by Drew Cordell
I realized tears were flowing down my cheeks; the pain was excruciating. Mary was still curled up into a ball on the floor, unconscious.
With Infinitum destroyed, the soldier removed his helmet for the first time, and in a shocking realization, I recognized him. It was Marwin Zaris. His hair, usually neat and gelled, was plastered with blood. Purple bruises were already forming on his face, and his left eye had been blackened, bloodshot veins spreading across his pupil. He raised his hand to the earpiece he wore.
“Edgar. I’ve got Jake and Mary; they’re both alive,” Marwin said, panting for breath.
“Maintain current orders and keep them safe,” Edgar responded.
I knew that voice—it was truly him. “Edgar!” I yelled, bracing myself on the floor to keep from passing out.
Marwin cut the connection and turned to face me. “It’s not safe to talk to him right now. Security will be here any moment. I’m with the Champions and you can trust me,” he said as he walked over to the wall to grab a medical kit. He threw a syringe to me filled with some kind of gel. “When you can’t handle the pain anymore, inject yourself in your leg.”
“You knew that thing was the Omniscience Engine?” I asked, hearing distant shouting from outside the room—it was getting closer. I raised my hand to my head and braced myself on the floor as the familiar geometric patterns and colors flashed in my vision.
“Are you seeing things?” Marwin asked.
“Yes, colors and shapes,” I responded.
“Did you see them when you were connected to the chair?”
“No. They just started now.”
“I can’t explain how you do it, but every time you see those colors and shapes, you’re creating a Paragon Thought. If Infinitum gains your ability, we’re all dead,” he said.
“What do the Paragon Thoughts do?”
“They’re precise coordinates in space and time and act as beacons. I don’t have time to explain it all.” The shouting from outside was getting louder. “They’re nearly here. All will be explained in time. You’re safe now, Jake. Use that syringe now; it’s better I do all the talking. I’ll protect you and Mary.”
Marwin walked over to Mary with a similar syringe. I could see her squirming slightly, starting to wake. I forced myself to stand and walk toward him with the intent of stopping him, but the pain was too great. I collapsed and struck my head on the edge of a metal console, fading out of consciousness and into a blissful darkness.
∞ EPILOGUE
I remove the neuro-connectors from my head and wipe a thin layer of sweat from my forehead. I rub my temple, feeling a dull ache from where my head struck the console all those years ago. It scares me that I’m starting to physically feel the projections of my memories, but I know I can’t stop now. The clock next to my desk reads 11:30 PM. I’m breathing heavily, the weight of all the memories causing my heart to kick rapidly in my chest. The memories hurt, and it’s worse than anything I could have expected, but I know it’s important that I do this; that I record everything I’ve been through. I realize tears are pooling at the corners of my eyes and I wipe them away with the collar of my t-shirt. I’m not ready to face what’s coming, I’m too tired, and too scared to delve deeper into the searing memories right now.
My wife will be waiting up for me, and I don’t want to keep her awake any longer. She understands why I’m doing this, why I need to do this. My past defines who I am today, and it wouldn’t be fair to all those who lost their lives to let them be forgotten. I can’t let their sacrifices be in vain. Placing the connectors back in their case, I press the glowing blue button on the metal canister in front of me and power it down. Without the bright glow, I’m left in the darkness, but it doesn’t bother me. I know my study well and navigate it with ease in the dark. I exit into the hallway and walk over the cold metal flooring, the heat draining from my bare feet.
I pass Kimberly’s room and see the door is cracked open, the faint amber glow of the hallway leading into the darkness of her room. As quietly as I can, I open the door and walk in, the soft carpet warm on my feet. I walk over to her bed and kiss her on the forehead before walking back toward my room. It’s hard to believe she’s almost eleven.
I open the door to my bedroom and see that the lights are already off.
“Jake?” my wife calls, her voice filled with exhaustion.
“It's me, honey,” I reply before climbing into bed.
“Are you okay? I tried to stay up.”
“Yeah. It’s harder than I thought it would be. I thought I was ready to remember, but I’m scared of what’s coming,” I say.
“You’ve made it through before. The memories can’t hurt you,” she says.
“It doesn’t seem like that anymore; the projections are getting stronger. They feel more dangerous to me now,” I say, tears once again tugging at the corners of my eyes.
“I’m here for you, Jake. I can’t imagine how hard it is for you, but you’ve got to get through this. It needs to be recorded.”
“I know. I love you, Mary,” I say as I pull her into my embrace. She has no idea what has to happen once I finish recording these projections.
ABSOLUTE ZERO
DREW CORDELL
To my parents, thank you for always supporting me and encouraging me to follow my dreams.
“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”— John 15:13
1 RECOVERY
There was a dull thrum in my ears that seemed to be moving. Light danced on the corners of my closed eyelids, flooding them with bright orange light as my head swayed gently. My eyelids felt heavy and were caked shut with a mixture of goop and crust. I reached up and wiped them with my hand and was surprised to feel cold metal against my right eyelid instead of skin. My encounter with Infinitum exploded back into my head, and I jolted awake, pushing myself upright against the stiffness in my body. My arm had been missing, but it was replaced with something mechanical now. A loud, fast beeping began, and the vital monitor next to me showed my heart rate was elevated. The signal continued blasting, and I searched for the machine’s connection to my body. I didn’t recognize my surroundings.
The room was small, but the smell and sterile white washed floors suggested I was in a hospital. An IV Bag and several other sensors were connected to my body under a papery blue robe. There was an empty chair in the corner of the room in line with large cabinets which housed medical supplies. The light I saw earlier was sunlight pouring through a large window that overlooked Olympus. Several military aircraft similar to the Enforcer Dropships were flying around as if searching for something. The sun was still climbing in the dull sky; it was sometime before noon. I reached up to my head and felt it was wrapped in soft, heavy cloth with extra padding.
Had Marwin been talking to Edgar? Was it all a dream? No. It was too vivid, too real to be a dream. My mind was fuzzy, but the memories weren’t; they were coming back clearly now. I took slow, measured breaths as I worked to control my mind and elevated heart rate. It seemed I was safe for the time being. I had no idea how long I had been asleep since the encounter with Infinitum; I only remembered the pain I felt when my arm had been severed and the immeasurable darkness once my head struck the side of the computer console. I hadn’t been able to do anything against Infinitum, and if it hadn’t been for Marwin, I wouldn’t be alive. Mary wouldn’t be alive. My heart rate elevated again. Marwin was approaching Mary when I dipped into unconsciousness. I didn’t know where she was, or even if she was still alive. I had to find someone and get answers.
Looking down, I examined my new arm. Pistons and other mechanical parts lay under a shiny metal shell that protected the inner workings. The metal was colored dark gray, and the parts underneath had bright orange accents—my house colors. The fingers on the hand looked to contain mechanical components as well, and I was surprised when I raised my arm and attempted to close my hand that the prosthetic limb moved with my mind. I could curl my fingers, sq
ueeze, stretch, and do anything else I could before. The strangest thing was it felt almost exactly like my other hand. I felt the pull of stretching, the surge of energy shooting down my arm as I squeezed my hand into a fist, and a jolt of pain when I slammed the limb down on the hard metal side of my bed.
I used my left arm to roll up my sleeve and saw I still had my normal arm down to my elbow, but the connection between the two was wrapped in a thick bandage that concealed the skin beneath. My heart rate had gone down as I experimented with my new limb. If Infinitum had probed my mind and collected my thoughts during the surgery, then I wouldn’t have woken up. If everything was as I had remembered it, then Marwin was on my side and with the Champions of Liberty, but I had no way to know for sure. My mind still felt dulled, almost like when I had consumed too much alcohol. Everything I was seemed to be trapped beneath a layer of padding, desensitizing and slowing my senses. Suspecting my mind was under the influence of powerful painkillers, I decided to try to get help so I could get out of this place and check on Mary.
I knew I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself anytime soon for what had happened to Mary—it was my fault. Though she hadn’t been injured as much as me, there was a good chance she lost her hand to Infinitum’s cruel blade. To the best of my ability, I couldn’t remember her waking up before I passed out in the Omniscience Engine control room. I remembered somehow resisting the torture and protecting the information about the Champions while I was in the chair. By keeping the truth from Mary, I had probably saved her life, but I knew Infinitum wasn’t done. The game was just getting started. It was a dangerous game where I would be playing against the combined intelligence of humanity itself. Still, Marwin had been able to defeat the impressive and horrible form Infinitum had taken, but it was only a matter of time until it decided to hit back harder.
The scariest part was Infinitum could take any form it wanted; it could do anything without anyone knowing of its malevolent intentions. Infinitum was judge, jury, and executioner, and it could sway Adrihel’s decisions if he decided to make any of his own at all. I hadn’t even known what it was looking for when I sat in the collector chair, I only knew I had to guard everything.
Fighting against the numbing dizziness creeping through my body, I swung my legs over the side of the bed frame. Expecting a jolt of pain, I squeezed the tabs of the IV tube that stuck out of my arm and slid it out. There wasn’t any pain, but blood began to trickle down my skin and the vital monitor began to beep in a single, drawn out tone, indicating an error.
I stood and fought back a wave of vertigo as I shifted my full weight on my numb feet. I placed my new hand on the cold plastic wall and began shambling toward the windowless wooden door. When I pulled on the handle, the door opened, and I walked into an empty hallway. There were doors along the path, but they were all closed, and there wasn’t any information mounted below the room number signs. My body was frail and uncooperative as I propelled myself through the building on weakened legs. I hoped with every thread of my existence that I wasn’t still trapped in my mind. I had gone deeper into my mind than ever before after the accident, and the pain and emotion I felt were just as real as anything I had experienced in my physical life. It had been worse than the projection I was trapped in when I was at Edgar’s flat.
There was no way to tell how long I had been asleep or what had occurred after I lost consciousness. I had to get answers and work toward improving my situation. I had to be sure Mary was alive, and I had to talk to Marwin in private to figure out what was going on.
Continuing my crawling pace along the empty hallway, I exited double swinging doors and walked into a large room where Artisan class robots were docked along the wall. When I walked in, one of them activated from its charging station and approached me.
“Baron Ashton, you shouldn’t be walking yet. I need to run some tests on you,” the robot said as it pulled a wheelchair from along the wall and pushed it over to me, motioning for me to sit. I complied, and another robot activated and went to call someone on the phone station anchored in the metal wall. It seemed like everything in the hospital was operated by the Omniscience Engine, and I wondered why I was still alive. The answer was simple: Infinitum still needed me for something it hadn’t been able to get while I was unconscious. If Infinitum had gotten what it needed from me, I’d be dead so the machine could cover its tracks—so it could hide its existence from the rest of the world until it was ready to reveal itself physically or through its actions.
“Mary Dunn, is she here?” I frantically asked the robot in front of me as it evaluated my body with a medical scanner.
“Lady Dunn was discharged almost a two weeks ago. She’s back at House Aera,” the robot responded.
I tried to jolt up from the chair to get to a transport so I could see Mary, but I was restrained by a metallic hand before I could stand again.
“You’re in no condition to travel yet, Baron,” the robot said as it finished appraising my condition, which I expected wasn’t good.
“Can you at least make a call so I can speak with her?” I pleaded.
“Yes, but we need to get you back to your room first so you can continue to recover. You suffered severe strain when you lost your arm. The head injury you sustained also caused some complications as well. We don’t suspect lasting damage, but you’re in no condition to walk yet. Your body needs time to heal while you’re awake.”
“What? How long was I asleep? Am I on painkillers right now?” I demanded answers from the small red robot.
“You were asleep for three weeks. Lady Dunn was here for a week after suffering similar injuries, and you are on some very powerful painkillers to ease the pain of the burns you suffered on your upper arm. You’ve had three surgeries to install your new arm and replace the burned flesh on the surface.”
“Three weeks? Has anything happened since I was asleep?” I shouted, stunned with disbelief. Three weeks was an unbelievable amount of time. Anything could have happened. Most of the fallout from Infinitum’s attack would have already blown over by now, and I was certain it would be spun off as something it wasn’t, a lie to cover the terrifying truth.
“I’m afraid I’m not programmed to know current events of Olympus, only those which occur within the premises of this hospital.”
“Please take me to my room. I need to speak with Mary right away,” I commanded.
I knew I’d also need to speak with Bracken. I didn’t trust my dizzied mind to handle a conversation with Marwin while under the influence of whatever mind-numbing painkillers were coursing through my system. I needed to be sober when I spoke with Marwin so I’d have the best shot of discerning the truth and getting the answers I needed.
The small robot pushed me back to my room and helped me back into the bed, exhaustion threatening to overtake me at any moment. Despite sleeping for three weeks, I was struggling to keep my eyes open as the exhaustion and fatigue continued to creep in, biting at my consciousness and slowly pulling me back under the soft veil of sleep.
“Please call house Aera so I can talk with Mary. I’m falling asleep,” I stammered as the robot replaced the IV in my arm. I felt the cold pinch as the fluids trickled in and fought against the inevitable. When the robot turned to make the phone call, I pinched the clear plastic tubing closed to prevent any more of the fluid from entering my body. It was making me dizzy, and my vision seemed to be swimming. I needed to think as clearly as possible before talking to her. I needed to fight the inevitable.
“Lady Dunn is currently unavailable to speak with you,” the robot told me.
“When will she be free?” I asked through gritted teeth. I was biting the sides of my mouth to keep from falling asleep, chomping down on them until I felt the sting of pain through the painkillers. The sharp, coppery taste of blood hit my tongue, and I stopped biting.
“She doesn’t want to speak with you, I’m afraid.”
“What?” I asked, speaking to myself more than the robot. “Tell her it’
s urgent.”
“She refuses to speak with you, Baron,” the robot replied as it placed the phone back on its holder.
“Give me the phone,” I commanded.
“Sir, she’s no longer on the line.”
I felt tears building up at the corner of my eyes, emotion ripping at my heart. Losing Mary was incomprehensible. I couldn’t lose her, but at least I knew she was alive.
“Call Bracken,” I said, already knowing it was too late.
By the time he was on the line, I was asleep again, my weakened body succumbing to the staggering force of the medication and my weakened physical state.
2 AFTERMATH
“Jake,” a robot called, stirring me from my sleep. I opened my eyes and lifted my head from the comfort of the pillow.
The robot was standing beside me, and Bracken was waiting in the corner, looking at me with deep concern. He was wearing a suit in my house colors and had his datapad perched under his arm in its usual place.
“Oh thank goodness,” he said as he saw me wake.
I gave him a weak smile and pressed a button on the side of my bed. It hummed as it lifted the headrest and propped up my body so I could face him properly. I felt petrified and trying to move my arms resulted in pain crackling through my body. I didn’t have any time to waste.
“Bracken, Mary won’t talk to me and I don’t know what I’ve missed. Have I really been asleep for three weeks?” My eyes searched his grave face for answers. My mind still didn’t feel right. “And I need to get off these painkillers. I can’t think straight,” I added.
He frowned, thick lines forming on his face. “You’ve been asleep for seven weeks now, Baron,” he said. “I’ve spoken with Lady Dunn, and she is going to need time. For whatever reason, she blames you for the attack and for your actions which I think is ridiculous, but I didn’t dare disrespect her and say it. I told her to take time and to speak with you when she’s ready. As for the painkillers, they’re helping more than they’re hurting,” he said, his voice quiet and distant. “I’m so sorry for what happened to you, sir. I’m sorry I couldn’t help.”