The Empathy Gene: A Sci-Fi Thriller

by Boyd Brent

  “David?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have just picked up three heat signatures. They are vessels. And they are close.”

  “How close?”

  “Run, David.” David moved swiftly out into the corridor and turned to his left. “Use the emergency stairs to your right,” said Gull.

  David ran through the door and froze. “Up or down?”

  “Up.” David took the stairs three at a time, and at the next landing Gull told him to go through the door and turn right. Several of his colleagues looked up from their workstations and observed him like something returned from the dead. “Keep moving, David.”

  “Where are the vessels?”

  “Close enough to be aware of my location. As I am aware of theirs.” David sprinted through the observation deck. On the other side of the deck was a fifty-metre-high window of reinforced glass that looked out upon a planet engulfed in ash.

  “The immediate problem has arisen from my communications system,” said Gull. “It becomes active when I'm within a three hundred metre radius of another vessel. They are using it to track us. Cross to the other side of the Observation Deck. A staircase is coming up on our left.”

  David veered towards the wall of reinforced glass. “I know the stairs you mean…”

  “They will take us down to canteen area. There is an exit to the outside located nearby.” David glanced behind for signs of his pursuers, but saw only wide-eyed former colleagues. He sprinted towards the stairs. “I know my way around here, Gull. How do you?”

  “I have accessed the original blueprints to the Turbine Complex.”

  “Are we going to make it?”

  “Whatever happens, I strongly advise you not to draw your weapon.”

  “Whose side are you on?”

  “You would be viewed as a threat. And they will terminate you.”

  David took the stairs down two at a time. “Then what am I supposed to do?”

  “If cornered, your only option is surrender.”

  “Surrender?”

  “Yes. In the hope they have not been given orders to terminate on sight. Where there is life there is hope, David.”

  “You're not exactly filling me with confidence.”

  “As a result of seepage from my programme, and if luck is on your side, you stand an outside chance of overcoming a single vessel. Against more than one you stand no chance whatsoever.”

  “You believe in luck?”

  “Let me be more specific: the cause-and-effect outcome of an encounter with more than one vessel will result in your death.”

  At the bottom of the stairs, a narrow corridor led into the canteen. A dozen anxious-looking faces looked up from a kidney-shaped table. One among them stood up and called David's name. It was Richard, and David moved swiftly towards him. “They are thirty seconds behind us. This is not the time for a catch up with old friends,” said Gull.

  “You're a vessel?” said Richard, his eyes widening.

  David nodded. “No time to explain. There are others after me. I'm going outside.”

  “To die? Why?”

  “Fifteen seconds, David,” said Gull.

  “I have to go.” As David backed away, Richard murmured, “Outside?” David nodded and turned and sprinted for the door, on the other side of which was a stairwell. David hurried down one flight of stairs and then another. When his feet slammed onto the concrete at the bottom, he heard the door he'd just come through open and close. Footsteps pounded down the stairs. David opened another door that led into a warehouse/workshop facility. The brightly lit space was a hundred metres long. Crates were stacked along the walls, and between them were a dozen work benches and tools. The exit was a blue door at the farthest end. Gull said, “I have more good news. I'm able to provide you with short bursts of adrenalin.” David shook his head, but smiled despite himself. He went into a sprint and, with the adrenalin boost provided by Gull, traversed the one hundred metres in seven seconds like a madman on fire. He opened the door and looked over his shoulder. The door at the other end of the warehouse burst open, and in walked a vessel kitted out in full body armour. The whites of his eyes were unblinking as he powered towards him. The testosterone in David's veins made him want to charge down his attacker. Gull sensed this and cut the supply dead. David drew breath as though he'd been sucker-punched. He shook his head and stumbled through the door and up a short flight of stairs. At the top of which he found a waste disposal hatch. David pulled down the lever. The drum spun to reveal a capsule half-filled with waste. David slammed the lever back up and the drum began to close. He tumbled in head first. “The vessel is upon us,” said Gull. It grabbed David's ankle and reached for the lever. David twisted onto his back, drew his sword, leaned up and cut the vessel’s hand off above the wrist. The disposal unit slammed shut. The steel drum rotated and David was tossed around inside with the other waste. Then he felt himself falling through the air…

  Nine

  “David. I know you're close to consciousness. You must surface now.” David was lying on his front, his right cheek pressed against the ground. The winds had blown away all but the weightiest of garbage. He opened his eyes and looked into the bloodshot eyes of a vessel, also face-down upon the ground. He pushed himself onto his knees and felt for his sword.

  “The vessel is dead,” said Gull. “I suspect he neglected to take his missing hand into account when attempting to break his fall. His neck is broken.” David squinted into the blizzard and raised his voice above the howling wind. “How long have I been out?”

  “Less than a minute. The other vessels may be seeking a more forgiving exit. I suggest we make haste.” David reached for his sword and stood up. He slid it into the scabbard and looked into the storm. “I can see barely three metres.”

  “Are you having second thoughts about leaving Goliath?”

  “When a man is this spoilt for choice, decisions are difficult. What do you think awaits us out there?”

  “It is a question I believe I can answer with some certainty: humanity's obliterated past.” David lowered his head and stepped into the blizzard. “Best not keep oblivion waiting,” he murmured.

  They had been making slow but steady progress against the headwind for sometime when Gull said, “I have a suggestion.”

  David stopped and wiped the ash from his mouth with the back of a hand. “Make it.”

  “I suggest we maintain a steady course south. Otherwise we will end up back at Goliath.”

  “That's what I have been doing.”

  “No, David. For the last six minutes you have been retracing your steps north.”

  “Damn it, Gull. Why not speak up sooner?”

  “I have been preoccupied with repairs.”

  “Are you telling me to do a 180?”

  “It will point you in the direction of oblivion.”

  David did an about turn. “A simple 'yes' would have worked.”

  Sometime later, David looked up from his trudging feet and slowed to a stop. The winds had dropped. The ash had thinned, and the air felt warmer. “What's going on?” he asked. “The environment is changing.”

  “According to the official charts we should be approaching a cave formation – a place to shelter. Perhaps find water.”

  David shook his head. “The atmosphere … it's becoming more fabricated. Like Goliath's … only warmer. You're certain we've been heading south?”

  “With the exception of that single deviation, yes.”

  David crouched and swept away a thin layer of ash. “Are you seeing this, Gull?”

  “It is the copper alloy common to subterranean areas of Goliath.”

  “How do you explain it?”

  “Your observation about the environment feeling increasingly like Goliath's appears to be accurate. And where there is a fabricated floor there may also be a ceiling.”

  David stood up. He cupped his hands to his mouth and bellowed, “The gods!” His words echoed into the distance.
r />   “We must keep moving,” said Gull. “If we are still inside they will be pursuing us.”

  “Alright. If we continue south, we must reach the edge eventually.”

  It looked like a mirage – a mirage beyond the silvery gloom and lonely particles of ash that floated through it. And the closer David came to this 'mirage' the more he questioned not only his eyes but his sanity.

  With a single, hesitant step, he walked from the dying storm into an indoor expanse that stole his breath away: a sea of glimmering copper that spanned several kilometres to a towering wall of the same. To his left and right the copper sea (and the wall that contained it) appeared to go on without end, and upon this 'sea' floated what could have passed for the remnants of a thousand shipwrecks: chairs, tables, closets, bureaus, beds, light fittings, vases, sconces, rolls of carpet, rolls of fabric, and paintings. David did his best to ignore the objects and looked up at the wall beyond them. “You think that's the edge of Goliath?”

  “We won't know until we reach the other side. ”

  David lowered his gaze. “The other side of what? What are these things doing here?”

  “They appear to be items intended for Central Dome,” said Gull.

  “They don't look intended … they look abandoned.” David trod carefully upon the shiny copper surface and made his way towards them.

  The first of the objects he encountered was a round table – a wooden table inlaid with intricate carvings of long-extinct creatures. “These things are of the highest quality. Why abandon them here?” He turned and opened the drawer of a writing desk; inside was a bracelet, a nail file, and a blank sheet of paper. “As I thought … these things have been abandoned. Why?”

  “Evidently they no longer had a purpose.”

  David cast his gaze about him. “Everything's in fine condition …”

  “We should keep moving south. As you pointed out, we must reach the edge of Goliath eventually.”

  The closer they got to the wall, the louder the sound from high above them: a sound like a hundred jet engines lost in low-lying cloud. David looked up. He couldn't see much: just a series of circular protrusions, like the ends of giant cannons. “Something up there's producing energy. A lot of it.”

  “We are not outside. There are no natural winds to drive the turbines.”

  “Well, they're turning … so something's driving them.” Somewhere within that sea of objects a grandfather clock began to chime. David listened to the twelfth chime and moved away.

  A hundred metres from the wall of copper, the ground fell into a steep gradient. David paused at its top, and looked like a man standing on the crest of a copper tsunami. At the bottom, a row of arched entrances led into darkness. David fixed his gaze on one of these and started down the slope towards it. Halfway down, his right foot slipped from under him and he slid the rest of the way on his backside. At the bottom, David stood up and cast his gaze left and right at the entrances. “I detect no signs of life or light in any of these tunnels,” said Gull.

  “No life good. No light bad.”

  David entered a tunnel and, with the side of the wall to guide him, he began to walk. Three hours later, he slid down the wall onto his backside and blinked into the darkness. “Just how long can this thing be?”

  “There are signs that we are close to its end.”

  “You care to elaborate?”

  “Something is coming, David.”

  “Coming?”

  “Down the tunnel towards us.”

  David looked left and right into the pitch black. “Down?”

  “From the direction we are headed. You will hear them momentarily.”

  David listened, and heard a far-off clattering, like an army of metallic feet scuttling over the copper. He slid up the wall to his feet. “Suggestions?”

  “Sit down, David.”

  David looked away from the noise. “Run, you say?”

  “No. Sit.”

  “Damn it. I'm not a puppy.” The noise was almost upon them now, and David could barely hear himself think.

  “They are maintenance drones,” said Gull. “I strongly suggest you lie on your stomach.”

  David lay upon the ground, covered his head with his hands and held his breath. The ground shook as an army of metallic feet clattered about him. When the noise had died away in the direction he'd come, he finally drew breath. But before he could breathe out again, something grabbed his ankles and took off at speed. “The gods!”

  “You must incapacitate the drone, David. Otherwise we will find ourselves someplace we don't want to be.”

  “You mean there's some another kind of place?” David twisted onto his side, bounced along the ground and attempted to draw his sword. He pulled the scabbard onto his left thigh, then slid the sword out and hacked at whatever had him – once, twice, and on the third slash it made a sound like an engine spluttering out and stopped. David sat up, looking towards his feet and the thing that clasped his ankles. He could see nothing. “Is it dead?”

  “It appears to be inoperative,” said Gull.

  David pulled his knees to his chest and slid what felt like a fist made from chain linking over his feet. “Where was it taking us?”

  “Wherever it takes miscellaneous objects.”

  David stood and hobbled towards the wall like an old man with corns. He placed a hand on the wall. “Maybe we should have let it take us there. A miscellaneous object sounds like an improvement. I'm facing the right direction for oblivion?”

  “Yes, David.”

  “Great.”

  Before long, slithers of light darted before David's eyes like silver fish, merging into a curtain of light that resembled a faint mist. David squinted through this 'curtain' to what looked like a staircase beyond. “Are you seeing what I'm seeing, Gull?”

  “Your eyes are not deceiving you. The stairs lead up to the light source.”

  David stood at the bottom of a narrow flight of stairs. What generated the light above was impossible to tell; it was luminous, silver ... natural somehow. David had not seen its like before. Halfway up the stairs, he paused, held a hand to his face and observed its play on his fingers. “Is this … moon light?”

  “Have you forgotten where you are?”

  “Headed outside.”

  “Where the moon has been obscured by ash for millennia.”

  David continued to the top of the stairs. He opened his mouth to speak but neither he nor Gull could find the words. Seconds passed. David stepped towards the thick, convex glass of an observation widow.

  “David?”

  David cleared his throat.

  “Please confirm what you see?” said Gull.

  “What do you see?”

  “I detect outer space.” A shooting star blazed out of the cosmos and passed overhead. David watched it through the glass ceiling, then turned and watched it disappear over an enormous craft. The name of the craft was written on its hull in letters the size of skyscrapers. Even so, they appeared so tiny that David had to squint to see them. Under his breath he murmured, “Goliath.”

  “I need you confirm with your eyes that what we're seeing is real, David.”

  “I am unable to confirm a damned thing.”

  “The edge of Goliath appears to be a network of outboard stabilisers, not the oblivion we anticipated. We have both been lied to.” David turned away from Goliath and looked into outer space.

  “We are in Earth's solar system,” said Gull. “That bright star in the right of the heavens is Saturn, the mist that surrounds it its rings. Our trajectory suggests we are returning to Earth. Returning home.”

  “Home?”

  “David, your blood pressure has risen dramatically. I strongly suggest you sit down.”

  “Sit, you say?” The heavens seemed to rotate above him, and David looked up and followed their trajectory overhead, all the way to the ground.

  Ten

  When David regained consciousness, he was sitting at the head of a lar
ge dining-room table. The table was covered in a cloth of fine white lace, and at its centre stood a vase that contained a dying rose. A napkin had been placed on David's lap but no food laid before him. David looked up from the napkin and past the vase to a man at the other end of the table – a pale man whose huge frame pushed at the seams of a black tuxedo. The man's head was bald and he had no facial hair whatsoever. He resembled a monstrous infant dressed for a night at the opera. He sat before a plate of steaming roasted potatoes. He spiked one with his fork and put it in his mouth and chewed. David watched him. The man seemed oblivious to his presence.

  “You are not dreaming,” said Gull.

  David lips barely moved. “What am I doing, Gull?”

  “The question should not be what, but where.” The man at the other end of the table forked another potato and put it into his mouth. Gull continued, “Our coordinates suggest we are inside Central Dome.” The man grunted and twirled his fork in the air as though this much was obvious. David felt for the sword at his side. His scabbard was empty. David gazed around for a door, but there were none. And there was no ceiling – just a black void that went from one end of the dining room to the other. It looked as though an omnipotent being had created a room but neglected to create a roof. “What am I doing here?” David murmured under his breath.

  “You appear to be a guest, David.” The man grunted and twirled his fork at the missing ceiling again as if to say, 'That's right. Keep going.' David stood very, very slowly. The man paused mid-chew and looked at him for the first time. He had the eyes of a shark – round and black and dead. Everything else about the man's countenance asked, 'Where do you think you're going?'

  “I would strongly advise you to sit down,” said Gull. David attempted to maintain eye contact with the man, but could not. He lowered himself back into his seat, and spoke more quietly than he'd intended: “Who are you? What is this place?” The man leaned back in his chair and dabbed at his mouth with a napkin. He placed both hands on the table and pushed his bulk into a standing position. He stood over eight feet tall. As he walked the length of the table towards David, his boots clipped the floor like a metronome.