eugenesis-text

‘I’m not prepared to come back tomorrow and see if anyone’s home,’ said Sunstreaker, blasting the
doors of their hinges.
‘So much for a civilised entrance,’ said Nightbeat. ‘No wonder we Autobots have a bad reputation.’
Inside, the temple smelt of rancid lubricant, hot tarmac and impure energon.
The wormhole hovered above the altar at the far end of the temple. It looked as if someone had
swivelled a cigarette through the fabric of space-time. A perfect sphere with a radius of a hundred metres or
so, it was a miracle of nature, a collision of Tech 12 theo-physics and black-eyed arcania. The surrounding
area was winnowed and atrophied, threadbare with dead heat and missing time; it acted as a styptic, an
insulator against the portal’s deleterious energies.
Nightbeat felt the strength drain from his legs and his torch slip from his fingers. He was afraid. But
where he was afraid, the others were enraptured – scandalised, almost, by the portal’s violent beauty. They
were witnessing a universal secret, a whispered myth among pilgrims and scientists, a phenomenon as
wondrous as the first skin-twitch before biomorphic labour.
The floor was covered with tendrils of mist, green as candle wax, and poking through them were all
manner of religious paraphernalia.
‘I think you were right, Hoist.’ said Nightbeat. ‘I think they have gone through the wormhole.’ He
picked up a staff and bent it back into shape. ‘I just pray they’ve jumped into the future: at least there they
cannot endanger the timeline.’
‘I dunno,’ said Hoist. ‘It doesn’t feel right. The scanner says there’s life in here, but where Where
could a templeful of First Churchers hide’
‘Good question.’ Nightbeat threw the staff aside and waited for the clatter. It didn’t come. He
dropped to his knees and, wafting away the all-pervasive mist, uncovered a cavity deep enough to
accommodate the wormhole itself. ‘What have we here… A crater Or an excavation’
‘Forget that and look up there,’ said Grapple quietly. ‘Look what they’ve done.’
The domed ceiling was plastered with greying bodies. Nightbeat thrust his flashlight into plaster and
piecrust, into irregular eyes and mouths. ‘What happened here What the hell happened here’
Somewhere behind them a dark shape dropped to the ground. They turned, they pointed their guns
and their torches, and they listened as it started to speak.
/// you have defiled this place with your presence ///
The Guardian’s voice - a synthesised murmur with the edges rubbed off - didn’t match his body,
which was heavyset and veined with oil. He – it – was a walking lump hammer, an endoskeleton buried
under a kevlar-web of pressure plates and fractal armour. Its head was mockingly disproportionate to his
body: a miniature cranium, wrapped in alloy, with pinprick optics and a mouth filled with far too many
teeth. Looped around its wrists were high-rez lasers, cutters and welders – the artillery of a security droid
designed to act, like so many others over the years, as the last line of defence.
Nightbeat raised his hands. ‘Hi. We just want to—’
/// heretic /// i am the chosen one /// is it not written in the primal pentateuch that the chosen one shall pave
the way for the second coming ///
Its speech patterns had been flattened into a characterless monotone: even its questions sounded like
statements.
‘Yes, yes,’ said Nightbeat, ‘but we just want to—’
Guardian fired a fat laserbolt at Nightbeat, who lunged behind the nearest pew. Hoist, Grapple and
Sunstreaker did the same, and they all crouched in the shadows.
/// give yourselves up /// surrender to the word of god ///
‘The Class 3s were recalled due to faulty programming,’ hissed Nightbeat. ‘They were rounded up
and dumped underneath Yuss after Megadeath detonated his neutron bombs. I guess this one was buried
alive. Four million years listening to the First Church must have corrupted its brain module. It’s protecting
the wormhole!’
The pew exploded and flicked the Autobots across the aisle. Sunstreaker slipped, skidded and returned
fire. ‘That’s it! No more cowering!’
‘Avoid the wormhole!’ ordered Nightbeat, weaving between pillars and holding his pistol in both
hands. ‘One stray shot could vaporise us! Hell, it could vaporise everything!’
Guardian observed Sunstreaker with puzzled annoyance.