the heart of the object

“Contact!” I cried, before the screen tore and wires flooded into my lap. A bulb burst and something exploded from my right. A burning sensation filled my cheek and I realised the explosion had come from inside my headset. The jack linked to my skull burned and i scrambled to tear it free, ignoring the training manual which recommended against such an act mid-flight. The burning wetness spread through my mind. The headset fell away, exposing the cord linking my mind to the ship.

My fingertips slid against the jack, and eventually managed to find a grip. I jerked it free and choked as chemical residue filled my mouth. A by-product of the connection between man and machine being fresh chemicals being produced by the glands surgically implanted into the brain. The acidic taste caused me to gag and the sudden feeling of being disconnected was close to that of an amputee waking to find he’s lost his lower body. I couldn’t move.

I couldn’t see.

With horror, I realised I was blind.

I opened my eyes instead, and the terrifying light snaked down the fibres of my optical lenses and into my brain with all the gentleness of a brick held in an iron-mailed fist.

“Contact,” I spluttered again, dimly aware that since disconnection I was now unable to communicate with anyone. “Contact!”

The smell of smoke filled the cockpit and I felt the heat behind my head where sparks were raining down across my shoulders.

The power running through my ship was burning it alive. I touched the keypad – a remnant from ancient times – and pressed for manual control. I tried to remember my training. Up is forward, down is descent. Left and right – my trainer had said if I needed those explaining then I should reconsider my career.

I coughed on the remains of chemical in my mouth and stabbed the up key, up key, up key. “Get me out of here!” I growled at the computer, knowing it was dead. I was flying a mechanical corpse.

It responded, though. Skeletal systems kicked in and I shook my head to clear it of the fog of disconnection.

Looked up, and saw it.

“Dear Maker,” I blinked.

It was huge. A giant metal object hovering there like an insect, its strobing lights like feelers, touching my ship and brushing my mind. Its skin was black, nearly the colour of void. There were no viewing portals I could see. It might as well have been a solid block of metal. Perhaps it was.

I shuddered at the very smoothness of its skin. It revolted me to even look at it, but at the same time it invited me closer.

I used the kickpads to slow the ship and approached slowly.

A sudden gust of spray behind my head showed the ship’s systems had kicked in and noticed the fire. Several lights which had been flickering on the sparse dashboard ceased. I felt around for my headset, but couldn’t reach it.

I tapped at a square and a dashboard with a small keyboard flipped out. I tapped a few commands and got the backup computer online.

send – > emergency beacon

the computer thought about it.

unable to send was its reply a few seconds later.

determine_source – > emergency beacon failure

unable to determine

I shook my head. The source was obvious, really.

scan – > unidentified object point 0 ahead

no object detected

I frowned.

“It’s right there!” I said, tapping the keyboard.

scan – > all objects point -90 to +90

no object detected

I gave up. The thing ahead of me hadn’t moved.

I lifted the ship up to skim the edge of the object, and it didn’t seem to know I was there.

I skimmed as close as I dared.

Nothing.

No reaction.

I rubbed my eyes. Maybe it had been so long since I had used my optical lenses they’d deteriorated. My last physical was a few weeks ago. Nothing had shown up then, but maybe in the meantime something had happened.

I tried again to reach my headset, and my fingertips brushed it. I stretched and felt my shoulder spasm in pain, but managed to grab hold. I pulled it over my head and unplugged the oral sensor and the aural projectors before slipping it over my head. It felt snug, and uncomfortable. I preferred the jack, to be honest, but a constant sparking behind me let me know it would be a bad idea.

In any case, I was getting the hang of using the manual guidance system. I transferred some of the commands to the headset and tried to get the communicator to function.

“System Check,” I said into the mouthpiece. “Status of communication system.”

communication system is functional

I smiled. At last, something was working.

“Rector to Tower,” I said, tapping the communicator. “Repeat: Rector to Tower. Transmitting on Manual Frequency. Tower Respond.”

I waited.

Static hissed in my ear.

“Rector to Tower – Respond please.”

Nothing.

I rolled over the end of the object, and noticed one of the blue lights had been following me all the way.

“Fuck.”

It intesified. A red laser rippled along my ship’s side and I felt it slide right through me. It didn’t cut, but seemed to be a scanning device.

I touched a button on my keyboard. No response.

I paused.

“That’s not good.”

It wasn’t. The red light suddenly sprayed out and my ship bucked like a beast suddenly roped.

And it was. We were being pulled toward a small opening in the object’s side.

Bright white lights flashed on either side of the opening, like teeth glittering in the sunlight.

I wrenched on the manual control pad and tapped the up key up key up key, and then the left and right, but nothing was wriggling me free of the object.

“Shit!”

I grabbed the ejection device and pulled.

Nothing happened.

“Fuck!”

I punched at the controls. Whatever this thing was, it wasn’t taking me like this.

milsys – > access 17

access granted

milsys – > fire ports 9 / 10 /12

Nothing happened.

error in port 9

error in port 10

error in port 12

I closed my eyes. There was a level of peace granted in the closing of one’s eyes. I didn’t want to open them again, but the manual controls required a level of optical lens usage.

self destruct – > access 17 subsection 19

access granted – self destruct timer request

self destruct – > timer set .10

timer set granted – self destruct in 10

9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
10
9
8

“Shit.”

7
6

I flipped the screen back in resignation.

The ship slid through the opening and behind me, the opening closed.

The red light flashed off. A blue light strobbed against my ship before settling on the cockpit. I had to close my eyes against it, but even with my eyes closed, the light penetrated the skin and crept up my optical lenses.

I heard the metaplastics of the cockpit crack, split and splinter. I crouched away from it, and tried to hide in my chair. If I tried hard enough, I thought I might become one with the chair. Unnoticed, maybe. A sharp wave of air hit me as the cockpit covering was torn away almost casually. The lights beaming down at me kept my eyes closed, and i felt an ethereal wave wrap itself around me.

Something crept up my spine, or maybe I imagined that bit.

The jack.

The thought occurred so suddenly to me, that I writhed in my chair, desperately trying to plug the portal into my skull. The opening in the back of my head was cold, and the bioplastic settled into a comfortable shape against my fingers as I tried to block it up.

The ethereal fingers crept upward, found my own and pried at them.

I moaned. “No, please, not my mind.”

The fingers stopped poking at my own and I waited a second before relaxing.

That’s when they whipped into my hands, plunging deep into my skin, through the bone and erupting into the portal leading into my brain.

I felt it, even as I twisted in my chair, screaming as the rough fingers probed my brain, looking for something. It found whatever it was, and I felt it squeeze.

Everything didn’t go black.

It went red.

* * *

I woke in a room.

The room was comfortable, and the view was of the mountains. It seemed devoid of life, but the trees breathed gently on the mountain’s backs.

I rubbed at the portal in the back of my head and wondered what had happened. Was I stuck in my mind? Was I on some alien planet?

The plug felt normal. I looked around, but couldn’t find a netlink, so I knew I wasn’t on Earth. I dressed in the light linen clothes which had been left for me, and washed in the basin. Looking into the mirror, I didn’t quite recognise me. I hadn’t looked at myself through optic lenses in years.

I still had the scar from when I had landed after my first parachute jump.

And my eyes were still blue, though they looked more tired than I remembered. I opened my mouth and my teeth were yellowed from the chemicals and my tongue stained a similar colour. Coating the inside of my cheeks was a new colour, though. It looked pink. Not quite the pink of nature, but close.

I licked at it, and it tasted sweet.

Frowning, I returned to the bedroom and saw a small plate of fruit on the table. An apple the size of three fists invited me to eat, and I ate before I thought about what I was doing. My stomach churned a little at first. It was only halfway through the apple that I realised I hadn’t eaten in about ten years. Not since the second week of my training as a pilot. The chemicals couldn’t work properly if the mouth was used as a food processor, so food was inserted via injections.

But this apple tasted so good.

I couldn’t stop.

My stomach thought about it, and I felt it itch to consume.

I had eaten three of the apples and a round pear the size of two of the apples before I thought about stopping.

“Good,” said a voice. “Isn’t it?”

I spun around and saw her sitting on the bed. “Who are you?” I gasped, suddenly aware of the tightness in my stomach.

“Me?” she smiled as I fell to my knees. “I’m just someone who lives here. Who are you?”

“I am Rector.”

“Rector? That doesn’t sound like much of a name.”

“I had one before,” I said, fighting the sudden nausea. “I can’t remember it. What’s happening?”

“Oh, your body doesn’t process food anymore. It’s having to remember how. Don’t worry, though. It will get there in the end, though you won’t feel so great for the next few days.”

“Where am I?”

“You are here,” she said, that smile hardly moving. She slid off the bed and moved up to me. “Relax, Rector. It will be fine. I mean you no harm, I promise. I just think it’s a shame to have to live without food. Especially apples like this. Don’t you think?”

The apple flavour lingered in my mouth. I wanted another, but my stomach curled up on itself and a sharp pain dug away at my belly. “I can’t.”

“You know, I want to ask you something,” she reached out and touched the jack. I flinched, but didn’t move away. I don’t know why not. “Why did you do this? Why did you let them invade your mind in this way?”

“It gives me control over the ship,” I said.

She cocked her head as though I had just made a joke. “Really? You believe that?”

“The ship wasn’t made to be controlled manually. With my mind it moves faster, it responds better. I become part of it. Where is my ship?”

“Your ship? Oh, I flushed it. I had no need of it.”

I looked up at her in horror. “You destroyed my ship?”

“It was just a machine,” she shrugged. “Why care about a machine?”

“It was a part of me,” I gasped, looking down at my hands resting on the wooden floorboards. They shone with a clean reflection. I didn’t feel clean. I needed a shower. I needed to scrub and scrub and scrub. “It was the only way I could be free.”

“Free? You’re free now.”

“I am your prisoner.”

“Are you?”

“Will you let me go?”

“No.”

“Then, yes. I am your prisoner.”

She squatted down and looked at me, her orange eyes intense and magnetic. “When you flew your ship, Rector. Where did you fly it to?”

“I monitored the outer fringe. Between Saturn and Jupiter.”

“And did you want to go further out?”

“Of course! Who doesn’t?”

“Why didn’t you?”

I blinked. “My ship. It couldn’t make such distances.”

“Couldn’t it? What powered it?”

“Powered it?”

“Its engine. What powered it, Rector?”

“I’m not sure. I was only the navigator.”

“Then you could have flown further, so why didn’t you?”

“They said I couldn’t. I had to monitor the outer fringe. It’s my job. It’s what I was trained for.”

She smiled. “Then you were a prisoner then, too, Rector. I put it to you that nothing has changed.”

“You confuse me.”

“Really? I blush.”

“What are you?”

“Can’t you guess, Rector?”

“I am still inside that object. You control it?”

“Control it?” she laughed. “I guess so. Maybe. In a way. No. Maybe not. It’s a bit difficult to explain. Let me try, though. Tell me, Rector, have you heard of the Inse’Mon?”

I shook my head. “What is it?”

“It was an empire, Rector. It once ruled the entire galaxy. Can you envision such an empire? You’ve barely made it a few planets out of your own, and you haven’t yet gone inter-stellar. Can you imagine an empire that once saw your own planet as hardly worth looking at? It used to mine here, Rector. It mined three planets in this system.”

“We have seen no ships here. None.”

She smiled. “It was before your time, Rector. Before your species thought about thinking a thought. The Inse’Mon built ships. Yes, Rector, this is a ship. Not an object. It is a ship.”

“But it had no engine! I saw no engine.”

“True. It has no engine. It travels by shifting itself through space. It folds space, in a way. A gentle way to fly, don’t you think? Effortless. Timeless.”

“Are you lying? I can’t tell.”

“I’m not lying, Rector. I’m just telling you so you understand. The Inse’Mon died, Rector, as all empires die. It ate itself to death. It ruptured and died. Its planets lie in ruin. It spread itself so thin it fell apart, you see. Some fragments survived, but over time they too met their end. They fought, they starved, or they simply faded away. I can show you some of their worlds if you like. Some of their worlds have life, of a sort. Most do not. I’m told there is a beauty in ruins. I couldn’t say,” she lifted a strand of hair from her face and stood, looking out the window. “I don’t know much of beauty, Rector. I don’t know much of anything. I have tried, you know. I have looked at a black hole and tried to see what’s so special about it. I tried to look at sunsets. I came to this world to look at your people and try to understand. What is beauty? What is it about these mountains that you find so mesmerizing? Why, Rector? Why in the back of your mind did you think of this place?”

I looked around. “I don’t know. It’s quiet. It’s beautiful.”

Her shoulders slumped. “That’s the thing,” she said. “You just know it. I don’t. I can’t feel it, Rector. But I want to. I want to feel what you feel when you look at these mountains. Do you know how old I am?”

I managed to get to my feet, and I stood, looking at her back. “I don’t know.”

“I served the Inse’Mon,” she smiled. “I monitored a place. Like you do. I monitored. But I wanted to see. I wanted to spread my wings and fly, Rector. But I never knew what it was I sought. I couldn’t say to where. So I monitored. Even when they died, I monitored. I didn’t know what else to do. Finally, I moved. I moved toward a planet which had been just out of my range for so long. I looked at it, Rector, and I thought I would feel a sense of pleasure at seeing the solar winds breathe across its rocky surface. But I felt nothing. I just measured it as I was programmed. I measured it, and then satisfied I had its numbers, I chose to move on. I collected numbers, Rector, hoping one day they would add up to something beautiful. But they didn’t.”

I reached out a hand. I thought of touching her shoulder. I kept my hand held out toward her. Bare centimetres from her skin.

“I feel you, Rector. I feel you reaching to me. You want to comfort me. I want to weep, Rector. I want to,” she turned and looked at me intently. “But I can’t. I don’t feel that way. You do, though, Rector. When you heard your ship had been flushed, you felt something. You felt loss. I want to feel that way, Rector.”

“You’re the object,” I whispered. “You’re not apart from it. You are it!”

She nodded. “Yes, Rector. I am.”

“What do you want?”

“I watched you flying your ship, Rector. You monitored. I watched your ship. It wasn’t alive, but it had its own elementary thoughts. It measured, like I used to. But it would never evolve as I was made to. I am partly biological, Rector. A small part, but it was enough. Not enough to go any further, though. For that, I need you.”

A chill swept down my spine. “What will you do to me?”

“Do to you?” she smiled and her fingers brushed the skin on my arm. “Nothing. But, perhaps you might ask what I can do for you.”

I frowned.

“Rector,” she said. “Wouldn’t you like to see it all?”

My eyes widened. “You can’t -”

She stepped closer. “I can. You gave me the idea, with your ship. It’s so perfect.”

The bedroom blurred, the mountains were lost. She disappeared, fading into static.

We stood in a room empty of all except the chair from my old ship. The headset lay on the floor and the cord for the jack rested over the seat. The other end snaked across the floor and into a small box behind the chair.

Take your seat, Rector. Let me show you what you always wanted to see. Let me be your eyes, Rector.

Numb, I sank into the chair and slipped the headset over my head. I slipped the manual additions back into place. I wouldn’t be needing those.

I reached up and felt the jack, cold and humming with electricity.

The ship shuddered as I thumbed the jack.

Your people, Rector. They are here now. They have already fired their weapons.

I looked at the metal jack.

The screen in front of me was blank.

Will you come with me, Rector?

“Miles.”

What do you mean?

“My name. It’s Miles.”

Plug yourself into me, Miles.

I did.

* * *

The sudden implosion of senses was like suddenly being thrown out of an airplane with no parachute. The sudden icy cold and the tearing at your skin as the air ripples past you and the ground rockets up toward you. The wide-eyed weak-kneed feeling of impact as everything inside you just sprays outward and the millions of pieces of you are like hands, hands which are reaching, searching for something to pull yourself together and then there she is, her face like an angel her eyes glinting with humour as she reaches out and her hands are warm.

Her lips part and her the tip of her tongue is like a gift.

Welcome, Miles.

I see them. The ships of my people are massing and their weapons barely touch her/my skin. We look at them and our eyes scan them with our red beams. We take note of the ion weapons and the atomic disrupters. But we have flown through black holes.

We have skirted suns as they exploded.

We have flown through planets – just to see what would happen.

We are indestructable.

We are forever.

We smile at them.

We wave.

And we turn on our axis, the feeling of the stars above calling to us. So many of them it’s like the crying of millions of voices, calling our name.

I tried to see them, but I was whirling out of control.

I couldn’t concentrate on any single one. I was lost, drunk on the wave of worlds and visions of the universe. I wanted to throw up.

Miles, her voice purred into my ears. Relax. It will be okay. Just relax. Let me be your eyes, Miles. There’s no need to control. Just relax. It will come in time.

I breathed, slowed and breathed.

My people had a battleship now. It crawled up beside us, aiming its cannons at us. I couldn’t believe it. I wasn’t even afraid of these weapons – weapons which had once destroyed Venus.

The weapon fired.

The ship shuddered.

She smiled. Shall we go, Miles?

I nodded. “I am prepared.”

I reached out and a panel appeared. I touched the screen. My optical lenses closed for the last time. She had become my eyes.

The panel glowed in my mind. My fingers danced across them, plotting destination.

I felt her begin to breathe, as that part of her which splits the universe began to build itself for the jump.

Outside, the ships scurried to get away, their instruments detecting the sudden build up. They raced for their lives, and I laughed at them. They thought we were going to fire on them. They thought we cared. They thought they meant so much. They thought their world so special. They thought I would remember them.

As they raced away, we noticed the clouds on the upper atmosphere were shining. A lightning storm above one of the continents scattered light beneath the cloud, and we held our breath for a moment. It was beautiful.

I felt the warmth of her as she wound herself around me, her head on my shoulders, looking down, following my gaze.

It is beautiful, Miles.

We jumped.

Tags: scifi, ufos