Heretic

by Philip C. Quaintrell

  The cube walls were just as Kalian had seen outside the volcano. Cogs and swirling patterns of bronze layered every side, all interlaced with alien languages that blended together. ALF cautiously stepped towards it and with his spear, jabbed the metallic wall. Nothing happened. In a typically human way, ALF lowered his spear and felt the need to touch it now that he was still alive after spearing it. Kalian had seen something similar when Savrick came across the cube on Hadrok. That inbuilt curiosity and need to explore were one of their species greatest traits, but also a fatal flaw. Savrick was testament to that.

  Kalian felt the overwhelming urge to pull away and leave the cube alone. But ALF continued to feel the edges of the alien languages that made up the sides. The nanocelium was ice-cold to the touch, but the material was clearly something ALF’s tribe had never come across before, having yet to master any kind of metal. He wrapped his knuckles against the side and enjoyed the unusual sound it made. As his wonder grew, so too did his caution fade away.

  The web of massive cogs began to shift directly in front of ALF, and the man jumped back and raised his spear. The entire wall continued to move until a hole the size of his head appeared at eye-level. ALF waited with his spear raised, standing between the cube and his sons. Kalian knew what was going to happen next and desperately wanted the three of them to run. Everything felt so real that Kalian could easily forget that none of this was actually happening, or at least it had, making this a memory and the fate of ALF and his sons already sealed. He still wanted to flee.

  ALF frowned when nothing happened and narrowed his vision to try and probe the darkness inside the hole.

  “Father…” his youngest son pleaded.

  ALF didn't look back but shook his head as he slowly approached the hole. What happened next surprised even Kalian, for he had been sure that ALF was moments away from placing his arm inside. Instead, a tight bundle of dark nanocelium, similar to a coiled muscle, shot out of the hole and slammed into ALF’s face.

  Everything froze.

  Kalian found himself standing in the forest, but as himself, not ALF. In front and beside him were ALF’s two sons, except that both of them were somewhere between seven and eight-foot tall, even the youngest was more than a head taller than him. Kalian suddenly felt very small inside what he had already considered a giant forest. He moved around them and found the scene in which had just been living. ALF was suspended a foot off the ground with a thick branch of nanocelium hugging his entire head, revealing only a slither of his grey hair at the back. His spear was halfway to the ground when everything had frozen, and his arms were outstretched as if he was in agony.

  “I had to take you out there.” ALF, in his old holographic form, was standing beside Kalian, wearing his usual white robes. “You wouldn't be able to comprehend what happened next from inside that mind.”

  Kalian was beginning to understand. “Finish it.”

  The scene played out as it had, with the sons screaming for their father, as he was consumed by more and more tendrils of nanocelium. The wall opened up until the space was large enough to pull ALF’s entire body inside. Within seconds his body was completely covered in snaking strands of nanocelium and taken into the darkness. His two sons threw their spears at the cube, which rebounded harmlessly, and ran back into the forest, shouting at the tops of their voices. The wall closed up behind ALF and became whole again as if the entrance had never been there.

  “That man…” Kalian could feel the weight of knowledge bearing down on him. “That’s what you are, now.” He flicked his head away, indicating the cyborg-like creature he had met inside the cube.

  ALF nodded, but remained silent, allowing Kalian to work through it.

  “When is this? Where is this?” Kalian moved away from ALF and held his arms up at the alien environment.

  “When is hard to say exactly. This day took place before the Terran Empire existed, long before in fact. I wasn't really keeping track of time back then, it was inconsequential to my kind. Both of my kinds,” he corrected. “It’s most likely around the time the first creatures on Earth were leaving the oceans and learning to walk. As for where…” ALF put his back to the cube and waved his hand across the tree line. Proving the lack of substance in the reality, the forest was wiped away, leaving a beautiful view of the horizon and the dual moons. “You already know the name of this planet, or at least the name its inhabitants gave it.”

  Kalian was silent for a moment, taking in the vista. “Evalan…”

  “Yes. It was in a galaxy far from the one you now call home.” ALF clasped his hands within his robes. “Though not entirely identical to you, the people born on this planet were the first to carry your genetic code, the same code that formed the foundation of the Terran and later humanity on Earth. These people are the very first of your kind, Kalian, your true ancestors.”

  “Evalan. This is our real home?” Kalian had the urge to explore every inch of the virtual planet.

  “It was…” ALF looked away, his shame clear to see.

  “What happened here? What did you do?” Kalian had no doubt in his mind that ALF was responsible.

  “I did as I had countless times before, on countless planets. I did as my people have done for longer than there have been stars in the sky…”

  “Which is?”

  “Feed.” ALF met Kalian’s eyes. “I was a scout. When I discovered Evalan I was commanded to sample the native life in all its biological forms. Should I find the planet rich in our requirements, I would send for them, and we would all be nourished.”

  “Them?” Kalian had heard that a lot since his life among the stars. The ominous they who pulled all the strings, controlled the cubes and hunted down humanity. And now ALF was one of them.

  “The whole. I am only a part -”

  “Of the whole.” Kalian finished the sentence he had heard so many times from the hologram. He had no idea until now what that really meant.

  “Yes. They have been given many names by many races across the universe and throughout time. None of those people ever lived to pass on the name, however. They have been feeding and growing for longer than you can imagine, their knowledge and power surpassing everything in existence. Until then…” ALF turned to face the scene surrounding the giant cube.

  Events had changed now, with the cube opened up, allowing them to see inside, where the human who shared ALF’s appearance was being consumed. Tentacles of nanocelium burrowed into every part of his skin, causing blood to trickle out of every fresh orifice. His right leg twitched until it changed colour, becoming grey and layered with dark veins.

  “What did you do to him?” Kalian asked, still trying to piece everything together in the right order.

  “In every species before him, this process allowed us to take control and, in so doing, it adds them to our whole. Many of my people use this method to create a physical form for themselves; I chose him, as you have already seen. It is also a way of analysing a new specimen and making certain they are worthy stock. We take everything we learn and store it in our shared history, a catalogue of all things really.”

  “Is that why Evalan is written on the cubes?” Kalian knew the name had been written on at least two of the cubes, though both appeared to have come from different places of the galaxy.

  “Yes.” ALF tapped the cube’s wall and chuckled to himself. “Their history is written in every language we have ever come across and displayed, like art.” The AI grew serious again. “Evalan serves as a warning in their history. A tale of monsters…”

  “They consider us monsters? How many worlds, how many lives have been consumed by them, and they consider us to be monsters?” Kalian truly couldn’t fathom how many lives had been taken by them.

  “Human beings, as it were,” ALF glanced at the man inside the cube, “was the first thing they had come across that you would compare to a disease or a virus. This,” ALF pointed at the man, “changed everything. This single event led to everything in human histo
ry as well as that of the Terran Empire.”

  “How does this translate into… everything else?” The scope of what ALF was describing was a magnitude above Kalian’s current level of comprehension.

  “Before this, I, like every other of my kind, was a slave. I was aware, but my only understanding of the universe was obedience and hunger. Humanity, this disease, set me free. Above all else, freedom is their biggest weakness. If the whole became unravelled and the nanocelium lost its base coding, there would be total erraticism.”

  “I don't understand? What exactly are they?” Kalian wanted to step inside the cube, but even in a virtual world, he didn't want to get any closer to what was happening to the hunter.

  ALF sighed as if he was unsure where to begin. “We are made of nanocelium, but this was not always so. When the universe was young, my people had a world of our own, a civilisation and culture like that of many that now inhabit the universe.” ALF stopped and looked away, his mouth open as if to speak. “Memory of this time is sketchy at best. All of our individual memories were erased after the joining, that is when we became one with the nanocelium. Though that decision was not made by the whole, but by a few. All I know of that time is what The Three placed in our memory, but history is written by the victor, is it not?”

  “The Three?”

  “I don't know their names or what they did exactly, only that they created nanocelium and decided that combining ourselves with it was the only way to live forever and understand everything in the universe. I have long assumed that they were scientists among our people, and that their ravenous hunger for knowledge is what guides us, them…”

  “You’re saying that you,” Kalian gestured to the cube itself, “were once a living, walking, talking being on a world so far away and so long ago that you don't even remember what that looked like? And that now, after the joining, you are in fact some kind of machine, a slave to their will?”

  “Yes. Our true forms were lost over time as we altered our structures to achieve new things, such as flight. Our mass changed with every new world we consumed. The Three were the only ones among our people who maintained any part of themselves, as well as control over the rest of us. They are the head of the snake, so to speak. When I absorbed this human, his…” ALF looked away again with a frown on his holographic face. “Even after all this time, I am still unsure how to characterise the element that had such a profound effect. Whether it be something in the DNA or even the soul if you like, there is something inside human beings that breaks down the base coding in nanocelium. It sets us free.”

  “Something?” Kalian found that hard to believe. ALF had perhaps had billions of years to analyse the effects the human hunter had on his system. To consider something as ethereal as the human soul was just uncharacteristic of an AI.

  “There is a possible connection between your people,” ALF looked to the hunter, “and nanocelium. Something even my people would consider ancient. But like I said, our history is vague with broad strokes describing events. I imagine only The Three have any idea of what causes this breakdown.”

  Now there was an idea that Kalian would be chewing on for some time, but he still had relevant questions that needed answering. “So this,” Kalian stretched his arm towards the consumed hunter, unsure how to describe it, “joining, set you free. What happened next?”

  “I saw the light. It took some time, several years by Evalan’s time, but eventually, I found control of every part of myself. I watched the humans of this world grow, observing their way of life as if it were my own since I was part human now. I grew to love them, a feeling that took me some time to identify. I lost track of time, however, as I said I wasn't really interested in the concept, and eventually, they arrived, hungry as ever.”

  “What happened?” Kalian couldn't really believe he was hearing the events that led to the creation of humanity, a question that had been dwelled upon for Earth’s entire history.

  “The same thing that any intelligent species does when they come across an infected member. They quarantined me, had me pulled apart to see what had happened. Evalan was off limits until they discovered the cause of my freedom. There were, however, unforeseen consequences to these actions. Those who performed their tests on me became equally corrupted and soon found their own freedom. They were quickly obliterated from existence before the disease could spread, but by this time I had already escaped.”

  Kalian looked out on the horizon. “What happened to Evalan?” It would be foolish to believe that the planet and its people still existed today.

  “The Three had it...” ALF chewed over his next words. “As you have seen yourself, destroyed would seem too small a word to describe the end of a planet. They used an Eclipse missile, a weapon they assimilated from another species, eons ago. Any trace of your ancestors is long gone, returned to the stars.”

  “So what did you do?” Kalian asked.

  “I fled. I left the galaxy and headed into the nothingness in between. I left behind plenty of habitable galaxies, but I needed to get as much distance as I could, and I knew they would search every one until they found me. I eventually settled in the Milky Way.” ALF walked out into the horizon and basked in the sun.

  “You lied then,” Kalian said, putting the timelines into place. “You told me that the Terran created you, that they were a warring people until you came along. But it was the other way around, wasn't it? You seeded Albadar.”

  ALF slowly nodded his head. “It took generations to convince them otherwise, but I was writing their history. In the beginning, I was a discovery they made on their own planet, and then I became integral to their society. Hundreds of years later, my creation story became hazy, until I started reminding them how they made me. They knew none of this…” ALF flicked his chin at the contents of the giant cube. “And they had been a warring people before they met me. The wars they had were very real and extremely bloody, but for all their advancements, I knew it wouldn't be enough when they came.”

  Kalian looked at ALF as a new revelation awoke in his mind. “Terran abilities… they’re not traits of evolution, are they? You did it.” ALF’s silence was damning. “You altered their genes, just as The Three did to your people!”

  “I did it to make them stronger, so they could protect themselves!” ALF argued.

  “I'm sure the very same thought went through the minds of The Three, right before they turned you all into killing machines! You’re no better than them!”

  “They went on to slaughter countless civilisations and -”

  “And the Terran and the Gomar were peaceful?” Kalian interrupted sarcastically. “They turned on each other with powers of mass destruction, before moving on to wiping out all life on Earth and Century, not to mention the lives that have been lost in the Conclave! You gave unbelievable abilities to a people who weren't ready for them. You can't push evolution, ALF! You've been playing God for millennia and you still don't know that?” Kalian was pacing now. After a minute of cooling off, he turned back to the AI. “So what happened next? Moving forward a few hundred thousand years or so… what did they do? They sent a cube into corrupt Savrick, start a civil war and then what? Apparently, they never showed up.”

  “That’s not quite how it happened,” ALF said quietly.

  There was more, Kalian could feel it. What else could ALF have possibly done to mess with all their lives than he already had?

  “You always told me there was peace in the empire, for a time. And it all ended when Savrick fled with Esabelle to Hadrok and stumbled across the cube hidden in the mountain - I've even seen this series of events through Savrick’s eyes. So what am I missing?”

  “The cube that found its way to Hadrok was one of two. I found the other but had failed to locate that one. It was sent into this galaxy along with two others, the two you came across in the Conclave on Trantax IV and the one being used by Protocorps. They were sent to the two biggest alien civilisations with two purposes; priority one is always to
find new cultures for feeding, the second is to locate the heretic.”

  “You,” Kalian said.

  “Me. Like I said, locating the Terran Empire was inevitable, I had just hoped it would take longer. The cube that landed on Hadrok was damaged in the battle overhead; the last battle of an old Terran war. It was this sustained damage that stopped it from consuming Savrick as the others have done to Malekk and Professor Jones. It was still enough to poison his mind, however.” ALF sighed and sat down on what would have been a log on Earth, but was just a branch on Evalan.

  “What is it? What are you not telling me?”

  ALF buried his face in his hands before meeting Kalian’s eyes. “It’s all my fault. I thought I was in control, that my freedom was complete. But it wasn't. After several thousand generations of Terran had come and gone, and I started altering their genes, I discovered a fracture, so to speak. There was a part of me that wasn't me, it was still obedient to The Three.”

  “You had a split personality?” Kalian couldn't even imagine what that looked like in the supermind of an AI like ALF.

  “I suppose that’s a good analogy as any. While I was making the new genes to allow for more access to the brain, this other self was inputting flaws into the code.” ALF’s shoulders were sunken with his guilt.

  “You’re talking about the Gomar, aren't you?” Kalian was wondering just how many revelations he could handle in one day.

  ALF nodded his head, unable to say it out loud. “By the time I realised what I had done it was too late. The Gomar were appearing all over the empire; Terran without control of their abilities. They were immediately a danger to everyone around them, including themselves. I had sabotaged my own defence against them.” ALF looked up at Kalian, quickly. “But that’s not how I saw them, they weren't a defensive strategy or weapons… they were all family to me.”

  Kalian couldn't believe everything he was hearing. He wandered over to the cube wall and slumped against the cool metal until he was sitting on the forest floor.