by Paul Anlee
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,” acknowledged 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.
34
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.
The populace cried out to be moved to the new asteroid colonies of Vesta, Pallas, and Ceres. The authorities responded that it was impossible. The people
revolted. The transportation rockets and the infrastructures that supported them fell to desperate, rioting mobs.
The few individuals still able to think rationally knew that even if the rockets could be salvaged in time—which they couldn’t—there wouldn’t be enough room for everyone on the refuge asteroids.
In an effort to comfort and console the masses, the authorities assured them that the best and brightest representatives of humanity, carefully selected for their diversity and depth of intellect, skills, and abilities, would be safely transported to the new colonies, where they would do their best to maximize humanity’s chances of survival.
On the fifth day following the Eater’s escape from its tank, news broke about whole groups of colonists being forcibly returned from Vesta. Any vestiges of order and control were shattered.
Everyone knew it was connected to the missing Yeshua's True Guard Church members but nobody, not one person, could come up with solid proof. Not that it would have made any difference.
The Eater devoured Earth’s atmosphere and great oceans, and began in earnest on the crust. Freed from the pressure of the continent above it, magma erupted in great flows. The Eater absorbed the molten rock as readily as it had the watery oceans.
And it grew.
35
Greg was riveted to the terrifying news broadcasts from Earth, along with everyone else in the asteroid colonies. It was addictive.
Recognizing the therapeutic value of activity as much as the urgent need to establish a sustainable new colony, the authorities assigned its citizens work to do, food to grow, classes to attend, and Cybrids to supervise.
A week passed and the transmissions from Earth ceased entirely. By then, everyone was so busy concentrating on making a new home for mankind that they hardly noticed.
Greg allowed his emotions to return, but with his humanity came grief. He let it wash over him.
He shifted to the far end of a wooded service tunnel, well away from everyone. He cried for a full day, letting his sorrow have its run. He cried for the loss of Earth and for the loss of its people. He cried for Kathy.
Then came the anger.
Alum! Maybe he didn’t physically plant the bomb and release the Eater himself. Maybe that was just a happy coincidence for him. But the coup, returning the knowledgeable specialists and diversity of individuals sent to Vesta, that was all on him.
Greg listened to Alum’s daily sermons being broadcast over public address speakers. I can understand how his people might believe they’ve been chosen by God, but I don’t believe for a second that Alum himself believes that.
The Reverend, Alum’s step-father and mentor, had sat in on the selection committee; he’d helped pick the Vesta colonists. Why would Alum undo that? Why would he replace our best candidates for survival with dull-minded sheep?
Greg understood the lure of power. Thanks to the recent turn of events, Alum’s power was approaching absolute.
The leader of the YTG church issued directives at a blazing pace during his first few days on Vesta. All undoing the way we set up the Administration.
Alum pronounced new policies and laws daily. He removed the Cybrids from any say in how the colonies were run, He decreed that, effective immediately, Cybrids were to have only very limited access to all habitat tunnels, and were to be closely supervised by a human at all times.
Why would he do that? What an idiot!—Greg silently fumed. He didn’t dare utter the thoughts to anyone but himself. He couldn’t risk drawing attention.
Drawing on his officially documented skills, the bureaucrats awarded Greg with one of the coveted Cybrid Supervisor posts.
He supposed he ought to be grateful Alum hadn’t insisted on human supervision of the Cybrids’ work out in the far reaches of space. Imagine us clumsy, delicate humans telling Cybrids what to do in vacuum! Cybrids were made for that environment; they knew their specialties better than any human could. Cybrids have already constructed eight perfectly viable colonies without any of us looking over their shoulders. I think they can manage this just fine all by themselves. Non-experts telling them what to do would be a total farce, and could only lead to trouble. There are so many more important things I could be doing.
The scientist accepted his new post and assigned tasks with equanimity, and did his best to be a good and humane Supervisor. The distractions of work brought him a sense of routine and engagement that allowed him to process his grief.
One morning, he found a space suit in a storage room off the service corridor where his team was working. Alone for the moment, he tried it on. If anyone notices, I’ll just tell them I was trying it on for fun. Who wouldn’t want to try on a space suit?
He checked the seals, activated the electronics, and checked the air tank. He made sure “his” Cybrids were fine for the next hour, and shifted to a point in high Earth orbit, where he floated undetected beside a now useless satellite. The Eater had converted much of the “normal” matter of Earth into its own nearly weightless exotic matter.
More than half of his home planet was shadowed by the gray-black body of the Eater. When did I start thinking in terms of my “home” planet versus...—he couldn’t bring himself to finish the thought.
It won’t be long now; the Eater’s expanding rapidly.
He wondered what held the gray sphere to its position on the Earth. For that matter, what holds it to Earth at all?
There had to be some connection to the basic inertial reference frame, the bent space-time of Earth. What’ll happen when that reference frame is gone? Will the Eater take over Earth’s orbit around the sun or wander off along some vector of its own? Greg calculated some potential trajectories; some of the paths would pose a threat to the new colonies.
As he watched, calculated, and contemplated, the Eater consumed the last of his planet. Greg closed his eyes against the dark sphere now orbiting where a pale blue dot had once been humanity’s home. His home.
It was time to accept his new life. He shifted back to Pallas.
Points to Ponder
Book Club & Study Questions
The Deplosion series is intended to be more than just a story. I hope it inspires thinking and exchange on a variety of philosophical, religious, scientific, and social issues. The following questions will help get you started. Additional discussion can be found on the Paul Anlee Facebook page, and my science and philosophy blog at www.paulanlee.com.
1) Connecting the brain directly to an electronic interface might permit us to learn new skills (e.g. new language, musical instrument, math, or history). At the same time, it could risk opening our minds to someone trying to alter our beliefs. Do you think improvements in learning and communication would be worth the risk of having someone alter what you believe? How are the characters’ attempts to directly change minds different from attempts by advertisers, politicians, and media to sway your thinking? Teachers? Religious leaders? Anyone else?
2) A number of famous people (Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk, among them) have declared that it is essential for humans to colonize space in the coming decades as a matter of species preservation. Greg and Kathy, make strong economic and demographic arguments as well. Were their arguments compelling (how so), or should we focus on saving/exploiting Earth before we move into space?
3) As science explores the nearby stars, we are finding more and more Earth-like “exoplanets” (over 2,330 as of mid-2017) of the right size, gravity, and surface temperature to support life. Unfortunately, at least to date, we’ve yet to detect water, breathable atmosphere, or evidence of other complex life forms on any of them. Crucial parameters remain outside our survival range; temperature, oxygen levels, gravity, length of day, and length of year vary greatly from planet to planet.
Do you think it’s likely that any single “standard” life form (especially human) would be suited to colonize multiple planets? With Earth in trouble, would it be better to upload our minds into machines or to genetically adapt our species (and other life forms on
which we depend) to survive on exoplanets? Would genetically altering humanity ensure survival of the species, or make us no longer human? Does it matter?
4) Greg and Kathy worked on related research, but did not create the microverse known as the Eater; that was created by Darian and/or Larry. Should someone be held responsible for the death of Dave, the night guard in Chapter 7, or was his death just an unfortunate accident? Should Darian Leigh, if found, be charged with homicide? Were Greg and Kathy, as employees of the lab, complicit in any wrongful death or damage, even though they were not directly responsible for that specific microverse? What about University President Dr. Sakira, Department Chair Dr. Wong, or Prime Minister Hudson? What were their responsibilities to the world at the various stages of the Eater’s development?
5) In various parts of the novel, characters use questionable means to accomplish their goals. Reverend LaMontagne murders more than once, and he blackmails President Mitchell into accepting his presence on the G26 panel. Darya uses a concepta virus to convince visitors to Alternus to attend a meeting. Alum kills trillions in defense of His Divine Plan to create Heaven. While some of their goals may be laudable, do the ends justify the means? Why or why not?
Reality Rebellions - NF
Deplosion Chronologic: Book 3
Paul Anlee
Darian Publishing House
Chatham, Ontario, Canada
1
Jared Strang, ex-Member of the British Parliament, ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs, current Manager of Human-Cybrid relations for the Vesta Project, was baffled. Surely, he’d misheard. His eyes shifted uncertainly between Alum and Dona Ridgeway, Alum’s Chief of Staff.
“But if we don’t allow the Cybrids to work in the populated colonies, how will we manage? The colonists aren’t exactly trained to expand the living spaces, or even to maintain them for that matter.”