Descendant

by Jeffrey A. Levin

  Maya is literally on a bed of roses. We are together. I mean really together. My extended mind hears all her thoughts. We’re on a light beam, moving faster than the speed of light. There is the sound of a cello. Vibrations are repeating three hundred times a second as we travel through a vacuum. As waves we cause ripples, bouncing, hurtling, and probing.

  Over the moon and up the stream in the sky we go. Maya laughs, and shooting stars fly by. I reach out and grab her hand. She squeezes it tightly as we pass a comet, breathing harder and harder.

  We are waves, pulsing, modulating, and throbbing. My “Pyra” is ready to explode! I become so excited and caution Maya to wait. This is certainly the pinnacle of my relationship with my gorgeous mate. And then it happens! Exhilarated, we fly past the sun, feeling satisfied with the ride.

  The oceans rise, and we cruise the tide.

  As I open my eyes, I feel my heart palpitating. My face is flushed, and my respiration has increased. We are flying through a portal in space; I know it! Our speed increases. Time slows down. I can think now! My family is known for destruction. I don’t want that! Shouldn’t I be allowed to do my own thing?

  I know what I want to be: simply a boy who can love a girl, and her name is Maya. I feel myself drifting back to sleep.

  1:13:33 p.m.

  I wake up with a jolt. Can you believe that at one point people thought that a wormhole was a theoretical concept? Theoretical my derriere!

  I wake up to this: Exotic matter falling through its mouth. One vortex after another sucking me deeper, deeper, deeper!

  Save M.

  E.

  !

  It’s suicide! It cannot be done! Free-falling inside a wormhole is like skydiving headfirst from the moon to Earth. Ezekial loves the adventure! He loves every part of it; landing softly on an asteroid that he calls home, having conversations with people like Tesla, Da Vinci, Copernicus, and all the Eisensteins for the last four hundred years—that’s his thing!

  “Is this what I really have to do? Isn’t there an easier way?”

  Zeke hardly responds. He just keeps his hands on the controls. There are times when I think he’s not real. After all, courage has its limits, doesn’t it?

  We’ve gone through step one. In case you’re interested, a wormhole connects to two spots, starting with X point one connecting to point F2. “F2” means you’re certifiably nuts, or dead.

  Yes, we fell into the tunnel preceding the tunnel. What does that mean? I guess it’s like going through foreplay before you actually have an orgasm. All right, it’s your turn to gasp.

  Zeke turns on all his auditory controls; the verbal commands that he receives speak every language in the universe. From a distance, the wormhole appears like a swirling mass of infinite concentric circles. We approach it stealthily. Zeke and I witness the dark, rotating electric currents, which form what appears to be a gigantic blackish-red mouth ready to swallow us up and spit us out.

  Does the expression “hold on to your seat” have any meaning to you? Well, when you’re shifting gears from a three-dimensional world, downshifting back to a stack of two-dimensional worlds, swirling like an out of control hurricane, and finally exploding into a three-dimensional world—or worlds—you may want to buckle up your seat belt!

  All right, the electrons in my body are swirling around like mad bees, and my afferent neurons are buzzing like angry hornets after a SWAT team arrives, guns blazing. Me? My eyes have swollen, extraterrestrial style, to the size of two cantaloupes. My heart? blood is rushing through my body like a small raft shooting over, under, and through a waterfall. My mind? My neurons are fleeing from my transmitters, trying to figure out a way to jump ship from my skull.

  Simply put, Zeke and I are approaching the precipice of hell. Our craft approaches the swirling eye of the maelstrom, moving closer and closer to the abyss. It seems so inevitable, so deathly, as we descend into the depths of Hades. One swirling evil mouth after another is expelling matter from the pit of its maw. It is like a bottomless volcano spewing out its refuse into the black abyss of time.

  I try opening my eyes, but it’s only temporary. Have you ever taken a roller-coaster ride off the top of a 150-story high rise, free-falling into a fiery pit? First you approach the outer horizon. Next you free-fall, free-fall, free fall! I feel sick, as if my insides become my outsides and then shift back again, rotating into a surging vat of fiery gasses. My stomach is churning like a souped-up rocket-sized blender, except it’s me on the inside, churning and churning and churning!

  Breathe! Keep your hands steady! Make sure your glasses are secure.

  You’re still alive, aren’t you? Zeke and I observe the inner horizon. Then the flashes of light repeat like some strange staccato waltz, mocking us as we attempt the impossible. The craft appears to be on the precipice of obliteration. The wormhole’s inner eye continues to blink.

  I try to breathe but can’t. My teeth are chattering like a psychotic drummer crashing his sticks repetitively against a reverberating surface.

  We’re going into the trap door of time.

  I feel a staccato rhythmic vibration. All the events of existence, including the big bang, reverse. Then I witness the repetitive flashes of brilliant life shooting out in all its grandeur! Then there is nothing.

  I hear hollow-sounding vibrations, much like the eerie quiet right before a tsunami. A terrifying stark, menacing silence prevails.

  I swallow, afraid to open my eyes.

  More blinking lights.

  There is an explosion like a burst from a menacing machine gun.

  My eyes feel as if they’re going to explode.

  Momentary nothingness…

  More demonic lights appear. The free-falling flow of space is turned inside out. Everything goes black, then gray, and then red.

  We continue through the celestial storm. “Space will fall outward at the speed of light!” There is acceleration. The voice spills out like a mad puppeteer, steering us, guiding us, saving both of us from utter annihilation. Flashes of radiation spill out of the mouth of the wormhole once more. Zeke reaches up, turning the power force higher on his resistor. The flashes continue. A third flash of lights bombards me, and suddenly I see the outer horizon.

  “We’ve made it through!

  CHAPTER 22

  July 5, 2378

  1:13:34 p.m.

  Smashing back into the atmosphere, the craft shakes wildly, like a peanut in a windstorm. Heat surrounds the craft like an angry dragon, exceeding four thousand degrees.

  “Why hasn’t the craft been reduced to a cinder?” Ezekial asks, wiping the sweat from his brow. “Pull out the thrusters!”

  Ionized gasses whir, spiral, and swirl, surrounding us with ghostlike forms. Zeke and I hear the eerie noises of space beckoning to our souls: “You’re going to die! You’re going to die!”

  “What the hell are those voices?” I say.

  Zeke shakes his head. “Maybe we’re in hell,” he utters like a man ready to meet his maker. Magnetic, electric colored strings gyrate in the air like backup rock dancers, flailing their subatomic arms to the beat of the strobing colors.

  We witness portals closing, opening, closing, opening. Suddenly there’s some stability.

  I peer out the window, noting a few small gleaming stars winking at me in the night air. Ya know, for thousands of years our civilization has been studying space, but no one could describe this.

  I observe twelve pearly moons seemingly floating in the air. Empty space turns the void into a Da Vinci painting filled with twinkling lights and sparkling, phosphorescent, brilliant, tempestuous storms. A canopy of spine-chilling gasses hangs over us like overfed grayish-black demons.

  I peer out at the beautiful canvas in the sky.

  “That’s where we’re going, Michael—Xenia 42, one of the moons of Xacnthis.” Zeke takes a deep brea
th. “Listen, Michael; It’s a little a late to tell you, but I wouldn’t wish this place on my biggest enemy. Just hang in there!”

  “Aren’t you going to tell me where?”

  “You’re going to one of the most evil habitats in the world—Vorashia. Her name is Victoria—Victoria Vorashian. She’s no one you really want to meet.”

  What just happened? Victoria Vorashian? I know that name? How? When? Puzzles and pieces and puzzles and pieces. Copernicus—he’s a part of this, isn’t he?

  “No time to talk, Michael. I hope she’s not waiting for us!”

  “Why, Zeke? Do I know her?”

  “We’ll talk about it sometime—not now! She’s recording all of this, Michael. I regret to say it’s called crazed identification phenomenon. The dark exotic energy takes a picture; everything is photographed, recorded, and sent back to her. We may be in trouble, Michael.”

  Zeke’s hands are still firmly clutching the controls. Instantaneously we hear a tapping noise and see blinking on our cosmic dash. Zeke clears his throat. “This is a game-changer, Michael. All bets are off; do you understand?”

  I nod my head. A frantic Zeke adjusts the numbers flying across his instrument panel. All of a sudden the craft wavers in the air as if some outside force is now in control and we’re both destined to die in this black, morose, inky atmosphere. For the first time, I hear Ezekial’s anger, as if it’s been welling up from the bowels of his soul.

  “Don’t you get it, Michael? If we don’t fix what you’ve done—not me … not Copernicus… not God… just you—we’re all doomed to the results!”

  I stare at him, not saying a word, terrified.

  “This is no dream! In the twenty-fourth century, people pass through time portals the way they used to plug in their VCRs and click their fast-forward controls. Do you understand that? She may know you’ve arrived. I don’t know how she’ll react. She’s a killer, Michael. She won’t think twice about killing both of us!”

  I nod obediently, wondering why Ezekial has suddenly gotten so angry with me. He hears my thoughts.

  “I’m angry because you’re doing it again!” Zeke exclaims.

  “Doing what again?” I inquire.

  “Taking that damn dismissive tone of yours, as if what you do doesn’t matter in the world! You’re not at home, diddling away your time with your computer, Terby; This is serious business, Michael, and you’re acting like a child!”

  “I thought you liked me,” I say, sounding like a pathetic schoolgirl.

  “Listen, Michael, I’m giving you the opportunity of a lifetime! I’m giving you the chance to undo what you did the first time around. Are you in or not?”

  I pause, trying to weigh all the possibilities—all the mathematical equations that are possible. What would Pythagoras do? I wonder.

  “Stop doing that!” Ezekial blurts out. “For once in your life, stop hiding behind your schoolboy intelligence; I need you to grow up!”

  “All right! Is that what you want? I’ll be your puppet; I’ll do whatever you want!” I say, nearly crying.

  Zeke stares at me for what appears to be an eternity. “I hope you didn’t think this was going to be easy. Listen, Michael; you were older then, when it happened. You were at least ten years older than you are now.”

  “What happened?”

  “You have a history with her, Michael. Understand?”

  “With who?”

  Zeke’s face turns completely red. He’s shaking. “You had an affair with her, Michael, and then you jilted her. Got it, Romeo? I think she knows what Copernicus did. When she sees your picture, even though you’re younger now, she will figure it out!

  “So all this is about me?”

  My body begins shaking convulsively. Zeke grabs me. He is panting. “Just stay close, keep your mouth shut, and follow orders!”

  “Where are we going?” I ask squeamishly.

  Zeke pats me on the back, reassuring me. “All right, Michael, I guess I’ve been a little rough on you. We’re going to the other side of Xena 42! We’ll have to keep a low profile and hope that Victoria can’t detect us. If she does, it’s over!”

  Zeke glares at me. “We need to know how they’re disrupting the universe. The temperature never goes higher than one hundred ten degrees Fahrenheit—minus ninety-five degrees Celsius at the poles. On their dark moon, the temperature never rises above seventy-three degrees Celsius. However, the inky atmosphere does make it harder to breathe. I don’t know what she’s up to, but whatever it is, it ain’t good!”

  “Where’s their sun?” I ask. “Where the hell is their sun?”

  “Look at those lights! It looks like Mardi Gras down there!” Zeke sounds panicked. He throws me a towel. “Wipe yourself off; you’re sweating like a pig!”

  “I thought that Victoria’s planet was occupied; she’s moved her operation to one of her moons. Something’s very wrong here. Change of plans, Michael! This is not what I expected! There’s some sort of civilization down there. We’re going to have to check it out. Hold on. The entire dark energy force around here is attempting to draw us in! I don’t get it. Damn, something is taking control of this craft. I have no control!”

  I watch in horror as I see the craft lowering slowly to the surface of their moon.

  Zeke grabs me by the shoulders, shouting into my face. “I want you to listen to me exclusively. And for once in your life, don’t get cute; just do what I tell you! Got it?”

  CHAPTER 23

  July 5, 2378

  1:13:38

  Through the wind and the rain

  She stands hard as a stone

  In a world that she can’t rise above

  But her dreams give her wings

  And she flies to a place where she’s loved

  Concrete angel

  —Martina McBride (ancient songwriter)

  Victoria’s dynasty didn’t come easy, and she knows that it could be taken away as quickly as it came. She carefully places on her glasses, and there she is, gorgeous, with dark eyes and long black hair. Victoria takes off her glasses off, staring into her 3D mirror, but what she sees is her own unique ugliness. She knows that the world doesn’t see her that way, but she can’t help it. Her dark eye shadow, long red nails, and crimson lipstick hide an insecure girl, a scared girl, who needs the reassurance of power, money, and things around her all the time. She places her bloody razor back down on the counter.

  Victoria’s thoughts drift to the physical and sexual abuses of her past. Way back, when she was a child living in the Cassiopeia constellation, her father would come calling. She remembers his filthy scent, his foul breath, and his razor-edged infernal eyes. Mostly she remembers how he made her feel when he was done with her, having satisfied his every need, leaving her barren of thought, depleting her soul. He may as well have left her for dead.

  She places her VR glasses right back on. Her memories are erased for a moment. Victoria knows that she is living inside another world as long as she has her specialized reality-alteration glasses on. She is free from her lizard brain! She is now looking inside a different world. She requires a rest from the disturbances of so-called reality. Victoria hits a button that makes her only nine years old. She is on her kind father’s lap. All of a sudden, noises from the outside bring her back into reality. Memories flood her brain.

  When Victoria is taken by another man, she prefers to keep him anonymous and to be used until there is nothing left of her own humanity or what she thinks is her core. The man brings her to the planet of Xenia; he promises her a life—a life that will eventually lead past the degrading filth of sex for hire.

  He promises her that she can stop one day and that the money she makes will allow her to step into a better life. But he forgets to mention that the atmosphere is inky black, the people are all scoundrels, and she will never receive anything but humiliat
ion and shame. Yes, baryonic dark matter envelops the planet—and perhaps the entire galaxy.

  Victoria’s heart begins beating faster and faster. She lives within a world surrounded by sludgy condensed objects consisting of nonluminous gasses.

  “I can’t go back to that!” Victoria says softly to her mirror.

  Victoria places her VR glasses on again. Just one more time this morning. She needs more VR help. After all, VR is the only thing that gives her the power she needs to move on.

  She is still on her father’s knee. He has a doll. He calls it his Victoria doll. He hands it to her. It is beautiful… It is me! Daddy tells me that I’m beautiful and says not to worry about all those hateful voices that I hear inside of my head—those relentless hateful voices that simply won’t go away. I hold my doll, squeezing her, kissing her. Then I hear my kind daddy say, “I love you, Victoria!”

  Then Victoria’s real voice comes back. “You need to go back to reality. Go back! You have important business to attend to!”

  Victoria takes off her glasses. She’s ready to face reality. She is wealthy now. She has power. Her intelligence and her will catapulted her into the position that she possesses today. The name “Vorashian” is on buildings, restaurants, technology—in short, everything. She is her own force, devoid of conscience. She tells herself that she can’t afford the luxury of that inner mechanism that does nothing but torture her. No! She is her own woman, without shame. Yes, her vanity is there for everyone to see in the northern constellation. Victoria now channels the most beautiful queen in the universe, Cassiopeia.

  But how did that happen?

  Victoria remembers the day everything changed: the suicidal thoughts, the loaded gun, the will to die. All those things linger in her memory, yet somehow she survives. How? Her old self and her memories have been left behind.