Evolution

by Jim Reilly

  Steven yelled to Marcus, “Get us out of here before we are sucked in as well! Oh wow, the scientist back on Earth would love to see this. The theory the scientists believed was that the particle accelerator they built at CERN could create miniature black holes. The Ancient Visitors’ particle accelerator created a very large one. And look at that.”

  They watched as all the debris from the ship began falling into the void, including the dark entity called the Prince. It fought furiously as it was dragged into the event horizon of the black hole, fighting a losing battle as it was sucked out of sight.

  Cynthia said, “I guess he can use his superiority to help himself get out of there.”

  Marcus asked, trying to get the survivors organized on this transport that was now their lifeboat, “Steven, can you please get a head count? Let’s see how many we got out of there.”

  A few minutes later, Steven returned and told Marcus, “The bad news is that we only have twenty-nine people coming back, and some of them are badly hurt. I suppose that is better than none of us making it out. Also, there is more bad news: there is no food at all on this transport.”

  Marcus asked, “What’s the good news?”

  Steven replied, “There are plenty of stasis chambers to go around. So we can sleep off the hunger pains.”

  After looking around at the survivors, Marcus spoke to comfort them, “We are alive, and the Ancient Visitors can’t enslave our descendants. In the process we lost many good people. I can tell you this, though: they would be happy that we got away and can attempt to go home. Honestly, I have to admit it. Matt and I figured that we only had one chance in a hundred of escaping. So we did better than expected, I suppose.

  “Now for some more bad news, part of the engine system on this transport got damaged escaping the explosion and the debris. We won’t be able to cut through the fabric of space like we did to get here and get home in a few years. So by my calculation by our present speed, we are going to have a very long sleep in the stasis chambers, some 950 years or so. I guess the good news is that we are alive, and our loved ones would have wanted us that way.”

  With that said, they slowly put the injured in the chambers, and the rest of them followed until Marcus, Cynthia, and Steven were left.

  As the three prepared for the long sleep, Marcus told them both, “You two did an amazing job. You survived a battle in the control center of the Ancient Visitors’ ship, accomplished your mission, and carried D’Shawn back to safety. That’s unbelievable in my book.”

  Cynthia added, “It doesn’t feel so amazing when you consider how many people we lost. Two hundred and fifty four people didn’t make it out. I find it hard to balance what we achieved with what we lost.”

  Consoling her, Marcus said, “It is a great loss when you lose so many good friends, and I think we should honor them by having long, productive lives. And we should never forget what they sacrificed.”

  A few moments later, Cynthia and Steven looked at each other as they struggled to bring up something weird on the mission. Steven then mentioned, “Something else happened as we went to the control center. We both saw something strange. I think we saw Gabriel Peters. He was abducted with us the first time we were taken, but I thought he perished with the others who did not return to Earth. When I saw him, I thought he was here on the ship the whole time, and when the fighting started where the guards were releasing many of the captured races, I thought he might have been freed then. It was strange -- not that you can’t call anything on this ship strange -- but not a word was spoken, and he directed us from a distance to where we needed to go. When we got to each point, he was gone. I can’t explain it.”

  Cynthia agreed, “I can’t explain it either. There was Gabriel, calling us to come. It led us to the safe place to go, but he was nowhere to be found.”

  Marcus thought about it and said, “In times of war or great stress, many people have seen things they can’t explain. You see visions so real they seem as though they are really happening right in front of you. Maybe it is your mind playing tricks on you, or maybe we got a little help from our friend, and or maybe someone else. I don’t know. Maybe the entity the Ancient Visitors were going to battle with for the Realm thought we needed a little help. I don’t know, and maybe we will never know.”

  With nothing else left to do, Marcus set the course for home. Then Marcus, Cynthia, and Steven got into the stasis chambers for the long journey home to the world and to the people they had helped save. For now, the twenty-nine souls would sleep for a long time.

  Epilogue

  On a grassy knoll in the hills north of Charlotte, North Carolina, three young girls were on a picnic breathing the fresh June air. They were just running on the grass and doing as little girls did, without a care in the world. There was a slight wind blowing in their long hair as the girls picked through the dandelions and white clover. Today was a nice day with the sky clear and blue and the sun warming the morning air.

  This time of the morning, it was not the sun that made them have to shield their eyes. It was the shiny panels on the tremendous space station moving in the lower atmosphere and the traffic of titanium-plated transports traveling back and forth between the space station and the colonies on the moon and Mars. It was more than a space station; it was a city floating in the air, a city called New Jerusalem. It was one of six space stations floating in the atmosphere while orbiting around Earth and housing 25,000 people. There, scientific discoveries shared the space with commerce and travel for both business and leisure. But to the girls, the glare was a minor nuisance as they ordered their eye protectors to adjust before they were back to playing on this grassy hill.

  The oldest of them, Millie, said, “Jackie and Krissy, the rescue vessel will be there sometime in the next few minutes, and the transmission will be seen by all.”

  Jackie, the little girl holding the dandelions, displayed a mixture of Super Homo sapiens features like the other girls. She said, “They have been traveling for almost a thousand years, and the space agency has been tracking and scanning the vehicle for the last five years until it came close enough for a retrieval. I’m sure we can wait a few more minutes. So let’s play some more.”

  “Oh, Jackie,” said Krissy. “Aren’t you the least bit interested to find out who is on that Ancient Visitors’ craft? It might be an ancestor of yours. Me, I am hoping it is Matt Schaeffer. I have 23.2% DNA match with him and 19.2% with Marcus.”

  Jackie replied, “If you should know, I have been tested for 17.5% Sheik Ali Mohammed. What about you, Millie? Who is your biggest percentage?”

  She was quick to answer, “I, like most of the population, have Steven on both my mother’s and father’s side. I was tested 39.2% for Steven, but I have traces of James Connor in my DNA.

  “Can you imagine, when the abducted left, the population of the world was all Homo sapiens?” asked Jackie. “I am most happy we have evolved because the Homo sapiens were slow and not too intelligent. When I look through the historic database, I find their world full of conflict, selfishness, jealousy, and corruption. Their tendency to force their will on others led to slavery, oppression, or war. The planet they lived on was almost destroyed by pollution, neglect, and weapons of mass destruction. We should consider ourselves lucky that this species is all but extinct.”

  Krissy added, "I agree with Jackie. The Homo sapiens were capable of that and more. They could hurt or kill for lust or greed and torture fellow Homo sapiens if they were a threat to their power. Their whole history is filled with stories of pain and despair.”

  Millie thought about it and said, “I can’t argue with you. The Homo sapiens certainly had the capacity for evil, but they also had the capacity for good. They were the first species in man’s evolutionary line to develop a culture, create languages, develop writing, build cities, and explore the world. As the species developed, it learned science, mathematics, engineering, physics, and astronomy. They made innovations in technology while also making advanc
ements in literature and the arts. You are right; they were capable of conflict, selfishness, jealousy, oppression, slavery, neglect, corruption, and war, but they were also capable of compassion, kindness, humility, helping others, being charitable, and love.

  “Let’s not forget why Super Homo sapiens populate the world today. A thousand years ago, the Homo sapiens decided that to protect future generations from the return of the Ancient Visitors they needed to evolve to a higher level. For future generations, they made an effort to spread the seed of the abducted throughout the world. To speed the process, they engineered a serum to change the Homo sapiens of that day to Super.

  “The science minister and future Secretary-General of the United Nations, Jennifer La Mont, initiated a worldwide program to spread the Super Homo sapiens' DNA throughout the population in just one century. But it was not easy. Many feared what dangers might come, and some refused to take the serum or let family members be pregnant with Super Homo sapiens' seed. There were demonstrations and threats of conflict. Their reasons were religion, purity of their race, or lost cultural heritage, but those were just excuses. The main reason was that they were afraid of change.”

  Jackie asked, “Afraid? How could they have been afraid of being improved? Didn’t they want to better themselves?”

  Millie replied, "First of all, the people taking the serum had to endure months of pain and discomfort as they spent time in and out of the blue liquid chambers. There was a fear of taking a serum barely tested for long-term side effects. Also, there was apprehension even spreading the genes. Many feared how far the Ancient Visitor’s designed DNA would advance man. Would man evolve to be in an advance state, with wonderful abilities to make our world better, or would the evolution of the DNA eventually make man into drones who would obey their master, the Ancient Visitors? They had no idea where it would lead. In the end, they took a leap of faith.”

  Krissy asked, “Didn’t the world need them to change? The more advanced DNA made them smarter, faster, and stronger. They needed to be in order to have a chance to defeat the Ancient Visitors.”

  “Yes,” responded Millie. “The leaders of that day understood that to be able to give the people of this planet a fighting chance, they needed to utilize any advantage they could get. So, they started by educating the masses about the new DNA with classes, demonstrations, and scientific research papers. The worldwide effort resulted with an enormous response from the population. Soon, with the future on their minds, first hundreds, then thousands, then millions, volunteered to take the serum. They got in lines everywhere, from clinics in small towns to prestigious hospitals in major cities. It didn’t go smoothly. For a while, they could not build an adequate amount of blue liquid chambers and manufacture serum fast enough to keep up with demand. In time, however, they became more efficient with serum and chamber production.

  “While the physical transition was difficult, the cultural transition was a challenge as well. Soon the many languages melded into one, human knowledge expanded, and regional social structures became global. Not only languages melded, so did races as they traveled the world and movement became free-flowing. Society changed as they set new goals, values, attitudes, and practices for mankind. Everything from sports, literature, the arts, sciences, mathematics, and social interaction changed in how they looked at and performed it. One day there was an uneducated worker employed as a ditch digger, and after months of transition, he was smarter than the most intelligent Homo sapiens physicist and a better athlete than their most prized sports star. At the very least, their whole cultural structure underwent upheaval, but over time it settled down and society accepted it.

  “So girls, you may want to show a little more respect for our ancestors and appreciate the sacrifices they made for us.”

  “One more thing,” added Jackie. “I think they looked weird with their short bodies and their small limbs and heads. If one walked around today, I think they would be captured and put on display. It would be like looking at a dinosaur or a wooly mammoth.”

  Before anyone could respond, the girls received the signal that the event was about to begin.

  “The transmission is starting.”

  The three little girls closed their eyes and instantly received a transmission directly into their minds. What they, the people on other world colonies throughout the solar system, the space stations inhabitants, and the people on Earth received was what the commander of the rescue ship said, heard, and saw as she entered the alien transport captured in the bay of the tremendous Earth vessel deep in space.

  In a commanding voice, the leader of the Earth vessel announced, “I am Commander Christine Carroll, and today we are going to open this craft that has been floating in space for almost a thousand years. Our initial scans show that there are life forms in stasis chambers. What we know is that our people were taken, and they were supposed to have been brought back to Earth in about six years. As you know, however, they had a mission to do. They were to disable the Ancient Visitors’ ship by any means possible so that the aliens could not come back as they had planned for the people of Earth, or at the very least, disable the aliens’ ship enough so that it delayed their arrival on Earth, giving mankind more time to defend the planet. The last part of their mission was to try to find a way back home. That was the part of the mission no one at the time thought would succeed.

  “Remember, we believe that they succeeded because, about ninety-nine years after they were taken, our telescopes registered a bright explosion in the area where we thought the giant alien ship was that took ninety-four years at light speed to reach us. During those ninety-four years, we waited for something to happen. The people of Earth worked together as never before in history. We had one purpose: the survival of the human race. We built a defensive shield that would make the security of this planet almost impenetrable.

  “When we saw the light of the deep space explosion, there were celebrations, but when they were over, the cooperation among the people of this planet did not stop. Together, we have eliminated disease and famine. The life expectancy of every man and woman has quadrupled. Then instead of building a defensive shield, we built things that improved our lives and the planet we live on. We used our innovative spirit to create spacecraft that explore the solar system, and we now reach out to the stars. But the best thing is the peace and brotherhood that reign over the world.”

  The commander then viewed the exterior of the transport and surmised, “As you can see, this transport has damage, and that might explain the slow trip back to Earth. If we do find them inside, it will be a miracle they made it back at all, considering what they had to do.”

  This commander was the most decorated and experienced in the fleet. Space Agency Command chose her for this historic event because she was about to retire and the agency thought this would cap her distinguished career. This by-the-book commander mentally ordered the crew to secure the alien transport and inspect the vehicle for unwelcome microscopic life forms. At her command, robotic security clamps unleashed themselves from the bay walls and levitated to the transport, securing it to the bay floor. What looked like robotic aerosol cans then flew out from a panel in the bay and encircled the transport, covering it with a fine mist. When this task was done, the robots returned to their places.

  With the bay now ready for entry, the commander entered with her crew, who prepared the transport for entry. She said, “I am standing back as my crew opens the door.”

  The crew members managed to open the door, and compressed gas was expelled before the security people went in. The commander continued, “Now, let me walk into the craft and see what is inside. It looks like no one is walking around. As you know, we scanned this transport long before we captured it to see whose life forms are inside this craft, and we were happy to find out that the scan showed the occupants to be human. Now I see about forty stasis chambers, and about three quarters are turned on. Most importantly, I don’t see any Ancient Visitors staring back at us. Let
us open the first one and see who we’ll find.”

  The crew unlatched the lid, and the security people reached into the blue liquid and pulled out a Super Homo sapiens individual.

  They got the individual up, and he slowly became conscious.

  The commander asked the security personnel, “Can we identify this individual?”

  One of the officers sent the image of the individual from his mind to the ship’s computer, and the computer instantly matched his image. Then a DNA test was done to confirm that the image matched the individual. He said, “This is Steven. It’s Steven Moran.”

  The commander said in relief, “Thank God, some of our people have come home. Today is a good day, and we celebrate the return of these long-lost souls.” With that, the commander ordered all the stasis chambers to be opened. “Get the medical teams in here now, and let’s help our people.” As the medical personnel came to assist, the people inside the opened stasis chambers slowly began to move.

  Steven, the first one up, said, “Where are we, and who are you?” But he was not alarmed because he was looking at people with many of the same features he and the abducted possessed.

  They were all brought out of the alien transport on floating beds and seen to by the medical personnel alongside each bed. To the medical personnel and all the people aboard this ship, Steven and the others were royalty, and everyone took care of their every need. The technology of this time helped the injured recover in minutes as the devices that scanned the injured also repaired everything from tissue damage to broken legs. Recovery was immediate and went as expected as humans at this time had advances in healthcare that had only been a dream in the time before they were abducted.

  Steven sat there in his room on the ship, happy to be alive but also missing the family he had left behind. The last time he saw them, they were sad he was leaving, but they were very much alive. From his perspective, he had only been gone for a few days, but in Earth time he had been gone for almost a thousand years. Now everyone he had ever known and loved was long dead. It just started to hit him that he was alone. His mom and dad, his brothers and their families, and all his friends were no more. Feeling their loss, he started to wonder why he even bothered going in the first place. Maybe he should have tried to find a way to stay and continue to enjoy their company.