The suns were dead.

They circled each other, locked in a decaying orbit. Both celestial bodies were covered in that semi-organic overgrowth and wreathed in black, glittering smoke. Whatever was left of the Alien’s “Empire” was long, long gone.

The smoke from both suns gathered into a single black stream and trailed off into the stars.

I threw back the last of my whiskey, unable to take my eyes from the screen.

“What do you think all that smoke is?”

“Zhang’s briefings say it’s the matter, reduced to its most basic parts,” Sonya said. Unlike me, she always read the briefings. “When the Plague is finished, it turns everything into that smoke.”

“Any idea why? Where does it all go?”

Sonya was sitting in a leather recliner we had plundered and put aboard the Ship before we left Earth behind. Her legs hung over the armrest, but she wasn’t relaxed. I could tell by the way her feet were bouncing. She was deep in thought.

“If you follow the trail… it points to the center of the Galaxy.”

“Makes you wonder what the hell is at the center of the galaxy?”

We went back to watching the smoke pouring off the two stars. It looked a bit like the tail of a comet, stretching for millions of miles beyond my sight.

“Well, at least it’s quiet now.”

“The Plague, or the Alien?”

“Both.”

As far as we could tell, our Ship had gone unnoticed. We jumped into the system and when we realized the Plague had beaten us here, we prepared to jump out again. But the Plague had not reacted to our presence.

At least, not yet. Which meant, we were dead set on using this time to observe and to learn.

The Alien, on the other hand, had been a raging lunatic since the moment he set eyes on the ruins of his empire. I guess these twin, dead suns were once his home.

To me, the Alien’s screams sounded like three tornadoes all converging right inside the front half of my skull.

Sonya said she could hear it too, but she said it was like someone was having a party three streets down. Perhaps, since she had avoided direct contact with the Alien, she was mostly immune to its voice.

Whatever the case, it had finally screamed itself out.

So the plan was to sit tight. Learn what we could. And then… Well, that was the question, wasn’t it?

“Any word on our next steps?”

“You mean, has the headless rabble agreed on anything?”

“Yep.”

Sonya switched the screen. Now, we could see a crude pavilion that had been erected in the upper levels of the ship. In the background, you could see the city. Billions of people. It’s still hard to believe that this city represented the entirety of humanity.

In the foreground, hundreds of puffed-up personalities were grappling for attention. I recognized a few of them: celebrity CEOs, heads of state, a diplomat or two. They were holding a civilized debate... which is to say everyone was talking, and nobody was listening.

“It would appear that, no, we have not reached a consensus yet.” Sonya’s voice was dripping with sarcasm.

I grabbed another glass, eased back into my office chair, and asked Sonya to switch back to the view of the dead suns.

Several drinks later, I must’ve dozed off, because I remember waking up to Sonya saying two very specific words:

“Oh. Shit.”

I sat up and had to wipe the drool off my chin. Look, when you get to be my age… these things happen.

“What is it?”

“Sir, we’ve got incoming.”

And as soon as she said it, speakers blasted our office. “Defensive stations. Defensive stations. This is not a drill.”

The message repeated over and over. You could hear it out in the streets, where people were scrambling up and down the avenues. A few screams. Doors, slamming shut.

“All hands, prepare to jump.”

“Jump? Jump where?”

On the screen, you could just make out these tiny specks - like a swarm of gnats. The specks were growing larger.

Reality began to shimmer, as our Ship prepared to leave the solar system.

STOP.

The voice in my mind was so sudden, it almost knocked me back into my chair. The shimmering stopped.

IT HAS SPREAD. WE MUST GO FURTHER.

A string of letters and numbers materialized in my mind. The Alien was sending coordinates.

“They better decide quick,” I said.

The specks on the screen were massive now: faceless, undulating bodies that stretched for miles, twisting and snaking through the void… towards us. How could anything made of simple, organic matter be so fast?

Reality began to shimmer again. Lurched. And then, the Plague was gone.

And the stars were unrecognizable.

Even the color of the void between the stars was strange to my eyes.

We left the Milk Way far behind…

----------------------------------------

This is how we spent the years: traveling from system to system, mining what resources we could before the Plague found us.

The only course of action we could agree on was this: do whatever it takes to survive, right now. If we needed resources, we mined nearby planets and asteroids. If we needed energy, we sat near a star.

The only other life we discovered was microbial, at best. The only sentient lifeforms: the Alien, and us.

Even the Plague seemed to have no thoughts of its own. Only the one, singular goal: seek out matter, devour it, and send it back to… somewhere else.

When I did get around to asking, Doctor Zhang explained it to me:

“I have published over a hundred articles on this. Have you not been keeping up?”

“I’m a slow reader.”

She did not seem in the least surprised by my response. “Fine. One more time. Back on Earth, we trained bacteria to clean up plastic waste. The Plague is something like that: it’s been trained to consume all matter in our universe, sending it all to a central point.”

Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

“By who?”

“The Alien calls it a blessing, given by its God.”

“How?” I asked. “It’s killed everything. It’s going to kill everything. How is this a blessing?”

Zhang shrugged. “It gives them a sense of urgency, to create. To pursue their technology.”

My Greatest Work. That’s what the Alien had called his technology. I will bring it to God, and then I will ascend.

But still, we had never seen this technology. We still didn’t have a clue what the Alien was working on.

“So the Plague is just … a cosmic kick in the ass?”

“If you want to be a reductionist, yes. That sums it up.”

“What happens after that?”

“You mean, what happens when this Plague lifeform consumes all the matter in the entire universe and crushes it into a single, central point from which not even light can escape?”

“Yes. That’s exactly what I meant. What happens after that?”

“That’s between the Alien, and it’s God.”

But you couldn’t just ask the Alien things like that. For one, it always viewed your questions with suspicion.

WHY SHOULD I TELL YOU?

After all these years, it still did not trust us. It had stopped calling us “worms,” but it had never stopped thinking of us as insignificant. Lesser.

“Because we want to live.”

SO? THEN GO LIVE. I AM WORKING.

And while it worked, while it locked itself up in that Sarcophagus, doing who knows what, we - all of humanity, aboard our lonely ship - sailed across the stars.

Running from the Hunter.

Comets made of cold flesh and bone hurtled in from the void, seeking us. When they stumbled upon whatever system we were in, the Comets came to life. Spires erupted on every surface, tentacles grasped every star, every planet, and every barren rock.

Where they touched, they grew.

So far, we had gotten lucky. We saw it before it saw us. And so, we jumped. And jumped.

And jumped, until all of Humanity had grown weary. Once, we were galvanized together by the immediate “life and death” of the Human Species. But now, the cracks started to form.

Who was in charge? And what the hell was the plan?

The Alien intended to survive only as long as it needed to, and then we had no doubts that it would abandon us.

We were on our own. And being on our own was… messy.

The gathering place had become an official Quorum. Humanity’s greatest influencers met on that flat pavilion, suspended over the upper skyrises by an incredible network of bridges. When you leaned over the railings, you could look out over all of humanity.

Many of these leaders tried to claim the “throne,” only to find there was no throne to be had. Princes and Presidents, Corporals and CEOs, all shouting - all claiming the same thing: “I know what to do. Only I can save us.”

But, of course, they were as hopeless as the rest of us. The only thing we could do was survive. And when you line up ten thousand politicians and generals and CEOs, they all start to look the same.

Eventually, the old factions melted into a single, headless entity. The older leaders began to abandon their claims and fade into the background of humanity. Many of the younger ones burned out as well.

All the while, the Plague chased us further and further across the stars, leaving a trail of dead systems in our wake.

You think the universe is infinite until you start to start to see, one by one, the lights go out.

Sonya was still with me, but our relationship had changed. While she was growing, I was only growing old.

My back had gotten worse. Some folks are too proud to use a cane, but not me. I like the feel of a cold, carbon-fiber cane. Strong as bone, and light as air.

Sonya and I attended many of the Quorum. She was even starting to give speeches. Instead of war and political machinations, the leaders were shifting to logistics. Slowly, they crafted a new government, one focused solely on human preservation.

But no matter how noble we grew together - no matter how strong we became - every meeting was tinged with that quiet desperation. Space was growing dark, and there was nothing we could do about it.

Until we heard the distress signal.

I don’t think the Alien meant for us to hear it. I think he was content to tinker away in darkness and solitude until the last light went out.

Sonya and I were sitting at the top of the bleachers. The cold metal was biting hard into my ass, and I kept shifting.

Sonya said, “If you don’t stop, I’m going to leave you here.”

And that’s when I heard the sound.

Ping. Ping.

“What is that?” I asked Sonya.

“Are you losing your hearing now? He said he has a solution to the lower-decks habitation problems-”

“No. Quiet. Listen.”

Ping. Ping. Ping...

I looked around the bleachers. There was a cluster of grey-headed intellectuals, chatting about something. Over there, a mother was shushing her kids while she tried to take notes on the debate. But nobody else heard the sound.

PING. PING. PING.

I tried to cup my hands over my ears but that only made it louder. Sonya was rubbing at her ears now, too.

“Oh, you mean that sound?” she said.

“The alien,” I gasped. “Something’s wrong.”

Something was wrong. But not with our Alien.

----------------------------------------

A sea of scientists blocked the Chamber door, chattering in a hundred different languages. You didn’t have to understand a word to feel that undercurrent: fear.

All the while, that clanging signal crashed through my skull: PING! PING!

Doctor Zhang spotted me. She was standing all the way up, at the Chamber door, and when she pointed at me, dozens of eyes followed her finger.

The crowd parted for me, as I made my way up to the Chamber. I could tell Doctor Zhang was also doing her best to ignore the sound in her head, but it had only grown more urgent over the last twenty minutes.

“What seems to be the problem, Doctor?” I asked innocently.

She was already done with my bullshit.

“Get in here. Now.”

Sonya held the door open for me, but she would not cross into the chamber. I think she made a wise choice, refusing to get caught up in this. Hindsight, and all that.

Inside the chamber, I expected to find something awful. Maybe the sarcophagus had cracked open, and the Alien was gasping on the floor, dying.

But everything looked the same. The sarcophagus, an irregular metallic coffin, hung suspended in the center of the room. It still gleamed and crawled with dancing lights.

And the air in the table was still colder than a witch’s tit. The only difference was in my head:

PING! PING! PING!

The Alien’s voice - a chorus of notes - sprang into my mind. I WISH THAT YOU HAD NOT HEARD IT.

“Me too!” I shouted over the sound that was not a sound at all. “Anyway we can turn it off?”

The PINGing stopped. I sighed with relief, “Thank you! Now, what the hell was that?”

ONE OF MY SIBLINGS CALLS FOR AID.

“They’re alive?” I asked, and Zhang gave me a look like I was the stupidest person on the Ship.

IT IS A TRAP.

We both looked at the sarcophagus, blazing with light. You could almost see the urgency in the dancing symbols scrawling over its surface.

“So,” I said slowly, “You were just going to … ignore it?”

THE LAST TIME I ANSWERED A DISTRESS SIGNAL, I WAS DRAGGED INTO A BATTLE AGAINST THE BLESSED PLAGUE.

I WAS SHOT DOWN, AND MY SHIP WAS INFESTED BY YOU.

“That was different,” I said. “We’re stuck. We’re lost. What if they can help us stop this plague?”

THE LAST TIME I ANSWERED A DISTRESS SIGNAL, I WATCHED THE LARGEST ARMADA MY PEOPLE HAD EVER BUILT TURN TO DUST.

YOU CAN NOT DESTROY IT.

WE WILL NOT GO.

Every fiber of my being rejected the Alien’s words… But what could I say?

How do you change someone’s mind, when they think you are less than worthless?

“Listen to me.” It was Doctor Zhang. Her voice was low, and dangerous. When she took off her glasses, I saw her hands were shaking.

“You listen to me,” she was talking to the Alien. “You stay here, locked up in self-imposed isolation. You hide away from the rest of the universe, hoarding all your information like some kind of rat.”

I MUST PROTECT MYSELF. MY SIBLINGS ARE MY ENEMIES.

“We have done nothing but give. And you do nothing but take. Go on then, keep hiding. You coward.”

YOU DARE INSULT ME, WORM? ON MY SHIP?

“You are the only worm I see. You’re supposed to worship knowledge, but when an opportunity falls in your lap, you are too afraid to take the slightest risk. Your Empire is in ruins. Your people are dead. You have lost everything and now, even your time runs out.”

MY GREATEST WORK IS-

“Is nothing!” she shouted. Both of her hands were balled into fists, and her face was turning red.

“Complete and utter crap! Do you think I don’t know what a failure you are? I’ve seen it a thousand times. Whatever you’re working on in there-” she jabbed a finger at the sarcophagus, “Is not working. And you know it’s not working. But you want to work on it until the last light goes out. Until your stupid, blessed plague destroys everything that I have ever loved.”

I NEED MORE TIME.

“Well guess what? There is no more time. There is only action. We have an opportunity here, and we are not going to squander it.”

She whirled around and jabbed her finger at me.

“You!” she said.

I swear I almost snapped to attention right then and there. I felt like I was back in my basic training days, her fiery drill-sergeant eyes burning a hole in me.

“You,” she said. “Go tell the others to put up a vote.”

“A vote, Ma’am?”

“Well, we’re not fascists, are we? Let’s do this the right way.”

You have to hand it to Zhang. She knew how to make a mission happen. As I left the chamber, I could hear her still yelling at the Alien.

“And you, Alien. If you want to help us, tell us how to stay safe. Otherwise, shut up and stay in your shell while we do the hard work.”

----------------------------------------

Sonya helped me call the audience to order. The bleachers, the whole gathering hall was full, and spilling over. Everyone had already caught wind of the news. For some reason, it was up to me to explain what they already knew. Camera drones floated over the crowd, their gentle whirring making a steady hum.

A sea of faces, a hundred different colors, all sharing the same expression. All looking at me.

“We have a choice before us,” I said. The lapel microphone picked up my voice and carried it across the gathering. “It may be a trap, but the only way to know is to go there ourselves. The risks are unknown. Even if we prepare, it may cost us everything. Our alternative is to stay our course, and keep searching for another plan.”

But as soon as the words fell from my lips, I knew the answer. There was no other plan. It was like being stranded on a deserted island. When the first piece of driftwood washes ashore, it may not be the right answer, but it is an answer.

The vote was unanimous. We would investigate the distress signal. We would not waste this opportunity for answers.

Of course, it was a mistake...

…a big, beautiful, awful mistake.