Socket 1-3 - The Socket Greeny Saga (69 page)

Stainless steel infusion guns fit through
holes on the bed, pressed against his spine, a barrel for each
vertebra. The captain clenched the white sheet. He took three short
breaths, held the last one and blinked. A green light turned
on.

He tried not to scream.

[I was the first to accept the conversion
into inorganic existence. It was controversial technology, but we
had experimented with rats. We did not know if it would work on a
human, but I’d seen enough of my people die.]

He shook long after the infusion guns were
removed and the green light turned off. The scientists watched him
convulse. Spittle foamed on his lips and he broke through the steel
straps. The captain fell on the floor. The scientists rushed in to
help, but there was nothing they could do.

[The nanomechs imitated blood cells and
began the replication of the body’s organs, muscles and blood. If
we were correct, my organic body would be replaced with an exact
duplication of mechanized cells. Like a full body prosthesis.]

The captain lay in a coma for weeks with his
wife by his side. They monitored his vitals and watched his heart
beat slower and blood pressure drop. Even when his heart stopped
beating and began to hum, he was still alive.

Conversion complete.

[I awoke a new man, no longer organic. No
longer human. But I had the same memories. The same
personality.]

On a mountainous planet where precipitation
hissed like acid on an igloo hut, the captain stepped outside. The
scientists followed in protective suits. He raised his arms,
laughing loudly in the howling wind. The rain melted his skin, but
it just as quickly healed.

[I became indestructible.]

The lab was expanded with more beds and
infusion guns. Conversion technology was in full swing and the
people lined up. The infusions healed their bodies. There was no
difference in how they felt or behaved, they only felt better. Even
the children were converted and continued to grow and mature, some
without a clue of what they had become.

[Not all conversions were successful. Some
bodies rejected the nanomechs like a virus. We all made sacrifices
to survive. I was no different.]

The captain held his wife’s hand just before
their child was pushed away on a rolling bed. They stood at the
glass wall and watched the infusion guns pump the nanomechs into
her. Watched her flail about. Watched the monitors flat-line. The
scientists did everything they could to revive her. The captain and
his wife pushed them away, furiously thumped her chest. In the end,
they held her, rocking back and forth. They buried her alone, on an
unknown planet, dug the hole with their bare hands.

[For the survivors, our intelligence was
efficient and flawless, we thought at tremendous speeds. Our
activity could operate at the speed of light. And we spread
throughout the known universe.]

Planets passed, each of various colors and
sizes orbiting different stars. Exploratory shuttles were launched
and the pioneers walked onto the surface of each planet, regardless
of weather and atmosphere. Images of dinosaurs and human-like
beings and curious apes flashed through my vision, exhibiting
countless habitable climates they discovered as they travelled
sideways in time.

[We learned to merge our minds and think
collectively, formulating theories never before possible. We
discovered realms of existence never dreamed of. Parallel
universes. Ethereal worlds.]

Many of them meditated, all facing the wall.
They began to vibrate. Apparitions of their bodies floated toward
the center of the room and merged. Then I saw the deep space ship
split into two images, as if it copied itself in space, and went in
opposite directions, through different wormholes. Colors, shapes
and sounds warped the image, flashing and twisting in strange
patterns.

[We became all things. All powerful.
God-like.]

The colors merged to form a close-up of a
large blue eye.

[But in time, we grew colder.]

The view backed out, revealed the captain’s
ashen face. Hard and cold.

[The price of our immortality was our
humanity. We forgot what we are. We were void of a soul. Hungry
ghosts.]

The view backed further out. The captain
stood stolid on an icy tundra, sleet spitting sideways across
frozen desolation.

[We were without essence: the life-giving
presence of our being. We craved existence.]

The view pulled further out. Bodies were on
the ice, lying in contorted poses. As the view continued back, the
bodies of humans extended on and on, scattered through the
wasteland.

[So we took it from others.]

Manumit and Fetter walked hand-in-hand down
a city sidewalk, one that could easily pass for New York. People
fell in their wake, their essence floated from them like silky fog,
absorbed into their bodies. There was panic in the streets. They
took their time; there was no hurry. All they had was time.

The landscapes changed, sometimes they were
in the countryside and the captain and his wife would sit with
families to break bread, afterwards sneak into their room like a
vampire. Sometimes centuries would pass on a populated planet, but
it was always left barren of life.

[We fed like parasites, but satisfaction was
so short-lived and we became hungrier. Greedier. Worlds suffered,
greatly.]

Mortars exploded and jets sizzled overhead
dropping death from the sky. Tanks and rocket propelled grenades
exploded around Manumit, but he was unfazed, instantly healing and
continuing his death crusade. Planet after planet.

[Humans detested us, prayed that their gods
abandoned them to the devil. We could consume a planet in months.
We grew hungrier, still, and I was weary of the chase. Instead, I
used our technology to build a home.]

The black planet was dense and lifeless,
absorbing light. It was a vessel of artificiality. But inside were
green hills and sultry sunsets. Water fell from the side of the
mountain face, spilling into the lake below, sending a rainbow
arching over the mist.

[I convinced the others to follow us. But
when they arrived, Fetter and I absorbed their stolen essence and
ate what was left of them. We only needed each other. And when the
desire for essence howled inside us again, we ventured out to
another planet.]

Billions of bluish tendrils extended from
the black planet, extending out into space like glowing roots.
These wormholes led to life, somewhere in existence, connecting
everything to the black planet and siphoned the essence of all that
lived.

A cancer cell.

[We were soul-eaters, and our victims gave
their essence, their experience and life. Until we sucked the
entire planet dry.]

Cities were empty. Weeds sprouted among the
dilapidated high rises. Cars rusted in driveways and airplanes were
buried in snow.

[No human stood a chance.]

The thoughts and images receded. I opened my
eyes and observed him, over my shoulder. His head was bowed again,
the cube cradled in his hands. The sun had moved across the sky and
the line of sunlight was creeping deeper into the shade.

[We knew we were not alive, that we had
become a disease, but we ignored it. We were gods. Our will was
undeniable. Nothing in the universe could stop us, until we
encountered a seemingly innocent species.]

Another image appeared in my mind, this one
of a blue planet, similar to the countless ones that had been
drained of life.

[The grimmets were creatures we never knew
existed. They contained this amazing intelligence and beamed with
an intensity of essential life like no other. They were immune to
us, but they could not stop us from sucking the rest of the planet
of life.]

The image of a vibrant, thriving environment
quickly dried up. Plants shriveled. Skeletons littered the
landscape. Dust blew over the red mountains where the Grimmet
Outpost now sat on the lifeless planet.

The grimmets sat on the limbs of dead trees
watching a man and a woman walk across the deserted plains,
preparing to return to the black planet. Fetter was the first to
dissolve into the air like a figure of sand, followed by a blue
flash in the gray sky. But Manumit turned and looked over his
shoulder. The grimmets caught his attention.

[Before we were finished, the grimmet
species left me with a thought.]

His eyes narrowed.

[They gave me the answer.]

His posture softened. He looked over the
world he’d just decimated like he was seeing it for the first time.
He saw what he’d done.

[They showed me home.]

I saw the image they had put in Manumit’s
mind. I saw a planet that was blue and green. I saw forests and
buildings, rivers and oceans and deserts. And I saw the people
there. I recognized this planet.

“Earth?” I turned and walked toward him.
“How could this be your home?”

[The Paladins launched the space program to
find life in the universe. The original space pioneers traveled
sideways in time while Earth had barely aged. For my people, eons
passed.]

“The original space pioneers… they’re
Paladins?
”

He bowed his head.

“They created you.”

[They could not foresee the events that led
to our creation.]

“But, how could they not know?”

[We were lost, how could they?]

It was true. As powerful as the Paladin
Nation was, they were nothing compared to the secrets of the
universe. How could they know they’d created the black planet? How
could they know they were responsible for a cosmic disease?

[After the grimmets, I returned to the black
planet, but what they showed me would not fade. I began to remember
my original face.]

I saw the child run down the corridor.

[At first, I considered erasing the memory
like corrupt data, but the longer I held it, the more pressing it
became. The compulsion to remember my original self was too great.
I knew there was an end to our ceaseless journey, our unending
thirst, in remembering our true nature. I knew the black planet
would have to end. Fetter, though, was not convinced.]

“You’re human, again?”

[No.]
He turned his head, slightly,
self-conscious of his dead eyes.
[But there is hope.]

“You think you’re going to heaven?”

[I don’t know where I’m going.]

“You betrayed me.”

[As I’ve said, there is much to atone.]

Anger twisted inside me, the currents
punching dents in the invisible walls of the ship, warping bubbles
in space. The ship wailed, shifting in the dune and tilting toward
Pivot.

“So you wanted to save the day, but needed
to bait the hook, so why not me? I’m not real, not a person. I’m
inorganic, just like her. Throw me in front of the runaway
train.”

[You did something no other being could
do.]

“I’m a machine.”

[No machine could do what you did. It is
your ability to love, to open and become vulnerable, that allowed
you to do so. You are very human.]

I lifted my hand, displayed the new fingers,
lifted my shirt, revealed the stripes of new flesh. Not flesh.
Nanomechs pretending to be flesh, pretending to be everything that
was me: my thoughts, my mind, heart, all just a script.

“You call this human?”

[I spent eons in seclusion, searching for
the right human to carry forth my plan. In all the universe, you
are that person.]

“STOP SAYNG THAT, GODDAMN YOU! I’m not a
person!”

[You were cloned from a person.]

“Then use him!”

[Because no human could withstand the pain
and suffering that you have endured. No machine could, either. You
are the machine that became human.]

“The machine that
thinks
it’s
human.”

[You have a mother—]

“I DON’T HAVE A MOTHER!”

[— that loves you very much.]

“Tell that to my clone.”

[It is not the human race that needs you. It
is all of life.]

He raised the cube, as if the responsibility
was mine. I slapped it out of his hands and punctured the wall. A
hissing stream of compressed air shot into the desert. Pain sliced
my earlobe again as the cube bounced over the floor.

I shielded my eyes from the sunlight, picked
up the cube. It was impossibly heavy to lift. It was only my
telekinetic ability that allowed me to hold it in my palm where it
gyrated with low frequency. It contained a god.

My earlobe buzzed again.

“I wish you luck,” I said. “Heaven’s filled
with a lot of pissed off people.” I placed the cube in Pivot’s
hands. “Hell, too.”

[Please, understand.]

I walked around, felt the smooth walls of
the ship with my mind. I put my finger through the hole. It was
time to stretch out. I had been contained long enough. As easy as
striking out with my fist, I willed to be free.

The side of the ship exploded.

The ground thundered.

Black shrapnel from the ship’s wall fell
from the sky, slicing into the sand hundreds of yards away. The
heat of the desert whooshed into the ship. I stood at the jagged
edge, the sand several feet below. The air dried my nostrils and my
physical presence soared over the dunes, sprung from the ship like
a failed dam. I merged with each particle of sand, merged with the
lichens surviving on the stones, the scorpions and spiders and
snakes and cacti, the jackrabbits and lizards and coyotes. I felt
it all. Connected with them. Became them.

The sand crunched between my boot and floor.
Pivot gently touched my arm.

[I can only isolate Fetter for a period of
time. The data needs to be reconfigured and returned to the black
planet to shut down all systems. If she escapes, Earth will be
next. I have risked much for this moment.]

“And you need me to take her back?”