Dark Matter

by Luke Donegan

  Jay looked at each of his hands. He lifted them slowly, and black droplets of Dark Matter flowed from his upturned palms like sweat.

  “Dark Matter,” said Jay, examining the substance. “This is what it is all about. I have it. You have it. And others too. It is what makes us Aberrant. It is a substance, a primary form of matter that should not exist is this world. Kafka Yellis and his colleagues delved too far into the subatomic and discovered it two thousand years ago. ‘One shall not explore the subatomic.’ The First Law of Science. It is an Aberration! The consequence of the breaking of that Law! Do you understand now why it is important these Laws are not broken?”

  Erys held out his own hands. Black tendrils extended from his fingertips. Like snakes they writhed in the air before his eyes.

  “But what is it?” asked Erys.

  “It is anti-matter.”

  Jay focused on the water glass sitting on a table by his chair. A tentacle of Dark Matter emerged from his left hand and wrapped around the glass. It lifted the glass, snaked across the room and offered the glass with smoky fingers to the Scion-Doctor. Tobius nervously accepted the glass. As he did, the tendril dissipated into the air.

  “It is a powerful tool,” said Jay. “Almost unlimited in its power. But now it is a part of the physical world, the Laws of Science affect it. Enormous amounts of energy are needed to sustain it. You must have felt this. Dark Matter is voraciously hungry. It needs to feed.”

  Erys shook his head. He asked the question, though he already knew the answer. “What does it feed on?”

  “The creatures of the Spirit world.”

  Jay looked down. He seemed small and broken and tired.

  “This is what Passage is,” he said quietly. “This is why the world is as it is. The Spirits of all living things are being torn from their bodies to feed the Dark Matter that is loose in the world.”

  Nausea twisted Erys’ stomach. He swallowed, fighting back the bile rising in his throat.

  “We ... you and I ... are feeding on Spirit?”

  Jay nodded. “Yes. And not just Spirit on this planet. The phenomenon of Passage has destroyed life on countless worlds. As it will inevitably destroy ours, completely and irrevocably. It is just a matter of time.” He nodded at Erys in affirmation. “It will be sooner now that you and I have been added to the pool.”

  Erys closed his eyes with dismay. He had been trying to bring life back to the world. But all the time since the boy infected him, he had been destroying life.

  He was contributing to the destruction of life on a thousand worlds.

  He opened his eyes and faced the Teacher. He knew what they had to do.

  “We must kill ourselves,” he said.

  “You can try,” offered Jay. “But you will not succeed. You could jump out of this window, but Dark Matter would save you.”

  And Erys remembered falling from the Science Dome.

  “Not even natural death can hurt you. Your Passage will never come because you are now already half living in your Spirit form. Dark Matter is fused to us. It is part of us, and it will never let us go.

  “We will never die, Erys. We are immortal.”

  “And even if we could,” continued Jay, breathlessly. “It would not save the world. For there are others like us ... fused to Dark Matter. We are not alone.”

  “Who?”

  But Jay slumped in his chair, his hands hanging limply by his sides.

  The Doctor knelt by Jay’s chair. He checked the Teacher’s pulse and looked into his eyes. The Teacher had slipped into an unconscious state.

  “I will make up another bed,” said the Scion-Doctor and left the room.

  “Who?” asked Erys, repeating the question to the Doctor. “Do you know? Who was he speaking of?”

  The Doctor shook his head. “I must tend to the Teacher. He ...”

  Erys stood. Power crackled around him. Black power laced with red fire.

  “Tell me,” he threatened, “or I will send you through that window.”

  The Doctor believed him. He lifted Jay from the seat and sat on the floor, cradling Jay’s body in his arms like a baby.

  “Two thousand years ago when scientists developed quark weapons, these weapons almost destroyed our world,” he explained. “But there was something else. A side-effect. The scientists discovered Dark Matter. Like you and the Teacher, it fused to them, kept them alive. It fed off Spirit and created the phenomenon of Passage. It made them immortal.”

  “Who?” asked Erys.

  “There were eight scientists. Kafka Yellis was the leader.”

  “Who?”

  “Eight scientists for eight Ascendants. The Ascendant himself. Our Director. The Judge. The General. All of them.”

  Erys backed towards the window, appalled by what he was hearing. The Ascendants held their society together. And besides, this had happened two thousand years ago. “No, I don’t believe you,” he stated.

  “It is the truth,” the man insisted. “The Ascendants, our leaders. They are creatures of Dark Matter, parasites, feeding off all life in the galaxy. To be immortal! As you and the Teacher now are.”

  No, you are lying, he thought. And he saw the proof of this deception.

  “No,” he argued. “The Director came to Passage and the Curator of Science replaced him. Masodi was there. Jack Gaunt is the Director. And Jack Gaunt is no immortal!”

  Try to convince me otherwise, he thought triumphantly. I will burn you from the inside out.

  The Doctor shook his head sadly. “I too was there on that day. But they wouldn’t allow me in the chamber. The Curator went in, but the man who emerged wore a golden mask. I’m sorry. Jack was my good friend. But he is not the Director. He is dead now. He was killed, to perpetuate a two thousand year old lie”

  The Doctor tenderly wiped Jay’s brow.

  “Scion-Teacher,” he said. “The Ascendants are the ones who betrayed you, not Jay. They are the ones who destroyed the Ark, to protect themselves.”

  The Scion-Doctor re-entered the room. “A bed is ready,” he said.

  “Thank you, Tobius.”

  The Doctor lifted the slumped figure of the boy in his arms and stood.

  “It was Xia’s mistake,” said the man. “Xia Tsang led the Director down there, thinking he was Jack. She revealed the Ark to them.”

  “How can you be sure?” argued Erys. “How can you be certain of any of this? Have you seen them without their masks?”

  “No, I haven’t. But ...”

  “So you can’t be sure.”

  “The Teacher, the Curator of Science and I have analysed this at length. It is the truth.”

  “I don’t believe you,” said Erys defiantly. “Jack wouldn’t have betrayed us.”

  “It is not Jack,” repeated the Doctor.

  There was only one way to be sure.

  Erys turned and ran from the room.

  Liars! shouted his voice in his mind. Liars!

  He followed the route revealed by Ismet the previous day. From the workshops he went to the engine room beneath the History Dome. There he found the secret hatch and climbed inside. He shimmied along the passage. But when he came to the junction in the centre of the Museum, instead of continuing along the passage to the Science Dome, he followed the flue upwards.

  How far does it go? he wondered.

  All the way to the Director’s rooms, Ismet had told him.

  All the way, perhaps one thousand feet, in complete darkness.

  The rungs in the flue were set a foot and a half apart. Erys estimated he would climb six or seven hundred rungs to get to the top.

  He started to count. Ten rungs! Twenty! Feeling his way in the darkness. The rungs were fashioned from cold steel. They were smooth to grip and set close to the flue wall. He could fit little more than his toes over each rung.

  Fifty! One hundred! His legs began to tire.

  The sound of a far off rumbling whistled down the flue. He stopped, waited. The rumbling grew. With a
mighty whoosh the elevator passed by on the other side of the wall. He held on tightly as the rungs vibrated with the motion.

  He continued. One hundred and fifty! Pain built in his calf muscles.

  Although he could see nothing, at regular points he felt currents of air ruffling his hair. Breezes flowed through junctions in the flue, branching off to each level of the tower. The air was cool against his cheeks, growing cooler at each level. Sweat built on his face.

  Two hundred rungs! Sweat ran down his arms and his hands, and his grip became slippery. He paused and dried his arms and forehead on his robes. Three hundred feet was a long way to fall.

  He closed his eyes and rested.

  Liars! Liars! He would not believe them. He needed to see proof – to see Jack Gaunt without his golden Ascendant’s mask.

  He continued on, determined. Two hundred and fifty! Three hundred rungs! His arms and legs were desperate for relief. He paused again. He was growing too tired, too quickly. At the next junction he hoisted himself into the side passage. There he rested for ten minutes. Or longer. He could not gauge the passage of time.

  In his mind he ran over what the Teacher had told him. Immortal! Did he feel immortal? What did that feel like? Was the story a ruse? Perhaps to disarm him? What could the Teacher gain by making him believe this?

  He shuffled out of the passage and continued up the flue, ignoring his protesting muscles.

  Perhaps the boy believed his own story? Perhaps Jay believed he was immortal and this belief had corrupted him?

  A foot slipped. His hands held their grip as he regained his footing. How many rungs? He had lost count.

  In the darkness the rumbling came again. He held on as the elevator slid upwards through the tower. When silence returned he tried to continue, but as he lifted his leg a sharp pain shot down its calf. The muscle spasmed violently and contracted. He slowly extended the leg to relax the cramp.

  His palms were sweaty and the rungs had become slippery.

  Dark Matter sprouted from his hands and arms and coiled around the rungs, securing him as best it could. Tendrils shot from his back and splayed out against the opposite wall of the flue, supporting his weight. He rested.

  ... creatures of Dark Matter, parasites, feeding off all life in the galaxy ...

  And what does it feed on? The Spirit of the world.

  “No,” he whispered aloud.

  He gripped the rungs tightly and sucked the coils of Dark Matter back into himself.

  Not that way, he thought. Not if it costs somebody, or some animal, its life!

  But the energy bubbled within him, eager for release. In his Spirit form he could have flown up the flue in a second. How many lives would that cost? he asked. How many lives had paid for his rescue of Sian and his flight to Ocean-Hearth.

  Clenching his jaws he began to climb. Hand over hand. Foot over foot. Rung after rung. He no longer knew how far he had come, or how far he had to go. It was endless now. An endless tunnel up through the darkness. No light, nothing to guide him, no destination. Just this endless climb and his muscles screaming for rest. Dark Matter screaming for release.

  Your Passage will never come, the Teacher said in his mind, because you are now already half living in your Spirit form. Dark Matter is fused to us. It is part of us, and it will never let us go. We will never die, Erys. We are immortal.

  But he could just give up, let himself fall. An endless fall in the dark, down the length of the tower.

  You can try. But you will not succeed. You could jump out of this window, but Dark Matter would save you.

  So he climbed. He held on and he climbed. At times he screamed out. He climbed ...

  ... and the darkness that surrounded him melted away before a blinding light. A white, painful light that burnt his eyes. A light so hot he thought his body would melt.

  And it stretched out forever, this white light, infinite in its field. A white light that drowned the candle flame of his existence. An emptiness, a void, filled with the sound of his screaming.

  On and on, this endless horror, this immortal, infinite life.

  His hand, searching for the next rung hit a flat surface. The ceiling! He felt to the sides and found a passage leading into the darkness. He crawled into the passage and collapsed.

  He slipped in and out of consciousness. He could not feel his arms or legs. Numbness poured over him and he slept.

  He woke from a dream of white light. The light dimmed slowly, ebbed away to be replaced by darkness. For a moment he could not feel his limbs. But then the pain returned, a terrible ache in his arms and legs that made him groan.

  Waiting for the pain to recede, he rested. When he could lift his arms he massaged each in turn. He rubbed his legs.

  He shuffled along the shaft, not caring where it went. Not caring about the Director. At this point he just wanted to get out.

  Sian’s face appeared before him. Sian, as he had last seen her at Ocean-Hearth. He made a decision. He would leave the Museum, and when he stepped outside he would never again return.

  He crept along the passage, followed it around a bend.

  Sian was waiting for him. Without a word he would take her hand and lead her from Ocean-Hearth. They would follow the coast south, out of the city and into the desert.

  South. Three hundred miles it was to the southern coast. Perhaps a few weeks of walking, but he knew how to survive in the desert. Then, when they reached the coast, they would make a boat and gather supplies.

  He found another set of rungs. There were only ten rungs up to the next level, but his arms cried out at each.

  They would sail south.

  There is a southern land, he remembered Saskareth telling him. Ten days sailing. A land more gentle than this. Cooler, green with plant life. Every year, I have heard, it rains, said the animist. Can you imagine water falling from the sky?

  And there are people there. Animists, like us. The penguin people. They are a hard people, said Saskareth, but they are close to Nature. They are seafarers, and they cross the ocean on great trading vessels. Spinnakers unfurled, they are a sight to behold!

  We could go there, Sian, he thought. Make some kind of life together. If we made it ...

  ... and there appeared a light around a corner. He crawled, softly, quietly, until he came to a grill. Light shone through forming a criss-cross pattern of light and shadow on the ceiling of the shaft. And below, a room.

  It was wide and empty, and brightly lit - a curving room, the top level of the tower. Windows lined the walls. Erys could see the city beyond, and the desert and the sea.

  Erys crouched above the grill opposite the windows, above an alcove that led to the elevator. He looked into the room. In that wide, empty space, there were only two pieces of furniture. A simple chair, and beside it, a small reading table. On the table sat a golden mask, its eyeholes staring at the ceiling.

  The Director sat in the chair. He sat with his back to the view. He had seen the same view for hundreds of years. It never changed. He did not even think to look at it anymore. Instead he faced the doors to the elevator, although, he did not see them. He saw nothing but his thoughts as they played across the screen of his mind. Random thoughts, memories, silent and meaningless.

  He remembered discovering Dark Matter with Kafka, and his subsequent first taste of Spirit. The elixir of immortal life!

  We will live forever! cried Kafka, intoxicated. We will live forever! Do you know what that means?

  He saw images of the Quark Wars. A yellow canker covering the Earth. The almost-complete destruction of the human species. A moment of guilt that only lasted a few decades.

  He remembered the onset of Passage. He sat on a rocky outcrop overlooking a vale in the mountains. There was a beautiful green meadow below, across which stampeded a herd of elk. One, two of them melted into golden light. But no matter how fast they galloped, the animals could not escape their fate.

  And centuries of Loss and Decline had followed. He watched the e
xtinction of species, all food for his immortality. He watched the Earth become a wasteland.

  And then he built the Museum. It had been his design, the Ascendant granting him this project. For he still harbored a sense of nostalgia for the old world. The Museum had been his attempt to connect with the past.

  Seven hundred years ago he built the Museum, appointing himself as Director. And the little mortals below had thought they ascended to this role. How many Scion-Directors had he killed to perpetuate this lie? Scores? Hundreds? And he sat here day after day, nothing changing, nothing new. Until now!

  One day someone will come, Kafka had told him. One day, when they work it out. They will come though those doors.

  He faced the elevator doors, more out of interest than self-preservation. Just the novelty of seeing someone new, someone who knew the truth, who saw past this fabrication that was his life. What would he say to such a person? He asked himself this question every day. What would he say?

  And then that person appeared. The Director saw him, watching from the shadows above the elevator. But what an anticlimax it was to see this new immortal, and to realise he had nothing whatsoever of interest to say.

  From where he hid, Erys could see the Director’s face clearly. He was an old man, older than any person he had ever seen. Grey hair, wrinkles around the eyes and across the forehead. Strong jaw.

  The man was motionless, like a statue.

  He was not Jack Gaunt. Erys did not recognise his face.

  This immortal man’s unblinking eyes were black with Dark Matter.

  For an hour Erys watched the Director. The man did not move. Eventually, Erys shuffled silently back the way he had come.

  The Teacher had spoken the truth.

  He came finally to the central shaft. One thousand feet or more it fell, sinking into murky night. The ground was invisible far below. He could not face it. The Teacher had been right.

  He could not face it. He peered over the edge. He could see nothing. Just an enduring gloom masking an endless drop.