Spatial Manipulation System

Chapter 14 - Discovery / Freedom

Earlier within the hangar, after Dave left with Uncle Mike to see his father, Suzanne held tightly to Hei Yu with her left hand, and with her free hand, she wiped her eyes.

"I don't know how you have come to know my son. But I have learned much in my life. I know about shared trauma and the bond it creates between two victims. I see you care about him, but I must warn you." She turned to look Hei Yu directly in the eyes.

"I know most parents will say this about their children, but I know my son Dave. He is objective-oriented and has as much apathy as empathy. He feels as deeply as he does not. I understand the conflict, and you will too, soon enough. Never let him betray himself, and do not take advantage of him maliciously. You can make any mistake, you can hurt him, just remember to talk about it."

"What's going on?" Hei Yu asked uncertainly. She did not like the look on Suzanne's face.

"Dave is a nobody. In our previous world, he would have lived and died without any significance. But this world is his, you will learn things about him that will baffle you, keep an open mind. I'm going to be with my husband."

Before Hei Yu could process what she'd been told, Suzanne rose and strode purposefully in the direction Uncle Mike had taken Dave. An unsettling feeling welled up in the pit of Hei Yu's stomach, and she roared, "Stop!"

****

It was a colorless world, and yet at the same time tinted with a kind of blue hue that seemed to blanket the entire space,, and yet nowhere at all.

It was Ike looking at a thick, colorless glass painted blue on the other side of it while the inside remained clear.

"Dave?" Hei Yu asked, approaching Dave, who sat blankly on the ground... if there was any.

Hei Yu had no idea where they were or how they got here. How was she still alive?

"I-" she struggled to find words to say. There was no need to explain herself. Dave did not have to lose two parents, and she made sure he wouldn't, and he also did not have to kill his father with his own hands.

"Are. . . " she started and stopped again.

"Will you be okay?" she asked, her tone hesitant and her head lowered. Although Dave was sitting right in front of her, she felt a wide chasm between them.

"I have to be," Dave surprisingly replied, his voice even and calm as he raised his head.

Hei Yu hesitated but eventually sat down cross-legged beside him.

"I still have to find my sisters and take care of my mother. I have to be okay, or maybe not, but I must move forward regardless," he continued.

Hei Yu found herself blurting, "Don't betray yourself."

Those words seemed to tickle the emotions Dave had been trying to control, and he exploded.

"Stop saying that! You are not my father! Don't say words you don't understand." He roared, and the world around them seemed to pulse with him.

Suddenly, space seemed to crack and shatter like broken glass, but only on the other side.

The blue around them crumbled to pieces and disappeared, leaving them in a clear box facing a fascinating view. A wild kaleidoscope of colors blanketed the world around them, shimmering with color variations neither of them knew the human eye to be capable of seeing.

"What is this place?" Hei Yu asked as she slowly rose in amazement.

"It was a space pocket, a kind of dimension between two spaces, but this... I don't know," Dave replied, his voice low and sentimental as he stared in awe at the beauty around them.

Suddenly, Hei Yu's field of vision changed, and lines connected every single dot of color like a cobweb, where each node was a different color and no two colors were the same. Billions and trillions of colors filled the space, and somehow she could sense a kind of connection between them all.

"Can you sense this?" she asked, turning to Dave in excitement as soft laughter escaped her lips.

"You can?" Dave turned to her in shock.

"Yes, why?" Hei Yu's smile froze as she asked.

"What you sense is the trajectory of different worlds in different layers of the same dimension. It's a little complicated. Basically, each of those dots is an accessible spatial node in different worlds, but everything you see is in one dimension," Dave explained.

"They all move in similar pulsing rhythm but with just enough difference in vibration to completely evade each other so that two can exist in one region of space and yet never have any kind of contact. It's a kind of outer space, but different. What you are sensing is the vibrational movement between each, not the difference, but the areas where vibration is synced, in other words, accessible space nodes."

Hei Yu stared blankly at Dave as he explained, and her lips parted.

"How do you know these things?" she asked, a small from on her forehead.

"Spacetime, dimensions, infinite world theory, that's my obsession, the real, the fictional. I study all aspects of it. From movies to journals on theoretical physics," Dave smiled softly as if the pulsing lights calmed every fiber of his being.

He seemed to fit into this picture inexplicably.

"And trajectory is mine," Hei Yu muttered thoughtfully.

"Dave, I think our abilities come from us," she added.

Dave glanced at her and shook his head as he replied, "It doesn't matter."

He turned to stare into the distance and then waved Hei Yu over.

"I don't hate you," he said as he put his hands over her shoulder. They both shared a small smile, more melancholic than happy, and then turned to stare into the distance, admiring the view.

"I think that's our world. In a few hours, it will pulse in the right rhythm, safe enough for us to go in," she said as she pointed at a gentle green glow just in front of them.

It was like a tiny distant dot, but sometimes also seemed to be just beside and all around them.

"Or I can change this space to pulse in sync with its vibration."

"You can do that?" Hei Yu asked, turning to look at him as her right hand held onto his hand over her shoulder.

"Now that there's no cost, I can do a lot," Dave chuckled in response and glanced back at her.

They stared into each other's eyes for a while, but his expression soon fell, and he turned away, his smile fading subtly.

Hei Yu felt the change in his mood and turned away from him, too, but she said nothing.

Try as he might to ignore the fact that she killed his father, emotions were never under human conscious control.

But even as they turned away from each other, she held and gently pulled tighter on his arm over her shoulder so that they were closer together as his hand lowered down her neck and over her chest.

At this time, though, there was nothing remotely sexual in either of their minds, or Dave would have realized how awkward his hand placement had become. Well... Hei Yu subconsciously placed it there. All for the need to gain some warmth from the man who tried to fight the coldness he felt towards her.

"We should go back. My sisters" Dave muttered.

"Can we still fight together?" Hei Yu asked in a low tone.

"I'm hurt, Hei Yu. I still trust you, it just hurts to face you," Dave replied, and in the next moment, the space around them seemed to breathe.

"How did you carve out this space? How am I still alive?" Hei Yu asked as she looked around them.

Dave's expression turned complicated. Originally, his emotional instability manifested physically in his body, an experience he was used to when he had anxiety attacks. That manifestation broke through the fabric of space and was sending him here; had things gone that way, he would have died. After all, there was no breathable air in this region between spaces.

But Hei Yu rushed into the affected space, and he could not let her die, so subconsciously, he dragged her through with him to a pocket dimension, broke a cube out of it, and brought it with him to this space. That was why they could still breathe.

She killed his father, but saved his life.

Unable to offer such a complex answer, he shrugged, and then they disappeared.

****

The room had been cleaned, and only Suzanne sat listlessly on the floor, her lifeless gaze staring into the distance.

As soon as Dave and Hei Yu appeared, she looked up and her eyes widened.

"What was that?!" she roared as she rose.

"Your father just died, and you wanted to kill yourself, too? Am I not worth living for? What about your sisters? Does our affection mean nothing to you?"

Dave was not prepared for the outburst he faced. But wasn't she the one who tried to get killed by her husband? Dave glanced at Hei Yu, who snuck out of his arm and away from the room.

Outside, she saw Doctor Tim staring blankly at the glass wall.

"She awakened," he said as soon as he saw Hei Yu.

"What ability?" Hei Yu asked curiously.

Doctor Tim frowned and shook his head, his expression troubled. "I couldn't tell," he replied.

Hei Yu glanced at him, and they both turned to watch the glass silently.

The scolding continued for a long time, alternating between tears, expressions of affection, and illogical blaming.

"That woman is in a class of her own," Doctor Tim sighed.

Hei Yu glanced at him and amusedly shook her head. She could tell the Doctor had a crush. Who could blame him? Suzanne was the kind of woman who everyone who charmed everyone she met. Beauty, style, or the slight inflection in her tone that radiated confidence and education. Some people just never needed to try to be sexy.

If someone were to describe Suzanne, sexy would not be among the descriptions, but she was, in that she wasn't.

"She's Dave's mother," Hei Yu muttered.

"A walking contradiction"