Mobius (10 page)

“There are no such recordings,” said Allienora. “You were badly injured, Theron. Could these events be a hallucination?”

“No! These events happened before I was hurt.”

Renworth Vole drummed large fingers on the table. “Maybe Atticus was also a part of this conspiracy.”

“A possibility we should look into,” said Renworth Vole’s advisor.

I stood tall out of my chair. “How dare you implicate Atticus! He was a good man! He was my friend! My family!”

“Calm yourself,” said Renworth Vole. “Tell us how Sensimion coaxed you into giving him access to the Brahman Station.”

I’ll tell them everything. I’ll clear Atticus’ name. I’ll tell them of the unnatural dimension shrouding Earth and the manifestations of the Fume that manipulate humankind.

But, as my lips formed words, I hesitated. I remembered the oppressive sensation that afflicted me minutes ago. The only other time I had felt such visceral dread had been in the presence of that bastard doctor from the sanitarium. And if I took all Sensimion’s theories for fact, then the doctor from the sanitarium was a manifestation of the Fume—and, by some mysterious ability, I was able to sense the presence of these manifestations. If this was indeed the case, then I sensed another manifestation at this very moment sitting across the table from me.

One of these twelve officials is a monster. A monster I will kill! Kill! Kill!

I froze in anger. The true saboteur of the Brahman Station—and demolisher of my life—sat with confidence before me. I now knew why there were no recordings of Atticus’ outcries before the sabotage. The manifestations of the Fume were attempting to blame Sensimion.

“Are you all right, Theron?” asked Allienora. “It’s not a difficult question.”

“But it is, Prime Minister Chang—” Before I could continue, I fell back into my chair. “I apologize. Many emotions clutter my mind. Where’s the bathroom?”

Allienora stood up and held out her hand. “I’ll show you.”

I took her hand. Her skin was soft. As I stood up, I again smelled vanilla. She walked me down the hallway, but suddenly stopped.

“I want to set the record straight,” she said.

“About what?”

“This.” She pointed back to the room of officials. “I’m not in charge of this.”

“In charge of laying blame?”

“Little do you know, Theron. I’ve been your biggest supporter. I’ve followed your work more closely than you can imagine. I know everything about you and your project.”

“Then why don’t you help me?”

She bit her lip, as if frustrated with me. “Let me tell you something you don’t know. When I came into office, nearly all the nations’ leaders wanted to halt the funding for your project. I had to pull a lot of favors to keep the money flowing. You may think I’m just a pretty face, but I do command power.”

“If you’re behind me, then why don’t you tell those fuckers they’re wrong?”

“This is just formality. I’ll look at all the evidence and make the final judgment.” She leaned close to me and whispered, “Don’t worry. I still have faith in you, Theron.”

Something happened when I felt her breath on my ear. I don’t know what, but something changed inside me. Or did she just remind me too much of my dead wife? I didn’t know.

“Are you all right?” she said.

My knees suddenly buckled and I caught myself against the wall. Something was wrong with me. My headache had become unbearable. “Where’s the bathroom?”

“Down the hall and two doors to the left.”

I walked unsteadily to the bathroom and locked the door behind me. I stood in front of the sink and splashed cold water on my face. I saw my reflection in the mirror and became terrified by a strange development—hemorrhaging capillaries radiated throughout the whites of my eyes, forming two bloody web-works. My eyeballs felt as though they were ready to burst from my skull.

I sat slumped on the floor and rubbed my palms into my eye sockets, attempting to massage away the pain. Ten, maybe twenty, maybe thirty minutes passed. Time moved slowly. I at last snapped out of it when someone knocked at the door.

“I’ll be right out!” I called, lifting myself to my feet. I made one last glance to the mirror and found myself confronted by a familiar phantom. I now shared a similar appearance with that of the late Sensimion—my eyes were synthetic hyper-blue spheres. They glowed with brilliant blue and white light. I rather liked my new look—half man, half machine. I may have felt like shit, but I looked like some kind of superhero, eyes glowing with power.

The injection administered by Sensimion’s colleague gave me the synthetic eyes that would allow me to see the manifestations of the Fume lurking in my presence. And although this would surely prove to be a useful ability, it also created a dilemma of immediate gravity.

If I go back before the inquiry with the synthetic eyes of Sensimion, I’ll be condemned as a traitor and imprisoned. The Fume’s manifestation’s plan to accuse Sensimion will be achieved. I must act now.

I had to follow the instructions of Sensimion’s colleague. There was only a day remaining to reach the Earth coordinates given to me.

I cracked open the bathroom door and discovered a single guard attending me. I left the door open, hunched over the sink, and called out in pain.

The guard entered the bathroom. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Look at my arm!” I cried.

The guard looked down and my fist came up with full force, hitting his forehead. He fell unconscious to the floor and I took off his clothes.

In my new military outfit, I moved as casually as possible down the corridor, in the opposite direction of the group of officials. My only hope for escape hinged on Sensimion’s colleague’s prediction that the underwater launching bay of the base would be opened, so to allow me passage up through the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. As I searched for the launching bay, I hung a tired expression on my face, exposing only a thin line of my electric hyper-blue eyes. It proved a successful tactic as my eyes went unnoticed by two people passing by.

I took a wrong turn into a storeroom. It contained an assortment of forgotten oddities and artifacts I would’ve expected to discover in a secret military base—prototype weapons, AI-droids, and various other secret technologies. To my astonishment, I came upon a row of cryo-cylinders, packed and plugged with people being stored like fine wines. From what I could tell, it was a repository of people thought to have historical importance—past prime ministers, scientists, scholars, musicians, and writers. If not for the placards naming them, they would’ve been impossible to recognize through the cloudy cryo-gel preserving them.

Before moving onward, I grabbed a plasma gun, a string of marble-sized explosives, and an anti-gravity belt that I secured tightly around my waist.

I must be prepared for anything.

I finally found the launching bay’s large security door. I interlinked with a control panel and, surprisingly, found the door to be unlocked. It opened to a chamber of profound dimension. Hundreds of anti-relativity warships hovered above, near the twenty-story high ceiling. They resembled a school of hibernating fish lingering in cold waters. Below them sat assorted equipment, computers, and machinery. A giant deuterium isolator piped down the ocean waters and separated deuterium to fuel the ships. AI-droids monitored the equipment and serviced the warships. At first glance, I didn’t see any people. Only when I looked to a far wall did I realize I wasn’t alone.

The horror,
I thought.
I’ve seen it before.

Across the wall hung hundreds of people. A network of transparent tubes connected them all together. The tubes were fused to their mouths and genitals, feeding them a pink nutrient broth and carrying away waste matter. Mechanical insects patrolled their flesh, cutting away necrotic tissue and sealing open sores. I could see fiber-optics coming from the backs of their necks, possibly indicating that their neural interfaces were hardwired to a computer mainframe.

Defense Minister Renworth Vole’s voice came from behind me: “Your absence from the inquiry had us worried. I see now you’re just lost, Theron.”

I turned. With my new eyes, I saw Renworth Vole glowing with the sapphire-blue haze indicative of one of the Fume’s manifestations. I stumbled a few steps backward, regained my balance, and then put on my most fearless face.

“I’m not surprised you’re the Fume’s manifestation. That’s why you had to witness the maiden voyage via simulacrum. Being one of the Fume’s manifestations, you’re confined within the unnatural dimension around Earth, and couldn’t travel in person to the Brahman Station.”

He ignored my statement. “You look dreadful, Theron. Are you sick?”

“I’ve never been better. With these eyes I can see what you truly are. I can see the exotic energy that forms you.” I gestured to the people hanging gruesomely on the wall. “I also recognize the handiwork of one of the Fume’s manifestations. I’ve seen such cruelty before by one of your kind.”

“I admit it—human manipulation is my obsession. However, these individuals are much different from the individuals you saw in the sanitarium. These men are remote pilots for these anti-relativity warships. The individuals in the sanitarium were something altogether different.”

“Sensimion was right! There
was
one of your kind—a manifestation of the Fume—running the sanitarium.”

“I deplore this nickname you’ve given me. It hurts my feelings. Nevertheless, I must correct your perception of me. There’s only
one
of my kind, and he is I. I’m every manifestation. I
am
the exotic energy you detect with your eyes. I am the Fume, as you call me. And as you guessed, I too was the doctor in the sanitarium.”

“What do you want from us? Why are you here?”

“You’re given to a second misconception. You’re assuming I’m alien to this world, and your people. You, Theron, should know better than anyone that I’ve been among you since the beginning. Don’t you have some of my older memories? Don’t you experience them like they were your own?” The Fume paused, as if pleasured by my discomfort. “Yes, Theron, they are real memories—not madness, not fantasy. You’ve seen what my eyes have seen.”

“Why have you shown me these things! Why do these memories haunt me?”

“There’s some of me in you.”

What does he mean? He wishes to confuse me. Manipulate me.

“What’s your purpose on Earth?” I asked. “What do you want?”

The Fume paused thoughtfully. “There’s greatness in the minds of men. I’m here to promote it.”

I waited for further explanation, but none followed. “I won’t be satisfied with your cryptic shit.”

I peered into the Fume’s eyes. They swirled and eddied like chasms into hell. An awful emotion slithered through my guts and I became paralyzed. I felt as if an arc of electricity connected us. The memories of all the Fume’s past manifestations spilled back into my mind. One in particular rose to the top. I experienced it in perfect clarity as it unfolded in my mind.

“What is this hallucination?” I said. “Where am I? The past? I’m in the Victorian house that Cassandra and I built. But something’s wrong. I’m not me! These aren’t my clothes. These aren’t my hands. I can smell apple pie in the air. Cassandra loved to cook apple pie. I’m sneaking through the hallway toward the kitchen. I turn the corner and see Cassandra. Her back’s turned. Her hair’s a mess. I see the clock. It’s noon and she’s still wearing pajamas. Wait! What am I doing? I creep up behind her. I grab her by the neck. I strangle her. Why do I strangle my dear Cassandra? Stop this! Please! Damn you! Stop!”

In my mind, Cassandra went limp and her neck slid from my grip. In my hands remained her engagement necklace. The infinity spiral. The symbol of our love. It was the last time she’d ever wear it. From the murderous hands, it dropped to the floor like something worthless.

The memory ended and I puked on the launching bay floor. I glared at the Fume, my fists clenched, my lips trembled. “They said it was a drifter, but it was you. You killed my wife all those years ago, you bastard! Now you torture me with this memory. It’s as if I killed her myself. I felt your hands clutching her delicate neck.” I swallowed back a second urge to puke. “You fucking monster! She was pregnant!”

“Children are a distraction.” The Fume smiled deviously. “I’m surprised you’ve gleaned this memory. I didn’t think you’d be able to see things that have occurred during your lifetime.”