Chapter Seven: Osmosis

“You can talk?” Dagger questioned, gun raised but not aimed.

“I have a brain. I have a mouth. I have someone to talk to for the first time in years. Of course I can talk. I can sing too, but nobody wants to hear that, least of all me,” he chuckled.

“I should get you out of there.”

“Please do, but not yet. I’m still decoupling, and it isn’t a fast process, nor a pleasant one. If you want a brilliant scientist to bring home instead of a drooling, dribbling lunatic like you, then give me a few moments.”

“Are you telling me you can just… take everything off?”

“Ah,” the insectoid professor twitched within his seat, “I see you only received a part of my distress signal, as I suspected of course. No one except me could have hoped to broadcast over the Arkolt’s own network, but I’m rather cleverer than most, you see. How much do you know?”

“The part where there’s a ‘you’ and there’s a ‘lab’ and there’s a ‘busting one from the other.”

“Ah. I see,” he let out a little burp of exasperation, “the long version then. I’ll start with Vlissik, something I don’t imagine there’s much of anymore.”

“Uh,” I stepped forwards, still more delicate than a dancer for fear of waking the machine, “no disrespect professor, but-”

“Yes, yes, you’re scared of the Arkolt,” Zanzikai tutted impatiently, “look, I promise there’s nothing to fear, for now at least.”

“Why not?”

“Goodness child, do you have no appreciation for good old-fashioned chronological story-telling?” His voice was mild-yet authoritative, and for the briefest flash he’d tricked me into fearing him more than the Arkolt, “rest-assured, you have more than enough time to listen while I decouple.”

“Sorry,” I mumbled.

“Apologies are cheap, but time is diamond my boy. So, as you probably know, Vlissik was under attack.”

“Because of you,” Dagger said bluntly, “they destroyed the planet because of you.”

“Yes, quite an overreaction I think. Justified of course, since I am rather brilliant, but even so… I was already in orbit when the bombardment began, onboard my personal shuttle.”

“The Zanzikai?” Dagger said with a humourless smirk.

“Yes, that’s the one.”

“Dozens of ships and hundreds of thousands of civilian lives,” her hands trembled, “all lost because they sent us back to extract you.”

“Well, I must say, you rather messed that one up, didn’t you?”

“Your ship was literally named the Zanzikai!" Dagger practically growled, "How stupid can you-”

“Oh, please. There are thousands of ships named after me, if anything it would have made an effective bluff.”

“You arrogant piece of-”

“Have the Arkolt stolen everyone’s manners along with me, or was I the only lynchpin keeping society even remotely respectable? Gods, it must be so frustrating for any intellectuals you still have, being interrupted with such trivialities any time of day! Now where was I, aside from the claws of the Arkolt, due in large part to your rather lacklustre display of combat prowess? Ah, yes. They took my ship with one of their tractor-beams – fascinating design really, I’ve been toying with the idea for a few decades now, even had a few prototypes going, but that’s neither here nor there – and took it right back to Vlissik, where we’d departed from.”

“What about your crew?” I asked.

“Yes, they also failed to keep the Arkolt away, and damn-near shook the meal from my stomach in the process.”

“But where are they now?”

“Far, far away from any spaceship controls I should hope, and really, are you interrupting me again?” He croaked with frustrated indignation. “As you can see, they didn’t much care for the creature comforts. Stuck me right in this chair on the first day, hardly a gentle ease into the situation. No solid food, not allowed to move, not even the odd Sharlon triple on a cold winter night, though I must say, it’s done my livers some good. What they wanted was my mind, you understand, same as anyone. The Arkolt are an ancient and, dare I say, utterly fascinating race, but they aren’t like you or I. Well, like I, at any rate. They know things, and they can apply knowledge, but they aren’t built to think, to theorise, to imagine. Any new technology they acquire is either a differently scaled version of an existing concept, or something stolen from others. As you can imagine, I was quite the treasure trove, a battery for innovation.”

“So they just kept you here,” Dagger mused, “and forced you to, what, invent all day?”

“Yes, exactly, and though I despise the Arkolt as much as anyone, I must admit, the challenges involved were, well, for a race without a bone of originality within them, they sure know how to treat an old scientist. No funding, no bureaucracy, just plain old science. It was torture at first, but I grew to quite enjoy it.”

“You enjoyed working for the enemy?”

“I didn’t enjoy working for the Arkolt, but I did enjoy working, and don’t you pretend I haven’t suffered. You aren’t the one being painfully extracted from this madhouse.”

The metal bands holding Zanzikai’s legs in place fell loose, and we all jumped back as he stretched for the first time in years, joints crackling as they straightened and unfolded like the petals of a grotesque flower in bloom. His torso remained trapped, as did his arm and head.

“Ah,” he almost moaned with pleasure, “ah, oh, that’s exactly what I needed, yes.”

“We know most of this, and the rest isn’t useful. Where are all the Arkolt in this bunker?” Konzor asked, barely intimidated by the legs big enough to break his armour in a swipe.

“You might as well be talking to one,” Zanzikai said, smugly enough for the pride to shine strong over his arrogance, “the Arkolt kept me trapped here for years, stuck in this virtual cage, but they needed me to test my research, and sometimes simulations simply will not suffice. It was just a little trickle of power, allowing me to manipulate some of the facilities within the complex, but it was enough. They didn’t even notice when I pushed at it, the viruses, the hacks, the manipulation. It was gradual, unbearably slow, but over time I’ve come to control this place, at least, enough of the time. Though I’ll admit, seeing everything in infrared is… Rather boring, much of the time.”

“We risked our asses for you, and you’re saying you were already in command?” Dagger looked about ready to snap his final arm.

“Command? No. It’s like a wrestling match without end, an eternal battle of wits, and the Arkolt still don’t even know it’s going on. I’d say I’m probably half in control of this lab, but it took all my strength to get a distress signal out, and even more to stop the automatons from destroying you.”

One of the Arkolt bugs scurried across the floor and up one of Zanzikai’s legs. Then another, and another. Together they worked on the professor’s body, tugging away the filthy pipes and cables.

“I saved my strength for today,” Zanzikai rasped, “you’re all alive because of me.”

“So, you build weapons for the Arkolt? New ship designs?” Dagger asked. Zanzikai laughed.

“Ships? Weapons? My good woman, the Arkolt could obliterate us with the weapons they possess and will probably inevitably do so. If anything, my plans have delayed our inevitable extinction through distraction.”

“What else could possibly matter?”

“Such a tiny mind. Your partner must be very disappointed with you. All you military types, such tiny minds I couldn’t see them under microscopes built out of muons. You can’t even see it, can’t even conceive of it.”

“Just tell me before I get an aneurism.”

“Your cranium is hardly ample enough to absorb such considerable cruor, so I’ll give you a hint. A riddle in fact. I was told it as a child. Why, oh why, is the Arkolt construct ring-shaped, when other shapes such as a sphere would be more efficient? Not centrifugal gravity, they are easily advanced enough to generate their own through less primitive means, and as mechanical beings they do not require as such regardless.”

“I always thought it was so they could easily park it around a planet?” One of the human soldiers said. Zanzikai snorted.

“For the Arkolt, and even for our computers, orbital mechanics is like counting rocks. They could hover above the planet using pure anti-gravity if they so wished.”

“A weapon then?” Konzor suggested, “like on their ships. A gun big enough to destroy Enfirnia in one shot?”

“A valid suggestion, and one I myself believed for the longest time. Toroids and spheres are quite a prevalent architectural motif within Arkolt structures, especially weaponry. But no. I now know that is not the case.”

“Maybe it’s just so the universe finally contains a hole bigger than you,” said Dagger, “just get to the point.”

“I’ve been at the point for years, and you lot are playing catch-up. Come on people. It’s not difficult. What problem do we share with the Arkolt?”

“Limited time,” I said, “the star is going out.”

“An even bigger problem for the Arkolt than us, since they’ll be there to witness it. They’ll feel it when the universe goes dark.”

“You’re saying the ring is to stop that?” My eyes widened, “is it a star factory?”

“Cold again, but keep trying, young man. You can’t make energy out of nothing… But you can move it from one place to another.”

“Then… then…” My eye-sockets strained as they grew wider still, “it’s a portal. To somewhere else.”

“Another universe,” Zanzikai said gently, with such wonder, “a younger universe.”

“Impossible,” Dagger snorted dismissively.

“To the small, perhaps. But it’s true. The fabric of reality is a cosmic foam, bubbles of universes forming, and bursting, only for the residue to form again. Our bubble is almost done, but there’s an infinity of universes, some forming as we speak. That is the research I have been undertaking, since before the Arkolt took me. It’s long been suggested that all the ancient races of the universe, including those that designed the shields on our ships, have ascended to a higher plane of existence. This is, of course, pure poppycock, but there is a hint of truth. I suspect they have moved on, to another realm that so fits their desires, one not doomed to fade so quickly as ours has. And, I suspect, the Arkolt know this, and have been trying to replicate the technology ever since the galaxies started to die. It was only then that they started to build ring-shaped constructs. In preparation for a migration. All they needed was someone brilliant enough to finalise the work. All they needed, was me.”

My mind boggled at the concept. For this entire life, I’d experienced little but existential despair, the knowledge that I was living on the full-stop of the universe’s story. That anything I did wouldn’t cause ripples through the cosmos, but would die with the very last star. The idea that it might not be true was a new one, of fairy-tails and other fiction.

Another universe.

A younger universe.

It hit me then.

“But,” I stammered, “if the Arkolt use the portal-”

“It’s worse than you think, actually. You suspect they’ll enter a young universe, being aeons older than the stars in its sky. That they’ll do as they have in this realm, use up every scrap of matter and energy they can find to propagate themselves. There will be no one advanced enough to stop them, and with all the galaxies so close together, they’ll subjugate the entire universe.”

“You don’t think so though?”

“Oh, no, they will, no doubt in my mind,” the last straps and cables fell from Zanzikai’s torso, leaving only the helmet on his head. “But I know what they want to do first. You see, not every universe was as lucky as this one. Countless times the Arkolt has formed, in countless universes, and countless times the other races have risen to defeat them. But countless times, the opposite has occurred. The forces of the machines wiped out all life, and hope along with it. The Arkolt of this dying world wish to encounter one such reality, and offer them the gift of multiversal travel. And from there-”

“As many universes as they could assimilate,” Dagger suddenly looked ill. The universe for her was one tiny star and a handful of planets. Now it was bigger, and all of it was at threat, “an infinite slaughter.”

“Perhaps you aren’t so stupid as you look and act,” Zanzikai said gently.

“We’re all doomed?”

“I didn’t tell you my entire story just to end with ‘everyone died’, don’t be idiotic. No, no, I’d never have let such things fall to the Arkolt, not without a plan at least. There is a failsafe – of course there is, ingenious really – so long as we reach it on time.”

“We came to get you, and we got you. Anything else is between you and the bigwigs,” Dagger shrugged.

“Of course, of course. But they have all they need of me, and I suspect they’ll activate the Zanzikai-gate – I know I’ve already named so many things after myself, but this just feels right wouldn’t you say? - sooner rather than later. Come to think, I’m not entirely sure of the time myself – things tend to get distorted within the Arkolt mainframe. Would you happen to possess the stardate?”

Dagger told him, and Zanzikai tore the headset from his head, cables still trailing droplets of blood, eyes scrunched shut from sudden exposure to the light, skin above the jaw pale from seven years of shadow. Ignoring the pain he must be feeling, he dragged his single arm from the computer and jabbed it against her chest.

“You can’t be serious!” He roared into her face, mandibles inches from her helmet. We all raised our guns, but Dagger frantically waved us down.

“Why would I lie?”

“No! he cried towards the ceiling, “no, no, no, it can’t be, not today! I knew we were close but…” He looked back towards us, starting to slowly unpeel his eyes. “it’s today, probably hours from now. They open the gate today. We have to go now, we have to go now!”

“Can we stop it?”

“If we go now!” he stamped his feet, “how far is your ship?”

“About-“

“Not good enough! Tell them to take off.”

“What about us?”

“I have a ship we can use,” he burped, forcing himself to calm, face muscles relaxing slightly, “I wanted time to prepare. I wanted everyone to live. But I can still do this. I can save as many as I can.”

Clearly too surprised to say anything else, Dagger nodded.

“Lead the way,” she extended her arm. Zanzikai nodded back.

“Give me a moment,” he said, and closed his eyes once more. From the corners of the room, four of the hovering Arkolt arms zoomed towards us, and I had to dart out the way before one could hit me. When he was done, all four limbs drifted just away from Zanzikai’s body, upgraded replacements for the arms they’d taken from him. “Now I’m ready.”

He opened his eyes, properly this time.

And frowned.

And dived.

Before I could run, he had me by the throat, nearly enough force to crush my windpipe.

This time Dagger was the first to raise her gun along with Konzor, but Zanzikai paid them no heed.

“How are you here?” He barked in my face, spittle coating my skin, “why have you brought this… Why have you brought this here?”

“He’s one of us,” Dagger pumped her weapon, “let him the hell down or I’ll be peeling you off the ground.”

“Fools,” Zanzikai spat, “utter fools. You don’t even know what this is, do you? You don’t even know what you’ve brought here.”

“They’re our friend,” Konzor took a shot, but Zanzikai’s new arms simply bat the bullets aside, seeming fast as the Sphereship as they swept aside. “They’re my friend. That’s enough for me.”

I felt tears drip from my eyes as the professor closed in, grip only growing tighter.

“You know what you did. You know what you are. Admit it. Admit it!”

“I think I remember,” I barely choked out, “I think I know. I think so. I’m sorry. I'm-”

He tossed me to the ground and slammed his leg against my helmet.

“I’m going to kill you for what you’ve done,” Zanzikai whispered, “and it will be the best thing I’ve ever achieved.”