The Reality Incursion

by Paul Anlee

  “There really is nothing else you can do at this point,” answered Greg. He turned to the Prime Minister. “I just wanted to come by to say goodbye, and to tell you that it was an honor to work with you.”

  He could see it finally sink in. PM Hudson’s shoulders fell for the briefest moment. She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and nodded. “Thank you. It has been a pleasure working with you, as well, Dr. Mahajani, and I’m very sorry for your loss.” She extended her hand.

  Greg shook her hand, and tried to smile in a reassuring way. “This will all be over quickly enough,” he said. “Go to your bunker. That way you won’t just slowly asphyxiate. In six days, once the planet’s atmosphere is gone, throw open the doors to the vacuum. Or you can just wait there for the Eater to come.”

  He placed his free hand tenderly over their clasped hands. “I’m really sorry,” he said, and then he was gone.

  53

  Greg materialized in a minor corridor of Pallas Service Tunnel 5. It was empty for the moment. Correction, it was empty of people.

  Half a dozen Cybrids were working on the finishing touches. Judging by the tidy rows of livestock pens and garden beds being prepared a few hundred yards away, the tunnel was designated for farming.

  The scientist staggered down a narrow road between fenced-in fields. The road ran straight as far as the eye could see. Looking right and left, he could just make out the sky-colored sidewalls of the tunnel a few kilometers away in either direction.

  Okay, so that puts me heading either north or south—he reasoned. Without knowing the direction of spin, he wasn’t sure which. They’d started rotating the asteroid years earlier, providing the habitats with a comfortable 0.8G of artificial gravity. It was a bit higher in the service tunnel, which was closer to the surface and experienced a greater centrifugal force.

  Greg’s steps fell heavier than 0.8G could account for.

  Alum stages a coup, colonists who aren’t members of the YTG Church are forcibly returned to Earth to their certain death, and the best I can do is save myself?

  He left the Cybrids to their work and searched for an elevator to take him to the colony level.

  “Pardon me, sir.” One of the Cybrids had noticed him. “You shouldn’t be here yet.” It registered his condition. “Are you alright? Do you need help?”

  Greg attempted to brush by. “Yes, thank you. I’m fine. I just got lost, and I stumbled and fell. I’m okay, though. Could you please direct me back to the nearest elevator shaft?”

  “Of course, sir,” replied the Cybrid. “You’ll want to catch up on the events on Earth, I would imagine. Things have gotten rather crazy there. Thank God, we’re safe.”

  “Yeah, thank God,” Greg said with no enthusiasm. “The elevator shaft?”

  “The nearest one is four-hundred, seventy-eight meters that way, on the east side,” the Cybrid answered. A metallic tentacle snaked out of its body and pointed back the way Greg had come.

  He thanked the Cybrid and started walking. The elevator entrance was easy to find. It took him “up” toward the colony tube nearer the center of the asteroid.

  Greg focused on the mundane details of navigating within the asteroid habitats. It took his mind off feeling lost, out of place. He’d never felt so detached and dislocated in his life.

  He had no idea what he was doing or how he’d survive. He was on the official list for Vesta so he probably should’ve gone there, but Alum’s coup had changed everything. His instincts screamed, “Hide!” He would try to stay incognito for as long as possible while he figured things out.

  The elevator released him into the colony tunnel. It was the first time he’d ever stood in the middle of any habitat city. The engineering was impressive. Stunning concrete-and-steel-and-glass towers stretched as far as he could see along both sides of the pristine, tree-lined streets. It was a work of art.

  It’ll be easier to hide in plain sight—he thought. He picked a busy boulevard and headed for the clusters of people gathered around public viewing stations scattered down the street and in the decorative plazas. There was a quiet group huddled in front of the nearest screen, and he joined it to see what the excitement was about.

  News stations were broadcasting live images of the Eater absorbing SFU’s Shrum Science Centre and starting to bite into the Academic Quadrangle. The monstrosity grew while they watched.

  The colonists following the events on the video screens shared their observations in nervous sidelong whispers, as if afraid to turn away for more than an instant.

  Greg’s disheveled appearance drew a few curious glances but he smiled and shrugged, and was politely ignored. He stared at the screen for a few minutes, watching the beginning of the end for civilization on Earth.

  Someone chewing a sandwich walked past him; he realized he hadn’t eaten in hours. He was about to ask for directions to a food dispensary when a commotion at one end of the street caught his eye. Curious, he wandered toward the source. He was half a block away when yelling and shoving broke out. Oh, great. Now what?

  A police squad in riot gear banged their batons against plexiglass shields. They were pushing people away from the broadcast screens and hustling them toward an open town square.

  When did Vesta’s Security forces acquire riot gear? That was never part of the plan.

  The police let some people through their cordon but not everyone. Only those few wearing a white bracelet–Greg noted. He’d seen the bracelets being handed out at the Diamond Cathedral but had no idea of their significance. Now it was obvious. Us and them. Divide and conquer—the oldest strategy in the book.

  This kind of thing wasn’t supposed to happen in the colonies. They’d designed Security to maintain the peace, not disrupt it.

  Another group of riot police herded people his way from a side street. He found himself caught up with the crowd. He moved toward the edge, but the riot shield of a frightened young officer pushed him firmly back into the fold. Greg struggled to stay on his feet and move with the flow.

  Threatened by batons, tear gas, and guns, he and the crowd had no choice but to shuffle and bump along wherever the police herded them.

  Guns? How did those get here? Project Vesta hadn’t authorized any guns. They’d specifically decided against it.

  By the time his group reached the town square, it had grown to over a hundred. The police merged them with other groups that had been similarly forced in from adjacent streets.

  Greg jostled his way through the crowd and over to a cluster of trees. He’d had enough; he was getting out of here until he better understood his situation.

  When he thought no one was watching, he shifted from the cover of the trees to an apartment ten stories up in an adjacent tower. He peered down at the people being manhandled in the square. At some signal he couldn’t see, police all around the square took four big steps back from the crowd they’d pushed into the middle.

  And with good reason. Right before his eyes, a few hundred people disappeared, and then another few hundred. One second they were there. The next second, they were gone. Shortly after, about the same number appeared in their places. The new arrivals were all wearing white bracelets.

  More replacement colonists from the YTG Church.

  Many of the newcomers carried small suitcases and walked with confidence, their backs straight and their heads held high. Some looked understandably confused, but they gave an overall sense of being calm and happy. Eager. They gazed upon their new world with joyous wonder.

  The police cordon dissolved, and he could just make out an announcement over a loudspeaker.

  “Children of Yeshua, welcome to Pallas!”

  He wasn’t surprised; it was logical the Church would have taken over all three of the asteroid colonies, not just Vesta. Alum always was thorough.

  The announcer spelled out organizational details to the crowd, how they would be registered with the local authorities, and be assigned housing and new jobs. They were given an overview of the
geography of the colony and introduced to their local representative.

  Could Alum’s people have subverted the entire organizational structure of the Vesta Project? Infiltrated the colonist selection process to favor adherents of the True Guard Church? Planted his own police force? It was hard to imagine.

  Greg clutched the windowsill to steady himself. How long had this been going on, and how could he and Kathy not have known anything about it? It must run deep. Just how far had Alum gone to achieve all this?

  He thought back to the mysterious deaths of several world leaders long before the Eater escaped. Had that been Alum all along, eliminating anyone who didn’t believe as he did just to secure his own political position?

  Had Alum disrupted their plan to save Earth so he could create a world—three worlds—occupied by his own followers? Surely, no one could be that evil. What kind of person would do that?

  He felt sick.

  Following the announcements, the crowd broke up and formed neat lines in front of some hastily erected tables bearing the first letter of their last names.

  The whole situation was surreal. The scene below looked more like a cruise ship welcome party than disaster refugees fleeing to an asteroid colony in outer space.

  How can you all be so calm?—he wondered. Earth and everyone you left behind is doomed, not just in some theoretical unknown future, but doomed to be obliterated from existence within a couple of weeks at most.

  He couldn’t believe they knew what was really happening. Are they complicit, or just sheeple blindly doing as their Church leader tells them?

  The lines advanced. When people reached the front, they presented a card to the bureaucrats behind the table. The light from the sun tube high above the plaza glinted off the embedded gold-colored chips in the cards. The clerks waved the cards over a tablet and consulted the screen. They tapped something in and printed out several sheets of paper.

  Most everyone smiled cheerfully, thanked the bureaucrat, and hurried off, consulting one of the printouts, trailing family members behind them. A map to their new homes?

  The notion of having to fake membership in Yeshua’s True Guard Church or any other just to be housed and fed was abhorrent to Greg. I can’t be part of this group; there has to be another way. Maybe it’s only here. Maybe Vesta or Ceres are still safe—he told himself.

  A cynical voice inside replied—Get real. The Vesta Project was a single entity. Yeshua’s True Guard Church was a single entity. The destruction of Earth, replacing officially selected colonists with Alum’s own people, and sending unwanted colonists back to a doomed planet was all part of a single diabolical plan. Alum’s plan.

  No, something this complex, this ruthless, would have to be intricately orchestrated and meticulously carried out. The entire Vesta Project must have been overrun; it had to have been.

  If he valued his life, he’d better stay undercover and not trust anyone—anyone—until he could learn more. Accept it. For the immediate future, Pallas is your new home.

  He was alone, couldn’t trust anyone here, and had nowhere to run. He felt like curling up in a fetal ball and letting the fates determine his fortune.

  He wanted, so bad, to cry, to grieve for his losses. For the loss of all humanity.

  No time for that.

  He reached into the emotional centers of his brain with the deepest, most remote section of his dendy lattice and turned off his humanity. A cleansing wave of rationality washed over him, freeing his thoughts from his sorrow. He allowed reason and a primal need to survive to rise to the surface.

  He was facing a problem. The problem had a solution. He would mourn the loss of Earth later, once he’d taken care of his basic needs. He had no anger, no need for revenge, no hatred of what had happened to his planet. There was only the problem, and the solution.

  Greg went into the washroom and cleaned himself up as best he could. When he looked presentable, he shifted back to the cluster of small trees in the square below.

  The crowd had mostly dispersed into the city, looking for their assigned quarters. The plaza was relatively clear. Greg fell into the rear of the nearest line, behind a man in his late sixties. Using his broadband lattice, he scanned the man’s identity card.

  The card was surprisingly sophisticated. In addition to name and address, it carried detailed financial and medical histories, and a complete résumé. Still, it shouldn’t be too hard to replicate, not for him.

  He needed one of those cards. He’d have to steal one from someone. Carefully. If I get caught, who knows what they’ll do—he warned himself

  Then again, if I do pull this off, what’ll happen to the guy in front of me? Maybe nothing—what are they going to do to a senior who loses his card? He can just verify his identity, and the authorities will get him a replacement card. Right?

  Or they could banish the guy to Earth right there and be done with him.

  In the absence of an empathetic emotional connection to the human being standing in front of him, it didn’t take Greg long to calculate the odds and decide what to do.

  If he’d had more practice casting shift fields, he could’ve transferred the card from the old man’s pocket into his own. Better not risk it. I’ll just have to procure it the old fashioned way.

  Greg pretended to stumble and bump into the man.

  “Hey! Watch it,” the man protested.

  Greg apologized, “I’m sorry; I’m such a klutz. Are you alright? Oh, man, it figures! I’m in the wrong line. Are you sure you’re okay?”

  The older man waved him away, and stepped ahead to close up the gap that had since formed in front of him.

  Greg picked a line across the square, one hidden from view by the cluster of trees, and headed for it.

  It hadn’t been hard to pilfer the card out of the man’s back pocket and slide it into his own. As he walked, he constructed a new identity and history for himself. The card’s security was resistant to forging and tampering, but fell quickly to his enhanced lattice. He imprinted his information into the card’s memory.

  Greg drew up to a desk just as it served its last client and presented his card to the clerk.

  “Name?” asked the bureaucrat.

  Greg glanced at the sheet indicating assistance for immigrants with ‘L-M’ surnames. Perfect.

  He would pay homage to his intellectual mentor, Darian Leigh, the man who’d given him the gift of the lattice and the Reality Assertion Field. It would have to be discreet, though. The name “Darian Leigh” was still too famous—rather, infamous—to be used.

  “Legsu,” he said. “My name is Darak Legsu.”

  The clerk looked up and made eye contact. “That’s an unusual name.”

  “It’s Romanian,” Greg lied.

  “Romanian?” The man turned that over in his mind and placed the card in the reader.

  Greg/Darak nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “Information Systems Engineer, I see. You have an impressive resume. Lots of good experience: entertainment, business, security, process control, management. I’m sure we’ll be able to find something for you. Someone has to keep an eye on all those robots.”

  The bureaucrat almost spat the last word. He entered some keystrokes and printed out several sheets of paper.

  Handing them to Greg, he pointed back to the apartment tower across the square. “We can give you a nice place right nearby. I hope you appreciate it; not many are so privileged. Your skills are listed as High Demand in the system; that’s why you’re getting such a good assignment. In the next few days, someone will contact you about your new job.”

  Greg accepted the papers and examined the map as he’d seen others do. “Okay, thank you very much.”

  “Don’t thank me,” the other replied. “All blessings come from the Lord, His Son Yeshua, and His prophet Alum. I’m simply a conduit.”

  “True,” replied Greg. “I guess I just got caught up in the day.”

  “It has been quite a day, I’ll give you that,” ackn
owledged the bureaucrat. “But it’s the glorious day we’ve all been preparing for. Praise the Lord.”

  Greg recognized the opening phrase of the standard True Guard salutation and responded with the appropriate countersign, “And Praise His only Son, Yeshua.”

  He bowed ever so slightly and turned away, clutching his new life to his chest.

  54

  Earth was filled with panic.

  The Eater sucked in the air and clouds over Vancouver, generating winds gusting to hundreds of kilometers per hour. The gray sphere was the center of the deepest low-pressure zone Earth had ever seen.

  It whittled away at Burnaby Mountain until the rocky prominence was level with the Lower Mainland. The sphere touched the surface of the Burrard Inlet. As it inhaled the water, new currents ravaged the Inlet.

  At first, politicians pretended the situation, although dire, was manageable, and worked hard to maintain the lie.

  The news industry worked just as hard to find the most sensational aspects of the situation, gorging on the unfolding crisis and panic. Ratings soared as local networks chronicled—and capitalized on—the riveting story, reporting every centimeter of girth the Eater accumulated and fanning the flames of hysteria.

  They broadcasted live from downtown Vancouver, incrementally tracking the rapidly disappearing top of Burnaby Mountain. They trained cameras on the water rushing into the inlet under Lions Gate Bridge. They visited the endless lines of traffic struggling to escape across the few bridges connecting the Vancouver peninsula to the rest of the mainland.

  Within days, the Eater absorbed all of Greater Vancouver along with the North Shore mountains. It reached the waters of English Bay and drew in ocean pouring through the Straits at either end of Vancouver Island.

  Once Vancouver was gone, the media realized the truth was even worse than they’d reported and muted their sensational tone. Politicians gave up their charade of control and voted to drop a hydrogen bomb on the Eater in a desperate attempt to upset its underlying physics.

  The Eater absorbed the massive explosion and the mushroom cloud that tried to form above it, much as it had absorbed everything else. Only then did humanity accept its doom.