The Omega Project (44 page)

As the moon’s orbit changed and our home world gradually faded, the surrounding stars seemed to brighten. I could spend hours describing the tidal patterns forged around the churning vortex of the Milky Way or the distant clusters forming other galaxies and still never do them justice, but suddenly my flesh prickled and static electricity caused the hairs along the back of my neck to rise as I realized we were not alone.

Dharma shared the sensation, and yet we could see no one.

“Welcome to Alpha Colony.”

From the darkened corridor to our left appeared two brilliant white specks of light. As they moved closer, the pale, almost luminescent faces of the couple who had communicated with me aboard
Oceanus
became visible, their black bodysuits having camouflaged their bodies in the recessed shadows.

“Dr. Eisenbraun, Dr. Yuan … so good of you to accept our invitation. My name is Douglas McEntyre and I am a senior liaison to the CCE, one of the three divisions on the moon. This is my soul mate, Lisa.”

“My husband, Doug, understates our gratitude.” She leaned in and kissed me on either cheek, her flesh warm and soft and to my relief quite real. “Your presence here honors us.”

She repeated the gesture to Dharma.

Doug McEntyre smiled, observing my apprehension. “Our guest reminds us that he remains a man of science, his mind riddled with questions. You could learn a thing or two from your companion, Robert. Dharma’s mind remains open and calm, thus unencumbered.”

“Unencumber my mind with answers. Where are we? How did your predecessors construct all this with their limited resources? How many others are there? Have your people explored space? Colonized other worlds? What has humanity achieved over the last twelve million years?”

McEntyre motioned us down the corridor, his wife linking arms with Dharma. “You have so much to learn; for now we’ll begin with the basics—the equivalent of your first day in kindergarten. Where are we? Technically, we’re in a lunar cave system excavated beneath the Sea of Tranquility. As we discussed earlier, our ancestors were able to process water and air using the vast ice deposits found in the deeper caverns. Our marooned predecessors had seed banks and mining equipment, as well as the materials that were salvageable from the lunar shuttle. The historical records show that fifty-six scientists and crewmen survived the asteroid impact. How our predecessors built all of this involves million of years of history that pitted the challenges of living in near-zero gravity conditions with the greatest evolutionary adaptation since the first lobed-fin fish crawled out of the primordial sea onto land.”

We continued down the corridor, my curiosity burning. At the time I had been frozen, modern man’s intellect traced back a mere ten thousand years. McEntyre’s people represented twelve million years of scientific advancements. Their sonic weapon had made fast work of the crocodilian monster; our transportation from the Earth to Alpha Colony had demonstrated their ability to transport living beings. Even with their limited resources they had to have colonized Mars, Europa … Certainly they had visited other solar systems. And yet an unanswered paradox was in play—
Why hadn’t the Alpha Colonists returned to Earth?

Specks of red, green, and white energy glistened like gemstones along the arched ceiling high overhead, glowing brighter as we approached the end of the corridor.

McEntyre continued. “Have we explored space? Colonized other worlds? And why did we allow GOLEM to rule the roost back on Earth? The answers are complex.”

“Simplify it for me. After all, I’m only in kindergarten.”

We had arrived at the end of the corridor and the double doors of a hotel suite. McEntyre nodded to his wife, who waved her hand along the wall to our right, causing a viewport to appear, the Earth still visible in the upper right corner of the glass.

“Robert, everything you see—the moon colony, the Earth, the stars and galaxies—all are part of the physical universe that came into existence with the Big Bang. Back in your time, quantum physicists asserted that the physical universe is merely one of ten dimensions—the lowest of the ten and the only one where time actually exists.”

“I’m familiar with string theory.”

“What if I told you the Big Bang was an event driven by a conscious purpose. What if I said the physical universe is an illusion … that it was created as an arena to test the soul.”

“Test the soul?” I glanced at Dharma. “Do you have any clue what he’s talking about?”

“Reincarnation,” she whispered, as if mesmerized by his words. “Each of us must earn Nirvana.”

McEntyre placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “I know you want to know everything right away. Before we go on, however, it’s important that you rest.”

Lisa opened the suite door. “Everything you can possibly want or desire can be accessed from these accommodations. There is a food replicator, baths, showers, privacy areas, exercise equipment, a therapeutic pool, and a king-size bed that will be far more comfortable than anything the land squids had to offer.”

She kissed us on the cheeks and we entered the suite. Our eyes widened in amazement.

It was everything the female had promised and more, a four-thousand-square-foot palace, each chamber dominated by plush furnishings and floor to ceiling views of the lunar landscape, the bedroom closets containing a dozen outfits that seemed tailor-made.

I feasted on turkey and stuffing, Dharma preferring Eastern delicacies, the two of us agreeing on a double dessert order of chocolate mousse. We bathed together in a hot tub, made love on that magnificent bed, then curled together beneath a goose-down comforter and fell fast asleep.

Home, sweet home …

40

When the answer is simple, God is speaking.

—A
LBERT
E
INSTEIN

I awoke, restless and disoriented from a dreamless sleep. With no daylight or evening to reference, just endless space, I had lost all concept of time—an unnerving feeling in
my
dimension.

I dressed, then headed for the exercise chamber, leaving Dharma sleeping in the bedroom. Climbing onto a stationary bike, I started to pedal. For six minutes I pushed myself hard, driving my heart rate up to 165 beats per minute as registered on the machine’s built-in pulse monitor.

I stopped pedaling, coming to an abrupt stop. “This feels wrong. It feels empty.”

RUNNING LEVEL-FOUR DIAGNOSTIC.

“ABE!”

RECALCULATING EISENBRAUN VITALS. A MAJOR DISCREPANCY EXISTS BETWEEN SENSORY INPUT AND BIOLOGICAL VITAL SIGNS.

Elaborate.

EISENBRAUN SENSES REPORT A PULSE RATE OF 122 BEATS PER MINUTE. ABE INTERNAL PULSE RATE REGISTERS EISENBRAUN’S HEART RATE AT 14 BEATS PER MINUTE. OTHER DISCREPANCIES INCLUDE BODY TEMPERATURE, OXYGEN VOLUME, BLOOD PRESSURE.

Fourteen beats a minute? How is that possible?

ANALYSIS OF RED BLOOD CELLS INDICATES THE PRESENCE OF A FOREIGN SUBSTANCE. CLASSIFICATION: ANESTHETIC.

Son of a bitch! ABE, isolate Eisenbraun sensory input.

SENSORY INPUT IS ORIGINATING FROM A FOREIGN CONDUIT FEEDING ELECTRICAL SIGNALS DIRECTLY INTO EISENBRAUN’S FRONTAL LOBE.

ABE, block those signals, then initiate an adrenaline spike powerful enough to wake me up!

WARNING: OVERLOAD COULD RESULT IN SEIZURE.

Do it!

*   *   *

Sound crackled crisply in my ear. Followed by a breath tainted with an acidic hospital taste.

Forcing a deeper inhalation, I used the airflow as a foothold, prying open my lead-sealed eyes—peering into a semi-dark chamber laced with streaks of neon-blue fluid seemingly hovering in the periphery.

I was naked, lying on my back on what ABE hypothesized to be a sensory pod, its pliant surface glowing a soft crimson beneath me. Quarter-size probes were adhered to my forehead and a dozen other neural junctions along my body. An IV feed line was threaded through my right armpit, a catheter protruding from my penis.

Turning my head to the left, I saw Dharma. She was unconscious, her nude body wired in an identical state, the surface of her thermostatic table more violet than red.

Raising my head caused my sensory pod to turn a yellow hue; tearing off the neural probes powered off the table, exposing the room in its soft white radiance. Gritting my teeth, I pulled out the catheter, then yanked out a six-inch wire feed from beneath my armpit. The effort made me nauseous, forcing me to lie back down.

ABE, search personnel files in 2028. Is there any record of a Douglas or Lisa McEntrye on board the lunar shuttle sent to investigate the helium-3 deposits?

TWO MCENTYRES WERE ABOARD SHUTTLE SEA-L29. DOUGLAS MCENTYRE: CEO AND MEDICAL DIRECTOR OF MILLENNIUM TECHNOLOGY RESOURCES. LISA MCENTYRE: GENETICS ENGINEER.

That’s impossible. How can they still be alive? And what were they doing aboard that shuttle? They’re not fusion experts. Who recruited them to the mission?

GENERAL DAVID SCHALL.

I closed my eyes, my mind plunging deeper down the “rabbit hole” with each new revelation. Willing myself to move, I stood on tingling, wobbly legs and groped my way past what appeared to be an aphaeresis machine, its clear lines transporting a neon-blue elixir. Following the fluid led me down a long corridor, the frost-tinged glass walls composed of pullout drawers—similar to what one might find in a county morgue. Pressing my face to the glass caused the internal chamber to illuminate, revealing the contents of each coffin-size compartment.

Humans. Their frozen bodies were grossly disfigured, evidence of living in low gravity conditions.

“That one was me.”

I turned to find Doug McEntyre tapping the opposite wall, pointing at one of the drawers. “I was fifty-one when Lisa and I arrived on the moon; I think I look closer to thirty now, don’t you agree?”

“What the hell is going on?”

“Your bio-chip woke you, didn’t it? Damn impressive. But something gave the internal dreamscape away. Was it the food? The accommodations? We can alter any scenario, even return you to Earth if you wish—we want you to enjoy your life.”

“While you do what? Harvest our bodies? What happened twelve million years ago? What exactly are you?”

“When the asteroid hit, it not only marooned us, it condemned us to a slow, agonizing death. What saved us were advances in genetic engineering that allowed us to harvest new organs from the original donor tissues—new red blood cells and bone marrow, even replacement flesh. For hundreds of years we continued to regenerate ourselves, anchored to our ever-changing bodies by the life force we call the ‘soul.’ And then we made the ultimate evolutionary leap—converting our consciousness to pure energy—a breakthrough that allowed us to abandon our physical bodies. What you see before you is a hologram.”

“But you touched my shoulder … I felt you!”

“The hologram is wired into your senses. What you experienced was your neurological impulses reacting to an artificial stimulus.”

I backed away, my eyes focusing on the speck of energy glowing from his chest. “What is it you want from us?”

“Do you know what the human body is, Robert? It’s a vessel animated by the soul. When the body dies, the soul moves on. Only the body has to cease functioning before the soul can be released. We want to free ourselves from this purgatory of energy so that our souls can move on. To accomplish this we must die. Death is a physical event, requiring a physical vessel in which to inhabit. We tried capturing the cephalopeds in an attempt to occupy their bodies, only their genetics were incompatible and their souls refused to vacate their physical forms. We attempted to occupy your computer’s clones, but GOLEM had tinkered too much with their DNA to allow us to inhabit their bodies. And then one miraculous day we discovered that both you and Dharma were still being kept in cryogenic stasis, and suddenly there was hope.”

“You intend to preserve me and Dharma in a vegetative state so you can clone us, inhabit those bodies … and then what? Kill yourselves?”

“Suicide affects the soul’s journey. Occupying your clones would allow us to return to Earth and live out our lives as physical beings before dying a natural death.”

“Quite the happy ending … except for the two of us.”

“You’ll never know what transpired. Your minds will remain in a dream state, your consciousness maintaining free will. Had you not awoken, your mind would have found its way to a happier existence back on Earth.”

“Another never-ending cryogenic dream? I don’t think so.”

A swarm of red, green, and white sparks of energy advanced down the corridor, surrounding McEntyre. “Unfortunately, Robert, you have no choice.”

ABE, activate Hibernation Mode on my signal! Awaken me in thirty days!

EISENBRAUN VOICE-ACTIVATED PASSWORD IS REQUIRED.

I stumbled backward, the radiant entities spinning in my vision as I bellowed, “Vanilla sway … vanilla sway … vanilla sway!”

41

In the end, we will conserve only what we love. We will love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught.

—B
ABA
D
IOUM
, African environmentalist

“Ike, open your eyes. Ike, if you can hear me, open your eyes!”

I opened my eyes.

I was sitting up, my body naked and trembling, my flesh sticky and wet from the tetrodotoxin, the liquefied gel draining from the open cryogenic pod. Before me was Andria, her dark hair short, her expression one of concern. Lara was next to her, smiling in relief. Jason Sloan was on my left, checking my blood pressure.

“Dude, you gave us quite the scare, it took us twenty minutes and two shots of adrenaline to revive you.”

I struggled to speak, my throat parched.

Bella Maharaj leaned over, offering me a cup of water, positioning the straw in my mouth.

I sipped, too weak to move, my mind still in a fog.

Was this real? Could everything I had experienced simply been an Omega dream?