“It’s completely clear. It seems to be very deep. I can’t see the bottom nor anything else but perfectly clear water,” announced Ivan. It felt strange to talk when he couldn’t hear his own voice. He always hoped that the people outside of the Amphibian would hear him and of course they always did. Still, Ivan preferred to switch to Phibcom, a system that would allow him to transfer unspoken thought-messages to the outside world via a little set of speakers attached to the cap he was wearing.
“I’m now at a depth of one hundred meters, going deeper. It’s strange… it’s still light down here. It hasn’t gotten any darker at all. It’s as if the water is its own light source.”
The glowing water reminded Ivan of Eva’s theory, The Two Lovers. There was something in the alien transmission that seemed to point to some kind of self-luminosity. The concept stirred a memory, but before he was able to follow the chain of thought any deeper it was time for another status report.
“I’m already at seven hundred meters, still the same. It’s light and there’s nothing down here. I wouldn’t even know that this is water if the bio-scanner didn’t show that it’s H2O, not air I’m floating in. I’ll have to go even deeper.”
“I’m now just past a thousand meters and I can see something below. It looks like a… like a pitch-black disc of some kind. I can’t get any readings from it, it’s like it isn’t even there. Still… there seems to be light coming from it, at least there’s a radiant ring appearing on its circumference.”
“Stop!” yelled Eva. “Don’t get any closer!”
Her scream reverberated inside Ivan’s head as he stopped his descent. “Why? I think we should investigate the black disc in some more detail,” replied Ivan.
“This isn’t just a black disc,” Eva answered, her voice quivering with urgency. “It’s a black hole. That’s why you can’t get any reading from it. It’s not even really there. Who knows what might happen if you navigate the Amphibian into it. You might well tear the fabric of reality and start a chain reaction which collapses the whole planet into the hole.”
Ivan’s face turned pale under his glittering silvery cap. “OK… I’ll turn around immediately.”
Ivan was still shivering as if he had just stepped out of a pool filled with icy water when he took off the cap and stowed the Amphibian in his backpack.
“Thank you, Eva. I didn’t think about that…”
Eva placed her hand on his shoulder. “That’s OK… I just had a moment of déjà-vu and then the realization dawned on me. You couldn’t have known.”
Her words made Ivan feel only slightly better, but there was no time to waste and Eva immediately switched back to her normal scientific self. “You didn’t collect a water sample, did you? Get the extractor and collect some water and, to be sure, also some of the steam that’s coming off it. I want to analyze it back in the lab.”
* * *
Andrei sat down next to Eva. They were finally resting in the bowels of the military drone, on their way back from the Green Egg that had cost Pavel’s life and that, potentially, could have cost many more. Eva shuddered when she thought of the black hole that they had discovered at the bottom of a more than a thousand-meter-deep pit filled with self-luminous, boiling water.
It’s good to be on the way home. Eva never thought she would ever be glad to be sitting in one of these troop carrier drones, but there she was finally feeling a sense of safety that she had been sorely missing as she moved around inside of the Green Egg.
“You’ll feel better once you get your scientific brain working and into these samples. I’m already curious what you’ll come up with.”
Andrei always was able to say the right thing, making Eva feel less vulnerable. “Thanks, Andrei. I hope I will.”
“What’s all this nonsense about a black hole at the bottom of a hot tub?” Professor Abramov was not very happy about the information that Eva and Ivan had unearthed. “This information is now classified. Don’t talk to anyone. Eva, you are in charge of the project, but don’t get carried away. You’ll report to me, and only me, about the progress you’re making on a daily basis. Ivan, you’ll assist her.”
Ivan simply nodded while Eva geared herself up to make an appropriate response.
“Don’t even think about it! Simply do as you’re told.” Mov didn’t let her utter a word and left the room before Eva could regain her composure.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen him that excited.” Ivan smirked.
Eva felt shaken, but the more she thought about it, the happier she became. She had finally reached her goal. She was in charge of what could be considered the most important research in the history of mankind. “Yes… he gets easily excited,” she replied. “Let’s have a good night’s rest. Tomorrow will be a busy day.”
Eight
Chris
“Two small soy latte, one regular and one double shot.” Chris fluidly tamped the freshly ground coffee that sat in the basket of his portafilter, as he nodded back at Alice, the skinny, highly energetic owner of The Shot, one of a few trendy retro coffee bars on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
Chris remembered applying for the job just a few months ago. Alice was sitting at a wobbly desk in her newly rented shop, working through a pile of receipts, when he entered the premises. “Hi, I’m Chris, I’d like to apply for the job as barista that you have advertised.”
Alice had looked up from her paperwork and pointed to a chair opposite her. “Hi, Chris, I’m Alice, please sit down.”
Chris had noted a certain restlessness, maybe even worry or fear in Alice’s eyes, but he thought it better to just do as he was told, and so he sat down and simply observed and relaxed until Alice was ready for him. Nearly fifteen minutes went by without any further communication until Alice suddenly looked up. “You’re a patient man. It seems you haven’t been taken over yet by the stress virus that most of New York has been infected with. I like that.”
Chris smiled but didn’t feel that Alice expected an answer.
“So … why do you want to work here? What is it that makes real coffee special to you?”
Chris recounted his experiences over the past few years, from working as a kitchen hand to becoming a waiter and finally training to become a barista, a job that was highly fashionable until about 2030 when fully automated coffee bars took over the world. Alice seemed to embrace the bohemian lifestyle, a trend that had gained momentum in the last couple of years, resulting in retro-style coffee bars celebrating a comeback, especially in the trendy parts of Manhattan, where real people again manufactured a product made from love instead of a standardized article watered down by governmental rules and regulations.
Chris told Alice about the years he had been working in NYC, but also about some more exotic places in Europe and even Australia. Alice smiled, listening to his story, and scanning his bushy retro beard and hipster-style hairdo.
“And what about all the tattoos? What’s the story behind them?”
Chris looked down at his arms and legs wondering where to begin. “Well, there’s a story for every single one, so why don’t you just pick one and I’ll tell you more about it?” He looked into her eyes, thinking, please choose whatever you like, but don’t ask me about the tree.
Alice didn’t seem to mind Chris’s suggestion and studied his arms. “Tell me about the tree. What kind of tree is it? Have you been working as an arborist?” Alice joked.
Chris looked stunned. Why did she have to pick the tree? There were so many other tattoos to choose from… He cleared his throat. He needed time to make up a story that wouldn’t sound as crazy as the one that lurked behind the tree that was glittering on the inside of his left arm, but his mind was blank and his mouth started talking on its own.
“The tree… It’s not just a tree, but it is The Tree. Some call it the Cosmic Tree. The tree symbolizes the unification of the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.”
Alice looked up in surprise. “I read about the
Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge years ago. They’re referred to in Genesis when Adam and Eve are banished from the Garden of Eden.”
Chris nodded reluctantly while Alice continued, “I’ve been wondering why knowledge is considered such a harmful thing…” Alice stared at the tree on his arm. “You know, the Bible suggests that if it is consumed one will certainly die… Well… you’re still very much alive… Anyway, sorry to interrupt, please go ahead. Tell your story.”
Chris noted her excitement and carefully proceeded. “When I was working in Australia I traveled to New Zealand. I flew into Christchurch and decided to stay a few days before getting to the other side of the island where I planned on walking Milford Sound. I guess it was just bad luck, but when I was there a huge earthquake destroyed most of the city.”
Alice looked shocked. “You were in Christchurch when the earthquake flattened the whole city back in 2048?”
Chris shuddered, recalling walking through the city center a few days after the quake, knowing that even today the abandoned site of the epicenter still stood as a testament to earth’s ultimate power over life and death.
“When the earthquake happened I had just entered an elevator in an underground car park. The quake took out most of the car park and the elevator started sliding down the shaft. We were lucky. It was only one story before it got jammed. Still, we were stuck and it took us nearly two days to get out.”
Alice looked agitated. “Who’s we?” she interjected.
“There was someone else in the lift. Ramirez, a South American, white-haired man in his late sixties. He’s the reason why I now have this tattoo. Anyway, this is a long story and I guess you don’t have all day, so the essence is that by spending two days with him I understood.”
Alice raised a questioning eyebrow. “You understood … what?”
Chris wasn’t sure how to continue. “I understood life. I understood myself.” He looked down at his tattoo, his face softening. “The Cosmic Tree symbolizes the true self. It points to the perfect integration of objective knowledge into the flow of life. It is an abstraction of the understanding that life only ever knows itself.”
Suddenly the door opened and a friendly Asian-looking guy entered the café. “Hi, Alice! Have you decided what color you want me to use on the walls? I’m free this afternoon and thought I’d help you in getting things rolling.”
“Thank you, Song, that’d be wonderful! Let me finish my chat with Chris here and then we can get started.”
Chris was relieved that Song had diverted Alice’s interest from his story to more pressing matters.
“Well, thank you, Chris. I guess you’ll have to finish your story when you start working here. We’ll open on Monday and I expect you here 6:30 a.m.”
“Thank you, Alice. That’s wonderful. I’m very much looking forward to working with you.”
* * *
Alice smiled at Chris as she picked up the two soy lattes she had ordered before. “Last order of the day. Decaf soy latte with a shot of caramel and cream.”
Chris cringed at the order. He knew the man. He came here every Friday and ordered the same drink, always a few minutes past the café’s regular closing time. He was a professor of some kind, attentively studying books about ancient Greek or Roman history.
“I have to leave early tonight. Can you lock up when he has finished his latte?” asked Alice.
Chris nodded and started preparing the last order. I don’t understand why people drink this stuff. This is a café, not a Zen monastery, he thought. While the last customer slowly sipped his drink, Chris started cleaning his coffee machine. Keeping the tools of your trade in perfect order was just as much part of being a barista as was making the perfect cup of coffee. He was emptying the beans from one of the grinders when he heard a loud noise at the other end of the café. The professor had gotten up from his chair. His broken glass lay on the floor. He stood staring at the wall on the other side of the room. He looked like he had seen a ghost or worse and started fumbling in his jacket pocket. Chris tried to figure out what he was worried about, but all that he could see was the empty wall.
“Are you OK? Can I help you?” Chris asked, but the man was oblivious to Chris even being in the same room. All that he seemed to care about was the wall, which he kept staring at. The professor found what he was looking for in his jacket pocket. He pointed a long-range Taser straight at the empty wall.
The professor started firing, but the electric beam hit a hidden block roughly halfway, leaving the wall sound and unscarred. A second later the weapon was knocked out of the man’s hand by an invisible force and his body started lifting off the ground. His arms and legs shook as if connected to three-phase power while he tried to fight off an aggressor that only he could see.
For Chris the whole event played out in slow motion. He had started to make his way out from behind the bar, approaching the professor, when the man’s body lifted off the timber floor. When Chris finally reached him, he grabbed the man by the shoulders, trying to push him back to the ground. That’s when he saw it.
Touching the professor’s body established a connection. Chris now shared the victim’s visual experience. It was like nothing he had ever seen before.
The man was suspended in midair, hanging from what looked like a set of glowingly white, barbed, bat-like wings, which were attached to the back of a tall, fierce-looking woman. She stood in front of him, wearing a low-cut, black leather dress revealing mystical, markings on otherwise perfectly white, porcelain skin. There was one on her back showing a pair of scales, while her front was covered in an intricate motive of flames, which glowed like the embers of a bonfire. Symbols resembling ancient weaponry like swords, maces, spiked chains, and axes covered her arms.
The fire in her eyes intensified, overpowering the flames that curled around her shoulders and chest. She slowly touched one of the symbols on her left arm. A sword shaped like a lightning bolt, sharp spikes and edges all over, materialized in her right hand. She rammed it into the man’s stomach while using one of her barbed wings to sever the head from his body. She let the lifeless body slide off her sword as she turned her gaze onto Chris.
He was shocked from observing this level of violence, yet he was not afraid. He had lost all capacity for fear in the elevator in New Zealand a few years ago. Chris watched the creature approaching, and looked directly into the tall woman’s eyes. He felt a strange sensation arise in his chest, similar to the time in the elevator when he first realized the interconnectedness of all things.
He felt a bond being forged, a glowing spark of life materializing as a current of energy inside of him, while at the same time he was perfectly sure that it really was the white woman entering his innermost field of being, exploring his deepest sense of self.
A smile broke over her face, displaying a set of unusually pointed teeth. Chris was mesmerized by the alien creature that now extended her arm, touching him with her index finger right between the eyes. It felt like a bolt of lightning supercharging his body, leaving an afterglow in his head and chest similar to the effects of an ecstatic orgasm. A second later she turned around and walked straight through the wall, vanishing out of sight. A thought reverberated in his head, a thought that he knew was truly a message from this magical creature.
“Find your brother!”
Chris knew this was not just a suggestion. It was a command that had to be followed. It felt like something your mother would have told you when you were a young child to keep you out of trouble. You knew you had better obey.
“Find your brother…” Chris didn’t have a brother. It made no sense. How could he find someone who didn’t even exist?
Nine
Ezrah
Detective Ezrah Hill was sick of sifting through the reports that were piling up on his desk. People were being slaughtered in unimaginably cruel ways and he had not the slightest shred of evidence that would point to the killer’s identity. There seemed to be a few common threads though
; the most annoying one was that there was never a witness left alive who was able to report who or what had been responsible for the massacres. Then there were also a few other common denominators, like the use of either brute, manual force or of some kind of ancient weaponry, causing injuries a foot soldier might have experienced in the Middle Ages. There was no indication of any type of modern weapon being used: no Tasers, no electron laser or particle acceleration weapons had been employed, not even one of the outdated guns and pistols that were used until the early twenty-first century. Ezrah anticipated finally meeting someone who could potentially shed light on the darkness he was groping about in.
Ezrah looked up from the report he was studying as Chris entered his office. The file was not as voluminous as most other records. Only one victim, a professor of ancient history, had suffered the mortal effects of the attack. And then there was one more man… Chris Morgan, who seemed to be the first person to ever survive one of the assaults.
Ezrah was unsure if he should put Chris into the lucky survivor or potential suspect basket. He decided to remain neutral for the time being and simply let this man, whose sloppy, retro look he already disliked, tell his version of the story.
“Mr. Morgan… You were lucky to get out of this alive. We have a good idea of what happened in the café, but I’d like you to tell me your version of the story anyway. So please proceed and try to be as detailed as possible.”
Chris related the events truthfully, noting that the professor was a regular guest at The Shot, how his calm demeanor suddenly changed, and what happened after he jumped up from his chair in a state of panic, aiming his Taser at the empty room and firing a few shots that seemed to hit an invisible wall a few meters in front of him. When he started describing the pale, alien-looking woman, Ezrah’s attitude quickly changed from keen interest to disbelief and finally, laughableness.
Humans and other Aliens: Book 1 Page 4