Skyquakers (21 page)

‘No, it
’
s not destroyed, not at all. I
’
ve
seen it, it
’
s all fine. As long as his plans aren
’
t
interrupted by
…
well
…’

‘What, Psycho, what?
’

He ran his hands down his face.
‘
Look,
others just don
’
t understand the bigger
picture like I do. People think they
’
re invaders, like they
’
re
here to blow up the place and enslave us all, but it
’
s not like
that! No matter how they approach it though, humans are always going to be
aggressive towards them. Our aversion to change, this obsession with conservatism,
and the egocentric idea that we are all there is and ever shall be, was always
going to make the transition difficult.’ He looked down and shook his head.
‘Others are never going to accept the things that I
’
ve
accepted; they
’
ll never understand what good
they
’
re doing here and how important it is that they
succeed. The only way we
’
re going to survive is if we
salt the earth entirely; dig out the roots of the problem.
’

‘
What problem?
’

Psycho stared at her through the glass of her pod with
unflinching, ghastly eyes. He murmured,
‘
People
are the problem. They
’
re pests. They
’
re
trying to ruin our plans, burn our creations,
fight
against us. If we were ever going to succeed, well, some measures needed to be
taken to ensure the continuation of
—’

She backed away, horrified.
‘
Psycho,
what have you done?
’

‘
I burned them
,
’
he hissed
through the glass.
‘
I smoked them out and
burned
them
. There aren
’
t many left now. Soon, there
’
ll
be none.
’

She could only stare.
‘
Oh, Jesus.
’

‘It
’
s what I have to do, Lo. There
are some out there who want to fight us, but they can’t win.
’
He stood up, adjusted his lapels and straightened back his once wild and
untamed hair.
‘
I
’
m proud of
what I
’
ve done. People die only because they
’
re
too dumb to understand. I
’
m clearing the fields of the
rodents and weeds so that we can start anew. I
’
m making
this a better place for all of us. You
’
ll
appreciate all my work one day.
’
He shouted to the
hundred-thousand others in hibernation,
‘
You all
will!
’

‘You really are
…
psychotic.
’

‘No, I
’
ve just grown up and learnt my
place in the universe.
’

‘As their dog.
’

‘No! It
’
s nothing like that!
’

‘Look at you!
’
she cried.
‘
They
dress you, right? They tell you where to go, when to eat, when to sleep
…
They tell you to do things and you do them, don
’
t you?
’

‘Because
I
want to, not because
—’

‘You
’
re their pet.
’

‘I
’
m their equal.
’

‘You
’
re
nothing
to them,
’
she snarled.
‘
And one day they
’
ll
get sick of you, or one day
you
’
ll
be
in their way, or maybe they
’
ll simply run out of things
for you to do, and when they don
’
t need you anymore, you
’
ll
be in here with me and everyone else.
’

‘Never,
’
he hissed.
‘
Engineer
loves me and I love him. No one understands that except me.
’

‘Get away from me,
’
she snarled.
‘
Put
me to sleep again. I’m done with you.
’

Psycho felt a little offended, a bit heartbroken.
‘
Lo,
’
he said softly,
‘
you have no idea how long I
’
ve
been waiting for this. I was so prepared. And I was so prepared to share all of
this with you. This was what we were trained for.
This
was meant to be
the purpose of our existence. I really wish you were here with me.
’

But Lara was not speaking to him anymore. She curled up,
turned away on her side, and crossed her arms in a pout.

Psycho knelt down to her pod and sighed. He looked around
cautiously and whispered,
‘
The one you call Baba
…’

Lara swung back.

‘I know who he is.
’

She sat upright.
‘
I want to see him.
’

‘You can’t.
’

‘Why not?
’

‘No one ever sees him. Some say he
’
s sick.
They say he can
’
t sleep and has gone mad in
his room. Engineer said he’s ill with depression. To them, it
’
s
a serious affliction. You know, I
’
ve seen us become infatuated
with them, but I
’
ve never seen one of them
become infatuated with us.
’

‘What do you mean?
’

Psycho smiled.
‘
He
’
s lovesick.
Lovesick for you.
’

Lara pressed her hands against the glass.
‘
You
have to tell him I
’
m here! Please! I have to see
him!
’

‘I can
’
t
—’

‘Please!
’

‘You
’
d be too terrified to see
—’

‘I
’
m terrified already! Please, I
won
’
t ever ask for anything else. I don
’
t
care if I sleep in here for eternity; I just want to see him once. Please,
Psycho, please. If you have any humanity left in you, you
’
ll
let me see him.
’

Psycho considered this for a while, as though it was a
challenge of his loyalty. He looked around to make sure they were still alone
in the epic silence of the warehouse. He looked back and saw Lara desperately
pleading at his feet. He stood. Where the feeding tube extended from her pod,
he had placed a single alligator clip to cut off the flow of anaesthetic-like
drugs, allowing Lara to emerge from her coma. He undid that clip, and, once
relaxed, the clear fluid began flowing again through the tube, into the cocoon,
and directly down her neck.

‘I
’
ll get him,
’
he said.
‘
You won
’
t see him,
but he
’
ll at least see you. Pleasant dreams, Lo.
’

There was one giant on the ship whom Engineer and Vet often
spoke of but no one ever saw: the captain. He was in charge of the entire
operation; a first-generation star traveller with infinite wisdom, Psycho was
told. But since the beginning of the conquest, he had become a recluse. Rumours
of illness spread throughout the ship, and after many months of absence, it was
soon declared that Engineer, his second in command, was to take charge in his
place. Engineer was well-prepared to take on the role and kept the operation in
motion. He was a stern leader, feared and respected equally. He and Captain
were close colleagues who had travelled vast distances across the universe and
had overcome many treacherous obstacles together, but time could not be wasted
on empathy: there was still work to be done.

The first order Engineer gave was the culling. According to
Vet, Captain had wanted to preserve as much life as possible, but life in
suspended animation was expensive to maintain and resources were already scarce
enough. Species were incinerated by the millions within days of their arrival,
lightening the ship
’
s load and fuel expenditure,
as well as freeing up millions of pods in their warehouses where the remaining
specimens slept in comas.

Secondly, Engineer ordered destruction.

Psycho first proved to be of much greater use to the giants
when he informed them of possible manmade threats which their kind may have
never been aware of, threats which could prove fatal once they started working
with boots on the ground. Although they had carefully observed human military
regimes from a distance over their years of observation, they never felt
threatened by them because, firstly, human machines were tiny and insignificant,
and the cloud had a nuclear arsenal large enough to exterminate them all in a
few swift clicks, and secondly, humans spent so much time and effort bombing
and shooting each other that they appeared too idiotic and undisciplined to
ever be capable of mounting a global revolt against their coming. But that,
perhaps, was classic naivety. Global catastrophes often united several powerful
forces, Psycho explained, and militant groups who had been submerged or
operating deep underground during the onslaught of the beams would currently be
banding together to take serious action against them as they spoke. They may
even rustle up some nuclear warheads of their own, enough to damage the very
fragile engines of the ship and bring them all crashing down in a hellish ball
of flames.

Engineer laid down a map of the world and asked Psycho to
circle where the major military points of interest were. Other than Washington
D.C. and the whole of North Korea, Psycho couldn
’
t give much
information. But he did point out two cities in Australia, Canberra and Darwin,
which were noted for their military repertoires. What became of those cities
was inevitable. Engineer gave the orders to torch the place and wipe out any
living thing they could find, in fear that this city had the personnel and
resources to plot against them. They couldn
’
t just
vaporise the place, because the fertile soil under the city was precious and
any nuclear strike would tarnish its fertility, and so ground troops had to be
armed and tactics had to be drawn up. In this instance, Psycho recommended
putting the transitioned humans to proper use: put some weapons in their hands,
let them scour the city and smoke out the last few measly survivors hiding in
the rubble. Psycho was there in Darwin when it all unfolded. He directed the
humans in suits to areas where people would be hiding: shopping centres,
warehouses, underground parking lots… And he showed the eyes in the sky where
the navy bases were located and what a war ship looked like, so that the storm
could target those threats directly. In a single day, the entire northern
coastline was set ablaze as the cloud unleashed a colossal airstrike onto
Darwin.

Psycho felt very little as he watched the city burn. There
was nothing much here to fuss about, nothing nostalgic. That was first day
Engineer saw some brilliance in him.

Engineer began setting up his farms about three weeks in. By
this time, multiple successful specimens had been created in Vet
’
s
laboratories and released back into the ecosystem. It was only then that Psycho
realised the true brilliance of it all and saw what Vet meant by his deviation
from Noah’s ark: this ship housed many millions of animals to be used in the
re-establishment of the Planet, but there was something different about the
animals when they were beamed back down and returned to the wild.

Through millions upon millions of trials, Vet was able to
genetically match and fuse species from Earth with biologically analogous life
forms from their former planet. Why? Well, they could not live in the clouds
forever; eventually they would have to establish colonies on the ground, and
those colonies would need to be able to grow their own food and survive on the
surface independently. Earth was the ideal blank slate in terms of heat, gravity,
atmosphere and biodiversity that they had been desperately searching for, but
there were still many differences in biology, sunlight, water composition, soil
pH, and atmospheric gases which would not support a foreign species from
another world. The fusion process produced specimens equipped to live and grow
on Earth while still maintaining their original chemistry, therefore allowing
their entire planet
’
s ecosystem to fuse with Earth
’
s
prior to them, themselves, integrating into the food chain.

It was an epic trial-and-error endeavour of genetic needles
in a haystack, and physiology alone was often not the principal factor in
determining which two species were capable of forming a hybrid analogue. Things
which looked alike and were classed alike did not mean they would fuse
seamlessly; sometimes the matches were in fact quite contrasting, creating
colourful and unique experimental creatures. A supercomputer in Vet
’
s
lab did most of the work, sorting through samples taken from millions of
species and analysing its genetic composition for possible similarities. The
computer made billions of theoretical attempts
in silico
every second.
After it found a near-ideal match (with a theoretical success rate of at least
95%), it took several hundred actual
in vivo
attempts to give birth to
biologically viable subjects. Hence the need for so many, Vet said. Those which
were successful and produced healthy, fertile analogues were then returned to
Earth via the beams to either go back into the wild or into farms to be reared.

Not all species, of course, were farmed. Many wild animals
were released and left to happily repopulate on their own, in order to slowly
mend the food chain which they had broken. Those deemed edible were contained
in massive paddocks and monitored by giants. The beams built warehouses and
iso
-pneumatic living shelters for them to live and work,
and within a month they had begun to inhabit the ground in very small teams.
Their transitioned humans were often with them to assist as guides and as
watchdogs, unfazed by the gradual shift in biology which was taking place
around them. In the meetings, Psycho heard reports to Engineer and Vet that the
analogues were breeding well and growing exponentially in numbers. Everyday,
more than two hundred new species of hybrid were being were being added to the
ever-growing biosphere that would soon become their new home.

But of course, there was the occasional incident. Trouble
was brewing in some parts of the country and farmers began reporting
‘
feral
’
activity. These
ferals
were in the form of
natives. They were thieves, arsonists, anarchists, and disease-ridden wildlings
working in small, organised packs. They either wanted their food or wanted them
gone, and some were becoming increasingly violent and causing damage to their
warehouses and their farms. The last straw came when two farmers were shot and
beaten to death in their warehouse in northern New South Wales, with their
entire farm set ablaze in protest of their occupation.

Engineer had no issue in demanding their eradication,
swiftly and mercilessly. Unlike the insects and fish and plants and fungi left
behind, this was not a species he was willing to tolerate and would want
running wild on his new planet, no matter how few in number. They were beginning
to act harmoniously, just as Psycho had predicted. Believing he was capable of
predicting their moves even further, Psycho was granted a position of power as
the leader of a hunting party. He and a small band of transitioned humans were
given permission to do incredibly horrid acts. They were given weapons. They
were told to do whatever they felt was necessary.

Psycho did exactly that: he hunted them, he had them shot,
drowned, burned, and prodded until their twitching bodies went quiet beneath
his leather shoes. Sometimes they would come across a hideout containing twelve
or fifteen of them; sometimes there was only a lonely pair. Sometimes there
were children, too.

When he spoke to Lo and told her of the great work he was
doing, of the marvel of the new world that he was watching grow from the ashes
of a failed civilisation, he was shocked by her reaction.

‘
You really are
…
psychotic.
’

Pah
!
She did not understand. She was unable
to see the benefit of his actions from her position of denial. The universe was
not so dull and boring anymore; there were far greater things than them among
the stars, so a few dead idiots could not deter him from his role in the new
order of things. Lo would come to terms with these changes soon, and he could
not wait to show her the world once it was rebuilt. He would personally give
her a tour of the Planet, a reimagined planet of shared intelligence, of new
beginnings. This world was created for people like Lo.

People like us.

As for the dead ones, they could never understand. Like
these creatures in their pods or the specimens being brought to life in the
laboratories, mankind was simply an analogue of something which was once
interesting and once worth caring about. Now it was just an imitation of
something which no longer existed.