Onekka - The Tragedy of Jaqui Fennet (17 page)

The darkness
was a comfort. It was more than just an absence of light, filling her cavities
with calming shadow and the wondrous freedom of weightlessness. Adrift in a sea
of peace, she knew solace and calm, a complete lack of obligation or urgency.
This was the beauty of the celestial beings, suspended forever in the eternal
night of space, at one with their knowledge and boundless wisdom.
Anonymous shifted herself slightly, finding just the right angle to snuggle
into the velvety support around her. Thinking once again of her star analogy,
she identified a problem with it - there were no other stars with whom to
converse. What was the purpose of this perfect existence if there were no
entities to share the glory with? This situation felt entirely unsatisfactory.
Open your eyes.
She did so, and saw a blackness overhead speckled with marvellous blue-white
speckles. Anonymous sighed in blissful joy at the sheer beauty of the sight.
She should have opened her eyes a long time ago. Had she known the glory that
waited just the other side of those thin flaps of skin, she would have. She
vowed never to close them again, even for the tiniest fraction of a moment. Everybody,
she thought, should have the opportunity to experience this. Such things should
not be hidden away.
Was it hidden, though? There was a thought, and it left her savouring the
flavour of contemplation. Anonymous didn't feel so unknown. If she was a
thinker, if she new she was female and enjoyed pondering the hidden nature of
beauty, surely she must have an identity. She became aware of elements other
than thought - a body around her, concepts of insulation, warmth, encapsulation
of spirit inside a cocoon of flesh. For the first time, she wanted to move.
Thought was all well and good, and the vision above her was amazing, but she
suddenly knew a need for experience.
Remember.
Images slammed into her mind at a million thoughts per second. A deep crimson
gave way to a nurse's sharp hand, teachers imparted knowledge, a male parent
dominated his wife. Violence, death, desolation. A space station loomed in a
forward view port, a false reality was home, work, sex, secrets. Violence,
death, desolation. Death by her hand, the chase, desperate situations, a fake
man she could actually trust. Violence and death.
Jaq felt tears on her cheeks, and wondered how that was possible. The final
image burned into her brain, of Henrickson's horrified face as her chest
exploded across him, refused to fade. There was no doubt in her mind; she'd
died. So what kind of fucked up afterlife was this? She was on her back, in a
very comfortable position, looking up at a domed ceiling that seemed full of
blue stars. Jaq tried to turn her head, but found it constricted by something
soft yet firm.
Finally able to move her arms after the memory bombardment, she struggled to
sit up, but even lifting her limbs caused exhaustion and a dull ache.
Wait.
A slight pressure suffused her back, clutching along the length of her spine,
and her body flooded with energy. It was like someone flipped a switch, and
suddenly she was vibrant. Still, she wasn't able to move, but now she knew it
was restraints across her chest and forehead that were causing it. A sense of
release worked its way up her backbone from tail to skull, one vertebrae at a
time. Then pain seared through her ears, causing her to gasp and her hands to
curl into fists. It only lasted a moment, and in the open coolness of the air
around her, Jaq realised she could hear, where previously deafness had
prevailed.
The clamp around her head loosened and straps retracted from her chest and
hips. Finally, she braced hands on the solid base beneath her and shoved into a
sitting position.
Dizziness set her swaying, filling her head with wire wool. She pressed her
hands to either side, steadying the wobble while the sensation of vertigo
passed. Coloured clouds flashed before her eyes, seen through a snow storm
haze. As the episode passed, she was able to make out a little of the space she
was in. It seemed like she was on the flat, circular bottom of a gigantic bowl,
spreading away from her as far as vision allowed. Above, that domed collection
of lights dominated everything. Despite some differences, this all felt
horribly familiar. Perhaps they weren't fake stars after all.
The walls, cloaked in gloom, appeared to be made from an uneven substance,
resembling the intricate curvatures of a brain. They extended from the flat,
matt black floor to just above head height, where the clear overhead dome
started. Even if she squinted, Jaq couldn't make out additional details through
the darkness, and something inside her wasn't sure she wanted to.
She was sitting on the edge of a giant pilot's chair, exactly like the one's
she'd seen on Onekka. Sure enough, a glance behind her revealed three more,
arranged in a radial pattern with their heads together. The ramifications
swarmed like bees in her head, but she couldn't settle on a single thought - it
all just seemed like too much to get a handle on. Despite that, no giant
upsurge of emotion toppled her sanity. Somehow, she felt able to take all this
in her stride, even if she had no hope of understanding it.
"What on Earth is going on?" she mumbled, and then laughed as she
realised what she'd said.
"Hello, Jaqui." The voice came from behind the group of massive
chairs, familiar and yet strange, as though she'd heard it before, but its
vibrancy was usually not audible.
"Where am I?" she blurted. "This can't be Heaven, or Hell,
Valhalla, Gehenna, whatever else you might want to call it. That would just be
weird." She gasped. "You bastards have recreated me, haven't you? You
took my body after Henrickson killed me and turned me into some fucked up
hybrid! I'm back Upstairs, aren't I?"
There was a note of amusement in the response. "Ironically, you are not
far from the truth. Look around you, Jaqui. This isn't the familiar Upstairs,
with its control cabins, computers, and cabling, with its messy mummies and
unreliable army of dead mercenaries. This is a far more ...
natural
interpretation of that scene."
Explain to her.
"What is that voice?" Jaq pushed off the chair and dropped to her
feet. Her legs wobbled, feeling somehow disconnected from her, but strong
enough to keep her upright. "It's in my head but feels like I've heard it,
just richer and deeper than any voice should be."
"Do not exert yourself too quickly. That body is unfamiliar with the
impulses you are sending it. The voice is them; our creators and hosts. We
exist to serve, and the service I must perform is to fill you in on what must
have been a very bizarre set of experiences."
Jaq blinked her eyes, which felt packed with sand, and shook her head in an
attempt to clear the muzziness that lingered in her thoughts. "I'd feel a
lot more comfortable if I could see who I was talking to."
"That is highly debatable."
"How can you explain things to me when you won't even reveal
yourself?"
"Very well." A shuffling noise approached from the other side of the
chairs. As a stunted figure came into view, wearing a blue boiler suit,
something horrified welled up in Jaq's mind. The speaker was perhaps four feet
tall; a condition caused by her legs, which lacked feet or knees, and scraped
back and forth against the floor. She rocked from side to side as she walked. A
hunch ravaged her back and neck, forcing her head to sit at a jaunty angle, and
one arm appeared withered and useless. Long black hair cascaded down to the
figure's waist, which was perhaps a foot from the floor. Despite distended
teeth and a strangely misshapen nose, Jaq had no trouble recognising herself.
She sobbed past a closed throat. "What the fuck is going on here?"
Explain/
"I'm getting to it!" said the twisted version of Jaqui, aiming the
comment at the thin air above them. They matched gazes. "I told you it
wasn't a good idea."
"Who ... what are you?"
The stunted version of Jaq smiled. "The 'who' part is easy. I am number
Thirty Seven."
Jaq gasped, suddenly feeling weak, and settled herself cross-legged on the
floor before she fainted. "And the 'what' part?" she whispered.
"That will take some explaining." The dwarf flopped to her backside
opposite Jaq, leaving a space between them, but close enough for easy
conversation. "How much do you remember about your trip to the moon
facility, and what went wrong?"
Jaq was taken aback by the question. The trip seemed so long ago now - her
entire life had been transformed in the intervening period, even if it hadn't
taken very long. "My memories of it are pretty vague - I meant to look it
up, actually. I know I got to the facility, did the tour, and took off, but
it's all a little hazy after that."
Her deformed doppelganger nodded. "That's probably a side-effect of the
extraction. They had to make sure you wouldn't remember the process itself, but
it's hard to get the right cut-off point with memories."
"Is this going to start making sense any time soon?"
A laugh. "I love your sense of humour, Jaqui. It's probably our favourite
of the gifts you gave us. Anyway, your shuttle encountered what would have
looked like engine failure when it tried to use the Moon's gravitational pull
to perform a slingshot and send you back to Onekka. In fact, that was our hosts
here, lurking on the dark side of the Moon. They ambushed the shuttle with an
anti-energy device and knocked out all the passengers with a sonic wave. Then
they boarded, and took DNA samples from each of you. At that moment, your fate
was sealed."
Jaq shook her head again, certain she must be hearing things. "What does
this all mean?"
"They used the DNA to create a clone of you and several others, but yours
was the most successful. That's why you were chosen to proceed with the
requirement, as well as your advantageous positioning in the professional
hierarchy aboard Onekka."
"When you say 'me', do you mean me here, or me spattered all over an
android policeman back on Onekka?"
The dwarf grinned. "You here. You're number One, Jaqui, quite literally. In
the three weeks it took for your shuttle to be rescued and you returned to
Onekka, our hosts here had grown a complete adult clone. They plugged you in to
the chair and sent your will across space, hard enough that you were able to
dominate the version of you back on Onekka. It was a risk, but you performed
better than any of them expected, entirely assuming the persona and life of
yourself."
Jaq blinked, aware of a headache growing through her thoughts. She groaned and
placed palms either side of her head. Was any of this possible? Surely she was
having some weirded out fantasy nightmare.
"Of course, you needed some help," continued Thirty Seven.
"That's why the rest of us were grown. The problem with clones is that
each iteration introduces ... imperfections. However, it also refines the
process of mind and thought replication. You didn't need a mind, because you
would be taking over your original, but the other single numbers were
unbalanced, to say the least. The first viable mind was number Nineteen. Along
with Thirty Two and myself, she became a spirit guide, of sorts. I am your last
iteration, Jaqui; physically useless, but entirely stable."
"Are you telling me I haven't actually been on Onekka for weeks - all
along, I've been here, controlling another me?"
"That depends entirely on your concept of self. Your original would no
doubt see things differently, had you not destroyed her consciousness when you
took over. Surely, where you think you are is where you are? The physical
location of the body is, in many respects, irrelevant."
Jaq looked at the dark, solid floor beneath her, steadily coming to a terrible
realisation. "So I've not only betrayed myself, I've condemned the entire
human race! Barrow was right; Onekka was created to stop these ... these
hosts
,
as you call them, and now I have single-handedly disabled Earth's best defence.
I'm the greatest pariah in the history of mankind - the traitor that ended
eternity!"
Thirty seven shrugged. "Or you're a loyal servant, following the wishes of
your creators. As I said, it all comes down to a question of identity."
"But why?" she whispered. "What dreadful malice made them want
to threaten us?"
"Well, what we have now is another question of perspective. I believe
Captain Barrow gave you his somewhat limited understanding of events
surrounding first contact."
Jaq nodded. "He said there was an exchange, then the aliens made some
threat - something so frightening that the UN pooled resources to create
Onekka."
The clone nodded. "That is partially true. Our hosts were at least a
decade distant at the time, although they were already heading this way, having
been aware of the potential for intelligent life in this quadrant. When one of
their transmission was answered, they were very excited, because the data sent
back from Earth evidence understanding of biotech, physics, and 3D calculation
very similar to their own."
She sighed before continuing. "They sent a data dump to Earth, detailing
their DNA profiles, details of race and history, and a large collection of
technology which they felt would be compatible with humanity's research and
level of understanding. Can you guess how Earth responded?"
"I have a good idea," responded Jaq, rubbing her eyes with knuckles,
feeling something sink inside. "And I bet it wasn't a very friendly
reaction."
"They immediately set about designing weapons that would be effective
against our hosts, based on the information provided. At that moment, Onekka
was born. She was designed and built for one purpose; to combat the alien
menace. Our hosts might have left it at that, given there was no direct threat.
After all, one could argue that preparing a defence against possible aggression
is only sensible. They would still have been open to full discourse ... had it
not been for the chairs."
Thirty Seven reached up and patted one of the huge devices. "These can be
used for many purposes. They work by projecting the consciousness of the seated
entity into the depths of space. Our hosts used them for exploration, chiefly,
and for fast, direct communication between their fleet, which is spread
galaxy-wide. As it turns out, they can also be used to impose will upon a
target entity. You might have guessed, it was the humans who came up with that
idea.