Everyone looked at him with bewildernt, as if he were speaking in incomprehensible incantations. He sensed this and continued, explaining calmly, "As you know, in our universe, everything has its opposite, like night and day, good and evil, and so on. And since there is a thing and its opposite, there is also matter and antimatter! When the two et, they annihilate each other. That is, if there is a kilogram of matter and a kilogram of antimatter, and they are combined, they will both vanish and beco nothing. They will disappear into thin air. Sohow, this tree contains both matter and antimatter, but they are separated from each other by spaces invisible to the naked eye. That is, the particles of matter are close to the antimatter, but they do not et, otherwise this tree would disappear completely. That is why when the soldier—what’s your na?"
"Ali, sir."
"Yes. When Ali rubbed them together with his fingers at first, he noticed that the substance disappeared, so he extended his hand to get more of it, and an overlap occurred between the particles of matter and antimatter, and they began to rub against each other, so his hands got stuck in the middle of this battle of friction. That is why I asked him to rub his hand with the antimatter so that the tal on his hand would disappear, and he would be able to free himself from this tree. The tal of the suit, which is made of matter, rubbed against the antimatter and disappeared. And it’s his good fortune that he pulled his hand out quickly, or his hand would have disappeared too."
Everyone looked in amazent at the enormous amount of information Keno had given, and so did not understand anything other than that they would disappear if they touched this substance. One of the soldiers asked with surprise, "But sir, how did you know all this?"
"I didn’t know. I analyzed what happened through a feature in my suit, and I was able to see that there was an unknown substance that I could not identify. When I saw what happened, I concluded that it was antimatter and was able to reach this conclusion."
Keno said it in a tone that suggested he was hiding sothing, but Yousef and Akira understood that his ability as a cyborg was what had enabled him to know this. Keno was silent for a mont, then broke the silence, saying, "But the strange thing is how sothing like this got to our planet. And how it was ford in the shape of a tree. This is really strange. There have been many changes to our planet since the catastrophe, and it seems that the planet has begun to evolve, adapt, and change without the presence of humans on it. Or that the machines are so intelligent that they were able to change many of the properties on our planet to achieve so of their unknown goals!"
Fear began to shake the hearts of the battalion, but there was no turning back now. Keno said, pointing to the strange trunk, "We must get a sample to study it well. My analysis may have so flaws and may be completely wrong."
"And how do we get such a sample?" one of the soldiers said. "We won’t be able to keep it!"
"Yes, we will, if we take samples in small quantities, as Ali did at first when he touched the trunk. Now, the samples team, you will take care of this mission."
Five soldiers ca out from the crowd and headed toward the trunk cautiously. They took out so small test vials from their wrists and began to take the samples with great care until they were finished. They placed the samples in the small compartnt on their wrists and signaled to Keno that they had completed the mission, then slipped back into the crowd.
"And now, let’s continue on our way," Keno said.
The soldiers began to move again after what had happened, and the outside world continued to amaze them with every plan they made. The deadly silence of the forest unsettled their insides. No animal moved, no bird sang, there was no croaking of frogs or the sound of night insects, or anything. It was as if it were dead to everything except the strange plants and trees.
After half an hour of walking, during which the shapes of the trees and grasses changed, they found that the forest had ended. At the end of the road, there was nothing, just a black void, as if space was in front of them, and that any further step would take them out of the planet to float in space until their oxygen ran out and they t their demise. Everyone who saw this strange phenonon was amazed and felt a shiver run through their bodies, mixed with an overwhelming fear of the unknown. The black space in front of them extended to infinity, and the stars and planets were swimming through it in their orbits. Everyone stopped and looked at each other, question marks filling their faces, and they began to discuss what was happening here.
"Sir," one of the soldiers said, looking somber and thoughtful, as if he couldn’t make up his mind. "I suggest we stop here and go back. I feel that we will go mad from what we are seeing. Everything looks very unfamiliar, as if the entire planet has been replaced."
Keno was lost in deep thought and did not wake up until the soldier repeated his call. He turned to the soldier and began to recall what he had said, then said in a confident tone, "I know that what is happening here is strange and terrifying, and even stranger than any phenonon we have seen in our lives. This looks like a gateway to space. If we enter it, we will float until we et our demise. But in reality... in reality, this is an illusion."
Akira, who had been walking in silence next to Yousef all this ti, watching these strange things without saying a word, spoke up for the first ti. "An illusion?! Excuse , but what do you an by an illusion?"
"I an it’s just a mirage. A mirage ant to keep us from the real path. It seems that this space is a kind of holographic image, and if we pass through it, we will continue on our way. It’s also possible that everything we have seen was just an illusion created by the machines through very advanced 3D images. Before the catastrophe, holograms were used a lot, and many cris and thefts were committed through them, as it is one of the best ways to mislead. That is why it is possible that so of the trees we saw were a 3D image covering the real trees, but that does not deny that so of them were real."
Keno didn’t want to frighten them, but he knew in his heart that all of it was real.
Akira continued, inquiring, "But what about the tree with the strange trunk from which we took the samples?"
"It seems that it is the only truly strange thing we have seen so far, and it may be the result of so strange experints that the machines were able to perform to change the properties of so things, to mislead us so that we do not know the real from the fake. I was able to see—with my special analysis device—that most of the trees we saw were made of the natural materials found in familiar trees, but their shapes were strange, and that is what puzzled . But there were so trees with strange, unknown properties, but they were very few. That is why I ca to this conclusion, and we’ll know in a mont if it’s real or not."
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