Ring Theory (short story)

 was the eighth short story in Down the Middle. It was narrated by the guest-starring Kady Williams, taking the form of a series of journal entries, and was also notable for pitting Chris Cwej against another Cwej, the Gentleman.

Journal Entry: Day 1
A woman with a Gestalt living in the back of her mind wakes up on the floor of a dusty a ship with an angry, gun-wielding Grigori standing over her, asking her to explain where they are. The Grigori, Kwol, is soon joined by another, Larles, and by the apparent leader of the party, Chris Cwej, who tells Kwol to put away the gun. Kady is not relieved, however, because her Gestalt inform her that Cwej is "a cloned slave of the Race of Temporal Supremacy, (…) highly dangerous", whom she "must stop (…) by any means necessary". Nevertheless, Kady manages to keep a pleasant demeanour as she introduces herself as Kady Williams and starts discussing what she knows about the ship with the three newcomers, mostly that it is a transdimensional maze with no apparent exit. They resolve to look for an exit together, though neither Kady nor Cwej's group share the real reason they came in the first place. Kady suggests that it could take "a few weeks" for them to find the exit, although the voices within her Gestalt think it will more likely be months.

Day 3
The group have been wandering the corridors for over two days, and bicker over whether to stop and rest, with Cwej insisting that his Superiors want him to complete his task as quickly as possible. The debate cuts off when Kwol spots a muddy child's footprint on the floor, the first evidence they've encountered that there is someone else aboard the crashed ship.

Day 4
Having noticed that she often talks to herself, Kwol has a heart-to-heart with Kady Williams during which she explains the nature of her Gestalt to Kwol. Kwol asks if she's ever disobeyed the Gestalt's directives. She says she hasn't, not ever, but this is a lie.

Day 10
As the group are making their way through a room "half-filled with musty water", Cwej expresses skepticism about the trustworthiness of Kady's Gestalt. Soon after, they exit into the next room, a large auditorium with four windows from which green light is streaming, arranged in a circle around a single, large, empty chair. The Gestalt immediately recognises the setup as a trap, especially as the room is full of the telltale rose-like smell of temporal energy. As she follows Chris and Kady in, Larles recognises this place as the classroom of Professor Vlarkes back on her home planet of Grigori. Suddenly, a six-armed Grigori, Vlarkes himself, appears and begins shouting at Larles despite her attempts to hang on to her knowledge that the real Vlarkes is dead. Kady tries to derail the scenario by walking up to Vlarkes and pointing out that she's not a Grigori student, but "Vlarkes" smoothly transitions to taunting Kady about her son Bill, unsettling her. As the Professor opens his mouth again to suddenly reveal jagged, beastly fangs and rushes at Kady, the floor suddenly opens up beneath her, Cwej and Larles. The two pass out, and, when they wake up, find that they are in another room — with no sign of Kwol.

Day 21
After many days spent fruitlessly looking for Kwol, the group's hopes are beginning to dwindle. Finally, Cwej asks about "Bill", with Kady merely answering that it's "very complicated". He then moves on to asking her about the Gestalt, asking if they physically force her decisions. She explains that their wills are merely intermingled, and the Kady half always ends up agreeing to the Gestalt's suggestions. Chris presses her, asking her if she has truly never disobeyed; despite one of the "pettier" voices within the Gestalt reminding her about the incident, she still does not discuss Bill, who is, secretly, not only her son but also somebody involved in the one time she did disobey the Gestalt. She does, however, admit that she's sometimes had doubts. Chris confesses that all of this sounds a lot like his relationship to the Superiors. Larles tries to get involved in the conversation, asking Kady if she's always travelled alone — which seems to put an end to the discussion.

Day 22
Cwej, Larles and Kady walk through a room resembling the top deck of a ship, resting for a few hours before getting to the other door, which leads to another deck.

Day 22
Cwej, Larles and Kady once again make their way through a room resembling the top deck of a ship, resting for a few hours before getting to the other door, which seemingly leads to another deck — though Kady briefly feels as though something is amiss.

Day 22
On this third go-around, Cwej, Larles and Kady finally realise they're in a time loop. Instead of walking out the door again, Kady suggests they jump over the railing of the current ship deck, which seems to work.

Day 23
Cwej, Larles and Kady end up in a replica of the control room of the Gestalt's timeship — although the portraits of Kady's past companions Miaki, Lyth and Elya on the walls now bear accusing captions in the names of the portraitees, accusing Kady of having failed them, and there is also a portrait of Bill, similarly accusatory. Kady is finally forced to tell Chris about Bill, explaining that he was her "ex-stepson", the son by a previous marriage of a man who divorced Kady shortly before she became the host of the Gestalt.

As they wonder how the intelligence within the ship could possibly know about those details, Kady puts into words the only logical conclusion: the intelligence can read all of their thoughts, and, indeed, is probably listening to them right now. She dares it to come forward, and they find themselves transported to a nightmarish battlefield from Cwej's subconscious, littered with the bodies of people he let die over the course of his life, where they are approached by the avatar of the intelligence. It's a "Chris-clone" who tells them to call him the Gentleman. He explains that he escaped from the Superiors' prison a few years ago, and also reveals that it was the Gestalt] who imprisoned him on their behalf in the first place. This is news to Kady, with the Gestalt sounding "embarrassed" as they try to assure her there are important aspects of the story that the Gentleman is leaving out.

Continuing to taunt the group, the Gentleman makes his body "unfurl into iridescent jagged strips" to demonstrate that he was turned from a normal Cwej into a memetic weapon. The prime Cwej and Larles attempt to physically attack him, with no results. Kady tries to probe his mind, only getting vague flashes of his memories of being experimented upon, but in turn he begins taunting her about her uncertainties concerning the Gestalt, dredging up the memories of the time the Gestalt tried to make her sacrifice Bill, and adopting Bill's form to further twist the knife. The Gentleman offers Cwej the chance to exit with Kwol if he kills Larles, which he naturally refuses, instead running out of the room with Larles and Kady. Thanks to the psychic glimpse she got of the Gentleman's perspective, she can now track the location of the exit, although it's quite far away.

Day 25
Cwej, Larles and Kady are resting in a room resembling the interior of a Viskan submarine when Cwej finally follows up on the Gentleman's revelations, asking Kady head-on if she indeed experimented on this other Cwej, and, if so, why. Kady clarifies that it wasn't her, but must have involved a previous host of the Gestalt, a very long time ago. Though the Gestalt are reluctant to let her, she decides to trawl through her predecessors' memories, and finds the correct ones, the memories of the Gendar Filin.

She relives the day Filin was made an offer she couldn't refuse by the Superiors: to help them experiment on the creature that would become the Gentleman, a mutated Cwej that had fallen back through time to this era of the Superiors' history, in exchange for their averting a catastrophe that would otherwise strike Filin's home planet. In the end, Filin accepted, although the minds within the Gestalt were divided in opinions. However, Filin quickly regretted her decision as she felt the Gentleman's pain as she transformed him; thereafter, Filin was plagued by nightmares of the Gentleman taking revenge on her by destroying the planet after all.

After she reports all this to Cwej, he gets angry at Kady for the Gestat's decision to sell out one of Cwej's own for the sake of some planet. Larles tries to calm him down, pointing out that the Superiors were equally to blame; when Cwej retorts that those were the Superiors of the past, Larles takes this as an opportunity to close the debate by pointing out that, in much the same way, it was not Kady but a past host who made the fateful decision.

Day 45
The Gentleman continues to toy with Cwej, Larles and Kady: they have now found themselves in a room filled with fake versions of their own corpses, with the words The Gentleman Sees You scribbled on one of the walls. Getting unnerved, Cwej blows up at Kady, asking how she is so sure they're headed in the correct direction to reach the exit, which she insists she does thanks to the powers the Gestalt give her. While he huffily withdraws from the conversation, Kady has a heart-to-heart to Larles, who is badly missing Kwol. The conversation drifts, and Larles asks Kady where the Gestalt originally came from, with Kady confessing that she doesn't really know, though she has a few suspicions based on glimpses of memories she sometimes gets in dreams. Their talk is interrupted when Chris calls out from ahead, claiming to have spotted an exit.

Day 60
The previous exit wasn't it, but, after walking from yet again some more time, Cwej, Larles and Kady come upon a door and open it. A horde of giant squirrels pours out, clawing at the group, sparking a panic attack in Larles.

Day 61
The following day, an embarrassed Larles confesses to the baffled Cwej and Kady that the "angry squirrels room" must have been drawn from her subconscious, as she's had a lifelong phobia of squirrels. She asks them not to tell Kwol once they're reunited.

Day 100
The trio encounter "the same set of rooms for ten days straight".

Day 110
Cwej again asks Kady if she's sure they're going the right way, which she confirms.

Day 120
Cwej, Larles and Kady find themselves in a small room with ten different sets of doors, each of them were different colors and designs — two of which, including a golden one in the middle, have no doorknobs. The Gestalt quickly gets a sense that there's something diffusely but severely wrong here. The three look up to see a mysterious blue light overhead, slowly coming closer. They're about to hurry out of the room and into the next when they hear Kwol's voice calling out from behind the knobless golden door. As they recognise the blue light as some sort of freezing energy that covers all it touches in ice, "Kwol" claims to Cwej and Larles that Kady has been working with the Gentleman, that he escaped from the Gentleman's clutches some time ago, and that the Gentleman has just found him again and is coming for him.

Despite Kady's attempts to convince Cwej and Larles that it's all a trap, Cwej opens the door, causing a blast of fire to rush out. Kady pushes Larles and Cwej out of the way and uses herself as a human shield: while her clothes burn, she herself is granted a measure of invincibility by being the host of the Gestalt. Meanwhile, the deadly blue light continues to slowly descend; crouching down and telling the other two to do the same, Kady manages to find how to open a secret trapdoor that opens onto a descending stairway. As they run away, "Kwol" shouts accusations of betrayal at Larles. Though Cwej shouts back angrily, treating the voice as inarguably the Gentleman putting on an act, Larles is still disturbed by the words. The three come upon another door.

Day 121
The door opened into a large area resembling a forest, based on a place Cwej used to go on vacation. The trio stop there to rest, with Kady still needing time to heal from the burns even if she will do so at an accelerated rate compared to a normal human. Larles gives her some new clothes to replace the burnt ones, which she finds fit her fairly well, notwithstanding the holes for an additional pair of arms. She has another heart-to-heart with Larles, reassuring her that there's no reason to think the real Kwol is dead just because of the Gentleman's illusion in the previous room. The conversation finds its way to the subject of Lyth, one of Kady's past companions, who she explains left amicably, simply because she "couldn’t deal with it anymore". This seems to resonate with Larles, though she doesn't fully voice her thoughts on the matter. They sit together in silence for a while.

Day 130
The trio continue to get to know each other better. Larles talks about her school days, Kady speaks to Cwej at greater length about her divorce, and Cwej talks about what it's like to have so many clones, as well as why he continues to work with the Superiors even though they view him as expendable.

Day 145
The trio deal with a second giant-squirrel attack.

Day 146
One night, while Cwej and Larles are asleep, Kady makes up her mind and calls aloud for the Gentleman, telling him that she wants to make a deal. Realising her strategy, the Gestalt attempt to talk her out of it, but come around to her point of view. The Gentleman appears to her, having taken on the appearance of her ex-husband. She explains that she will transfer rightful ownership of the Gestalt, with all the powers that come with it, to the Gentleman in exchange for her, Cwej, Larles and Kwol's lives. The Gentleman agrees to the deal and, with little warning, viciously bites into Kady's hand, draining the Gestalt from her like a vampire.

Cwej jumps to his feet and shoots the Gentleman, with little effect as the memetic predator reveals he's already fully absorbed the Gestalt. However, Larles points out that the Gestalt contains such countless wills and concepts that they are capable of overwhelming the Gentleman's own psyche. When the Gentleman retorts that he's too strong for something like that, they reply that the Gestalt don't need to truly overwhelm his willpower, but simply to focus together on a single concept for a single moment: the idea of the exit. The Gentleman tries to resist against this, hurting himself in the process; as he loses his control, the environment begins to devolve into the same black gloop that the Cwej that became the Gestalt appeared as when Filin first saw him all those years ago. With the last of his strength, the Gentleman appears to tell Cwej something that shocks him deeply, but Kady can't hear it. She loses consciousness in the commotion.

Day 0
When Kady comes to, she, Larles, Kwol and Cwej are in a grassy plain with no sign of the crashed ship. Strewn about are fragments of the black sticky material, converging around the black humanoid form of the dying Gentleman. As Cwej tries to get a closer look at the black mass, it evaporates into smoke completely. He's put out by that, since he was meant to bring the Gentleman back to the Base of Operations for trial.

The travellers have a picnic to celebrate the end of the adventure. Although it is generally a happy occasion, Cwej takes the opportunity to speak up about what the Gentleman told him just before imploding: "Don’t worry, the Superiors will betray you too, one day". Kwol tells him not to overthink it and that the Gestalt told them disturbing things as well, which they are electing to ignore. The conversation soon turns less heavy when Chris accidentally lets the secret slip about Larles's squirrel phobia.

Kady slinks away, headed for her ship, but Kwol follows her for a one-on-one conversation. They reveal to Kady that the Gentleman actually told them that Cwej would one day cause Kwol's own death, and they ask Kady if, as a time traveller who's seemingly interacted with future eras of meta-history, she knows anything about that. She replies that she has "no idea" if it's true. Kwol eyes her curiously and asks if the mission the Gestalt gave her was simply to ensure the Gestalt was destroyed so that the Superiors could not recover him and experiment on him further; in a further lie, she confirms this guess. Inwardly, Kady reflects sadly on the truth that she very well knows what lies in Cwej, Larles and Kwol's future, but was forbidden from interfering, and, indeed, was sent here by the Gestalt to ensure their history stayed on-track.

After saying her goodbyes to Kwol, on whom she wishes "a good life", she asks the Gestalt "what's next".

Characters

 * Chris Cwej
 * Larles
 * Kwol
 * Kady Williams
 * The Gestalt
 * The Gentleman
 * Filin

Story notes

 * The Gestalt and Cadence Williams previously appeared in the story Perfect Authentic Cadence, also by Charles Whitt, released in the unlicensed short anthology Sh*t Trips Volume 2.5. There, the Gestalt was established as a future of the Doctor arising after the "Last Battle of Garsennon" made them unable to regenerate normally. Vague hints about this remain in Ring Theory: the Gestalt's timeship, though not seen, is described in terms reminiscent of the Doctor's TARDIS, and one of the voices within the Gestalt has a Scottish accent and says the line "Come on, [Name], we've got work to do", quoting the Seventh Doctor's final line in Survival.

Continuity

 * Chris Cwej mentions that he "used to be a cop". (PROSE: Original Sin)
 * Kady and Chris have both met Donacho Munchausen. (PROSE: Infinity)