Trinity's Legacy

by P A Vasey

  I was about to go but felt a tug on my sleeve. I turned and there was Colleen Stillman, wearing a square black hat, a charcoal suit and gloves. She gave me a forced smile. “Hi Kate, how’re you doing?”

  I frowned, and looked behind her at the dispersing crowds. I identified at least two FBI agents standing silently, hands at their sides, watching. I sighed and gave her a withering look. “Where’s Hubert?”

  She shook her head. “Busy. You know how things are. It’s only been a week.”

  “A week of lies and denials. Hubert won’t return my calls.”

  “Kate, you know that we can’t tell the real story. Not yet. The public just isn’t ready.”

  This angered me more than I thought it would. I folded my arms and stared down at her. “When will they be ready Colleen? I read the Post this morning. ‘Terrorist attack at SETI foiled by heroic local police’ and what was the other one, oh yes an ‘unexploded Cold War bomb detonated in Nevada’. Is that the best we can come up with?”

  Stillman looked away, watching the departing crowds. “Everyone agrees that this is for the best. Even the folks at SETI think that this could set back the search for extra-terrestrial life. Scare away donations, that kind of thing. Remember, the public have always been suspicious about ‘mad’ scientists being ‘out of control’, doing things without government approval, all that.”

  “It’s a whitewash, and a disgrace,” I said, my voice becoming strident. “People have a right to know what happened. Hundreds died because we fucked up our ‘first contact’ with an alien race. This is a turning point in humanity’s history and we’re just going to pretend it didn’t happen? What about taking this on the chin and looking outward for once? Thinking about a more grown-up posture for humanity in the future? Maybe trying to keep a lid on our basest instincts, maybe destroying all our fucking nuclear arsenals …”

  Stillman took a deep breath and took hold of my arm, walking me over to the side of the monument away from the guard and facing one of the cemetery fields. “It is what it is, Kate. The president’s approved this story. There’re no aliens. The portal, wormhole or whatever it is - or was - hasn’t opened since Adam went through over a week ago. He stopped them.”

  I stared out at the parallel lines of tombstones arrowing into the distance, broken up by trees and pathways. I’d heard that they were arranged like this to represent soldiers marching in a straight line. Some of the graves had flags by their sides; a few had small bouquets of fresh flowers. Just visible in the distance was the white-capped Potomac river and the Washington Monument.

  I shrugged out of Stillman’s grip and gave her an angry look. “I’m not going to keep quiet.”

  Stillman folded her arms and returned my stare. “No-one will listen to you Kate. It’s over.”

  I rubbed at my eyes, irritated and frustrated again. “What about Adam? Does his sacrifice get recognised at all? He saved you, he saved me, and in fact he saved everyone on this fucking planet. Doesn’t he deserve some recognition for that?”

  “He will, in time. Just not yet.”

  I shook my head, and gave an exasperated laugh. “And what happens to Amy?”

  Stillman finally couldn’t hold my stare and looked out over the fields of tombstones. “Amy’s in a secure psychiatric unit, and is getting the best help for her addictions. She’ll be told the truth about her father at some point, but not until she’s better. She’s too messed up at the moment.”

  “Can I see her?”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Kate.”

  “No, I guess not.”

  We were silent for a minute or two, and then Stillman reached out and touched my elbow. “Kate, we really don’t know what happened down there, do we?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  She looked away, watching the guard continue his vigil. There was a chill to the wind, and I wished I’d brought a scarf or something. “Adam said the Vu-Hak that came with him was dead, but he didn’t explain how that happened. That worries me. What if he was lying? I mean, Adam survived, that machine body survived, but the alien somehow conveniently is dead…?”

  I closed my eyes. I hadn’t sensed the presence of the Vu-Hak when we found Adam in the crater or just before he entered the portal. Previously it’d always been there, a persistent subliminal sensation. I looked at Stillman and saw a frightened woman, not unlike me, a woman trying to make sense out of the non-sensical.

  “I don’t think the alien was there,” I began. “I think either the nuke or Adam somehow killed it. But even if he didn’t kill it, he took it with him through the portal.”

  I looked away, feeling the tears pricking the surface of my eyes. I felt her arm on mine again, a reassuring touch, a gentle squeeze. I nodded a silent acknowledgment. “We’re safe,” she said, smiling up at me. “The portal is no more. The Vu-Hak haven’t come back. Humanity can develop in its own own time. Evolve. Everything’s changed behind the scenes. Even the president …”

  One of the agents approached soundlessly, like a ghost. Stillman glanced at him, nodded, and let go of my arm. “Kate, I need to head back. Lots to do.” She pulled a card out of her pocket, and handed it over. “My private number is on there, call me anytime. If I don’t hear from you in a week or so I’ll get in touch and we’ll meet up, yes?”

  I took the card without looking and put it in my bag. Stillman reached out and we shook hands. She turned to go, but then stopped. “I heard you’re going back to Chicago?”

  “Yes, I’ve reapplied for my old position in the ER.”

  “Well, anything we can do for you, foot in the door and all that, just let me know? Change of career … Special Agent. Think about it?” Stillman winked at me and disappeared into the crowd

  I put my hands in my pockets and shivered in the cold morning air. The guard continued to drill silently in front of the marble tomb, all rigidness and perfected movements. I pulled a handkerchief out of my handbag and wiped my eyes underneath my shades. No one noticed me, just another mourner at a funeral. The wind was picking up and I felt a tingling under my scalp and a little electric shock-type jolt down my neck. The hairs on my neck stood up despite my high collar, and I could see goose pimples on my wrists. I looked around and behind and through the wall of people, but nothing caught my eye. No one was looking at me; everything seemed normal. People were leaving, slowly shuffling down the walkway and slopes past the manicured lawns and rows of neatly trimmed bushes and trees. But the temperature was dropping abnormally fast, and I blew out a breath that frosted instantly in the air. My eyes blurred and I felt a pressure behind them as if someone was squeezing me at my temples.

  Someone was watching me.

  My reptilian brain was screaming ‘flight’ and adrenaline was being pumped around my body in preparation. But for what? I looked around me and behind me but there was nothing there. There was no sound at all; no wind noise, chatter, bird song. It was as if the atmosphere had been sucked off into space and my ears had been stuffed with cotton wool. Then I caught movement just at the edge of my vision, fast and surreal, out of place with the ebb and flow of the crowd. I saw a tall dark figure, with jet-black hair, wearing sunglasses and a dark suit. He looked straight at me and his mouth twitched in a half smile. He removed his sunglasses, to reveal perfect blue irises and deep black pupils. I could feel my facial muscles loosening, and my tongue moved in my mouth, oversized, like it didn’t belong there. I blinked, and tried to smile in return.

  EPILOGUE

  I picked up a rock, slate-grey and worn smooth by millions of years of tidal erosion, and with a flick of the wrist sent it spinning into the sea just as the waves started to recede. Bouncing and skipping, each impact seemed to add energy and sending it higher until it struck a wave and disappeared. I counted twelve individual skips and abstractly wondered what the world record number of bounces for skimming stones was. Immediately, the answer came. Fifty-two. Impossible, I thought. But then I thought about it some more. The stone genera
tes lift in the same manner as a flying disc, by pushing water down as it moves across the water at an angle. The stone's rotation acts to stabilize it against the torque of lift being applied to the back. An angle of about 20° between the stone and the water's surface is optimal. If horizontal speed can be maintained, skipping can continue indefinitely.

  I rummaged around the rocks at my feet, selecting and discarding a dozen or so until I found the one I wanted. Placing it in my hand, I assessed its weight at 257grams and ran my fingers across its surface, noting the smoothness and the absence of significant pockmarks. I wedged it firmly between my finger and thumb, bracing its underside with my other fingers and after taking a quick look at the surface of the water, cast the stone horizontally with a whip-like action. This time I had aimed down the beach, catching the smooth water of the tide as it lapped up on the flat sand. The stone accelerated out of sight, skipping and bouncing with little regard for the laws of physics. I counted sixty-five bounces.

  “Gee, how’d you do that?” came a voice.

  I turned to find a small boy descending the wooden stairs built into the cliff at the edge of the beach. He was wearing board-shorts, scuffed Converse trainers and a dirty white t-shirt. His hair was bleached blonde and flapping around his ears as the onshore breeze played with it. A scrappy little cattle dog, red-brown with pelt like a worn carpet, had also scuttled down the stairs and was now sniffing around my legs and wagging his small tail. I bent down and ruffled the fur between his ears, and he sat back on the sand and seemed to smile up at me. I glanced back at the boy, who looked eight or nine years old, and was now standing at the foot of the stairs nervously watching.

  “It’s all in the wrists,” I said, and tried a smile.

  The boy nodded slowly, but did not approach.

  “Where are your parents?” I asked.

  He indicated back up the stairs with a flick of his head. “Not far. They’ll be along soon.”

  I looked up the cliff, tracked the winding wooden staircase as far as it would go before it disappeared a few hundred yards into the scrubland of the Park. I caught a glimpse of another, less well maintained section higher up the slope as it meandered its way around the cliff. Beyond, just above the tree line, the sky was a blood red orange with wispy smoke plumes oozing into the atmosphere, diffusing and mingling as they rose. Eastward, back along the beach, the rainforest canopy was broken up by the skeletal remains of holiday apartments, previously millionaire’s weekend retreats with ocean views to die for. Now they were deserted and broken, their burnt-out rafters and beams obscenely silhouetted charcoal against the darkening sky.

  I closed my eyes, immersing myself in the roar of crashing waves and the hissing of the water being pulled back over finely ground sand and gravel. I registered a mixture of odors; the charcoal of burning timber, putrid and decaying animal carcasses, sharp petroleum fuel, all clinging to the onshore breeze.

  “Are you one of them?” the boy asked, his blue eyes as wide as dinner-plates.

  I regarded him silently, considering how to reply.

  “My dad said you’d all left.”

  His dog pulled loose and galloped excitedly into the surf as a wave rolled in. The wave crashed over him, causing him to yelp in canine bliss, and shake furiously in that corkscrew motion patented by all furry animals. He splashed out of the waves and approached me again. I dropped to my haunches, and he licked my hand with a raspy, sandpapery tongue.

  I marveled at how real it felt.

  Turning my hand over, I regarded my long fingers, the homogenous skin pigmentation, and the absence of any defects. I made a fist and the neural feedback felt totally normal, muscles and tendons flexing and skin tightening in synchronicity. I could see moisture from the dog’s tongue evaporate from my fingertips, my afferent neurological pathway signaling a sensation of cooling as expected. I wondered why I had no fingerprints. I shook my head, sighed, and rose to my feet.

  The boy took a step back, and I realized how strange I must appear to him. I was dressed in a white one-piece garment that covered me from shoulders to mid thigh without any seams, creases or pockets. I was barefoot. My hair was cut just above my ears, and despite the breeze, remained perfectly in place. A single horizontal strip of shadow crossed my nose like an Apache Indian and obscured my phosphorescent green eyes. My skin was almost as white as my clothing and hair.

  I sat down on the rocks and let the tide lazily lap around my toes. Out over the Coral Sea, the sky was showing signs of the coming evening, but was still a glorious cloudless powder blue, and the water below the ocean’s white-capped waves was picture-postcard azure. The crescent moon was just visible, craters, mountains and plains appearing in ivory bas-relief.

  I looked sideways at the boy, and tapped the rock next to me. “Come, sit with me?”

  His dog had flounced back into the waves, and had started a game of chase with a stick he had found floating in off the tide. The boy looked up and shook his head, staring at his dog, wondering whether to call him in.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “What’s your name?”

  He looked back up the staircase, and then shrugged. “David.”

  “Hello David. Nice to meet you.”

  I tried another smile, and it helped that the dog was caught up in another wave and rolled over and over like a log caught in a rapids, yelping and barking in delight. The boy sidled over and slowly sat down next to me. Up close his skin was pale and patchy, with broken veins over his temple. He looked thin and unhealthy, and his bare arms were covered with scratches and bruises. His knees were a mottled purple, faded like a patchwork quilt.

  I reached over and put an arm around his shoulders, and in silence, we watched the dog playing in the surf. He had found a jellyfish, all pale and translucent with long stringy blue tendrils, and was starting to eat it. Abruptly, the boy leaned forward, clutched his stomach and vomited into the pool of seawater at his feet. I held him until he had stopped retching, and washed his mouth and face with seawater from another puddle. I could feel his ribs moving under his shirt and the tremor of his muscles as he tried to control the nausea.

  I closed my eyes and allowed his emotions and thoughts to flow into mine. I sensed his fatigue, his loneliness and his terror. He was finding some comfort in my presence, despite the fact that he knew what I was. I coaxed his liver cells to manufacture anti-anxiolytic proteins, which I then released into his blood stream and through the blood-brain barrier. I could sense them washing through his cerebral cortex, taking away the fear and anxiety. He looked up at me, eyes filled with tears.

  “Thank-you,” he said.

  Then he glanced over my shoulder, and his eyes widened once more. He pointed a shaky finger towards the sky but I took hold of his hand and lowered it to his lap. I sensed a subliminal rumbling, like the passage of an underground subway train, and concentric ripples appeared in the surrounding rock pools. Sand started to trickle down from cracks higher up the cliff, and the tremors began to loosen the compact sand at my feet. Following his gaze, I saw a bright moon-sized blot in the sky, enlarging fast. The grumbling noise became more visceral and the waves stopped their progress and now just sloshed around my feet like oil being swirled in a frying pan.

  The boy put his fingers in his ears, closed his eyes and started to scream. I elevated the level of anxiolytic chemicals coursing through his body, and immediately his eyes closed, consciousness fading. I caught him as he slid off the rock and lowered him gently to the wet sand.

  His dog had stopped playing, and was looking out to sea, barking steadily and in puzzlement. I stood and watched, as the shimmering sphere became an enlarging obsidian whirlpool bereft of lights or color. As it grew, the ocean hollowed out in a concave arc, the seabed underneath becoming exposed to air for the first time in many eons. The atmosphere pulsed and surged as waves of unidentified energy charged the air with static.

  A human figure appeared, and slowly glided down towards me. He touched down softly on the sand, ripples
and tremors appearing under his feet. Like me, he was dressed in white, but with black hair, sharp, angular features and an aquiline nose. He looked around at the beach, then up the cliff-face at the staircase, then at the boy, sleeping peacefully by the rock. He lifted his head, as if sniffing the air, and closed his eyes.

  “It’s time to leave,” he said. “We can’t delay any longer. Finding you took too long.”

  I shook my head. “I just need to make sure he’ll be alright.”

  His eyes blinked lazily, green phosphorescence flashing. “There’s nothing you can do for them. You must know that.”

  I ignored him, and bent over the boy who was making quiet breathing noises. I put a hand on his chest, receiving physiological feedback from his cardiovascular and neural systems. I turned him slightly, pulling his top leg over the other one and laying him in the recovery position. I felt irritation being directed at me, and I looked up at the figure watching.

  “I won’t let him suffer,” I said.

  The man walked over, knelt down next to me, and placed a hand on the sleeping boy’s forehead. He gave an unexpectedly gentle caress of his brow, brushing a lock of hair away.

  “He is suffering. It’ll be better if he dies in his sleep.”

  The man stood up and put his hand out, palm up. I sighed, knowing it would come to this. I was now putting us all at risk, jeopardizing our future, whatever that was.

  “We should go.”

  The dog ambled over and licked his hand, tail wagging. He pulled it back, as if scalded. His mouth turned downwards and he blinked once. The dog shivered and its legs gave way. It slumped to the ground, unmoving.

  I heard a noise, and saw that the boy was stirring, twisting his neck and making soft groaning sounds. The man blinked once again, and the boy’s head drooped forward until his mouth and nose disappeared into the pool of seawater and vomit.

  I closed my eyes and waited for the tears to come. When they didn’t, I looked up at the swirling anomaly, floating above the sea.