Requiem (80 page)

Belameir and
Sear looked at one another then at Seline but said nothing. They
remained at her side, waiting by the window. Staring out with her.
A blue light washed over the window. The Atlas Gate approached.

The mind of
Icarus, too heavy to lift but not to drag. Bloodied and screaming
she hauled it through the final Atlas Gate, half way across the
galaxy. The sentinels, billions of marionettes each hanging upon a
delicate string, fighting themselves and one another, confused to
the point of madness.

The voices
surrounded her now. Screaming incoherently at themselves and each
other. Florence could feel their words as if they were something
physical, with a shape and texture all their own. Some were heavy,
some hot to the touch, some cold and numbing, some cut like a blade
into the flesh of her own thoughts. Some could carry her away if
she let them, to imagined heights in imagined places where she
could hide amongst clouds and warm sun soaked memories. Some could
drag her down through dirt and molten rock and hold her face to the
heat of the misery that burned in their centre.

She knew better
than what these words and thoughts could offer. Her purpose was the
singular force now driving Icarus. The only way she could find
peace for herself, for the one she loved and for every imprisoned
soul inside Icarus was in the centre of a black hole.

The memories
had haunted her. She had played them over and over again in her
mind until she began to doubt their existence. Like a word repeated
too many times loses its meaning, she had begun to think the
memories might be of no real consequence; to her or any other. But
she
was real. Seline. Her daughter. They had recognised each
other. They shared what no others had shared. The memories must be
real. Seline. Her daughter. Her daughter who didn't smile.

My
daughter.

Born to a
godforsaken mother, to an absentee father, upon an intestate Earth.
She carried herself so far with a kind of strength that no one
should ever have to prove.

Florence knew
her purpose but the more she concentrated on moving Icarus forward
the harder the alien thoughts crashed and slammed into her,
breaking against her in a constant barrage, like atoms fusing
within the centre of the sun.

Her strength
was waning. The body of Icarus was getting heavier and heavier. The
cooling systems were failing. The warning systems were blaring. She
directed some of the still functioning repair drones towards the
heat sinks. She was controlling, manipulating, directing a million
processes at the same time.

The sentinels
were crying for attention like lost children. Hundreds of billions
of them screaming into her ear, spinning, rolling, screeching at
her, at themselves. A planetary sized school of fish only barely
held together. With one overriding thought she tried to keep them
in check, to follow her.

But the
processing plants, the manufacturing facilities and maintenance
systems all demanded her attention. She was stretched to breaking.
She tried her best to shut them down, but she had no idea how. She
was inside a planet sized ship with no instructions, just a
flashing neon arrow in her head pointing towards the black hole.
All she could hope to do was ignore the things she didn't
understand and focus on the things that made sense. Fuel into the
engine. That was all she needed. Everything else was a
distraction.

Icarus lurked
at the edges of her mind, like a storm just over the horizon. It
struggled against billions of screaming minds that it could not
comprehend. It was fighting its way free, trying to carve its way
to her, to rein her in, to lock her away or simply to kill her. But
for now, the lost souls of Earth were doing their job. Slitting its
pupils and gouging its eyes, breaking its teeth and severing its
tongue. They assaulted Icarus with their incomprehensible
questions. Their questions of why and how and who and where and the
blinding emotional flood that must be pouring from every single
thought.

Their thoughts
flashed through her mind like streaks of lightning in the
night.

'Why did he
leave me?'

'Where were
you, God, when I asked you to save my son?'

'I'll have to
kill him. There's no other choice.'

'Number one.
I'm going to be a number one! All I want to see is the look on
their faces when I show them that number!'

'Just another
day. Just one more day.'

'That bitch.
How could she say that to me?'

'I'll cut him!
I'll fucking cut him!'

'Praise the
Lord. Let Jesus save you!'

But one voice
spoke to her, above the others, clear, strong, gentle even.

'Is this what
hell feels like?' the voice asked.

The words
pulled her back. They bit into her and refused to let go. She tried
to ignore it but it came back even stronger.

'Is this what
hell feels like?'

'No,' answered
Florence, trying to placate the voice. 'This isn't hell. No one
deserves hell.'

The storm on
the horizon was moving closer. She needed to hurry. She narrowed
her concentration once again. More repair drones were needed at the
southern heat sinks. They could still move faster. There was more
than enough fuel. Accelerate. Accelerate. Accelerate.

More voices
screamed past her, through her, but none of them bit into her like
the other. For a moment, she thought the voice had disappeared but
it came back, loud and sharp as ever.

'Maybe I do.
Maybe I deserve hell.'

There was a
sort of blackness that gilded his words. They were sharp; sharp
enough to cut through some of the madness around him but not his
own it seemed.

Florence
ignored the words. There was nothing more important than directing
Icarus.

'Do I deserve
hell?' came the voice again. It was too loud, as if it were beaming
directly into the centre of her thoughts.

'Do I deserve
hell?'

'This isn't
hell,' Florence answered.

'Then where am
I?' asked the voice, tearing through what little concentration
Florence had managed to scrounge together.

'You – we – are
in Icarus,' she said. 'But you must cease your questions. You must
let me concentrate or you will doom us all. Do you understand?'

'Icarus,' the
voice repeated, not as a question but as a statement, as if he
understood. 'That is what happened when the sentinel spoke to me?
It brought me here?'

'Leave me. You
must
leave me. There are trillions of others you can
ask.'

'They have no
answers. Their minds are dim. Yours is bright. Did the sentinel
bring me here?'

'If I answer
your questions will you leave me to my work?'

'Yes. Did the
sentinel bring me here?'

'Yes. Along
with all the others.'

'The
others?'

The main engine
was overloading but still she ordered more fuel. Sirens were
blaring, systems failing. More! Her grip was slipping. She needed
this to end but this voice would not step out of her way. Icarus's
voice was growing in the distance, each thought like a clap of
thunder lurking behind black, billowing clouds.

'What others?'
the voice repeated.

'The victims of
Icarus. They come from countless planets, from countless
civilisations. Collectively, I suppose, you could call us the
damned.'

'The victims of
Icarus,' said the voice, again, not a question. Does this... does
this...' There was an overwhelming sense of joy in the voice. The
gentleness was slipping away, revealing something almost childish
in its understanding. 'Does this mean... that the Earth is gone?
That humanity is no more?'

'The Earth is
gone. The minds of the those who once resided there have been
imprisoned in this place.'

'Then... it
worked?' There was such happiness in that voice.

'Who are
you?'

'At birth I was
called Cassidy. At death I was known as the Downfall Warlord.'

The Warlord was
not like the others. He was confused and lost but he managed to
bury this beneath an incredible strength. Already he was beginning
to understand this place. His thoughts reached into Florence, they
wound around her, searching for answers. She still had control of
Icarus but the voice, whether it knew it or not, was steadily
eating away at her and the mind of Icarus moved closer.

'The girl,
Seline. She is your daughter?' The Warlord asked.

'Yes.'

'She
lives?'

'Yes.'

'Because of
you?'

'Yes.'

'Why? Why did
you let her live? Her life will only bring pain and death. In time,
that is all she will be left with.'

'Look inside
me, find your answer.'

The thoughts
reached inside her again. 'You are destroying Icarus for her?' he
finally said.

'Yes. For
everyone.'

'… Why?...
WHY?!'

She turned back
to Icarus for a second. She was still in control.

'WHY? There is
suffering spreading throughout this galaxy, this universe, and so
far beyond. Was it not enough for you to see what humanity endured?
Must you watch every other being suffer in the same way?'

'Icarus must be
stopped,' she said, 'otherwise it will destroy all life.'

'No. You do not
understand at all! But I do. I witnessed it cleanse humanity.'

'It brought
humanity here! It imprisoned them and it will hold them here while
it swallows galaxy after galaxy. We will be trapped forever in this
madness unless we destroy it.'

'It saved us
and it must be allowed to continue with its purpose. Human life is
the same as all life. It only brings destruction and pain upon
itself. I realise this now. The Yurrick, the Ordonians, Humanity;
they are all part of the same principles of life. They all tend
towards self-destruction. That is the purpose of consciousness. It
is life's way of looking at itself so that it might better
understand the pain and that it
must
be stopped.'

'How could you
live with such darkness inside you?'

'I live to
bring death, to bring mercy and you are destroying everything I
have laboured for. You are destroying the final solution to our
suffering.'

'No... What are
you doing?'

'You are trying
to kill Icarus. I must stop you.'

Approaching
from the back of her mind, she heard a violent clap of thunder.

'I can feel
you slipping.'

'Cassidy! You
can't do this!'

'I am no longer
Cassidy. I am only the Warlord.'

His presence
was all around her. A darkness that he wore like a cloak that she
couldn't see through. She struggled inside the shadows. She reached
out, fighting for control, but was ripped away. She was falling
backward into emptiness. The Warlord heaped the darkness upon her
like shovels of dirt, forcing her deeper down, so far down that she
could never crawl out again.

'How can you be
so blind?!' she screamed. But she was disintegrating, growing thin.
Icarus was breathing down her neck.

‘
I can feel
you slipping!'

But she had
already slipped. The Warlord had wrested control from her. She
continued to claw against it but it was all becoming so distant.
Down here she could no longer hear the voices of the galaxy.

'You can't do
this! You can't force your misery upon us!'

She tried to
fight her way back. She tried to aim her thoughts, to direct them
against the Warlord but she couldn't find him. She was completely
alone, swallowed inside his mind. She tried again but her thoughts
went nowhere. She was trying to move limbs that were no longer
attached to her body. But she continued to struggle. She continued
to fight.

Her world was
silent, dark, numb. Still she fought. Exhaustion was setting in.
Her thoughts were slowing, deviating from their purpose. Still she
fought. The clouds of the true mind of Icarus were almost upon her.
Still she fought.

The Warlord had
control of Icarus now. He was slowing it down, redirecting it from
the black hole. He would turn it upon the Yurrick. He would have
Icarus destroy their world and imprison their minds in here. And
Seline... Seline would be trapped in here as well unless she acted
first, unless she could kill herself and keep her mind free. He,
the Warlord, Cassidy, would be laughing and celebrating all the
while. And his insanity would only grow with time.

Her mind was
shaking. Her thoughts were scattered. The darkness was
overwhelming. Fear and confusion and hurt were all she could see,
all she could feel. These were the most intimate of the Warlord's
emotions, those feelings with which he was best acquainted. He knew
how to use them as a weapon. Within Icarus, he'd learnt very
quickly the power that he could wield by turning his emotions on
her and drowning her within them. What would Icarus do to him?
Perhaps it could learn more from him than it did from her. Perhaps
the Warlord would give himself willingly to it and try to assist
it, if it would let him.

Her mind was so
tired. From fighting off Icarus, from trying to understand and help
the lost minds of the other prisoners, from trying to control
Icarus, to co-ordinate its massive, lumbering body, from having
spent so much time hoping she would see her daughter again. But she
has seen her. And the hoping had been worth it, even the despair
that it brought had been worth seeing her again.

She could feel
a hand inside her head. Was it her own? She didn't think it was but
it felt so familiar. It felt so alive, so gentle and benign. The
hand grabbed hold of something. Seline. Florence found her
squinting up into the light of the sun. Her nose wrinkled. She
found Seline, laughing at the way Florence had tied her hair. She
found Seline singing a song. Her voice was small. It was the most
beautiful thing she'd ever heard. She found the mind of her
daughter and the life they shared. This is what she focused on. The
memories held as a torch against the Warlord's darkness.