An Obsidian Sky (8 page)

‘You mean that
you remember the Resource Wars? Your that old?’

‘Yes George I
am that old. But I remember little. There are many disadvantages to
being dumb. One of them is that they re-write you, they modify you.
They have made me forget so very much. Aside from a few pieces of
information here and there I am as blind as you are.’

‘And Aeniah,
you said that she knew. Is she that old?’

‘George, I
simply cannot comment on Aeniah. Her background is classified. Even
if I wanted to my programming prevents me from doing so.’

‘How did you
get here Sean?’ I asked hoping to find any information that I
could.

‘Why, George I
came here the same way as you. Blue Dawn used a Mass Transport
device to get me here.’ Seeing my quizzical expression Sean sighed
and stated simply ‘it is like teleportation, only it actually
exists.’

‘Okay let me
think, just let me think.’ I stared about the room, there was
nothing to be done. I had to shoulder the burden of getting us out
alive. I was given a mission. It was too important to give up on. I
had to think. Something was happening within my brain, I knew it
now. Thoughts and feelings that I had never known before had sprung
into motion, had been springing into motion for some time now. I
could feel new information course through me, information that was
not mine. I sat in silence and focussed. I focused on the part of
me where these thoughts were coming from. It was like a source of
light across my peripheral vision and yet no matter how hard I
tried to look at it, I could not get it to the centre of my vision.
I tried to focus, suppressing all thoughts other than those I
needed to see it, to get just one glimpse of that magical light. I
focused and focused and slowly it came into my field of vision.
Then it centred. As it centred I could feel raw energy coursing
through me as if I had suddenly become connected to some higher
power. It was incredible. It was like seeing for the first
time.

Overwhelmed by
this light, drinking it in, I became intoxicated by it. All around
me raindrops of cool light fell. As the raindrops fell they
projected images like rainbows which arched around them. The prisms
fell. As they hit the floor and dispersed into a thousand others I
wanted to drink them in, to hold them, to run my fingers through
them. Standing now I saw what needed to be done. Ascension was a
disease, it was plagued. Blue Dawn had known it, she tried to stop
it, but now she revelled in it. I had to let go of the connection,
it was too much. Desperately I clawed it away from my eyes, and the
world became washed of colour as I fell tumbling back into
reality.

‘Sean...Blue
Dawn...she’s gone mad. Something about that artefact, 77-x, it has
done something to her. Whatever she’s up to, it can’t be good’ I
breathed as air flooded back into my lungs.

‘Then we
should try and get back to the ship. If Blue Dawn is mad, then I
don’t think she has any information that we need.’ Sean returned
levelly.

‘No, she does
know something. Something important. When I connected to this
power, whatever it is, I saw the artefact and I saw her. They were
together but apart. She knows something crucial. Blue Dawn is our
only option. If we leave now we can never free the colonies from
their damnation.’ I was certain of it now, it just had to be
done.

‘Very well
George we shall have to find out what it is she knew. But I don’t
think that she will offer us anything. If she has gone mad then we
cannot trust anything that she might say.’

‘The research
sections, what about them? We could figure out from there what has
been going on.’ Sean nodded in agreement. It wasn’t much of a plan
but it was all that we had. ‘First though we’ll need a weapon,
something that can actually take out these monsters. There must be
something.’ I searched my eyes around the room for something. Sean
interrupted me:

‘There is an
armoury nearby, apparently there’s no paradise without guns,’ Sean
answered with humour. I motioned for Sean to lead the way. He
turned and fluttered in the air whilst resuming his musical humming
and flew away. Hurriedly I followed him into the unknown.

*

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 glass 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 anticipating 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 bypass 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 asserted 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 god.’ 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 glass 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 glass 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 glass 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 gushing
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
amusement. 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 analysis
complete
asserted 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. Pushing the button 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 hell. 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.