eugenesis-text

‘Why hasn’t Quantax opened fire’ he demanded, as if cheated of an early skirmish.
‘What were you expecting’ Ryknia snapped. ‘A whirlwind of crossfire Quantax doesn’t even know
why we’re here.’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure,’ muttered Sevax, the last to transform and land. The fortress wall bowed gently
out of sight, flanked by a distant landscape of lights and lengthening shadows. The three of them were used
to the mountainside; the metropolis, though toppled and deserted, gave them pause. The recycling plant
stood out as the only other intact structure in the province; it reclined on the horizon, draped in sodium. A
few dozen miles opposite, Darkmount burned in the dirt.
‘Sure beats the hell out of our old planet,’ said Jolup, shielding his face from the wind.
‘Which one’ said Ryknia, heading inside.
Quantax peeled himself away from the main screen as the three Quintecons marched into the control
room. ‘You’re a long way from home, Ryknia,’ he said, and looked at Jolup and Sevax. ‘He drag you two
along for the ride’
‘What’s that’ demanded Jolup, nodding to the monitor screen.
‘Frontier film. Ever heard of chrono-euclidiae’
‘They’re described in the Old Texts,’ said Sevax. ‘Temporal passageways, distillations of space/time.’
‘Wormholes. We’ve found one in sector fourteen. But you three didn’t come here to discuss
camcorder footage, did you’
Ryknia rubbed a speck of dirt from the palm of his hand. ‘No, Quantax, we didn’t. We came here to
discuss our position in your hierarchy.’ He lifted his arm-mounted laser rifles with a casualness that bordered
on resignation. ‘Or should that be your position in our hierarchy It’s time for a change.’
‘I see.’ Quantax raised his hands. ‘So. What happens now’
‘Now we kill you,’ spat Jolup. ‘Nothing fancy, just a few dozen plasma blasts through your face.’
‘Very well. Do it.’
The Quintecons looked at each other, shrugged, and re-aligned their weapons. Could it really be this
easy
‘Afraid to kill me, Ryknia You always were a gutless bastard.’
Ryknia’s eyes flashed, he clenched his fist, and – nothing. No shot rang out, no kickback nudged his
arm. He could imagine the plasma bolt scorching from the barrel, but that was all. A unique pain singed the
back of his eyeballs and massaged his brain with nausea so intense, so crippling, that it threatened to drive
him off-line.
Quantax laughed.
Ryknia looked to his teammates for an answer, but they too were trying to shake off the whine of
sensory overload. Reflected in their desperate faces he saw his own fear and helplessness – what was
happening to them
‘My weapon’s faulty!’ grunted Jolup – as if an external malfunction accounted for the meltdown
inside – and promptly launched a volley of laserfire into the floor. Quantax kept laughing.
‘What’s so funny’ demanded Ryknia. He dragged a target beam onto Quantax’s forehead but his will
to fire was overridden in a frenzy of conflicting motives. He simply could not bring himself to shoot at his
commanding officer.
‘Excuse me, but would anyone object if I turned the tables’ said Quantax.
The control room shimmered and dispersed in a damp grey drizzle of holo-fragments, revealing row
upon row of heavily-armed guards. Solid backgrounds reasserted themselves through the fade-out and
Ryknia realised the room was a good three times bigger than he had thought. Holo-walls: how obvious, he
thought. How demeaning.
Quantax paced the inner rim of bodyguards, enjoying the revised scenario. ‘The thing I find most
staggering,’ he said, vocalising mid-thought, ‘is that three jumped-up night watchmen like yourselves
genuinely thought they could swan in here, into the heart of my own fortress, and kill me. So ungrateful. I
like to think I deserved more.’
He stepped in front of Sevax. ‘What about you Anything to say Some insight or prophecy that
describes your imminent death No, I didn’t think so.’
‘If you’re going to shoot us,’ said Jolup, trying to sound impassive, ‘then shoot us. Don’t talk us to
death.’