Extinction (50 page)

“Did you really mean it when you
said I was the only thing you needed?”

“You know I did, pumpkin.” Nancy
kissed him on the forehead.

“I think you knew that they will
buy you whatever you want when we get there so you didn’t bring anything. You
wanted all new clothes!” Jason poked his mother playfully.

“You’re not the only genius in
the family.” Nancy looked into her son’s eyes and babbled the phrase she had
heard from him so many times before. She never knew what it meant until the
other day when she put it through a translator device. It was five different
languages put together. “You are my everything.”

Jason let a single tear go. “You
did hear me.”

“Every word, every time.”

Unknown Time, Unknown Place

“Am I dead?“ Bloom
realized that his inner dialogue had somehow become external as well. He knew
that he hadn’t opened his mouth but he also knew that what he had heard was his
own voice coming from outside his own mind. Bloom had been using a comlink for more
than ten years and he knew the difference between sounds sent directly into his
neural synapses and sounds coming from outside his head and through his own God-given
auditory canals.

He tried thinking again. “Is anyone else
here?“ It was external again. Bloom made a mental note that if he did meet
anyone here, wherever here was, that he wouldn’t be able to keep his thoughts
to himself so he needed to be careful. As he thought this he heard, “All right,
Bloom, you can’t keep your thoughts to yourself so be careful if you meet
anyone or anything. Oh shit, I can hear that. Oh man, this is going to get
annoying if not downright nerve-racking.”

Bloom realized that his eyes were
closed. “Should I open my eyes? I might not like what I see. Then again, if
there is something nasty around me, not seeing it won’t make it go away. I
guess I need to take a look. Besides, if there is anyone around me, they
already know what I’m thinking.”

Bloom opened his eyes and had absolutely
no idea where he was. Nothing was familiar to him until he looked up at the
stars. He realized that he was on the same planet that he had been on for the
past several months. The world looked completely different than what he had
become accustomed to since their arrival. There were buildings, people,
vehicles—a whole civilization. The people were obviously Nortes and he saw no
other races mingled in with them.

Bloom brought his arm to his chest and
looked down to find that his computer was gone. He felt around his head and his
visor was also gone. Bloom was clad only in his black field uniform. No
weapons, no communication devices, nothing that was familiar to him. Bloom
looked at the stars again. “I can recognize the constellations but without my
computer I can’t calculate what year this is. It would take me years using
pencil, paper, and a compass to figure out the year based on spatial drift
between the stars, the planet, and its satellites. I would have to calculate
the drift of stellar bodies in this region based on its location in respect to
the center of the galaxy and any singularities close enough to affect the
drift.”

As Bloom thought about the monumental
task it would take to figure out the date, the answers came to him. Numbers
flew through his brain and the answers seemed to create themselves from the
tangle of equations that flooded his mind. “Over one thousand years ago! That
can’t be right. How could I have traveled back one thousand years? I wasn't
near any alien equipment that could have created a wormhole. Not that I know of,
anyway.”

One thousand and twelve of your years,
to be exact. And who said that you have traveled back in time?

Bloom quickly turned around in place,
looked up, looked down at the ground, and saw no one. “Who and where are you?”

Hmmm, I really don’t know the answer
to either question. I guess from your point of view, you could say that I am
everywhere. As for who I am, I’m not sure that I am a who, not anymore, and
maybe I never truly was to begin with.

 “OK, if not who then what? Are you some
form of artificial intelligence?”

I don’t believe that I am artificial
in nature, not in the conventional sense, anyway. For now, let’s just agree
that I am here just like you.

“I guess that will have to do. But where
is here?”

Ah, now that I can answer. You are
looking at the first and last installation of the Nortes Empire in this
quadrant of the galaxy. The Nortes have been here for just over a year now.
Things are going well, but soon they will change.

“I don’t understand. The Nortes don’t
have an empire. Not anymore, at least. What happened here? My government has
limited contact with the Nortes but as far as I know, they only occupy one
solar system in this galaxy. They never venture out of their system except for
stuff like trade, education, and political reasons. We have no information
about an empire.”

Of course you don’t. They don’t want
you to know about it. They don’t want anyone to know about it. Let’s move
forward a little.

The scene swirled around Bloom and as it
began to slow down, he could see slight changes in the scenery. The buildings
looked to be slightly worn down, there were fewer people in the street, and
there were some other races mixed in with the Nortes. Bloom could identify a
couple of them, most notably by the languages they spoke. It was starting to
come together.

“The races here represent the
conglomeration of languages I detected in the alien writings I found in the
ruins. The older races of the galaxy used to live together. Something happened
that caused them to split.”

Very good. Oh don’t worry, all of
this tragedy that you see was a good thing. Or at least that’s what my friend
told himself as he was carrying out the plan.

“You were there? I don’t think you’re
telling me everything.”

I think you’re right. I’m not telling
you everything. But I’m not holding back purposely. As I was talking, I
suddenly had a flash of something. A feeling perhaps, a memory…I don’t know. I
do know what I am here for, though.

“I’ll take what I can get. What are you
here for?”

To tell the story of what has passed
into history. To give information to those who need it. For those who will use
it for the right reasons. I know what has brought you here and what you need. I
will do my best to give it to you. I will do my best to help you.

“We’re in my mind, aren’t we? That’s why
I can’t keep my thoughts internal.”

No, we are in my mind and I was not
allowing you to keep your thoughts to yourself. I needed to know who you were
and what you wanted. From now on, you may keep your thoughts to yourself. I
will only be able to hear what you want me to hear when you think it.

“Thank you. It may not be important to
you, but it’s important for my people to be able to have personal thoughts
while we work things out.”

My people were not allowed to have
personal thoughts. We were interrogated often to confirm our continued loyalty.
Talking with you is helping me to remember things I have not thought of for
centuries.

“Where are you? If I am in your mind,
where is your body?”

I don’t think that I have one anymore,
at least not a functioning one. It has been so long since I’ve even bothered to
check in on my physical form. Now, let us get on with the matter at hand. It is
time for you to learn what happened and what you must do to save your galaxy.

“Clear!” The word sounded hollow
to Reaper’s seemingly disembodied consciousness, though the meaning was
completely solid in his mind. He had seen the actions that followed the word
but had never been on the receiving end of what was about to come. He mentally
braced for the two hundred joules of energy that were about to flow across his
chest and through his heart; he didn’t feel a thing as he watched his body arch
upward on the operating table. Apparently there were some benefits to being
clinically dead, a lack of pain chief among them.

“Results?” The doctor was looking
towards the nurse attending the monitor.

She smiled. “Sinus rhythm. We’ve got
him back.”

A corpsman spoke up from Reaper’s
side. “Don’t throw a party yet; he still doesn’t have a pulse and his pressure
is still gone.”

Reaper wanted to scream, “PEA—Pulseless
Electrical Activity! Remember your
H
s and
T
s, people!” But being
clinically dead also had its drawbacks, not being able to speak chief among
them.

The doctor was a practiced trauma
surgeon and didn’t skip a beat, absent though they were in Reaper’s chest. “
H
s
and
T
s, people. We can rule out hypothermia, hydrogen ion, hypo or hyper
kalemia, or toxins.”

“
Oh crap
”, Reaper thought.
“
I’m in a teaching hospital. This should be interesting
.”

The doctor continued. “That
leaves hypovolemia, hypoxia, trauma, tamponade, tension pneumothorax, and thrombosis.
Most of these apply considering he was shot in the chest multiple times. We’re
going to open him up and figure out the cause of the PEA. Keep strong and
steady on the compressions while I get the chest tray.”

Reaper could see the doctor
moving the surgical kit labeled “Chest, Exploratory” from the shelf to the
bedside table.  As the doctor sprayed sterilizing iodine all over Reaper’s bare
chest, Reaper decided it was time to check out. There was only so much his body
and mind could take, and right now he knew he couldn’t handle the mental trauma
of watching his own chest being cracked open. It was easier than he had
expected, to remove himself from the here and now and drift back into the
deeper recesses of his memories to a different time, a distant place…

~

“Bryce! Get in here, now!” The
voice that was usually so deep and soothing to Bryce was a cannon of anger
today.

Bryce walked through the kitchen
door. “Yeah, Dad?” Trying to be light in his mood didn’t help the situation; his
father just glared angrily at him. “Um, I mean, yes, sir?”

Trying to suppress a portion of
his anger before he spoke again, his father finally asked, “Can you explain to
me why your little sister is purple?”

Bryce could see his mother in the
other room, purposely sequestering herself from the conversation, probably due
to the fact that she couldn’t keep a straight face and was barely containing
her hysterical laughter. Bryce caught himself as the right side of his mouth
threatened to betray him with a smile as it began to curl upwards. Luckily, his
father missed the almost-smile and Bryce got his face back under control.

Bryce’s little sister Maya was in
fact a fairly pretty shade of purple from head to toe. Maya wasn’t exactly sure
what all the fuss was about. She was excited to show all of her kindergarten
friends her new skin color; they would all be very jealous. Like a lot of
Coalition schools, there were usually species other than humans in the
classrooms. There were only a few humans in Maya’s class and they were all very
jealous of the Trizites who could change color with their emotions. They would
now be jealous of her new hue. Very exciting indeed.

Bryce was twelve and a fairly
smart kid. He tested in the top ten percent of his class in every area of
testing. He wasn’t the smartest kid in his class but his parents knew they
wouldn’t have to worry about him ever falling behind in his studies. He did,
however, excel in his interest in medicine, following in the footsteps of his
father.

Bryce’s father was a trauma
surgeon at a local hospital and often took Bryce to work with him. Bryce was
always helping other kids on the playground, patching their scrapes and tending
to their roughhousing traumas. Even though Bryce was pretty good with his basic
trauma skills, he really excelled with internal medicine. He was always
searching the Net for home remedies and folk medicine treatments from all over
the Coalition. Bryce would often combine herbs and elements from different
species’ remedies to create a new one that usually worked how he wanted it to.
Rashes, hives, sore throats, colds, and various flu strains along with many
other basic ailments were cured with his concoctions.