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Many Worlds Chapter 64
It was not hard to get inside the new structure, since they already had experience. Thus, it was simple to walk up to what appeared to be a wall and get a door to open. Similarly, there was an elevator in the middle of an otherwise empty room. However, after that point it changed. Instead of a library, every floor was large and open, filled with machines of some sort. There were three floors of this, and though they were different it wasn’t clear how any of them worked. However, they looked potentially dangerous, so nobody tried to activate the machines right away.
In addition to the machines, there also appeared to be a secondary elevator shaft at the other end of the floors. The other elevator was much larger, and was also not simple to activate. Perhaps it wasn’t an elevator after all, but it appeared similar to the other one, except for the difference in size, and in this case it was a square area instead of a circle.
Besides the entrance level, there were the four large areas and a small living area. There were also computers on each of the three floors with machines, as well as another one on the fourth large floor that was seemingly empty. There were currently no indications of anything in that room, unlike the computers, books, and other things that pulled out of the walls that they seemed fond of making.
Everyone split into pairs, with Jules and Douglas investigating the seemingly empty floor, or more specifically the computer. It quickly became apparent that this computer stored different information than the library. That was to be expected, of course, but it also appeared in a different format. Something like a list appeared, however in addition to each line of text, there was an image.
The first image looked like a door, perhaps. It was a bit too small to be certain. It only took a few moments of fiddling to manage to activate… something. It soon became apparent that it was a video. The first thing that was apparent was that it was indeed a doorway framed in the center. That was all though, there was no door in it nor was there a room behind it that it led into. Instead, it was just a doorway in the middle of a room. Then, a voice started speaking. If Jules had to guess, he would say it was a “real” voice. Not like the computer in the library. Instead, it was as if someone was narrating from off camera. It was hard to tell, because of the very nature of the speaker not being on camera.
Nothing interesting was happening on screen for a good minute, but then Jules thought there was some kind of announcement, or something, and the scene through the doorway… changed. Instead of seeing the wall behind it, it instead looked like a construction scene of sorts. There were things that Jules thought were pallets of materials, but the image was that of the outside. Then, the perspective of the camera moved. It shifted to the left and right… And as such showed a different angle through the doorway, displaying more of the outside nature, as well as more piles of various things. However, it was rather unnerving because they could also see behind the door from other angles, and there was just empty room.
“It’s a portal.” Douglas said. “Or some kind of special viewing device, I suppose, but a portal would be more interesting.”
The voice in the video continued. A boxy robot with wheels rolled onto the screen. The voice continued from behind the camera, indicating that the boxy robot was actually that, and not one of whoever this race was. The robot had a small pallet on its back, slightly narrower than the width of the doorway. It stopped briefly in front of the door, then went through, seamlessly moving over the terrain. It then used the grabbing arms it had on its sides to lift the pallet off of its seat and place it in a row with some others. It then picked up a small rock, and moved toward the camera, showing the rock. It looked rather plain and boring, but maybe the explanation would help. The robot moved off to the side, and grabbed a pot, which contained a flower. It moved through the portal. After it got through, it turned and held the flower in the center of the view, though it was rather far. However, it quickly became apparent that the flower was falling apart… seemingly turning to dust.
The pot was set to the side, and another was retrieved from beyond the doorway, off to the side. The robot moved forward to the camera, as the narration continued enthusiastically. From up close, it looked like the flower was made out of sand that was blowing away in the wind. It was strange to watch as the flower disintegrated, leaving behind only dust in the dirt of the pot. Then the robot picked up another pallet of something, and started moving toward the portal. The video abruptly ended.
“Huh, I guess it was done.” Jules scratched his head. “Well, that was pretty interesting, though I don’t see any portals or parts of portals here.”
Douglas frowned. “It ended too quickly. Something was weird at the end. I think maybe the camera lens cracked.”
They watched the video again. That was relatively easy to figure out, though they weren’t yet sure on how to skip ahead, so they had to watch the whole thing. It wasn’t unpleasant, though. It wasn’t too long, and contained some fascinating imagery. Then, at the very end, Jules saw it. There was indeed something like the lens cracking. However, maybe he only convinced himself that it happened because he was anticipating something like that. After all, it seemed to be only for a single frame, or a similarly short amount of time if this technology didn’t use similar video systems.
Jules thought for a few moments. “Hmm, we should get Robert. He might be able to figure out how to pause it at the end or something. I don’t want to mess around too much and accidentally delete it or something. He has the best chances to not mess up.”
Douglas nodded. “Plus, we can see if they found anything interesting up there.”
A factory, I would guess. Pretty human-like.