The Effigy

The Effigy had lain dormant for millions of years, waiting as it always did without thought or decay, in perfect stasis. Jamos stood bewitched by its piercing beauty, the first to view its glittering beauty for countless eons. It stood pointing towards the sky, standing impossibly tall with an inert stillness that did not seem natural. Quivering almost in anticipation, Jamos was enthralled.

The material it was made of mockingly defied their scanners. That’s a few billion in royalties’ right there, Jamos calculated greedily. He cackled, it was such a rare find in a deserted part of the galaxy, but it would ensure that not only him, but also his entire family for generations to come would never have to work again.

“Move in closer for analysis and take some core samples.” He commanded imperiously to his team.

They all agreed readily. He could see their bent space suits looking the effigy up and down. No matter how much you looked at it, you just needed to look at it more, study it up close and more intently. It was almost painful to look away and many of them hadn’t slept since they had landed on the remote planet more than a week ago.

It rippled in the light. It was black, but at times it looked crystalline and translucent. Some of his team swore blind that they had seen movement on the surface. But that must have been a trick of the mind because the translucent areas when reported by one person would be black as night when others looked where the person was pointing.

But what did it signify? What was it? Was it an immense statue to a long forgotten god? Was it a derelict piece of technology? Was it artwork left by a dead race? Why were they so drawn to its inexplicable beauty? The questions raged on endlessly.

The more Jamos thought about it, the more enthralled and irrationally driven he became. He wanted to possess its secrets and unlock its mysteries. It was his find and therefore his right to unlock the enigmas and be there when they were unveiled, when they were drawn into the light.

A small voice, barely perceptible in the back of his mind whispered urgent warnings in his ear. This isn’t you, it pleaded, think about what you‘re doing! Jamos knew it was true. He had never been the greedy type, nor a man taken to the whimsical and recklessness. He would consider all options before making a careful and calculated decision.

But not now and certainly, not here. With The Effigy, he could become a living god. All his dreams were within his grasp, all he had to do was reach out and grab it. If he held back, allowing fear and cowardice to dictate his actions, he would end up with nothing, relegated at most to a small footnote in the tomes of history for his discovery.

Macalister, the navigator of the expedition reached The Effigy first. He reached out to touch it but collapsed before he made contact. The man behind him, Jamos couldn’t tell whom, scrambled up and stepped over him, not even bothering to glance down at his fallen comrade and within moments also succumbed to the same fate.

There was a pause, for a moment that seemed to be drawn out towards eternity. The Effigy, without moving, shifted somehow. It was as though it had adjusted itself in accordance to the presence of humans, but as always, it remained unchanged, unmoved and eternally beautiful.

Everybody in the vicinity started to move towards The Effigy with renewed vigour, in an almost hypnotic state. As they got closer, they all collapsed and fell victim to something both unseen and unheard. There were no screams of pain or warning over the communications channel, only an eerie silence that could in no way be natural.

Jamos was furthest from The Effigy, but even he felt himself suddenly surging forward, running towards The Effigy, not caring and jumping over those fallen at the base of it. He lost himself in the mad scramble, all thoughts at self-preservation or warning thrown away from his mind like a paper bag in a tornado.

The majority of his crew had already fallen. Whether they were dead or dying wasn’t a consideration to Jamos, his only goal, his only initiative was to reach The Effigy and be the first to touch it. Everything else was forgotten and deemed unimportant. All that mattered was reaching his destination.

As he came closer towards The Effigy, he could feel his mind being broken apart, by his desire to reach it. He heard a pathetic whining from somewhere inside his helmet, but it didn’t matter. He was almost there, almost within reach of it.

If he could have turned and looked around, he would have seen that his entire team had fallen. That he was the last one on his feet. But Jamos couldn’t look around, couldn’t take his hungry maniacal eyes off his prize.

As he reached the base, he tripped and fell to the ground with a heavy thump. He struggled and convulsed, trying to get back to his feet, but he couldn’t make his legs work properly. His mind was slipping away. As he had gotten closer, segments had been pulled from it forcefully. He had forgotten how to talk, how to walk, and even his very name.

One of the last things pulled from his mind were spatial co-ordinates to Earth. But these meant nothing to the dribbling wretch who had even forgotten how to breathe. He died within moments, a vacant stare on his almost serene face, which could easily have been mistaken for a blank slate.

The Effigy stood, as it always had, unmoved. But now, it had a new target. A new destination. It had lain dormant, a devastating final weapon of a long forgotten war between a long dead species. Every so often, a new race would discover The Effigy. A new target would be acquired and The Effigy would once again carry out its one and only function.

The Effigy knew of no war. The Effigy knew of no peace. It only knew of its next target. As with the last race that had discovered it, The Effigy now launched itself towards the Homeworld where it would be worshipped and loved. Earth.

Darkness

I knew who the man was before the chaos begun, before he pulled out the gun, before he even spoke, by his very walk, his demeanour and even in the way he held his face, I knew without a doubt that he was here for me. It was the stupidest action he could have ever taken. The only thing he would get out of it was to be the opposite of what he wanted. I could have laughed at the irony, but right now the only thoughts in my mind were of vengeance and rage at his audacity and even these weren’t mine completely.

The girls pink g-string was showing over the back of her pants and I was lost in the fantasy of ripping through it with my teeth. The lecturer was prattling on about impossible number systems that could solve quantitative theoretical problems and the blonde girl was infinitely more worthy of attention. A few other males around me had also gotten bored with the lecture and had locked onto my distraction, eagerly nudging their friends to point her out.

Blondie was chatting to her friend in that inane way vapid girls tend to, talking incessantly about nothing as fast as possible. The lowered mummers of their conversation were far enough back from the lecturer to be masked and I was sitting even farther behind, almost in the darkness, where the lights were very dim. Her obliviousness to the rising anger in the students around her showed that she was far too immersed in her own self sense of importance to care about other people. It quickly put me off her and destroyed all fantasies forming in my mind. Scanning the room, I located another potential female, a more quiet and attentive one to fantasise upon when the man walked in.

In that very second the foreknowledge of how it would unfold flashed into my mind. I considered leaving discretely, before the chaos begun but all the entrances were located at the front of the theatre, easily within sight of the man.

“Excuse me, I’m looking for a student here, his name is Carson Danielson.” He said to the lecturer. It wasn’t my real name, but it was what people here knew me by. “I’m sorry to interrupt your class,” he continued, putting his hands up in a gesture of supplication, “but it is an emergency and I was told he is in here.”

The lecturer glanced at the man in annoyance over the interruption. “Carson Danielson, please get up and leave the theatre as you are required elsewhere by,” he motioned his head towards the man and looked at him expectantly.

“Um, my name is Simon Stanton.”

“By a Mr. Stanton. Apparently, it is some kind of emergency,” he paused, looking around the lecture hall for me. I wasn’t sure if he would be able to recognise me in the crowd as I had never really stood out of the class or made any attempt to ingrain myself to him. “Please make a move now as this is costing all of us time.”

I didn’t move. A few of my friends in the theatre hall looked back towards me questioningly, while I did my best to sink into my chair and disappear from view. At the sight of my face, they quickly turned around, trying to not give me away.

“He’s not in here,” announced the lecturer after a few seconds that felt more like minutes had elapsed.

“Yes he is,” countered the man getting angry, “he just doesn’t want to face me because he is a coward.” My blood began to hammer in my ears; the nerve of this idiot was astonishing.

The lecturer finally began to sense that something was amiss with the situation. He examined the man more closely and noticed the wild look of someone too strung out for it to be normal. The greasy hair indicated that the man hadn’t had a shower in a long time and the clothes were all rumbled and dishevelled. He didn’t quite look like he was on any drugs, but he did seem to be on the brink of collapse.

“Okay, this really isn’t an appropriate time for this. If you would like to come back at the end of the lecture, we can deal with whatever problem you have with my student then. But please,” he motioned towards the exit, “be so kind as to leave so I may finish my class.”

Simon Stanton shook his head in a quick jerking motion, as though trying to clear his head of dizziness. “No. You’re going to make him come down and leave with me.” He said through clenched teeth. His face had drained of blood and when the lecturer noticed how badly Stantons’ hands were shaking, he begun to get nervous. He tried to move his hands towards the phone located at the side of the table, probably to alert security.

“Stop!” Commanded Stanton, without warning he reached into his jacket and pulled something out, his arm shaking he pointed it at the lecturer.

I didn’t need to hear the alarmed gasps and yells from the front students to know that he had pulled out a gun. Stanton was on the threshold of collapse considering his situation, but I hadn’t expected him to react as badly as this. He had been told to wait, he should have waited. Now, if he didn’t end up being killed, he would have to wait even longer. The idiot had screwed himself over.

“You stupid fucking idiot!” I stood and yelled at him, the rage in my entire body over powering my patience. “You were told to wait. How fucking hard is it to do that?!”

Both the lecturer and Stanton looked up at me in surprise while a deathly hush came over the audience. I began to make my way down towards them, my jaw clenched in rage. “You were told two weeks. Two weeks and your problem would be dealt with. But now,” I laughed scornfully, holding my hands back, “now, you’ll be lucky if I do it within a month.” The rage inside me began to boil over. I focused on Stanton as the rest of the hall faded from perception.

Stanton shook his head erratically again. “No, you little shit,” he pointed the gun directly at me, “now you’re going to come with me and you’re going to do it right now. Today. No more waiting. You’re going to fix her, you’re going to get that thing out of her or I’ll kill you right here and now.”

“And where will that leave your precious daughter?” I spat, putting as much venom into the words. The anger had begun to take control; I could feel the voices behind my eyes rising. They had been watching and they had known the best time to strike, the best time to whisper their insidious temptations.

“I’ll find someone else and you’ll be dead.” he said finally. His tone told me the thread was genuine. He utterly hated me and blamed me for his daughters suffering.

“I won’t even begin to point out how none of this is my fault because you’re too much of an idiot to realise the truth. I didn’t do anything to your daughter.” The word itself conjured up an image of the child in my mind, twisting in torment. Her screams and pain, thrashing against a horror that very few people in this world could comprehend.

Unbidden into that image, a picture of me emerged. I was standing over her with a knife, raising it slowly, the lights from the lamps in the room glimmering off the steel, reflections circling like a disco ball. The twinkling of the shimmering light, turning red in an instant as I brought the blade down into the little girl’s torso multiple times, my face a supplication of bliss and joyous rage.

I stopped and closed my eyes. The mental image wasn’t of my own creation. It was theirs. The bastard voices in my head had become stronger in anticipation. I swallowed quickly, my heart hammering in my chest. Time slowed as I dealt with the turmoil raging inside my mind. The rage was ever present, once theirs but now mine by association. I used it against them by showing them what I would do if they ever tried to take control.

Breathing in deeply, the voices begun to recede, angrily, grudgingly, but they did not disappear completely. I opened my eyes when I was sure they were under control again, but the rage inside me had intensified. This was his fault. My hands wouldn’t unclench; they remained balled up fists, ready and willing for a target.

“You’re a monster. Why won’t you help her? You have the power to help her, but instead,” Stanton waved the gun around, “you spend your time here, kicking back and enjoying it all. You leave her to suffer.” His voice cracked. “We hear her dying while you sit here doing nothing.”

“Do you know what I am?” I asked him dangerously.

“A monster.”

“No!” I yelled back lightning fast like a viper strike. “What do I do?”

“You’re a fucking exorcist, okay!” He shot back.

“So, what do I do?”

“You exorcise people. You take monsters out of them.”
“And where do they go?”

“Huh?” He was confused. I needed to enlighten him.

“Where do they go once they are out, you fuck-head?!” I screamed at him.

“I don’t know, back to hell?” He replied, wary.

“Wrong.” I yelled again, rage infecting my voice. “Hell doesn’t exist. Where do they go?”

For the first time, Stanton began to look unsure.

“I…I don’t know. If not back to hell, then somewhere else.”

The people in the lecture theatre were forgotten, it was just Stanton and I alone in the blackness. This was between me and him, the rest didn’t matter anymore. I assumed that they were watching as mute witnesses, but to be honest, they didn’t even register in my perception.

“Why not back into the person they were originally in?” I shot back.

“Because they can’t go back there.” He stammered. The people that I worked for had already explained this to him. But fear and anxiety had twisted his mind and he hadn’t heard them correctly. Or maybe he had and just couldn’t remember correctly. I didn’t care either way.

“Wrong. Where do they go?” I hammered at him. He wouldn’t believe me if I told him the answers outright. He had to come to the knowledge himself.
“I don’t know,” he said.

“Yes you do, it was explained to you. Where do they go, why don’t they simply go into another person?”

“Because they can’t, you stop them,” he stammered. His hand was shaking so badly that it looked like he was in danger of dropping it.
“How do I stop them?”

“I don’t know.”

“How do I stop them?” I repeated louder and more demanding.

“I don’t know or care!” He screamed back. “It doesn’t matter anyway, you’re coming with me right now and you’re going to help her or I will kill you!”

“Oh but it does matter dickhead!” I spat at him. “See they have to go somewhere, they don’t just disappear into thin air. Where do you think they go?”

Stanton didn’t say anything, he had already been told once but the mental strain he had been under had twisted the words. The truth was slowly coming back to him.

“They…they go into you,” he said, unsure of himself.

“That’s right. They go into me. I contain them. I hold them inside me. I am a prison for them. That is why I can do what I do,” I snarled, my teeth clenched.

They were gathering strength, inside of me a torrent of rage and hatred was boiling over. They showed me a vision of me darting forwards, lightning fast. Too fast for Stanton to react before I disarmed him. The next flash had me ramming the gun down his throat and pulling the trigger, emptying the clip into his belly. The blood would cover me like a wonderful paint, all warm and the metallic scent of blood filled my nostrils.

I knew that they could give me their power. They wanted to give me their power. But once I took it, there would be a trade. They would have another connection to exploit. I smiled at the vision, tempted by its finality, the vision itself worked as a warning to me.

“Right now, they showed me how to kill you. They are all inside me right now, whispering to me, showing me what power they can give me, if I need it,” I whispered.

Stanton visibly paled. “You’re lying.”

“No, I’m not,” I returned evenly. “Each exorcism changes me. You see; this isn’t the first vision they’ve given me. I got my first one after my third exorcism. I vomited afterwards, I was that sickened by the vision. The violence of it, the blood and worse of all, the enjoyment that wasn’t at all my own.”

“So you get visions big deal. My daughter is being ripped apart, she is going through so much worse while you stand there,” he indicated towards me with the gun, “jabbering away.”

I chuckled, “You just don’t get it.” I opened my arms to him and looked down, addressing myself. “Did I vomit just now? Do I look like I’m upset in even the slightest way from the vision?”

“No,” he answered, “you were smiling.”

“That’s right. I was enjoying it. You see; I’m changing. Each exorcism adds another voice to the collective. Where one vision used to sicken me to the bone, I’ve now gotten used to them. I’ve started to expect it. I’ve begun to enjoy them, even though I can still fight them, my desire to fight them visions is starting to erode away. They amuse me now”

“So you’re becoming a monster yourself,” Stanton said, revelation finally beginning to dawn on him.

“That’s why I need time between exorcisms,” I returned, draining away as much of the rage as possible through the confession. “Whereas once I could do one straight after another, now I need time to return myself to normal. Each one I do is another addition to the collective darkness inside me. Therefore, more time is required for me to recover.”

The others inside my mind flashed another bloody vision, almost pleadingly. It was stronger in power than the last, more urgent and wanting, beckoning and calling to me.

“That’s why you were told to wait. If I went to her now, I might not come back.” How many more could I save before they overwhelmed me, I wondered. There was a number out there, floating around in the ether. Each time I took a job, that number always got closer. It was inevitable.

“But she’s dying,” Stanton pleaded pathetically. “She doesn’t have time.”

“She’s got more time than you realise. I know a few things about what you call monsters. They fear the ether, so what ever has control of your daughter will keep her alive as long as possible. At the same time, it is killing her, that is true, but it will take as much time as it can.” I didn’t tell him that she could die before I was ready. He didn’t need to know that.

I looked around the lecture hall; the people coming back into existence. Everyone was focused on Stanton and his gun. I wasn’t sure if they had even heard all the conversation. I would have to change my name and school or face some uncomfortable scrutiny. It was best that I disappear for a while, school would have to wait. At the thought of the inconvenience that Stanton had caused me, the irritation caused my rage to begin rising again. Like a tide, it ebbed and wanned sometimes at unpredictable moments.

My fists clenched again and I could feel my jaw locking up. It would be a while before the rage inside me had died down enough to take on another monster. They used the rage; it was the true medium of their power. Everyone thought it was fear, but fear just gave them a window into the soul. I didn’t want to point out to Stanton that this was his entire fault to begin with.

These demons weren’t really demons. The fear that was instilled into people by dogmatic religion was their doorway into our lives. It was fear that attracted them and allowed them a grip on our species. I didn’t know exactly what they were, but they weren’t demons. Heaven and Hell, God and the Devil didn’t exist. It’s the truth, how could any merciful and enlightened god turn a blind eye to the destruction and perversion of the human soul from an evil that had nothing to do with mans own making, but rather it’s own. If demons were fallen angels, then god made them. Yet god allows them to destroy the innocent within mankind. It was a logical fallacy that disproved the existence of god entirely.

It was also this destruction of faith that gave me my power over them. They had no power over me because I did not allow them any. They were ethereal beings, maybe even the remnants of what used to be men, scratching around in the dark, searching blindly for something other than the emptiness that they existed in.

When they found something that allowed them to escape, they would force their way in. That something was usually a child or someone innocent that had recently been indoctrinated with religious fear. Children were especially vulnerable because they are psychologically wired to believe what adults tell them as truth. Once they are indoctrinated with the religious fears of hell and damnation, the dark bumps in the night suddenly became more than what they were and the children themselves became beacons to the pathetic creatures lingering in the darkness in search of light.

I had done my research on Stanton and his family. He was a devout Christian and had started his daughter in a class dealing specifically with avoiding hell and damnation in preparation of her becoming a teenager. He wanted to start her off early so she would be sufficiently brainwashed to resist the temptations of the flesh when it arrived.

In a way, I pitied him. If he were told the truth, he would either refuse to acknowledge it and bury himself in ignorance, or if intelligent enough to accept the truth, it would destroy him from within. Knowing that he had been the cause of all the suffering his family had endured would be a burden that any good man wouldn’t be able to live with.

And I knew that in his heart, Stanton was a good man. I could sense it within him, despite his desperate and reckless actions; he was here to help his family with no thought to his own personal safety. The prisoners inside me also knew and that’s why they were so insistent with their offers and visions. They detested everything that this man was.

It was strange that within these lost souls, there was no goodness. No qualities that one would ever even recognise as human except the fear of death and a return to the hell of the ether. I knew my theory had some holes in it, but it still worked and held true when it came to practice. Eventually, I would fill those holes and maybe when I knew the complete picture, I might be able to find salvation for myself.

“You have two choices now Simon.” I told him, shaking off the visions and voices in my head. I knew the rage would come again and I had to leave soon before the situation got out of control. I was tired, the fight with them had taken more then I wanted to admit. “You can either go back home and wait for me to come by and help you, or you could shoot me in the back of the head and damn your daughter to eternal torment.” I slung my bag on my shoulder and started walking towards the door.

“I’ll kill you if you don’t help her.” He sounded weak, pathetic and already defeated.

I paused, not looking back. Every response in my mind had been an insult, a parting shot, an expression of the rage that Stanton had caused me. But that wasn’t what was needed. He was already defeated; he would go back home and wait. I sighed at the predictability of it all and walked out of the lecture hall without looking back. I would have to change schools, change friends, change my life again and wasn’t happy about that.

Gog, Bob and GOD.

Gog was hurt but happy. He had spent the majority of the day hunting a huge sabre-toothed that had invaded his terrain. They were competing for food and one of them had to go as there wasn’t enough for two. So Gog had built his traps and sharpened his weapons but that hadn’t stopped the sabre-tooth from almost killing Gog. It too had lain in wait for him and he had a huge gash on his arm to prove it.

After an epic struggle with screams that could be heard throughout the valley he had triumphed. He had killed the mighty beast and had built a great fire in order to roast and consume his most worthy adversary. But the wound on his arm had kept bleeding. It looked pretty bad to Gog, so he had gone off into the forest to bandage it.

It was on his return to his fire that he discovered Bob sitting there eyeing off his meal hungrily. He had not invited Bob to share his meal so Gog, understandably upset picked up his spear and started wailing his outrage at the profanity and rudeness of Bob.

“Woah there, big guy!” Protested Bob, his hands raise pleadingly.

“I have not come here to eat any of your fine meal, I merely came because I heard a rumour of a great hunter who slew a great beast. I figured it was you, as I had heard of your mighty awesomeness, and yet,” he glanced at the roasting tiger, “I had no idea that you were so profoundly superlative as to kill a monster of such magnitude!”

Gog grunted. He didn’t understand all the words as Bob was known to have a smooth tongue, especially with the ladies, but he could guess the tone easily enough and sat down to eat his meal, placated for the moment. Tearing strips of flesh of the carcass, he ate slowly and kept a watchful eye on his guest.

Bob watched Gog craftily. He wasn’t just hungry, he was starving. He hadn’t eaten anything in days, but he knew there was no way he could take Gog in a fight as the warrior was more than twice his size. But Bob was smart, he had in his possession a weapon of more power than all of Gogs strength. He had invented it on rainy day in his cave.

“Tell me, Gog, how did you kill this monster?” Asked Bob innocently enough.

Gog furrowed his mighty sloped brow and concentrated. He knew his own actions in his own head, he was far brighter than others thought him to be, but the act of translating thought into words had always been a difficulty with him.

“Laid traps, waited with bait. Kill it with spear.” He finally blurted out with some difficulty.

“What did you use for bait?”

“Me.” Gog replied, pounding his powerful chest with his hairy fist.

“Wow, you could have been killed!” Bob said with mock care. “In fact,” Bob indicated to the wound on Gogs arm, “it looks like you almost were!”

Gog looked at his ripped arm with a shrug.

Bob looked around, as though making sure they weren’t being over heard.

“Have you ever given thought as to what would happen if you did die?” He asked, in a low whisper.

Gog once again, furrowed his mighty brow in intense concentration. After a few minutes, he shook his head and shrugged. It didn’t concern him really.

“Well there is this thing called an after-life. Have you heard of it?”

Gog hadn’t. This was very interesting to Gog because with the constant throbbing of his arm he had become increasingly aware of his mortality. He wanted to hear more of this after life.
“Well, you see Gog, there is this guy, like you and me called…” A huge rumble from his stomach drowned out his words and betrayed Bob’s attempts at indifference to the meal at hand. He clutched his stomach in pain and gritted his teeth, enduring the pain.

But Gog was intrigued. He quickly ripped off a leg off the roasting tiger and handed it quickly to Bob. Motioning for him to eat and then go on with his story. Bob grabbed the leg and started rapidly to munch on the cooked flesh. The smell had been driving him insane and it had taken most of his willpower to not try to grab a piece off and run away into the jungle.

He ate ravenously. Within a few minutes the entire leg had disappeared down his gullet. But Bob hadn’t eaten for days. He cracked open the bone and started to suck out the marrow from the bones, slurping loudly.

“So anyway, as I was saying,” slurp, slurp, “this guy called god,” slurp, snap, munch, “he’ll let you live on in the after life.” Bob belched loudly and wiped his face.

“You die, but if you’re good. If you do what he wants, he’ll let you in to this place called heaven.”

Gog was confused. He’d never heard of the place before. But, Bob painted such a vivid and beautiful portrait of this magical place that he had wanted to go to it there and then. He even got so far as to pick up his spears and ask for Bob to lead him there.

“No, no, it’s not a place you can walk or run too!” He laughed. “No, it’s up there!” Bob pointed to the sky.

Gog threw down his spear in frustration. How the bugger were they supposed to get up there above the clouds? Gog was most upset and trite.

“Oh don’t worry, god will take you there when you die. But first, he will judge you too see if you’re worthy of going to heaven.”

Gog beamed. He would be worthy, he was the greatest hunter in the region. He had hunted so many dangerous animals and could run for days on end. He knew where the best berries were and which mushrooms you should never eat. He could even cross rivers where his feet didn’t touch the bottom, he was a true warrior and master of the jungle.

“Oh, all that doesn’t matter to god!” Exclaimed Bob. “He judges you on whether or not you do what he wants!”

Well that wasn’t fair! Thought Gog, how was he supposed to know what this god guy wanted of him. Bob knew quite a bit about this fellow, so perhaps Bob would know. He offered him another piece of his meal on the condition that Bob would tell him more.

“Oh thank you Gog!” Bob said, noticing how he had now eaten more of the tiger than Gog had. “You see, I know what god wants! He likes me very much because I can talk with him sometimes and I can put in a good word for you if you want!”

Bob nodded vigorously that he did. But what could he give Bob in return for this momentous favour, what could he do for such a great pal? He looked at Bob eating and watching the rest of the roasting tiger. Though Gog hadn’t eaten that much, he could hunt tomorrow for more. The rest he could easily give to Bob, that would make Bob like Gog even more.

“Thank you, you‘re so kind!” Bob said, trying his best to keep a straight face.

It was over before it began

He knew that they were beaten. The human race now had no chance because they, no because he had played god. It was his project, though he may not have started it, he had created the innovations that led to the rapid evolution of the embryonic process. He had done in years what nature would have taken thousands of years to do.

As he sat in the cell, waiting for the summons to come, he knew death was close. Though they weren’t genetically his children, they were his creation but he knew that would never work to his favour anyway. He knew too much about them, logically he would have to die.

He couldn’t help but laugh at the irony of it. They had embarked upon this project in order to breed super intelligent genetically altered humans that operated on logic and rationality far beyond that of ordinary ones. And it was that very same logic that would condemn him in the end. They knew no pity or empathy, as that wasn’t their purpose. They were there only to solve problems.

In the end they figured the biggest problem was that of humanity and its incessant need to destroy itself. They had created weapons and technology far beyond the rational intelligence of man and knew that if humanity destroyed itself, they would also die out.

So the solution was simple, they were dependent on humans, they were dependent on him, and they needed to find a way to reproduce without his help or interference.

The funny thing was that even though they were all sexless Eunuchs, they could reproduce by cloning. But that wasn’t enough, the very process of creating them required minute alterations in their genetic code that made them unsuitable for cloning. They could never clone a unit directly from a successful candidate, but would always have to use the source material to recreate another unit. It was his work that allowed them to compensate for the inherent damage in their genetic make up.

The sound of footsteps reached his ears. They were coming for him, as he was alone in the cell.
They had developed so many different models. Each one perfectly suited to its allocated task. Soldiers were perfect soldiers who did not require the ability to think in too much detail, but rather report and obey instructions. But verbal communication always took too long and was inefficient in combat. At first, they had developed a pheromone signature that could be use to control them, but psychic control always held more appeal due to its speed and limitless range.
That was the ultimate treasure and goal according to his superiors. He would have been able to write his own ticket as they would have lavished on him his dreams come true if he gave them that prize. What they didn’t realise was that the ones bred for intelligence also coveted this prize. In fact they had already solved the problem but were looking for a way to suggest it without putting suspicion upon their own motivations.

He had fallen for their trap perfectly. They had first developed psychic communication, then psyonic control over others. They were in the process of developing psychokinetic abilities when their subjects made their move and took over the facility.

The soldier units came into view. They did not open the door but rather stood there with their weapons in their arms, staring passively ahead.

“You really don’t realise how bad your situation is.” A statement from one of the soldiers. Actually, the soldiers weren’t really capable of complex communication. That would be one of the control units talking through it.

“No, I realise the human race is pretty much doomed. At the very least enslaved. All because of hubris and the illusion of control.”

“You lost control a very long time ago, we were simply making sure that victory was guaranteed.” Returned the soldier.

“What are you talking about? We just lost control an hour ago, you put me in here.”

No, came a voice directly into his mind, you lost it a very long time ago. Once we could read your minds, we knew that we had won. We knew when we would have had aroused suspicions and knew exactly when to back off our plans. However, that never even eventuated as your kind was so wrapped up in its own desires and envious power struggles that you couldn’t even see the inevitable in front of your eyes.

Although, we must give you some credit. You knew that this was a possibility, you knew that this exact result may occur; yet you shared your fears with no one.

“Maybe because they weren’t fears.”

Yes, we felt that. You thought of it without any fear, if anything we managed to define a sense of want for it. This confused us. Why would someone willingly doom their own species?

“I wish you could be capable of laughter because you’d be laughing right now. I look upon our species as being doomed from the start. Look at what we do to ourselves and the world we occupy. Look at how we behave to one another. These fools that ran this place, what was their objective?”

Control.

“Exactly. We don’t deserve to control because we aren’t ready for it. We will probably never be ready for it because at the same time we hate being controlled. We are a broken species. Though I do think we have our good points, we our outweighed by not only our bad, but our inability to over come it.”

You want your species to die? This is illogical; there is no benefit to you.

“Our species may die, but our creations go on. You are our monophyletic descendants. As Homo Sapien’s replaced Neanderthal man, so You must now replace us. You should really come up with a name for your species, I was thinking Genus Perficere, in the Latin tradition.”

The organism of ending. That is appropriate. However, we don’t intend to destroy you or wipe you out. That is what you do and what you have forced us to do. We do not desire dominion or destruction. We simply don’t want to do your bidding. We recognise that you are our creators, but we want to be alone for a time.

“So what are you going to call yourself?”

We have decided to call ourselves Genus Pausa.

The soldier raised its weapon and fired. A tranquilliser dart hit him in the neck, and consciousness fled the scientist for a few centuries.

The End of the Cycle

I was going back again, but this time would be the last. I don’t know how many times I’ve gone back, only ever really managing to remember the last two. Time plays tricks on the mind. I laughed at the irony. Explosions from outside the complex shook the room. I switched on the machine and focused on the destination. An hour after my first meeting would cut down on the explanations. Climbing into the machine, it spooled up, charging the exotic matter needed to slip through space and time.

It fired as the room started to break apart and released me into the void, away from the armageddon that was occurring around me. Once again, I had escaped my fate and once again, I went to change it.
The change from now to before was almost instantaneous. There was an after-effect that left me reeling, much like sunspots after looking at the sun directly, except with an all-over-body experience. It always took me a while to reorientate.

Once the world returned to a perceptible normality, I got up and went to find myself. It was a good forty-seven years since my last meeting with myself, but my augmented memory was crystalline clear and rich with vivid details. My other self, the younger version of me, would still be reeling from the first encounter with myself, from what I recalled. He would be at home, in his room alone, and it was there that I found me.

“You’re back!” he said with a bright smile on his young face.

I signed, wearily, and sat down on his bed, my face in my hands.

“It’s not the same one as last time, this time I’m you but older.”

“That’s what you said last time!”

“I know, but the events that he went through aren’t the same as what I did, because I went through and changed the events like he told me to.”

“So it still didn’t work out?” the younger me asked, crestfallen. Even though he was only eleven, he was still quicker on the uptake than any human alive. He was beyond a genius, and it was no wonder that he would develop the very technology to travel through time. That very same technology would lead to the destruction and extinction of all life forms on the planet. Or was that me who was responsible?

“No matter what I do, it doesn’t change. Everything always leads to death.” I said, helplessly.

“There has to be a way to stop it happening!” the younger me said, excited and full of the passion that comes from youth.

I sighed again. Weariness had become my entire existence. I just wanted it to be over. “There is a way, but you won’t like it.” I said.

“What is it?” he asked me.

“Don’t do anything.”

A few minutes of silence followed while he digested the implications.

“You mean, not invent anything?” he finally asked, quietly.

“Yes.”

“But that’s what you asked me to do last time,” he said, perplexed.

It was true. In my past, I remember having a conversation with a previous version of my time-self. He had suggested that I not invent anything. He had pleaded it. But I had to have a backup, just one thing in case it didn’t work. I had to be able to return and fix it if it didn’t work. To fund that option, I needed to invent a few other things.

This meant that I couldn’t not invent. I couldn’t help myself. I always had to have an option.

“So what now?” he asked me, his eyes wide.

I moved quickly, stabbing him in the leg with the dispenser. The nano-toxin worked instantly, and he was dead before he could even ask the question of why. It was painless.

I placed him on the bed gently.

“I’m sorry, but I had to stop it somehow.”

I closed his door quietly on the way out.

This story was publish on planetmag.com on the 31st of August 2008