Requiem (75 page)

'What does that
mean?' she said. Her voice was somehow calm. Was it even her
speaking?

‘
It means,
human, that you only have a moment left to live.'

Blindly, Seline
reached out again.

'Why?' she
asked.

‘
I am the
enduring consequence of life's singular and universal law. You are
not. You are a failed experiment. You exist merely as a reference
with which to measure my strength.'

'… What are
you?'

‘
I am
survival.'

Seline reached
out but found nothing.

‘
I am what
evolution had always intended but could never design
itself.'

'Are you
God?'

‘
To you,
yes.'

A tether of
sensation returned to her. In flickering moments she could feel her
body again. She relaxed in some kind of unconscious acceptance. She
kept her eyes firmly closed. She knew that if she opened them her
mind would begin to crumble, begin to fade away, to dismantle and
surrender itself to this crushing blanket of empty space.

Questions. The
only thing that made sense was to ask more questions.

She didn't have
to think of it. The word just fell out, as if she'd rehearsed it so
many times before.

'Why?'

‘
I am,
therefore I must continue to be.'

'Why do I have
to die? Why do
we
have to die?'

‘
If it is
mercy you seek, human, then find it in death.'

The density of
the void pressed down on her. That cacophonous noise roared back
from the darkness, touching, groping every inch of her body. She
couldn't distinguish the words within the distorted, swarming
noise. She struggled violently against it, kicking, punching,
biting. Her hand reached out. Yet another question. The only
question left.

'Why?!'

The single
syllable dug into her throat, carving its channels into the tissue,
rending layers of flesh from tongue and cheek. She continued to
scream despite herself, despite everything, to spite
everything.

'WHY?!'

The warmth of
blood, seeping from her mouth.

'WHY?!'

Her throat
shredded and numb.

'WHY?!'

She was
spinning out of control, sensations of memories not her own forced
themselves upon her, voices called across her like echoes caught in
a valley but none would answer her. Could they even hear her?

If it truly was
Icarus who had spoken to her then she had lost her chance. Whatever
words needed to be said, she had used the wrong ones.

The din was
weakening. The voices were beginning to linger in the space
somewhere above her while emptiness was opening beneath. She was
struggling. Against what, she didn't know but the sensation of
falling, of perpetual descent tore savagely at her heart, or at
least where she thought her heart should be.

The voice whom
she called Icarus had completely disintegrated into the wall of
noise now high above her. It was lingering somewhere in the
distance, hiding in dark places where it could witness the anarchy
of its surroundings. It had shunted her through the halls of its
sanatorium and consigned her to a cell the likes of which seemed
beyond any comprehension, insane or otherwise.

The darkness
was complete but, like tinnitus ringing in her ears, she could
still hear the madness in all that surrounded her. She waited. The
voices were screaming and whispering at something she couldn't
understand. She waited.

Death. This
must be death. Awareness in death. Eternity in death.

Her mind was
running. Where? She didn't know.

Let it
run.

She was twelve
years old. 'It's alright,' she'd told herself. 'Mum will be home
any minute now. Any day now. She has to come back. She can't have
forgotten me.' The door creaks on its hinges. Just the wind. She
sits on the couch, staring at the door, willing it to open, willing
her mother to walk back through, to pick her up in her arms, to
hold her head to her chest so she can hear, can feel her heartbeat.
That strong, indelible heartbeat. It was the sound from deep in the
core of that planet, her planet. Earth. Strong. So strong that it
pulled all life towards it, that it bound all life's creatures to
its dusty face.

She turns on
the couch and sits up on her knees. She stares out the window down
to the street. It's empty but there's a storm on the horizon the
likes of which she has never seen. Billowing clouds stretching from
horizon to horizon, moving across the surface of the planet like a
child's blanket to tuck her in to her death bed. It's a wall of
dust, of ash, of sound. Streaks of lightning split the air and
thunder cracks like a spine breaking over a knee. The constant roar
of the storm frightens her the most.

But she'd found
a way to escape the pull of her mother's heart hadn't she? She'd
hidden away on a rocket taking her to not even God knew where.

But still she
waited.

Mercer was
disintegrating in red flames. Sear was held against her. The warmth
of his kiss.

Her memories
were shadowed by the surrounding voices. Tainted. Confused. But
still she waited and in the darkness found something familiar,
something she had once forgotten but forced herself to know again.
It began as a vibration within an imagined centre.

The vibration
was steadily condensing into something recognisable, like a
stranger emerging from some great distance, shaking free from the
limitations of vision and remembrance. From that same great
distance, lips moved and a voice issued forth. It spoke to her,
un-aged and humbled.

'Seline?'

Light.
Warmth.

'Mother?'

'… You've grown
so much.'

This isn't
real. You're dreaming. You're dead.

'No... you're
not dreaming and you're definitely not dead,' said the voice,
trying to quiet the confusion and doubt within Seline's head.

There was a
lingering moment. The silence of a mind trying to draw some kind of
understanding from the rushing sensations around her.

'Mother?'

'It's me,
Seline.'

'Are you real?
You can't be. Where am I?'

'We are inside
Icarus.'

Florence sensed
Seline struggling to recollect her last memories, to get her
bearings. 'It's alright, you're safe here,' she said.

Seline pictured
the neon star, her hand resting upon its cold, ethereal surface.
'Right... Icarus. Where exactly?'

'Within its
mind, dear.'

'Its mind? How?
How did I get here?'

'By coming into
the cerebral chamber, by touching your hand to the light. When you
made contact with it you established a physical connection with
Icarus-'

'Then... what's
going on? Why are you here? What were all those voices I heard and
where'd they go? Where did Icarus go?'

'Try to focus
on my voice, Seline. I'll try to answer what I can.' The voice
paused for a moment and collected its thoughts. 'Your body,' it
began, 'is where you left it, waiting for you outside in the
cerebral chamber. When you made the connection with your hand,
Icarus uploaded your consciousness into here.'

'How could
it... why? I don't understand.'

'That's how it
learns. When it encounters intelligent life it copies the functions
of the brain, the neural behaviours and memories, the entire
consciousness into itself.'

'Why?'

'It's trying to
understand.'

'Understand
what?'

'Consciousness.
Life.'

'This thing's
conscious?'

'In its own
way.' There was a long pause. 'Seline... my god, it's really you.'
The voice spoke as if on the verge of tears. 'You've grown so
much.'

This can't be
real.

'It is, Seline.
I can promise you that.'

'… You can read
my thoughts?'

'Some. The
strong ones. Your fear, your exhaustion... your anger.'

'But how do I
know that it's really you? How do I know this isn't just memories
talking to me?'

'Just slow
yourself down for a moment, let yourself adjust. Feel yourself,
separated from my voice. Feel your memories, separated from my own.
There are two distinct entities here.'

'But what of
the others... the other voices I can still hear in the
background?'

'We'll get to
that, just try to feel my presence and then you'll realise where
you are.'

The voice of
her mother began to take form, to coalesce into something, a nebula
of coloured light, pulsing in the darkness.

'I, I can feel
you,' said Seline.

'And
yourself?'

'Yes. I think.
But where did Icarus go? I can still hear its voice somewhere.'

'We're
separated, to a certain degree, from the others, even from
Icarus.'

'Why?'

'I brought you
here. Icarus is powerful but there is much it doesn't understand,
especially in here. I've been here for almost ten years, Seline.
Trapped within Icarus. In this sort of quarantine.'

'Thi- this is
where you've been? The whole time?'

'For most of
it.'

'What happened
to you? How did you get here? Why did you leave?'

'I need you to
believe that it wasn't my choice. I made mistakes but I never meant
for this to happen.'

'Tell me...
tell me what happened. I need to know.'

'It is a long
story.'

'I need to
know.'

'… I was
experimenting with things I didn't fully understand.' The words
came naturally to Florence. The years of rehearsal had served her
well.

'I had been
researching for... for NeoCorp. I had been exiled from every
corporate zone on Earth for insubordination, for 'improper
etiquette' not long before I gave birth to you but they still
expected me to work for them. For a long time I did but after they
found the Alpha Gate beyond the Tryil Gate they came to our house
one night and took me. They held you as collateral. They said they
were watching you, that if I wanted to see you again I would have
to solve the equations for the gate. They believed that the gate
was an entry point to another galaxy. They were right.'

Seline
remembered some of what she'd seen on the blackbox, the machinery,
blueprints she didn't understand. 'Was this the information on the
blackbox you left for me?'

'Yes, most of
it. The information on the blackbox was uploaded before I was
kidnapped. It was mostly original research and theoretical
speculations.'

'What happened
after NeoCorp took you away? Did Icarus find you?'

'Not quite. I
spent months working on the Alpha Gate. Alone, as far as I know. It
was trial and error for the most part. I'm not sure how I did it.
The information is probably lost now but I opened the Alpha Gate,
momentarily anyway. Just long enough to swallow the station I was
working on and then close again.

'I arrived in
another system in another galaxy. The station was damaged beyond
repair. I rushed to the escape pod and managed to crash land on a
nearby planet. The planet was inhabited. Merinim, it was called,
after an extinct God of the Merin people. I was held in a sort of
prison. I don't know for how long, a year, two maybe. Eventually I
learned that these people, the Merin, were preparing for Icarus.
Even though their empire stretched much further across their galaxy
than any of the species in the Milky Way, their preparations were
not much further developed. For months their colonies were being
destroyed. Their response was uncoordinated, lethargic, and
entirely inadequate. Again and again they threw ships and bodies at
Icarus as if it would eventually surrender. It did not. It moved
from system to system, destroying their civilization, feeding,
growing.'

'So this means
the Atlas Gates stretched throughout
that
galaxy as well?'
asked Seline.

'Yes, and
probably further. But by the time I arrived Icarus was beyond
stopping. And by the time they accepted that I would be able to
help, Icarus was on their doorstep. They were desperate. They'd
already tried to destroy one of the gates but failed. When they
gave back my confiscated equipment, what was still salvageable
after the crash, I realised I still had most of the formulas I'd
used for the Alpha Gate. They thought I could open it again, that
they could escape through it back into the Milky Way... there
simply wasn't enough time.

'I'm not sure
how long I worked at it. The days seemed to stretch on for weeks at
a time, as did the nights. At a guess, it took perhaps just over
two months in Earth time. I did what I could with the tools and
information they gave me but by the time I got to the stage of
running tests on the Alpha Gate, Icarus had arrived.'

Florence's tone
changed noticeably. The desperation diminished into darker, quieter
tones. 'To be witness to it...,' she said, 'to see something on
that scale. Even now I don't think I can fully comprehend it.'
There was a long pause, an attempt to begin again, another pause,
and then she finally managed to continue the thought. 'And then to
become a part of it, to be recruited, incriminated. It took me so
long just to begin to make sense of this place, to find my place in
it and distinguish my own thoughts from the others.'

Seline waited
in silence.

'And when I
did
begin to understand what was going on I was forced to
sit and watch... watch Icarus destroy entire worlds. Those it
deemed unnecessary to upload into itself it simply destroyed with
its growing army of sentinels. From the outside it would have
looked like an act of pure spite but from within here I could see
its true motive – destroying others meant one less potential
threat. Every enemy it destroyed increased its own odds of
survival.'