Alyce’s Hypothesis

Alyce surveyed the landscape from the large hill she stood upon. Luxuriant greens formed a tableau below her in the canopy of the woodland, stretching to the horizon. She recalled a story that her parents always told, of her surprise at the first time seeing a tree that wasn’t on a screen. She had said that the trees seemed taller and thinner than expected, that something wasn’t quite right with them. Her parents had laughed and promised to take her out into nature more often.

That was a feeling she had never managed to shake though, despite the frequent trips into the outdoors, and as she had grown she had come across other things that didn’t sit well with her. In the oldest of paintings people were squatter, the proportions of buildings in ancient digital photographs didn’t quite match anything in her experience, and the blue of the sky was a different blue. On average. It was subtle.

Her friends and colleagues laughed at her whenever she voiced the thoughts, but it never put her off. She reflected that the sentiment was likely what had shaped her career as a biohistorian. Countless times she had put forwards the hypothesis that plants all over the globe were the descendants of genetically engineered species, that nothing else explained just how well suited or high-yielding the various floras were, and the same went with animals. No matter the genus, there were certain genes common to all, and when their evolutionary history was traced, those genes seemed to have appeared in every animal in unison only several thousand years ago.

People always asked the same condescending questions and never listened to her well-reasoned answers. No, this is distinct from the genes that point to a common ancestor, yes, I do think that we once had greater capabilities. It was arrogance and pride, pure and simple. To accept that humanity had forgotten what it once could do meant accepting that humanity had moved backwards. And that was heresy: “Humanity Progresses”, that was what the church always said.

Once, she had dredged up old climate records that were just plain wrong, that had cited atmospheric values as far different to those of the modern day. Carbon dioxide had been stated as making up less than a thousandth part of the air! Of course, the archaic data had corrupted as she extracted it, dashing her rising hopes of presenting a new piece of the puzzle.

Aching feet brought Alyce back into the real world, and with a start, she realised that the sun had finished setting. She hadn’t had that much time to spare! Well, if I’m going to be ridiculously late, I might as well be outrageously late instead.

Lying down on the pale grass, she watched the stars above her, and was rewarded with a sight she didn’t often see. The three inner planets were all in her field of view, bright and flickering.

Mercury, Venus, and Terra.

The Brothers

The brothers looked out in horror. From their vantage point on the low hill, its grassy flanks flecked with spikes of rock, they could easily see the entrance to their former home. The mouth of the cave, once craggy and half covered with dangling shrubbery, had been widened, its edges worn smooth by a huge amount of traffic.

And the traffic of something huge.

Members of their kin, enthusiasm and purpose etched into their every movement, carried crates and barrels from the dark interior and loaded them onto packhorses and packlizards. Bursts of motion marked training skirmishes by the dusty entranceway. Javelins were tossed at targets, spears clacked against one another, sling bullets bounced from the cliff face. Even a few priests were practising their art; they hurled orbs of green energy and watched them throw up sprays of dirt some distance away.

“What are they preparing for, brother?” said one of the pair, the hole in his left ear allowing the red of the dawn sky through.

“I know not, brother,” said the other, running a scaly hand over the small ceramic pots at his belt, hoping he wouldn’t need to use them. “But we should go, before we are seen. Or smelt.” They shuddered as one, and crawled back down the hill, out of sight.

“What can we do?”

“Tell Flameheart! We swore to keep him informed.”

“He is gone! He made us renounce our oaths and left us here to die!”

“No! Have faith, brother. He rescued us, you know he did.” The two shared a look of grim determination, the nostrils at the ends of their short snouts flaring in unison. Any observer would have named them twins, though age separated them by a number of years.

A roar cut through the sounds of labour on the other side of the hill, a roar not of dominance or anger, but of triumph. Before the brothers could take stock of the situation, the whoomph, whoomph of colossal beating wings swept over them, and a huge, slender creature glided over their heads to land nimbly in between them and their escape route. The morning gleamed softly in its emerald scales.

Condescension curled the corners of the beast’s mouth, but the glee in her eyes was worse. “There is only one course of action you can take,” she said, flashing sharp, foot-long teeth as she spoke, “that will not end in your death.” Her voice was a smooth rumble, each syllable carrying a familiar, terrifying cunning along with it.

Fear tore at the minds of the brothers, but their devotion to Flameheart ran true. He was the only one who had ever believed in them, and he had cared for their fallen comrade in a way that was unprecedented amongst the ‘civilised races’, as they called themselves. He had certainly cared for them more than their former mistress ever had.

“We will not rejoin you!” shouted one of the brothers, even as the other cried out, “You will never be our god again!” They glanced at each other, surprised and warmed by the unity they were displaying in the face of certain death.

“My, my,” gloated the dragon, cocking her head to one side in amusement. “Did Flameheart teach you bravery? That is quite the feat. It is almost a pity you will be mine regardless.” With a victorious snarl, her eyes lit up a bright viridian. The brothers felt their willpower draining away, pouring from their minds and into those deep, beautiful pools of green. Independent thought was swept away as their loyalty to Flameheart was dissolved, washed out, forgotten.

The brothers looked up in delight. “How can we serve you, Throden?” Neither cared that they spoke the same words in the same tone at the same time. All were the same when they carried out the will of Throden.

All would be pawns.

Graerlim

Graerlim blinked. Something had changed. What was it?

She took stock of the room around her. No, not merely a room. A grand hall, as large as any that might house a monarch’s throne, its marble walls inlaid with intricate patterns wrought in a delicate platinum filigree. Heavy tapestries larger than any she had ever seen hung down so that their lower hems would brush the heads of only the tallest people. A story played across their widths, though how the separate pieces linked together she wasn’t sure. Something tickled in the back of her mind. She felt like she should know.

Suddenly she became aware of something cool against her palms, and looked down. Atop a plinth – worked not only with those same filigree whorls but also with gemstones no smaller than thumbnails – in a slight recess, sat a sphere of stone. It clearly didn’t belong in the room. Where everything else was beautiful and decadent, it was plain and unadorned. A lump of granite smoothed into an orb. Her hands held it tightly, but its weight was still held by the plinth.

Why had she come here? It couldn’t have been for the orb. The gems below it would fetch a far higher price. She itched to pry them out. And yet she was holding the orb.

Registering the silence, she glanced around her. The exit to the room was still there, a dark square cut out of the wall behind her, exactly what she had expected to see. There was nowhere in the room to hide, no columns to obscure her view of anyone, friend or foe. It seemed lit from everywhere at once, with no light source to cast shadows.

Well then, I’d better get to work on those gems, she thought, letting go of the orb.

Graerlim blinked. Why had she let go of the Orb?

It sat on a crude block of stone, twinkling darkly in the gloom of the rough-hewn chamber, lit only by the flame of her torch from the ground beside her, where she had placed it. Around the room lay corpses, most of them reduced to bone, and in places they lay atop one another. Her eyes brushed across them, but she’d examined them already, and her focus now was on the wealth that the Orb would bring her. Thanking the gods that all of her work had finally paid off, she pushed aside a gnawing hunger, and went to lift her prize.

Graerlim blinked. Something had changed.

What was it?

Dr Fredegar

J – I had it all. All of humanity was in one hand and the tools of salvation were in the other. The Kin were in no position to stop me, and every delegation that came to me from the Federation of this, or the Unified Republic of that – well, they all wanted a share of the power. None actually attempted to negotiate any kind of treaty.

F – And how did that make you feel?

J – Why, alone of course! Nobody understood me, and I wasn’t capable of understanding them. Do you mind if I have that last biscuit? They don’t let me eat solids on the prison ship.

F – Go ahead.

<Sounds of crunching>

F – Where were we? Ah yes. The loneliness you describe is of course an expected side effect of wielding all that power. Do you think that perhaps your ‘enhancements’, as you call them, had anything to do with your mental state at the time?

J – My enhancements? Maybe. I mean, they detracted from my image, that’s a certainty. Who wants to accept help from a ten foot tall cyborg with more metal than flesh? And flesh they don’t even recognise, at that! By the end, I’m not sure if any of it was original. A glass of water would be much appreciated.

<Sounds of water filling a receptacle, slurping, clunk of receptacle on table>

F – Do you feel remorse? Not for the destruction, or for the ‘salvation’ – your terminology, again, just to be clear – but for the loss of the very fabric of your being, the skin you grew up in, to put it crudely.

J – No, not at all. The knowledge that I had bettered myself in order to do what had to be done, the fact of that sacrifice, is what carried me through the difficult times behind me. And it’s what carries me through now.

F – Now? But you were deconstructed. You are now as close to human as could be achieved.

J – That’s what they told you. But I made sure it was my acolytes working on the contract. They humanised me, for sure, but several wonderful upgrades were made, too. For example, any kind of nourishment now allows the powering up of several augmentations to be triggered.

F – Haha, if you say so.

J – No, really. Let me show you.

<Sounds of scraping metal, screams of Dr Fredegar, impalement of Dr Fredegar by Jubilax on spike implants, chuckles of Jubilax>

J – Now, even a biscuit and a glass of water could boost my strength and allow concealed weapon embeds to be activated.

F – You tricked me! <Voice noticeable weaker>

J – You wanted to be kind to me. I allowed it. And now your sacrifice has helped save humanity right alongside mine.

<Death rattle of Dr Fredegar, heavy footsteps away from recording device, distant smashes and screams>

<No more useful sounds hereafter: end of recording transcript>

Tur’Ba

“Tell me, have you ever died before?” Yarith stroked the skull that sat on his darkwood desk as he spoke, pointedly ignoring the stack of papers beside the polished bone. The skull looked unnervingly familiar.

“Only once,” replied Tur’Ba. He swallowed. “But I was in a city, so everything was uploaded to the laz-house. I was walking around again within the day.” The man across the desk wore all black, his hair gone but his face youthful.

“This is my twelfth body now. I was alive when they first brought in the wireless memory uploads.” That made Yarith centuries old! Suddenly he wasn’t sure why he had thought it a good idea to walk into the man’s office with no backup plan. “Did you know that there was a flaw for the first few months of service? One that didn’t delete the exact moment of death? That left it in the short-term spool? That caused those who died during that period to wake up screaming in new bodies, psychologically impaired until they died again? Did you know that?”

He’d never heard that before, and he doubted that the revelation was just in case he happened to be interested. “But… But it’s worked fine for hundreds of years now. Hasn’t it?” Sweat broke out on his forehead.

“Of course, of course,” said Yarith. “But for those unfortunate millions who died during that period… The laz-houses were terrifying places to be, and thousands of new psychiatric wards had to be built. I myself was one of those for whom it didn’t ‘work fine’. Do you know what I learnt?”

Tur’Ba felt sick, and wiped his clammy hands on his smart-cotton trousers. “What did you learn?”

“That thanks to the advances in technology we enjoy, torture and death can be one and the same thing.” Suddenly the CEO’s mood appeared to lift, and he leant back in his chair as if he hadn’t just been presented with evidence of his own multi-billion dollar embezzlement. “Now, would you like to repeat to me what you said when you walked in?” Yarith smiled, and the connection clicked. The skull was his. Maybe even his first.

Clearing his throat, Tur’Ba opened his mouth. He had been warned about these kinds of tactics, and he couldn’t let himself be intimidated. People’s livelihoods were at stake. “Yes, you – ”

Two brutish men appeared on each side of the desk, images of the office behind them shimmering away in their bodysuits. The stealth guards’ guns were pointed right at Tur’Ba’s face. Yarith’s eyes gleamed.

Duerlic

The two avians landed on the clifftop, their huge chest muscles flexing and unflexing as large jointed wings tipped with hands were folded along their backs. They cocked their heads to one side and then the other, nervously, if Duerlic’s understanding of their body language was correct. Beside him, Andar’s fists clenched and his jaw became set. Hopefully he’d be able to bottle up his hatred, this meeting was important after –

“You defiled a sanctuary!” shouted Andar. Duerlic groaned, and sought strength as he made soothing noises. “No, Duerlic! These worm-eaters killed thousands! All of that history lost, all of that culture gone! It was their time to integrate tomorrow!” A finger pointed accusingly with each sentence, switching its target at a whim. One of the avians hopped back at the slur, blue plumage quivering, clawed feet digging small furrows in the dirt.

The other opened its beak – her beak – and spoke in a high, trilling voice. “If you are so sure it was us, then why did you agree to meet?” Each of the words was clipped, and the inflection made little sense, but Duerlic never ceased to be amazed at the avian’s capacity for human language. Humans mostly had great difficulty mimicking the melodic warbling that was avian speech.

“I came because I felt it my duty,” retorted Andar. “Seeing you now, I know it in my heart that you Feathered” – the way he said the honorific sounded so like a curse that they flinched – “are responsible. The next time we meet will be on the field of battle.” He spat, and gestured that he was leaving.

Duerlic found he was unable to reach out a placating hand, and suddenly became aware of the long arrow shaft emerging from his chest. He tried to speak, to tell Andar that it wasn’t the avians, that it was all a ploy, but only grunts came from his throat. He collapsed, hearing shouts as hands, bird-like and human both, grasped at him. Please don’t think it’s them, Andar. Please don’t.

The last word he heard, before the darkness closed in, was ‘war’.

The First’s Folly

“They came from the skies, bombarding us with new ideas and bold creeds even as they unleashed fire and radiation. Cities fell, to one or the other, and nations followed. In the aftermath they forged promises as they rewrote our histories, sharing with us their vision of union and partnership, bringing with them members of their ‘First’. Those who looked up to the stars and wanted and took, praised as saviours.

“We were a prime target, our system in a location of strategic importance, our politics fragmented and decentralised, our capability for war apparently minimal. We breath the same air, our yklith evolved convergently with their plants, and our suns are identical. At first glance.”

Broi paused for a moment to allow the laughter to wash over him before continuing. Jiell, the heat of his day, smiled up at him, her dark eyes encouraging, her scales still with their youthful sheen. He tasted the air with his long tongue, signalling that he was ready to continue. His audience quietened, but their excitement hung in the air.

“Soon though, our kin will remember who they are, the proud stock from whom they are descended. Soon the First and their subjects will find our system all but empty of the resources that we mined out so long ago, when they still searched for sentience in the dirt.

“Our museum-vaults will open once more, and by wielding the weapons housed within we will reassert our dominance over this, our Nestworld.” Cheers went up, filling the interior of the hollowed-out asteroid with cacophonous triumph. He held up his claw, tensed as if in a position to tear out a rival’s throat but choosing not to: the ultimate victory.

“If they are lucky,” he continued, shouting to make himself heard despite the audio equipment. “If they are lucky, they will return to their ‘Earth’ with the tiniest portion of what we know of the universe. But I say that we teach them only one thing. That we are the true First!”

Even if he had wanted to say more, it would have been unheard. This was a moment in their history unlike anything else for thousands of years, since the ancestors chose to look inwards and draw back from conquest of the star-clutch. He knew that at that very moment the doors of the museum-vaults were opening all across the planet below, that engineers were striding out into the light to feel the day on their scales again after so many centuries.

The humans had accomplished much. They would soon wish that they hadn’t.

Turzas

“You failed us, Turzas, Fourth of the Angim Chapter of the Selenic Defence,” intoned the High Exarch of Angim. His voice rasped, and his off-blue robes fit poorly, yet somehow he managed to maintain the dignity and poise expected for a man of his standing. How his coarse, nasal speech had ever allowed him to gain such power was anybody’s guess. It was an effort not to spit at his feet, as instinct compelled, but Turzas had that right no longer.

Abruptly, she realised that the powerful man had raised a white tuft of an eyebrow ever so slightly. He must have spoken, and she’d been too lost in her appraisal of him to hear. Curses on her threshold, a thousand-fold! The same pensiveness had gotten in the way of her rightful ascension to Second of the Defence. If she couldn’t learn from her mistakes then she had never deserved to be appointed even as a Fifth Assistant all those years ago. Perhaps the branding was fitting, the marks forever confining her to rise no higher than her current appointed position.

The High Exarch continued, his words bouncing around the high-ceilinged stone chamber, underscored by the roar of the furnace. Its heat was maintained by some of the Low, their scars a hideous pattern across the entirety of their bodies, including – she suppressed a shudder – their faces.

“…allowed moonlight – that hideous defiler and maker of death – to touch the hallowed walls of a coppersmith.” Turzas tuned back in to hear the High Exarch pronounce her crime. She hoped it wasn’t the second time he had done so, and bowed her head in acceptance of the transgression, averting her eyes to the floor. No stifled gasps came from the circle of witnesses that precisely lined the walls, which meant her hope had not been ill-founded. “The punishment will now commence.”

As one of the Low walked towards her, the appropriate brands held high, hot ends down of course, the High Exarch pulled her face up and looked deep into her eyes. She felt them widen in shock, and this time the gasps from around the room were forthcoming. Even the Low hesitated, despite their lack of such rights.

“You will change everything,” he rasped quietly, so that only she could hear. “You will be Highest. It has been seen.” Then, louder, fear setting tremors in his voice as he disrobed, “I, High Exarch of Angim, shall accept the punishment in place of the transgressor.” The Low stopped entirely, sweat that had nothing to do with the heat forming on his scarred brow. The gasps gave way to muttering, angry and scared. No Exarch, let alone a High Exarch, had done such a thing in all of recorded history.

He nodded to her, the tiniest of movements, and turned to face the Low, casting his undergarments atop his precious robes. Turzas collected herself, recognising that the nod instructed her to proceed with the ceremony, silently thanking him for the reminder. Meekness sloughed off of her.

“The punishment will now commence,” she said, voice as haughty and cold as she could manage. No sooner had she finished the sentence, than the Low stepped forwards, pushing hot metal against the former High Exarch’s chest, sizzle almost as loud as the scream.

As was her duty, she watched.