Vortex Part 14
Where on earth could these planets have disappeared to? I didn't know the answer. If I wanted nobody to notice my absence, I had to head back now. I immediately set off on the return journey with the firm intention of keeping this discovery to myself for the time being.
Jessie was already close enough to the light to realize that it wasn't the probe; that was glowing several hundred meters away, but that was secondary now. A glowing ring lay half-buried in the ground. Jessie began to dig to uncover it completely and noticed that her broken rib was growing warmer. The ring radiated intense heat, perhaps even radioactivity. Suddenly, an image appeared in the center of the ring, showing the bridge of the Alpha. Jessie suspected that it was some kind of wormhole and stepped through, exhausted. Her suspicion was correct: she was standing right in the middle of the Alpha's bridge, and everyone stared in astonishment. Exhausted, she collapsed.
I sat in my comfortable chair and was just pulling up the construction plans for our city on the screen. With the few people we had left, progress unfortunately wasn't very fast anymore, but at least we were better equipped than our neighboring city, which was led by Master One. It looked like they were catching up, and then a war would undoubtedly break out. The underground city would then be our only refuge if the fortifications weren't finished by then. I was so busy drawing in the defensive walls that I had completely detached myself from reality, but a bright flash pulled me back. I turned around slowly and could hardly believe it. Standing before me was Xana, and she wasn't a day older than back when we first met; shortly after that, she had vanished, and I hadn't known where.
"— Xana, but how?!?" I said in amazement.
"— I came back because I have to talk to you, Tvorgh—or rather Varlon, that's your name now, isn't it?"
"— Yes, the poison of the Ectomorphs still clouds my memory, but what are you doing in this parallel universe? You're not actually supposed to be here, and why haven't you aged at all?"
Xana lifted herself into the air and crossed her legs, then said:
"— The explanation for all your questions is simple: I am a Suspirion!"
"— A what?!?"
"— We Suspirions exist in all parallel universes and are immortal and omnipotent. Back then I was curious about you because you have abilities similar to Vahanara. Besides, I liked you back then. Now, however..."
"— And I thought I knew you, how wrong one can be! All right, what do you want to talk to me about, Xana?"
"— My real name is actually Xarata, but of course you can still call me Xana. I wanted to talk to you about the Ectomorphs."
"— Oh, that problem's already taken care of," I informed her with a smirk.
"— That's what you think," she retorted, and then added:
"— You probably think you're the greatest, but the only thing you're greatest at is overestimating yourself. Luzifer is alive, and he is here on this planet. Let me tell you who the Ectomorphs really are and how they actually came to be."
"— I already know that."
"— Mistake. I already told you what you're best at, so be quiet now, because I'm already breaking the rules of the game—though Yalor cheated too when he had you bitten by a spider that normally doesn't even exist here."
"— ? Rules of the game? I still don't quite understand?"
"— I'll explain that to you later. First, about the Ectomorphs: several million years ago, we lived just like humans on our home planet and dedicated ourselves to many things, with the exception of space travel, until it was too late. The population grew beyond ten billion and our global consciousness formed; with it came abilities that split our race into two camps. Those who poured all their energy into further evolution to become even more perfect, and the opponents who wanted to thwart all our efforts. Eventually, the rebels developed an artificial virus intended to strip us of our abilities once again. This virus didn't have the desired effect, because it freed us from the burden of our bodies—though we can still materialize whenever we want—but it attacked the other group all the more severely. They had untrained PSI powers, which was their damnation. They could no longer consume food; instead, they began siphoning off the life energy of others, which meant their death."
"— The Ectomorphs! So that's how they created themselves."
"— Yes, for once you're actually right. We managed to capture all the Ectomorphs with a telekinetic force field, and then we replaced a few details in their memory and teleported them to the distant planet Draal, where, unfortunately, the only humans in the universe lived."
"— Let me guess! They spread humans across the entire universe to secure unlimited food supplies?"
"— Yes, that's right, because once they discovered that humans had an incredible amount of life energy, they began breeding them and programmed them to reproduce under any circumstances."
Only now did I notice A-Tya standing at the door. She had probably been eavesdropping for a while, as I hadn't seen her come in.
"— Who are you actually talking to?" she asked me, looking like she was about to call for a psychiatrist.
"— Can't you see her?"
"— See who?"
"— Why can't she see you?" I asked Xana.
"— Because I'm not actually here at all. I've only nested inside your head—telepathically!"
"— Then I don't need to speak out loud either."
"— No, that's not necessary; besides, it saves me from hearing your prattle. Furthermore, if I were really with you, the other Suspirions would know immediately, and that would have consequences for me."
"— All right then, keep talking," I said in thought.
A-Tya slowly slipped back outside.
"— There's not much left to tell, except how to destroy them most easily: their special abilities, the Beta fission."
"— Right now, I'd be much more interested in what kind of game you were talking about."
"— Look, Var, for beings who can manipulate their own and others' memories so thoroughly that not even the Genomorphs ever learn the truth, and who control the fates of entire worlds like puppets, life has become boring. So we play little games. Yalor, for instance, controls the Master Force, unless a situation gets out of hand for him. Now he has decided to play against me, and I'm controlling the fate of the inhabitants of Earth."
"— You people are sick! Who actually controls the Ectomorphs, or me?"
"— Ectomorphs are controlled by Deyran, my greatest opponent; that's how we settle our differences. You are controlled by me, only you often decouple yourself."
"— Right now, I feel like wringing your neck!"
"— Watch it, because I can still read your thoughts; besides, you can't reach me at all when I'm thousands of light-years away."
"— Fine, how can I defeat the Ectomorphs?"
"— Not now, someone is coming in right now. I'm cutting the contact."
Of all times! But at least I knew that Luzifer was here and whose hands held my fate.
A-Tya returned with a man in a white coat and asked me:
"— How are you feeling, Varlon? Are you still having these visions? I have someone here who can help you."
"— Oh yeah, forget it, I feel fantastic!" I shouted back in annoyance.
The human psychiatrist stepped closer, took a closer look at me, and then said to A-Tya:
"— Ten thousand years of immortality takes its toll; he is slowly becoming neurotic. Please step outside, I will take care of him."
As Tya locked the door behind her, a flash of Xana's thoughts struck my mind. She cried:
"— Look out!"
I didn't know what she meant, but just to be safe, I used the remote control to turn off the lights in the room so that my infrared vision could come into full effect. Right away, I noticed that the psychiatrist's infrared image didn't match his appearance. It allowed only one conclusion: this wasn't a human at all, but a disguised Ectomorph. This method of unmasking Ectomorphs had already been used a century ago by our Ectomorph hunters on Terra. I turned the light back on and said:
"— I was hoping I'd never see you again, Luzifer, and you've ruined those hopes. We'll settle this between us right now. Fight like an Ectomorph!"
"— Shit, how did you know? Well, whatever!" He clenched his hands into fists and leaped up to the ceiling, clawing onto it. I ran toward him and activated my Battlesuit—or at least I tried to.
How stupid of me! I didn't even have a Battlesuit anymore—neither the belt nor the spinal cord implant.
Luzifer leaped down, knocking me over so hard that the tip of a sculpture I had never liked drove into my back and came out through my neck. For a human, such an injury would be fatal, but for me it was only a matter of seconds; unfortunately, I didn't have them.
My relentless opponent took a chair, sat down next to me, unmasked himself, and said:
"— I never thought you'd make it this easy for me. All right, let's begin."
"— With what?" I asked, spitting blood.
"— With your destruction!" he answered, extending two fingers of his right hand. Around them, ring-shaped flashes of light began to form, slowly traveling toward the fingertips.
Luzifer placed his fingers perpendicular to my head, and the flashes shot faster. Each of them caused hellish pain, but I couldn't scream; blood flooded my oral cavity. The beams seemed to suppress my regenerative powers and sap my strength.
Suddenly, A-Tya came back into the room and asked:
"— Everything all right, Doctor?... Oh shit!"
That was plenty for me. Luzifer was only distracted for a few seconds, but that was already enough. With a powerful jerk, I shoved him aw-
...then I slowly managed to free myself from the sculpture. Tya stood rooted to the spot, staring at me in horror; she would have been an easy target for the Ectomorph, but he considered her harmless, walked toward me with a rather determined look, and raised his fingers once more. I had only one way out left: the kitchen! The door was sturdy enough to hold Luzifer off for a few minutes.
"Come out of there or I'll kill your playmate."
I hated being powerless; my only hope now was to reach Xana to find out how to kill these damned Ectomorphs. I used to know once, but the poison kept me from remembering.
"You have exactly one minute to come out; if you don't, A-Tya will die."
One minute wasn't much, I had to hurry, and began to concentrate. Suddenly I had a vision: I had to destroy two chips in Luzifer's brain simultaneously to kill him. Their location appeared before my eyes. Apparently Xana couldn't speak right now. All right then! Destroying two chips would be easy enough if I had my Dispersor on hand, but I had left it in my desk drawer—how thoughtless of me.
"Only ten seconds left!" Luzifer shouted.
Wait a second, I was in a kitchen—there was plenty of sharp knives here. I tucked two of them into the back of my belt and opened the door.
"No, Var, get yourself to safety!" shouted Tya, but I was already targeting the two spots in Luzifer's skull where the chips were located. Unfortunately, I was a miserable knife thrower, so I had to get very close and thrust the blades into him.
"Right, and now kneel before me!"
I waited no longer. With a swift motion, I drew both knives at once and rammed one of them straight through Luzifer's eye, the other simultaneously through his ear. Then I pulled the knives back out; the chips were stuck to both tips. Luzifer looked at me in horror with his undamaged eye, then said:
"Lost?! But... you will never see your daughter again...", then he fell over dead.
A-Tya asked me in shock: "What did he mean by that?"
I merely shrugged and knelt down by the corpse, then tried to access his memory, but unfortunately the brain had been damaged so severely by the two knives that it was impossible to retrieve anything. The only one who could help us now was Vahanara; unfortunately, no one knew where she had flown.
"Xana said that I resemble Vahanara, so maybe I can also access the memory of God?" I said to Tya and sat down in my chair. Then I began to concentrate.
At first it wouldn't work, but then after a while I saw a blurred image: A-Kara! She was in the underground city in a laboratory, then a flash, and she was gone. Now I saw a large city on Earth, then the vision broke off.
"Well, what did you see?" Tya asked impatiently.
"That damned bastard Luzifer, he did something to her in the underground city, I have to go there!"
"A city beneath the surface of Sek? Why didn't you tell me anything about it? I'm coming with you!"
"No, Tya, this is my business, you stay here, that's safer!"
"A-Kara is my daughter too, so I'm coming along, and that's final!"
Jessie woke up slowly. Tero was sitting next to her, and when she saw her eyes opening again, she remarked:
"You little fool, your little excursion could have cost you your life! How did you even get back to the ship so quickly?"
"The ring," Jessie said, exhausted.
"What kind of ring?"
"That glowing ring!"
"We surveyed the planet, but the satellites didn't even detect you. Well, you'll be interested to know that we discovered something strange: the outer planets are being influenced in their orbit by a strong gravitational field."
"Yes, Proxima belongs to a triple star system, what's so unusual about that?"
"The origin point of the gravitational beams doesn't lie quite in the direction of the other two stars, and did I mention that most of these planets have no ores left? Not a single gram of iron can be extracted from there, not anymore at least, and even the cores of some planets and moons have disappeared!"
"How is that possible?"
"We have no idea yet, but apparently this system had twice the number of planets just a few years ago."
Jessie looked very surprised.
"Where did those planets disappear to? Were they destroyed?"
"Most likely, because this system is quite dusty. We're flying back to Sek and will analyze the results on the way."
The DEON unexpectedly appeared a few meters above the city and then dropped to the ground like a stone. Just before impact, however, legs grew out of the ship's hull and braked it gently. Vahanara disembarked and immediately ran into my office:
"Where is Varlon?" she asked my secretary.
"He wanted to go to an underground city with his wife. Why, what's wrong?"
Without a word, Vahanara ran out. She knew where this city lay and what awaited me there; she desperately wanted to warn me that it was a cruel trap set by my greatest enemy—an enemy I had previously only gotten rid of through a trick that certainly wouldn't work again. I hadn't recognized him, but Vahanara knew full well who had been manipulating me all along to play his cruel game against me.
End
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