Quinton regarded Martin. The Commander hadn’t been so forthcoming in the past. He didn’t know if he should scold Martin for his honesty, or actually listen to him. Quinton had been reared to disregard subordinates, but yet he’d taken one to his bed. That’s something he’d never done before.
“I did not realize,” Quinton said in a subdued tone. He reached out and placed a hand on Martin’s bare leg. The fact that he didn’t admonish Martin’s forwardness proved that he cared for this man. It wasn’t something Quinton was accustomed to.” Maybe Hek’Dara was right, he thought. Perhaps it was time to lead man away from Earth. To give them a fresh beginning.
Martin pulled himself away from Quinton’s touch and rolled out of the bed.
“Where are you going?” Quinton asked.
Martin reached for his pants, but stopped and said, “I didn’t think you’d want me here after...”
Quinton reached forward, snagged Martin by the arm and pulled him back in bed with him. They coiled their arms around one another, and Martin’s warm breath blanketed his face. “You spoke the truth, and I commend your honesty,” Quinton said. “I have never been to a Low-Born platform, never realized, or cared how they lived. I doubt many of the elite know.”
Martin’s eyes sparkled and his lips bent into a thin smile. “Thank you for believing me,” he said. “If it weren’t for the feelings I have for you, I would have not been so forward.”
Quinton drew Martin in close, their breaths intermixed, he allowed himself to succumb to Martin’s passion, yet he couldn’t fight the thought of what was ahead. The Union was collapsing and when it did, anarchy would follow.
Deep Space – Tannador Shuttle
One Wormhole Jump Away from Earth
October 14, 2442 - Earth Time
Da’Mira drummed her fingers on the arm of her seat as she sat mesmerized by the swirl of the wormhole tunnel in front of her. It never grew old, even though she’d traveled in wormhole space a few times, and partly understood the technology that created the artificial anomaly, it never failed to amaze her.
Yet, even though wormhole travel was the fastest speed man had ever traversed, it wasn’t fast enough. Earth was still a jump away, which meant there was still another day and a half left of wondering what was happening on Earth. She tried not to dwell on the thought that Uklavar had reached the planet and either conquered it or worse.
The drumming of her fingers now became pounding of fists. A knot formed in her chest and no matter how much she tried to think of something else, the thought of the past several months consumed her. The idea of filling her head with what was her favorite song, clothes or literature seemed immaterial compared to everything she’d experienced back on Shin’nor’ee.
“You have any idea how annoying that is?”
Da’Mira gripped her armrests and cocked her head over to the seat occupied by Colin McGregor. He hadn’t said a word since they started their journey, or maybe he had, and she just didn’t hear him.
“You’ve got to calm yourself, or you’re going to give yourself a stroke or something,” Colin said.
Da’Mira drew a breath but didn’t respond. Again, she fixed her eyes on the tunnel outside the shuttle.
“I know how you’re feeling...”
“Please, the last thing I need is psychoanalyzed by a Highlander.”
“You’re worried,” Colin said staring at her. “You’d be stupid enough not to. Hell, I’m worried about my sister, my clan and what all this means. If you come to think of it, we and the expedition back on Shin’nor’ee are the only hope Earth has of stopping the beast and–”
“And what?” Da’Mira asked looking at Colin. “Let’s say we are able to stop Uklavar from raising his army and defeating him once and for all. Then what? What about the people of Earth? What about them? Do we keep living the way we are living? Mankind is stagnated, there hasn’t been any population growth in two-hundred years, besides the breeders, and quite frankly the numbers don’t add up there either. If we continue on the same path, mankind will be extinct in another hundred years. So maybe Uklavar will be doing us a favor.”
“You don’t mean that,” Colin said.
“Don’t I?”
“I have lived with the threat of extinction since I was old enough to understand what it was to be alive. Survival is in our blood, it’s who we are as a species. We will go on, we will survive, but not without hardship first. The Highlanders, the People of the Free and everyone else surviving on the surface of Earth has realized that for a long time. But those in orbit, the high and low born don’t know what real survival is. Survival is understanding defeat. It’s knowing loss, and death and starvation and...”
Da’Mira threw her hands into the air, and said, “Alright, alright. I understand.”
“No,” Colin snapped back. “No, you don’t.”
“We... the people in orbit, know hardships too.”
Colin laughed and said between breaths, “Hardships? Like your food is too cold, take it away and get me more, kind of hardship?”
Da’Mira hunkered in her seat and pressed her back hard against it and said, “I wonder why I cared so much about the people on the Earth. Why I tried to free them from slavery, why I fed them and tried to do what was right by them. Why?”
“Because it made you sleep better at night,” Colin said. “And you debutantes could brag how you helped the savages on the planet. I’ve seen it before.”
Da’Mira’s brow furrowed, and she snapped, “You take that back.”
“Truth hurts, doesn’t it, High-Born?”
Da’Mira rose out of her chair and raged, “No wonder my father hated the people on the Earth. Maybe he was right, maybe he should have the planet sterilized.”
“I’m surprised he didn’t. High-Born filth doesn’t like to get their hands dirty.”
Da’Mira drew her hands into fists, ready to lash out at Colin, and attack him where he sat. She wanted to rip his throat out for speaking ill of her father. Fever-pitched, the pounding of her heart throbbed in her temples, but before she could strike, she caught her reflection in the glass window in front of her. The fire in her eyes stared back at her and she relaxed in her seat, looked at Colin and said, “What is happening to us?’
“Aye, our distain for one another started back on Shin’nor’ee – in the caves. It’s grown more vindictive the closer we get to Earth.”
“Uklavar’s influence – its growing stronger,” Da’Mira said.
“And further.”
“If it’s happening to us, here...”
“What’s it doing to the people on Earth?” Colin asked.
“We must be mindful of not only what we say,” Da’Mira said, “But how we think.”
“There has to be a way of countering the beast’s sway.”
“And convincing my father his threat is real,” Da’Mira said, her heart still pounding in her head.
“You were right a minute ago,” Colin said.
“What?”
“Maybe in the end, Uklavar will be doing us a favor. I’d rather be dead, then a slave to anyone.”
The Watchtower, High Earth Orbit
The ORACLE Mainframe
October 15, 2442
The Iris entity was all-knowing, all-seeing. When Iris Lexor died at the age of one-hundred and thirty, her conscious was transferred into the ORACLE mainframe. A fitting end for the family matriarch. It was Iris’s wish to live forever, and she spent the bulk of her life getting the ORACLE system ready to accept the embodiment of her knowledge and experience from her long productive life. What she received upon activation was the information stored in the watcheye’s data files. When joined with the computer, she truly became the queen of secrets. It was like achieving enlightenment.
It didn’t take Iris long to widen her reach. Though she was Iris Lexor, she was confined to the Watchtower and that wasn’t good enough for her. Iris wanted more, but to have more she needed help. She could trust no one, not even her ch
ildren. In death she would control her offspring more efficiently then when she was alive. Yet her children weren’t enough.
With the help of her newfound knowledge, she devised a way to take over the minds of others and incorporate her engram over the conscious mind of those she possessed. It was easier than she thought, and after invading the mind and body of her son, Avery, the rest of the Watchtower came easy.
After several months, the Iris-ORACLE entity controlled every mind in the Watchtower, and more than half of the people on Gatehouse the home of House Xavier. Before along she would spread her reach out beyond that. Even to Evergarden. The home of Moyah Everhart. This idea pleased Iris.
She focused her mind on the lone platform. Since the Great Purge, Evergarden remained isolated, with the elusive Moyah Everhart hidden from sight. The idea that a woman could live for almost three-hundred years was beyond reason. If anything, Moyah was a rank, or a name given to offspring to carry on the original Moyah’s secretive lifestyle. Whatever the reason, Evergarden would have to become part of the Iris mind if her plan was to move forward.
The more people she controlled, the better insight into humanity Iris claimed. Humans were a complicated and unique species – she always knew that. Even though she controlled over two-thousand people, it was their captive minds, the minds that called out from the locked subconscious that Iris found fascinating. Sometimes she would listen to them. Some pleaded, cried, begged in any way they could to be set free, others hummed songs, or recited poetry and a few put themselves in their own mental world to cope with the fact that their bodies were now part of the ORACLE system.
It was these eccentricities that Iris explored and learned. She didn’t really know love. When she was alive and young, she had a husband that she tolerated and children that she loathed. Love is fleeting. Some find it through sex, others through control, but an even greater number don’t understand what love is, and discard one relationship after another, looking for something better. In the end they are truly alone. Maybe that’s why Iris didn’t focus on the love from someone, she focused on being in control. All that mattered to her was keeping the family in control of the Watchtower and finding ways to exploit others. It was all about power and she liked it. Even now as part of the ORACLE mainframe that’s all she still cared about.
It was interesting to study the humans under her control. Some minds were stronger than others, some fought back, while others acquiesced and allowed Iris the control. She moved them like chess pieces building her network and placing spies throughout the space platforms in orbit careful not to overextend her reach. There had to be a breaking point. How many minds could she control, she didn’t know. The internal hive mind grew, and she could control more and more – it was a simple thing to do. But in order to control tens of thousands, Iris would have to lose her humanity and that wasn’t something she was prepared to do. Not yet. There was still much more to accomplish.
The arrival of Gregaor Xavier exclaiming both his and the Tannador ship were destroyed didn’t add up. When he told his story, the Lucinda identity listened and took in his tale while the ORACLE system calculated and analyze it. There was a, forty-five percent chance that he was telling a lie. It was enough to be cautious of him.
Iris considered infecting his mind, but sometimes a human could fight enough that some bits of information could be lost. That wasn’t something Iris was willing to chance, not if Gregaor could tell them something to shed light on what happened on Kepler 369.
Avery Lexor took a step-in front of a mirror. He examined himself. His face began to age, and Iris wondered if it had something to do with her influence? Avery took an anti-aging injection every two weeks to keep him looking young. A man in his seventies, Avery kept an appearance of being in his early fifties. But once he became part of the ORACLE mainframe, Avery was no longer vain, and hadn’t been receiving the shots. His hair grayed, his skin looked duller, and his eyes tired. Iris was concerned. Not because Avery was showing his age, there wasn’t a place for vanity, but if he died, the family Lexor might lose control of ORACLE. There of course was Candace, Iris’s daughter. But she hadn’t been infected yet. Iris wasn’t sure her strong-willed daughter could succumb to the mainframe, at least not without a fight, and Iris didn’t have time for a battle of wills, while trying to maintain control of the Watchtower. Avery’s health was paramount. She would have to make sure he continued the injections, and took care of himself – at least for now, until she no longer needed him.
“Excuse the interruption Lord Lexor,” a servant entered the apartment through an antechamber door. Arron Reese was the last person on Watchtower unaffected by the Iris conscious. It was a strategic move on Iris’s part to have one person on the tower. Even though she infected hundreds of people, they were all her, and she wanted someone she could talk to, at least for the time being. Sooner or later she would possess him too.
Arron was tall and slender and wore a long white coat with dark trousers. He kept his eyes averted to the floor and his hands folded in front of him.
“Look at me when you talk to me, Arron,” Avery said.
Arron rolled his honey eyes up to Avery. He pursed his lips and said in a dry but strong voice, “Messages are coming in from all the houses accepting the date for the Union meeting.”
It’s moving forward. It was the first meeting since the outbreak several months ago when Havashaw Orlander pulled a weapon and started shooting. No one was killed, but it scared the hell out of everyone. “Send a reply that we are looking forward to them coming to the Watchtower but advise everyone, no weapons are allowed.”
“As you order Milord,” Arron said as he turned.
“Wait a minute Arron,” Avery said and motioned for the servant to come forward. “Come here.”
Arron did as he was instructed, and Avery walked ahead meeting him halfway. Again, Arron looked to the floor, but Avery softly touched the young man’s chin and leveled his eyes up.
“You don’t have to be shy,” Avery said and gently raked his fingers through Arron’s blond hair.
Arron drew a staggering breath, but he didn’t pull away, nor did he protest.
Avery drew his lips up into a seductive smile, but he also took a deep breath and he withdrew his hand letting it drop to his side. Iris found the servant attractive but took a half a step back. Avery wasn’t known to be attracted to men, and because of that she needed to continue that persona. She might be a living consciousness in the ORACLE mainframe, but she still had lustful desires. She might not have been able to show love when she was alive, but she did enjoy sex. If she was to seduce the young servant, she would have to do it in a female’s body, or perhaps two. It would be an experience unlike she’d ever encountered. A tight grin grew steadily upward on his lips and Avery said, “Can you send those replies?”
Arron had shaded white, and with his honey eyes still leveled on Avery, he replied, “Yes, Milord.”
Avery watched the servant exit the room, keeping his sinful thoughts to himself, Iris wondered if this is what it was to be more than human? To have desires presented to her in ways she’d never considered. It was for this reason alone she wished to hold onto that humanity. New experiences were the last link. The ability to feel, to reason and to interact as an individual. But as Iris’s power grew so did the obvious. Sooner or later giving away her humanity was inevitable?
The Planet Kepler 369 AKA the Planet Shin’nor’ee
Deep underground in the Cosmos chamber.
October 17, 2442 – Earth Time
Charles’ heartbeat stopped – unable to draw a breath, he stood intoxicated at the sight of the Cosmos. The explorer vessel thought lost to time was within his grasp. If only he could reach out and touch it, understand it, and learn its lost secrets. Artifacts like this was the reason he became an archeologist in the first place. Though he never imagined he would ever find a relic of this importance. When the Cosmos was thought destroyed all those decades ago, no one realized just how important
the ship would become. Its crew at the epicenter of the universe’s history. Not only did they become a part of it – they molded it and shaped it for the eventual arrival of humans from Earth.
Charles wondered if the crew understood the implications of their actions. Could they have realized the universe would owe their history and mythology to them? Then it dawned on Charles, if it were not for these time travelers from Earth’s past, Uklavar would have triumphed without opposition.
“I know what you’re thinking Professor, and that’s not how it happened.” Jonna Grace stood at Charles’ side. He worried about his student. She was different now. Gone was the naïve girl, so full of questions, to be replaced by a confused young woman, lost and in search of answers. Charles saw in her signs of schizophrenia. One moment his apprentice would act as she always had, whimsical and full of life and the next moment, her voice would become stoic and regal, as if someone else was in control of her.
Her amber eyes fired with wisdom but languished in confusion. Charles saw in them an older soul – ageless and boundless, yet afraid and in torment. Whatever was happening to Jonna would eventually do untold damage to the young woman’s psyche.
Charles withdrew from the threshold away from the Cosmos. His expedition team had erected a basecamp. Portable generators hummed throughout the cave and light filled the cavern. The chamber was partitioned off into research labs, a pantry and sleeping areas. His crew was in for the long haul, and so was he.
“Professor.” Spencer Lawson beckoned anxiously. Spencer leaned on a pair of crutches over a workbench. Without complaint, he had hobbled all the way back into the center of the planet not once asking for help. He refused to stay behind with the surface team, afraid he might miss something incredible. When Charles saw the explosion of excitement in the genealogist’s eyes, it appeared he’d found just that.
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