The Immortal Harvest (40 page)

She was interrupted by a voice from behind her.

“Mother, please let Oolax answer your questions.”

She turned around quickly and was shocked to see her son and noticed immediately that he had changed.

He was much taller and seemed ten years older. She noticed how much he looked like Michael.

She ran to him and wrapped her arms around him. Her emotions took control and she began to cry onto his shoulder.

“Justen, where were you? What has happened to you? Where is my sweet little boy? She felt his strong arms around her as she began to sob and then stopped suddenly and pushed away from his embrace.

“Wait. How do I know it’s really you? Are you another alien?”

She watched as her son smiled and winked at her. He put his hand gently on her shoulder and leant in close to her.

“It’s okay Mother,” he said quietly into her ear. “Oolax and I will explain everything. Please sit back down on the bench.

“Do you want me to tell them everything Oolax?” She heard him ask the alien as he helped her back to the bench.

Sylvan saw the alien approach and place his hand on Justen’s shoulder. His huge head nodded and then he vanished.

Sylvan looked up at her son proudly as he addressed the group.

*     *     *

Justen could see the looks on the faces of the men and women who were seated around him. He knew that they were scared and confused. He could sense their feelings; however he could no longer read their thoughts.

He took a deep breath and began. He waved his arm and a large star map appeared in the air above them. He pointed to a mass of intersecting lines on that map.

I will tell you everything but I want you to hold any questions until I finish. He looked around at the group who slowly nodded their assent at his request. He smiled at his mother and then began his story.

“This place is a holding point in space and time. It is controlled by Oolax and his people who are related to me through my father Michael, who was created by the scientists of his world.” Justen looked around at the group and saw the puzzled looks on their faces. He knew he had a lot of ground to cover, he took another deep breath and continued.

“You see, there are many Earths; in fact there are an infinite amount of Earths and they all exist at the same time in an infinite amount of Universes.”

“The Multiverse!” he heard the youngest agent exclaim.

“Yes Agent Lewiston you are correct,” Justen said as he swept his arm across in front of him and the image above them exploded into a vast and colourful array depicting countless Universes, sparkling with countless stars.

“You see, over vast aeons of time, as massive stars in each Universe collapse and form black holes, they produce a new big bang and yet another Universe is spawned. The process is infinite.”

He then swept his hand across the display and highlighted two tiny blue planets in two consecutive Universes and expanded that image.

“Our Earth, the one we inhabit is almost identical to every other Earth. Each Earth however, like human beings, has its own unique characteristics as each was created and progressed differently.

My Father’s Earth was more technologically advanced than ours as they were fortunate enough to be visited by Aliens who possessed superior knowledge.

Unfortunately, they used some of that knowledge to alter their DNA in the search for immortality. This was the cause of their ultimate destruction.

The devastating virus which attacked their cells, forced them to seek out other viable humans. They harvested the organs of millions of people in order to keep from perishing.

When they ran out of people to harvest on their world they used wormhole technology to visit our world and start a new harvest.

My father was working with an organisation which was trying to stop this evil waste of human life. In the end he was successful – but only by paying the ultimate price.”

Justen squatted down in front of his Mother and looked gently into her eyes.

“I’m sorry Mother; Father never made it through the wormhole with us.”

Justen deliberately neglected to tell his Mother the truth behind his Father’s death, he knew it would be too cruel.

He placed his hands gently on Sylvan’s shoulders; he could see how distraught she was and tried to comfort her as best he could.

“I’m sorry to interrupt you son, but what happened to everyone else in that room? Where is Baxter?”

“Yes, where is he? And Lisa, what happened to her?”

Justen heard the voices of Agent Durning and Lewiston and for a moment considered ignoring them to continue comforting his Mother.

He looked at Sylvan’s face as she said quietly, “It’s okay Justen I’ll be alright, continue telling your story.”

He nodded at his Mother and stood to face the agents.

“You have all had Trans-Dimensional Interface chips implanted in the backs of your necks. My Father
borrowed
these from the other people just before you were sent here. He did that to protect you from the stresses of Inter-dimensional travel.

As for the other people, the Harvesters, they were all destroyed by Stringer, and because he detonated the Anti matter device next to an active wormhole, it destroyed their Universe.

I’m sorry Agent Lewiston, but I’m afraid we all lost a lot of good friends and loved ones, even my own Father sacrificed his life and his world to save ours.”

“Why did he have to die?”

Justen heard the very quiet voice of his Mother and was just about to answer when Oolax reappeared behind him.

“Michael accepted his punishment,” he said as he placed his hand on Justen’s shoulder.

Justen was surprised at his Mother’s instant reaction to the comment and had to restrain her from attacking his alien friend.

“Punishment – What do you mean? He should not have been punished, he saved our lives!”

Oolax took a step back away and held up his hand.

“Yes – he saved your lives knowing that he would lose his life.

Michael was punished because of his role in helping his people build the Traverser. His world was not ready for such a device. They upset the balance of the Multiverse.”

Justen sensed that Oolax was genuinely remorseful and noticed that the deep purple colouration of his body had changed subtly to a more pinkish hue. He felt him place his hand on his shoulder as Oolax continued to explain.

“I regret that our people are to blame; they should never have interfered with another race’s development. Michael was a product of that interference which had severe repercussions. We had to act to try and reverse the damage.”

“But what about Justen? Are you going to kill him too?”

Justen could see the anger in his Mother’s eyes and strengthened his hold on her.

Oolax smiled and patted Justen on the shoulder.

“No – we have no need to hurt Justen. The effort that he expended saving all of you has depleted his powers.

He no longer has abilities; his DNA has reverted to pure human. In the process he has rapidly matured, he is no longer a little boy. He is no longer a threat to the balance of the Multiverse.

Please I want you all to understand this, those friends and family who have died will encounter the same fate that awaits all sentient beings after death, their essences will return to become one with their Universe – for you see nothing in the Multiverse is ever completely destroyed.

Life is merely a transient time between states of matter and energy. Michael’s people lost everything in the search for immortality, not realising that they were already immortal.

As for your friend Baxter, we have attended to his injuries and placed him in stasis for his return journey.”

Justen heard the murmurs from the group and sensed their concerns. He could see that Lewiston was upset upon hearing that his friend had died and was being comforted by the Agent known as Alicia.

He saw the youngest woman in the group, the one he knew as Drew stand and also put her arm around Lewiston’s shoulder. She then looked at Oolax and asked the question that Justen sensed the entire group wanted to know.

“Are you sending
us
back?”

Justen thought he heard Oolax laugh at the question. It was a strange noise and he only could guess it was a laugh by his body language. He stood taller and stretched his neck. At the same time pulses of light travelled up his body.

The group watched in awe as the Alien grew taller and held his long thin hands out in front of him.

Justen watched as Oolax closed his eyes and a strange spherical glow formed between the aliens’ hands. The glow intensified and then a solid object formed where the glow had been.

To Justen, it looked like the device that his Father had; only it was much bigger. It was the size of a basketball.

Once the object had fully formed, Oolax opened his eyes.

“Come, all of you stand and place your hands on the orb and I will send you home.”

Three weeks had passed since the strange ordeal at the Homeless shelter.

Baxter had spent several days in his hospital bed drifting in and out of consciousness, He had been restrained in his bed for the first couple of weeks as he was convinced that he was scheduled for organ removal and on more than one occasion had attacked the Doctor and the Nurses who were treating him.

He took two pain tablets for his shoulder injury and then slowly chased a small blob of pudding around on his plate with a plastic spoon.

He tried to think about his current situation but struggled to piece together the events which led him to this hospital bed. Some parts of his memory were returning, however he had far more questions than answers.

What was even more puzzling was the fact that his brain tumour had completely vanished and in fact he felt healthier than he had done in years.

However, he still had a bit of memory loss, He could only recall bits and pieces of the incidence at the homeless shelter but he was confident that eventually the memories would return and he looked forward to his Doctor’s final visit to give him the all clear to leave.

He had finally given up on catching the pudding when he heard the sound of visitors in the hallway outside his room.

“Come in, come in,” he said as he moved his food tray off to the side of his bed and quickly sat up.

“Hey Boss when are you going to ditch this place and join us in the land of the living?” He heard Durning ask as he shook his hand.

He was pleased that the whole team was here, with the exception of Lisa of course which caused him a small ping of regret. He shook it off and concentrated on the assembled group.

Lewiston, the tallest of the group stood back slightly from the rest. Baxter noted that he still had that ruffled look; however he could tell that the loss of Lisa had caused him to age. His face had lost its youthful innocence.

He was gratified however from the reports he had been receiving from Durning that Lewiston had turned into a very good FBI agent.

He had unofficially deputised Thompson to head up his team during his absence, much to the chagrin of the Deputy Director who insisted that Durning take the lead.

Baxter had to admit though that Durning took the appointment of Thompson very well which went a long way to helping Baxter soften his stance somewhat with the agent.

He noticed that Durning held a report in his hands.

“The Doctor is clearing me to leave this afternoon. Is that the Baker case?” He asked as he held out his hand.

Thompson moved forward from the group and stopped Durning from handing it over.

“Yes Boss, it’s the report. We have it all under control so you don’t need to worry about it; you’re still off duty for another week.”

“Yes, thankyou Arnold I know that, but I have a lot of free time on my hands and I would really like to take a look at it, that’s why I asked you to bring it with you.” Baxter said and smiled at the group.

Alicia and Drew moved towards him and gently grabbed an arm each, being careful not to aggravate his shoulder wound.

“Come on Sir, why don’t you relax. We’ll help you get back into bed,” Drew said as she nodded at Alicia.

“I’m fine Drew, I’m not an invalid, I can get myself into bed,” Baxter said as he shrugged them off.

“Now please hand me that report Durning, I want to see it and that’s an order,” he said as he raised his voice slightly and grabbed the report out of Durning’s hand.

He reached for his reading glasses from his bedside table then spread the report out on the bed. He was hoping that by reading the report it would regenerate some of his memories of that particular day.

He knew that he had been wounded, but it was unclear to him who shot him or how he ended up in the hospital. So many things about that day confused him.

He flipped through the pages of the report. He had to admit that it was comprehensive and concise although there appeared to be a few inconsistencies.

“The report is very good. As a team you have done very well,” Baxter said as he glanced up at his team over the top of his glasses. “I do have a few questions however.”

“Yes Boss, what would you like to know?” Thompson said as he looked around at the group.

Baxter sensed that there was more to the report and he wondered why they would hold anything back.

“According to this, the homeless shelter was destroyed by a gas leak and that the Senator’s assassin, Edward Stringer and the other members of Mundus Nova were killed in the explosion.”

“Yes that’s right,” Durning said as he reached for the report. “Do you want me to take that from you and file it Boss?”

Baxter held his hand firmly on the pages of the report.

“Not just yet Durning, I’m not finished. I want to know what happened to the bodies. I also want to know why most of the buildings on Tenth Street have vanished. I don’t believe a gas leak would cause that much devastation and don’t tell me it was aliens Durning or you will be out of a job.”

He could see that the whole group appeared to be avoiding eye contact with him and were trying to stop from laughing. It was Agent Thompson who spoke up as he shot the group a serious look. He cleared his voice before he spoke. He flipped through the pages as he explained.