part0051

THE TWO MEN stood motionless. Brennen’s skin was an unnatural, dull gray. Alvarez watched him. He couldn’t tell if he was breathing. The tone of Brennen’s voice had been sarcastic, but his face was expressionless. Lying crushed on the ground next to Brennen was the sensory image generator.

“John, I know what you’ve done. It’s not going to work,” Brennen said.

“What I’ve done?” Alvarez pointed at the broken generator. “What have you done?”

“All in good time, my friend. What’s important is that you give me the code to the detonator and let me shut it down.”

“Shut it down? Didn’t you see what those things did to the rest of the men? They’re all dead. For that matter, you should be too.”

“Why the hostility, John?”

“I’m not the one being hostile. You shouldn’t be breathing this atmosphere. You shouldn’t even be conscious.”

“Those things that you murdered were sentient beings,” Brennen said. “We’re invading their territory, their space, and their outpost. Now you’re about to commit an act of war.”

Alvarez felt like he’d never reach the bottom of this rabbit hole. “How do you know that? How come you have your helmet off and appear fine? And why did you destroy the sensory image generator?”

“John you seem to have a passion for ignorance. I thought you would understand by now.”

“All I know is that you’re acting stranger than normal, and this thing is about to blow. We’ve got to get out of here. Come on.”

“You just keep mucking around with things you don’t understand. Give me those codes, and I’ll show you everything.”

Alvarez looked at his wrist console. “There’s less than four minutes before detonation, Michael. Even if I wanted to turn it off—which I don’t—there’s no way we could get back there in time. It took twelve minutes the first time and half as long sprinting back. It’s too late.”

“Four minutes is plenty of time for me,” Brennen said.

Alvarez would have laughed if he didn’t know Brennen was serious.

“This is an outpost, John. The beings that put this here are part of a collective, sharing consciousness and intent. They placed this outpost as an attempt to contact life forms. That’s what the plasma bursts are all about.”

“You’re saying alien life designed this outpost with plasma bursts to make our probes go wonky and kill people?”

“Life isn’t really the right word for it.”

“If they aren’t alive, what are they—dead?”

“John, how unimaginative. The bodies of those beings you slew were once life forms. They were alive before their metamorphosis. Those beings, the energy source you’re trying to destroy, and this entire solar system are influenced by something as unique and incomprehensible as life itself.

“Enlighten me,” said Alvarez unimpressed.

“All life forms serve certain entropic functions. Despite seeming to be higher forms, they break matter and energy into lesser forms. It’s a paradox; the higher the life-form, the more destructive it is. Humans have gone beyond their biological function and have learned how to destroy the atom itself.”

“Michael, you’re just talking about the nature of the universe. Everything decays. Everything is breaking down and spreading out. What does life or human beings have to do with it? Get to the point.”

Alvarez could see the entrance staircase behind Brennen. If he kept this up, Alvarez would have to force his way past him.

“John, life is like an enzyme. It’s a catalyst for this decay. The collective offers us so much more.”

“The collective? Those bloodthirsty monsters?”

“Those monsters were thousands of years old. They have no natural life span. They’re beyond life and death. Their destruction could only come from external violence. This collective, this source is able to penetrate all life forms of any size, from bacteria to human as well as inanimate objects—any intelligent structure, even computers. The consciousness that is shared and expressed is directly proportional to the entity’s embedded intelligence, regardless of whether it be via biochemical or electronic pathways. What matters is that there is a logic system. Bacteria become part of the collective, but in a less forceful, less contributive manner. It’s a continuum. Our consciousness merges with the collective. We don’t have to be destined to eighty years and then nothingness. We don’t have to participate in an expanding universe that ends in a big freeze. We can change reality. We can change the universe. Join them. John, join us.”

Brennen sounded like a cult leader to Alvarez. He wouldn’t take him seriously if he didn’t know Brennen; he didn’t joke around, and he should be dead right now.

Brennen stepped toward Alvarez.

“That’s close enough, Michael.”

“It’s painless. Just take off your helmet. Within minutes you will transform. Everything will make sense then.”

Brennen continued toward him. Alvarez pointed his shotgun in Brennen’s face.

“John, if you don’t join me, you will die. It doesn’t have to be that way.”

“Now who’s being hostile?” Alvarez asked. “I don’t know what happened to you, but I certainly don’t want it to happen to me.”

“It’s a gift, John. Haven’t you ever wondered why everything degrades? The primary source of every corporate settlement is its nearby star. And people call this sustainable energy.”

“It beats fission.”

“Lum-power only seems sustainable relative to more destructive forms of energy production like fission. Every star will die. Every form of built-up energy, after it’s spent, falls into useless, meaningless, base forms. Doesn’t it seem pointless to you? Doesn’t it seem like you’re just putting off the inevitable? Each day you unwittingly contribute to the entropic problem. By merely surviving, you only assure mankind’s ultimate destruction. How can you find meaning in that? Existence doesn’t have to be meaningless. Life is without purpose, without balance. To every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The continuum, our collective consciousness is the universe’s overdue reaction to life. We can reverse all of this. We can balance the scales. We can give meaning to existence.”

“I’m sorry you feel like your life is meaningless, Michael. But mine isn’t. I have people I love, and they love me.”

Brennen’s head twitched. “If I can’t get the detonator code from you,” he said, “I’ll take the shuttle myself. I’ll get on the Constance and go back to Novos. Don’t you want to see Nadia and Adam? I do.”

“Wrong answer, Michael. Time for chit-chat is over. You can come with me peaceably, or you can stay here. Personally, I don’t care. I’m leaving.”

Alvarez, still pointing his shotgun, tried to walk around Brennen, but Brennen moved in tandem, blocking his way.

“Out of my way!” shouted Alvarez.

Brennen grabbed the barrel of the shotgun. Alvarez squeezed the trigger, but it was too late. Brennen pushed the barrel to the side. The shot blew off part of Brennen’s hand.

Alvarez looked. There was no blood. Brennen used his nub-for-fist to punch Alvarez in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him and forcing him to the ground.

Brennen turned and calmly approached the exit. Alvarez picked up the gun and shot Brennen in the back. He racked the gun as Brennen turned to face him.

“John, you can’t kill me.”

“Let’s see about that.” He fired the tube’s remaining five shots. Large chunks of Brennen’s body blew off, disintegrated. Still no blood. Alvarez stepped back with each shot as Brennen continued his approach.

Brennen fell face down, what little was left of him. On a different day, Alvarez would have been shocked, too troubled to press on. But today he had already reached that point and had come out the other side.

Alvarez ran past the body and up the giant steps. It was a strange sensation. With each step higher, he felt the gravity lessen. At the surface, the gray landscape was an unwelcomed sight. He now loathed the color gray.

He was too scared to check his time. He had to just move. He maxed-out his propulsion jets; half-running, half-flying to the shuttle. Even if I get off this rock in time, the explosion could still get me, he thought.

He passed through the shuttle’s open door and slammed the button that closed the hatch. He didn’t bother with re-pressurization. He jumped in the pilot seat and initiated the startup sequence. The engines roared to life, and the shuttle blasted away.