Using the embedded sword handle as a handhold, I get back to my feet. I try pulling the blade free, but it’s wedged deep inside the wall and the wood beyond.
Doesn’t matter, I decide, and launch up the stairs. I take the first two steps in one stride, thinking I’ll take them all two at a time, but my legs nearly give out with the second leap. I’m forced to jog up the flight, one step at a time, hand on the railing, the old, cherry banisters creaking and wobbling back and forth as I depend on them to support my weight.
The open hallway at the top wraps around to what I think must be the master bedroom. It’s also the only door that appears bent and shimmering.
A baby’s cry pierces the air.
I charge down the hallway, bend to leap and then slip to a stop, falling to one knee, several feet short of the Blur. Before it realizes I’m there, I duck into a side room and come face-to-face with a ham radio. The ham radio. A thing of legend. A glimmer of a smile appears on my face, but then I’m back on my feet and lifting the desk chair. I hurry back to the door and swing the chair out into open space, aiming for the Blur.
The chair sails free from my hands, and I duck back inside the ham radio room. There’s a pulse of energy and the chair explodes back through the upstairs hallway, crashing down the stairs.
Remembering my knife, I draw it and rush around the corner, colliding, head-on with the Blur, who has turned around. I fall back, but not before thrusting my blade up under the creature’s chin. The razor sharp blade slices through the rubbery skin, unleashing a wriggling white beard of dripping white gore. The Blur spasms as I get back to my feet, clutch it in both hands, slam it into the hallway wall and then reverse directions. The hallway banister catches the thing at waist height and it spills over the side, toppling down the stairs.
I turn to rush into the bedroom beyond, where I believe Poe and Squirt are, but I’m blocked by a blurry wave of motion. And then, I’m struck. Hard. Energy flows through me, and then tosses me down the hall. I strike a door, knocking it from its hinges before landing on a hard tile floor and sliding until I strike the equally hard, tiled wall. A bathroom, I think, as my vision, once again, fades. This time, no amount of breathing can save me from oblivion.
But maybe my will can. I fight against it. Fight to stand. All I manage to do is stumble and bump my head again.
The Blur’s face emerges.
Growing closer.
The sharp, stinging scent of ammonia fills the air.
It’s him, I think. The Blur that killed Steve Manke, that tried to kill Mark and put a hole in my shoulder.
A long, pointed finger slips out from the cloak, zeroing in on my chest. On my heart. The unfinished job nearly complete.
Its sinister gaze leaves no doubt about my fate.
It’s going to finish the job. It’s going to control me. Use me. To kill the others. Poe. Squirt.
Adrenaline surges, chasing away unconsciousness, but failing to rouse me fully. I focus all my effort on my arms, lifting them slowly, urging my fingers to work.
The Blur’s hand coils back, a snake about to strike, and then it stabs forward. I brace for the sharp pain of a puncture wound and then the burning agony of spreading infection, but neither occur. Instead, my hands ache. The pointed digit is clutched in my shaking hands, held back, but not stopped. The needle-tipped finger slides steadily toward my heart.
I scream out, terrified more about what I will become than by the idea of losing my life.
The needle slips through the fabric of my clothing like it was made of the loosest molecules, and then pricks my skin.
But only for a moment.
I look away from the sight as a scream, as primal and raw as anything I’ve managed, sounds out from behind the Blur. An axe, the wood deep brown from years of use, the head rusty and nicked, descends on the Blur, caving it in, folding the eyes upside down, and stopping in the thing’s neck. The heavy blade comes up and down twice more, each with a powerful grunt.
And then...
Poe.
I see her face first, pale and sweaty, exhausted and glorious.
Then I see her body, naked and plastered in blood.
Her blood.
Something stronger than adrenaline bolsters me. I find my feet and stand.
Poe drops the axe. “You made it.”
I reach for her. “I promised.”
“Just a tad late,” she says, and she falls into my arms. We collapse to the floor together, just outside the bathroom. I want to hold her like I used to hold Claire. I want to stroke her hair. Kiss her cheeks. Tell her I’m here. That I’ll never leave her. But I can’t. The creature behind her takes my breath away.
It’s an uncloaked Blur. But that’s not what stops me. Clutched in its arms is a baby, bloody, kicking and...quiet. Consoled. Safe. A golden retriever that must be Luke and a smaller mutt peek around the creature at me, like I’m the one who shouldn’t be here, though Luke can’t seem to stop his tail from wagging.
The smell of roses wafts over me.
The Blur bends down as Mark races up the stairs, aiming his weapon at the creature’s head. I hold up a hand, stopping him. He sees Poe, and then the baby. Eyes wide, he lowers the weapon and watches as the Blur extends its arms, offering Squirt to me.
The baby is deposited in the crook of my arm. I hold the child—a girl—and her mother, weeping freely. My new family is together at last. Hands occupied, energy sapped, I can do nothing to stop what happens next. The Blur lifts its hands away from Squirt and holds them out on either side of my head. In the periphery, I see thin white tendrils snake out. With gentle taps, they make contact.
In a flash of white, I’m no longer on Earth.
54
AUGUST
Whiteness engulfs me. But it’s not bright, like light. More like I’ve been immersed in an ocean of endless, living fettuccini. The scientist in me says that all this material, loose, wet and writhing, should block out whatever light exists, that I shouldn’t be able to see it at all. But I can see it. Or rather, experience it. I’m seeing myself from the outside, like a movie, but I’m still attached to my senses. I can feel the tightening mass worming closer.
Something tickles my eyes. I blink it back, but then it’s inside my lowered eyelid, wriggling deeper. I try to scream, but my mouth fills. My nose, too. The undulating worms slip deeper, into lungs, gut and mind.
I am lost.
The white slips away, revealing a bedroom. My bedroom, thirty-five years previous. I’m in my childhood home, surrounded by long forgotten, but familiar and comforting sights—posters, toys, shelves of science fiction novels. Also familiar smells. Meatloaf. My mother is cooking downstairs.
I spent a lifetime in this room, mostly thinking, sometimes planning my future, willing my spirit to leave this world like a starship and explore the universe. While the dreams of my younger self return with a flood of nostalgia, I am still myself. A man. A warrior. Smarter, stronger, and not alone.
I turn to the presence in the room and find a Blur, exposed. There is no cloak hiding it. There is no biological containment suit. I see it. The long worm, coiled up in a formless pile. It’s a single organism that must stretch for hundreds of feet when laid out straight. Its mass rivaling that of a human, its mind spread out along its length. They evolved in water, I think, but longed for land, and then beyond.
You are right, a voice says, and I know it’s the Blur. The formless lump pulls tighter, finding form, wrapping around itself to form a rudimentary humanoid shape. Without a suit, the effort is continuous.
Images flit through my mind. A vast sea. Long white tendrils adrift. At the mercy of currents. Winds. Predators. Over time, they grow. Biological defenses emerge. Time grants intelligence. Community. Purpose. Dry land is viewed as precious, and bodies, like a fungus, are grown. Freedom granted. But it’s just the beginning. In time, attention turns to the night sky. To worlds beyond. Countless experiments await. A society of scientists, hungry for knowledge.
It’s a s
napshot of otherworldly evolution. A glimpse into what drives the Blur. It’s not resources, or greed, or bloodlust. It’s knowledge. The simple act of discovery is addictive in a way I understand, but have never fully experienced. While humanity splits its longing between the mind and flesh, the Blur are purely cerebral. There is no mind-to-body ratio. They are living brains, contained in living suits, evolved to understand. To experiment.
The Earth is a laboratory, but not in the way that I thought.
While I had conjured theories of panspermia—the seeding of life on Earth by extraterrestrial beings—humanity was unknown to the Blur until seventy years ago. I see glimpses of Earth at the time, wrapped in multiple wars. Primitive and destructive to the observers. Silverbacks all. A lesser life form. Fit for experimentation.
A flurry of images flit through my mind. Abductions. Experiments, from subtle to overt. Subjects dying. Tortured. Wounded physically and emotionally. Wars influenced. Nature manipulated. A playground for learning. An oasis for beings composed of neurons.
Over time, a grand scheme. A meddling with the human genome. A created defect. A weakness. Made to spread. Generations carried it forward until nearly every human being on the planet was susceptible.
To what? I think.
A news report plays in front of my mind. The BBC. An update on Hochman’s, the disease ravaging the human race, presenting with flu like symptoms.
We were made susceptible to Hochman’s.
No.
The thought is not my own.
We were used to create Hochman’s. That genetic flaw, bred into the human race, was by design. It made us vessels. Living incubators. How many modern plagues have actually been designed? And for what purpose? Are they just curious? Trying to cure their own ailments? Creating biological weapons? The Blur, like most science-minded people, are not very good at war. They have the capacity for it, but not the natural inclination. But if what we’ve seen here is any indication, there is a schism within Blur society.
Information is dumped into my mind. Images mixed with other senses made vague by a tightly confining suit. Memories.
‘Schism’ isn’t a strong enough word to describe the divide between the divergent species of Blur. The simplest terms that come to mind are pure and impure. On the pure side are intellectual beings of infinite curiosity, tempered by respect for life, sentient or not, prizing wisdom above all else. The noodley Blur standing in the middle of my childhood bedroom, swaying back and forth, is one of these creatures. On the other side are the impure, driven by an addictive thirst for knowledge with no restrictions for how it is attained. Each discovery is a rush. Each advance an ego boost. I also detect a growing desire for conquest. Expansion.
Control.
I theorize aloud. “The bullseye rash. The control it allows. It only works on people with this genetic flaw. It’s like a genetic backdoor, but instead of using it to hack a computer, they’re hijacking humanity. They were going to enslave us. Build an empire on our backs. Hochman’s was just the beginning.”
The human race has done this a multitude of times throughout history. We understand how it works, and that it works well. It’s why, to this day, people try to dominate each other. To the victors go the spoils.
But the impure, equal in might to the pure, and far too dispersed to wage a successful war, have come to create an army. But before they could control us, they had to change us. So they rewired the human race, making us slave-ready, but also weaponized. Plague carriers.
But not everyone. Some were immune to the change. Pure humanity still exists. Steve Manke. The name and his death replay in my mind. The Blur didn’t try to infect him. It simply killed him. But me...they let me live. I was one of their children. Impure. ‘Join us, brother.’ Not yet controlled, though. All of these people I’ve been shepherding. They are the literal future of mankind. Genetically free from manipulation.
But me...
I look down at my not-real self. At my chest. I tear open the shirt, revealing the dark bullseye rash emanating from my shoulder.
“I’m infected.”
The Blur says nothing. Silent confirmation.
“But not controlled...because they missed my heart. But my DNA is corrupt... Like the other survivors with the rash. I’m susceptible to control. To Hochman’s. Or anything else they’ve developed. And there is no cure, is there? Not even from you.”
My thoughts drift to the men and women who attacked us. The savagery. They represent the human race’s future. Or, at least, used to. Until...
“Oh my God.” I stand and pace, wanting to attack the Blur across from me, but knowing it will do no good. This communication, while it feels real and physical, is neither. We are still in the hallway, in Poe’s parent’s house, and there is a baby—Squirt—held in my arms. I calm myself, fearing that my actions in this place might affect reality.
I thrust an accusing finger at the Blur. “You did it! You destroyed the human race! Not them. Not the impure. It was you!”
A single step in the Blur’s direction is all the time it takes for me to feel its response. Overwhelming sadness. The human race was...corrupt. As a species we were on the verge of failure. Of being hijacked and lost. My assault loses steam.
“You had no choice...” I say. The words taste sour, but feel true. “All those people...” All those lives, including Claire... There was no other way to save us. But is genocide ever acceptable? Could I even make that choice? Even if it was, technically, the right thing to do? As a member of the human race, with deep relationships, could I agree to mass extermination? To the murder of not just countless billions, but also my dearest friends and family? I doubt it. I probably would have fought it. But looking at this from the outside, with an analytical mind... If a population of endangered animals became infected with a disease that would wipe out the species, would the human race think twice about culling the infected to save the rest?
Unlikely.
Despite the loss of billions, the human race will survive, but not as slaves to the Blur. Poe and Squirt, Mark, Tanya, Jeb, Luis and the rest, will all live full lives, the first of a new humanity. A genetic restart, free of tinkering.
I look up at the Blur. It has no eyes, but I sense it can see me.
“But not me.”
More silence. More confirmation. I need to come to this conclusion on my own. Or, at least, it’s giving me the opportunity, a gift not granted to the rest of humanity.
“You have to kill me.” It’s not a question. I would never sacrifice Poe’s future for my selfish desire to keep breathing. “As long as I’m alive, I’m a threat to all of them. And to you.” Even if I don’t have children and pass my DNA to a next generation, my body still contains all of the genetic code the more sinister Blur need to reproduce their work. Leaving me alive would be like ridding the world of nuclear weapons, but leaving just one, ready to be reverse engineered.
It nods slowly.
“But not yet.”
The head tilts. A question.
Why?
“To say goodbye.”
A second nod. I feel the connection drifting apart, but say, “Wait!”
My bedroom flickers, but refocuses. “How did you know?”
About what?
“About me. You took all those people’s parents, right? Implanted thoughts. Designs. Set them on a path that would lead them here, to Poe. To Squirt, who—” A tangential thought breaks in. “They were here for Squirt. They wanted to see if she would be born impure, right? To see if future generations would be susceptible to the same manipulation?”
She is not.
The statement answers the previous question and my next, so I shift back out of the tangent. “The parents of all those people. They all wrote notes. Two-word messages, all the same except for Poe’s.”
Find August.
“How did you know? About me?”
We did not. Your survival was unintentional.
“Then how did—”
Time is a dimension. With technology it can be seen, vaguely, in forward or reverse. The process is...difficult. As is the subtle directing of thought, without outright control. Years spent searching unveiled the path to success. The parents led us to the mother. The mother to the child. And the child...to the future, and a name.
My name, I think, and then I realize what I’m being told. “Her name?”
The child in your arms, August, will carry your legacy, in name.
Tears flow down my cheeks.
I sit on my old bed, the springs popping like they always did.
“These people...all this time...they weren’t looking for me. They were looking for Squirt—the child who had not yet been born, but would be named August?”
The Blur steps toward me, places its wrapped tendril hands on the sides of my head.
I thank you for your part in the journey. Far more of your species survived than we projected. But I am afraid it is time...to say goodbye. Is there anything we can do for you, to ease your passage?”
I’m about to answer, but stop. I look around the room, full of moon posters, astronaut toys, and Time-Life book collections. The dreams of a child.
“Actually...”
55
POE
Three days. That’s how long August waits to reveal his fate. He tells me all about it, his communication with the Blur I call ‘Rose,’ who disappeared in a flash of light. About Hochman’s. About Rose and her faction of Blur being the ones who killed humanity, and my parents, and why. Genetic purity sounds a lot like the evils of mankind, except, August points out, that this purity has nothing to do with race or nationality. The now hundreds of people who have found their way here, come from around the country. Around the world. August thinks that there will eventually be thousands of us. And they’re all here, for August.
Baby August.
He holds her in his big arms, forehead to forehead. He talks to her in a calm cooing voice, the way I speak to Luke. “You’re a good baby. What a sweetheart.” He kisses her head once, and then twice more. She gurgles and grabs his nose. “I know,” he says, like they’ve just communicated. “I love you, too.”
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