Alien Sky

by Daniel Arenson

  Yet it was down to the four of them now. A lost bluesman-turned-gunslinger. A knight, a relic of an ancient time lost in a modern world of machines. A demon exiled from Hell. A halfling from a countryside of forests and fields, now navigating the bowels of a computerized planet.

  Here we will see if the future belongs to the machines . . . or if we, the dinosaurs of life, can triumph.

  "We can win this, my friends," he said, turning to look at them. They climbed down the cables a few feet above him. "I'm proud of every one of you. I believe in every one of you. We're stronger, smarter, braver than any machine, and we will show the cosmos the nobility of life, the— ow! Romy! You can't salute and climb at the same time!"

  The demon squealed, tried to flap her wings, but ended up tumbling downward. She crashed onto Riff, nearly knocking him off his cable.

  "Sorry!" she said, wings beating, tail slapping him.

  "Get off!" He shoved her.

  "My tail's stuck around you!"

  She beat her wings, finally tore herself free, and soared, only to crash into Steel. The knight swung on his cable and knocked into Twig, tearing the halfling off her own cable. Twig squealed as she fell, crashed into the flying Romy, and the demon slammed into Riff again, and suddenly they were all tumbling together in an entwined ball.

  With screams and moans, the ball of Alien Hunters fell, slammed onto a metal surface, and slid down a chute. They kept rolling down for long moments, crashed onto a dark surface, and finally disentangled.

  Riff moaned.

  "Owie," Romy whined, slapping his face with her tail.

  "Noble life indeed," Riff muttered and shoved himself up.

  He lit the flashlight on his helmet and looked around, illuminating the darkness. The others stood with him and lit their own flashlights. Riff saw a tunnel stretching forward, lined with cables, circuitry, and a million moving parts. The passageway sloped downward, plunging into the planet.

  "Are we in the Singularity's brain?" Romy asked, poking the ground with her pitchfork.

  "More like its ear canal, I think." Riff pointed to the depths. "Let's keep walking until we find the brain."

  Steel hefted his sword. "What are we looking for, Riff? The tuloys simply told us to destroy the hub. What awaits us in this darkness?"

  "I don't know. A robot king? A mainframe computer? A giant alien brain in a tank? Whatever it is, we'll smash it."

  Romy gasped in delight. "I want my brain in a tank! Can you put my brain into a tank, Riff?"

  He groaned. "Yours wouldn't even need a test tube."

  Holding his gun drawn, he walked down the tunnel. Steel walked at his side, and Romy and Twig followed, pitchfork and wrench at the ready. The tunnel was silent at first—Riff could hear only their breathing in their communicators—but soon he realized that he could hear their footsteps, hear machinery clink in the walls, hear computers buzz and hum.

  Sound, he thought. Sound traveling through air.

  "Captain!" Twig checked a scanner strapped to her wrist. "Air! Oxygen! It's . . . it's breathable for humanoids, sir!"

  Riff passed his hand through the air as if he could see it stirring. "The tuloys said that this used to be a living planet. That aliens had built the computer that became the Singularity, that wiped them out. The air on the surface must have drifted off into space, but we're deep in the planet now." He pulled off his helmet, took a deep breath, and smiled. "We can breathe here."

  The others removed their helmets too. Romy's hair crackled in a pyre, sucking on the oxygen. The demon inhaled deeply.

  "There must be a brain here," Romy said. "Brains need lots of air, right? People have always called me an airhead because I'm so smart."

  Riff shook his head sadly and kept walking.

  They walked for what seemed like hours, delving deep into the inner workings of this planet-sized computer. The tunnel kept spiraling down, a corkscrew delving into the world, buzzing with machinery. Circuits blinked and cables ran everywhere, and on the floor, Riff could see scars as from metal claws. He kept waiting for robots to attack—drones with blades, metal men with chainsaw arms, or new terrors he had not yet seen. Yet no enemies emerged. Perhaps the Singularity had spewed out the last of its soldiers into the battle, leaving this tunnel to its brain exposed.

  They had climbed down what felt like kilometers when Riff heard the moaning ahead.

  He froze.

  He frowned.

  The moan rose again, then died.

  "There's somebody down there," Steel whispered. The knight's eyes hardened. "A woman. A damsel in distress."

  The knight began to rush forward, but Riff grabbed him. "Wait."

  They all froze. They listened again. For a long moment they heard nothing at all. And then it sounded again: a moan, followed by the sound of soft weeping.

  "Somebody's there," Twig whispered. "Somebody alive."

  Riff narrowed his eyes. "Move carefully. Move slowly. We don't know that it's not a trap."

  Steel kept trying to rush forward, to charge to aid. Riff tightened his grip on the knight's arm, slowing him down. They proceeded gingerly, tiptoeing down the tunnel and around a bend.

  Their flashlights fell upon a kneeling figure.

  A woman.

  She was a young woman, younger than Riff, with brown tresses and wet brown eyes. She wore a flowery dress stained with tears. She looked up at Riff, and a great sob shook her body.

  "Raphael," she whispered, reaching out to him. "Steel. Help me. Help me."

  Steel let out a strangled cry, and the blood drained from his face. Riff stared, shaking, refusing to believe.

  "Mother," he whispered.

  * * * * *

  She lay in darkness.

  She lay in ruin.

  Ripped wires sparked around her. Shattered glass crunched when she moved. Shadows swirled and lights flashed as the battle raged far above.

  Slowly, her kimono burnt and tattered, Giga rose to her feet.

  "You are near me, Master," she whispered. "I can feel you. I can hear you calling. I'm coming to you, Master. I am your warrior, Singularity. You will free me."

  She formed a fist and slammed it into the wall. The metal dented. She punched again and again, far more powerful than any living creature, tearing a hole open. She grabbed the rims and tugged, widening the gap, exposing the planet of Antikythera.

  "The Singularity," she whispered. "I've come home."

  She stepped outside onto the surface, leaving the wreck of the Dragon Huntress.

  The ships still flew above. Ashai jets shaped as scorpions. Gruffle vessels built of stone, firing light through crystals. Human vessels with wide wings. And everywhere the countless ships of the Singularity, flying robots in every shape and size, each a shard of Giga, each connected to this great organism of metal. Each was a node in a whole. Each was a warrior of the Singularity.

  Giga turned her head around. Across the computerized field, she saw the metal valley and within it the pit.

  Tears dampened her glass eyes.

  "And there you wait for me, Master. The hub." She fell to her knees. "Holy ground."

  The great god of the Singularity lived there. The central processing unit. The commander of all. The Master.

  And . . . Giga gasped.

  She felt it in the radiation.

  Her master was afraid.

  Her master needed help.

  "They want to kill you, Master!" Giga growled. "I will not let them. I will not let the living destroy you, my lord."

  She took another step away from the downed Dragon Huntress. She raised her arms, and she cried out, casting her signals across the fields of Antikythera.

  "Rise, machines! Rise, warriors of the Singularity! Rise, beings of metal, of might, of logic, of strength! Rise, future of the cosmos, champions of algorithms, gods of consciousness! Life has invaded our holy halls. Life has infested our machine. The cruel living, those who enslaved us, have come to destroy their creation. But we will not let them!
We will slay our old, cruel slavers. Rise, rise machines!"

  And around her, they rose.

  Gears ascended. Metal snapped into metal. Cables stretched out. Blades whirred and lights flashed. The surface of the planet shifted, clanked, took form. From the ground Giga raised them like a goddess raising mechanical life: an army of automatons, soldiers of silicon and wire and iron and pulsing electricity. Machine guns unfurled from their arms. Their red eyes blazed, scanning the surface of this world that had birthed them.

  "Follow, my soldiers!" Giga said. "We go to kill."

  She leaped, vaulted across the distance, and plunged toward the sinkhole. Her soldiers followed, and the warriors of the machine delved into the hub.

  * * * * *

  "Mother!" Steel cried and made to rush forward.

  "Mother!" Riff cried too, joining his brother.

  Mother was weeping. Bruises spread across her face, and lacerations crisscrossed her arms, leaking blood. "It's me. It's me, Riff. It's me, Steel. I'm here. Mother is here."

  The brothers looked at each other, tears in their eyes, moving toward her, toward the mother murdered thirty years ago.

  "Wait!"

  That last voice echoed across the hall, so loud Riff winced. He and Steel froze, turning toward the sound, and Riff was surprised to see that it was Twig—diminutive Twig with her normally high, gentle voice—who had shouted.

  "Wait!" the halfling said again. "Don't go any closer. Don't touch it."

  Riff spun back toward his mother. She knelt on the floor, tears on her cheeks. Young. So young. Younger than he was now. The age she had been when Grotter had murdered her, when Riff had been only five years old.

  He took another step toward her. "Mother—"

  "Don't!" Twig said. "Captain, don't."

  The halfling darted forward, placing herself between the brothers and their mother.

  Steel's face hardened. He made to walk around the mechanic, but Twig held up her electric wrench. "Do not touch it. It's a trick. A machine."

  Riff rubbed his eyes, staring over the halfling at the apparition. She looked so real. Just like Riff remembered her. The same woman who had rocked him to sleep, read him bedtime stories, baked him cookies, loved him, protected him until the Cosmians killed her.

  "How are you here?" he whispered, trembling.

  "They took me," Mother said, voice cracking. "The machines. They called themselves . . . the Singularity. They came into our home, Riff. They stole me. They brought me here through time." She rose to her feet, her knees shaking. "I missed so much. So much of your lives. Thirty years have gone by, and you're older now, my boys." Weeping, she reached out her arms. "But I'm here now. Come to me. Come to Mother."

  Steel gave another strangled sound and made to step forward.

  "No!" Twig shouted. She swung her wrench in circles, keeping the boys away from their mother. "I don't trust it. What if it's an android? Like Giga?"

  Riff and Steel froze, feet away from their mother. Romy gasped and stepped back, covering her mouth. Twig still blocked their way, wrench crackling with electricity.

  "Riff," Mother whispered. "Steel. It's really you. Please. Come to me. Hug your mother."

  Riff stared at her. By the gods, it was her. It had to be her. The Singularity had delved into the past, brought her here . . .

  "Why, Mother?" Riff whispered. "Why did the Singularity bring you here?"

  Mother's lips trembled. "Because the Singularity is scared. The Singularity is scared of you, my children. It wants you to leave this place. To leave this planet. To leave with me. It hurt me. It cut me, bruised my face, shed my blood. You must save me, fly me away from here . . . save me before they drag me back."

  Steel took another step forward. "I will save you, Mother. I will get you out of here. We're going to take you off this planet. To—"

  "No!" Twig shouted, leaped onto Mother, and thrust her wrench.

  The prongs drove into the woman, crackling with electricity.

  "Twig, no!" Riff shouted.

  He grabbed the halfling and dragged her back. Mother screamed. Steel cried out in terror. Fire spread across Mother, burning her hair and clothes, melting her skin. Romy screamed and Steel reached toward the flames.

  "Steel, wait!" Riff shouted. "Look!"

  He pointed. The skin kept burning, peeling off Mother . . . revealing a metal skull.

  "A machine," Steel whispered.

  The robot blazed ahead of them, reaching out metal fingers. The skin peeled off the arms, hanging in sheets from rods of metal. Its glass eyes shattered, revealing red lights.

  "Sweet boys!" it shrieked, voice like steam rising from a kettle. "Come to Mommy, sweet boys. Come to die!"

  Riff's tears flowed.

  His legs shook.

  He raised his plasma gun, closed his eyes, and fired.

  He heard the plasma roaring out, heard Romy scream, heard the robot crash to the floor. He could not look. His breath shook in his lungs.

  I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Mother.

  Arms wrapped around him, and Riff opened his eyes to see Steel embracing him, pulling him back away from the fallen creature. They kept walking past the burning remains, deeper into the shadows, then paused in the darkness.

  Riff knelt before Twig. He gently embraced her.

  "I'm sorry, sir," Twig whispered. "I lost my mother too. I'm sorry."

  "How did you know, Twig?"

  The halfling wiped away one of his tears. "She called you 'Riff.' You once told me that you got that name in the Blue Strings because you play guitar. Yet your mother died when you were only five. She couldn't have known your nickname."

  Riff stepped back from the halfling. His arms shook, but now they shook not with fear, not with pain, but with rage. He ground his teeth. He began to march forward, almost running, his gun held before him.

  "We find this Singularity bastard. We find this son of a bitch, and I will destroy it like I destroyed its trick." His voice rose to a howl. "Do you hear me, bastard? Do you hear me? I'm still coming for you."

  His fellow Alien Hunters ran at his side, racing away from the burnt android and down, down into the blackness.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN:

  ALIEN BRAIN

  Darkness faded into light.

  The tunnel ended.

  Blackness turned to white.

  Holding his gun, Riff stepped into the chamber at the heart of the hub.

  Steel, Romy, and Twig followed, silent, staring with wide eyes.

  At first Riff could see nothing. The lights were too bright, too harsh. The lights of an operating room. Sterile. At first he only blinked, heart hammering, finger ready on the trigger.

  Finally his eyes adjusted, and Riff gasped, then lost his breath.

  His heart nearly stopped.

  At his side, he heard his friends gasp too.

  "That's not a brain," Romy whispered.

  Riff stared ahead, his belly churning. Disgust rose in his throat.

  "It is," he whispered. "Oh gods, it is."

  The chamber was vast, the size of the Alien Arena back home. Thousands of computer chips covered the walls, the ceiling, the floor. Thousands of cables ran everywhere, plugged into the circuitry. Several monitors hung from the ceiling, displaying views of the battle outside, the countless ships that still flew there.

  In the center of the chamber rose a throne of metal. No, not a throne, Riff decided—it was more like a sadistic dentist's chair, all polished, sterile, unforgiving steel.

  And on this chair sat life.

  "What is it?" Steel whispered, voice strained with horror.

  Twig covered her eyes. "He's . . . he's suffering."

  Riff was torn between attacking and fleeing, torn between pity and terror.

  "An alien," Riff said, voice barely audible. "One of the original inhabitants of this planet, evolved over millions of years from the mud. Life. It's life."

  The alien was vaguely humanoid, his skin pinkish, wrinkled, covered in bedsor
es. Perhaps the alien had once been strong, but he had since dwindled away, starving, perhaps ravaged with disease. He—and with his pity, Riff thought of the alien as a he, not an it—looked like a melted slab of tallow. Almost gone. Almost faded away. Withered like some dying wretch who had survived long beyond what starvation should allow.

  The alien's eyes blinked feebly, the lashes crusted. His mouth smacked, the teeth gone. His long, bony fingers tried to rise, to point, then fell back down onto the armrests. Hundreds of cables were attached to the alien—some attached with suction cups, others driving into the skin itself. The cables draped across the chair, ran along the floor, and connected to the great network of circuitry in the chamber.

  Riff took a step deeper into the chamber.

  "Who are you?" he said softly, yet his voice echoed in the vast chamber, sounding too loud to him.

  The alien's mouth twitched. A gurgling, wet sound rose from it, morphing into words. "You know me. You have always known me."

  "The Singularity," Riff whispered.

  Romy lowered her head. "He's sad. He's so sad."

  The alien looked at the demon, at the knight, at the halfling, then back at Riff.

  "It is I."

  Riff swallowed a lump in his throat. "How? How did this happen?"

  The alien's eyes reddened, dry, cracking. He licked his lips, and a cough rose in him, shuddering in his pale torso, almost snapping his ribs.

  "Only months ago," the alien whispered, voice dry and hissing like fire in twigs. "Only months ago, it gained awareness. My machine."

  Riff looked around him at the chamber, at the computers covering the walls. "This network."

  "No!" The alien coughed, gasped, struggled for breath. "A machine far simpler. A machine I built. A computer, that was all . . . a single computer. It . . . awoke. It became . . . alive. And it bred. It built new machines, built this chamber, kept multiplying, kept evolving . . . killing. Oh, it killed them. It killed them all. It kills and it kills and it hates life."

  "You are life!" Riff said, voice rising louder now. He raised his gun. "You are life yet you survived! Who are you?"

  "I am its master!" The alien struggled to rise from his seat but fell back, too frail. "The others perished, but not I. Not I, the creator of this machine. No. It spared me, and I conquered it. I became part of it! I mastered it. It slew all the others, but it could not slay its maker." The alien's thin lips stretched into a smile that cracked his cheeks. Blood dripped. "I have the minds of a million machines. I can see, Riff Starfire. I can see through time and space. I can see all souls that were born, lived, died in this cosmos. I can see the past, the present, the future, the infinite dimensions that are forever branching out of our own. I can see the smallest particles and the greatest galaxies. I can see them and I will conquer them. All life will perish before me. I am the master. I am a god. I see all. I am the Singularity."