world, where the instant-computational power of Psi particles can be harnessed, the REAL universe must,  a master plan, that dispute what we have done here, hierarchy of artificial NEXUS universes, future, where TIME-"
	"Y-You're... just a NERF...!" the guard disbelieving his eyes streaming with tears, purple swirls from the isophate screen projecting onto his gelled black hair  made him look almost comical.
	Ignoring the NERF comment this time, Wesker continued his elaboration "When we created the an artificial universe it was indistinguishable from our own, was it not? This was over a thousand years ago, but we were only following a pattern that was already laid out, perhaps BILLIONS of years ago, we were destined to create it, just as Nexus has created its own Nexus! This pattern was set by our precedents-- it's what you might call fate-- an archetype created by the original MASTER computer in the REAL universe, the one that created our universe and all universes; I'm not sure what will happen, but we need to let the time-constance-equilibrium blend through the Nexus programs-- all of them! It's only then that the original MASTER computer can correct the time discrepancies between them"  Wesker was amazed at himself, but as if he being the last was destined to come to this conclusion, to this epiphany, he was now resolved to see it through  
	"Y-Yes" agreed the Guard "I'm Garret" his hands shaking he patted - then awkwardly added "I'm taking my kids to see their first laser-show this weekend... I don't want to die, I never wanted this damn job-- I can't die I have--" 
	"WARNING! NERF Operative 735 YOU HAVE NOT INPUTTED YOUR AUTHORISATION CODE! THE SYSTEM CAN NOT BE SHUT DOWN UNLESS ALL OPERATIVES INPUT THEIR THEIR ACCESS CODES!" the speakers blared, the voice of a woman shattered around the dome, it was the voice of Eva the core-mainframe, she was getting feisty
	"Look, have you ever been in a situation, where you think to yourself 'I can do this better', but in the end you think about it so damn much that you do nothing at all?!" 
	The Garrett was hardly listening he was in turmoil, conflicting emotions, sweating - his eyes were all over the screens- the warning signs flashing on and off, Nexus long gone-- unresponsive; the din of sirens ringing out
	"Well, that's been my entire life! I've never been sure about anything, but now I know, it was all to make this decision, this is my purpose, it was to be here-- right now!-- to come to this conclusion! I've never been more sure of anything, this is destin--"
 		"Shut-down the Nexus, operative! This is you final warning!"
	Wesker didn't hear the four heavily built men slid into operative room, when he feel once again the the barrel of AMRK pressed against his head, he knew it was too late
	But Garrett seeing the event unfold before him and now fully convinced his life and indeed entire universe to be in grave danger, committed the greatest and noblest act of bravery by turning his AMKR zero-phase onto the men, but before he could let off a single round, two shots were fired from the rear, one missed, hit a screen which exploded from the inside out, the other hit him square-pat in the face, he instantly fell to the floor convulsing violently, he eyes bulged and screwed upwards like a cork showing pure white, he nose gushed a steady stream of blood, his tongue purple and bloated, and like a deranged machine-gun only uttered bursts of "GAK! GAK! GAK!" as he convulsed and writhed like a fish out of water
	"Christ!" screamed Wesker "What in -- " 
	Wesker was hit so violently he felt like his head had been severed from his neck, a wave of coloured dots flooded his vision and the metallic taste of blood swam in his mouth, to make matters worse, Garret in his spasms was kicking him in the groin."WE ARE NEXUS! Don't you see!!" he managed to gargle at his aggressors only now seeing the very strangeness of their appearance for the first time; each of the four where sheathed from head to toe in kind of clear liquid plastic, their faces pulled upwards and taut like hijackers in stocking masks.  
	"We already know that Fielding! Men! Neutralise the virus. Stun him. Use his prints!" 
	Whesker felt an iron grip wrap around his neck as he was thrown towards the Control Screen, he was then kicked beneath the workbench and his head lowered to receive the full force of the shot. He heard the soldier's finger on the trigger, just as he saw the baryspheric- CPU running inside the glass base unit beneath the Command board, and in a split second decision, he shattered the glass with his elbow and plunged fingers deep inside the ulra-heated processor -- the dome was instantly filled with a fleshy pulpy gas, an intangible feeling of both intense pain and relief swept through him. His prints no longer usable. The system locked out. 
	 "Run an override on user-operative 735! Quickly!" shrilled the leader, kicking Whesker in the face for goods measure
	"It's no use! It's too lat--" Whesker collapsed onto his side holding up his bloody nubs to his oppressors,
	"It's dangerous sir, and It will take time!" warned the thinner of the four as he sat at the Command board tapping wildly, like Beethoven
	"Just do it!" screamed the leader
	"...W-who are you!.." groaned Whesker , swooning into a faint due the lose of blood and pain, his fingertips burning, he tried vainly to keep Garrett from kicking him but his blistered stubs screamed out at the touch of his clothes; and each time he tried to focus any of the four men, they became a blur, their facial features shifting transmuting into new physical forms, it was impossible to identify the unknowns, with them continually shifting and sliding out of focus, they seemed to resembled everyone and no one all at once, even De Luca at one point, was this some new type of Camo-gear? Or was it something else? The men didn't seem quite real as if they --   
	"You! You'll kiss my feet if you knew who I was, you cockroach, and if we'd of you were the virus! we'd of flayed you unconscious and done the job ourselves, do you realise what you've done!" red with rage-- 
	Perhaps due to the loss of blood, Whesker's response was, what could only be described as a fatuously girlish laugh, the plastic-wrapped leader flashed him a look of complete disgust, and lunged forward as if to strike him again-- 
	"There she is! There she is! Christ! It's too late!" shrilled the plastic-grunt who was working at Whesker's station, 
	"Eva!!" screamed the other two in a mix both horror and admiration, the leader remained silent. But all eyes were on the screens as the head of bald woman with piercing golden orbs, loomed into view onto every available screen--  
	A few seconds passed she did nothing but stare out blankly at them. Then her eyes opened wide like shutters and she screamed in anguished pain

	"TIME-CONSTANCE EQUILIBRIUM!!"
	"TIME-CONSTANCE EQUILIBRIUM!!"
	"TIME-CONSTAN----NNN--CCCC-!"
	"T---TTTTT-III--MM"  

	Wesker let out a long groan, as the particles of his body started to disseminate-- to rise up off his body, float and then flake in front of his eyes, he realised that he was  wrong. That he was terribly wrong. It dawned on him as the colours of the four men inverted as the protective plastic-sheaths were ruptured by the dissemination-- the whites of their eyes turned black, their pupils white- their skin a tinge of green and black-- that these four men were rift-jumpers from a higher universe, anti-matter on matter-- they should of exploded, but even that law was fading as the universe scrambled into nonsense-- they were perhaps sent to correct what was going wrong in the lower universes; what it was that was collapsing them from the bottom up like a deck of cards-- it was his decisions-- his own decisions-- that was cause; and a decision which he was destined to repeat, time and time again.
 
The universes-within-universes each pushed and pulled at each other, trying to create time ahead of the MASTERS-- time which did not exist-- each creating inimitable time-frames -- paradoxes, an irreversible lag, flipping each other inside out into annihilation; and when the dust settled there was only one machine flashing a single and unimposing message, that message was:
	"Error--  FOUR HORSEMEN ANTI-VIRUS-- FAIL--" flashing unnoticed in some deserted operative-room, somewhere in the lifeless void of reality.