by Matt Verish
“Something, yes. I don’t know what it is. But to be completely erased from existence....”
“Not erased—hidden,” Chrys said. “That file is real, and it must have been important enough for your father to have dedicated himself to uncovering the truth. Significant enough a cause for him to have risked his life and career to seek the aid of Cole’s mother and the likes of the criminal underworld. Dangerous enough to lie to his own daughter for her own protection. Which is why he created this to combat the Fog.”
Chrys touched the side panel of the once-abandoned prototype Cosmic Particle.
“Your father was always fighting the good fight,” Chrys continued. “Behind all the corruption, lies, and needless deaths, there was a just reason for it all. Just as Harper understood the consequences of committing treason to assist his cause.” She pointed to Lin’s Rook. “Somewhere on that device, your father holds the answer to his greatest achievement. You scratched the surface when you saved us in the black hole. Harper has experienced the effects of his vision, and she’s willing to assist you to make things right. Now it’s up to you to unlock that secret and help bring Terracom to justice.”
If not for her uncertainty, Lin looked as though she were ready to accept the task. Chrys played her trump card.
“If not for the sake of the entire United System and those blind to what oppresses them, then do it for Cole. He may have been wrong about his mother, but his heart was in the right place. Let’s take a page right out of his insane book and do the impossible.”
Chrys took a deep breath and relaxed her stance. She was never one for delivering motivational speeches, let alone offering words of encouragement. But a clear path had been laid out for her: she knew in which direction her life was headed. It empowered her, and she would do everything in her power to see this through to the end. Even if it meant her own.
She watched Lin, expectantly, seeing the doubt, fear, and the ease of her resentment. She smiled before the inevitable happened.
Lin nodded.
21
SUFFOCATION
“She doesn’t look anything like Fej did.”
Cole gazed in wide-eyed wonder at his mother’s visage, which was seemingly untouched by time as well as the effects of the Cosmic Particle blast. Her face was one he’d tried desperately to forget in the years following his attempt to kill her. A face he had forgotten despite seeing her only a couple hours earlier. A face he had unknowingly recorded before she had lulled him into a false sense of security and scrambled his short-term memories. A face he desperately wanted to punch, though would never get the chance.
On the unnamed planet surface, he and Harper had shared what had seemed at the time—at least on the surface—a rare mother-son moment. I should’ve known better than to trust that evil snake, he thought as he viewed the footage a second time. In hindsight, it was easy to see through to her fiendish ploy. Being that he had been caught up in the wonders of a world barely touched by mankind, he could forgive his clouded vision. Besides, she was his mother, and he had learned nearly all he knew from her.
If only I had used what I learned to overtake her. Oh well. No point in fantasizing.
Watching his collection of recorded videos, he decided, was far more entertaining than waiting to suffocate. At least he could enjoy re-entering the atmosphere of the new planet, pretend his mother had changed for the better and relive exciting moments with his crew before their mutiny. Most importantly, he could see Lin’s face before he breathed his last.
His eyes hurt from the contrast of the light in the darkness. In spite of what Fej had said regarding the functionality of the escape vessel, his connection to the ship had been severed with his demise, leaving Cole adrift. Fej’s selfless act, unfortunately, only delayed the inevitable.
He glanced at the oxygen level for the thousandth time, growing impatient. There were quicker ways to deplete his supply, or bypass that step completely, but he needed to build up the courage to follow through on his final act.
“The System’s worst game show,” Cole mocked, using an emcee’s voice. “Welcome to ‘Pick Your Poison!’ Tell us, Cole, before you select the means to your untimely end, won’t you tell us a little about your most painful regrets?”
“Well, gee, Emile Durkheim, lemme think,” Cole answered in his normal voice. “Aside from everything I did after failing to murder my mother, I most regret falling in love.”
Cole opened his mouth to continue his one-man banter, but his profession stopped him. This revelation was too painful. He stood from the chair and made his way to the cockpit. He needed to see his universe before he met his end.
Little more was inside than empty space, scattered debris, and the shredded portion of the Daedalus upon which Fej’s escape vessel rested. So Cole opened one of his favorite videos—one he had recorded of Lin in secret. He widened the view to full VR so he could be with her one last time. He turned up the audio in his comm piece, and sat back.
The recording was from the time shortly after the crew had avoided a collision course with the sun. It was the beginning of his relationship with her, if that was indeed what they had shared. Lin had been vulnerable, he knew, but so had he. Perhaps the extreme circumstances was why two polar opposite personalities had meshed in that moment. Whatever the reason, he was grateful they had found one another.
Even if things between them had been left unfinished.
Seeing her again was far more painful than calming. All he could think of was how angry she had been, and how they parted on poor terms.
Her face went dark, and he was again staring at nothing. There was no reason to prolong this self-inflicted torture. He placed his hands on the base of his helmet, prepared to remove it. The damage to the ship’s hull was severe enough that it had been breached, venting all atmosphere. Death would be swift and mostly painless. All he had to do was unlock....
But as he stood there, staring into the unexplored universe, trembling hands gripping the clasps to his helmet, he found suicide would not come easily. Was his affinity for life so strong? Perhaps he was just a coward, unwilling to free himself of this prison. Maybe he was meant to endure a long and grueling ordeal before he left his mortal coil—punishment for all the pain he’d caused others.
Or was it the hint of movement he thought he’d seen?
In the distance, there had been a glint—a brief reflection off a moving surface. Maybe that was what his mind had wanted to see, to find a reason not to end it all. His hands, though still upon his helmet, no longer trembled. Something was definitely there, and it was headed in his direction.
Likely it was nothing more than debris from the Daedalus, hurtling through space. Knowing my luck, it’ll smash directly into me to make sure the deed is done properly. He zoomed in with his Ocunet lenses.
“What the hell are you?” Cole said, glimpsing motion again. “You don’t move like drifting debris.” He squinted. “And you’re certainly not an asteroid... Shit! Lost it again.” He slammed his fist on the dark console, wishing now more than ever he could rely on all the bells and whistles of the viewport screen.
“Hold still and let me get a good look at you.”
Cole’s shout was abrupt and not very manly. He accidentally punched the side of his helmet when he reached to test the comm piece in his ear. His sanity was slipping if he believed he had just heard CAIN’s voice.
It’s just not possible... Nobody’s this lucky. “C-Cain? Buddy? That really you?” He was pressed up against the viewport as close as his helmet would allow. “I don’t see you.”
“YES!” Co
le literally jumped for joy for the first time in his life, lack of gravity carrying him to the top of the cockpit’s interior. He started to laugh.
“I admit, I’m a little emotional right now. You caught me in the midst of a very unCole-like moment.”
Wait, what? “Um, how did you know that Fej was my friend? Better yet, how are you alive? Answer that first, because I watched the Daedalus eat it with my own eyes.”
Cole realized he had seen nothing to prove the AI wrong other than a great deal of darkness and... “Debris,” he said, still trying to argue the point. “I watched my portion of the ship separate from yours and... You know what? Never mind. Who cares? Just come save my sorry ass.”
“No more jarring than me believing I was the last living being in this universe,” Cole said, choked. “Damn, I’m really glad I procrastinated. You would’ve...” He decided against finishing the thought.
Man! Since when was he so inquisitive? He pushed away from the ceiling, sat down, and gripped the chair’s armrests. “Just focus on the task at hand, alright? Maybe I’ll quench your thirst for answers when we’re safe and—”
BANG!
Cole launched from the flight chair in spite of his magboots, slamming head-first against the console. His helmet cushioned him from the impact, his thick suit absorbing the rest of the blow. Unfortunately, he rebounded, his upper torso crashing back into the flight chair and momentum spinning him like a propeller. He continued his weightless drift into the darkness of the passenger room beyond, arms flailing for anything he could grab onto. He snagged something—one of the seats—and clutched as hard as he could.
“Sure, blame the equipment, not the pilot,” Cole mocked, locking his position to the floor. “What would Alan Turing say if he’d heard a computer passing the buck to another computer for its own shortcomings?”
CAIN replied.
Cole nodded, impressed. “Nice comeback.” He reached out and hugged the seat beside him to weather the “reconnection.” “So, you admit you’re imperfect. One step closer to becoming a miserable meat puppet with faulty wiring upstairs. Just like me.”
“Oh, you mean ‘one-up’?” Cole said, grinning. His teeth chattered from the increasing heavy vibrations, and he wondered just how much longer his half of the ship would last before it was shaken to pieces. “D-Don’t wo-worry, b-b-buddy,” he said through the constant tremors. “I’m-m-m onl-ly m-m-messin’....”
There was an incredible jolt, and the trembling diminished. He nearly let go of the chair’s back, but decided to check on CAIN’s progress first.
“Everything going alright with your reconnection?”
CAIN said.
Cole’s mouth was hanging open. “Uh... What?”
Silence.
“Cain?” Cole tried, his voice just above a whisper. “Are you there?”
No response.
And there it is, Cole thought along with a heavy sigh. That’s the sound of my luck running out. “Sorry, buddy. You tried. More than my crew did. Too bad you wasted all that effort on trying to save me.” He sat and slumped in the chair he’d been holding. He felt sick, his heart racing from the verge of yet another miracle close-call.
He sat there, in total darkness, resuming his morbid musings. He would’ve attempted to reach the other half of the Daedalus, were all exists not electronically sealed on the escape vessel. He was trapped in a tin can, mere feet from his twice-defeated savior. Not that reaching CAIN would’ve changed any outcome. Cole just wanted to be with someone before death finally reaped its long overdue reward.
A few slivers of light shimmered on the blank viewport screen in front of Cole. They hung there, mysterious vertical projections coming from behind. Curious, he gathered what little energy he had to look over his shoulder at the source of the oddity. But then the lights faded.
Was that a reflection? Cole wondered. Whatever he had seen must’ve originated outside the ship and emanated through the newly acquired hole in the ship’s hull. And if he was right, that meant the source had moved.
He stood and switched on his helmet lamp. He shined it on a fist-sized opening, and though nothing was immediately visible, he decided to wait.
What are you doing, Cole? his inner voice asked. What exactly are you hoping will happen? That the light belongs to a search-and-rescue-team member? In another universe? Or perhaps you think that Cain will still find a way to bring back life to the drifting metal corpse that is the Daedalus? Don’t you think it more likely that your eyes are playing tricks on you as you look Death straight in its cold, barren sockets?
He switched off the lamp, but a faint aura of blue-white light remained, streaming through the doorframe leading to the rest of the ship.
Before he could take another breath of his dwindling oxygen, he watched as the door slid open. On the other side stood, a being he did not recognize, but also did not fear. He knew this glowing savior, and for the second time he knew his life would never be the same.
22
RECKLESS
“They’re coming.”
Chrys stared hard at the viewport screen, searching for what only Harper could see. The scanners did not display incoming vessels or any sign of life. Here, at the outskirts of the United System’s galactic jurisdiction, was where the enemy was said to be hiding. It was here, just out of reach of government protection, that she would stand alongside her new “captain” and see that Terracom’s reign came to an end.
“From where?”
Harper closed her eyes. “From all angles, I would presume.”
Chrys swallowed the lump in her throat and gauged the faces of Harper’s bodyguards. They were, however, devoid of any emotion, and a poor litmus test for when to panic.
“This cargo vessel’s weapons and defense capabilities should aid in our frontal assault,” Harper said. She was standing at the fore of the console, a pillar of confidence, sizing up the invisible Goliath, calculating how to best use her slingshot. “Our cloaking is nothing compared to Terracom’s, though we are small enough that we should be able to manage.”
Chrys flanked Harper, barely able to see over her shoulders. “This ship has served us well, though....” She could not finish her cowardly thought.
“But you doubt our chances,” Harper finished. “Few would disagree with your sentiment, though you all lack the vision and the will to stand against true tyranny.”
Chrys grimaced.
“But I blame myself for initially attempting this mission on my own. No one can face the darkness of Terracom alone.”
Though Chrys could not see the structure referred to as The Fog, Harper had enlightened her to its camouflage. She had learned a lot since returning to her universe—a little about herself but mostly about the truth of things. Terracom’s Fog was neither an event nor a natural phenomenon. It was exactly as myths and legends proclaimed it to be: a manmade doomsday machine the size of a moon, hidden in the center of the galaxy.
“You did what you felt was right,” Chrys said, feeling awkward. “You were alone because no one else—myself included—was able to accept the truth of the matter.”
“And do
you accept the truth of the matter, Sergeant?”
She’s testing my loyalties, Chrys realized. As she should. “I do.”
“The Singularity’s daughter,” Harper began, her full attention on the viewport screen, “Can she be trusted to complete her task?”
No, Chrys thought, but she responded with, “I do not doubt her disgust in Terracom.”
“The majority of the System shares her disgust, but you tell me her goal is not the same as ours. I doubt her ability to do what is necessary when the time comes.”
Chrys began to fidget. Just where was this onslaught of which Harper had spoken? “Her father was aligned with your cause, and she has come to understand as I have.”
Harper’s wry expression cracked her stone face. “Kingston Dartmouth was more concerned with his precious Cosmic Particle and the coddling of his own ego than aligning with any cause. His participation was one of many necessary evils in the grand scheme of things. You claim his daughter shared an intimate relationship with my son. Anyone who can sway Cole’s emotions cannot be trusted.”
Chrys blinked. Was Lin so dangerous? Clever and brilliant, yes. More of a liability than her father? That seems unlikely. She was about to say as much, when the first wave of nukes were detected.
“When the time comes, Sergeant,” Harper said, seemingly unconcerned with the oncoming artillery, “you will assume command of this ship.”
Chrys gripped the back of the co-pilot’s chair so tightly that she thought she might tear it from its bolted foundation. Me? How does she expect me to navigate in this storm of death? And where is she planning on going that I will need to assume command? Regardless of her fears, , she nodded in acknowledgment of a situation she could not comprehend.
“Until then, I insist you take a seat and witness the birth of a revolution.”
Chrys did as asked, her eyes locked to the screen, watching the flashing red detections that signified their pending end. No more than ten seconds from impact, she felt as though she should have alerted Lin and Rig. Her initial concerns over Harper’s sanity resurfaced and multiplied. Only a suicidal lunatic would march onto a battlefield alone against an expectant legion.
