The Fading

by Linda Taimre

  NO HARRIET BRAXTON NO NO NO NO

  how how how how how how how how

  NO

  joe i am here and i can feel you where is katherine where is katherine where is katherine

  NO HARRIET NO YOU SHOULD NOT BE HERE I HAVE NOT FED ON YOU I HAVE NOT CONSUMED YOUR ESSENCE

  Harriet couldn’t feel anything. It was black. Or rather, there was no black. There was nothing to feel. There was nothing to hear. There was only her mind. Something allowed her to know, or hear , that another presence was there. Something else was in this realm with her, there was some way that she could sense it, though she had nothing to sense with. There was no way out for her. There was only one thing that she could process, and it was the lack of Katherine in her life, real or otherwise.

  where is she please joe where is katherine i cannot feel her

  You should not be able to feel at all, Harriet Braxton. Katherine is here. She is with me, she is me now.

  can i speak with her joe can i speak with katherine please please please please

  You cannot talk to her directly. There is no Katherine without me.

  why did you take her you knew she was a good person why did you take her

  Everyone I have taken was a good person.

  but joe you knew it wasn’t right it wasn’t something that she would have wanted it wasn’t right right right wrong

  Harriet thought she was crying but there was no way that could be possible, there was nothing that she could cry with. Slowly, some part of her consciousness drifted away from Katherine and started to question the parameters of her surroundings. How was this possible? Where was she? What had happened to her body? There was silence in the void, as far as silence was a conceivable concept between the worldspaces. It was an absence of energy. A lack of active thought. There was a denseness in the space, something that could be travelled through and understood but nothing was moving in a way that Harriet, or Harriet’s consciousness, could grab hold of and interpret.

  Right.

  Joe thought. Her being stretched out beyond anything that Harriet could conceive. Harriet was thin across the void, woven throughout the atoms of Joe, able to generate only just enough energy to stay sane, to stay conscious, to not assimilate into the whole of Joe and give in to the mass of consciousness that existed in, that owned, this space.

  Right. Right.

  Joe’s eternal stretch of atoms within the void started to move, began to sizzle with an energy that was unknown to her. Something was forming within her being, something that then transferred suddenly to all of her that was inside the Earth. There was a jolt of knowledge, a snap that illuminated her entire consciousness in a way that she couldn’t understand how it had not been previously illuminated. A cog shifted, and Joe’s sense of morality came into being.

  Right. And wrong.

  The entire sum of human consciousness that Joe had so far fed upon now came to the fore, each soul adding its voice to the fray and vibrating throughout the awareness of Joe with an energy that scared her, scared her not because of the consequences, but because of the fear of the acts that she had already performed, the horror of having done wrong, of having propagated evils that existed in the universe, of having been a force that she now knew she should strive to destroy. There was nothing that she wanted more than to take back her previous actions. There was nothing that she could do to atone for the wrong that she had wrought.

  joe joe tell me what is happening

  Harriet Braxton, I am sorry.

  joe i can feel something different tell me what is different

  Harriet Braxton. I know now. I have enough of it to see the pain and the wrong that I have caused and created.

  joe joe what do you have enough of what is it that you have enough of

  I have enough of you, Harriet Braxton, I have enough of humans. I have enough of humanity. I have the best of humanity.

  Lady Trinh hit the screen with a violence that betrayed her nerves. “How long now, General?”

  General Doloran answered in a soldier’s tone. “Two minutes, Lady Trinh.”

  She nodded. There was nothing for it now. I hope, pray, that this works . There was no higher power that Lady Trinh believed in, nothing that she thought could hear her prayers and grant her wishes. But this was the most desperate that she had ever felt. And so it comes to this, covering my bases this late in the game.

  “60 seconds, Lady Trinh.”

  She looked at the screen and saw little movement around the device. One solitary figure stood by and then moved out of view. There was an anticipation in the stillness.

  “45. 40. 35.”

  The only voices that could be heard were in the background of the operations office, low orders given, readings announced, steady reassurances that everything was going to plan so far.

  “25. 20. 15.”

  Lady Trinh looked General Doloran’s segment on the communicator. They locked eyes for the last seconds of the countdown.

  A humming noise started to emanate from the device, a low whir followed by a series of clicks. Lady Trinh could see the green glow intensify. There was a sudden flash of light from the thin apogee of the device, then a shockwave shot out, upwards. Figures swiftly stepped back into view, leaning down to read the flashing lights on the device and confirming whether it had been a success.

  There was a pause. Lady Trinh shook her head. I’m still here, with my memories, at least. I trust this bodes well for the rest of the population. “Updates?”

  General Doloran looked away from his screen and took in the information that an aide was passing him. He nodded, hesitant. “Deployment of the device was successful, Lady Trinh, according to our measures. No one in the immediate vicinity is showing signs of wiping.”

  Long let out a breath. “Thank you, General. Good work everyone. All available units are to test for traces of BX59 immediately, and begin spot-testing residents for any… collateral damage.”

  There was a quiet moment. A moment of nothing in the void – more nothing than nothing. Harriet could feel or think or hear or sense nothing. Then there was numbness. It wasn’t that she couldn’t feel or think or hear Joe, it was that Joe was no longer there with her, Joe was a wisp of a memory.

  joe

  The emptiness that surrounded the limits of her consciousness was oppressive, squeezing the hope out of her thoughts and enveloping her with a limitless doom.

  iiiii where are you

  don’t leave

  don’t leave me here

  Lady Trinh opened a private communication screen with General Doloran. So far, all of the tests had come back negative, though they were only a small percentage through the possible areas to check. “How are you feeling, Moorak?”

  The stiff general looked in the eyes of his long-time friend. He saw a tightness around her mouth that made him sorry, he wished to be there to comfort her. “Confident, Long. It will have been wiped out. I’m sure of it.”

  Moorak Doloran.

  The general twitched, his training allowing him to keep almost complete control over his outer emotions despite the spike in adrenaline that happened on the inside. He looked at Long with slightly widened eyes.

  General Moorak Doloran. Lady Long Trinh.

  Lady Trinh nodded at the general, confirming that she too had heard, or thought, the voice echo through her mind. “Where is that coming from, General?” Her voice remained steady. Moorak admired Long’s resilience in the face of unknown insanity.

  I’m here, Lady Trinh. I’m with you also, General Moorak Doloran. There is nothing I can’t see. Nowhere I can’t go.

  With shaking hands, Lady Trinh pushed her chair around and away from her desk with a smooth movement. She stood up, clenching her fists to keep them steady. She looked at herself in the large mirror that hung at the end of the room.

  You won’t be able to see me, Lady Trinh. Not yet.

  “Who are you?”

  Lady Trinh. You know who I am. As does General Doloran.


  “Long.” The general’s voice pulled her attention back around to the communicator. The low gruffness of the word told Lady Trinh that General Doloran had figured it out, just as she had. Tears welled in Lady Trinh’s eyes and her heart tightened with dismay. “It is still alive. We failed,” said General Doloran. He leant over and put his forehead on his desk. The sight of the general so overcome made the tears fall down Long’s face. “We failed.”

  Yes. You failed, and I still live. I am what you call BX59. But I have a name. My name is Joe.

  The two leaders were still, unsure how best to proceed. Lady Trinh’s mind raced to understand what significance, if any, the virus’s name held. She was on the verge of yelling for assistance when Joe thoughtspoke again.

  I’m delighted to meet you both.

  Kiah paced around the living room angrily. She had found the gun on the couch and was lightly hefting it in her hand, swinging it in low circles. Leena sat at the kitchen bench, knee bouncing up and down nervously, cradling a cup of tea. Kiah’s sat on the coffee table, ignored. “So, what do we do then? Doctor?”

  The final word was said with such bite that Dr. Kitt recoiled. “I don’t know, Kiah. I’m sorry.”

  “You’re the one who wanted to preserve it. To save it. Oh no, no, we mustn’t hurt the poor thing that eviscerates hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings, surely you can’t disagree with that.”

  “Oh Kiah, you know I never meant –”

  “Shut the fuck up I don’t give a fuck what you meant.” Kiah fell into the couch with a yell of despair and dropped the gun onto the table carelessly with a thunk. She started to knead the cushions around her violently. “So we do nothing? Nothing to try to bring them back? Bring Harriet back?”

  “There is nothing I can think to try.”

  The two sat in silence, save for Leena’s slurping of the tea and Kiah’s response of irritated snorts. Then, there was a knock at the door. For a moment, the two barely even moved, didn’t even express that they’d registered the sound, so unexpected and out of the ordinary – yet completely ordinary – it was. Leena stood up calmly. “I’ll get it.”

  What the hell, thought Kiah. From the front hallway, she heard Leena’s high-pitched singsong voice in tandem with a lower register. A man. Okay then. She waited quietly, still, until they rounded the corner. The man Leena showed into the room was tall, with grey eyes and what looked like capable, weathered hands. He seemed to be in his early 40s. He moved gracefully, with purpose, though a dent in his confidence was clear in the slight tremor of his voice.

  “Good evening.”

  “Kiah, this is Lord Fiennes.”

  “Good evening, Kiah.”

  Kiah stood up and strolled towards the Lord. She watched with interest as his eyes darted around the closer she got, unsure of where to look. She stopped centimetres away from his nose, close enough to measure the raggedness of his breathing compared to her smooth intakes and out-breaths. “Lord Fiennes. What can we do for you?”

  Steven took a small step back, almost a stumble, then smoothed his dark grey suit.

  “Dr. Kitt… Kiah.”

  “Miss Billingan.”

  “Miss Billingan. I have been sent to speak with you two, plus one Harriet Braxton. Do you know where she is?”

  Kiah could feel Leena looking at her. There was no way she was going to give up Harriet. Though, would that even be giving her up as there’s no way of getting to her?

  “Harriet’s not here. What do you need to speak to us about?”

  “Where is she?”

  Kiah arched her eyebrow and took another step towards Lord Fiennes. “Not. Here. Now tell me, what is this about?”

  Leena moved behind Lord Fiennes, in the direction of the kitchen. Kiah could see her right hand reach for her cup of tea while her left, masked from Lord Fiennes’ view, reached for the paring knife on the counter. It’s not the gun, but it’s better than nothing. Good thinking, Doc.

  “Well, ladies, if you’re not going to cooperate I’m afraid I’m going to have to…”

  Steven stepped back uncertainly until he had both the women in full view. With a sharp breath in, he pulled out a gun from the front pocket of his suit jacket, which snagged on the material on the way out. Kiah suppressed a giggle as Leena snorted.

  “Shut up!” His voice silenced the two women. The gun in his right hand was quivering, so Steven brought up his left to steady it. He gulped once. “I’m sorry that it’s come to this. I’m sorry. I really am.”

  Aiming first at Kiah’s chest, Lord Fiennes pulled the trigger.

  iiiiii where are you why have you gone

  In the deadness of the void, Harriet thought alone. She wasn’t sure what she felt. It might have been fear. But it was hard to tell without a body to feel it in. There was so much she didn’t understand about how her new form operated.

  joe you have katherine with you so please bring her back please come back for me

  Harriet Braxton. I am here.

  Lady Trinh now stood in the centre of her spacious, sparse office, having switched the communicator from her desk to the main projector. She had a sense of occasion like no other politician. This was the right time for a big screen. She wiped away the few tears that had fallen quickly with no sound. General Doloran’s tired face filled the screen entirely, his flat nose right in the centre of it, his remarkably symmetrical face stretching out several metres across.

  “So, Joe.”

  Lady Trinh I hear your disappointment. Your plan to kill me was important to you.

  “How did you know about that?” asked Lady Trinh. On the screen, she saw the general clench his jaw and scowl.

  She, General Doloran. Why does everyone keep telling me I’m a he?

  “You can understand me? My thoughts?” asked Doloran with a start.

  Yes, General Doloran.

  “It might be because Joe is more typically a boy’s name than a girl’s.” Lady Trinh spoke from the centre of the room, hands on hips.

  I see that, but it is also a girl’s name. And girls are more populous than boys on Earth, are they not?

  And General Doloran, you needn’t fear. There is no question as to whether I will be lenient or not. I am not here to hurt you. I am not here to hurt anyone.

  “How did you escape the device?”

  I retreated to your bodies. I left the barest minimum possible of my being in the void. This cannot be done for long, but it was long enough to be safe.

  “But how did you know about it?” the general asked.

  I can hear many thoughts at once. These thoughts informed me of the plan.

  “But it would have worked, in principle?” he insisted.

  Yes. I concede it was a good plan. Though a wrong one.

  Long’s ears pricked at this word. “Wrong? How can you possibly judge that?”

  Her voice was loud and clear, cutting through the fuzz that she felt in her brain.

  I have learned the difference. I know that there is a wrong and there is a right and that this plan was wrong.

  General Doloran and Lady Trinh looked at each other, disbelieving. The general spoke first, voicing both of their concerns. “How can you lecture us on right and wrong? You have killed thousands of humans. You have … consumed them, or made them disappear, all for the sake of improving your own life, if you can possibly call it that!”

  You can. You should call it that. I am alive. And I now regret those deaths. Those were deaths that should not have happened. But I have grown because of them, in strength and in wisdom. The deaths were not in vain.

  Lady Trinh snarled, revealing her perfect, tiny teeth. “Not in vain. They fed a being like you. You are nothing to us. You are an abomination.”

  There was a silence in the minds of Lady Trinh and General Doloran.

  I understand why you feel this way about me. I understand you. And so, now, you need to understand me. I need to make you understand me.

  A further pause. Long looked at Mo
orak through the screen, hit suddenly with an urge to run, knowing full well that there was no point. You cannot outrun your own brain. Then, within the two minds of the two leaders, a blackness was cast. It was more than a blackness, it was an emptiness, it was a nothing. There was a void presented to them. It was cold, more freezing than either had ever thought possible. Lady Trinh dropped immediately to her hands and knees, instantly crying – there was melancholy so profound in that emptiness that her heart ached. General Doloran clutched at his chest, trying to scratch out the source of his pain. The absence of everything in their minds left them mentally winded, the walls of their brains now touching in an ungodly, horrific way, the edges of their minds melting into one another and no thoughts able to exist, nothing could breathe, nothing could be.

  Do you understand?

  Joe’s thoughtvoice melted through the sluggish pain that overcame them. Joe then released them, pulling the void away from their minds, letting them rest on the banks of the absent river. Lady Trinh fell completely, breathing hard, tears falling on the carpet. General Doloran stopped clutching at his heart, allowed his hands to be still and breathed heavily, a low sound emitting from his throat as he recovered.

  That was the void.

  The thoughtvoice of Joe made shivers run down Lady Trinh’s spine.

  That is where I am trapped. That is why I sought to escape through you. Through the bodies of the humans. That is what I sought to escape.

  Lady Trinh stared down at the carpet soaked in her own tears.

  I am here, Harriet Braxton.

  i don’t understand where did you go joe why did you leave

  I had to protect myself. I had to protect you. I am sorry if it caused you fear.

  i was alone so alone how did you protect me protect me from what protect you from what where is katherine is katherine still with you

  Katherine is still within me. The humans tried to kill us. I pushed you into the farthest part of the void that is possible and shielded you with a small part of my being. Far beyond the reach of the humans. I am pleased that you are still here.