An Obsidian Sky Part 4

As we left the strange room the temperature began to rise to a more pleasant level than it had been just a few feet away. We were moving through a strange network of gla.s.s corridors suspended within a huge cube. Sean had informed me that this was the biomedical hospital and that it had been designed to simultaneously treat the entire population of Ascension should anything happen to them. To me this seemed an odd way of thinking, it was unnecessary, as though antic.i.p.ating a disaster.

When we reached the end of the corridor we were confronted with a door. It was made out of a substance that I did not recognise. It seemed to project light without reflecting it. A blue screen blossomed into existence in front of me. The text read please provide security clearance to bypa.s.s quarantine procedures. Beneath the white text was a rotating symbol that looked like a series of curved lines arranged around a central point. Each line pointed outwards.

I turned to Sean and asked 'I don't suppose we have the clearance?' Shaking his little body Sean stared right into me, and I understood. 'My adaptations right? That seems to be everyone's solution.'

'George there is much that you don't know. The inhabitants of this station, well, they all had the same modified genes as you.'

'So there were inhabitants?' I a.s.serted with conviction.

'Yes George, I am sorry for deceiving you. Unfortunately the Eternis Systems programmed me not to tell you unless it became necessary. Ascension was built to be a paradise. But it was thought that you could not have paradise, without first becoming a G.o.d.' Sean spun away from me and moved along the doorway to the console. 'I do not know what the Artefacts are, or what they do. What I do know is that the inhabitants first gained from their modifications some small amount of extra power, longer life, faster healing. The Artefacts came second. Ascension is programmed to respond to the genetic code you possess but ultimately Blue Dawn has the final decision.'

'So how do I open the door?' I inquired shakily.

'Most of your genes are dormant, therefore Ascension will not be able to recognise them. You must, in essence, activate them. We should try one of the machines in the hospital. You will see above it a double helix surrounded by a yellow ring. This is the department that we need to enter.'

I scanned my eyes about me. The gla.s.s cube should have offered a great view of the biomedical facility but the lights were too dim. By squinting my eyes I could just about make out the symbol I needed. It was very close, perhaps one hundred metres away. Moving towards it Sean floated behind me and resumed his humming.

Shortly we arrived at the arched doorway, away from the gla.s.s cube and into another sector. I pressed my palm against the door screen. A metrical chime flowed from light emanating from the screen. The screen itself turned from red to green as a symbol rotated. The door opened upon a room filled with darkness. Turning to Sean I looked for encouragement and found none. Bracing myself I walked into the darkness.

As I entered the doorway the doors slid silently shut behind me and lights began to activate one by one, revealing more and more of the room. I walked in procession with the incoming lighting, as if being escorted by it. Another door was ahead. Again I went through it, and wished I hadn't.

The room ahead was indeed well lit. But what it lit upon was scarcely what I had wanted to see. The room was circular. It was full of gla.s.s screens that appeared to have been blackened by some awful event. Pipes and cables hung frayed and loose from the ceiling. There was equipment, as incomprehensible as anything else, strewn across the floor. Tables and work stations had been upset. There was smashed crystal everywhere. I carefully treaded across the room.

Turning right I noticed that one of the consoles was still active. I began to approach it cautiously. The lights flickered, appearing to lose power. After a moment of darkness they surged back into life with a crack. In the chair by the console was a shape. It was blackened, charred almost, and it did not move. Walking around the chair I jumped back and gasped with horror. In that chair was a body. It was dead. It appeared as though it had been burnt by something of awesome power. His hands were outstretched in front of him, as if in an attempt to ward off the coming threat. What I noticed most of all was that he was missing his eyes. Without thinking about it I began to search for them.

They were in front on me the whole time, nailed to the console I was looking at. They were not blackened, they were fresh. The vacuum that was in the station before activation must have kept them preserved. I realised now with growing horror that the eyes had been removed before he had been burnt.

Sean's humming had stopped. I spun in the alarm caused by the silence to try and find him. Sure enough ahead of me was his blue light. He appeared to be scrutinising something ahead of him. I cautiously moved to where he was floating. About two and a half meters from him was another body only this had not been blackened. I walked a little closer. I felt my heart surge as I realised what I was looking at. This was no body. It was a person.

Hunched over the figure was gently rocking back and forth. His right hand appeared to be moving over his left with some force. Each time his right arm moved, with a saw-like motion, he exhaled in a tortured growl. The figure's breath was increasing and growing more laboured. With a crunch something happened, I moved from my present vantage point to get a better view. I saw something silvery in his right hand. Breathing out carefully I saw what he was doing, just as he cut off his own hand.

He looked down in confusion at the saw that he was holding and the blood gus.h.i.+ng from his left hand. Then his lips curled up in a captivated smile. He was enjoying it. The figure reached into his right pocket and numbly pulled out its contents. An ID card scattered towards me. I could just make out the name 'James.' Unconcerned by the loss of much of the contents of his pockets, James had found what he was looking for, a silvery blade. It glinted as he picked it up. The motion he performed looked as though he was shaving his moustache only it jerked more, and was far more violent. After each deep jerk of the blade blood surged from his upper lip. Dropping his knife he pulled his right hand to his face. With barely stable fingers he pulled upon his lip. It peeled away in the most violent manner, catching occasionally upon flesh that had not been cut through. Finally it gave away with speed as the sound of dripping liquid filled my ears.

Still smiling James looked down upon his hand. He was holding his lip in great amus.e.m.e.nt. He brought his upper lip back to his face and placed it into his mouth. Giggling in glee, with a full mouth, he rolled onto his hands and knees. His body began to move in and out as he grew into a fit of full laughter. Screaming with laughter now he plunged the knife into his throat and spat out blood with each coming rock of laughter. Losing breath he curled up and onto the floor, put a finger in his mouth and concentrated on me. I had tears in my eyes and realised I was holding my hands towards his, pleading with him to stop. He kept staring and staring at me, until the gargling sound stopped and he closed his eyes.

Sean looked up from the dead man and at me. We exchanged a hopeless glance. I turned from Sean and walked further into the debris strewn room. The more I saw the more I knew that something had gone terribly, terribly wrong. There were more of those blackened bodies. There was no smell, the vacuum had dealt with that.

I moved past a machine not exactly sure what I was looking for. 'George,' said Sean in a whisper, 'it's here.'

I looked towards his position and nodded. The machine was effectively a bed with instruments hanging around it. I looked for some kind of control interface and then found a slab of crystal slotted into the side of the machine. I picked it up. As I did so it drew itself, courageously, back into life. I checked the screen. It displayed an empty bed. Shrugging my shoulders I climbed onto it and lay back.

Holding the screen above my head I noticed that a skeletal image of myself had appeared and that a faint humming had begun to emanate from the bed. Staring intently at the screen I noticed a double helix begin to wind its way along the diagnostic pane. Genetic a.n.a.lysis complete a.s.serted the odd shaped lettering on the screen. The active window on the screen collapsed to have another larger one superimposed upon it. After some working, mainly touching, rubbing and rolling everything within my field of vision, I found the option I was looking for. It was called Project Ascension.

'So that is what it means,' I muttered to myself. Pus.h.i.+ng the b.u.t.ton I was told to lie back by Sean. The screen protested that it should be placed safely back into its dock during the procedure. With more than a little apprehension I placed the screen away and waited for the procedure to start. I had always hated medical procedures, particularly ones that were voluntary.

After a period of several minutes with little happening I became more comfortable. It was as this comfort was beginning to set in that I noticed that the bed had ceased to hum. All of a sudden something crashed into my leg, at several points. It was sharp and it hurt like h.e.l.l. I looked down in panic and saw that several large needles had swung their way into the bones on my leg. It felt as though it was pumping acid through me, into me. Struggling against the machine I tried to lift myself away from the bed. Crying out I found the machine had circled restraints about my hands and head. Light boomed into my field of vision and immediately knocked me out. I dreamt of home. I dreamt of him.

'George,' inquired Sean in concern. I looked around with clearing vision to see Sean hovering overhead, still humming. Drunk with whatever had just run through me I asked, 'Sean why do you always hum?'

'Because George, it stops the bad times from seeming so bad. As you might have noticed I was designed to be a very happy little machine, cute almost. So I hum, and I enjoy it.'

'Did it work? Can I access the door now, control Ascension?'

'Yes you can open the door and enjoy a limited control over Ascension but Blue Dawn will countermand anything you do that affects her operational integrity.'

'Okay Sean, I would like to go now.' I felt like a child, tired and weak. I climbed down from the bed and shakily got to my feet.

'George, I am sorry you know...that I didn't tell you. I couldn't you see. I know a little more...and I promise I will tell you. But not now. You must arm yourself and we must find Aeniah and then gather the information from Ascension.' I nodded at Sean's aspersions but was much too tired to reply. It seemed that most things were beyond me at this moment in time. The scale of what needed to be accomplished was too great, too far reaching. It was too great a task for any man, let alone me. I wished it was Aeniah that was trying to find me. She would have fared far better than I.

Standing firmly I moved my way past the bodies and towards the entrance back into the gla.s.s cube. As the door opened I saw an image before me. It was a series of shapes, joined together by other polygons, forming a three dimensional structure. Each apex had a line extending from it and at the end of these lines was a description. By the regular shape in the centre the description stated simply 'carbon.' Next to others were 'sulphur,' 'fluorine,' 'argon'; the list continued as far as I could see. As the image rotated slowly and scrolled itself upwards it revealed even more elements joined to the others. It spiralled and rotated much like the image of my DNA, but I knew that many of these elements were not included in genetic code of a human being.

Turning to Sean I asked 'I am seeing something Sean, it looks like a chemical structure, but I am not sure.'

'George, the activation of your genes is going to trigger some memories that are not yours. The Ascension gene sequence is a wonder without end. Even during Ascension's heyday little was known about it. The architect of the project wanted Ascension to be a shared experience. Genetic memories of each of the citizens were coded into the gene sequence. Over the years thousands of people's memories were combined into the sequence. It would be impossible for a single person to see them all. Instead the idea is that each citizen would get a glimpse of the most important events in each other's lives. This was to be the product of their dreams. A universal world, built upon the power of Ascension, and harmonised by the shared memories of all.'

Sean sounded excited by the prospect. I sighed and let the chemical image fall from my mind. It was not important right now. Instead I looked above me attempting to gather strength, and noticed a crack upon the gla.s.s ceiling. By the looks of the crack, something had been trying to get in.

With a motion of my hand I made a fleeting signal to Sean and rushed to get out of the biomedical facility. Half was through my journey to the armoury door I was stopped dead in my tracks. Something had caught my eye. It was only a glimpse but something told me that I had to find out what it was.

I stepped gently upon the ground, desperate not to make a sound. I turned my head to my right and was confronted with an aura of light. I rubbed my eyes unable to believe what I was seeing. There was an angel to my right, there was no other explanation. She was dressed in light, with wings pulled back behind her. I walked to where she was, but as I came closer she let out a childish laugh and walked away.

I ran after her, trying to catch up and emerged into a room full of people. They were celebrating and the room was bright and cheerful. An announcer came up and into the middle of the group. With a circling motion of his arm he commanded silence. He face was filled with delight. I was captivated by his every expression, his every movement. He had a grace that I could scarcely believe. There was a certain magnetism about him that I could barely ever understand.

'Ladies and gentlemen,' he boomed cheerfully, 'today is a great day. Today we free ourselves from the bonds of humankind and embrace the power of Ascension.'

I moved about the room in confusion. Why were these people here? I wanted to shout 'your station is dead, what are you doing?' But all around me Ascension was filled with life. I looked behind me at the room from which I had just left and saw a crowd of happy people holding gla.s.ses of champagne.

'On this day fifty years ago we embarked upon a project that all the colonies thought insanity. We attempted to engineer the impossible. There was scorn and there was outrage. But ladies and gentlemen we did build it.

'Today we celebrate the activation of the Ascension station, and if all goes well, in a matter of days we will to come to know Ascension itself. I understand that many of you have had your concerns over modifying so very many of our genes, but it will soon have a purpose. The Equinox subjects are almost ready for activation. The final characters in our symphony are coming into play. Soon, so very soon, we will show the universe the future. Today will be the greatest day for humanity. Tomorrow there will be a revolution, a revolution in evolution. And it is yours to experience first.

'Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Ascension.'

The room erupted in applause. Gla.s.ses were raised in the air. The triumph and the pa.s.sion washed through me. Their tribulation soared from this room and into the heavens themselves. The applause rose and rose until it became a scream and then there was silence.

The once mesmerising scene was replaced by a badly damaged room. What had once been a great hall full of people was now a broken dream. Fire had blackened much of the gla.s.s on the walls. The brilliant blue holos displaying images of simple perfection had died long ago. They would never captivate an audience again.

The room was dead. In its centre stood the angel. She looked at me and giggled, then she turned away and fled. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the word 'Equinox' written above her breast. I moved to call out to her but she was gone and so I turned from the room, saying nothing to Sean, and made my way to the exit a flight above me.

When we got to the once impa.s.sable door I asked Sean, 'So where is the armoury from here?'

'It is in the next room,' he replied in an amused tone, 'they wanted to make sure that if anything went wrong the closest thing to their research was a gun.'

I moved my hand to the door and pressed it against the access pad. The screen turned green and a synthetic voice announced, 'access approved, please be advised a quarantine is in effect outside this facility. It is advised that you proceed no further.'

Ignoring the advice, Sean and I moved into the armoury and prayed that we could get out of this alive.

9.

An Eternal Dawn We were in the armoury. It was so cold. Something on the station must have gone wrong because the temperature was plummeting. Sean had told me that it was still above zero but I didn't believe him. So far I had collected two pistols and a large weapon that I was told was a lancer. Sean's elaborate explanation of its working could be condensed into the following: it stops everything very effectively, it has a high rate of fire, and if I wasn't careful I could blow a hole in Ascension with it. This wasn't much comfort. This was a station filled with angels and demons, and so far I had no reason to believe that there was any weapon that could safely neutralise them.

Sean was busying himself with his humming and floated around the room as if in a dance. I hated him right now, so cheerful when all I felt was anger, burning anger. I was here because some f.e.c.kless idiots had destroyed my world, even before I was born. I was here because some insane group of people appeared to have created h.e.l.l. I was here because of b.l.o.o.d.y Sephra and Aeniah. But there was nothing that I could do. The world had ended, soon the last colonies would fall, and then where would I have to go?

'George have you decided upon a more comprehensive plan yet?'

'No, not really. First we need to find Aeniah. I don't suppose that you have any suggestions?' I enquired ruefully.

'Actually I do. It seems Blue Dawn is not so efficient at regulating information as I a.s.sumed that she would be. System log files strongly suggest that she has been placed in biological quarantine in the detention facility. The facility comprises two sub-sections of the station and is not far from our present location. The route to the facility is also very simple. We simply need to cross the next two rooms to find the transport system and descend thirteen floors where we will enter the facility.' He finished with a little nod. And that it appeared, was that.

I picked up the heavy lancer and heaved it up against the skin beneath my shoulder. I fumbled with the catch to the side of it until the weapon hummed into life. As it grew warmer it also grew lighter, in fact it was so light that it felt as though I was holding nothing. A two dimensional holo appeared in front of my eye-line displaying an enhanced vision of my surroundings. It felt wonderful to have a little bit of extra information. Feeling a new sense of empowerment I strode confidently to the sealed and bulky exit of the armoury. I thumbed the door control and heard the dripping and silky voice of the system stating 'Doors opening, Hylas Centre for Information Control,' and I stepped through.

The room ahead looked like some immense call centre. Like everything in Ascension it was immense in proportions but unusually unspectacular. There was merely row after row of desks, each with a small screen. It did not look as though it had been used in an eternity. There were handhelds and other relics scattered about the floor, with some of the desks upturned. It was as though some awful event had occurred there.

Suddenly the world began to collapse in on itself as light again perforated my vision. I awoke to screams and chaos. Hundreds of people were running about in a melee of panic. Files of paper scattered into the air as the rush ensued. Further away from me was a squad of deformed people. Grinning in pleasure one grabbed a young woman and tore at her flesh.

Wailing she battered the aggressor with all her strength, but he was too strong for her. A flash danced from his hands which blew a hole through her chest. The sounds of terror increased to an almost deafening level. They were rus.h.i.+ng towards me now, the column of frightened people.

Pa.s.sing through me they began to hammer upon the armoury door. In desperation several of them kept thumbing the door screen, but it would not yield. A man to my right began to shout 'what's happening, oh my G.o.d, oh my G.o.d, open the f.u.c.king door, please, please open the door,' a second person began to yell, 'for the love of G.o.d, somebody help us.'

A woman about three feet behind me was cut in half by the downward stroke of one of the deformed. My heart began to pound and sweat was drenching my face. 'Open the door!' I screamed at the top of my lungs. But it was no use. The door remained firmly closed. It was the end for them. The figures had already reached the door and were laughing with sheer delight as they threw the gore about them. In ecstasy they dispatched a young boy to my left. His face froze with a look of confusion as he fell.

The final four people no longer made a sound. They had joined hands and each had tears running down their faces. As the group rounded on them they gained a steely complexion and with resolution they bowed their heads. They offered no resistance as the group descended upon them. They died without a sound, denying the monsters the satisfaction.

With a slow was.h.i.+ng of colour the vision ended. I did not want to know more. With resolution I continued onwards. Sean looked down in empathy. I saw nothing but tears. These visions left me with only a flash of what had happened. I felt numb, there was nothing left in the world that could make me feel again. I was lost in a pit of agony. What I had just seen, what I had seen before, were but a shadow of a greater whole. The composition of which I knew to be more monstrous than anything I could imagine. But the more I saw, the more I cared, cared about the future. I cared, because I was certain, that I would never let this happen again. At least not to the remaining colonies.

With resolve I struggled a smile at Sean. It was comforting to have another presence. He never complained, never worried about himself, he was perhaps the best person that I could have been stranded with. Sean seemed to hear my thoughts. He swung down from his previous alt.i.tude and looked right into my eyes. Nodding gently he glided from me and pointed ahead.

'Not far now, we just need to reach the end of this information centre, the lifts will be there and waiting.' I knew that he was trying to comfort me. Without scouting ahead there would be no way of knowing if the lifts would still be operational. This clearly did not concern him because he had already begun to swim away.

We floated through the debris of an eternal darkness, a world untouched by light. Though indeed there was lighting, the room absorbed it. Here no light would be reflected, for there was nothing left worth s.h.i.+ning upon.

I swept my hair across my forehead and sighed. I was tired and hungry and it had been so long since I had had the opportunity to rest properly. Ahead the arches of the room pa.s.sed above us as we sidled along without apparent haste. I was in a world of torment, about us lay the remains of a perfect world, captured forever in the wasteland of s.p.a.ce, preserved in a cold vacuum.

An impa.s.se lay ahead. Sean hovered through without apparent concern. I followed a little more cautiously. The second section of the room was filled with the gore of the ma.s.sacre that had happened before. Lights flickered continuously, casting shadows of beings that never were.

Just as Sean had said, the lift appeared before us. I walked towards the door control and without a word I pushed the b.u.t.ton marked summon. The door screen flashed an upward facing arrow and then failed. The screen went blank. Nevertheless after about a minute the lift doors opened. We entered the confines of the lift with ease and the doors shut.

'Please state your floor' asked the mechanical voice of the lift.

'Floor one hundred and nine,' Sean stated musically. With that the lift began its descent. The metrical whoos.h.i.+ng of the pa.s.sing floors had a soothing effect upon the both of us. The tension between us had eased.

'What do you expect we will find in the detention centre,' I asked.

'Who can say? But it is best to be prepared for what we might find. I suggest...' He fell silent as the lift suddenly came to a complete stop. My eyes began to search for the problem, we were definitely not at the right floor. The door remained tightly closed. Then the room went dark.

'Sean,' I called out.

'I'm right here George,' he replied cautiously. I armed my lancer just in case. Raising the rifle to my shoulder I found that the screen was displaying night vision. I looked into the field of green and then gasped. One of them was in the lift with us. He was facing towards Sean, tracking the sound of his voice. The targeting reticule locked onto the figure who was panting now, ready for the hunt. I pulled the trigger.

Immediately an explosion of light flashed out of the muzzle. As if watching in a slowed state of time, I saw the bolt jump towards the figure. The figure's chest burst open. The light from the bolt temporarily lit the room. Ghastly shadows filled my eyes. Something wet struck my face. With shock I realised that it was his blood. Focusing back onto the night vision, I saw that the figure had fallen, but his stomach continued to move up and down. He was still alive. The targeting reticule locked back on the fallen figure and I fired again.

The lights came back on and the lift began to surge its way upwards. I wondered what had just happened. It was not as though the lift was planning our execution. I wondered if there was some hand at work behind all of this. It was certainly disconcerting to think so. No being should ever be able to impose this much wrath upon another.

'Floor one oh nine: Mandel Detention Facility, second floor,' the mechanical voice sounded and then concluded, 'doors opening, please mind the doors.'

The doors slid open and revealed a small room. The lights in the room were buzzing and flickering. Ahead was a thick secure looking door. It was closed. On either side of the room ran two identical counters protected by seemingly impregnable gla.s.s. Part of the right hand side gla.s.s had been badly burnt, presumably by the discharge of a lancer. I turned to Sean and asked, 'how do we get in?'

Flitting towards the door Sean replied, 'we must gain access to the custardy vault behind the gla.s.s in order to gain entry to the detention wards.'

'And how exactly are we going to do that, I can't see a way in.'

'There is a panel on the gla.s.s George, why not take a look?' I moved towards a series of white digits seemingly drawn onto the gla.s.s. The numbers ranged from one to nine.

'The code is six-nine-nine-seven-three-two.' I gently tapped on the numbers he indicated. After each tap the number I had selected made a sound like a wind chime. At the end of the sequence part of the gla.s.s slid back from the rest of the windowed wall and rose into the ceiling. I stepped through the narrow gla.s.s and got behind the counter.

'How did you know the code,' I asked. He certainly seemed to know a lot for a person who protested that he knew very little.

'My database contains all of the security codes of the station that was made available by Blue Dawn in her contract with Eternis Systems.'

'Good for you,' I muttered. I scanned my eyes about the counter but all I could see were screens. On the screens were the live feeds from each of the cells. Empty cell after empty cell pa.s.sed through my vision. I began to lose hope that she would be here, but then, out of the corner of my eyes, I spotted her.

'Sean, look at this! She is here! She's alive.' I jumped into the air with relief. Tapping the vocal b.u.t.ton on the screen I stated 'open cell 414-B.'

I heard a klaxon sound and the systems stated the words: 'access to cell-blocks approved, first tier security for cell block four-one-four-B disabled.' With no more ceremony than this the security door flashed from red to green and opened, splitting apart in several places and rotating away. We walked through.

We entered on the gallery level above the cell blocks which occupied a small strip hanging over the centre of the detention ward. In the square below several cells occupied the corners, in the centre sat Aeniah. She was staring calmly at us. As my eyes connected with hers, she arched an eyebrow. With a start I realised that she was naked. I averted my gaze, too late not to take in her well formed, perhaps too toned body. Then my eyes were drawn back towards her, for behind her stood another woman. This woman was impossibly beautiful, tall, with long silky brown hair folding to her shoulders. She was clothed in an odd dress, like those in history books where women were forced to wear skirts. Around the collar of her suit top were two blue strips of light. But it was her eyes that set her apart. Deep black eyes ringed by a halo of blue light. No woman had ever lived and been so beautiful, even in her strange attire.

With a soft sound the gla.s.s separating the four of us slid away. The woman behind Aeniah stepped through and Aeniah followed with her head held high.

'You dumb f.u.c.king idiots.' This appeared to be Aeniah's way of greeting us. 'I fly you dumb b.a.s.t.a.r.ds all the way to this station and you walk right into a trap.'

I looked at her in confusion. Was there a trap? I couldn't see one. The beautiful lady smiled a wicked smile. She turned to Aeniah and stated, 'I don't suppose they know who I am, do they?' She turned grinning back towards us. 'Well we have met before, don't you recognise my voice?'

It hit me then, that graceful voice, that powerful mesmerising harmony. It was Blue Dawn.

'But how?' I stammered, 'you're a machine, you're not a person.'

'And you would be quite right. Your rather ba.n.a.l contribution to proceedings, whilst unimportant, perhaps requires an explanation.' I stared towards her intently waiting upon her next words. 'What you are looking at is a genetically engineered host body, of which I have several. Inside this body is a receiver through which I am able to inhabit. I exist in all the bodies and in the station at the same time, but separately.'