eugenesis-text

PART SIX
EvoPeak
It was the end of the road.
In fact no, it was more than the end of the road: the road had long ago been abandoned in favour of
the ditch, the dugout, the rugged woodland turn-off. Now it was just The End. There was simply nowhere
else to go.
1 st January 2013.
Haxian watched a fracture line snake its way across the corridor and imagined thousands more carving
up the underwater base. Some of the outlying passages had already collapsed, unstitched by an ocean floor
that was all too eagerly pulling itself apart. So much for precautions: things were beginning to fall apart.
He was far too loyal (and afraid) to take his leader to task over the danger they found themselves in.
Nerves getting the better of him, he’d reported the latest planet-quake in a neutral tone and pointed out
that they should really start thinking about evacuating the base before, you know, it imploded. Xenon had
dragged him here, to the vault.
He’d never been inside the vault before. General Rodern had once said that everyone involved in
building the supercomputer inside had been put to death upon completing their mammoth task (except Q-
42, who was rumoured to have been trapped inside); he knew that to be a lie. Nevertheless, only Xenon
enjoyed access now. The Quintesson protoforms inside were upgraded collectively, via remote surgery –
alterations to the central template were carried out by microsurgical repair mechanisms inside the
incubation tubes.
Xenon opened the vault door.
‘I am showing you the Cargo because I trust you, Haxian, and because it is you who must become
Majestrix should I die. As my successor, you deserve to know the full scope of my masterplan.’
‘Thank you, sir. I am honoured to be chosen.’ It sounded hollow and trite, but what else could he
say He had no wish to lead; he was content to be left alone, hunched over a lamp-lit desk, designing
bodyshells. He walked into the vault and was scandalised by its size. It was supposed to be a city-sized
chamber feeding deep into the planet’s crust, but this was nothing more than a walkway. He touched the
ceiling and realised his mistake: this wasn’t the hybridised osmium putty that was used to build the rest of
the base, this was smooth computer casing. This wasn’t a simple corridor: this was a borehole into the
supercomputer. By touching the ceiling, he was touching God.
Haxian had seen the blueprints for God (Or G.O.D., as it was known originally: Genetics and
Ontological Deconstruction), but had never dreamt of standing inside the finished product. The project was
so classified that only the Majestrix was trusted with the full range of information, and the Quintesson
academia, small though it was, still argued amongst themselves as to the macroprocessor’s purpose.
‘It’s beautiful,’ Haxian said, imagining neuro-currents and deep-thought programs coursing through
the spiralling, fine-wired circuitry.
‘Three years to build, Haxian, twenty million to design. God was built with only purpose in mind:
decode the Prime Program. In a few moments the assimilation will be over, and the Matrix will at last be
broken down into the primal algorithm, into the Lifecode itself. A perfect equation that can breathe
sentience into dead metal.’