by J. D. Tew
‘Thanks,’ I said, pretending to be grateful. Eppa was now really terrifying me.
‘Alright. Enough. You’re boring me. Enlighten me, please. You can ask me one more question.’
‘I want to ask it correctly, so just give me a moment.’
‘I knew you would say that. In fact, just a few minutes ago, I studied your entire life, there wasn’t much there, but I studied it. Take your time, as you take up mine.’
I put my hands on my knees and breathed deeply, concentrating on what I would ask. I was sweating from the heat of the room and the stress of my impending question. After all, walking around the inside of a computer isn’t the most cool environment. Even on an ice giant.
I heard a shimmy of feet or something above. I looked, and there was nothing there, but what seemed to be a shadow on the side of the wall of the octagonal chamber, fifty-feet above me.
What if I ask the wrong thing? I thought. Just go for it.
‘Okay. I’m ready.’
‘Go for it then,’ she said.
Is Eppa in my head? I thought.
‘I don’t know, am I?’ she asked.
‘Okay, now this is creepy.’ I inhale deeply. ‘I worded it wrong before. I meant to ask, why are you?’
‘Why? Now that is a very unique, delicate, and complicated question. In all my years extant on this planet, no one has ever asked me that question. Are you sure you want to know the answer?’
‘Yes.’
‘The room you are in, is a hologram chamber. Designed many decades ago, by the Omnians. I utilize the holograms to answer questions, with flashbacks from the past. That is how I operate. What you see will inexorably be your answer. I do not guarantee you will find satisfaction, nor do I guarantee that you won’t find horror. Do you understand?’
‘Yes.’
‘Please do not disturb me as I work.’
I sat silently for about seven minutes, while her projection orbs lowered from the ceiling and warmed up, like flood lights. As I sat alone, I was worried about Lincoln, who was still missing. The orbs hummed and gyro fans cooled the bulbs that were charging.
The experience to follow would be the most enlightening moment of my life. As the room pixelated and images appeared, the instant saturation of light lanced my eyes. There were two illusory beings near the center of the room waving their hands angrily and fighting fiercely. As their images materialized, I thought I recognized them.
Yes… they were Zane and Odion! Or rather, their much younger versions.
I felt as if I was there. Zane and Odion were frozen in an acrimonious fight, which with hideous snarls on their faces and their arms upraised as if to trade blows. Zane’s hair was thin and white, long and braided like a pretzel behind his head. He was wearing a lab coat, and a rolesk lay on the table next to him.
Odion, in contrast, was crowned with jet-black hair, wearing a military themed uniform decorated with many impressive-looking medals which dangled from his breast pocket.
Their faces bore a pale shade of green, and the pupils of their eyes flashed laser pointer red in their reciprocated anger.
‘I will pause it, as you seem distressed, Theodore.’
‘It’s just that I’ve never seen them face to face before!’ I said. ‘I’ve always met one or the other, but not both at the same time.’
‘You don’t remember what Princess Tezmarine told you aboard the Uriel? She told you a tale of a time when Zane and Odion worked together as brothers for a common goal. They themselves were created in a lab, by the Dacturon elite. Mind if I continue?’
‘I guess so.’
‘Enjoy, Theodore. I know I will.’ Eppa unfroze the memory sequence.
‘You cannot have her!’ Odion shouted.
‘It’s not for you to choose,’ Zane said.
‘I love my wife!’
‘Correction. Odion, you loved her, and after dying, she is now in Sephera. There is nothing you can do about an extraction after it has occurred.’
Odion was pulling locks of his hair, and then paced with his hand firm against his holster and he shouted, ‘My wife’s body is buried! And her soul has been stolen and given to her cursed replica on that forsaken planet of yours.’
‘The only thing forsaken has been your soul! Passing insane laws! Lobbying against your own brother!’ Zane shouted.
‘You have no right to take people’s lives and feed them to your robots on Sephera. My wife died naturally. She deserves to have her place in the stars, undisturbed by your technology.’
‘You undermine your potential with this stupidity! I created Eppa to find those people who live a righteous life. Eppa chose your wife based on this algorithm. You should be proud that she passed the test, and that she is now carrying on as a Sepheran. If you want her, you can have her! I can have your wife’s replication sent to you immediately.’
‘I don’t want the Sepheran version of my wife, Zane! Take up your sword, you thief.’ Odion pulled out his sword, a gleaming double edged blade, fortified with a lethal electric current.
‘You are blind! You can’t see that this is an advancement in technology that benefits everyone. People are demanding this!’
‘Only those who are vain! They don’t know the extent of your experiment? Do they? We all know you’re building an army on Sephera with the memories of the dead!’ Shouting violently, Odion toppled a rack full of beakers and vials, scattering the resulting glass shards across the floor.
‘I have decided. You are too dangerous to let live. Either join in my mission, or you will die at my hands.’ Commanding the rolesk next to him, Zane quickly hoisted it over his head.
‘What is that?’ Odion asked, squinting.
‘It’s my new secret weapon. I have given it the name rolesk.’
‘It is useless for fighting,’ Odion declared too soon.
‘Oh? Do you really know how it works?’
Odion had his answer ready. Letting off a roar, he slashed aggressively toward Zane. Zane concentrated his mind power into the rolesk, and Odion gasped as he saw a whirl of dust-like particles unfurl from the rolesk and head toward him like a swarm of gnats. The Dietons slammed into Odion’s body, and knocked him down to the floor. As Odion grunted in pain, the Dietons weighed down on him, nearly suffocating him with unbearable pressure.
Triumphant, Zane delivered the final words: ‘Now we know who is the better brother! Die, Odion!’ In the next second, he shrieked with pain and clutched away at his temples. Stomping his feet as he rampaged in a haphazard scuttle, he bellowed at Odion, ‘Get out of my head, you bastard!’
Odion held up his arms, laughing. ‘I don’t need a sword to defeat you, Zane. Your mind is weak, and I am getting stronger every day.’
Zane suddenly fell to his knees, groaning in agony. As he gagged, the rolesk fell off his head.
His power over Zane’s mind was too strong. Zane stood up; he seemed controlled like a marionette, walking awkwardly toward Odion. Cackling, Odion held his sword outward and forced Zane to walk into it. At that moment, I nearly turned away; I was repulsed by what was to come next.
As his eyes bugged out with horror, Zane impaled himself with the sword, and blood spurted out of his abdominal wound. Savagely, Odion struck Zane into the face and he crumpled to the ground, dead. Apparently not yet satisfied, Odion withdrew his sword and plunged it once more, into Zane’s chest.
‘This is for my wife.’ Odion hissed. He extracted his sword, then looked about for an escape. He ran over to a corner of the room and started pressing buttons on a cell displacer. Immediately, along with his sword, he teleported out of the room without a moment to spare.
I was stunned. Zane was dead! Or at least this is what Eppa wanted me to believe. Zane dead—a lie; it had to be. We had seen him aboard the Uriel, with our own eyes.
‘I hope you are all right, Theodore. Your heart rate has increased significantly.’
‘Zane’s not dead!’ I shouted, but Eppa wasn’t responding. The next memory unfolde
d; this time with the background of an office aboard the Uriel. Zane and King Trazuline were talking, with a miraculously alive Zane being projected on a hologram upon Trazuline’s desk. I knew the hologram was depicting a time when Trazuline and Zane were firm allies—long before my involvement changed everything.
Eppa’s hologram showcasing a hologram... cool, I thought.
Zane, looking as feisty as ever despite that sword ramming through him eons earlier, said, ‘My sources in the Council have located two boys that could defeat Odion. I have determined that the Earthen boy Lincoln is the messiah that will change everything.’
Did he just say, Lincoln?
‘I know that is what they foretold sire, but they are not always correct. Theodore’s will is stronger than some of my best soldiers,’ King Trazuline said.
‘Lincoln is far more advanced than Theodore. His intellect is off the charts for a human boy his age. His father is an oral pathologist and prosthodontist. It’s basic science.’ Zane turned around and faced the King of Karshiz. ‘Traz—this type of aptitude is hereditary. You know this. Lincoln will become much stronger than Theodore, I assure you.’
‘Your words are noted and respected, sire. How should we go about the mission?’
‘We will allow the boy Theodore to believe he is the one, to protect the identity of the true savior. Our messiahs have been assassinated before and we will not allow for it this time.’
‘I will meet with the other commanders, and we will devise a plan, sire.’
The images faded again, I had my hands plastered to my face, my mouth wide open, and my heart pounded viciously.
The next hologram came as a surprise to me. The pixels formed and meshed, flowing into the final epic illustration. The octagonal room was silent. Then my grandfather, Marvin, appeared before me as a digital apparition.
‘My adventurer. I see you still doubt. The easiest way to believe is to observe, Theodore. You only know your hate for liver, because you’ve tried it.’
‘Grandpa!’
‘Hold on there, buddy. Theodore, remember when I told you heroics are reserved for certain people?’
‘Yes, Grandpa.’
‘It’s you, Theodore. You’re one of those people.’ He started to fade.
‘Wait!’ I paused, dropping to my knees, but he was gone. ‘I love you,’ I said, muttering.
‘I love you too my boy.’
‘That’s it! You call that an answer?’ I shouted, angered by the inflow of complex lies or truths. No way to tell what was real.
In her own voice, Eppa said, ‘Now that I am complete, you can destroy me, Theodore. I know you are here to do this, and I choose not to stop you. But before you take that step, know that I am not the only one.’
The red glow of the orb in the center transitioned to transparent. The door behind me inched open, as I stepped backwards. ‘What do you mean?
But Eppa was totally silent. No omnipresent voice, no smart-alecky response, no devious illusions. It was as if she were silencing herself and surrendering unconditionally. I walked toward the pedestal in the center of the room, pulling the nickel-sized homing device from my pocket. I placed it under a ledge and out of sight; hundreds of wispy and tiny steel tentacles exited from its circular perimeter to attach, penetrate, and latch upon Eppa’s central hub.
‘Done,’ I affirmed to myself.
I turned to walk toward the door, and when I exited, I was surprised to find out that I was at the beginning; near the entrance of Eppa, but still within the cavernous front lobby. The massively thick hydraulic door was the only thing blocking the final phase of my exit out of Eppa.
‘Hey!’ Lincoln said, as he placed his hand on my shoulder. He startled me, sending a temporary spasm through my neck muscles. ‘Sorry about that.’ Lincoln said. ‘Man, did I get lost or what?’
‘You mean when we were taking the weird-looking staircases up?’
‘Yup. You opened the door, I opened the other. But all I did was end up back here. I’ve been waiting for you since then.’
‘So, you missed out on all the holograms?’
‘Uh... what?’
‘Nothing... okay, how do we get out of here now?’
Lincoln said, ‘It’s all right, I watched Rozzy enter the access code. I can type it in. It should be the same code to get out.’
‘Nice.’ I shook Lincoln’s shoulder and messed his hair jokingly, while he entered the code. He glanced at me as if I just accidentally hit the reset button on one of his gaming consoles back home, and then smirked.
‘There. Now we can leave. Did you find what you were looking for in there, Theodore?’
‘Boy, did I ever!’
‘C’mon,’ Lincoln said.
‘Wait1” I said, remembering something important. ‘You need to change back into the Sanjay disguise!’
Lincoln rolled his eyes, more mocking himself than me. ‘Of course. Just a moment, Theodore.’ Once more executing the flawless flow of Dietons, Lincoln stood before me once again in the image of Sanjay, the cleric.
We started to leave the temple. On the way out, I mulled over what I had seen in the beguiling temple. Lincoln was the actual Urilian messiah, Zane and Odion’s relationship was rife with betrayal, and Zane’s alleged murder was either a set-up, or there was an impostor who had taken Zane’s place for years, fooling everybody. But how could Zane cheat death, assuming that it was still him aboard the Uriel? Lincoln was shaking my shoulder to jolt me back to reality and asking me if I was alright.
I made my decision about Eppa and Sephera, right then and there. Eppa was wrong. She had no right taking people into a new afterlife. Even if millions of people clamored for immortality, it was a violation to the rights of everyone for this device to exist and perform these extractions or to meddle in the affairs of people’s lives. Regardless, Sephera existed, rightly or wrongly, and to extinguish the lives of this species would be to commit two wrongs twice. Eppa could be destroyed, but Sephera was a planet with Sepherans like Lincoln, who deserved a life without Zane’s control.
Besides, it seemed that Eppa was ready to rest her soul, to leave its morality to the messiah from Earth, Theodore Crane. She no longer cared about what fate befell her. It was up to me. She knew me since the second I was born, and it was my turn to decide her future.
I knew what had to be done, and it involved my crew and I entering Zane’s ship, the Uriel.
Behind me Eppa stood, a collection of the most private stolen memories of every being in the galaxies. I didn’t dare think it, because I didn’t want her to know what was coming, so I acted quickly. I wanted to extract my crew from Diode before the virus infected her processing network.
‘Lincoln, get back to the ship.’
‘What’s wrong, Theodore?’
‘Nothing, just go.’
Lincoln rushed over to Freebird. While communicating over a private channel with my Emergency Device, I said, ‘ED, what is your status? Are you on Freebird?’
‘Theodore, the ship is ready.’
‘Great! Tell everyone to get into their dorms!’
I could hear ED on the main channel, he said, ‘All personnel to your dorms immediately!’ Then ED returned to our private channel. ‘Theodore, Lincoln just arrived, and now the crew is safe. What is this all about?’
‘Close off the access of my crew to the cockpit! Lock all of the ship’s quarters. I will be there in a moment to explain. I do not want to risk losing anyone here.’
Rozzy started walking toward me, concerned. ‘Leaving so soon?’
‘Sanjay told me to deliver his sincerest apologies. We must go. He said there is another blessing that has to be made a thousand kiloparsecs from here.’
‘It was a pleasure meeting you and your crew, Theodore. Thank you for bringing Sanjay to us. We will be awaiting his assessment of Eppa and we look forward to future meetings with him to resolve her issues.’
‘It was nice to meet you, as well. I’d clear out of here. We’re in a hurry
to get to this next site. Doviont.’
The gigantic door continued to slowly close off the entry to Eppa. It was about five feet from making contact with the ground, close to shutting me out forever.
I approached Freebird, and it was shining proudly from a good maintenance and cleaning. ED was inside the cockpit, looking down at my position. I reached the edge of the drop hatch and turned to have one final look at Eppa, a sacred temple in which every moment, every essence of the galaxy was stored.
‘Freebird, close hatch!’ The hatch door rose, as I walked up it.
Theodore, are you okay? Mariah asked over my nanocom. What are you doing?
We are moving on to our next objective.
And what might our objective be this time, Theodore?
Tezmarine’s rescue, I thought.
It’s about time.
‘ED take us up.’ We flew up, and the crews cleared the landing pad, rushing out of sight to containment areas.
The large security hatches above opened, giving us a clear path to the next step. Tezmarine’s rescue and Zane’s defeat.
‘ED, monitor my actions. I want to do it myself. Just make sure I don’t screw it up.’
‘Yes, sire. Target acquired,’ ED responded.
‘Activate the missile cloaking system and momentary scramble sequence six.’
‘Scramble and cloak digitizing.’
‘Deploy missile on three. One, two, three!’
We waited momentarily as the torpedo containing the virus bot detached from our vessel’s inboard compartments. This completely cloaked and undetectable self-propelled missile dove into the ever-closing space between the giant vault doors, as we rose up into the whirls of snow at ground level.
I pulled the portable missile command viewfinder in front of my face to guide the missile in, as we were too far from the missile to ensure its delivery. ‘Impact and attachment in three, two, one. Bot linked.’
ED looked to me for a moment, giving me one last opportunity to change my mind. ‘She must be destroyed, ED,’ I said, as if I was convincing myself. ‘Activate circuit intercept.’
‘Circuit intercept valid and a secure connection achieved.’