Fateh

QUANTUM CHOICE CHRONICLES Space: QUANTUM CHOICE MODELS Reality: Oasis Artifact: Butterfly Name: Fateh Brief Description: Black Gold Value: Wisdom IPR Registry Date: Not registered First Contact Date: 2025 (presumably) Contact History: Based on unverified eyewitness accounts Fragment Content: The supersonic jet of Janus Wolfe — a young, ruthless businessman from New York — touched down on the Dubai runway with a soft whisper. Without opening his eyes, he felt the heat seeping through the window. “Mr. Smith is here to meet you, sir,” the steward reported. At the bottom of the aircraft stairs, a short, nimble man in an inexpensive suit awaited him. “Mr. Wolfe! Smith. At your service. Everything according to your requirements.” A calculating smile flickered across Smith’s face and vanished. “Speak.” Mr. Wolfe swiftly pulled up Smith’s AR interface and extracted a data folder. “Oasis Energy. We’re buying it. Why?” “The company sits on the Fateh field,” Smith said, snorting as he rubbed his hands. “It’s old — has been producing since 1969 — but in 2014 they discovered significant gas reserves there. And instead of focusing on extraction, these fools are pouring everything into their AR platform, NUR. They claim their software reduces city energy consumption by 45%, replaces illumination… they say it’s the future. They're shooting themselves in the foot.” “The future?” Janus smiled coldly. “Whoever has cash flow has the future. We absorb and divide the company. Sell Fateh to All Oil Industries. The NUR laboratories—piece by piece to all interested parties. Everyone wants control technologies for managing workers now.” “This won’t be easy. They don’t show it, but they have their own mind. They have an impeccable reputation and never give up,” Smith stated. “We've seen such,” Janus was always aroused by such complexities. “Meeting with the board of directors is tomorrow. I must know everything… I repeat—every weakness of Oasis Energy.” Smith leaned closer, and the smell of cheap cologne wrinkled Mr. Wolfe’s nose. “There is one… unofficial tool. The Chronos-Scanner. Delivered contraband. Allows connection to closed AR channels of the past. Everything recorded through glasses. Tested on Fateh — it works. You can peek at their dirty laundry.” “Illegal?” Janus Wolfe looked at Smith in such a way that he shrank. Then he smiled. “Excellent. Just how I like it. I think you and I will become friends.” In the evening, in his hotel room, Janus put on old industrial AR glasses. Smith obligingly retrieved them from a worn case and connected them with a thick cable to the Chronos-Scanner. And the world swam. “Search for Fateh platforms. Period — starting from commissioning,” commanded Janus. He found himself on a metal giant in the middle of the bay, ten years earlier. Everything around was marked with AR tags: [System pressure: normal], [Engineer Rashid: shift ends at 02:15]. He saw the world through the eyes of some technician. Routine. “Speed up. Search for conflicts, panic, errors.” The footage rushed into the past. And then something flashed in the corner of the screen. Janus slowed down, rewound a bit… And — “What nonsense…” Over the sea, a Butterfly hovered. An absurd 3D model. Its milky wings were adorned with black obsidian framed in liquid gold. “What idiot left this garbage in the working layer?” Janus grumbled. “Zoom in. Delete.” His hand reached for the butterfly to throw it beyond the visible area. But as soon as he touched its wing, reality shifted and flew apart. With every beat of its wings—back, faster and deeper into the past. — Trrr… — its wings sounded. Trrrrrr… Stop. Salty wind hit his face. The platform groaned under the onslaught of the hurricane. Everything was so real that he felt a burning anxiety in the pit of his stomach. “Glitches again,” an uncontrolled thought flashed through Janus’s mind. Did I imagine it? Or is that not my thought? Definitely not mine. And this one— is this mine? What’s happening? His heart pounded. My name is Qasim? — raced through his head again. Everything blurred. Janus realized he wasn’t watching a recording. He was hearing someone’s thoughts. He was feeling. He was inside — a hostage to the thoughts and emotions of some young engineer. “Pressure drop in pipeline C-4,” the speaker announced. On the old console, a convex red light blinked. “But the sensors are fine. Another program error,” Qasim thought. The system had been tormenting everyone lately without reason. The heaviness in his muscles after a long shift made him sigh tiredly. But suddenly the butterfly — still hovering before Janus’s eyes — flared up. Lightning-fast sparks ran across the wings and fused into a solid flame. A wave of heat hit his face. It pulsed. It blazed. Qasim’s thoughts froze, but Janus — trapped inside Qasim — reacted instantly. He jumped over the railing into the stairwell. Down, down, pounded in his head. Then he smelled the acrid stench. Pinching his nose, he pointed the flashlight and saw a thin stream of gas seeping from a worn valve. The slightest spark — and the entire platform would explode, taking hundreds of people with it. Janus felt the terror. He felt the clammy sweat on Qasim’s back, the frantic beating of his heart. He rushed to the emergency valve, grabbed — “Enough!” Janus shouted, tearing the glasses off with both hands and throwing them away from himself. He was back in his luxurious room, greedily gulping air that still tasted of gas and salt. A frightened Smith sat opposite him. “What was that…?” “Out!” Janus shouted. “Out, I said!” Gathering the scattered AR glasses, stumbling, Smith backed toward the door and slipped out. For the rest of the night, Janus feverishly combed through the Oasis Energy documentation. There were no mentions of the incident. If there had been an accident, you couldn’t hide it, Janus thought. Maybe there was no incident at all. Just glitches… But at dawn, he found something: “Qasim Al-Rashid — drilling control engineer. Retired early for health reasons. Awarded by the UAE government for preventing an accident at the Fateh oil and gas field.” He did save them! raced through Janus’s mind. He saved them. I saved them. She saved them. And then it dawned on him. He had descended into a time where augmented reality didn’t yet exist. How could he be there? And that butterfly… it wasn’t there then. It couldn’t have been. It was a phantom — a phantom outside of time. It had led him to Qasim. Led him into the past to save the future. The circle had closed. Oasis Energy, Janus thought. Their investments in NUR aren’t simple at all. And this is far from stupidity. It’s wisdom. They remember the past, don’t squander the present, and invest in the future. Janus went down to the lobby, where Smith waited with a pitiful, ingratiating smile. “Mr. Wolfe, what about the acquisition? Did you manage to find a weak point? Are we buying?” “Yes. We’re buying. Ten percent. I’m acquiring it personally. Prepare everything we need.” “But how… that’s…” “The future, Smith. This is the future.” Janus was exhausted, but still went out for a walk. Here and there, AR signs were already dancing in the air. He wandered the streets of Downtown for several hours, trying to comprehend all the changes that had happened to him that night. Suddenly, above and to the right, at the edge of his field of view, an avatar with a pleasant female face appeared. Janus tapped Answer, and the image of a very beautiful woman of indeterminate age materialized before him. “Hello, Mr. Wolfe. My name is Layla Al-Kindi. I am the vice president of Oasis Energy. I am authorized to inform you that we would be delighted to have you join our board of directors.” “Thank you! I would be very glad as well,” Janus replied. “I won’t keep you any longer,” she smiled and disconnected. And Janus kept walking and walking, thinking: I wonder… is Qasim still alive?

Author: spatiallyar