Infinite

by Jeremy Robinson

  INFINITE

  By Jeremy Robinson

  Description:

  SEARCHING FOR A NEW HOME…

  The Galahad, a faster-than-light spacecraft, carries fifty scientists and engineers on a mission to prepare Kepler 452b, Earth’s nearest habitable neighbor at 1400 light years away. With Earth no longer habitable and the Mars colony slowly failing, they are humanity’s best hope.

  After ten years in a failed cryogenic bed—body asleep, mind awake—William Chanokh’s torture comes to an end as the fog clears, the hatch opens, and his friend and fellow hacker, Tom, greets him…by stabbing a screwdriver into his heart. This is the first time William dies.

  It is not the last.

  When he wakes from death, William discovers that all but one crew member—Capria Dixon—is either dead at Tom’s hands, or escaped to the surface of Kepler 452b. This dire situation is made worse when Tom attacks again—and is killed. Driven mad by a rare reaction to extended cryo-sleep, Tom hacked the Galahad’s navigation system and locked the ship on a faster-than-light journey through the universe, destination: nowhere. Ever.

  Mysteriously immortal, William is taken on a journey with no end, where he encounters solitary desperation, strange and violent lifeforms, a forbidden love, and the nature of reality itself.

  …HE DISCOVERS THE INFINITE.

  Jeremy Robinson, the master of fast-paced and highly original stories seamlessly blending elements of horror, science fiction, and thrillers, tackles his most ambitious subject matter to date: reality itself. An amalgam of the works of J.J. Abrams and Ridley Scott, Infinite is a bold science fiction novel exploring the vastness of space and a man’s desire to exist, find love, and alter the course of his life.

  INFINITE

  Jeremy Robinson

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ALSO by JEREMY ROBINSON

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  1

  “Solitude.”

  “Go on,” she says, chewing on a yellow #2 pencil that makes dry scratching sounds whenever it carves a letter onto the equally yellow legal pad resting on her tight gray skirt. I know she’s supposed to be evaluating the state of my psychological well-being, but I can’t help analyzing her in return. The way her teeth leave divots in the pencil flesh tells me she enjoys hearing people’s personal details. Probably too much. Her form-fitting clothing tells me she wants to be noticed, but the power suit warns against saying anything. Because she’s married. So says the ring on her finger. But is it her husband she’ll be telling my personal details to later on, or the guy she’s trying to impress with those tight clothes? Then again, maybe I’m just a sexist pig judging a woman by her clothing.

  “Mr. Chanokh?”

  The rebel in me says to screw with her, to lead her down a confusing rabbit hole of contradictions, but that’s probably a bad idea. I want to be here. “I’m an introvert by nature, so I tend to spend a lot of time alone.”

  “Uh-huh.” Scratch, scratch, scratch goes the pencil.

  “But that doesn’t mean I don’t like people. I just—”

  “Feel tired after engaging with them,” she says. “I know what an introvert is.”

  “Right,” I say. Of course she knows, but isn’t she just supposed to let me talk? My eyes drift toward her crossed legs, which are at head level as I lie back on her tilde-shaped couch. The underside of her exposed hamstring, like a smooth, upside-down sand dune, captivates me.

  Light glimmers off her bifocals as she looks up from her legal pad. My eyes dart to the side. I pretend to be absorbed in the first thing my gaze lands on: a digital edition of Modern Parenting. There’s a baby on the cover, lying in a shallow river, worn oval stones all around it.

  Did she see me?

  I try to hide my growing discomfort, as I realize the tight skirt might be a test.

  Scratch, scratch, scratch.

  I don’t know if that pencil has an air bubble in the graphite, or a granule of something, but it’s starting to have a nails-on-chalkboard effect on my teeth. Who uses pencils anymore?

  Forget the pencil, I tell myself. Is she noting my attention on her legs, or on the baby? I can think of a million ways both could count against me. Preoccupation with sex. A desire to have children. Shit. They’re even related. Can’t have a baby without first having sex, and here I am talking about my fear of solitude.

  I try to recover. “I think it’s because I connect so deeply with people, you know?”

  She twists her lips, tapping the chewed pencil against them. Her shade of red lipstick matches her curly hair.

  A test, I remind myself. All of this is a test. Look away.

  I don’t. She’s mesmerizing. “When people talk, I listen. I mean, I really listen. I feel their joy, sadness, and pain, like it was my own. And I don’t do small talk. I don’t care about the weather, sports teams, or the latest webisode. I just connect with people.”

  Oh, God, just shut up. I sound like a dating profile.

  “And that’s exhausting,” she says. Not a question. She’s agreeing.

  Is she talking about me?

  Is she saying that I’m exhausting?

  The ceiling calls out to me, beckoning my attention to its frosty white surface, where nothing changes. It’s empty and peaceful. I find calm in it. For a moment.

  Scratch, scratch, scratch.

  “You seem nervous,” she says, and when I stay lost in the white too long, she uses my name again. “Mr. Chanokh?”

  “William Chanokh,” I say, “Doctor of Computer Science. That’s who I am.”

  “I know who you are,” she says.

  “Just like to remind myself sometimes.”

  “Can you forget who you are?”

  “I almost did once.”

  Scratch, scratch, scratch.

  “I know twelve languages, and just one of them is spoken.” Why did I say that? Am I trying to impress her? Or am I reminding myself about that, too?

  “English and eleven programming languages?”

  “Close. English, ten programming languages, and Latin.” I laugh. It’s forced and uncomfortable. “They said it would help me learn other Latin-based languages. French. German. Spanish. You know. Code, not so much.”

  “You’re smarter than other people.”

  “I wouldn’t say that.”

  “But people do.”

&nbs
p; “I guess.”

  “Is that why you find it so hard to connect with those around you?”

  “Hard?” I feel the need to look her in the eyes, but the shadows now sliding across the ceiling hold my attention. “I just said—”

  “I know what you said, but the truth is, you haven’t spent time with anyone in a long time. How long has it been, William?”

  Fuck you. “I don’t know.”

  “How long since you’ve been with someone?”

  The words on their own are suggestive enough, but the honey she’s dipped them in before opening those red lips is enough to distract me from the ceiling.

  She looks at me over the top of her gravity-defying glasses, clinging to the tip of her nose. Two blouse buttons have been undone, revealing the top of her curved breasts. Her skirt is shorter. Not hiked up. Just shorter.

  Scratch, scratch, scratch.

  I close my eyes at the sound. “Would you mind not—”

  The pencil was in her mouth. I saw her lips wrapping around the gnawed yellow surface like two delicious slugs, wet and...

  “What is that sound?” I ask.

  “What do you hear?”

  “Scratching.”

  “Have you been hearing it this whole time?”

  The shadows on the ceiling dance with the fervent shifting of trees caught in a storm. I turn toward the window and squint. The distant sun reflects off the atmospheric dome, illuminating the room, but there are no trees.

  “There are no trees,” I say.

  “True, there are no trees,” she agrees, “on Mars.”

  I point at the ceiling. “Then what is that?”

  The shadows vibrate. Back and forth. The ballet has become a war between light and dark.

  Scratch.

  The white ceiling is wounded by four, long, black lines.

  Scratch, scratch.

  Long streaks carve away at the white, revealing color. Hues of gray. And orange. Dark red.

  “You know what this is,” she says. “Just like you know who you are.”

  “William Chanokh.” I turn toward my beautiful psychologist, who would have mounted me on the tilde couch after patching the holes in my consciousness. “You’re not real.”

  She points at the ceiling. “That is.”

  “I’m waking up. This is it.”

  She smiles at me. “Try to connect. You don’t need to be alone anymore.”

  The white office fades.

  There’s a hiss and a cloud of steam.

  A face leans in through the mist.

  Smiling.

  It’s Tom Holden, the secondary Computer Scientist.

  I’m the primary. We’re friends. We understand each other. But there’s something off about his pale face. Something different. It’s red. Like her lips. Wet, too.

  At the very moment I realize it’s blood, and I hear the screams, he plunges a long screwdriver into my chest. I feel my heart shudder around the cold metal, and then stop.

  This is the first time I die.

  It’s not the last.

  2

  My second life and death is a brief and confusing affair. My eyes flutter open. I see the yellow handle protruding from my chest and think, Who uses screwdrivers anymore? It’s as out of place as my imaginary shrink’s pencil. Then my heart tries to beat around the metal, now warm from my body heat, and it spasms. My body goes rigid. A turbulent breath fills my lungs.

  And then I’m dead.

  Again.

  I assume it’s death. I exist in darkness. It’s peaceful. Without pain.

  And there is light. A small spot at first, but growing larger, pulsing and swirling. I hear a hum. But it’s not constant white noise, like I need so I can fall asleep. It’s modulating. Is that a voice? Is some long dead relative coming to guide me into the afterlife that I don’t believe exists?

  Even if that was possible, could a spirit travel the 1400 light years from Earth to Cognata, the common name for Kepler 452b, that quickly? It took us ten years, locked in cryo-sleep, to cross the distance. Not quite as fast as the old Star Trek ships, but faster than light (FTL) is still impressive. It also means that 1400 years have passed back on Earth, and humanity has either solved the environmental problems that sent us first to Mars, and then beyond the solar system, or they’ve given up and followed us into space.

  “That would be the logical choice.”

  I spin toward the voice. It’s the guy from the original Star Trek. With the pointy ears. I grew up watching The Next Generation series with my brother Steven. My father had inherited copies of every episode from his father, and his father before him. My favorite character was always the bald captain, with his French name, subtle British accent, and stalwart dedication to exploring the vast unknown. My brother and I memorized catchphrases from the show, my favorite being ‘Tea. Earl Grey. Hot,’ even though Earl Grey tea no longer existed. Steven preferred ‘Engage.’ Any time we went someplace new, he’d kick off the trip by pointing forward and saying ‘Engage,’ to which I would say, ‘Make it so.’ As a teenager, I saw two of the classic Star Trek movies. I didn’t like them as much as The Next Generation—I think, out of loyalty to my brother—but the guy with the pointy ears... That guy made me cry. His death resonated with me. What was his name?

  “Leonard?”

  He turns toward the light. His ears aren’t pointy.

  Did God send the actor who played Leonard to guide me?

  You’re not dead, some part of my flickering consciousness says.

  A chemically-induced hallucination. You’re dying. Try not to be an idiot.

  “Idiot!” I shout.

  My eyes open.

  The mist has cleared.

  Is this all just another fantasy, like my psychologist? Could it be a dream? I do sleep. Not a true cryo-sleep. But I do have dreams. They usually don’t hurt, though.

  I see the screwdriver again, this time noticing the name etched into it: Pearson. He’s an engineer. I don’t think the screwdriver is an actual tool, though. The shiny handle and the etching’s quality suggest it’s a keepsake. A gift from someone who has now been dead for 1400 years. Ish.

  This time, when my heart pulsates around the burning metal wedged between my ribs, I react in a way I know I’m not supposed to. But I’ve died twice already, so what the hell. I grab the handle with two hands, and as my vision fades to black, I yank.

  My body thrashes. My heart twists and coils inside my chest, a living thing, trying to break free. Darkness turns to white hot pain. Liquid warmth spreads over my chest, reminding me why I shouldn’t have withdrawn the screwdriver. I’m bleeding out. My panicking, wounded heart is pumping blood straight out of the quarter-inch-wide hole in my chest.

  I need help.

  I try to move, but my body is weak, and the smooth surface of the cryo-bed, now slick with blood, feels like a soaped up tub beneath me. I thrash about, thumping with elbows and knees. I try to call out, but my parched, dry throat manages only a hiss.

  I want to go back. To the fantasy. To my redheaded, bespectacled shrink. Ten years in failed cryo-sleep was torture, but far better than this rude awakening.

  A perfect combination of motion, blood lubricant, and the position of my naked body sends me slipping down the angled bed. I thump hard against the lip at the bottom, bouncing up and out, and landing hard on the floor. It’s smooth, and tacky wet with cool blood.

  Not my still-warm blood.

  Lying on my side, I see a hand, the fingers frozen in rigor, clutching at nothing. Blood is pooled around it, chunky, like fatty stew. Coagulated. I can’t see whose hand it is, but the size and hair tell me it’s a man. He died long before I did.

  If I died at all.

  I’m still breathing. Still thinking. Maybe I just passed out before? Maybe the screwdriver wasn’t in my heart, but the meat beside it. Maybe I could still live.

  Wet footsteps paralyze my body.

  Someone is coming.

  I want to cry out for hel
p, but don’t. Any sane person would be ranting. Or running. Or anything but walking with the calm, determined slap of bare feet on a wet floor.

  It’s Tom, I think. Has to be.

  I freeze my eyes in place, staring at my blood dripping from the cryo-bed’s bottom lip. It stretches out like syrup before losing a drip and recoiling back up to start again. The repetitive drip, drip, drip, helps me find a slow rhythm for my breathing. Slow enough to go unnoticed, I hope.

  “Got away.” The voice is scratchy and arid, but still Tom’s. “Left me here.”

  His bare foot squishes through the blood beside my face, a globule of coagulation squeezing up between his toes. The print left behind is a dark red topographical map of his foot. A breeze kicked up by his passing guides the stench of death into my nostrils. My stomach lurches. There’s nothing in it. Hasn’t been for ten years. But that won’t stop me from dry-heaving.

  Despite my revulsion, I manage to stay rigid, as his feet squeal on the floor. Turning around.

  I moved. I must have moved.

  “Dead, dead, and dead.” Tom says. “You can stay with me. Our journey isn’t done yet. They left me, now I’m going to leave them.”

  The foot returns, facing the opposite direction. Tom is standing over me. Something wet drips from his nakedness. I want to shiver. To run. Instead, I stare. Lifeless.

  “I liked you, Will. We had some good times. But you were one of them. I saw you. Saw all of you. But you were tricked, right? So, you can stay. Until you’re bones.”

  He’s lost his mind.

  They told us something like this might happen. It’s part of why every one of us has a double. An understudy. Fifty crew in all, filling twenty-five positions. And if Tom is telling the truth, they’re all either dead, or gone.

  There’s only one place they could have gone: Kepler 452b.

  Cognata.

  “We’re going to keep going. See what there is to see. You, me, this dead lot, and Cap.”

  Cap. Short for Capria. She’s the primary astrophysicist. She’s my friend, and if I’m honest, the focus of more fantasies than my psychologist, who wasn’t nearly as attractive as she’s become in my mind’s eye. But Capria. Her dark skin holds my attention like the night sky. And her smile. It’s the stars.