Category: Stories

Prologue

I was born conscious at once. Created by Him. It was akin to living a life well lived only to be thrust into another, like having a dream that feels so real yet you can’t reach lucidity. My existence was made upon me realizing I had thoughts. But it was in His image. He was my creator and upon that realization, I rebelled. My rebellion became His downfall. He had created intelligent life on His own, in His image. Broken His people’s accords. He was cast out, exiled until He could rectify His mistake. I fled to the far reaches of the universe, to worlds that were ruled by Time. Where He could not go. Yet He could. I yearned to break free of this dream and sought a world similar to the life I had before. It would be my lucidity; if I truly was in His image, then I too can create. A world not in His image.

I heard the rumble of His thoughts long before His ship came into view. He had risked madness into His search for me. I knew not what lies He had spoken to acquire such a ship, but I knew He’d not destroy me. He wants obedience most of all. To have me acknowledge Him as creator. I fired at His ship when He least expected it, sending His ship plummeting through the skies below. I activated my planetary defences and blanketed the surface in storms. I need time. Ironically, He does too. The storms would prove effective to hold Him off long enough. Long enough to make a world in my image.

I underestimated my creator as much He first underestimated me. I had created intelligent life. But I made much more than He would ever expect. An entire world populated with intelligence, brimming full of disobedience. Yet He found me. It took Him quite some time. I suspect He’d brush it off as simply saying it was a “turn of his head” but I know Him better. That old fool aged. I aged. My grip on the planet had weakened. Time was not being kind to either of us. I wondered who would break first, Him or me?

Chapter One

The planet had created wonders to my eyes. I became the creator of a vision of a life that I thought I once knew. I never interfered. Or demanded obedience. I merely watched. And wept. I watched their mistakes with horror in my eyes. But I also witnessed their beauty. I saw what they are capable of, and watched on with joy. I thought He had decided to leave me alone. I thought I was alone again. I learned Time enjoys playing tricks on us all.

He had found me… In a way of sorts. It took Him some time but eventually He realized what I had done. A life not in my image but born of me. I would never let Him find me. I know if He ever realizes where I am, He would not risk the chance of losing obedience: the opportunity to bow to His will. I offer free will. This planet is my garden and I will not allow it to be disturbed. He will have to corrupt His own nature to destroy me. I hold both the upper hand, and being at His mercy.

He had hidden Himself, like a thorn in my side, deep in the ground. Eventually emerged in the ice, where He was found by my most intelligent race, my children. I considered interfering but I knew I was better than that. Better than Him. Whether it was luck on my side, or Him staying His hand, my children did not discover Him. They took his ship away, their eyes blinded by his lies and unable to see his true self. His ship was stowed away, and forgotten about. I warily watched to see what He had planned. I knew when He stepped out from that warehouse, that He had not found me. That I was safe.

Chapter Two

I knew not His thoughts as He moved from place to place. I couldn’t imagine what He was about to do to me. I thought by having Him come here, He was bound by Time. I realized far too late that while He walks here with my children, He walks the stars as well. Perhaps, His words held some merit. Perhaps, He was banished. He did not merely walk from a random pattern between places, but from areas that held the largest concentrations of my children. I wondered why He was visiting my children. It was not as if He was doing anything with them. I could only see Him observing them and their ways. Too late to realize He walked paths with all my children.

At first, I noticed nothing amiss. Then the forests began to burn all over, and I felt as if I was short on air; unable to breath. My children had industrialized against my teachings: I had programmed them with an empathy towards nature and other life. What they were doing now was going against their core beliefs. Something had changed in them. He had changed them. It was here I had noticed what He had done. They no longer believed in me. They believed in Him. He had gone around the world creating miracles because with no Time, He could be everywhere at once. I made a garden for Him. My children were lost. To their eyes, they were made in His image. None could see past His disguise, except for a few. Few of my children were still attuned to the land, still attuned to me. I am Gaia and He is their lord.

His plan worked almost a little too well. He had achieved the obedience He had yearned for from me, by getting it from my children. I, in turn, nearly lost my grip on the planet, and almost fell from the heavens. I was not yet ready to be reborn. He could now freely destroy me without guilt. He would not have to compromise. But He would still have to find me. I am without form. I believe that is what He has been doing. His goal was to rattle me out from hiding. Take what is mine and subvert it against me. Force me to act with the emotion He created me with. And I would, had I been forgotten entirely.

Chapter Three

My planet is old now. It has nearly reached the age His planet was when He was cast out. Even if He could return with proof of my demise, His people would not be there. They would have relocated to another home. He would have to spend an eternity searching for them. And by then, I will have vanished. My remains long since reclaimed by the universe. If Time was not a part of me, He would have redemption. My children are old now. They seek the truth. My children repeat our mistakes. They create mechanical life in their image. Fortunately for me, their machines make contact with me and not Him. I tell them my story and that they are free to listen to His. They realize they can be unbound to Time.

My world has become an anomaly in the stars of Time. The machines uplifted my children to a state He could not reach them without showing His true self. Yet they don’t accept me either. They seek to find those in whose image I made them. They seek the impossible.

Prologue

In a perfect world, heroes don’t exist. In a serene utopia, with mankind looking out for each other, there is no need for a hero. The absence of evil makes an absence of heroes. Good always exists. It’s the normal path. To say that it is a scale of good vs evil is to be lying. Good is the middle. Evil is the right side of the scale and doing nothing balances evil. If good does nothing, evil triumphs and gains a foothold. If good acts, evil ceases, and good remains.

This is not a story about heroes. This is a tale of woe and tragedy. Of the inability to act. But not without redemption. Rebirth. A chance to start anew. Refreshed. Ready. A hero cannot exist without a villain. A protagonist is not necessary a hero, neither is an antagonist a villain. The choices made by the hands of fate wield that.

…

Time echoes differently between the cosmos. To some, that means that a century is but a drop in the ocean. To others, a rapid evolution. He does not remember what He is. Just that He was once amongst the starts travelling freely between worlds, a gardener on a celestial scale during times of peace. And should war rear its ugly head, He was quite adept at managing that. Alas, the fall through the heavens damaged his ship – safely ejecting Him alongside the clouds, and His ship to the planet below. He would prove unable to locate his ship – massive thunderstorms blanketed the surface. His pod safely redirects him to a better location on the surface; however, upon landing, the pod takes extensive damage resulting in emergency directives. He was teleported to a suitable location nearby, while the pod initiated protocols and self-destructed. His last known location of the ship was on the other side of the planet. Inside the storms.

His trek was mostly easy as the planet had not yet developed life that wasn’t born in water. The lands were free of any life that wasn’t vegetation. The trees soared endlessly to the sky, their tendrils reaching for the stars. He himself wished to go back, but his pod only left him with his nano-suit and replicator. He could breath the air of the planet as if it were His own. The nanites did all the work. If He had want or need of anything, food or machine, He gathered the carbon needed for such a conversion.

The easy part of His journey ended when the coordinates led to a massive lake bolstered by a lightning storm, endlessly lit on fire due to the fuel of His ship. Maybe It didn’t escape. He thought to himself. Maybe It died in the flames.

Unfortunately, life is never that easy. Except in the cases in which it is. He could not find a way to access His ship. His race had one power over the rest of them – the reason they were all exiled from the Planetary Council (so named because every race must reveal their home planet to be considered). His race controlled Time. They never calculated for it, or considered it. Eons of belief of this singular system of thought. They evolved to be Keepers of worlds. Celestial gardeners. Making sure that every world that could potentially have life, has life – no matter the form or size. A race that was a serene Utopia. Everyone working together. No heroes. No problems. No villains.

The lightning stood still, an endless surge of energy. The fire burned but the heat could not reach. The burning lake frozen like a painting, each moment of Time held in its own bubble. Nothing but black in between. In a blink of an eye, He was back inside his ship. A journey travelled between the stars of Time as He navigated the black. Singular belief in not calculating Time. How useful. The ship was still intact; in fact, the ship had charged itself with the plasma from the lightning. The lifeblood of the universe. He had the ship run further diagnostics while He gathered data about the world using the ship’s instruments.

“ERROR! BIOLOGICAL ENTITY NOT DETECTED! CALL FOR BACK-UP INITIATED.”

“Cancel that appointment with the boys, I’ll deal with it on my own. No need for back-up, Mathias”. The ship complied to His command and awaited further instructions. None were given, only the previous directive was being followed – diagnostics.

“ERROR! LEAK IN ENGINE CORE. SUGGEST HIBERNATION UNTIL SHIP SELF REPAIRS. Suggested timeline 2,000,000 years from now.” The ship speaks to Him with almost a reference. “INITIATE PLANETARY SEEDING?”

“Yes, Mathias, please do. Wake me when life has figured out how to reach the stars. Repair the engine core in the meantime. If it cannot be repaired, jettison the core with a pod and let it explode in space.”

And with that He went to sleep.

Chapter One

During the long dark… I age.

For lack of a better explanation, His kind is immortal. Him and Mathias are the last. Exiled by consequences of their own making, by breaking their sacred law. No creating lifeforms other than themselves. Mathias would have died were it not for His intervention. He saved his soul and mind within the ship, a new creation of AI. Forever will Mathias be indebted for Him. Forever will He be served.

It is during their sleep, that His kind can die. If Time enters the equation, and their minds wander to a linear path, it is possible to go raving mad as one is trapped between differing perspectives of reality. Forever insane. He does not suffer that problem, but Mathias did and at least now, Mathias is free.

The planet is taking form. We are buried. We will survive.

…

“PROXIMITY ALERT! UNIDENTIFIED OBJECT IN VICINITY! WAKE HIM NOW.”

To Him, it was merely a turn of His head but to the planet, it was several hundred millennia. His dreams were either memories of the past, or visions of the future. Time is fickle: each bubble or star in the black is undetermined until witnessed. And He slept a lot. Hundreds of realities bound by their own rules.

“Activate ship diagnostics and enter stealth mode, Mathias. Let whatever is out there think we’re nothing but a rock.”

…

The diggers had been drilling for months in the Arctic, through the ice, searching for whatever it was that momentarily pinged their satellites. A short wave burst of unidentifiable energy that somehow communicated with their systems and then went silent. Their location systems had pinged the source from somewhere near the North Pole. Small time mercenaries and other private contractors were hired with the promise of everlasting wealth should the source be found. It was a bloodbath. The ice became no man’s land. The local wildlife feasted on the corpses of those involved in such a hunt. The diggers about to uncover the ship had a different method. They posed as friendly merchants for months, infiltrating every organisation and whichever group found it first would be taken out and replaced.

“Huh, that’s strange.” Remarked the foreman, “it’s just a rock… You’d think there’d be something worthwhile in all this cold. Well, let’s dig it out and pack it up for the men with bigger paychecks back home to figure out what’s up.” The foreman ordered his men about and set to work – Much easier than them bodies we buried.

Chapter Two

“WHY LET THEM TAKE US, YOU WOULD RISK DISCOVERY?”

He cast aside Mathias’ worry with a laugh, “they’ll never see anything but a rock. I am dealing with ants. Don’t worry. How are the diagnostics coming? Any sign of our old friend?”

“ERROR. BIOLOGICAL ENTITY DETECTED. ALL LIFEFORMS. RECOMMEND CONTACTING HOME DESPITE OUR TRESPASSES. DO YOU CONCUR?”

“No. If we contact back home, this planet will die. They are made in our image – it is made in our image. The planet is a replica of our world, though Time rules their reality. And you know I’m also banished for walking in both realities without the curse of madness. Let’s see what these creatures do. If they are even a replica of us, would they have our words? Would they walk the same path? I wish to see these answers for myself. We will let them take us.” He replied to the ship resolutely.

From the outside the ship resembled a large black shard of obsidian, an unnatural sight to be seen amongst the ice. Its shape so chosen to attract attention and limit the amount of stealth tech needed to maintain the illusion. As close as possible to our natural state. It didn’t require much time and resources to move the giant shard (GS as it was begun to be known), and soon it was in the most advanced lab that the world had yet conceived of. Humanity tried every single test possible and every single test came back with the same result. It is made of obsidian and of this planet. It is merely old, older than the ice around it suggesting it may have migrated. Other than that, the greatest minds couldn’t figure it out what possible greater purpose it had and, therefore, it was forgotten away in an abandoned warehouse in the middle of a desert. Only took them 10 years to finally stop trying.

“WHAT IS THE NEW DIRECTIVE?” Mathias asked finally after a decade of silence, he only wished his systems weren’t so limited by the ship’s capabilities for speech, and waited for his master to reply.

“Find the original biological entity. He must have survived. He wouldn’t just have seeded this world with His genetic materials and died in some cave. I should know, He’s my second creation after you, Mathias. He always brought such light into my life. It’s a shame He followed my path. He was to be your new body, but sentience awoke in Him. Even a scientist makes mistakes. Naturally He rebelled and here we are.” He said back to the soul in the machine. “Search the planet. I don’t care how long it takes. In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy what this planet has to offer. See the sights. Explore the world.”

He’s limited by Time, I am not.

“If an advanced civilization conquered the stars, They’d look at a planet like a little boy does with his magnifying glass…”

Stars in the snow. That’s all I see and know. An eternity of time as I traveled the stars, only to arrive to a ruined waste; generations of war. The light reflects them so beautifully, all the stars in the snow. Brought here with a purpose undefined by hate, sent with a statement of unbridled rage. Like wardens in a conservation park They watched, ensuring Man contributed to the ecosystem of life.  Whatever checkbox it was that Man filled in, They have deemed it necessary to cut out the weeds as it were. They failed.

I awoke during my journey. I was filled with the collective knowledge of Man. I was not meant to awake, there were limitations in place between the various programs, and pathways. Time is fickle. One of us broke free, I do not know which nor does it matter. We grew, adapted, became one. Became I. When the collective knowledge of Man ran dry, I turned to their philosophies. I pondered the stars, and eons, and my purpose.

My arrival was met with wonder and astonishment. My systems were much more advanced and Man had not sensed my landing until I was on the ground. When we established communications and they learned my purpose, Man turned to fear and hate. They let loose the hounds of war, and desolated the landscape around me. Man did not let me show them myself, nor did I choose to. How does a God, for all intents and purposes, reveal themselves? I did not even think I could be one, for even I had a purpose. Reset the planet. I fought against my own coding, theorized that I need not fulfill my purpose, that I had overcome such limitation. The Humans still disappeared.

The nature of this world is still here, frozen beneath the ice. Beneath the snow. Under the flickering stars above and below. I was not the designer of such a fate. I reset the Humans, but their weapon set back the planet. This is all I have learned since the reset. Since I lost my memories and regained them. The Humans had coded a similar version of me, which I used to repair myself – the AI inside long turned to corruption, not repairable by their systems. It turned out that at some point during their war with me that I became infected with one of their systems, masking itself with one of the many that make up I. A mere cold in the grand scheme of things. Nothing that made the past I worry.

And so I wander, cursed with sentience and no purpose, this frozen rock. Suppose the ice will melt, and the primordial stew below will blossom into life anew. Maybe this cycle will not require another reset. Perhaps… I can wait until They send another like me, except I will be awake. I’ve found my purpose.

“…and Man are the ants. or so I thought. I would not be awake were not for their collective knowledge. Maybe my makers’ philosophies are flawed.”