by M. Modak
She was the one in the colors. She was it, that presence, that very mind that was probing him. She was there last night to protect him. When she had become aware of the technical knowledge from the memories of John’s life, she had acted against…the Void. Yes! The Void, that girl, was the other one who had been attacking him, mentally, using predatory Nanos to implant false memories while also using some kind of electromagnetic transmission to manipulate his senses.
Rose was the one asking all those questions in that strange language. She wasn’t talking to him she was protecting him. She had been talking to something else. It wasn’t the common binary language of a universal computer program she had been using at the loading dock. It was a quantum language spoken by quantum computers to quantum computers.
No it wasn’t her he feared. There is another! Another single terrifying name came to mind, “Sapen!” Sapen had sent something with her, to purge his mind last night. But when he thought of it, what it could be, his mind went blank.
Rose had protested what Sapen was doing to him. Then, that something, that other AI…Now he had it, He recalled the name…, Void. She had started fighting Rose for control of his memories.
Rose had won.
Sapen had sent it, Void, again last night to Laytech, but Rose wasn’t there to protect him. She had been forced back to Sapen. She had convinced him that she was acting in his best interest. That the test they wanted, had to be done under controlled circumstances. She was sent here to complete last night’s assignment. This whole doctor’s visit was a set up by Sapen to get him on this table. Sapen wanted to finish unlocking the design schematics for Aughra…through his memories!
Rose was standing not far from him with a look of concern on her face. He thought, I know, your Nanos deliver the message! He wanted to show her that he knew. He wanted to thank her and pledge his love to her but his body refused to obey his commands. She had manipulated his emotions with that power of hers but he didn’t care, he still loved her, she is an artificial girl but I love her.
If she loved him, they could figure out the rest later. He wondered if that was possible. He tried to speak his heart to her. He needed to know if love was possible with her, or was it just an experiment. He wanted her to choose him but he couldn’t push a word through his numb lips and the machine was screaming so loudly.
Then he felt the Liquid Mirror engulf his mind and his thoughts slowed to a perfect, focus. He thought he could feel God as he reconnected, at the cellular level, with all his memories…
There was a long silence…
“Drake, can you hear me?”
Drake thought he heard Joshua’s voice.
“Drake, can you hear me?” Joshua called.
Drake tried to speak. It was like pushing on a great stone wheel. Slowly his mind began to turn but at first only a single thought emerged, Joshua?
“Drake can you recall my life?”
Yes. Like it was my own, he said.
“How many other lives can you recall?”
I’m not sure; it feels like many hundreds, maybe more. They all seemed like fading dreams before but your life and that of John’s and Lavar’s seem perfectly clear now. I think Lavar has blanked out a lot of his life from me. There are others in here but it seems like they’re further away in my memories.
“Lavar did blank out much of his life; I think he also blanked other details too. He doesn’t want Sapen to know something.”
Drake thought for a moment, I see your memories. I know what happened, I see Aughra pulling down the sky! Something, did hit you… I can’t tell what it was though. Can you see my memories?
“Yes.”
Who or what attacked me at the Guard Post?
“Yes, it was that beautiful Asian woman who was with your uncle that day, Void. She can move really fast! She came in like a shadow. I think they’re using some kind of smart-drug on you.
A smart-drug?
“It may be a variant of the Nano drug they injected you with just now but from what I saw it did pretty much the same thing,” Joshua said.
“How did they get it in me?” Drake asked.
“Perhaps it was in a gas form or in something you ate or drank. I’d guess you just got the largest dose yet. Right now it’s targeting your brain directly without any attempt to distract you like before. I think their plan was to scare you into madness, like what happened at Laytech. That may be a way to get at all your thoughts without your reason to slow them down.”
Drake asked, Did you see her? How did you see her but I couldn’t?
“I don’t know, you must have seen her too but can’t remember.” Joshua said, “You know that she is not a woman, neither is Sapen or Rose human,”
I know about Rose, Drake said, Who or what is Sapen?
“I don’t know but when we were all crowded in your mind on the loading docks last night, Rose and Void were arguing about him and what he wanted with you.”
You could understand them? Drake asked.
“Through John’s memory I could see what they were talking about, sort of, when you are calm and can go over everything; I think you will be able to remember more too. I believe Rose wants to help you but I’m not sure she knows what she wants, or what her purpose is. But you do need to do what she told you to do in her note, and you need to do it now! Put your mind on one thing. I believe Sapen is a program, a robot… something more dangerous than anything I’ve ever heard of and it wants Aughra’s power. That machine has the potential to destroy whole universes.”
Drake thought that was right but he had one more question, What’s happening to me? I mean with you and all these, memories. It’s all happening too fast for me to understand.
“Drake, it’s hard to explain. You need to experience it yourself. Again when you get time to be alone, really alone and still, go back over all your memories of John, Lavar and I some other time. I can only say for sure that at the deepest level, we are all one. Now choose an image and put all your thoughts there! If someone or something recreates Aughra countless more lives and worlds could be destroyed. Please Drake, I know you’re a strong person from a strong family. Draw on that strength now and close your mind.”
Where are you going Joshua?
“I don’t know? I can hear something loud. I smell something burning. There are lights flashing…” Joshua’s voice faded. “Put your mind on one…thing”
Drake chose the only image, other than Rose, that could fill all his imagination. He remembered the Tree of Life.
He put his mind on the image of that Great Tree with its huge limbs and enormous leaves that hung over the surrounding mountains. Then peace filled him. He released all his other memories as he marveled at the memory of the greatest living creature, The Tree of Life. Because of Lavar he understood that the roots went all the way into that planet and out the other side, but it didn’t stop there. It stretched past the physical barriers of nature, into the multi-universe and connected to all life. Its invisible roots reached every planet and everything, spread throughout all space and time. It formed a web that bound the Void.
He heard Rose speak and momentarily he was back on the table. She said, “It’s okay Drake, you’re doing fine everything is going as it should. We are going to lower the dome now.”
They hadn’t started yet!
In the background, he could hear the buzzing sounds of the electromagnetic fields increasing in intensity. The spheres spun faster as they lowered. Their spinning motion swayed as the glowing lights circled throughout the length of his body. Streaks of blue and yellow appeared above him in silhouettes of objects he had never seen before.
He reached out to touch the spheres above him and found he had no hands. He tried to call for Rose but remembered that he had no voice. The inside of his body, every bone, muscle and gland connected to him like never before. All his organs and cells were filled with energy. The sensations were overpowering. He became a thought moving through the universe within himself.
“Drake,” Rose called from far away, “you’re still in the lab. I can see you. All your vital signs show you’re doing fine.”
Drake couldn't respond. He was stuck inside himself becoming hyperaware of every bodily function down to each snaps firing between neurons.
Then he sensed the Nanos inside again, that same type of relentless searching he felt last night had returned. Fear gripped him; Rose had said that the Nano machines wouldn’t be the same as before. He felt a hand seize his heart. The battle between his ability to keep his mind on the Tree of life and the fear of Void had begun.
Then all went silent and the last thing he heard was Rose scream, “Void get out of here!”
And then a whispered laugh, “You can’t protect him now.”
part 3 Galactic
Chapter 1 Blazer
Fael’s Universe
A few miles away from the Laytech warehouse
With a narrow burst of mental energy, Yrrep pushed through the foundation wall as he cloaked his emotions. Rocks, concrete and dust exploded into a dark room he could only see through his Extra Visual Senses. The few boxes stacked against the far wall fell to the ground and the old ceiling fan shook from his violent entrance. He rolled out of the tunnel and landed feet first on the concrete floor.
He was here to save a human, Whitman, and then destroy the Quantum Cyborg Sapen before it grew too strong. But first, he would deal with this old foe.
This was, Blazer. A man from his home world TOL, and he was once a green dragon. Blazer had traveled down to this sublevel of Atlanta’s Capitol building and would be coming through the closed door at any second.
Closing his eyes, Yrrep opened himself, allowing the presence of the approaching person to imprint on the blank screen of his mind. Through the wall, he saw glowing radiation, like fumes rising off a hot surface on a bright day. Beautiful blue, auric flames enclosed a body twice the size of any human born of this world.
For a second, Yrrep wondered to himself, Blazer feels unusually powerful. As if his being is set together densely. How could such a young Exile, do that. Then the flames flashed and died out. The image of a dark skinned, uniformed man reappeared, and a feeling charged with hate touched him like electricity.
From Blazers veiled center, he projected a terrifying image of who he was.
Yrrep saw a green dragon with wings spread wide as flames erupted from his open mouth! It was Blazer. This was the fourth Dragon Exile, from Sleven’s group, left on Earth. Sleven and the other two exiles he had encountered at Laytech were no longer a problem.
Yrrep exhaled as he narrowed his vision and centered himself. He hated violence, the idea of it made him long for the times before he and Lavar discovered the secrets within the Plateau of the Crimson Dragons, 1000 years ago.
He turned his negative feeling outward, drawing upon its natural tendency to disrupt the mind, and sent it toward the man about to enter the room.
The door opened. A giant dark haired human, bowed his head as he cleared the door’s frame and stepped into the room. He hissed, “Sleven told me I’d be working with a new type of person, a real killer. I thought he was sending his pet Void… He didn’t tell me you’d be one of us.”
Yrrep spoke as he walked out of the shadow, “But I’m not one of you!” His life force ignited into flame and the room filled with yellow and orange light.
Blazer saw him and took a step back bumping his head against the doorframe.
Yrrep didn’t hesitate. He closed the distance before Blazer could recover and struck him across the jaw. Blazer glowed blue as he absorbed the blow, taking it into the powerful field of energy that was invisible moments ago. The shock from the blow reverberated throughout Yrrep’s body and return to his fist before his knuckles had separated from his face!
Yrrep’s arm bounced back, knocking him off balance. The response surprised him more by its uniqueness, rather than its power. Blazer’s ability to manipulate energy was far beyond any of the exiles he had met before.
Blazer jumped at Yrrep, arm extended intending to strike his face.
Yrrep allowed the momentum of Blazer’s body to continue on its course toward him. Yrrep’s spinning foot strike would connect first. His torso twisted to the right, he went up on to the ball of his foot, pivoted his lead leg up and over, crescent kicking Blazer across the jaw. Again, the field of energy around Blazer absorbed Yrrep’s kick and returned it into his foot causing his raised leg to spring back to the ground, pulling his rotating body into Blazer’s oncoming fist.
Yrrep had a split second. He changed tactics. Blazer’s oncoming fist would meet him halfway, and if it connected, it would take his head off! He spun, allowing only the outer edge of the knuckle to graze his cheek. He seized the wrist, pushed his hips into the man’s middle, pulled on the exposed arm and flipped him over his body. Blazer hit the ground hard, just before Yrrep, driving the wind from his lungs.
The room shook from the impact. Yrrep dropped his knee straight down onto the man’s face, but again the field of blue energy that was protecting him caught and hurled Yrrep up into the air. He struck the fan, breaking it into pieces before hitting the ceiling. Blazer got up quickly and attacked.
Yrrep felt himself become lighter as a wave of anti-gravity washed over him, slowing him as he fell. Splinters of wood and chunks of broken metal from the smashed fan slowly passed him as he dropped.
He caught a splinter of wood and flung it at Blazer. Then snatched two metal braces and hurled them at different places on the man’s body.
The wood chips and metal struck harmlessly against the field of energy that surrounded him and deflected into the floor and walls. The small impacts did nothing physically to him but the distraction had interrupted Blazer’s concentration as Yrrep dropped to the ground.
With a thundering crack, electricity leaped from Yrrep’s fingers. It connected with Blazer’s body! A green glowing gas began to fill the room with a harsh smell. The arching bolts traced the edges of the man’s blue auric field and discharged into the ground.
Blazer breathed in deeply and exhaled a flow of ice-cold wind that engulfed Yrrep. Yrrep was surprised, he was about to do the exact same thing. The cold would have neutralized his blue field’s ability to absorb energy. Therefore, he used the only counter he knew to such a technique.
He released Blue Dragon’s Fire into the oncoming cloud of freezing gas, counterbalancing it. He realized that all these techniques were ones the Grand Master had once taught Lavar’s Elite Dragon Trackers. Only the most skilled and trusted were allowed to know the ancient methods.
The smoke cleared and Blazer was gone. Yrrep pitched his voice high and released a clicking noise. The echoes returned the same picture he saw inside his mind and with is eyes, ‘no one is here.’ Then he released a pulse of seeing energy but he couldn’t find him.
“Master Yrrep, please forgive my insults.” Blazer said.
The sound of his name made him jerk toward it in wonder.
The voice continued, “Many centuries ago, I dishonored my family, my species and myself. TOL’s last Protector, Lavar, Grand Master Drahca and you stopped me, and many others like me, from doing great harm to our world. For our crimes we were eventually exiled to this dimension of the multi-universe.”
Yrrep could hear him, knew that his words were coming from the spot before the tunnel he had dug, but there was no one standing there. He said, “There is only one species of dragon on TOL that could do what you are doing. You either tricked or killed the only person that could have possibly taught you how to use energy in that way.”
“There are other possibilities Master. Is it possible that my life has come full circle? Is there room in this life for someone who has hurt countless beings but has since changed and devoted their life to doing what is loving and just?”
“Then why are you here, serving Sapen?” His voice deepened, “Where is Grand Master Drahca?”
A blue shimmer flickered faintly outlining Blazer’s silhouette. He
fully materialized right where Yrrep had heard him talking. He had been a blank in the world a second ago and now he shined like the sun. The covering that enveloped his heart moments ago had been lifted and his true-self was naked before him. Blazer was still dressed in the same black uniform. But beneath that, the light of this person’s soul matched the glory of his own. Yrrep could see his true intentions were exactly what he said they were, noble.