EDEN²

by Matthew J. Drury

  With the temperature in the cockpit rising sharply, Paramo checked his heat monitors. He was running hot, and felt a sudden relief when four, five of his fellow Ares-class Mechs moved forward and opened up with their own missile launchers. The MAWLR issued a groan, and collapsed to its knees.

  Suddenly, laser bolts shot past him to his right. Looking back he realised an enemy Mech was shooting at him. Then an autocannon shell exploded against his Mech’s back, tossing him forward. He hadn’t strapped himself in, and the blow slammed him into the thick window of the faceplate. The impact made his right shoulder go numb. As he struggled to disentangle himself and get back into the seat, the Mech ran forward blindly. He repositioned himself and brought the Mech’s speed down by half, then turned sharply and he saw another autocannon shell fly past him. He accelerated again, rushing past the enemy, getting a shot out before the other man could fight back.

  Then, in the distance, emerging from the clouds, he saw them. Dozens of Nommos ships – huge, egg-like balls of what looked like dried bones coloured in muted shades of black, blue and bronze, taking up positions in the lower stratosphere. Before he could react, he saw them open fire, huge streams of purple-coloured particle beams blasting violently downward toward the helpless Malevolence.

  At last…

  There were cheers amid the Resistance fighters below, but their good spirits soon turned to hushed concern. And Paramo felt it too then – a sudden realisation of an awful truth. Somehow, the Malevolence was impervious to the Nommos’ weapons, and despite their fierce orbital bombardment, the flagship of the Silver City remained completely undamaged, its shields holding firm.

  But how? How was it even possible?

  Paramo glanced down and saw blood dripping from his wounds. More shots flew by him, red lasers and fiery tails of missiles. For the first time since the battle had begun, he felt helpless, gripped by a sense of indecision and doubt.

  Hope was lost.

  What chance of victory did they now have?

  29

  Lord Damarus sat on his throne, a shadowy hooded figure wearing a large, ragged black cloak. The Holy Emperor wore a metallic mask over his head, part humanoid, part otherworldly. The eerily expressionless face bore a vague resemblance to Tutankhamen’s famous death mask, but a single glimpse at this startlingly lifelike façade made the ancient Egyptian mask seem amateurish by comparison. This far more threatening, darker image made the greatest artefact of the Egyptians seem like a hopelessly ridiculous cartoon. Before him stood Cristian Stefánsson, his past self – pale face aglow with maniacal anticipation.

  Cristian swallowed dryly. The black eye sockets on Damarus’ mask stared at him for an unendurable moment until it turned away sharply. The terrified man heard something move up behind him, and when he turned around, he saw two Lorelei Chens – one of them older, somehow – marching toward them from the automated doorway behind the entrance deck.

  “Lora!” he blurted. “What the hell is going on here?”

  The younger Chen, looking slightly exasperated, opened her mouth to speak. “Long story.”

  Damarus leaned forward slightly, studying the two women. The moment he had been waiting for – for more than three centuries – had finally arrived. The eternal return, the paradox… the moment when the cycle would begin anew as soon as it came to a close. This was it. A minute passed before he languidly lifted a gloved hand and flicked a finger toward the older Chen.

  His Lora.

  “Lorelei Chen,” he said, “I have been waiting a long time to see you again, my love.” He had no idea where she had been, or how she had gotten here, which made this encounter all the more interesting.

  Chen’s mouth turned upward in a distasteful sneer. In her right hand she held a disruptor pistol, a small but powerful weapon that had served her well over the past few years. Without hesitating she raised it toward Damarus, her forefinger caressing the metal trigger. “And so we find ourselves in this situation – again,” she said. Truly, this was a surreal moment. “What a perfect circle these events have formed. Have you told our younger selves how you have sent out an army to crush the resistance movement?”

  Damarus found it strange how Lorelei Chen could have even known about that. The battle was going on as they spoke. “I didn’t think it was relevant,” he said.

  The younger Chen frowned. “Resistance movement? What are you talking about?”

  Chen turned to look at her younger, less experienced self. “Many of the world’s factions, as we speak, are sending a grand army, led by Queen Anacksu’namon and your friend Ammold Paramo, to overthrow Damarus as the sovereign ruler of this planet.” She gritted her teeth. “You know how much discontent there is among the peoples of this world, having this… thing… dictate and rule over them for so long.”

  “I thought that only a small handful of people…”

  “You’re lying to yourself, Lora,” Chen said. “You know that most of the population fears Damarus and his iron rule, you’re just too afraid to admit it. Too afraid of divine retribution, because you are so wrapped up in those religious beliefs that it has blinded you to the truth. Damarus is not divine. He is just a man, who became twisted with evil power and took advantage of our people when they were at their most vulnerable…”

  Damarus began to seethe with rage. He did not enjoy being threatened and belittled in his own throne room, even if it was Lorelei Chen herself. He had built this civilisation up from nothing, made it the interplanetary Alliance it was today, and ruled for hundreds of years. He was God now, the Holy Emperor…

  “Wait,” his younger self said, feeling uncomfortable. “Wait, this isn’t…”

  Slowly, Damarus got to his feet. His arms were spread wide. “Lora,” he said. “Do you honestly expect that disruptor weapon to kill me? Surely you know better than that.”

  “No,” she whispered huskily. “But I’m going to try, just the same.”

  Amused, Damarus turned to Cris, pointing his hand and gesturing toward the doorway. “This is where we part ways, Cristian,” he said. “I’ll take this from here. Take Lora, and get yourselves to my personal launch bay, a little further down the Grand Corridor. There you will find the Thunder, a prototype ship capable of hyperspace travel. It was originally commissioned for a ‘colonising mission’ to Tau Ceti, but this was just a false pretense to secure the necessary funding for its construction. It is in fact yours to take, Cristian. It is the only ship on Earth that can withstand the gravimetric forces within Heaven’s Gate without being destroyed. That is its true purpose. It was designed with your journey in mind. Take it, as I once did, and go through the wormhole. Your destiny awaits you on the other side.”

  The younger Chen looked concerned, glancing over at her older self. “What about you?” she said.

  Lorelei Chen swallowed dryly as a dizzying flash of memory overtook her. She remembered this day oh-so-well, remembered asking that very question herself. “I’ve been waiting twenty-one years for this moment,” she said. “This is between me… and him. Go. Do as he says. Just remember what I told you.”

  The two younger selves hesitated, blissfully unaware of the epic journey that would await them on the other side of Heaven’s Gate.

  “Go!” Damarus roared. “And don’t look back!”

  A moment later, they were gone. Now, Damarus and Chen were finally alone together.

  “I wonder,” Chen said slowly, her disruptor pistol still raised toward him. “Did your wife, Alexis, know that she married a man who was capable of mass genocide?”

  Damarus didn’t move, but something dark and ugly flickered through his soul.

  Chen pressed harder. “When you tucked Kimberley into bed… do you suppose she ever imagined that her father would one day kill millions as casually as he kissed her good night?”

  For a moment, Damarus seemed vulnerable, haunted by memories. Chen felt a stirring of hope. Then, in a brittle tone, he whispered, “Nice try, Lora. But to use an old American idiomatic expres
sion, you’re barking up the wrong tree. You should not have come back…”

  Chen squeezed the trigger on her weapon then, sending a snake of brilliant green light thrashing across the room, so bedazzling she was forced to momentarily avert her gaze. The energy beam struck Damarus on his mid-torso, vaporising part of his black cloak. The shifting, warped energy of his non-corporeal form below was exposed, and he laughed heartily. Astounded by what she had just seen, Chen tried firing again, but before she could discharge another disruptor blast, something – something unseen yet incredibly strong – tore the weapon from her hand and sent it flying into Damarus’ outstretched palm. Calmly, the shadowy figure placed the weapon down on the dais at the foot of his throne, hissing through his metallic mask.

  He looked at her. “Where have you been, Lora? Where did you go? You look much older than you were before, on that day you left me stranded on Deadworld…”

  “I never imagined you would escape from there,” she gasped. “I was sure that without the Thunder, you were trapped there forever. I can’t believe how stupid I was. How young…”

  “You underestimated me,” he told her. “I was able to use a piece of technology, a marvel of the ancient city on Deadworld, to leave that planet and go back through Heaven’s Gate. The same piece of alien technology, in fact, that now keeps this island afloat, and is able to transport the Silver City wherever I want it to go, anywhere in the world.”

  “I know that now.”

  “When I arrived through Heaven’s Gate, I found that I had travelled back through time, through hundreds of years, just as I predicted I would. I had arrived only a few decades after the impact of Asteroid 2007 VK184. It was post-apocalyptic. The world, as I had known it from my own time, had ceased to exist.”

  “So you took advantage of the poor people who had managed to survive,” she shook her head. “Just like you did with the Sirkharins, but on a far more ambitious scale.”

  “I was welcomed with open arms,” he said matter-of-factly. “They were looking for some kind of spiritual awakening after the disaster. They needed me. There were those who believed me to be a long awaited Messiah. I simply played into their mythology, their fantasy, bringing enlightenment to them in the process. I helped them, bringing our great civilisation back from the brink of extinction. And they loved me for it.”

  “You deceived them. Brainwashed them. You were nothing more than an Antichrist, perhaps.”

  Damarus chuckled. “Lora, I could stand here and argue with you about that claim all day long, but it won’t change the fact that people genuinely believed in me, and my power. There were those who thought just as you do, of course. The Bellum Sacrum Wars were fought over it, bloody and drawn out like the Crusades of old. But the establishment of my New Dominion soon saw the end of such ridiculous ideas. Lora, you were raised to believe in me. Why not just accept the truth?”

  “Because I know what you are now. You are just a man. Paramo was right about you. He was right about a lot of things…”

  A wave of anger passed through him. “We’ll see about that.”

  She grimaced. “So where does Orillan fit into all of this?”

  “The Makaton?” Damarus harrumphed. “As you well know, he arrived on this planet in the year 5 ND as a refugee from a long-dead civilisation. As the Holy Emperor, I welcomed him, and his kin, to our world, granted them asylum at Lahmia while it was still under construction and forged a close relationship with them - primarily an exchange of knowledge and culture. It was this exchange of knowledge that led to our first interstellar spaceflights, in fact, and the discovery of the Nommos people, but that is beside the point. Due to his importance it wasn’t long before Orillan was elected the Head Administrator of the Fifth Faction. I knew from my own past experience that Orillan himself was the key to restoring my own memories at Lahmia, far into the future, so of course I confided in him. I told him of my former identity as Cristian Stefánsson and my ‘first’ meeting with him, and regaled him of my travels back through time. I made him swear the Makaton Blood Oath, upon pain of death, that he would keep this knowledge a closely guarded secret throughout the centuries, until the day that Cristian Stefánsson came before him at Lahmia. Then, he would serve his purpose. Fulfill his destiny.”

  “You used him.”

  “In a manner of speaking, yes. Unfortunately for him, he neglected to mention the fact that he was telepathically linked with the other three surviving Makatons. They had the ability to share thoughts and experiences through a collective consciousness, akin to a hive mind. I only discovered this thanks to Sai’bot’s investigations. Since I could not risk the knowledge of my true identity falling into the wrong hands, I had the other three Makatons killed, and made it to look like an accident.”

  She shook her head, taking deep breaths.

  “But you haven’t answered my question, Lora. Where did you go when you abandoned me? Clearly, you didn’t just take the Thunder straight back to Earth. Somehow, I suspect you have been time travelling…”

  “Where have I been?” she snorted, exasperated. She was forty-eight years old; her facial features were more defined now, creased slightly by age, but the same fiendish distinctness burned in her eyes. “You would not believe what I have been through all these years. The journey I have been on and the things I have been forced to do just to get here. To this time.”

  “Three centuries have elapsed from my point of view,” Damarus said. “But you’re from the future, a future I have yet to see…”

  “Actually, I did take the Thunder straight back to Earth,” she smirked, old memories resurfacing. “I just haven’t arrived here yet, from your point of view.”

  “Interesting. So why are you here, now? Still trying to change history?”

  She gritted her teeth, and took a deep breath. “I had a good teacher… Listen, I know that you’re using your… powers… to make your military battleship, the Malevolence, immune to any kind of physical damage… impervious to even the most powerful Nommos weaponry. I know there is nothing that anybody can do to stop that ship, and the self-perpetuating army of destruction that it houses. Anybody except you, that is. I hate to say it, but you’re the only hope for the Resistance now. I’m here to demand that you stop the defence of Laputa immediately, before it is too late. Give up your throne, and allow the Resistance Movement to overthrow your iron-fisted regime, once and for all.”

  Damarus raised his masked head a degree, letting out a loud cackle that echoed around the throne room, savouring the nearness of his conquest. “Did Paramo put you up to this?”

  She tensed, but didn’t answer.

  “The so-called Resistance Movement was doomed from the very moment it started,” he blurted. “Why should I yield to them? I have ruled over this New Dominion for almost two hundred years. You mock me if you think that I should give any credence to Paramo’s disestablishmentarianist nonsense.”

  “Damarus… Cris,” she pleaded. “If you don’t abdicate your throne, the Resistance will fall, and my cause will be lost. I have dedicated my life to this cause, and I’m afraid that it will no longer be worth living if I fail; I have travelled through time and across entire universes because for twenty-one years I have believed that there is still hope of redemption in you. I believe that there is still a good man deep down behind that impossible façade, waiting to be found again.”

  Damarus gestured, and his expressionless mask began to retract, peeling back section by section until it was gone, revealing the chaotic, anomalous energy form beneath. “There is nothing left now of the dead man you refer to,” he said with a sinister chill. “I will crush the Resistance, and my rule will last for tens of thousands of years. The people will learn to love me again, just as they did before.”

  “Cris, I still love you,” Chen said, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Doesn’t that mean anything to you? Isn’t there still a chance for us?”

  “It’s too late, Lora,” was his simple reply.

  She nodded, her
face contorted and shoulders buckling with heavy emotion. In that moment, her worst fears had been realised.

  God, help me.

  It was a heartfelt prayer, a prayer of absolute desperation. But the only response was darkness, a deeper darkness yet… and she felt like she was spinning, endlessly falling, sucked down and down… Memories of the last twenty-one years flashed quickly before her eyes. Memories of Lenton, of a time before her soul had been ripped apart. Now, there was no choice. “So be it,” she mumbled. “I never thought it would really come to this, but you’ve left me with little real option.” She slid her left hand into a vertical slit on her combat suit, pulling out a small antique pistol.

  “Really?” Damarus said, amused.

  “Really,” she breathed. Nodded. “You unimaginable bastard. If you’re going to rule for tens of thousands of years, then you’re going to have to live with this.”

  Without another word she put the barrel of the gun directly into her own mouth and squeezed the trigger. The explosion was loud and amplified in the large throne room, lapping against the hard walls and splashing around in a fierce echo. The round lit her cheeks like a firecracker, chopped out some front teeth and blew the back of her head all over the floor and the empty row seats behind her. Blood sprayed. Lorelei Chen did a twisting jig and collapsed to the floor, dead instantly.

  “Lora!” Damarus roared, his black cloak sprayed with her blood. “No!”