An Obsidian Sky (9 page)

*

‘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 glass 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 glass 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
glasses 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. Glasses were raised in the air. The triumph
and the passion 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 glass 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 impassable 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 feckless idiots had
destroyed my world, even before I was born. I was here because some
insane group of people appeared to have created hell. I was here
because of bloody 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 assumed 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 rushing towards me now, the column of frightened
people.

Passing
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 god, oh my god, open the fucking door, please,
please open the door,’ a second person began to yell, ‘for the love
of god, 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
washing 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
altitude 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
shining upon.