Tachyon Horizon

Part 1: The Tachyon Surge

The air was thick with anticipation as the head of the science team, Carlos Biltong, stepped onto the podium. He scanned scientists and reporters in front of him, a mixture of fear and confusion etched into their faces. The city of Lima was in turmoil, and the source of that turmoil—an experiment gone terribly wrong—had its roots in the squash court of the Canadian Spacetime Agency.

“Good morning, everyone,” Carlos began, with a voice heavy with responsibility. “Without a doubt, we’re all here to address the tachyon accident that’s thrown our world out of control. The city of Lima is in chaos, and what began as a scientific test has spiraled into a disaster none of us foresaw.”

Carlos cleared his throat, his face illuminated by the harsh lights overhead. “Let me break it down as simply as I can. About 48 hours ago, a team from the Canadian Spacetime Agency initiated a controlled tachyon experiment. The goal was to test faster-than-light communication, but instead of groundbreaking data, we triggered an uncontrollable surge of tachyonic particles. And now, those particles are flooding the city, tearing at the very fabric of reality.”

The room fell deathly silent as the magnitude of the situation began to sink in. Carlos pressed on, his voice firm. “Here’s what we know. Entire sections of Lima are experiencing temporal anomalies. Some neighborhoods are frozen in time—people caught mid-action, unaware that hours or even days have passed. Other areas are accelerating, aging decades in mere seconds. And most disturbingly, there are reports of time loops—individuals reliving the same moment over and over again. We estimate that 20% of the city is affected.”

“Our power grids are collapsing, GPS systems are down, and digital communications are unreliable. The tachyons are wreaking havoc on electromagnetic fields, rendering radios, phones, and most navigation equipment useless. We’re forced to rely on analog devices to stay in touch with our command center. And the anomalies don’t end there.”

Carlos gestured toward a map of Lima projected behind him. “We’ve observed localized gravity disturbances. Entire buildings have been lifted from their foundations. Streets are warping. Gravity is fluctuating, turning on and off in bursts, causing structural collapses across the city.”

A hand shot up from the crowd. It was a reporter, visibly shaken. “What about the reports of people... disappearing?”

Carlos hesitated, his expression grim. “Yes, there have been reports of both objects and people fading in and out of existence.

Carlos pressed on, raising his voice above the noise. “This is no longer just a scientific challenge; this is a crisis. We’ve established three primary objectives: first, to stabilize the tachyon field. Our physicists are working around the clock to find a solution, but it’s an uphill battle. Second, we’re rescuing civilians trapped in the most heavily affected zones. The anomalies are unpredictable, so once you’re inside, speed is critical. Do not linger. And third, we need to gather as much data from the ground as possible. This will be crucial to reverse the damage and stop this disaster from escalating further.”

Biltong paused to let the weight of his words settle in. “To aid in these efforts, we’re deploying devices which should help slow the spread of tachyon activity and give us more time to work on a permanent solution.

A particularly excitable journalist, called out, “I saw it myself! I was stuck in the airport, but I had to get here. I knew something was wrong.”

As Mares walked away, his mind churned with the implications of what they had done. The tachyon experiment wasn’t just a failure—it was a catastrophe. In their quest to explore the unknown, they had torn open a rift in reality, and now, both time and space were unraveling at the seams.

In the distance, a building collapsed into itself, as if swallowed by the void. The race to fix what they had broken had begun.

“We need to gather critical data from the ground. We will be equipped with sensors that can monitor tachyon activity. Hopefully—we can reverse the damage.

We plan is to deploy portable dampeners at the source, which should help slow down the spread and give us more time to work on a permanent solution. If we manage to stabilize the tachyon field, we may be able to reverse these effects. It requires precise action and courage.” The words of Biltong echoed in his mind.

Mares shut his eyes as sunlight illuminated his face. The morning shampoo tingled, as he began to assess the damage to the city. In the Canadian Spacetime Agency things were just getting going. They were ready for this.

Once inside his apartment, Sally Padeira his landlady looked up. “As an artist, my soul is deeply connected to the bonds of friendship and love. What happened to cause a sudden rift?”

Mares said, “ It was quite abrupt. One day, it wasn’t there, then it was."

“Do you think it had something to do with tachyons?”

“It was before the experiment,” answered the scientist. “High intellects like Biltong’s could penetrate it but he believed it came at a great cost—one's sanity.”

“Do you think his belief in his tachyon theory affected his decision to push it too far?”

“I think so.”

“It sounds almost tragic, a mind too brilliant for its own good, don’t you think?"

“Yes.”

“Perhaps, in seeking to push too far, he lost touch with the present, such intellect can both elevate and isolate.”

“Indeed.”

With a furrowed brow and a palpable aura of frustration, Sally returned to investigating an ancient pot. Elsewhere, the CSA were wasting no time in addressing the underlying problem.

"What do you have to say for yourself, HECTOR?" she demanded, her voice tinged with a mix of anger and concern.

Caught off guard by her accusatory tone, MARES straightened in his chair. "Tachyons have everything to do with it," he mumbled. You heard it. Reality is altering, people fade in and out of memory."

"Not memory, real people." Sally was a reporter too, and this was a point she was grounded in.

"You know very well the risks involved in tachyon experimentation," Mares sighed, running a hand through his disheveled hair as he struggled to find the right words. "We were simply trying to understand...to explore..."

Sally cut in, "Explore? Is that what you call it? You’re lost in your own fantasies while the real world collapses around us?"

"And what about you?" he said, his voice rising. "You frequent those cafes where artists are tolerated, yet you have the audacity to lecture me?"

His words stung her, an accusation that left her speechless. For a moment, neither of them spoke, the weight of their words hanging heavy between them.

Finally, Sally broke the silence, her voice softening ever so slightly. "I just worry about you, Hector," she admitted, her anger giving way to concern. "I don't want to see you throw your life away because of this tachyon accident."

He planned to think about all these experiences at the next opportunity - as soon as he'd grabbed one of the portable tachyon dampeners from the mobile unit. Falling skyscrapers or people disappearing from the real world, was a real concern.

Mares shut his eyes tightly to shield himself from his perceived vulnerability. He believed in the celestial dance of the stars, their ever-changing radiance, in their potential to inspire art, ignite passion, and avoid extinction.

Beyond Lima, industrial workers had built a barricade around the accident, hiding the urban chaos. This wall, made of metal, wood, and cardboard, symbolized a desire for sanctuary.

"I am at a loss as to where to begin my search," Mares confided in Sally, his voice tinged with uncertainty, "and so I'll turn to the handful of addresses provided by scientists which radiate out from the squash court area. There are souls trapped within the labyrinth of urban life. What do we do with them?"

"Ruskin," Sally remarked, her voice tinged with admiration, "ventured forth into the picturesque landscapes of Italy—the quaint towns and villages untouched by the industrial sprawl that plagued the bustling metropolises. There, amidst the tranquility of nature, far removed from the cacophony of car traffic and the suffocating fumes of gasoline, he and his contemporaries believed the previous beauty of the world lay. "

“The essence of architectural beauty transcends mere functionality," said Mares as he sat in quiet contemplation, perhaps studying the intricate pores of his hand for a quarter of an hour.

When he closed his eyes, luminous, colored patterns, like luminous fonts in bizarre, rich ornamentation, turned in front of his eyes, like a huge mandala, the tachyons overcoming him. 

MARES joined the group's rescue team which helped locate people and abandoned cars after the tachyon accident rendered them useless. They distributed the cars to technicians for building solar panels. The people were flown out by medical fliers.

As darkness approached, he imagined a small light shone in the blackness of the outdoors. He made an inarticulate sound. Then, minutes later, Sally jerked her face to look through the visor in his haz suit.

“Wow,” said Sally, gratified, “the tachyon dampener - it actually works!”

In a modern, well-lit conference room with large windows offering a panoramic view of the city skyline, adorned with abstract artwork, and a coffee table laden with documents, Hector Mares the scientist sat sipping his coffee, his eyes sparkling with excitement. 'I can't believe we actually got stability back. It was like holding a piece of living history.”

Hector raised his coffee cup. "To the absence of tachyons."

The meeting concluded and Sally and Hector prepared to focus on their reports.

Carlos Biltong, a lawyer, scientist and occasional whiskey drinker, listened to his favorite music in the shower as he exchanged intelligence with his peers. As the tension rose, Biltong manipulated the situation, ensuring postponement of any decisions until another tachyon wave occurred. He reflected on the view from his window and his nightly routine of listening to ambient music before going to bed, leaving unresolved tensions lingering in the air.

Hector's report was interrupted by a ringing phone. From Biltong, it was full of half-praise. After the call, he went over the risks of containment with Sally. He reflected on his past and the influence of history. The skyline or where the skyline was before was almost obscured by constructions. Glass, shattered in small pieces, and sporadic fires, there were no more of them but nearby the source there was nothing unbroken.

Part 2: The Celestial Architecture

The world had dissolved into something beyond mere chaos—it had become a liminal space where time, memory, and reality no longer adhered to natural laws. Mares stood in the center of Lima’s once bustling plaza, now a canvas of warped streets and shimmering fragments of alternate realities. The tachyon field had cracked open the city like a fragile egg, spilling timelines into one another. Above him, the sky pulsed with colors too vivid to belong to this world, hues that seemed to seep from the very edges of existence.

He took a breath, but the air felt thick, as if it too had become unmoored from its normal state. He blinked erratically, fearing another spike in tachyon activity. Yet something in him paused—not out of fear, but out of awe. What he was seeing was more than just a catastrophe. It was a transformation. A local unraveling of the known world, revealing layers of reality that had always been there, hidden beneath the surface like a second skin.

Ahead of him, the street curved impossibly, rising into the air in a spiral as though the city itself had begun to climb toward the heavens. For a moment, Mares couldn’t tell if he was looking at a physical structure or a vision projected by the anomalies. The architecture seemed alive, pulsing with a soft glow, as though each building were breathing in time with the cosmic rhythm of the tachyon field.

His earpiece crackled. “Mares, can you hear me? We’re seeing more fluctuations in your sector. You need to get to the next drop point now!” It was Sally’s voice, but it felt distant, like a memory floating just out of reach.

“I’m here,” he muttered, more to himself than to her. But he wasn’t sure where “here” was anymore. The plaza had shifted into something surreal—a world where geometry bent to its own will, where streets spiraled upward like stairways to the stars. This wasn’t just a city falling apart; it was becoming something else. Something more.

The celestial architecture,  an architecture not built by human hands, but by the cosmos itself appeared to his eyes. Every line, every curve was a manifestation of celestial energy, an attempt by the universe to express itself through form. Now, standing in the midst of this unraveling, Mares understood. The buildings around him were more than mere structures—they were manifestations of a higher reality, attempting to break through the confines of time and space.

As he walked, the buildings were adorned with intricate, glowing patterns that pulsed like living veins. The walls were made of no material he could recognize—crystal, perhaps, or something softer, more organic. It was as though the city itself was exhibiting a forgotten cosmic order.

Lima was no longer just a city, it was a bridge between two worlds.

The tachyon sensor on his wrist beeped urgently, pulling him back to the task at hand. He shook his head, trying to focus. He still had a mission. He reached down, unclipping one of the dampeners from his belt, and knelt by the ground. The device clicked into place with a soft hum, its blue light flickering as it began to stabilize the surrounding area.

"First dampener active," he reported, his voice hoarse with wonder.

“Good. Move to the next site,” Sally's voice crackled again, more insistent now. But it was hard to concentrate with the celestial architecture growing around him, each structure more impossible and beautiful than the last.

He moved through the streets, no longer recognizing the Lima of his memories. This version of the city had evolved into something both ancient and futuristic, as if the past and future were simultaneously being built on top of one another. Buildings seemed to shimmer between styles—stone pyramids, delicate arches of glass, towers of spiraling metal that reflected the sky like mirrors. And above it all, the celestial rings spun ever faster, casting beams of light that illuminated secret patterns hidden in the streets below.

As he reached the second drop point, the ground shifted under his feet. Mares stumbled, catching himself against a nearby wall. The surface was warm, and when he looked closer, he saw it wasn’t stone at all—it was covered in intricate, glowing glyphs. He traced them with his fingers, feeling a hum of energy beneath his skin. The patterns were familiar, he had seen similar designs in old manuscripts, diagrams that tried to describe the architecture of the heavens.

Just then, the air around him shimmered again. Another vision, but this one was clearer—more real. He was no longer standing in the present. He was walking through a different time, an ancient version of Lima, where the people around him wore ceremonial robes and carried strange instruments of bronze and gold. They moved with purpose, as if enacting a ritual.

This was a glimpse into the true nature of the tachyon field—the way it intertwined time, space, and energy into a single, unbreakable fabric. He could see now why the anomalies had started. They weren’t accidents. They were attempts—attempts by the universe to break free from the confines of linear time.

The vision faded as quickly as it had come, leaving Mares breathless. He planted the second dampener, feeling the weight of his actions. He wasn’t just stabilizing the field; he was interacting with something far older and more powerful than he had ever imagined.

“Second dampener online,” he muttered, his voice filled with reverence.

He moved toward the final drop point, his mind still reeling from the vision. The celestial architecture surrounded him now, filling every corner of his perception. Each step he took resonated with the vibrations of the city, as if the very ground was alive, humming with the energy of the stars.

Finally, he reached the last site. As he activated the final dampener, the city seemed to hold its breath. The glowing mandala in the sky pulsed once, then twice, before slowly beginning to fade. The tachyon readings stabilized on his wrist, and for a moment, Marres allowed himself to breathe.

The celestial architecture, though fading, still lingered in his mind—a reminder that the universe held secrets far beyond human comprehension. He had glimpsed the other side, the world where time, space, and reality blended into one. And now, as he stood in the quieted streets of Lima, he realized that the quest wasn’t just to stop the disaster—it was to understand the celestial forces that had always been at play.

“Mares, report,” Sally’s voice cut through the silence.

He looked around at the now-stabilized city, the faint traces of the celestial architecture still shimmering at the edges of his vision.

“It’s done,” he said softly.