Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 144277 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 721(@200wpm)___ 577(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144277 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 721(@200wpm)___ 577(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
“OK. Keep going.”
“These cities here—” He points to the far left of the map now. “These are the Omegas.” He points to the dots, calling off the names of each city. “Omega, Psi, Chi, Phi, Upsilon, Tau.” Here, he pauses to smile at me. “And Sigma.”
I blow out a breath. Suddenly feeling… I dunno. A sense of illumination. It makes sense. This is the train line. “Tau,” I say, touching the screen. “This is where we entered the tunnel. And then, we walked to here.” My finger stops at Sigma. “Then we went to—”
“Rho,” Xi says. Pointing to a dot on the train line that is the start of a loop that winds around what I now understand is a symbol for a mountain. “The train line curves,” Xi says. “And we get—”
“Pi, Omicron, and Xi,” I finish for him. “I was in them all.”
“You were.” Xi smiles at me. “You probably have no idea what that means.”
“Explain.”
“The fact that you’ve visited other cities. Seen them. The people living in these factories are not meant to leave them, Finn. You’re an explorer of the highest degree as far as Factory inhabitants go. What you and Jasina did, it’s quite historical.”
Jasina is gonna love this part. I can’t wait to tell her.
Xi continues. “On this end of the last city, Omega, are the Omega Outlands. We say it’s nothing but sand there, but that’s a lie. It’s… empty.”
I don’t quite see the distinction, but he moves on before I can ask.
“We call Sigma and all the cities to the left, the Omegas. Sigma and Tau would challenge that categorization, but like it or not, they are in the Omegas and have aligned with a common purpose, much like the Alphas.”
“What is this purpose?”
“To control their spark, of course. They see the gods as middlemen.” Sensing my confusion, he elaborates. “A go-between. The factory makes the spark, gives it to the god, who gives it to the city.”
“Oh, I see. They want to take the spark themselves.”
“Exactly. They have no use for gods.”
“And that’s why the Tau City—I mean, factory. That’s why we had no god? They killed him?”
“They did.”
Now I’m confused. “But… how did they get the spark from us? I mean, we only sent one girl every decade.”
Xi chuckles. “It was a hard lesson for them, let me tell you.”
“Oh.” I laugh too. “OK. They don’t get the spark.”
“They do not. They failed. Sigma, as well. The other cities in that sector are weak, now aligned with the Sweep Army. They work directly with them to make augments. But more on that later. I’m not done with the map yet.” He points to it again. “These cities here in the middle are called The Medians.”
“That’s you, then. You’re after Omicron.”
“No. I’m not. I’m my own section.” He’s panning his arms wide here, smiling with bright, lit-up eyes. Like he’s proud of this fact. “The Medians are Nu.” His finger traces the line to the right of Xi. “Mu, Zeta.” Then there’s another loop, as the train line circles another mountain. “Lambda, Kappa, Iota, Theta, Eta, and Zeta.”
“That section is pretty big then. There are a lot of cities.”
“It is. There are. And they all have a common purpose as well.”
“Which is?”
“To destroy this dimension.”
“What? If this is where all the spark comes from, why do they want to destroy it?”
“You’re catching on. I like it. But the reason is simple. They want to control things. And spark, well. Quite simply, my dear man, spark is magic. Very, very powerful magic that even gods like me covet. It is pure, from the earth itself. It is the source of everything and it can be used to do anything. Spark exists in every dimension. In all people, even men. But the 702 factory dimension is the only one where it can be cultivated inside the women, harvested, and brought into another dimension. They want to destroy this dimension—because if they erase it, there’s no threat left. They want the ‘old ways.’ The way things were before the gods swept the world clean.”
I can’t even imagine what that might mean. So I move on to a more pressing question. “Dimension. You keep using this word, and I understand that it’s this place where we are, but it doesn’t really make sense to me.”
He sighs, a tiny bit of frustration leaks out due to my ignorance. Talking to me must feel like talking to a child. “It’s a way to categorize worlds—and by worlds, I mean spaces where people can exist. Do you know what a ghost is?”
“Of course. I mean, I don’t think they’re real, but I understand the concept.”
“Let’s suppose ghosts are real. They would live in another dimension. One side by side with this one we’re in, but invisible to us. There are very specific reasons why these dimensions aren’t visible, and you can learn about that later. But sometimes, due to factors or conditions we’re unaware of, ghosts might appear in this dimension. Become visible. Bleed through, if you will. But while it might be able to visit, it cannot live here. It does not belong here. You see, everything has its place, Finn. There are precious few dimensions we can live in as gods. As a human, you can live in quite a bit more. But as an augment, you can live in all of them.”