Socket 3 - The Legend of Socket Greeny (14 page)

[You do not understand—]

“I understand the only reason I exist was to
carry you into Fetter. There’s nothing else to understand, no other
reason for my life! YOU USED ME!”
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Anger
thundered from my chest, thudding against the walls. “How could you
do this to me?”

He only stood there, head down, allowing my
energy to pound the ship. My presence wrapped around him. The air
became my body and I felt his entire being. I latched onto every
cell in his body. I could throw him through the wall, crush him
into powder, dissect him like a high school science project. But I
did none of that. I only forced him to look up. With a thought, I
pushed his chin up. His hair fell off his face, exposed an
expression of remorse.

“Speak.”

[I lost the ability to speak.]
He
shook the hair from his eyes.
[And see.]

“Why?”

[Some things cannot be undone.]

“So it’s true, what Fetter said. You and her
are… you think you’re gods?”

[No longer.]

“But you’re not real, any more than me.”

[Fetter and I created the black planet, but
I realized the folly of our existence. I escaped in order to
correct my error.]

“You want to destroy her?”

[The time has come.]

“What gives you the right?” The ship creaked
under pressure. I took a deep breath, let my pain and confusion
penetrate his awareness so that he could feel what he had done.

“What’s it like to be so callus, so
unfeeling? To behave like a machine?”

[I have not lied to you.]

“Have not lied?” Sand slid over the top of
the craft, trickling along the side, casting a flowing shadow over
the floor. “Your concept of honesty is warped.”

[If you knew your true nature, Fetter never
would’ve taken you inside, never would’ve opened to you, merged
with you, allowed you to absorb her. To trap her.]

I charged into the sunlight.
“
YOU LET
ME LOVE!
”

His eyes moved, but did not focus. His lips
parted, but there were no words. Only a thought.
[I have much to
atone for.]

I spit on him. “Manumit is your name.”

[I accept that.]

“You are nothing. Pivot is dead.”

[I understand.]

“You couldn’t possibly. No one in existence
could understand what this feels like.” I grabbed his face with one
hand. “I don’t want to know why you did this because I don’t care
about your petty war. I loved you.
How
could you do this to
me? That’s what I don’t understand. How could you do this to
anyone?”

He opened his mind, thoughts drifted toward
me. Images of his past. Effortlessly, and spitefully, I pushed them
away. “Don’t touch me with your mind.” I stepped closer, he could
feel my breath. “Just explain.”

[If you wish to understand, you must
see.]

His milky eyes looked directly at me. His
thoughts waited. He would not force them on me. In fact, he
couldn’t force me to do anything. I had become more than him. I
walked away, feeling anger seethe like a pyre. My presence pushed
against the confines of the ship. The walls buckled. I didn’t want
his touch, didn’t want his presence. But I wanted to know.

I walked to the back of the ship where it was
dark, trembling. When all was still, I opened my mind. Visions of
his past drifted toward me and melted into my consciousness. I
closed my eyes.

I saw his life.

[My ancestors were pioneers.]

The space craft was the size of a stadium and
sparkled with lights where people lived normal lives. It was large
enough to grow crops and raise animals, everything to sustain life.
The ship travelled through thousands of solar systems by finding
natural wormholes in space.

Eventually, they uncovered the secret to
space and existed in a vacuum of time that moved sideways instead
of forward. Many generations were born and raised on that ship
before those on their home planet aged a second in time.

[Their mission was to find a habitable
planet besides their own. It became their only mission. However,
they had become lost and, despite their navigational technology,
they could not find their way back home.]

The ship hovered past planet after planet,
some with water and ice while others were hot and dry. When the
conditions were deemed habitable, they transported to the surface.
But the environments were still harsh where wind punished
igloo-shaped buildings under a sulfuric yellow sky. Scientists
studied data, hoping they could find a way to survive without the
aid of suits and equipment, hoping that one day they could leave
the ship.

Instead, each planet brought sickness and
death.

[My people discovered so many solar systems,
but so many were lost and so little was learned. They simply
couldn’t adapt to another planet. They were destined to remain on a
decaying ship. Hope faded. Until I was born.]

On board the ship, a child ran through the
corridors, chased by older kids. This boy had sandy hair. His eyes
were clear blue. The kids caught this child and even though they
were bigger, he deftly avoided their clutches, striking at their
knees and slipping between their legs until he escaped.

This child was eighteen when he took command
of the deep space colony. The population had dwindled and there
were few left to challenge him, but it wouldn’t have mattered. Some
men are trained to lead. Others are born. His visage was calm yet
demanding. He was reliable, always at his post. He led all
explorations. When they returned, he personally went to each family
to express his sorrow for their loss. Afterwards, he sought
quietude with a woman.

As the years went by, they had a daughter.
Some nights, he watched his family sleep. And some nights, the
captain silently wept. He wasn’t supposed to be weak; he was
expected to embody strength and fearlessness. But his people were
running out of time.

Even heroes falter.

[There was a choice to be made: watch my
people die or embrace technology. After generations of searching,
it was clear we would never be able to adapt to another planet. Our
bodies were organic. Vulnerable. If I chose technology, we could
survive. But there would be no turning back. In my mind, the choice
was simple.]

The captain was in a laboratory, strapped
onto a white bed, his head secured with steel bands. A crew of
scientists watched from behind a glass wall. His wife was among
them. She did not chew on her fingernails or tap her foot, for she
was the wife of the captain, and his duty included risk.

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.]