CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Reversion
“I don’t know how I know any of it Major, but I do.”
Alex had been explaining what he saw for the better part of an hour now, but Major Alcheck was still having a hard time believing it.
Hell, so was Alex himself!
Plasma weapons, nanotechnology, artificial singularities, destroyed worlds laid to waste by an invading alien fleet of incredible power - all of this were things Alex couldn’t possibly know. He’d never heard of a plasma weapon before today, but here he was, describing them in enough detail that the scientists Major Alcheck had called into listen had confirmed that what Alex was describing did indeed sound like what they theorized plasma weapons would look like. His description of the destruction of the planet had shocked them, but they confirmed that too made scientific sense as Alex described it, albeit with a level of technology that humanity couldn’t even begin to theorize about creating. Though the nanotechnology part was a guess, they agreed that could be a viable mechanism for creating a singularity, given the matter available in a planet and some capabilities of that technology that seemed impossible from an engineering standpoint, but not a theoretical one.
But Alex was no scientist, and given his well-known proclivity for not being able to keep up with Melissa in that realm; there was no way his mind could have conjured such possibilities. He simply wasn’t equipped to have made the story up and have it sound so plausible.
Everyone who heard the story agreed: the story only made sense if it was something he had in fact witnessed and so had real knowledge of.
The base psychologist, Doctor Elizabeth Masters, arrived just as Alex was getting ready to tell the story for the fourth time. He knew Elizabeth fairly well, having had to go to her for counseling a few times when the brass thought he might be getting a little too out of control in some of his test flights. He knew that was always the risk he ran by seemingly not taking danger as seriously as he should, and even Alcheck couldn’t completely protect him from needing to see the shrink to ensure he still had all his marbles from time to time.
After Melissa’s death though, Alex didn’t think his joking nature would be an issue anymore because he was starting to sense that was no longer his nature at all. He decided to test himself a bit.
“Ah, it took longer than I expected to get the headshrinker in here. How have you been, Doctor?”
“I’m fine Alex,” replied Masters, in her usual calm and professional voice. “I hear you’ve got a hell of a story to tell.”
“Bit of an understatement there, doc. Pull up a chair, and I’ll regale you.”
No, even that small bit of jocularity felt all wrong to Alex now. He felt himself frown at the thought. The alien probe had apparently stolen more from him than just his wife.
Alex regurgitated the story for Masters as he had before, as Alcheck stared out the window of the recovery room. By the end, Doctor Masters’ eyes were wide, and her mouth hung agape as she sat motionless in the chair next to Alex’s bed. Even after he had finished, she was a statue for a good thirty more seconds.
Masters composed herself as best she could, shifted in her chair and slowly began to speak.
“Well… I… it’s clear that you believe what you’re saying… and from what I know of you, our interactions in the past, that implies you’re describing something you actually witnessed… but… but, that’s impossible.”
“Could it be hallucinations? Delusions?”
Alcheck had already asked that question of Alex more than once, but the opinion of a trained professional was what he wanted now.
Masters thought for a moment, tilting her head to the right as she did.
“I don’t think so, sir. The details are too specific. Delusions, whatever the root cause, tend to be more generalized, never as vibrant as what Alex is describing. Also, the details of the story tend to change if only subtly with each telling. From what I’m told, that’s not the case here.”
“No, he’s told the same exact story four times and, and I knew enough to listen for inconsistencies. There were none. You can, of course, review the recording if you like, but I can assure you, you’ll hear the exact same thing as you just heard.”
“Ok, no need for that sort of review, I completely trust your attention to detail, sir. So, given that, let’s assume Alex isn’t lying. Let’s also assume this isn’t the result of head trauma, and let’s assume there’s no sort of psychosis or other non-mechanical issues at play here since there’s no hint of any of that. What else could it be?”
Suddenly, as if his mind was connected to some great Internet search engine and his search results had just come back and been directly pumped into his brain, Alex knew where the visions had come from. It was so obvious!
“It’s the creature! Oh, my God, how did I not see this before?”
Alcheck and Masters both began to speak, but as soon as Masters saw her superior officer opening his mouth, she quickly clamped hers shut.
“Alex, what are you talking about, ‘the creature’? What about it?”
“Major, that energy discharge, it wasn’t just electrical or even plasma energy - it was a data transfer! Somehow, memories from that thing were passed on to me during the knife blow I landed!”
Major Alcheck and Doctor Masters both pondered this for a moment, but before Alcheck could respond, Masters got her turn to speak.
“Creature? What are you talking about Alex?”
It was then that Major Alcheck realized she had been on another part of the base and was likely not aware of what had transpired.
“Doctor,“ he said, “there are a few things you need to know. A few surveillance recordings you’re going to need to see. But I’ll warn you in advance, prepare yourself.”
Alex wondered to himself if Brendan understood how silly telling her to “prepare yourself” was given what she was about to learn and see!
——————————
Forty-five minutes later, Doctor Elizabeth Masters’ mouth was agape once more.
“Doctor,“ Major Alcheck began, “I know it’s a lot to take in, but I’m going to need you to process this quickly because something occurred to me when Alex suggested that energy discharge was a data transfer and I’m going to need your full input on this thought.”
Alex began speaking now, suspecting he had come to the same conclusion as Alcheck had.
“You think that maybe there was more information in that data dump then just some seemingly random memories of alien invasions, aren’t you?”
“Exactly. At least, that’s what I’m hoping. But, given how that fight ended, how outmatched we were until your knife strike landed, I think that maybe there’s more in that head of yours now then just memories in fact, and if we could just access…”
“Hypnosis!” Masters exclaimed, now fully joining the conversation.
Inside, Major Alcheck was glad she had come to the same conclusion he had, but he gave her a stern look. The interruption wasn’t very disciplined of her.
And she knew it instantly herself.
“Oh, I’m sorry sir, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
Alcheck let her off the hook. There were clearly more important considerations at that moment.
“Exactly, doctor. That was my thought as well.”
Masters took this as her cue to take over.
“Alex, I can regress you through hypnosis to a low delta brainwave state. That’s very similar to a dream state, but it’s different in that you’ll still be able to communicate with us, will be aware of the world around you nominally, and you’ll even be able to direct your dreaming to some degree with my help. If more information was transferred to you, then there’s a good chance that you’ll be able to access it in that state.”
Alex didn’t hesitate even a little at the suggestion.
“Sound like a plan, let’s get to it.”
“Alex, be aware that there’s some degree of danger to this, given your head trauma and two weeks in a coma. Frankly, there’s a chance I might not be able to get you back to a normal state of consciousness. Your brain has been mostly shut off, except for autonomic functions, for much longer than is usual. Hypnosis will appear to your mind like another shutdown to some extent, and it might be enough to convince it not to wake up again.”
“Well, I’m not sure I see much choice, sir,” Alex solemnly said to Major Alcheck, “If there’s more information about that creature floating around upstairs, especially as it relates to the X-100, we’ve got to know it, risky or not.”
Major Alcheck considered it for a moment, but the choice really wasn’t much of a choice at all, and both he and Alex, and even Doctor Masters, knew it.
“Very well, do it.”
——————————
Doctor Masters cleared the room of everyone except for Alex, her and Major Alcheck. All the nurses and Doctor Woodrow, who had been tending to Alex’s physical needs, were told to leave, and the door was sealed. Major Alcheck dimmed the lights at Masters’ request, and she sat in the chair next to Alex’ bed. Alex was sitting up now, leaning against a stack of pillows. He felt weak, but he suspected that might only help get into the mental state that was required for this to work.
“Ok now Alex, I’m going to begin by using this device called a transindentor to synchronize your brainwaves to a rhythm that we know is conducive to slipping into a delta state."
The device she held in her hand, which she now placed on the food tray that extended across the bed, looked very similar to a musical metronome, pyramidal in shape with a bar in front that had a bell-shaped object at the top. The device shared even more in common with a metronome as it happened because Masters with a flick of the bar started it moving left and right. Each time it passed the straight-up position, the bell-shaped object at the tap gave off a bright flash of light as well as a low, dull “foomp” sound. The light’s strobe effect was pronounced, but not so bright as to hurt Alex’ eyes.
“Now, I want you to just focus on the light and the sound you hear, and every time you see it, I want you to alternatively breathe in and breathe out. Every time you hear the sound it makes, I want you to relax a different muscle in your body. First, your facial muscles, just let it all go limp. Then your left arm, then right arm, then your chest and stomach, then your legs.”
Alex did as she said and before long his entire body felt more relaxed than it ever had, as far as he could remember. His eyes were growing heavy with each pulse of the light, and they began to close.
“Good Alex, that’s very good. Now, as your vision fades to blackness, I want you to focus increasingly on the sound of my voice. I’m going to guide you through this.”
Alex’s eyes now closed completely and his mind went as blank as his body had gone limp. His brain was effectively the last muscle of his body to relax.
“Ok, we’re just about there, Alex.”
Masters was now watching the EKG machine that had been hooked up to Alex’s head. The small cap he wore housed about four dozen highly precise sensors that monitored his brainwaves in exquisite detail. It was one of the perks Doctor Masters had as a member of this elite team: this machine was far more precise than most in existence.
Before long, she noted that Alex was now in complete delta phase and she knew she could begin. She glanced over at Major Alcheck, who was standing next to her, not moving a muscle the entire time. She had almost forgotten that he was there in fact! Their gazes met, and he nodded to her.
Time to begin.
——————————
“Ok Alex, I want you to think back to your fight with the creature. Try to imagine what you were feeling at the time. Are you there?”
Alex’s body stiffened as his expression turned to a pained grimace before he exclaimed: “Agh! I can feel it! It hurts!”
Masters grabbed Alex’s hand and began speaking in as calm a voice as she could muster:
“Alex… Alex… concentrate… calm down… I know it hurts, but you’re in control, and the pain is only in your mind now. You can turn it off like a light. Push it aside, like you would the blanket on your bed on a warm night. Feel the pain subside as you do.”
Alex forced himself to actually picture looking down at his legs, in bed, with a blanket around them, only these blankets were glowing with energy and electrical discharges leaped from them in every direction. He saw his hand move down and begin to push them aside and as he did, the pain subsided. His face returned to a relaxed state with no real expression.
“I’m okay now. No pain. I can see the creature. It’s here with me, touching me, grabbing my arm.”
“Ok Alex, that’s very good. Now, focus on where it’s holding your arm. Imagine that your eyes are microscopes and zoom in on the point of contact. What do you see?”
Alex could see the claw wrapped around his right arm, getting bigger and closer. Or was he shrinking? He couldn’t tell, the effect was the same either way. He began to see details: veins and arteries in the claw as well as his own arm. Capillaries under the surface came into view. Before too long, even whole skin cells were objects as big as other people, and he seemed to be standing among them!
Lightning bolts startled him as they shot from the sky down to the floor. Only, it wasn’t a floor, it was him, his body! And the sky must be the creature. That made, he somehow knew, the lightning bolts streams of data being passed to him.
“I can see… can see, data… streams of data, lightning bolts, flowing down into me from the creature. Why would it do this? Was it an accident?”
“Alex, if what you see really is data, what happens if you touch it?”
Alcheck wasn’t sure if he should even be speaking right now, wasn’t sure if Alex would even hear him since he was focusing on Masters’ voice, but he couldn’t help himself, the question had to be asked. Fortunately, Alex didn’t hesitate.
“Let’s find out.”
Alex reached out his hand and waited for a lightning bolt to strike it. Before long, it did, and the result shocked him.
“Melissa.”
Masters thought he was losing focus. Of course, he would! His mind was now free to remember that the love of his life had died just two weeks ago, and this was the first chance he was calm and relaxed and not consumed with other thoughts enough for the pain of that to come flooding back in.
But he had to focus, or this whole exercise would be pointless. Doctor Masters squeezed his hand tighter now.
“Alex, I know the pain of your loss must be flooding in right now, but you’ve got to fight it off. You’ve got to stay focused on the creature and where you are.”
“No, you don’t understand. It’s Melissa. She’s here. The creature, it is Melissa!”
Masters looked at Alcheck and the expression of shock they both wore now mirrored one another perfectly.
“I’ve got to know more. I’ve got to know it all.”
Alex looked around, trying to find something, something he wasn’t sure existed. He was growing frantic now, knew what he had to do. He turned completely around and found what he was looking for: a steady stream of lightning not too far off in the distance. It was as it a single cloud had parked itself over one spot and the god Zeus was firing lightning bolt after lightning bolt down onto the same place. There were so many bolts, in fact, that the column of light he was looking at almost appeared like a waterfall made of lightning.
He reached out his hand, both in his mind and in the real world. Masters released it as he did so.
“Alex, what are you seeing…”
Before Masters could complete the sentence, Alex began to convulse wildly, the electrode cap flying off his head and IV lines being pulled from his arms. Major Alcheck rushed over and tried to hold him down as Doctor Masters tipped over in her chair and fell to the floor.
“Doctor Woodrow! Get in here!” she yelled.
Doctor Masters collected herself as quickly as she could, struggling against the pain she felt in what she knew was a severely sprained ankle. She willed herself to her feet and limped over to the bed.
“Get something in his mouth!”
She pulled out her notepad that was in her pocket and tried to jam it into Alex’s mouth. It was a struggle, but she finally got it in, just as Woodrow and two nurses rushed into the room.
“10cc’s of diazepam, stat!”
The nurse filled the syringe as quickly as she could, ensured no air had made its way in, and then realized they had a big problem.
“Doctor, we don’t have an IV line, they’ve been pulled out!”
Doctor Woodrow reached across the bed and grabbed the syringe from her hands as she yelped in surprise. Before she had time to register what had happened, Doctor Woodrow had already done it: he stabbed the syringe straight into the right side of Alex’s neck, directly into his carotid artery. He was injecting the medicine as she realized what he had done: that injection site would send the medicine directly to his brain, almost instantly, faster than an IV line would have.
“Keep holding him down, it shouldn’t take long for this to take effect at all.”
Alex’s seizure was already ending by the time he had finished that sentence.
Ten seconds later he was fully calm, as if nothing had happened. He was on the edge of consciousness, and that’s when Masters kicked back into high gear.
“Alex… Alex, can you hear me? Alex?”
Word-like sounds began emanating from Alex’s mouth, but she couldn’t make out what he was saying.
“Alex, if you can hear me, I need you to focus on my voice. Don’t try to talk, just concentrate on what I’m saying. Wherever you are, whatever you see, close your eyes, and focus on the darkness. Let it engulf you until there’s nothing else around you. Push any sounds you hear away, except for my voice, until that’s the only thing your mind registers. Alex… Alex… I’m going to count down from five, and when I reach zero, I want you to wake up. Are you ready Alex? Here we go… five… four… three… two… one… and zero. Wake up Alex.”
Alex didn’t move.
“Alex, are you with us? Alex? Three… two… one… zero… Wake up!”
Alex’s left eye twitched a little, then his right. His mouth opened just a little bit, and slowly, as if the world was moving at one quarter its normal speed, his eyes began to open.
“Ok! Yes!” Doctor Masters said, simultaneously exhaling all the tension that had built up in her body, “that’s great Alex, welcome back!”
Alex glanced at Doctor Masters and smiled.
“Thanks, doc,”
She smiled back and nodded at him as he shifted his focus to Major Alcheck.
“Major… Brendan. I know.”
“What Alex? What do you know?” Major Alcheck leaned in closer, intent on hearing clearly every last syllable Alex was about to speak.
“I know what it wants.”
——————————
“They’re called the Xe’Tara, the creators of the nanotech probe that infected me and Melissa. It was the X-100 test flight that drew its attention. The hyperstealth drive, which is far more than just a simple stealth technology as it turns out, is an advanced bit of technology that the probe, and the Xe’Tara, have never encountered before. We - that is, Melissa - got lucky inventing it, to put it bluntly, if you can call it luck given the result. It’s a technology we simply aren’t ready for and shouldn’t have been able to create. Leave it to Melissa to be the over-achiever of all over-achievers.”
Alex chuckled again as Alcheck spoke.
“Alex, what do you mean it’s far more than stealth? What more?”
“It’s essentially a hyperspace drive, a warp drive, depending on which sci-fi you like. The probe realized that with just a little tweaking, the drive in the X-100 could allow the ship to travel vast distances - galactic distances - in almost no time at all. With this, the Xe’Tara, who are limited to subluminal speeds now, could conquer far more of the galaxy in just a few decades. They could even start their campaign in other galaxies before long. It’s a game-changer for them, and it’s something they’ve never seen before across thousands and thousands of worlds and species that they’ve destroyed.”
“Alex,” Masters began, “you just used the word subliminal, and by the looks on the faces of these scientists here I know you’ve used it right. Excuse me if this sounds a little insulting, but, from our previous meetings, I know you’re not exactly well-versed in science-speak. So, how is it you know that term?”
Alex chuckled again as he replied.
“Well, if you thought any of this was hard to believe, hold on to your hats for this next bit! When I was transported out to Jupiter, like I said, I ran into one of those Xe’Tara probes. It quickly realized what the X-100 was, what I was, and it wanted to know more. What these probes can do, one of the things anyway, is it can merge with a living creature, take it over, and re-shape it as it sees fit. It merged with me. But, it wasn’t really a merging, it was more like hitching a ride like I said before. It quickly realized that I wasn’t the creature that had invented the ship.”
Alex pointed to his head and smirked: “Not smart enough, you see.”
“So, it hitched a ride in me, and when I got back, the first person I touched was Melissa. So, it transferred over to her and quickly realized she was plenty smart enough, and then it discovered she was the inventor of the hyperstealth drive. The damned thing hit the jackpot! So, it tried to take her over. But, my girl, she was even smarter than the fucking thing realized: it left her mind intact because it didn’t want to risk losing any of her knowledge. One of its other capabilities is digitizing a biological mind, and that’s what it did to Melissa. In a sense, it turned her into a computer program and let it run inside of it. But in doing so, she was able to fight back, even though she didn’t realize it at first, it was a subconscious thing, and she kept it from getting at the knowledge it wanted. That’s when it went with plan B: re-shape Melissa into a Xe’Tara warrior.”
“The creature.” Major Alcheck mouthed, the realization striking him like a hot iron in the back of his brain.
“Exactly, sir. A devastatingly powerful creature, engineered from the ground up for combat against creatures far more dangerous than us as it happens. The Xe’Tara have been tinkering with their own evolution for centuries at least and have evolved what they consider the perfect fighting form.”
“But if that’s true Captain, then how were you able to defeat it, even if only briefly? I saw the thing in action first-hand and that, plus what you’ve said, gives me the impression you shouldn’t have had a chance, the EMP grenades even probably weren’t enough, right?”
“That’s right, but I was able to get that knife blow in because when the probe left me for Melissa, it left some of itself behind. I’ve still got bits of it floating around inside me, remember Doctor Woodrow? Melissa was there, inside the creature, fighting it from within while I was fighting it from the outside, and she was able to connect with me thanks to the nanotech it left behind in me. She was feeding me information remotely, subconsciously, and directing me to the knife strike, which she knew would give her the chance to send me a ton more information.”
The expression on Alex’s face suddenly changed to one of sadness and melancholy. But there was something else there underneath the pain that Alcheck at least recognized: pride. Pride in his wife.
“She managed to hurt it, just enough to give me an opening against it. Without her, sir, I don’t think any of us are here today having this conversation. She managed to hurt it from within, but in the process, she sacrificed whatever of her was left in there. Melissa is completely gone now.”
Alex looked at Masters now as she grabbed his hand again and smiled at him.
“I’m so sorry Alex.”
“No, it's okay doctor. It gives me great joy to know that in her final moment she was connected to me. That’s what happened, how I woke up knowing the things I did: she managed to dump all this information to me because of the bits of the nanotech left in me. She was able to open a channel. She sent me more than that knowledge though: she sent some of herself. Her feelings for me. I have them, they’re in me.”
Alex pointed at his heart now as he fought back the tears. He was far from someone who cried, but at this moment, he was close. But, he willed himself to focus again on what was most important to relay right now, and he turned back to Major Alcheck.
“Sir, that creature is still out there. And it wants the X-100. That’s the only thing that matters to it now, getting it and returning it to the Xe’Tara. If it does, they’ll destroy every living thing in this galaxy, including us. They may even attack us first, thinking we’re more technologically advanced than we really are thanks to the X-100. Thousands of worlds far more advanced than us have failed to put much of a dent in the Xe’Tara in the thousands of years they’ve been doing what they’re doing so we’re going to be less than a fly for them to swat if they even bother. We can’t let it succeed.”
One of the scientists who had been listening now spoke up, his voice thick with obvious fright.
“Ok, so let's just blow the fucking thing up! Destroy all the research data, scrub everything about the project from existence.”
Alex frowned, as did Alcheck. They both knew the problem with that plan, but Alex was the one who spoke first.
“We can’t just blow it up. Major, they’ve already reloaded a new core, haven’t they?”
“Yes, that’s right. It was the standard procedure Melissa had outlined: at least during testing, the core would be replaced after every test flight to ensure there was no micro-damage that might threaten the next flight. The maintenance staff did that not long after our fight with the creature. Nobody thought to stop it.”
Major Alcheck gulped down a feeling he rarely felt: failure.
“I didn’t think to stop it.”
Alcheck’s head dropped slightly, something Alex couldn’t recall ever seeing him do. It wasn’t his fault; with everything that had happened, why would he have thought to stop routine maintenance operations? There were bigger fish to fry, to put it mildly.
“Major, it’s not your fault. And even if it is, at this point, it doesn’t really matter.