Strange Cosmology

by Alex Raizman

  That got a laugh out of Ryan. He considered objecting but honestly couldn’t figure out if she was right or not. Maybe that was part of the reason he hadn’t reached out to her. “Thanks, Izzy. I appreciate it.”

  “No problem. Of course, this goes away if you don’t take me with you.”

  Ryan sputtered. “I’m sorry, what?”

  Her face hardened. It was hard to take the glower seriously as she was floating sedately across her apartment, but no one could glower quite like his sister. “I’m coming with you, Ryan. I won’t get in the way, I’ll stay safe in your pocket universe staging area thing, but I’m coming with you.”

  “No, absolutely not. If I die and you’re in there, you’ll be trapped forever, and if it gets destroyed, I don’t even know what would happen to you.”

  Isabel shrugged. “And if you die and I’m not with you, I’ll burn to death when the sun explodes. At least this way I’ll know what’s going on.”

  Ryan felt himself getting ready to argue but instead took a deep breath to really think about it. If Isabel was with him, he’d also know she was safe; after all, if the government could find her, so could Moloch or Bast or anyone else was after him. And if she’s in your nanoverse and you have to end the world violently, you can be sure she’ll survive.

  Something of what he was thinking must have shown on his face, because Isabel tilted her head to the side and said, “Woah. You just went down a dark road in your head. Care to share?”

  Ryan sighed. “Not really, just an ugly thought. But all right, you can come.”

  Isabel relaxed. “Good. Just don’t forget I’m just a mere mortal and will need to be fed and watered and all that.”

  “You sound like a houseplant,” Ryan said. Isabel glared while she tried not to laugh, and he raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Don’t worry, I won’t forget. We’ll make sure you’re covered. Think I can even make you your own room and stuff.”

  “Good. I shared a room with you that one summer when Mom and Dad remodeled. Not an experience I want to repeat.” She stuck her tongue out at him, and Ryan returned the gesture.

  “One thing to think about,” he said. She leaned forward in the air. “I found the last nanoverse of the Old Age. Once we finish all this, it’ll be the New Age, and new nanoverses might start appearing right away. If I find one, which isn’t very likely, but possible, would you maybe…”

  “You’re asking if I want to be a goddess. You’re actually asking like I might say no?” She gave him an incredulous look.

  Ryan’s face was severe. “Izzy, it’s a one-way thing. You’ll be immortal, which means everyone you know and love – aside from me – you’ll see die. You’ll see civilizations end, and you’ll be there when whatever comes next rises. You’ll be forgotten and-”

  Isabel cut him off. “Wow. You really haven’t had a chance to enjoy this at all, have you? Ryan, you’re a freaking god. Who cares about all that? Sure, it’ll be sad, but you get to make the world better – and have the power to make a difference. And get to be awesome while you do it.”

  For a few seconds, all Ryan could do was open and close his mouth, and then he chuckled. “I should have come here sooner. Thanks.”

  “No problem. Now let me get closer to the ground, turn on gravity, and then I’ll start packing.”

  Ryan did, and once she was back on the floor, she headed to her room and began throwing things in a suitcase.

  “Hey,” he called. “You know I can just make new clothes for you out of the air when we’re in my nanoverse, right?”

  “Yup. And I’ve seen your fashion sense, and oh my God I do not want that. Plus, it’s not just clothes.”

  Ryan did notice she was grabbing other things in her mad frenzy. “What else?”

  “Sentimental crap. Like the stuffed bear Dad got me before the accident. And the photo albums I took from the house. Stuff that we can’t replace in a brand new world.”

  Ryan was surprised by hard that hit him. It hadn’t even occurred to him that he’d lose those things, but now that she’d brought it to his attention…” Thanks.”

  “No problem. I still have your stuffed T-Rex, want it?”

  She wasn’t looking at him, but he could only nod, unable to talk past the lump in his throat. She looked up at him and gave him a soft smile. “We’ll get through this, Ry. The same way we did when Mom and Dad passed.”

  “Yeah, we will. Thanks, Izzy.”

  “No problem. Dork.” She stuck out her tongue again before going back to packing, and he laughed.

  As he did, he decided one thing. No matter what happened, he was going to find a way to give his sister immortality.

  At that moment, there was a knock at the door. “That must be Crystal,” he said and headed towards it.

  “Okay. I’m almost finished in here; just give me another minute or two.”

  Ryan opened the. “Hey, Crys-”

  One of the government-made gods was standing there, and Ryan couldn’t see the harness he had worn before. What he could see was an assault rifle pushed directly into his face.

  “Goodbye, Mr. Smith,” the man said, and squeezed the trigger.

  Hector admitted to himself that the “Goodbye, Mr. Smith” was a conceit that could have gotten him killed, an action-movie one-liner that should have been beneath him. It had felt so...right, though. I need to tell the doctor about that. She was very interested in any potential psychological bleed through.

  That momentary lapse had made the kill less clean than Hector would have liked. Ryan’s head had twisted up and to the side before Hector had finished pulling the trigger of his M-16, so his three-round burst hadn’t hit straight on. The first bullet had torn a hole in the side of the target’s face, and the second had removed the nose. He couldn’t see the mess the third one had left, buried under the hair, but Hector was confident he must have put it into the temple.

  I didn’t think it would be that easy, he reflected, somewhat bemused, as the man who would have ended the world lay unbreathing on the floor. Hector reached over to his shoulder and hit a button. “Primary target down. I repeat, Primary target down. Civilian still presumed in domicile – requesting orders? Over.”

  “Proceed to eliminate all targets,” the voice of Admiral Bridges replied after a moment. “Cannot risk the sister inheriting powers after the death of primary target.” A pause followed by a simple message. “Well done. Over.”

  Although Hector Ross didn’t like the idea of killing a woman whose only crime had been having the wrong brother, his chest swelled at the praise. “Roger, sir. And thank you. Proceeding to eliminate. Over.” He stepped carefully over the unmoving corpse.

  He’d heard a scream from the bedroom when he’d opened fire. This would be easy, and Hector promised himself he’d make it quick.

  Then a hand grabbed his ankle, and Hector realized he had celebrated too soon.

  Chapter 11

  Darkness Falls

  Crystal sighed as Ryan disappeared. If she was honest with herself, she had been hoping he’d balk a bit more and give her a reason to turn it into a serious row. One that might take a few hours to resolve.

  Anything to delay having to go into her nanoverse. After her last unsuccessful attempt at cleaning up the corruption, the thought of facing it again made her feel physically ill.

  You should have gone with him. There were plenty of reasons to do so. Ryan was alone and exposed, he could be in danger! Yeah, right, Crystal. What are the odds someone attacks while he’s visiting his sister? You’re just trying to make excuses.

  If she didn’t deal with this now, there was no telling when she’d next get the chance. Her resolve had strengthened when she saw Ryan staring at the fake projection of her nanoverse, and she’d felt a momentary terror that he had seen through the illusion. But now that he was gone, she was having trouble getting started.

  Crystal took a deep breath, a habit that hadn’t faded after a million years. Some things are too ingrained
to ever really go away, and the slow inhalation was inherently calming. There has to be a reason for its resistance. There has to be a cause behind it. It was just a matter of finding the cause, then applying her will to fixing that problem. It would be so easy.

  So why are you shaking?

  Crystal pushed the thought aside, then set her staging area to drop into her nanoverse. “Initiate real display,” she said firmly.

  It was even worse once she was actually in the flow of her nanoverse. The stars, filtered through that grotesquely yellow interstellar gas, pulsed like horribly infected sores. It made her want to retch just looking at it.

  Oddly, she also started to feel more relaxed. The sickly green and purple stars were disgusting, but they had a strange beauty. It was like admiring a painting by Bosch or Goya; the thing depicted in the art was horrible, but you could appreciate the subtle brush strokes, the interplay of light, the way tendrils of solar flame reached out like a grasping hand to eradicate an entire planet…

  Should you really fix it? Crystal asked herself. I mean...it’s an utterly unique thing. It’s beautiful. Would almost be a shame-

  Crystal raised a hand and struck herself in the face, hard enough to make her ears ring. The fog cleared, and she saw this monstrosity for the horror it was. Her hands shook.

  What the hell was that? Deal with this, Crystal. You have to, before...

  Before those strange thoughts came back. She needed an anchor, something to remind herself of what was at stake. Grasping at the first idea that came to mind, she did something she hadn’t done in over three thousand years and allowed her body to melt back to its natural appearance.

  After so long, it felt like going back to a childhood home that had been remodeled – familiar, but oddly different. She stretched, enjoying the comfort of her original form. She looked at her hands, covered in fine green scales and possessing three fingers and two thumbs. Gold and red feathers covered her head, and she inhaled deeply through the four vertical nostrils that sat between her golden, slitted eyes. Her tail feathers bristled in satisfaction at, well, existing again.

  I wonder what Ryan and Athena would think of me like this? Hell, I wonder what I think of me like this? It was a silly, useless thought, as these days she felt more like a human than like the last of her old kind. Bloody hell, I can’t even remember what we called ourselves. I guess Lemurian would be the English term, but that’s like calling Humans Earthlings. Sometime in the last million years, she’d lost the word, just like she’d lost so many other memories.

  So many things lost. An entire world. Because she hadn’t been smart enough to figure things out in time.

  Suddenly, it was uncomfortable to be in this body again. Part of Crystal wanted to return to the human form she’d come to think of as herself. Crystal decided the discomfort would help her stay focused on what mattered: cleaning up this mess. Resolved, she dropped into her nanoverse and stepped into the vacuum of space. Or at least, what was supposed to be the vacuum of space. But there was something she didn’t normally associate with the empty void that quickly drew Crystal’s attention.

  There was a wind blowing through space and hitting her with icy gusts. She also sensed some kind of strange matter all around her, too small to be seen. It was everywhere but dispersed into individual microscopic particles, instead of conforming to the laws of physics and clumping together. In her nanoverse, only Crystal should have been able to subvert the natural order, but this, like so many other things, was not her doing.

  Crystal held out her hand and asserted her will, ordering the strange matter to coalesce.

  Nothing happened. She stared at her empty hand in mute confusion. After the incident with the star, she’d expected some resistance, but this...whatever was here had just ignored her will. It was like stamping on a cockroach and being thrown across the room.

  A curious side effect of her sudden fear was the reminder that, in this body, she had two hearts. Both were pounding.

  Okay, don’t panic, Crystal thought, panicking. Let’s see what’s going on here.

  She focused her vision, bending light to create magnification. It worked, which was a huge relief, and she studied one of the strange particles.

  It was a cell. Or a bacterium. Some kind of living organism. It didn’t look exactly like anything Crystal had seen before but was similar to a nerve cell but covered in cilia that allowed it to – somehow – traverse interstellar space. As she watched, it divided into two.

  The sight made her shudder but wasn’t enough to spur her into taking action. You want to patiently observe and learn. You are not frozen with fear. Crystal hoped if she repeated it enough, it would be true.

  After a minute, the cells divided again. She broke into a cold sweat. If they divide every minute like that…bloody hell, how much longer do I have before they literally fill my nanoverse?

  They must have been here before but hadn’t been numerous enough for her to notice. She was convinced that these were the root of the problem. Somehow, these...what were they? She decided to call them “Phoberia” because they certainly scared her enough to deserve the name. Somehow, they were imbued with a spark of her divine will. Now that she was focused on one, she could sense it thrumming inside of it, a nucleus of her own power. She was dimly aware she’d detected it ever since stepping out of her staging area, but it was like hearing your own heartbeat. You turned it out because it was a part of you.

  Experimentally, Crystal winked one out of existence. It vanished. Then she focused on a larger group, asserting her will to remove all of them. Nothing happened. So individually, they were virtually powerless, but as they multiplied, they had a collective force all of their own. They were doubling by the minute, so even if she spent the rest of eternity in here, she’d never be able to defeat them individually.

  And you’re just sitting here gawking at them, Crystal thought, pushing herself past her fear and into rational thought. She could trigger a cataclysm, engulf her entire Nanoverse in a black hole so it would be annihilated, and then trigger a crunch from the outside. However, two problems came to mind. First, she wasn’t sure the Phoberia would allow it. More importantly, doing so would end trillions of lives. A crunch should only be done if it was absolutely necessary.

  Experimentally, Crystal teleported herself into deep space, far away from any inhabited worlds, and tried to create a singularity.

  It should have been simple. This time, though, she could feel the resistance, an immense wall of willpower, something hateful and malicious barring her from exerting her will. No. Crystal thought, her teeth clenching. You will not fight me. This is my nanoverse. You will break!

  She screamed into the void as she pushed her all power against the resistance. It rebounded, and all of her force slammed into her. She shrieked in pure agony, and for a few minutes, everything went dark.

  Eventually, Crystal opened her eyes and slowly gathered her wits.

  That shouldn’t have been possible, but it had happened. She was too late.

  Despair welled up in her, threatening to drown her. The collective will of the Phoberia outmatched her own power. She couldn’t beat them, not now. She had no good choices left. If she reset her nanoverse, maybe she could destroy them...along with every person living here.

  If it comes to that, tell Athena and Ryan what’s going on, and have them lock you up before the corruption spreads too far. Except...if she didn’t wipe out the Phoberia, wouldn’t they eventually kill everyone anyway? Without any predators, they would spread unchecked until-

  Wait.

  She had been pitting power against power and was overmatched. But there were other ways to remove an organism. The Phoberia were ready for a contest of wills, but were they prepared for something more mundane, like a more traditional predator?

  It would have to out-evolve the Phoberia and be able to hunt them in large enough numbers...No, not a predator. A pathogen. Specifically, a virus...a viral phobophage.

  She might not be ab
le to hunt and destroy the individual cells, but a rapidly spreading virus...yes. She willed one into existence and magnified her vision again to watch. It latched onto the Phoberia...and the Phoberia exuded pseudopods to engulf the pathogen before it could attack. Crystal swore. Okay, no, don’t give up. She created another version, giving it a more rapid attachment system. The Phoberia couldn’t engulf it this time, but the phobophage was unsuccessful.

  And so it went. Viruses were created, the Phoberia countered. She felt her panic grow with each failure. Finally, she had incorporated everything she could think of: a sliver of her divine will, the ability to produce thousands of copies of itself within a minute, and rapid movement to move between clusters of Phoberia.