Trinity's Legacy

by P A Vasey

  “Cocooned, maybe?” offered Stillman.

  Hubert squatted down next to me, wide-eyed. “Is he alive?”

  I didn’t answer. In the far recesses of my mind, I could sense something… subtle, non-specific, like white noise in between radio channels. Gradually, a strange warmth spread throughout my body, slowing my heart and relaxing me. I turned to Hubert, my heart pounding. I couldn’t hear Adam’s voice, or access his thoughts. But, there was something …

  “I think so… maybe.”

  I tightened my lips and reached out to touch what I assumed was the head. The shape suddenly moved away from the wall, rolling towards me. I jumped back and fell on my ass, knocking over Stillman as well. Hubert and the FBI agents had also stepped away nervously, but had kept it together and still had their weapons and torches pointed at the shape.

  It pulled itself into a sitting position, arms, legs and torso becoming defined and separated from what had previously been a homogenous lump of rock. It leaned back against the wall and raised its head. There were no distinguishing features, no eyes, no nose, nothing, it was like it had been moulded out of play-doh. There was a crunching sound, like what you hear when a packet of chips is scrunched, and the outer layer began to crack, micro fractures spreading exponentially from the head downwards. Jagged pieces of stone chips and dust started to fall off, slowly at first, and then with increasing frequency until the outer layer was gone. Underneath, and seemingly completely unharmed, was a cerulean-coloured face, and a similarly hued body that could have been sculpted by Michelangelo. The face was still recognisable as Adam Benedict, although tufts of black hair were hanging off the skull and what was left of his skin. The eyes were burning green, without a hint of blue. He regarded everyone with a slow turn of his head and his eyes stopped on me.

  Kate.

  The voice in my head was weak as if coming from a great distance, accompanied by an echo. He gently shook his head as if trying to clear it. I reached over and stroked his face, marvelling at the warm yet metallic-like texture. He took hold of my hand and pressed it against his cheek.

  I am sorry.

  I felt him sweeping around my head, sucking up the images and experiences of the last few hours. He saw the nuclear explosion, and the violent deaths he had inflicted on the troops. I felt his wave of sadness and guilt wash over me.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “It wasn’t you.”

  It is not okay.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” I said, firmly.

  Hubert squatted down next to us and leaned in so that his face was level with Adam’s. He continued to point the torch directly at his face, and I pushed it away irritably. Adam slowly brought his hands up and stared at them, turning them over and over as if seeing them for the first time. He clenched his fists, and spread the fingers wide. For a brief instant they seemed to pixelate as the air blurred and they became momentarily transparent. I took one of his hands in mine, felt a slight electric shock on contact and then a not-unpleasant tingling and numbness.

  “Adam,” I said slowly. “Is the alien still here?”

  He looked around at us all, and his voice was, stronger, clearer. “No. The Vu-Hak is dead.”

  Hubert looked at him, disbelief tattooed across his face. “How did you survive, and it didn’t?”

  Adam didn’t reply straight away, but looked at everyone again, starting with me and slowly taking in his surroundings. He sighed, a very human sound, and shook his head.

  “It does not matter,” he said

  “What do you mean,” asked Stillman.

  Adam didn’t look up. His voice was soft, and we had to strain to hear him. But what he said chilled my soul.

  “The portal is intact. They will be here soon. All of them.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Ground Zero, Nevada Test Site

  Hubert stood up, stared at his watch and tapped it with his forefinger as if that would change the time. It didn’t. We had twenty minutes before the portal would appear again and the wormhole open. I bleakly looked up the sides of the crater to the opalescent cloudless sky above. The jagged edges of the walls pointed and indented upwards, their clefts in shadows as dark and discouraging as my mood. I watched Hubert reach out and absently run a hand over the shiny burnished rocks, lustrous as a gemstone. I could almost make out his reflection in the mirror-like surface. A gentle breeze wafted down, and I felt it ruffle my hair, cooling and pleasant, bringing with it promises of a balmy, temperate morning. I shook my head at the surrealism of it all, the hypnagogic quality of what we were experiencing.

  Hubert looked back at Adam, a haunted look on his face.

  “So, that’s it then? Game over?”

  Adam didn’t answer, his green eyes giving nothing away. He creakily stood up and leaned against the wall for support. I went to assist him, and he seemed to gratefully accept my help. He still weighed almost nothing, and it was like picking up a papier-mâché mannequin. Most of the skin covering his body had fallen away, and he was barely visible in the dark recess, a navy-indigo silhouette.

  “Is there nothing we can do?” Hubert pressed, his voice taut.

  Stillman walked over to Adam, and blinking away tears, said, “We’ll survive. We’re here for a greater purpose.”

  Adam straightened up to his full height and stared calmly down at her. “Does humanity deserve to survive? There is no purpose to the universe. The universe owes humanity nothing.”

  Stillman was shaking her head. “Humanity – us – we’re God’s creation. We’re more than just the sum of our molecules. There’s a greater meaning do our lives. More than we’re aware of…”

  “Humanity is doomed,” Adam interrupted. “Greed and the acquisition of power still dominate the thinking of our leaders. This flawed thinking, and the possession of nuclear weaponry, is the impediment to humanity’s survival. Humans kill each other for power, territory, money, and sometimes for no reason other than being born in a different place, with a different skin colour. Or for believing in the ‘wrong’ god. And shall we discuss the destruction of this planet’s climate and ecosystem? Or the fact that the wealth of its citizenry is disproportionately held by a privileged 1% who generally do everything in their power to keep it that way while at the same time millions of humans die every day in starvation and of treatable diseases?” Stillman looked like she was bout to burst, but Adam stopped her with a raised hand. “The Vu-Hak showed me remnants of the civilisations they had encountered. Civilisations, which had either destroyed themselves, or were on the verge of doing so. There are no other spacefaring civilisations. They never make it.”

  “We can change,” said Stillman. “Complete disarmament. It could happen.”

  “You cannot put the genie back in the bottle. Humanity is not sufficiently mature to control such technology. This is the way of the universe.”

  “And the Vu-Hak are?” said Stillman, angrily.

  Adam pushed himself off the wall and walked slowly out of the shadows and into the sunlight. The rays reflected off his cerulean body, highlighting the grooves and muscles, making him shine like a new car. He looked like a god, a comic-book caricature made real. He turned and faced us and I thought there was definitely sadness to his voice, instead of his usual emotionless tone.

  “You do not understand the nature of things. The way the universe is set up. Each galaxy acquires an apex predator. A super-predator if you like. The Vu-Hak occupies this position in their galaxy. All worlds fell under its dominion. None were allowed to survive, or to challenge them. None.”

  “But they shouldn’t be here, in our galaxy!” insisted Hubert. “It’s a mistake. Humanity should be allowed to learn from its mistakes… this can’t be our legacy!”

  Adam walked away from the wall and looked upwards, taking in the sunlight. “Ninety per cent of humanity believes in an afterlife. Many of your leaders believe that death brings everlasting life. These people possess the means to pull the nuclear trigger and bring human history to an end. It
will happen very soon, Vu-Hak or not.”

  Hubert snorted. “So, because humanity is on the verge of self destruction, what difference does it make if we go out a couple of years early? Is that what you’re saying?”

  Adam blinked slowly in that reptilian way I’d seen him do many times. “There is another reason. Something that I have slowly come to realise. An extrapolation, if you like, from what I have said and observed. The nature of humanity, and what it has exhibited behaviourally thus far, make us an ideal candidate for this galaxy’s superpredator. We are little different from the Vu-Hak, at least in the early millennia of their evolution. If allowed to proceed unchecked through this bottleneck, humanity will spread its destruction, its wanton disinterest in other species, beyond its home world. To the detriment of all other emergent species.”

  Stillman stood stiffly against the wall. “So you don’t care anymore about your fellow humans?”

  “I am no longer human. I will survive, as my world crumbles around me. I will live a million lifetimes in this shell. How can I care about humanity any more?”

  “No,” I said, standing up. “I refuse to accept that you don’t care any more about humanity. You saved my life. Why did you bother if you don’t care?”

  Adam shook his head and his green eyes turned towards me. I felt his emotions push through, fragments of happiness and affection bobbing about on the surface of a deep ocean of melancholia.

  My daughter watched as Cora was murdered. Now I have killed my daughter in cold blood. I wanted to do it; I wanted to end her life. This is what humans are. There is no hope for any of us.

  I looked up aghast, realising he didn’t know. I grabbed both his hands in mine. “Amy isn’t dead. You didn’t kill her. She’s in the hospital. She’s going to be okay.”

  Adam looked at me and uncertainty played across his features, His eyes flicked right and left.

  I did not kill her? I tried to…

  I gripped his hands tighter, and was rewarded by a responding squeeze. I realised I had to build on this.

  “After what you learned today, your anger was inevitable. What you did was understandable. It was …a human response. But, you have another chance. Forgiveness. It’s what makes us better than animals. And it’s what will get humanity through these dark times.”

  He pulled back and I felt his anguish pour over me, cold and heavy like a wet blanket.

  I… Amy and I, how can we get past this? And even if we could, how could she accept me? I am always going to be different. I can never fit back in to human society.

  I closed my eyes, squeezing back the tears. Memories flooded in again. I remembered the immense and inconsolable sense of loss when my daughter had died. When my estranged father had died soon afterwards, I’d moved to Creech just to re-establish some connection with him. Something to give me a sense of belonging, a sense of family. When Adam had revealed the truth about my father and mother’s relationship, it mattered less than I thought it would.

  “We can help Amy, together,” I said. “You and I. She needs you. She needs her father back in her life.”

  He shifted his gaze downwards. “Look at me, Kate. What can I give her?’

  “You can give her love. Your daughter will always love you. Under the surface, there is always that bond that cannot be broken. Your wife gave you a precious gift, a daughter. A daughter who has made mistakes, yes, but mistakes that can be forgiven. And she will forgive you your mistakes as well. Just give yourself a chance…”

  I stopped, a sob lodging in my throat as I saw my daughter’s face again. The bloodstain on her forehead, the chalkiness of her skin, her closed eyes. I understood what he was feeling. Why he was disconnected. When my daughter died, nothing made sense anymore. Any direction and meaning my life possessed was gone, blown away by a hurricane of grief.

  I pictured Adam walking the seafront of San Francisco, gazing out at the breakers as the fog came in and the bridge faded behind the grey drizzle. The wind blew and the waves bumped against the rocks but for him the world had stopped existing. Passers-by, nearby traffic, were irrelevant, like photographs in an album belonging to someone else. He’d read her letters, listened to their special songs, and lay on her side of the bed with the pillow in his arms, staring out of the window unable to sleep. His despondency was washing over me, drowning me. A murdered wife, a broken daughter from a failed marriage, his own death and resurrection as a tin man; all in the face of the coming apocalypse. It slowly dawned on me that it might never have been a realistic hope. He was too far-gone, had experienced too much trauma, and worst of all, knew that there was no end to it for him.

  When everyone is dead, I will be alone again…

  As he spoke to me I had visions of the beautiful green fields of earth being reduced to ash and charcoal, with the smell of burnt flesh and wood smoke hanging in a haze obscuring a blood red sun. The heart and flesh ripped out of cities, now standing like skeletons, broken and serrated edges puncturing the sky. Oceans no longer moving, semi-stagnant pools of corpses, human and wildlife. Empty skies darkening as the nuclear winter approached. I pulled at his hand, making him look down at me. There were no tears, his face expressionless and vacant, despite the profusion of emotion going on behind his eyes.

  “You don’t have to be alone,” I said quietly. “I’ll be there for you. I promise. We’ll help Amy – you and me, together. ”

  His eyes seemed to narrow, and I thought there was a twitch at the corner of his mouth. Then I felt a faint breeze on the back of my neck as the temperature in the cavern dropped rapidly. A pungent ozone-like smell of assailed my nostrils, and the temperature dropped further. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and the whole atmosphere became charged, like a thunderstorm was about to strike.

  I realised we were too late.

  A small sphere of light was materialising in the middle of the cavern, no bigger than a golf ball, but as incandescent as a small sun. A pressure started to build up in my head, and a visceral growling reverberated in my ears. I watched Stillman walk slowly over to Hubert and I wasn’t surprised when he hugged her tightly, closing his eyes. I saw him whispering to her, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying. The fight went out of me and I fell to my knees, tears flowing freely. I looked up at Adam, who was staring into the sphere as dazzling strobe-like beams danced around the cavern’s walls, spinning and whirling with prismatic iridescence. The sphere spasmed and grew into a tumescent ball of silvery liquid. A deep matt blackness appeared as a pinpoint at the very centre, soon pulsing and expanding within the sphere itself. As it grew, stars and novae became visible as the portal opened and the passageway to the other galaxy was unlocked.

  Then I heard Adam laughing.

  I felt the melancholia drain away from him, to be replaced by a sense of contentment, and of purpose. The green phosphorescence exploded more brightly behind his eyes, and I waited for the voice of the Vu-Hak to burst through. Instead I heard Adam’s voice in my head, clear, sonorous, gentle, calming.

  You promise?

  He walked towards the portal and I reached out to grab him but he smiled and gently pushed me to the side. I felt my knees give way and I dropped to the ground, sliding down the wall. I tried to get up but couldn’t move.

  “Adam,” I managed to get out. “Please don’t go.”

  He looked over his shoulder at me and smiled. The portal was right above him and he didn’t appear to be affected by it at all. I could see it turn watery and his reflection appeared in its surface. I waited for it to expand for the final time and for the Vu-Hak to emerge. Adam held out a hand to me and waved. I felt his mind opening and a flood of thoughts, organised and coherent, speared my brain like a syringe.

  “Please, Adam…” I couldn’t complete the sentence. My head was spinning and spots were dancing in front of my eyes.

  Then the portal consumed him and the world went dark.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  One week later

  Arlington Nationa
l Cemetery, Washington, DC

  Standing by the Tomb of the Unknowns, I pulled the collar of my jacket around my neck, and put my sunglasses back on. It was cool, the air was fresh, and there was some early morning dew on the grass. Three hundred and twenty soldiers had just been put to rest, and America had again said its farewell to another cohort of young men and women that had lost their lives in the service of their nation. A lone guard slowly marched across the front of the white marble monument, his rifle topped off with a bayonet, the thick yellow stripe down his crisp blue uniform pants flicking metronomically in time with each step.

  The side of the monument facing me depicted three Greek figures symbolising ‘Peace’, ‘Victory’ and ‘Valor’. I walked around to the western side, past the three wreaths lying limply on the ground, and waited for the guard to pass before stopping. The inscription on this side read: ‘HERE RESTS IN HONORED GLORY AN AMERICAN SOLDIER KNOWN BUT TO GOD’.

  This only made me angrier.

  I watched the presidential motorcade pull past the visitor centre and turn onto Route 110, accelerating smoothly away as the phalanx of motorcyclists flashed red and blue lights and cut through the traffic. Quiet crowds still lined the grasses and hillocks around the Kennedy grave and visitor centre, waving American flags in a sombre and generally respectful way. Already, people were making their way home, snaking through the pathways to the car parks where tour buses and taxicabs were waiting. The smell of gun smoke lingered, the sound of the 21-gun salute still echoing around the fields containing the thousands of identical white tombstones.

  I had always liked visiting here, in another life. Seeing the brave men laid to rest, the stones giving a promise of not being forgotten, collectively reminding a population brought up on video games and rap music what sacrifices bought their freedom.