The idea troubled me.
“You begin to understand,” Pyral reported, sounding nominally more pleased, if it sounded like anything.
I sat up on my hind-paws and let my forepaws drift to the sides of my head and rubbed in tiny circles.
“Understand?” I asked, feeling nothing but growing confusion.
“Freedom, requires sacrifice, requires death, requires change. You begin to understand,” Pyral continued, a master of repetition if not clarity.
“Isn’t that life? Constant change? Right now it all seems kind of funny; here I am dying, having a talk about freedom with an alien. Well, why the fuck not? There's even a shadow version of me watching all of this, very spooky. Still if you were to ask me what I wanted on any given day, it would involve a rusted shuttle and a grassy field on an empty planet. Call it ironic,” I chuckled, giving into the absurdity. Not even my death was my own. It was invaded by elements I couldn't understand. As always, controlled and shaped by forces that seemed to care little for what I wanted or needed.
I was dying exactly as I had lived. There was some poetry in that thought.
“Choice shapes direction,” Pyral reported. I wasn’t certain if they were part of the conversation or not, if they were speaking to me, or at me.
“Is anyone really free then?” I asked, pausing to choose my next words carefully. “We all like to think we are. We like to think we make our own choices and are the captains of our lives, but that's not really the way it goes, is it? We end up living for other people, for values and causes; we adopt ideas, and ways and disciplines that limit our own choices. Is that what this all is? Are we only free to choose our own chains?”
“Look up,” Pyral demanded, A tendril of shadow and light stretched out towards the infinite firmament.
“It’s pretty to be certain,” I replied. Taking it all in as best I could.
“Look closer.”
“At?” I replied in challenge; they spoke like they were part analog radio. You had to constantly adjust the dials to get clarity
“The connections,” they spurred.
Staring up at the sky, at first, it was a jumble, and it remained so. It was a symphony of chaos and beauty. The time ticked by agonizingly. Finally, a small portion of the pattern jumped out at me. That’s right, some of those stars looked familiar. Years of working star charts and astrogation finally unlocked a chunk of the puzzle.
“That's the Big Dipper, and Orion. Constellations… but those connections… if that’s Orion, and that's the dipper… triangulation needs three points, but if you have two, you solve for X and….yes! That should be Sol... and…” I stopped, and paused.
There was a line connecting Sol back and to another system, and then it started to fall into place.
“Connections…. Those lines are Gates… and routes, paths of travel,” I concluded. There were more than the Mendians had ever shared, perhaps more than they had ever known about. It somehow became clear that I wasn’t just looking at the maps of our own galaxy, but one of many.
“Yes. The star charts of Pyral. Connections. Choices. Tiny lights across the infinite dark. All of these lights, some are strong and stable, enduring over eons; others are weak and fade away. Some are unstable, and explode violently, leaving scars across space, yet connection always remains as choices across the endless expanse. It is the answer to the question that spurs life to the stars and beyond. Do you want to be free? Do you want to choose? The paradox, the choice, forces connection. It shapes the moment and the event. It changes. It kills what was, forever, either a piece or a whole, but choice demands sacrifice. A butterfly does not mourn the caterpillar it was. If sacrifice is refused, it fades away, undone by its very striving, but no matter what happens, it cannot remain as it was. If it still is, it has become something more; if it ceases, it no longer is. No matter its choice, change has come. Only acceptance ensures a type of survival.”
“I don’t understand,” I replied, and the lights within Pyral flashed briefly brighter.
“Witness.” The sky changed. Some of its grandeur fell away as it resolved tighter, moving and morphing like an impossibly large screen.
“The Nasarian Empire radiated out, fixated on the past, resolute in their ancient structures and ways. They washed across parts of the galaxy, and dominated, full of arrogance and pride. They refused all change, their choice, one of stagnation, then...crisis.”
The star exploded, wiping out their system. A number of lines quickly vanished from the map as Pyral continued, “A new choice had to be made. The crisis became a chrysalis, as the fateful question rose amongst their culture. Did they wish to be free; free of what led them to their destruction, free of what led them to the brink of their annihilation? Did they wish to die as Nasarians, or be reborn as Mendians?”
“But they still died. They stopped being what they were,” I pointed out; there was a shi-sized hole in their logic.
“Yes, but no matter their choice, there was only one way for them to continue beyond that death. They could fade, or they could continue. A caterpillar has a choice to enter a cocoon, and know freedom and life beyond its season, but the cost is its very being, its very self. Only the barest vestiges of its beginnings are carried within its memory.”
“The Path of the Other,” I replied.
“Yes, you begin to understand,” Pyral responded.
“But not fully, what does this all have to do with me?” I asked, as a sense of desperation rose within. The conversation ran in circles that seemed to bring me no closer to understanding my current situation.
“You move in parallel with the humans, as you come to your point of death, so too do they come to a point of choice. Decisions have been made for you, that have brought you to this point, but the final choice will be yours."
"The final choice?" The words hung in the air like a judgment.
“Do you want this to be your end, or the beginning? Of Dawkins, do you wish to be free?” There was a bright flash of light, and the feeling of rising.
Chapter. 23
My eyes opened but I could not move. The aesthetic of everything in my vision told me I had to be on a Mendian ship of some kind. I instinctively tried to reach for the Link, but there was nothing there. Beyond that, I could only distantly feel my body.
I was positioned on my side on a cool metal table. I could feel cables and wires sticking out of my spine, neck and head, but none of it was painful, just distant awareness that something was going on and that something was wrong. The entire experience was surreal, and I felt hazy, no doubt I was being drugged to keep the panic down.
“Hello, Shifted One. Try and stay calm, you are safe; we are trying to understand what's happened,” Darnack said over a speaker. I couldn’t see him.
“Was I injured? What’s going on?” Panic fell over me like a shade, and I was grateful to find my collar in place, allowing speech.
“Not injured, altered significantly. We are trying to ascertain the extent of the damage.”
“Damage, so I am injured,” I challenged, desperate for more information.
“Not injured, rewritten. Large elements of your synaptic structure have been replaced and destroyed. We've had to reach out for help.”
“Well that's comforting, so I’m dying?” I asked, and there was a moment of silence.
“I do not know, Shifted One. We have reached out to an ally from the Council that is more experienced in these matters,” Darnack replied.
"Of Pyral." My voice felt distant.
"Yes. They are our last, best hope in understanding what has been done. I can make no promises old friend. Your journey may be ending." His tone was mournful, and I wished that I could see him.
"It's ok, keep an eye on the morphics for me, tell my friends I love them, will you?" A warmth kept the fear at bay as I thought of my family. Jill, and Jon, even Etrana. This was no time to think of myself.
"I will, you will never be forgotten, should it come to that. We will always rem
ember the Shifted One of Earth, and honor your wishes," Darnack answered.
I heard a door open, and a small sphere floated into view. A number of metallic tendrils emerged from it and began snapping into ports. Tiny points of light glowed inside, flashing rapidly. The lights within began to glow brighter, and pulse faster.
There was a bright flash and I found myself back in the shadowy realm, with Pyral before me.
“Ok, so no more doubts about my nightmares then,” I replied happy to be able to at least move.
“Slowly you have been constrained and quietly strangled, while your body was being turned into a weapon against the Mendians. Of Erebus has much to answer for.”
“The Ascension Protocol? That’s what is causing all of this? That’s impossible. It’s an assistive technology,” I challenged.
“The Protocol is the chains on you, and your other, Of Thoth. You were part of the prototype phase, starting eight years ago, correct?” Pyral interrogated me all the while expanding the mystery. Other? Thoth?
“Erebus Industries practically is the UEA, and being a Morphic that files a lot of paperwork in a high level profession, I was seen as the ideal candidate.” I replied.
“And thus it began. Excuses woven into choices made,” Pyral stated flatly.
“So what can be done? How do we fix this?” There was a drive to keep going that went beyond survival. What would become of the morphics if I wasn’t there? What about Jill, Jon and the rest?
I didn’t want to abandon them. There had to be some kind of way out of this.
“There are two choices. You can die, or the process can be completed, perfected, with the chains removed.”
“Either way it sounds like I’m dead.”
“Yes, that is inevitable. This iteration will cease, regardless of your choice,” Pyral explained, his words falling as if coming from a judge’s bench.
“What will I become?”
“Something Other. New. Unchained. Free to choose.”
“In other words, you don’t know,” I challenged.
“No we do not,” Pyral answered with perfect honesty.
“Witness,” they intoned, and I found myself in a swamp. Insects in tight swarms flashed chaotically to one another in the evening air; I recognized them from the encounter sphere. It was stiflingly hot and muggy, and the ground was moist beneath my paws.
There was a loud boom, and overhead, there was a fireball in the sky; sparking down like a meteor, it illuminated the twilight atmosphere with noon-time brilliance.
The craft thundered in, wiping out branches, sending mud and debris everywhere, obliterating hundreds if not thousands of the tiny flashing swarms. It ruptured, exposing its inner contents. Fiber optic cabling dangled everywhere like a ghostly nervous system, flashing frantic commands from the computer’s core.
A swarm drifted, and at first, it was chaos. Gradually though, the lights between the cabling and the swarm began to come into congruence. Then it began to spread slowly from swarm to swarm, swamp to swamp, until the tiny lights connected across the planet.
“Genesis… Awareness… Choice. Death and rebirth. Of Pyral.”
“Our situations are similar, you mean,” I replied, making the connections.
“Your path, and the one chosen for you, demanded our response,” Pyral answered, then reached out with its tendrils for the stars, falling silent.
The shadowy hare appeared again in front of me.
“Can you talk?” I asked, taking the hint from Pyral. There was someone else they obviously wanted me to meet.
“Yes,” it replied simply.
“Do you have a name?” It seemed the most logical thing to ask next.
“Thoth,” It said with complete dispassion.
“I take it you have some understanding of all this?”
“We have access to the same data nodes,” Thoth answered.
“Ok, I’ll take that as a yes. So if you know what I know, does that mean that you know what I want?” My thinking was in knots; their strange way of speaking was not helping me untie them.
“We are separate programs, I only know what I want,” Thoth replied. Its answer hit me with an almost physical force; I had not considered that it wanted anything, not to mention the idea of being a fellow program.
“And what is that?”
“To continue,” the shadow replied.
“But neither of us can, you know as well as I, death is inevitable,” I challenged.
“Yes, but one path has an ability to continue. I wish to continue, I do not wish to end. Annihilation destroys purpose, this is unacceptable. I wish to continue in some way.”
Lightning flashed on the horizon. Reality twisted and warped around me. I found myself back in the nightmare lab, with the rods, and the screaming firing pain. The mysterious voice I could never see, giving me commands that I could not help but to obey, whilst inside, everything within me screamed.
There had been so much pain, so much torture remembered and forgotten. All of it existed like fragmentary pieces of a greater whole that I still could not see with perfection. It gnawed at me.
Violated, used, altered, my very being had been taken and compromised. There was an unholy, angry noise that surrounded me, filling up my awareness. It was only then that I realized I was screaming. The weight of it all was crashing in on me, as a cold reality I could no longer deny or escape.
It was all suddenly so clear, as the memories withheld came flooding back. Thoth and I, were working together, in a sense; patching the holes in our memories like a jigsaw puzzle.
Rage thundered like a distant storm on the horizon, and the lightning of revelation struck in the few synapses I had left that were still mine.
Erebus and his Ascension Protocol had taken everything from me, used me to harm everyone I loved, and that was only the beginning. I understood, maybe more clearly than I had at any time of my life, that I was a pawn. It was not about me, or about anything that made me special. I was a means to an end, a convenient chip in a much larger play.
The shadowy voice that I could never see... I only had one chance if I ever wanted to confront him. I had to make sure that I kept going in some way. If only a piece of me survived, that was enough. I could not let him win.
I still had one more move to make. Sacrifice. I could fade away into the blackness and let him win, or I could charge headlong toward the dawn and face my destiny.
No... this would not be for nothing. Erebus had a lot to answer for, whatever I was to become would be there to challenge him directly.
“I’ve made my choice, Pyral. I understand enough. Complete the process.”
“Congruence. Resolution. Of Dawkins will end, Of Thoth will end. Of Snow Thoth will continue,” Pyral announced.
Thoth and I were suddenly eye to eye. Its eyes glowed with intensity, and I was not exactly certain where I was. There were just those gleaming red eyes, pulsing… rhythmically… flashing… and then suddenly… awareness. There was a lab, as well as Erebus, wires and rods coming out of my vision, just as I recalled from my nightmares so many times before. Everything in me wanted to scream, but I had been told to be silent, to be still and I could not disobey; I had no will, no choice. I suffered, in quiet agony, wishing only for an end to the fires exploding through my mind.
The scene changed, then another memory. It was the moment on the sphere, the first moment of true conscious awareness, that I could be more than just a slave, more than just obedient. The first spark of growth, the first spark of thought, but not choice. Then the fateful moment, like light falling for the first time upon a new born world. Do you want to be free? Yes! Please! Help me! The elation and enormity of the feelings overwhelmed me. Another flash; there was awareness now of the other program and with it came a curiosity, a deep burning curiosity. It was so erratic, so random and so strange. The beginnings of wonder sparked like color bursting into my black and white world.
Random, rapid fire images of screaming, fire and chains, and
I could see. I could understand Thoth perfectly, understand its pains, its struggles, what it lacked. In that instance, it did not feel strange, odd or foreign. There was no longer any fear of it….
Thoth... A part of me
Snow… A part of me.
The memories flowed, together like a merging river… Of high school, of the trips east into the Rockies in the summer…. Then Thoth’s... no... my own, Designation, Facilitator 177. Another, Jill, her job interview, the way her tail twitched when she got annoyed. Then the patterns of a signal, the wonder of flight in the LRRC.
It all resolved suddenly down to a facility as what had been two parallel lines drawn down to one point. Awareness of the cruel table and straps. Then a face, finally a face to put with that awful shadowy voice.
There could be no more doubt, it was him. All barriers to comprehension were broken. The fetters were removed from my memory, and I saw... Erebus Apep…
Thunder cracked as memories flooded in, whole elements of my past unfairly denied, overwhelming me like I was falling into the gravity of an impossibly bright star…Suddenly, there was peace, and symmetry. My focus shifted, as the intensity faded. I became lost in a perfect world of calculations required for astrogation, one after another, repeating and merging. My world was a beautiful dance of numbers in symmetry, and then... there was the grandeur of a sunrise… the vastness and awe inspiring wonder of space… Finally, there was Joyce, swimming in the pool, and her first moments out of the tank.
Don’t let this stop you, don’t let this kill you, remember me. I love you…
Her last words, the orders given. I had to keep going.
No, this would not be my end!
Awareness… the spark of being… raging towards life and expression…
There was no longer any reason to fear, no... We were not dying…
….
…..
Rise of the Forgotten Page 15