by J. Benjamin
Are we going into one of those too? Matt questioned. He thought he already knew the answer but was about to be surprised.
I don’t think so, Kiara replied. She already sensed where the kaiju was placing them, and it was not in one of the pods where the workers were being sent. Between a series of branches attached to the side of the kaiju’s internal walls, a much larger semicircular object drew their immediate attention. It was purple and very different from any other feature on the ship. It resembled something akin to a kidney on its side. Appearing haphazard and new, it was as if the kaiju anticipated two humans about to drop by in their human forms and created a space just for them. Kiara and Matt felt themselves being drawn closer and closer until before they knew it, they were flung into it.
They fell. Apparently, the laws of gravity held stronger to the personalized space of the newly-minted Aquarians than the natural-born Aquarians floating around the kaiju. It was as if their hosts anticipated them conforming to their human selves.
Kiara stood up, as did Matt. They were standing on a flat, translucent surface. Everywhere they looked, they could see the entire insides of the ship beyond, albeit through a thin layer. Matt put his hand on it and watched as ripples emanated in the walls.
Whoa, Matt said as he turned to Kiara. She looked like she was about to puke. That’s when Matt felt a sharp sensation through his throat.
They both shouted at once, except this time, it was through their mouths and not their minds. Kiara felt her esophagus light up, as did Matt. Their human vocal cords were coming to life in their Aquarian bodies for the first time.
“Kiaa…. Kiaaa…. Kee… Arraaa.” Matt coughed out her name. After a minute, his throat felt more normal again. “Kiara.”
“Matt!”
Before either could say another word, they jumped into each other’s arms.
“We’re alive. We’re alive. We’re alive.” Matt gasped.
“We have our bodies back, or close,” Kiara said through panting breaths. “Thank the stars.”
“Okay… We’re inside one of their ships, in a room they must have built for us,” Matt said. “We are inside their bodies, but… as us? We were communicating through our minds, or their minds, a few moments ago. Now we can talk like ourselves?”
“That seems to be right,” Kiara replied as she walked around the tiny room that the Aquarians built for them. Kiara looked on the side of the wall that was facing the outside of the kaiju. Unlike the upper part of the kaiju’s mantle where they entered, this part seemed thin enough to where they could see the outside world. That or the Aquarians engineered it in such a way to make it look weaker than it actually was.
“How in God’s name does this thing survive in fucking space?” she asked. “This thing is alive. We are inside an alien organism.”
“Well, you could ask ‘how in God’s name’ to everything that has happened to us since we entered that fucking gate,” Matt replied sarcastically while shrugging. “None of this makes sense.”
“No… It doesn’t.” Kiara looked at the landscape outside. It was an endless expanse of monoliths, bubble colonies, Aquarians, algae-like lifeforms growing from the surface, and biodiversity that she didn’t have words for.
“Do you think they’re going to let us return home?” Matt asked with a degree of nervousness in his voice.
“I… I don’t know.” Kiara was at a loss for words. Even in her Aquarian body, her human emotions had not failed to be felt. She stared out the side of the leviathan and noticed the other monoliths. Something was odd. They looked much smaller in size than they had ten seconds ago. That’s when Kiara realized they hadn’t shrunk.
“Jesus! We’re moving!” Kiara said.
“But how is that even possible?”
“Look!” She grabbed Matt by the shoulders and shoved him in front of the outward-facing view. The monoliths below were indeed getting smaller with each second. The icy ceiling above them came cratering down.
“How are we not pulling several Gs right now?” Matt asked.
“The Aquarians were able to hack our minds and put us inside loaner bodies. Surely they successfully reverse-engineered gravity. We both felt the drop once we entered the human part of the ship, or whatever the hell this thing is,” Kiara said.
“Well, what now?” As Matt spoke, the outside wall clearly vibrated. They could see it shaking from inside the ship, yet they didn’t feel that either.
“I think we are about to find out. I think we’re breaching the planet’s ice casing,” Kiara explained.
“So what? You’re telling me these things sprout out of the ground, figuratively drill up through the ice and then just disappear into space?”
“Yeah. Something like that,” Kiara said. “This had to take millions of years of uninterrupted evolution. Perhaps the process was bio-engineered along the way. What better way to expand across the Universe and sustain endless life?”
Outside the vessel, the gammanauts could see the ice thawing and boiling as the ship heated its way upward. The landscape completely disappeared for a minute. All that was visible was light, fire, and boiling water. This continued for several minutes until finally, white light from outside filled the interior of the ship. They had successfully broken through the ice.
Kiara kept looking outside. The new landscape of the world below was visible as far as the eye could see. The sky was pure white. The hills and mountains of ice were covered in an algae-like material. Kiara had recognized this ubiquitous material from the Kennedy reports. It was the algae they used to assist in powering their civilizations below.
“Did they sprinkle all of Kennedy with that stuff and build a civilization out of it? Or are they the ultimate evolution that derived from the solar algae stuff percolating down into the soil?” Matt asked.
Kiara looked up and saw the edge of space peering beyond the white sky. The light of the stars slowly became more visible. The planet’s lack of surface cities allowed for a brighter night sky that was absolutely impossible on Earth. However, the light of the stars was no match for the bright blue, green, and red nebulae that cracked through the skies like spilled paint on a canvass.
Kiara had never seen anything like it in all her lifetime of studying nebulas, stars, and galaxies. These space objects did not resemble any known part of the Milky Way that she would have recognized from her astronomy simulations. Kiara’s attention was then captured by a large round object that grew more prominent on the edge of the horizon. It was a large, round ball with a murky green atmosphere of its own. It was a moon.
Kiara looked at the planet’s star. It was a G-type main-sequence star just like the Sun. At first, it looked like a strange oval shape. Except it wasn’t an oval shape at all. Instead, it was another G-type star orbiting in very close range to its binary twin and giving the false appearance of an elongated sun. Kiara thought she was about to have a heart attack.
“Kiara?” Matt could sense her worry. “Kiara? Are you okay? What’s going on?”
“This isn’t Kennedy! We’re not in the Wolf 482 system!”
“Come again?” Matt asked in disbelief.
Kiara was at a loss for words. She wasn’t even sure what part of the universe they were in, or if they were even in their own universe. However, it didn’t take long before the gammanauts saw something much more familiar. As they looked up, they saw several dozen blue bulbs fill the void of space. It was an Aquarian fleet. There were several dozen.
“What the fuck have we gotten ourselves into?” Kiara muttered to herself.
33
Sally Ride City, GSF Executive Suite
The secretary-general sat alone. His eyes felt heavy with dark rings. He also hadn’t showered since the day before. It probably wasn’t a terrible time for that, he figured.
Thirty hours had passed, and the gammanauts had still not awoken from their deep sleep. When the projected simulation failed to send the callback signals notifying of their connections, the Earth-based team immedi
ately knew something was wrong. Everyone from the Cabinet to the General Assembly to the scientists knew it.
It wasn’t the anticipated Monday market free-fall that concerned Thomas Adler. Nor was it the expected threats of funding withdrawal for GSF. His biggest concern was that his entire legacy would be that of a man who sent two talented individuals to their deaths and potentially endangering the human race in the process. GSF’s survival as an organization would be the least of his worries by then.
Thomas couldn’t stop gaming the scenarios in his head based on what Dr. Srivastava told him. The gammanauts consciousness transferred through the wormhole, but the projected staging area never connected with their minds. No callback returned, yet they were alive. Their brains were demonstrating signs of life.
Shutting down the sequence would mean either instant death or permanent vegetative states for the gammanauts, as their consciousnesses had already crossed the spacetime bridge. Yet waiting for a solution to save the gammanauts presented even more significant problems. For every minute they kept the portal open, that was one more minute that an advanced alien species with unknown intentions could trace an easy path back to Earth. Tensions were rising among the member states of the GSF General Assembly.
Thomas heard a knock at the door.
“Come in.”
The door opened, revealing Defense Secretary Gwen Jackson, flanked by a soldier working on her staff. She dismissed him and closed the door.
“Mr. Secretary-General?”
“They calling for my execution yet?” he replied half-sarcastically.
“Get up!” Secretary Jackson said curtly.
“Whoa,” he said as he jumped out of his chair. “Mind telling me what’s going on?”
“Come with me. Now!” she said, with a demanding and uncharacteristic level of urgency.
He got up and followed his defense secretary out of the room. Her staffer led them down the corridor at a rushed pace. Four GSF soldiers flanked them as they bolted through the hallway. Thomas knew there was only one place where Gwen would be rushing him to.
“Talk to me,” he urged.
“Srivastava found something.”
“What did he find?”
“Stay calm,” Secretary Jackson said. “We’re about to cross the main floor. Wait till we’re clear. This is highly-classified intel.”
“Right,” Thomas replied.
They made their way toward the main floor. For the last twelve hours, Adler had done all he could to avoid this area. He knew he would get ambushed the moment he showed his face. They stood behind the double-doors that would bring them to the second story of the gold dome-shaped building. Even with the guards, Thomas felt exposed by the very nature of his towering 6’2 height.
“Go.” He motioned them to proceed. The doors opened, and Thomas was spotted instantly. Reporters, photographers, and world leaders rushed to grab his attention.
“Mr. Secretary-General!”
“Are the gammanauts dead?”
“Will you resign?”
“Is this Armageddon?”
“Why won’t you address the public? What are you hiding?”
The secretary-general’s face was expressionless. He did not turn his head to acknowledge the questioners. Four decades in various military capacities taught him better than to let his emotions or outside distractions throw him off track. Yesterday’s headlines included photos of the cheering crowds watching lasers rip open the fabric of spacetime. Tomorrow’s headlines would be captioned with something along the lines of “What happened?” and show his stone-cold face as he marched from one side of the Assembly to the other.
After winding through one narrow corridor after another, the secretary-general and his defense secretary were out of earshot of anyone who could compromise international security.
“What did Srivastava find?” he asked.
“Something that may tell us what happened to our friends,” Gwen replied.
“Go on,” Thomas said. He did not like the sound of where this was going. They had reached the heavily-guarded Spacetime Command Center. The soldiers guarding the entrance immediately let them through.
Srivastava was taking command at a standing desk surrounded by holograms and paper-thin consoles. Beyond him was a thick wall of glass, and beyond that wall, Kiara Lacroix and Matt Ashford floated unconscious. Their minds were in a faraway world.
“Alright. Give it to me straight,” Adler commanded. Gurmeet turned to face him and saluted him.
“Mr. Secretary-General. I think you need to come and take a look at this,” Dr. Srivastava said as he motioned to a holo-screen on the right. Thomas walked over without saying a word and observed the screen. “So I ran back through some of the data. See this line? Follow it.”
The holo-screen showed a graph with a seemingly never-ending line. To the upper-right of it was a timer that corresponded with its movement.
“This line represents the energy flow moving in and out of the bridge as it is open. You can see the line is fluctuating as normal. Some slight movements upward, some slight movements downward. Nothing out of the ordinary,” the doctor said.
“Okay,” Thomas replied, failing to see where he was going with this.
“Check out the timestamp,” Dr. Srivastava asked. “It’s moving at 2x speed right now. Figured we would fast-forward and get to the point.”
“Yes, that would be nice,” Thomas said, with a hint of impatience.
“Keep watching…” The line stayed in a relative norm and then suddenly jumped twice. “Bam! Right there.”
“Interesting. Is this when Kiara and Matt crossed the spacetime bridge?” Thomas asked.
“Yes, but take a closer look. In theory, if a gammanaut crosses the bridge, the energy output should be one-tenth of what we see for both Kiara’s and Matt’s jumps,” the doctor explained.
“I don’t get it. You’re telling me that the energy jumps here were abnormal?” Thomas asked.
“Not just abnormal, Mr. Secretary-General. We’re talking off the damn charts! There is no fathomable explanation for it. Our most advanced fusion reactors are technologically incapable of creating the energy spikes seen here.”
“If our technology isn’t able to produce that amount of energy, then how did it happen?” Secretary Jackson asked.
“There must be one explanation,” Thomas said. “The energy spikes emerged from the other end of the sequence.”
“Bingo,” Dr. Srivastava said.
“You think our friends on Kennedy had something to do with this?” Gwen asked.
“Not only do I think they did it, I think it is completely consistent with what we have seen from them thus far. Think about it. We sent fifty-thousand signals through the wormhole. By the time we uploaded the virtual environment and the gammanauts’ consciousnesses, the Aquarians may have intervened with their own technology. This is why we never received the callback from our virtual environment. You saw what the Aquarians did to our Pelicans. What is to say they haven’t hacked the spacetime sequence too?”
“So, what does this mean for Kiara and Matt?” Thomas asked.
“Hard to say, but if their minds are alive, they are undoubtedly within the Aquarian psyche. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what a surreal experience that must be for them. For all we know, they might not even be in the same universe as us,” Dr. Srivastava explained.
Secretary Jackson saw the look on Thomas’ face. The look of worry and deep resignation.
“Boss?”
“Summon the Cabinet,” Thomas commanded.
“What’s going on?” the doctor asked.
“At this point, we have no idea what happened to our gammanauts. What we know is that a powerful alien civilization hacked every system of ours that was exposed to them, including the human mind. We’re out of options. After I meet with the Cabinet, I will then address the world with what I am about to do. However, I want our people to hear it first.”
“Hear what?” Jackson
demanded.
“That I am about to shut down the portal. That I am about to sign the death warrants of two of the finest individuals the Global Space Federation has ever known.”
34
June 11, 2082 - Location Unknown
“Interstellar species?” Matt said as he looked at mysterious planet and fleet of space-faring hosts. “Check. More advanced than humans? Check. Genocidal maniacs with the power to drive their enemies crazy till they turn on themselves? Big check.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about the genocidal part,” Kiara replied. “There has to be a method to their madness. I know what I saw in my vision. They only turned the worms on themselves after they struck first.”
“Pardon? Worms?” Matt asked.
“That is what I saw. I was standing on what I’m pretty sure was their planet, and I felt it. I breathed their air! Those worm things formed a colony between a bunch of waterfalls. And the Aquarians? They were there too, and the worms attacked their fleet. So, they used their technology to break the worms and turn them on themselves.”
“It looks like you and I were in different parts of the universe, or multi-verse, or wherever, right before they hatched us,” Matt replied.
“Why? What did you see?” Kiara asked.
“Well, besides the girl in the haunted house? I don’t even know what to call where I was. I mean, it felt like some never-ending metal webs in the middle of a, a vortex,” Matt explained.
“A vortex?” Kiara asked.
“Yes. There were these weird creatures with five limbs, and they were jumping from web to web with ease. It was almost as if they evolved in zero-gravity. Kiara, it was unreal! Almost as unreal as the strange vortex thing they were floating in.”
“Perhaps it was a black hole?” Kiara suggested.
“Who knows? The Aquarians were there too. The five-limbed monstrosities from the wormhole/vortex thing weren’t happy to see them either. They did this weird exercise where they bound themselves together till they formed a living wrecking ball of sorts. Then they would grapple onto the sides of their metal webs, or what I assume were their colonies, and try to destroy the Aquarians with them,” Matt explained.