The Ninth: Invasion

by Benjamin Schramm

  “So, I guess you’re not really speaking to me,” Brent said, finally taking the seat.

  “Not with my mouth at least.” The old man’s lips curled upward in a gentle smile. “I assume you understand how communication works in the first place.”

  “Electrical impulses are sent from the sense organs to the brain. The brain then interprets those impulses as sight and sound and the rest. Tones of sound are further interpreted to a base language the mind learned usually at a young age. Once a response is formulated, the brain sends out impulses to other organs to respond in kind.”

  “Well, this place skips all that. Your mind and mine are linked in a way that we can communicate on a pure level. However, since this is our first actual meeting, I’m keeping this at a proper distance. Pure communication is a disturbing sensation at first.”

  As understanding wafted over Brent, a sudden sense of urgency came over him. Quickly standing, he searched the endless expanse.

  “Where is Second? I don’t have time for this,” he said, concerned.

  “Relax, you have all the time in the world.” The old man urged Brent to return to his seat. “More than that, really.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The two of us could converse for any duration you can imagine. A sun could be born, live and die all within the span of our conversation. However, outside this place time would not progress a single instant.”

  “How is that possible?” Brent asked sitting.

  “Sadly, the technical explanation is beyond you. It’s a bit embarrassing, but to tell you the truth, I never fully understood it myself. I’d need my colleagues to help me explain it properly, but they are no longer with us.”

  “Who exactly are you?”

  “My name is Henry Fleishcher, although I doubt that name means much in itself. If you are the savior of humanity, I suppose it would be fair to call me its destroyer.”

  “Are you Second?”

  The old man chuckled softly to himself.

  “An interesting leap in logic. But no, I am not Second. I suppose it would be more correct to say I am his father.”

  “You created Second?”

  “Along with the other eight and the rest of the Shard. It was so very long ago.”

  “Impossible. You would have to be over ten millennia old. No one can live that long.”

  “It is true the human body can only be sustained for so long. However, the Spark is eternal. I had such good intentions, but that didn’t save us from the road to destruction.”

  “What are the Shard?”

  “At least you haven’t dismissed me as a rambling old man yet.” The old man smiled warmly. “You see, I developed a way for two people to communicate directly.” He gestured widely to the endless white expanse around them. “I wanted to foster the free flow of information. However, the public saw the process as atrocity. Those of us that had undergone the process were exiled. I tried to explain it to everyone, defend my purpose and my colleagues, but my words fell on deaf ears. In the fullness of time, they decided to eradicate us from existence for what we had done and what we had become.”

  “What was that? What had you become?”

  “We had found by accident that my procedure could permanently remove the Spark of life from the human body. Once removed, the mind could be transplanted into something more durable, something that would last much longer. Another inadvertent realization was that two Sparks could join as one. All the memories and experiences of the two individuals would remain, but the two worked in tandem – two minds, one consciousness.”

  “A hive mind . . .”

  “Exactly. When the rest of humanity came to destroy us for what we had become, we fought back. We found we could fragment our collective consciousness. These fragments served as a conduit for our will. By implanting these Shards of our consciousness into machines, we found we could manipulate them, as you would flex your pinky.”

  “And the Great War started.”

  “Close enough. We didn’t really want to destroy humanity at first, I swear to that. However, after a few millennia the original purpose for the conflict had been lost, and only pain and rage remained. Neither side remembered they had originated from the same source. All they knew was their hatred for one another.”

  “If that’s true, then how do you remember?”

  “That’s thanks to your birth.”

  “Me? What did I do?”

  “When we realized the humans were going to win the war, we decided it was our lack of individuality that was our downfall. We created the eight you’ve met as an attempt to give us a second chance at victory. However, we had forgotten what every parent knows. You can guide a child, but in the end they alone choose who they will be.”

  “So you thought of them as failures.”

  “Sadly so. Each one was unique, but failed to offer what we demanded. So we came on a new idea for the final individual. Instead of artificially creating a mind, we would extract one of our own and implant it into an independent shell.”

  “I’m guessing you were the one selected.”

  “Exactly right! In the process of being extracted from the hive mind, my ancient memories returned to me. It was painful to see what we had become through the eyes of what we had been. I was determined to untangle our fate and restore us to the right path.”

  “However, the Commonwealth got to you first and destroyed you along with the Shard homeworld. If that’s who I am . . . was, who am I now?”

  “As the Commonwealth used their terrible weapon, I was ripped from time by Lazarus. However, between the damage our body sustained in the past and the damage done by Lazarus itself, I was unable to fully merge with it.”

  “Our body? I was under the impression we were the same person.”

  “Another interesting leap in logic, but no. My Spark was only loosely tied to the frame the Shard had created. The energy suppression field of the Commonwealth fortress further weakened me. One of the more troublesome human defenses against Shards, it completely immobilizes anything within its area of effect and drains it of power. When that human first touched our mind, he did something to us, he changed something.”

  “That human?”

  “I believe you know him as Davis. When he searched our mind for emotions, he left a mental fingerprint, if you will. While I was able to repair our body over the next decade, I was largely unable to use it. I had only rudimentary control over movement and speech, but I couldn’t figure out why. That was until you showed up.”

  “Me?”

  “Turns out that fingerprint Davis left behind was the foundation of a Spark. I’d manipulated countless Sparks in my time, but never had I seen one come into being.”

  “So, I’m a fragment of Davis?”

  “Not at all, you are a complete and independent whole. Davis provided the soil, but you grew all on your own. I don’t have personal experience, seeing as I’m a man myself, but I gather your development was quite similar to normal childbirth, save for the fact you were born into a mostly developed body with my mind to lean on.”

  “So, that’s why I knew certain things. I was using your knowledge.”

  “Basically. Of course I only had experience up until my destruction at the hands of the Commonwealth’s planet killers. Everything that had happened over the last thousand years was new to me, but then again not all that much had changed. There were a few new things, those amusing corporations for example, but the fundamental technologies were all the same. I wonder how long it will take humanity to emerge from the shadow of the Great War.”

  “Why did Lazarus bring you . . . me . . . us back?”

  “I’ve given that a lot of thought.”

  The old man paused. Brent waited but he offered nothing.

  “And?” Brent pressed.

  “I believe time itself wanted you here. In fact, I’m certain of it. I’ve observed you, those around you, and even tested you. It’s the only solution that solves the puzzle.”
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  “Tested me?”

  “Not one of my better moments, but I felt I had to do it. Do you remember your first fight in the mess hall?”

  Brent thought back. He had endured several brawls in the mess hall. Slowly he shifted through his memories. Suddenly, he remembered his first day on the academy. A group of troopers were holding him while a division leader was about to beat him to death. He vaguely remembered time slowing and a voice taunting him.

  “That voice that prodded me to kill everyone, that was you?” Brent asked in shock.

  “I prompted you as if you were a normal Shard, ordering you to do what any Slasher would have done automatically. I was quite impressed with your choice.”

  “You didn’t sound like it. You sounded enraged at my decision.”

  “I had to be certain you were determined about your choice. If I automatically accepted your choice, it would have let you relax; plus, you were in a lot of danger – relaxing wasn’t an option.”

  “Fair enough, but what do you mean time wanted something? Isn’t time just a neutral force?”

  “Of course it is, but it has rules and natural phenomena, too. Think of it like a planet. There is a natural order to things, but once man starts meddling with things, the world has to adapt. The art of terraforming isn’t about building an ideal world so much as it is gently shifting the natural balance toward something more comfortable to our species. The world has to reach a new balance or be destroyed. Man has altered time, and it is working to find a new equilibrium.”

  “Lazarus?”

  “Among others. It is my belief that Lazarus failed to bring back anyone else because time needed you here. If it had worked, man would have spent time it didn’t have bringing back unimportant figures. It took them centuries of failures to bring you here; it would have taken millennia of successes to reach the same end. With my children waiting, humanity didn’t have the millennia to waste.”

  “Why do you say time needs me? Why not us, or you?”

  “I have my part to play, that is true. However, you are far more important than my contribution will be.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “A single drop of water can create massive ripples. You have started the chain reactions that will correct time, allow it to heal itself.”

  “What have I done? I’m just a single trooper.”

  “You’ve saved the life of Weaver Davis. If he weren’t on that academy supervising you, he would have been on the front lines. His abilities would have no effect on the Shards, and his demise was assured. You revitalized Alden. He had given up hope, knew his forces would not be enough to stop man’s extinction. But you gave him hope – hope that let him serve his purpose and thwart Fifth. Beyond that, you were able to reach understanding with Third and made the decision that has led us here.”

  “But why me? You could have done all that. Anyone could have.”

  “That is as far from the truth as you can get. Only you would make the decisions you made. You alone are responsible for your choices. Anyone else would have thought differently or felt differently and created a completely different chain of events.”

  “But still . . .”

  “Another might have failed my test, or failed to revive the girl after the spy shot her. Perhaps another would have let the Weavers suffocate on the floor of the mess hall. Another would have ignored Tyra’s pleas for help, or shunned Angela for what she had done. Someone else would have ordered the Shards to destroy themselves instead of ordering them to leave peacefully. There is even the possibility that, when faced with the power of the Shards, another would have given in to the power and chosen to rule over humanity as a self deluded god.”

  “How do you know all this? Can you see the future?”

  “I have been alive for over ten millennia. In that time I’ve learned that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Trust me when I say that I have seen enough to know where we are headed. For the first time in a very long while, our destination is a glorious place.”

  “Why are you telling me all this?”

  “Because I’m still a human at heart. You’ve forgiven my children in your heart, and I’m hoping you can forgive their father, or at least understand him. I had decisions to make when it was my turn. Some were the right ones, others . . . well, no one is perfect. It is almost time for me to rest.”

  “Rest? It sounds like you are saying goodbye.”

  “I know it is your nature to worry about others, but don’t dwell on my fate for too long. I have lived long enough. I have seen much and experienced a great many wonderful things. Now it is my time to take the role time has laid out for me.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “That green claw you drove into Second’s chest is a crude variation on the technology I originally developed. I call it the soul tap. Much to the chagrin of my fellow researchers.” The old man smiled, lost momentarily in long forgotten memories. “Right now you are linked to Second’s consciousness just like the two of us are linked.”

  “So, he’s here somewhere?”

  “I am keeping him at bay. The truth of the matter is, you can’t beat him here any more than you could in the physical world. However, I can.”

  “Why does that have a ring of finality to it?”

  “Alden is right; you are indeed perceptive. It will be the end of both Second and myself. Whatever is left after will be neither of us, just a broken shell of what once was.”

  “And you are okay with that?”

  “I’ve watched you sacrifice yourself over and over and have come to find myself at peace with the idea. Plus, I am ready; no father should outlive his children. However, before I go, I have a final gift I hope you will accept.”

  “A gift?”

  “When I leave, all that I am will go with me. While I have no regrets about what that will accomplish, it does sadden me that all that knowledge will be lost.”

  “You want to give me your knowledge? Is that even possible? Can I survive receiving ten thousand years of knowledge?”

  “What I want to give you is not what I’ve seen in the Great War. What I desire to live on is our history. The forgotten tale of how we reached the Great War. What our ancestors endured and accomplished. There is no danger in sharing that much with you. However, you have to accept this gift yourself. I cannot force it on you.”

  “So, that is why you have talked with me for so long; you wanted me to trust you and accept this knowledge.”

  “Guilty as charged. I did not mean to manipulate you, but I knew it would be too much to accept all at once. If I had bluntly told you what I desired, you would most likely have declined automatically.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Brent smiled at the old man. “I don’t hold it against you. I’ve done my fair share of manipulation. I’ll gladly accept your gift.”

  A tear rolled down the old man’s face. Leaning heavily on his cane, the man rose and approached him. As Brent stood, the man embraced him in a gentle hug. Brent’s mind ached as sparks of pain arced through it. Countless images flashed before his eyes of events that hadn’t been witnessed in eons. Stories and tales filled his mind with the great tapestry of human history. As the old man stepped away, Brent tried to sort through all of it. The pain quickly faded as his mind grew accustomed to what he had just gained. The old man cast a kindly smile at him.

  “I suppose that means my time is up. I enjoyed our time together. Now do this old Spark one last favor. Live a long and happy life. Have children. Teach everyone what they’ve forgotten.”

  Brent nodded to the old man. The old man smiled as he placed a hand on a door that hadn’t been there a moment ago. It was a simple square door of wood painted Navajo white with a single gold doorknob. As he slowly turned the knob, the old man hesitated as if remembering something he had forgotten.

  “I fear I’ve placed a great burden on your shoulders. However, I believe I may be able to atone for that as well. Make sure you spea
k with Eighth when this is over. She’s a sweet girl, and she has something you’ll want back.” The old man winked at Brent.

  With his last words uttered, the old man turned the knob and opened the door. A blinding light shown from beyond the doorway. Brent rose his hand to shield his eyes from the intense light, but it wasn’t enough. The light grew so bright that he couldn’t make out his own hand that hung mere inches away. After only a couple of moments, the light faded away. The light and the white expanse all faded away. Brent was back in the hub world, Second perched over him ready to strike. Second’s hand fell toward him, but it landed with no force. Shortly after that, the rest of Second’s body limply fell on top of him. Brent drug his broken leg over to the command console and placed his hand firmly on it. Thinking his message, he contacted the Shards.

  “It’s over.”

  Chapter 16: The Future

  “So when’s the big day?” Nathan asked with a large grin.

  “Helen isn’t big on dates.” Jack smiled. “As she puts it, ‘when the time is right.’”

  “So, the fair doctor’s name is Helen. I’ve worked with Doctor Benedict for as long as I’ve been Administer, and I don’t think I knew she even had a first name.”

  “She’s a private person.”

  “So I’ve gathered. What did the commission have to say?”

  “After ranting at me for a few hours about letting the boy out of my sight, they admitted it was the right thing to do.”

  “I’d certainly hope so. If not for him, we’d all be nothing more than memories. How are they taking word of his death?”

  “As well as you’d expect. They had a dissection table all picked out and everything. It’s not every day you have a human who can order Shards around.”

  “What a pity,” Nathan said with a wide smile. “I’m sure there are a lot of depressed surgeons.”

  “A real shame,” Jack said, chuckling.

  “Standing here in the sun, it’s hard to believe not that long ago I was cowering in the dark with a station full of terrified recruits and troopers all waiting for something to get around to finishing us off.”