The Arc of the Universe

by Mark Whiteway

  She turned, pulled him to the ground, aimed the baton, and fired. The beam blazed pure white for an instant, incinerating one of the creatures before turning a sickly yellow. She shut it down and fiddled with the end, cursing.

  The torched razer fell in a flaming spiral. Its companion followed it down and then veered towards Quinn and Rahada, crimson eyes burning with hatred.

  “What’s wrong?” Quinn cried.

  “I don’t know. The setting’s jammed!”

  The razer arched its back and extended its talons. Its beak opened, revealing a mass of barbs.

  “Forget the setting,” Quinn said.

  She stretched forth her arm and fired the weapon, blackening the creature’s scaly chest. It pulled up, flapped once, and surged forward once more.

  “Again!” Quinn yelled

  The yellow beam punched a fifty-centimetre hole in the creature’s wing. The wing crumpled, and the second razer dropped to the ground, floundering.

  “Move! Let’s move!” Pain lanced through Quinn’s knee as he lurched away from the stricken beasts. Rahada caught up to him, and then resumed the lead.

  “What happened back there?” he asked.

  “The beam is stuck on one-third output,” she replied. “The mechanism is damaged. It probably happened when you jumped from the skimmer.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “No point worrying about that now. However, it does limit our options.”

  “For what?”

  She pointed. Two hundred metres ahead of them, a massive six-legged creature with waving eyestalks blocked their path. Loud clacking filled the air like a death rattle. “For dealing with that.”

  Quinn stared as the monster opened and closed its mandibles like a wrestler flexing his massive fists. “Maybe we should look for another way around?”

  “I told you it would take too long. The Keeper will find us before we can reach the exit portal.”

  “You seem certain of that.”

  “Once he realises the skimmer is deserted, he’ll saturate these woods with infrared scanners. We’ll never escape.”

  “But you had nothing to do with taking the skimmer,” Quinn said. “What if I were to just give myself up?”

  She shook her head. “You forget the principle of one plus one equals two involves community responsibility. When you attacked the skimmer, all the initiates involved in this trial became culpable, me included.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  She started towards the monster, baton in one hand, incendiary blade in the other. “What I must.”

  ~

  Quinn watched as Rahada planted her feet barely thirty metres from the ruinator and activated the baton. The golden beam bounced off the beast’s chitin exterior, leaving no discernible mark. She twisted the baton’s butt end, slapped it with the heel of her palm, and fired again. Again, the beam dissipated harmlessly. She flung the baton aside, gripped the blade’s hilt with both hands, and advanced towards the creature.

  The ruinator turned all four of its eyestalks towards her, and its segmented legs started into motion. She broke into a run, and her blade brightened until it was glowing white-hot. She sliced at a leg joint. The point of impact smoked, but the leg did not give way. The creature reached down and snapped a mandible at her, but she dived away.

  As she rolled onto her back, the creature towered over her. Quinn stared at his hands. With his Agantzane-granted death touch, he could have dispatched it with a single contact, but Keiza had removed his “gift” for the duration of this scenario. Seldom had he felt so utterly helpless.

  Rahada scrabbled to her feet and backed off, holding the blade before her. The ruinator reared up and fired a spinning web. She slashed at it with the blade, struggling as it became entangled in the viscid fibres. As she tried to pull it free, the ruinator launched a second web that wrapped itself around her legs, pinned her arms, and covered her face, encasing her in a white cocoon.

  Quinn hurried forward, keeping an eye on the creature, but it was preoccupied with its latest prize. He found the baton lying in the dirt and picked it up. Rahada’s cocoon was no longer moving. After a final long look, he turned and began limping in the opposite direction.

  ~

  Pressing his swollen knee into service, Quinn retraced his steps as rapidly as he could. His idea seemed crazier with every step. It was piled high with assumptions—the number of razers, the behaviour of razers, the behaviour of the ruinator, and his own speed of movement, to name just a few.

  He arrived at the spot where Rahada had downed the two razers. A flock of seven more were tearing at the remains. Just as with the razers he had encountered in the thick of the forest, they were scavengers who would readily cannibalise their own kind.

  He waved his arms frantically. “Hey!”

  The razers did not look up from their meal.

  His heart thumped in his chest as he advanced a few more paces and repeated the challenge. “Hey!”

  One of the creatures raised its head and regarded him over its large, parrot-like beak. Quinn located the baton’s firing button and directed a bolt over their heads. They screeched and scattered. He watched as they scrapped and snapped at one another. Four returned to the razer remnants. The other three flapped their wings and came after him. He set off back towards the ruinator, the razers in pursuit.

  ~

  With three razers screeching at his heels, Quinn fought a running battle all the way back to the ruinator’s position. It was a tightrope walk—aim close enough to keep them at bay and prevent himself from being eaten, but not so close as to disable or scare them off. By the time he caught sight of the massive beast, only two razers were left.

  The ruinator stood over Rahada’s cocoon. Quinn approached as close as he dared before turning and blasting a hole through each of the razers’ wings. As they crashed to the ground, Quinn hobbled behind a boulder.

  The ruinator rose from Rahada’s cocoon and scuttled over. Straddling the crippled razers, it ejected spinning webs first at one and then the other. They strained as the webs tightened, hobbling their limbs, preventing any possibility of escape.

  Quinn emerged from behind the boulder and skirted around to Rahada’s now-abandoned cocoon. Extracting the curved knife from his pack, he made a slit in the cocoon, shoved his hands inside, and pulled the fibres farther apart. Working as fast as he could, he sliced and tore until he had exposed her face. Her eyes were closed and her skin was darker than normal. My death touch isn’t operative here. He patted her angular cheekbones. To his relief, she stirred.

  He glanced over his shoulder, but the ruinator was still occupied with fresh prey. “Rahada… Rahada.”

  “Iron… tin,” she breathed.

  “What?”

  “Neuro… tox… in. Para…”

  Para… paralysed? Had the ruinator infused her with a paralysing agent? It made sense—incapacitate your prey and then return later to consume it. But it left him with a problem. “Rahada, we have to move, now. Can you do that?”

  “Nnngh.”

  With renewed vigour, he worked the knife until her legs and arms were free. “Can you stand?”

  She pushed up with her elbows, eyes still shut. He slipped an arm behind her back and helped her to a sitting position. As she tried to get her enfeebled legs under her, he pulled her arm around his shoulders and lifted her to her feet.

  One of the ruinator’s eyestalks whipped around and fixed them with an unblinking stare. Its pupil dilated like a drop of ink in water.

  Half-dragging the listless Rahada, Quinn turned his back on the monster and limped away.

  ~

  As Quinn forged on, the valley sides narrowed, and the way grew steeper. Each painful step sapped his strength, pushing him closer to the point of exhaustion. Fortunately, Rahada recovered little by little, until she was almost directing her own steps.

  Her coherence also returned. “How?”

  “How what?” he asked, resenting havi
ng to expend effort in conversation.

  “How did you manage to get past the ruinator and rescue me with no weapons?”

  His chest heaved, and his knee was a brazier of fire. “Tell you what. If we both survive, I’ll fill you in over cocktails. How’s that?”

  She frowned. “Humans are an enigma. They seem to have a gift for survival that other species lack. Ximun was right about one thing. You are worthy of study.” She halted midstride, her expression frozen, as if time had stopped for her.

  “What’s the matter now?” he asked.

  “Machines are combing the forest.”

  He heard it too—a low hum, barely audible but steady. It appeared to emanate from all around them. “What kind of machines?”

  “Infrared detectors and siren traps.”

  “Siren traps?”

  “It’s not far to the exit portal. Come on.”

  She pushed forward, and he dragged himself after her. They passed through the neck of the valley and reemerged among dense woodland. Harsh moonlight stabbed past the treetops, betraying any conceivable hiding place.

  She knelt and began to smear mud over her face and then gestured for him to copy her. He settled to his haunches and began applying damp soil to his cheeks.

  “This should cut down our heat signature.” She fiddled with a protuberance at the neck of her suit. “I’ve dialled up my insulation to maximum, which should reduce heat emission to a minimum.” She looked him up and down. “Your Nemazi mesh garment is a problem.” She touched his shoulder. “It’s set to night mode. That makes it an almost perfect insulator.”

  Quinn had no idea that the mesh robe had modes. “I thought the idea was to cut down heat radiation.”

  “It’s too perfect. It’ll show up as a black hole on any scan.”

  He parted the front flaps. “I’ll get rid of it.”

  She shook her head. “No, it’s better than having you show up as a heat source. Keep to where the tree canopy is thickest. And avoid large boulders or cliffs that retain the day’s heat. They’ll make your shadow stand out.” She scanned the woods. “This way. Hurry!” She set off at a trot.

  He hobbled along behind her. Cloying mud pulled at his boots, and branches reached towards him like grasping fingers. Deathly pale blooms shone in the moonlight. “I came across a thing called a stasis trap. It had captured one of the initiates.”

  “Stasis traps are meant to incapacitate. They’re a standard part of the trial. Siren traps are designed to eliminate the subject.”

  “Eliminate?”

  “I told you before that your attack on the skimmer mandates the expiry of all the initiates in this trial.”

  “But that makes no sense,” Quinn said.

  “It makes perfect sense. Once the circumstances become known, no one will ever attack a skimmer again.”

  “But… all of this isn’t even real.”

  She glanced over her shoulder just as he winced from the pain in his knee. “It’s real enough.”

  A whirring emerged from the background hum. She grabbed a handful of his mesh garment and pulled him to the ground.

  His face hit the dirt and fresh pain lanced through his injured knee. “What the—”

  “Shut up,” she hissed.

  A dark sphere rose from behind a bush and floated towards them, whirring and clicking as if chatting with itself. Chill, damp mud numbed the side of Quinn’s face as he lay prostrate, hardly daring to breathe.

  He heard a whipping sound, and something wrapped itself around his ankle. Instinctively, he rolled onto his back and drew up his leg. The sphere moved off at a leisurely pace, bobbing through the trees as if pleased with its handiwork. His ankle was encased in a tight, silver band. He reached down and pulled at the band, but it was seamless. It hugged the contours of his skin, reminding him of a Shanata environmental suit. Rahada sat up, and he saw that her ankle was manacled as well.

  “What just happened?” he asked.

  “That was an infrared detection unit,” she replied. “And we have been marked for death.”

  ~

  Putting most of his weight on his good leg, Quinn raised himself from the dirt. “How far are we from the exit portal?”

  Rahada stared at the ground. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “How far?”

  “A short distance that way,” she pointed. “But the tags are transmitting our exact position. We’ll never make it.”

  He leaned against a bole, raised his bad leg off the ground, and forced himself to concentrate. “All right then, we split up. That way at least one of us has a chance.”

  “You don’t know the dangers of this forest as I do. On your own, you would be at far greater risk.”

  He grimaced. “Your concern is touching. But right now, the only thing that matters is that one of us survives to secure the Elinare’s help in combating the Damise and the spread of their AI.”

  “But the Elinare within you said that we both had to reach the portal, or she would abandon us.”

  “I… believe she only said that to prevent one of us from eliminating the other. If you survive, then she will join with you. I guarantee it.”

  She nodded. “Then I pledge to honour your memory and work for the preservation of both the Consensus and humanity.”

  She slipped through the trees like quicksilver and was gone.

  ~

  Quinn’s lips pulled back over his teeth, and his back slid down the tree trunk until his rump hit the ground. Stretching his injured leg out before him, he massaged his swollen knee and exhaled as the pain ebbed away.

  He closed his eyes. You could have got away, you idiot. Keiza gave you the chance. All you had to do was step through the portal, and you’d have been free and clear. He chuckled to himself. As his mother used to say in her Irish brogue, “Regan, y’ve na the sense y’ were born with.” Turns out she was right after all.

  Wait and serve as bait for this machine, whatever it was. His plan was peppered with more holes than he could count. What if the Keeper sent more than one machine? Even if he sent just the one, would it go for the moving target or the stationary one? Might it prioritise the target nearest the portal?

  All he knew for certain was that he was slowing Rahada down. As a child, he remembered reading about Scott’s ill-fated expedition to the South Pole and how Captain Oates, knowing that his frostbite was lowering his comrades’ chances of survival, walked out of their tent to his certain death in a blizzard. By bowing out of the race, Quinn had at least given her a fighting chance of making it to the portal.

  Were Oates’ final thoughts about family? He didn’t remember anything about his family from the account. You’d think they’d mention something like that. Conor was a re-animate, but Quinn no longer thought of him with anything other than a father’s pride.

  He drifted into a reverie of old memories of life and laughter. He was in the yard in front of the family’s four-room prefab at Eire Colony, arms outstretched, following Conor, who wobbled on his new bicycle. Shipped all the way from Earth, the bicycle had cost Quinn twelve hundred credits plus a forty-year-old bottle of Irish whiskey as a “thank you” to the colony quartermaster for looking the other way on his weight allowance. The beaming smile on Conor’s face made it worth every penny. Even his wife, Sarah, who had balked at the expense, was all smiles.

  Sarah’s singing drifted through the prefab’s open door. The boy giggled and steered away, making a game of it. Quinn played along, making growling noises.

  He winced as pain stabbed at his temples.

  The singing stopped. Conor’s features turned deadpan. His eyes were larger and rounder than Quinn remembered, and his cheeks had yet to lose their cherubic youthfulness. He dismounted, allowing the bike to topple to the ground and stared up at Quinn. “You did it, Dad.” His voice was a prepubescent treble.

  “Did what?” Quinn asked.

  “You saved Rahada. Your sacrifice made it possible for her to reach the exit portal. It worked out jus
t as you planned. You’re a hero, Dad.”

  “H-How do you know about that?” he asked.

  “It’s not important,” Conor replied. “You must listen. Keiza has altered the scenario. She has created a new exit portal for you here.” A brilliant beam erupted in the centre of the yard, its top lost amid a blue haze of sky. Quinn shaded his eyes. “All you have to do is step through, and you’ll be safe.”

  Insects buzzed. Wind rustled through the baccala bushes he’d planted the previous spring. It would be another three years before they bore fruit. Past the picket fence, a composite road wound towards the colony’s main residential area. Beyond the colony, blue-tinged hills peeked over a haze veil.

  The scene was from his past, not from the trial scenario. So how had the exit portal appeared here? Keiza had insisted that once she left the scenario, she could no longer affect events within it. Had she drawn on his memory to extract him from the scenario and provide him with a means of escape?

  Needles drilled into his head once more. He screwed his eyes shut.

  “Dad, you have to hurry. Keiza doesn’t know how much longer she can maintain the portal. If she loses the link, you could be trapped here forever. You need to go now.”

  Quinn shook his head. The pain subsided to a nagging ache.

  “Go on. I’m waiting for you on the other side. So are Vyasa, Zothan, and Rahada. Everyone you care about is there.”

  Everyone I care about? Quinn glanced back at the prefab.

  “Mom’s gone, Dad. You know that. You can’t stay here.”

  The exit portal hummed. Quinn started towards it.

  “That’s it, just a few more steps.” Conor’s voice grew shrill with excitement.

  The beam was centimetres from Quinn’s nose. He halted, gazing up at the column of light. The light flickered, and became a wall of flame. He staggered backwards from the heat. The yard and the prefab, the fence and the road, the sky and the mountains, all began to fracture.