by A. G. Riddle
“Right. Well, I’m David Vale.”
247 reeled back, holding his hands up. “I know. I know all about you. And your people. You’ve caused quite a stir around here.”
David squinted, unsure what to say.
“You see, we found you at an ancient battlefield, where we once came into contact with the race you call the Atlanteans. The bizarre part is that you have some of their DNA, some of our DNA, and you also have some new DNA, some very exotic genetic components, sequences we’ve never seen before.” 247 smiled. “And we thought we had seen it all.”
David remained silent, but inside him, alarm bells went off. Something was very wrong here. This creature wasn’t what it seemed. David’s training kicked in. He knew what this was: an interrogation.
247 raised his eyebrows. “Oh, don’t think that way. I’m not interrogating you—Oh, right, let me explain. Your body emits radiation we can read, so I’m not reading your mind per se. Your mind is broadcasting to me.” He smiled again. “I can’t help it.”
“What do you want from me?”
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. We actually want to help you.”
“Help me do what?”
“Join the ring.”
“I’m not a joiner.”
“I know,” 247 said brightly. “Again, I know all about you. I’ve seen your memories. But you don’t know anything about the ring. We’re offering you a chance to save millions, maybe billions of your people.” 247 paused. “But let’s face it, you only really care about one person.”
The opposite wall transformed into a video, seen from David’s perspective. It showed a bedroom with French doors that opened onto a small veranda overlooking the sea. Gibraltar. Kate lay in the bed, looking up at him, her eyes soft, inviting, staring up at him.
“We can save her,” 247 said.
David heard himself ask how, the words almost an involuntary reaction.
“Her body is broken, but it doesn’t matter in the ring. The ring exists outside of space and time. Every link is eternal. We’ve transcended primitive biology and so can she. So can you. You can be together forever, living a never-ending life. And you can be even more. We created the ring to access a quantum fabric that we call the Origin Entity. We believe that when we’ve harnessed every life form in the universe, every link to the Origin Entity, we will have full control of the entity, making us truly eternal, all powerful. We are the ring that circles space and time, and we are unstoppable. Join us.”
“You need me.”
“We want you. We want to help you.”
The opposite wall transformed again, showing the Serpentine battlefield where the last shards of the beacon were crashing into the plane of debris. Rings of ships rotated before the sun, generating portals of blue and white. An endless flow of ships moved between them.
“This fleet of ships is heading to your world. It’s one of many hidden worlds we’ve been trying to find for a very long time. Similar ships are headed for every world inside the sentinel line. The line itself is an artifact from my own civilization, the world that created the first ring. Our world fractured. Some people clung to the past, to their primitive, mortal existence, just as you do now. They created the sentinels to buy time for the other human worlds, but the sentinels are obsolete now. They’re retreating. They’ve been retreating for a long time now. Each time they form a new sentinel line, smaller than the last, and each time we break through.”
“Your fleet intends to attack my world?”
“We prefer the term liberate.”
David studied the man, or thing, or whatever it was. “What will happen to my people?”
“That depends on you. You can’t fight us. Your world is in shambles. Look at the suffering, what your people have done to themselves. Their suffering. We can end all that. Think about your life.”
The wall changed again. David saw a montage of scenes from his life form and fade, a march of memories, most of them sad. He was a child, at his father’s funeral, running to his room and the peace of isolation in that dark time. A graduate student running toward the buildings on 9/11; them falling, burying him. His agonizing recovery. Joining the CIA. Almost being killed and setting out again, joining Clocktower. His battles with Dorian. His takeover of the Immari base in Ceuta. The flooding of Earth. And finally, his retreat into the lander and his journey to the beacon.
“You’ve always been on the losing side, David. You’ve always fought a futile battle based on your heart. Use your head for once. Join us. Kate needs you.”
“And you need me?”
“We don’t. We don’t need anyone. The ring is inevitable. But if you join, it will help us assimilate your people. As I said, we’ve never seen anything like you. Yours is a completely new species, and we believe you have some sort of special connection to the Origin Entity. We think it could even change how we do business around here.” 247 grinned. “Let me explain. Your body is composed of atoms that are quantum entangled with the atoms of everyone you’ve ever come into contact with. All of those atoms are also tied to the quantum force we call the Origin Entity. Our technology is past your understanding, but if you accept your role as a link in the ring, we can access your connection to the Origin Entity, and then we can access those you’re connected to. Kate. The rest of your people. It’s a domino effect. If our theory is correct, the ring will spread instantly via your quantum entanglements.”
“That’s what you’re after: my connection to this universal entity? My soul.”
247 looked disgusted. “Your terminology is crude—”
“But it’s the truth.”
“Yes.”
“And if I refuse?”
“We always try it the easy way, David. We’ve been doing this a very long time. If you refuse, we’ll try to assimilate you anyway. If we can’t, we’ll kill you. Then, when our ships arrive at your world, they’ll kill everyone else. We kill anything we can’t assimilate. There’s only room for one advanced species in this universe, and the ring is that race. Be smart, David. Think about Kate. What she would want. If you join the ring, those ships will be picking up links when they arrive. Otherwise, it will be a massacre. Kate will die too. So will you.”
“So it’s join or be killed?”
“That’s the way of this universe, David. Whether you can admit it or not. Now what’s it going to be?”
David glanced out the window at the almost endless rows of rings. There was no escape from this place. For David, the decision was a reflection of the beliefs that had driven his whole life. He believed every person deserved the freedom to be different. Freedom, in a word, was what he had been fighting for his whole life. On one hand lay freedom and death, on the other lay Kate and assimilation, and on both, the fate of his entire world. But David believed his world had fought too hard to accept assimilation. Humanity hadn’t fought so hard just to become a few links in an endless chain. The decision was easy. “My answer is no.”
The room’s white walls dissolved to black. The comfortable bed morphed into a hard metal table. David was strapped in. 247’s human exterior faded to gray skin that crawled with tiny machines under the surface.
“So be it.”
David felt a needle jab into his neck.
51
Mary was pacing the dark metallic floors of the medical lab on the Beta Lander, deep in thought, when the wall screen flashed a notification in red block letters.
“It’s ready,” she mumbled. She realized then that she had been dreading the moment the ship finished building the retrovirus from the signal she had received a few days ago. Why? This was the crowning achievement of her career. If the virus was a means of communication with an alien civilization, this breakthrough would validate her entire career, her every choice.
Paul lifted his head up from his arm. He had been somewhere between sleep and daydreaming. Mary grinned at him, seeing what he couldn’t.
“What?”
She licked her thumb and rubbed his forehe
ad. “You were marking on your face.”
Paul tossed the pen on the table. “Oh. Thanks.” He focused on the screen. “So it’s ready.”
“How does this work?” Mary asked.
“You enter the medical pod, and Beta administers the therapy. It’s similar to the way the other bay operated on Kate. If something goes wrong, it will try to save you.”
“You’re not taking the therapy?” Mary asked.
“No. Well, I hadn’t planned to. It’s your discovery. I assumed you’d want to be the first.”
“I would have—a few days ago. I would have leapt at the opportunity. First contact, the culmination of all my work. But I’ve realized something. I threw myself into my work after we… went our separate ways. I was obsessed with my work because it was all I had left. I’ve been looking for something, and it has nothing to do with aliens or signals on radio telescopes.”
“I know exactly what you mean. But if Kate doesn’t wake up from that vat, this is our only option for getting out of here. We’ll be trapped otherwise.”
“I know. What do you think? Talk to me, Paul. What do your instincts tell you about this?”
Paul looked away. “I know what this signal represents to you, Mary, how much you’ve sacrificed over the years for your career. If you ask me what my gut instinct is, I just don’t believe a friendly species would beam a retrovirus into space. I know we’re out of options, but I think we should wait.”
Mary smiled. She was worn out, scared out of her mind, and strangely, the happiest she had been in a very long time. “I agree. And there’s no one I would rather wait with.”
Paul’s eyes met hers. “Same here.”
“I’m sure we can find something to do while we wait.”
Paul didn’t know how long he and Mary had been in their room, and he didn’t care. He had figured out how to lock the door and turn the lights out, and that’s all that mattered.
Mary was sleeping beside him, the sheet hanging halfway off of her. He stared at the ceiling, his usually busy mind blank, a feeling of complete contentment.
A knock on the metallic door echoed in the dark, and Paul sat up. Mary was awake a few seconds later, and they dressed quickly and opened the door, where Milo stood.
“Dr. Kate. She’s awake. She’s sick.”
In the adaptive research lab, Kate again lay on the stiff table that stuck out of the oval medical pod. The screen on the adjacent wall revealed her vitals.
She didn’t have long. Paul scanned the surgical log. Milo had put her in the pod after her last session in the vat. The ship had done all it could, but it was hopeless. She had an hour at most.
“Paul…” Her voice was faint.
Paul moved to her bedside.
“The retrovirus.”
“What is it?”
“The Serpentine virus.”
Mary and Paul shared an expression that said, That was close.
Kate closed her eyes, and the screen changed to show the communications log. She had sent a message to a planet, apparently using her neural link with the ship. Paul wondered if she had learned the location in the memory simulations.
“The Exiles,” Kate said. “They’re our only hope. I can save them.”
Exiles? Paul was about to ask what she was talking about, but Kate explained quickly, her voice still a whisper. She described the fracturing of the Atlantean civilization, how the scientist, Isis, had genetically altered the Exiles, making them a target for the sentinel’s anti-Serpentine programming.
“They’ll be here soon,” Kate said. “I hope. If I’m gone, you have to complete my work, Paul.”
Paul glanced at the DNA sequences on the screen, trying to catch up. “Kate, I… there’s no way. I can’t understand half of this.”
The ship shook, and the screen changed to show the scene outside. A hundred sentinel spheres hung in orbit. They were firing on the planet. On the Beta Lander.
52
Paul felt Mary’s hand slide inside of his. On the viewscreen in the Beta Lander’s adaptive research lab, they watched the falling objects burn in the atmosphere as they crashed down toward them.
The strange calm he had felt in the bedroom came again. There was nothing he could do, but there was also a feeling of utter peace, of having fixed something broken inside of him.
The first kinetic bombardment hit about a mile away from the lander. The shockwave a second later threw Paul, Mary, Milo, and Kate into the far wall. On the screen, an eruption of dust and debris, some from the ruined city, rose into the air.
Through the cloud, Paul saw a new fleet of ships arrive. They were triangular, and the second they cleared the blue and white portal, they broke apart and attacked the sentinels, thousands of triangles darting to and through the spheres, firing, shattering the black objects, sending wreckage into the atmosphere.
Even through the distortion of the dust, the battle was the most awesome thing Paul had ever seen. He almost forgot about the kinetic bombardments barreling down on them.
From the outer corridor, he heard the thunder of footsteps.
He turned to face the door, crowding Mary and Milo behind him. Kate was several feet away, unconscious.
He braced as the flood of intruders broke across the threshold of the communications bay. Soldiers, in battle armor head to toe. Helmets hid their faces, but they were humanoid. They rushed forward, injecting each person with something. Paul tried to struggle with them, but his limbs went limp. Darkness closed from the sides of his vision, then consumed him.
Paul awoke in a different place; a comfortable bed in a bright room. He surveyed it quickly: pictures of landscapes on the wall, plants, a round table with a pitcher of water, a sitting area, a desk with a wood top and metal legs. It was like a hotel suite. He got up and walked out of the bedroom and into the sitting area. A series of windows revealed a fleet of triangular ships, thousands of them, in formation.
The double doors slid open with a hiss, and a man strode in, his footfalls silent on the thin carpet. He was taller than Paul, his features chiseled, his skin smooth, his black hair close-cropped, like a military haircut. The doors closed, and the man tapped something on his forearm. Had he just locked the door?
“I’m Perseus.”
Paul was surprised: the man spoke English.
“The injection we gave you enables you to understand our language.”
“I see. I’m Paul Brenner. Thank you for rescuing us.”
“Welcome. We received your signal.”
“I didn’t send it.”
Perseus’ demeanor changed. “You didn’t?”
“Well, I didn’t. The woman I was with, the sick one, did.”
Perseus nodded. “We’re working on her. There was some debate about whether the signal was another trap, another false distress call. That’s what took us so long.”
“I understand.” Paul had no idea what he was talking about. The fact that he was talking to an alien on an alien space vessel was just starting to dawn on him. His nervousness grew by the second. He tried to sound casual. “The woman’s name is Dr. Kate Warner. She can help you.”
“How?”
“She’s a scientist, and she’s seen the memories of an Atlantean scientist. Isis. She can make you safe from the sentinels.”
Skepticism spread across Perseus’ face. “Impossible.”
“It’s true. She’s designed a gene therapy that will make the sentinels ignore you. This therapy will save you.”
Perseus smiled, but there was no warmth. “A scientist told the Exiles that once before, a long time ago. And we were much better off then. The timing is also very curious. A few hours ago, a new fleet of sentinels attacked our ships. We live in space now. We’ve tried to settle dozens of worlds, but the sentinels always find us. We’ve become nomads, constantly running. The new fleet of sentinels that appeared today is relentless, and their numbers seem limitless. They know how to fight us. It’s as if they were built to fight us, not the Serpentine
Army. They’ve defeated us at every battle. We believe this is the final offensive that will annihilate us. You can understand my suspicion. A scientist offers a genetic therapy that can save us? On the day of our demise?”
Paul swallowed hard. “I can’t prove anything I’ve said. I can’t keep you from killing me, but what I’ve said is true. You can trust me, and we can all have a chance at surviving, or you can turn away, and we’ll all die. Either way, there’s another woman in my group. She’s not sick. She and I… I’d like to see her before I die.”
Perseus studied him for a moment. “You’re either a great liar or superb agent. Follow me.”
Paul followed the man through the corridors, which were the utter opposite of the Atlantean ships. They were well-lit and teaming with people scurrying from one door to another. Some carried pads they studied, others talked hurriedly. To Paul, the feeling was of the CDC on an outbreak day. A crisis situation.
“This is the second fleet flagship. We’re coordinating the civilian fleet defense.”
Perseus led Paul into what he thought was a clinic or a research lab. Through a wide glass window, he saw Kate, lying on a table, several robotic arms hovering around her cranial area.
“She has resurrection syndrome,” Perseus said.
“Yes. She risked her life to see the Atlantean scientist’s memories. That’s how she found out about your people and the gene therapy.” Paul stepped forward and peered through the window. “Can you save her?”
“We don’t know. We’ve been studying resurrection syndrome for tens of thousands of years, since the siege of our homeworld. When we attacked, we assumed that anyone we killed would simply resurrect after the battle. Our goal was to find the sentinel control station, disable the sentinels, then help rebuild our former world with the citizens returning from the resurrection tubes. During the invasion, we learned that resurrection syndrome was occurring for one hundred percent of those we killed. None of them could come back. With the sentinels battling us, we couldn’t rescue anyone on our homeworld. We left empty-handed, but we’ve been studying resurrection syndrome ever since. Our hope has been that we could one day rejoin our fellow citizens and heal them. We’ve been working on a therapy based on the data we downloaded during the siege and our computer models. We have no idea if it will work.” He nodded to the window and Kate on the operating table beyond. “She’s the alpha for our therapy.”