*
I woke. I felt myself suspended within a fluid of some kind. Opening my eyes the blue fluid obscured my view. The world seemed much smaller in here and much easier than out there. I never wanted to leave. I closed my eyes again but a faint banging prevented me from shutting them.
Opening my eyes I tried to see.
There was a something banging upon the membrane of whatever it was that I was in. I tried to focus.
I squinted my eyes.
Its face was placed upon the membrane and I recoiled in horror.
It was the same monster as before. I felt my blood boil. My heart began to race faster and faster. The monsters mouth seemed to writhe. Its lips were still missing. The decaying black teeth, inches long, moved independently of one another. My head pounded to the beat of my heart. Its eyes were hideous, like those a dead fish. I couldn’t run and there was nowhere to hide.
As though failing to see me inside this sack of fluids the monster turned and slunk out of vision. As it did so I felt the fluid in my tank surge. Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, I thought. The fluid was draining.
Suddenly I was flushed to the ground. Coughing and shocked by the temperature transition I scrambled on my hands and knees to the corner. The lights burst into life about the room.
The white room was revealed by that light and displayed flirtatiously its wares. It was a warehouse filled with row after row of blue fluid filled membranes. Each and every single pod seemed to contain a person. They were surrounded by light. Not an aura or a halo but twisting spires. I blinked and they were gone, only the tanks remained.
I heard a musical humming behind me. I turned around to see Sean.
‘Sean!’ I called.
‘Hello George. I was becoming quite worried. Blue Dawn introduced a sedative to the atmosphere. I believe she used one of the Mass Transport systems to take you here. I do not know where Aeniah is,’ he replied, the usual good humour was not present in his voice.
‘Sean, did you see it? It was trying to get me. Where did it go? Where is it?’ I cried.
‘I saw nothing George. Short range scanners detect no presences other than ourselves within this room. George...Blue Dawn...something has gone wrong. I don’t understand. It is up to you George, I cannot plan for this. I need some instruction.’ Sean seemed worried, but I felt crazy. I looked again around the room and saw the same blue membranes. There was nobody there. But there had been. They were sleeping here. This is where they came to rest. Had we woken them?
‘Sean. Why did she do this? What the hell is wrong with station? Sean, don’t look at me like that. Something went seriously wrong on Ascension and it started to go wrong long before the Resource Wars,’ I stated with a conviction that I did not think I had within me.
‘I know George. When Blue Dawn initiated the quarantine it appeared that that she was responding to some stress factor, some environmental contagion. However I detected nothing of the sort - and my sensors are quite accurate. There is something else. At the time that Blue Dawn activated her quarantine I do not believe that she had had sufficient time to activate her sensors properly.’
‘What are you saying Sean?’
‘George. I simply do not have the information to answer that question. What I do believe is that something is deeply wrong on Ascension. Though I must point out that machine failure rate is surprisingly low among United World constructs, so there is every possibility that her sensors were online and she reacted proportionally and according to protocol.’ Sean’s voice had oscillated distinctly throughout the conversation.
‘What makes you think that Sean?’ I replied with growing concern. He did not answer. There was a period of silence between us. Finally I exclaimed ‘Sean are you sentient? Nobody has ever managed to produce a sentient machine, have they?’
‘Yes George, they have. They produced many of them, so very many. Eventually of course the Resource Wars took them away. History might have forgotten but the Eternis Corporation did not. At least some of its members did not. Sephra knew it, Aeniah knows it. Blue Dawn, George, she is sentient and so am I.’
I began to back away. ‘Sean I’m so sorry. I mean. I didn’t know.’
‘It’s okay George. Your right, you didn’t know. You see after the Resource Wars society never really recovered in so many ways. Artificial Intelligence was frightening; it reminded them of the war. I survived by pretending to be just like everything else. No smarter than a phone.’
‘You mean that you remember the Resource Wars? Your that old?’
‘Yes George I am that old. But I remember little. There are many disadvantages to being dumb. One of them is that they re-write you, they modify you. They have made me forget so very much. Aside from a few pieces of information here and there I am as blind as you are.’
‘And Aeniah, you said that she knew. Is she that old?’
‘George, I simply cannot comment on Aeniah. Her background is classified and all records related to her are sealed by the Presidium party.’
‘How did you find me, how did you get here Sean?’ I asked hoping to find any information that I could. ‘I don’t mean to Ascension, but from the DCNs to wherever this is.’
‘Why, George I came here the same way as you. Blue Dawn used a Mass Transport device to get me here.’ Seeing my quizzical expression Sean sighed and stated simply ‘it is like teleportation, only it actually exists.’
We passed a few minutes in silence. Sean was clearly waiting for further instructions.
‘Okay let me think, just let me think.’ I stared about the room, there was nothing to be done. I had to shoulder the burden of getting us out of here, of finding a new direction.
The reason I was here was too important to give up on. I had to think.
Something was happening within my brain, I knew it. Thoughts and feelings that I had never known before had sprung into motion, had been springing into motion for some time now. I could feel new information course through me, information that was not mine. I sat in silence and focussed. I focused on the part of me where these thoughts were coming from. It was like a source of light across my peripheral vision and yet no matter how hard I tried to look at it, I could not get it to the centre of my vision. I tried to focus, suppressing all thoughts other than those I needed to see it, to get just one glimpse of that magical light. I focused and focused and slowly it came into my field of vision. Then it centred. As it centred I could feel raw energy coursing through me as if I had suddenly become connected to some higher power. It was incredible. It was like seeing for the first time.
Overwhelmed by this light, drinking it in, I became intoxicated by it. All around me raindrops of cool light fell. As the raindrops fell they projected images like rainbows which arched around them. The prisms fell. As they hit the floor and dispersed into a thousand others I wanted to drink them in, to hold them, to run my fingers through them. Standing now I saw what needed to be done. Ascension was a disease, it was plagued. Blue Dawn had known it, she tried to stop it.
I had to let go of the connection, it was too much. Whatever it was I had stumbled upon was grasping at my chest, clutching itself onto me so tightly my eyes were burning.
Desperately I clawed it away from my eyes, and the world became washed of colour as I fell tumbling back into reality.
‘Sean...Blue Dawn... Something about that artefact, 77-x, it has done something to her. Whatever she’s up to, it can’t be good’ I breathed as air flooded back into my lungs.
‘Then we should try and get back to the ship. If Blue Dawn is mad, then I don’t think she has any information that we need.’ Sean returned levelly.
‘No, she does know something. Something important.’ I knew Sean would have no idea what I was trying to say. Words and language were escaping me. That force, everything I was experiencing was indescribable.
‘For a while now, since Sephra changed me. I’ve been seeing things. Only they’re not clear. Its like looking into a mirror, only the mirror
is smashed to pieces, and I can only make out parts of the reflections.’ I paused to see if her understood. He bobbed a little encouragingly.
‘I saw the artefact and I saw her. They were together but apart. She knows something crucial. Blue Dawn is our only option. If we leave now we can never free the colonies from their damnation.’ I was certain of it now, it just had to be done.
‘Very well George we shall have to find out what it is she knew. But I don’t think that she will offer us anything. If she has become corrupted then we cannot trust anything that she might say.’
I didn’t know what else to do. Getting back to Blue Dawn and the DCNs seemed so important. But he was right. We couldn’t trust her. We couldn’t take the risk.
‘The research sections, what about them? The scientists from the Eternis Systems. They must have figured out something in the time they were here. If we could find their research we could figure out…well anything we could figure out might be useful’ Sean nodded in agreement. It wasn’t much of a plan but it was all that we had.
‘First though we’ll need a weapon, something that can actually take out whatever these things are that are roaming the station. There must be something.’ I searched my eyes around the room for something.
Sean interrupted me. ‘There is an armoury nearby,’ he almost chuckled. ‘Apparently there’s no paradise without guns,’ Sean answered with humour.
I motioned for Sean to lead the way. He turned and fluttered in the air whilst resuming his musical humming and flew away. Hurriedly I followed him into the unknown.