CHAPTER 9

“Bear with me here, Agent. Like I said, things get very weird.

“If I were to show you what came next, it’d be done in an instant. But it was, and it wasn’t. Time is funny like that—strange things happen at the one two point, the usual rules don’t always apply. Like a wise man once said: decent people shouldn’t think too much about what goes beyond the veil of an event horizon.

“But what if you did?

“Imagine nothing.

“Endless nothing. As far as you can see, as far as you can hear, as far as you can sense.

“But even that isn’t right. Doesn’t feel right. Because it’s worse than that, deeper than that. It’s a fundamental absence. Nothing survives beyond a singularity, not even information. Catastrophic entropy renders existence down into the most basic elements, and then tears apart even those. There’s nothing there, nothing here, and there never has been and never will be.

“Nothing but you.”

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Awareness struck me in a supernova flash, and with a strange sense of falling. Like I’d slipped from some great height but hadn’t hit the floor yet. It was the weirdest sense of sudden awareness. Like knowing I’d woken up, but not sure that I’d gone to sleep. Somehow caught between moments. Not quite asleep, but not quite awake. Caught between breathing in and breathing out. Between tick and tock.

Nothing but that endless deep. I had a body, but I wasn’t sure where it began or ended. I had a mind, but no I. The entity that was Caleb Cross yet wasn’t tried to speak but it was like he/I didn’t have lips, lungs, or vocal cords. Like he/I didn’t even have a nervous system to run electrical impulses even. Names that were important: Max, Emma. He/I wanted to call to them, but couldn’t quite remember who they were. There was just silence and lack.

Lack of senses. Lack of knowledge. A lack of feeling, yet aware that you’re not feeling your heartbeat thumping away or hearing the blood rushing in your ears, not feeling the rise and fall of your chest. A lack of self.

I was fading away. Inch by inch from the outside in. I was nothing but a single mote of dust within an infinite abyss. I was falling, stretching, twisting into a ribbon and knotting around a single point for which I had no frame of reference. My name vanished. My thoughts vanished. I vanished.

Yet, I persisted.

Something rippled in the vast expanse of absence.

“Who’s there?” I asked, somehow, without a voice.

I am.

“You are?”

We are.

Then, it was like something unfolded like an origami design across my brain, and I could see it. The symbiote was there with me, formless and infinite. Everywhere I looked, there it was. It spoke:

‡̷̼̖̿я̵̹̬͆͝√̴̣͠ð̶̐̚͜s̶̼̼͝ž̸̥̓š̵̭͔̋å̷̹̾Þ̸̓͜я̷̹̈́舐̵͚̞̋̕©̸̘͌͒—̷̲̈́́:̷͍̮̉ ̴̲̫̄̕»̶̦̾舐̶̻̔̕¶̵̰́͐?̸̦̀?̸̜͍̇?̷̛̘́?̵̫͉̽╟̶͉̦̄舐̴͎̥̆̿

̴̲́͝æ̵̥̙̚Ø̵̬̂¢̵̠̄Ã̸̢́̶̙͎̃̵̘̏̶͓̺͒?̸̝͙̈?̸̺̓̑?̸̟͝?̸̨̛̯́Â̷̗̐£̶̼̟̔Þ̷̡̳͛̂¥̶̳͇̆¿̶͉̑©̷̤͑͛:̵̫̬͝ ̴̯̪̈́©̴͎̾͌ð̴̬͝͝s̸̯̦͛͛ž̵̤͎̈́š̵͙̺͂̄å̴̱͝Þ̷̱̂̅я̸̳̚̸̨̈́̿̶̱̭͆̏̴̝̌̎☒̷̛̱͗Ř̴͔̆͂§̴̡̲̌Ů̸̬̔☒̷̙̝̽̕舐̵̥̜̽

̷̖̠̅̷̞̠͊̷̭͑͜̴̱̭͛舐̴̜͊͗r̷͉͋͆ͅá̸̲͌͠Ú̶̲̾Æ̸̠̯̔̕ ̸͙͗Â̶̳͋£̴͓̉͗̴̨̣̋̿̶̖͆̶̪̠͘▀̶̢̲͗:̸̳̍̋ ̵̜̥̂ñ̴̘́̔â̵̺̣̒m̸͓̍̈́å̷͓̔•̷̻͐©̶̩̓̈́ó̷̱̝̅͒Þ̸̨̭̈́¢̶̻̽̍á̸̮̜̀ñ̶͎͋̚¶̴̡̦̌͋â̴̠̯͌€̸̖̫̋š̸̱̾͠�̴̜̜̃舐̵͍͗͘ͅ

̶̠͓̅©̴͚͍̓ó̸̬̚Þ̵͍̔̕¢̴̟̇̽ą̴̮́̊͠ṉ̵̱̃͋̓½̷̦̊͗ ̴̬̹͋͒¶̷̥͔̐̿?̷͉̈́ ̴̲̭̒ó̶͎̓͐Þ̷̳̜̐͂¢̴͉̬̾̾á̸̤͉̕̕ṉ̴̃̓/̶̪͊½̷̦͊

“I don’t under—” It was all I managed to get out before it flayed me open.

The symbiote, the thing from Beyond, laid my entire being open with nothing but its awareness of me. Then, like a pathologist with infinite fingers, every one of them a scalpel, it reached into my mind and sifted through my thoughts and memories. It excised them, one by one, and cast them into the darkness like kaleidoscopic confetti.

Then, it paused. I felt it consider what it had found. There, glimmering in the deep, was a constellation of all of my thoughts and feelings. I felt a sense of interest, of curiosity. If a hurricane could’ve been curious about the ecosystems it uprooted. One by one, the symbiote plucked each thought-star like the strings on a celestial harp.

It’s 2004. I’m thirteen. I’m getting down off the school bus and walking home, to the house I haven’t seen in years. When I get there, mom is sitting in the living room couch with Grandma Patrice. It looks like mom has been crying, but that’s weird, because she never cries. My stomach drops out; my throat clogs.

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“Mom?”

“Oh, Caleb,” she says. “It’s your father.” Not dad, father. “There was a terrible accident.” Grief.

Then, anger. Because next year we have to move house and move out to this town called Stonestead, and I won’t know anyone, and it’s just not fucking fair, because it’s not my fault he crashed his car, it’s not my fault that Grandma Patrice’s heart gave out afterward, and I fucking hate you—

But Stonestead isn’t so bad. It’s nicer than my old school. No one kicks my ass or calls me a faggot. It helps that I sit down next to Vince on my first day, because he’s a big guy and people like him, and somehow we become friends. But the anger doesn’t evaporate so much as congeal, settling into nodules just under my skin, and if I were to dig them out...

Pride and shame. Sophomore year, Halloween. My first kiss with Becca O’Halloran, and what she says afterward. Vince slaps me on the back and says I’m a man now, or close to it. Becca’s words echo in my thoughts, though: well, you’re the closest to Vince I could get, sooo...

I end up outside, as if I can outrun my private humiliation, and that’s when I see Emerson Bennett for the first time. She’s standing by a fire pit with a box of cask wine on her head. Hey, I say, cool costume. She taps her impromptu helmet and says she’s the Master Chief. Until that point, I’ve never understood that thought from all those romantic movies, that you really can fall for someone at first sight—

More and more and more. The symbiote drags the memory-threads around itself like a cloak. The inadequacy I have whenever I’m next to Max, even when I know he’s not trying to make me feel bad, because maybe that’s what stings the most about it. The electric thrill of someone touching your hand or calling your name. The sharp pain of being struck and the somehow sharper pain of being rejected. The drive to create something beautiful and the urge to destroy it just because you can.

Everything human. Everything Caleb.

The symbiote considered it like an arrangement of fireflies in jars.

Then, it shifted again. Condensed itself into my awareness, poured itself into that constellation of thoughts and feelings like a mold, incarnated in a form that was humanoid but not quite human. It was there before me, so close I could reach out and touch it. I raised my left hand, and it matched me like a mirror. Then, it spoke again and presented to me the first face of its tesseract:

QUEST: Becoming

REWARD: Beyondic Synchronization ([Arche I], First Order resonance.)

GOAL: Survive.

ACCEPT: Y/N

I didn’t know what it meant, but I could feel what it wanted. It wanted to exist, the same way I wanted to exist. It wanted to see things unfold, the same way I wanted to see things unfold. It wanted to offer me a gift, of which life itself was the tiniest bauble. All I had to do was think accept.

It wanted me to know that it had my life hanging by a thread, and its fingers were so very sharp.

It was a lifeline. A shining hand in the deep. Something that existed.

It was the most terrifying thing I had ever felt.

You bet your ass I grabbed it.

Accept.

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Reality reasserted itself. The symbiote-droplet had vanished. I turned my hand this way and that, trying to catch some glimpse of it. I raised my hand to my neck, felt the steady report of my pulse. My stomach knotted, grumbling and irate. Everything persisted in being what it had appeared to be.

“Is it done?” I asked, for lack of anything else to say.

“It is done,” Kree’s father replied. “And you have, all of you, survived.”

I wasn’t quite ready to believe him. I turned, looking for Max and Emma. They stood there, seeming just as bewildered as I was. Max shrugged.

“I don’t feel any different,” he said. “Just hungry. So fucking hungry.”

Kree’s father nodded. “Your consciousness has been re-tethered. Disentanglement has been averted. Your biological processes shall resume at nominal levels, if they have not already.”

“Great,” Emma muttered.

“So now what?” I asked. “Who are you?”

“Knight-Marshal Maarek’taal,” he said. “One of the last Incarnates. Soon, perhaps within hours, the symbiote will acclimatize. It will begin whispering to you. Initiate Taal will assist you with the first lessons of the Pax Systematica.”

“I didn’t agree to this,” Max said. “This whole Pax thing you keep talking about. Thanks for saving my life, but this is the end of the road for me.”

Maarek shook his head. “Soon, you will have the ability to directly manipulate the underlying strata of reality. You must learn to comprehend this, and control it, or your symbiotes will do it for you.”

“What?”

“Host and symbiote pick each other. They grant you their ability to alter the underlying mathematics of existence, but with the understanding that you will alter them. The first [Incarnates] had no guidance, no will. Entire worlds were lost before the creation of the Pax. The Pax stands for eternal order, yet its power—your power—is derived from timeless entropy. You, all of you, must walk a fine line between creation and nothingness.”

“What are you?” Emma asked.

“I told you—”

“No, what are you?” Emma said, ambling closer. “All this sci-fi stuff. ‘Your laws of physics.’ ‘Galactic Star League.’ ‘Most forms of sentient life.’ I’m ninety-nine point nine percent sure you’re not human, so, just cut the act.”

“I think this has been enough revelations for now,” Kree said, stepping forward. “Father—”

“Oh, purple-streak,” Emma said, with dark laughter. “After all this, you’re the last one I want to hear anything from, not until you fix my brother’s truck, so hush yourself before I slap you so hard you’ll end up on fucking Cybertron. So, again—what the hell are you two?”

Kree stepped back. Maarek glanced to her. She nodded.

“As you wish,” Maarek said. “And so be it.”

Their faces shimmered. Skin flashing from warm tan to warm green—he same color I’d seen during Kree’s fight with the gulfhound. Their faces stayed the same, albeit a touch more gaunt, and their eyes a touch bigger and entirely black.

“You may call us Ondaari,” Maarek said. “From the planet Ziyama, in a part of the galaxy you call Scutum-Centaurus.”

Kree raised her hand, giving us a little wave. It was a remarkably friendlier gesture than any she’d given to us until this point. So was her smile. That was, until I spied her fangs.

“And we come in peace,” she said. “Like the movie.”

No one said anything. Emma just nodded.

“Fucking called it.”