A virtual bullseye marked the next site. The ideal placement and spacing had been worked out in advance by anarch scientists, or engineers, or whoever it was who sat in labs and did those things so people like me could venture outside and... complete the missions.
I hardly stopped as I released the slab, not wanting to lose any momentum.
When the clock hit zero I would be dead, but right now I was alive. High on oxygen deprivation, the magnificent view, and the act of running free along the curving arc of an apparatus that warped the fabric of spacetime to sling objects and people 430 kiloparsecs in a frozen, boundless instant. The stars at my back, the universe at my fingertips—
—a drone clambered up the lip of the ring just as my foot hit metal. I tripped hard over it, landed on my ass with a painful crack and tumbled across the surface.
The drone landed on top of me before I could move. One of its spindly tool arms sliced through my shoulder as the other poked for my face.
With a groan I kicked at it and skittered away to climb to my feet. Undeterred, the drone sprang toward me.
“Off you go, machine!” I grabbed it with both hands and hurled it over the side into oblivion.
The cut on my shoulder hurt like a bitch, but worse, the swipe had sliced open the thin film of my suit. My dwindling life expectancy had now been cut in half.
But it hadn’t damaged my legs, so I ran once again. Two primed slabs still to place.
If I failed, the destruction might not be total. This constituted an unacceptable outcome. To my superiors, but mostly to me. I did not do half-measures, and if I was going to die in an explosion of white hot agony, it was going to be a properly majestic explosion.
One which served as a fitting symbol of how far we were willing to go to dismantle the Directorate superstructure and break its chokehold on not solely us but the entire fucking universe.
The near vacuum of space sucked at the tear in my suit, but I ignored it to sprint. Only a little farther.
That was such a lie.
The light of the core sank above me as the ring bowed in to the void. The marker for the next-to-last location blinked urgently at me, and I readied the drop—
—and very nearly made a disaster of it. The tiny sips of oxygen I subsisted on were taking their toll, and when coupled with the pain in my arm and leaking suit, I was now less running and more stumbling forward from sheer inertia.
I tried to drop the slab while moving, slipped and kicked it toward the edge. I lunged for it in panic, overestimated the distance, and fell atop it. Please don’t detonate. Please don’t detonate.
One thing was certain: my weight had succeeded in sticking it to the metal. I crawled to my feet and rested my hands on my thighs. Dizziness—the real kind—blurred the periphery of my vision.
“Why am I doing this?”
The stars had no answer for me, but it was okay. I had my own answer. I would run and I would fly and I would die, but I would not be a slave. Not to the Idoni integral and its sadistic Primor. Not to the Anaden Directorate. Not to my anarch superiors. I wasn’t here because they’d ordered me here; I was here to be free.
I ran.
Possibly crookedly.
The journey passed in a blur, and suddenly the final location rushed up on me.
I placed the slab, knowing it had none but the slimmest protective layer, and flung myself off the ring into space.
Time’s up.
I twisted around to face the Gateway with a second to spare. A second to witness the staccato of explosions shine more brilliantly than the galactic core as my body atomized to nothingness, until not even stardust remained.
Milky Way, Sector 59F
Anarch Post Alpha
On the other side of the galaxy, deep in a sector the Directorate had long ago abandoned, I awoke with a gasp.
Sterile smooth walls and cushioned linens welcomed my transition. A fading echo of the flash of agony receded to a memory as I breathed in the oxygen-rich air of the restoration capsule.
My hand went to my shoulder, but of course the wound was gone. My skin felt cool, still moist from the gelatinous fluid it had resided in until needed.
Outside the capsule a Curative unit checked my vitals. A chime signaled all systems were nominal, and the protective cover slid away as the virtual image of my handler materialized.
“Welcome back, Eren. Congratulations on a successful mission. See to your personals, then report in twenty minutes for a briefing on your next assignment. Nos libertatem somnia.”
Q&A with G. S. Jennsen
Re/Genesis features a fantastical, far-future world very different from our own. Where did the story come from, and how does it relate to your other works?
This is the first time I’ve ventured into far-future territory in my writing, but it won’t be the last. When I wrote the story, I was just starting work on the final trilogy in my Aurora Rhapsody series, Aurora Resonant, which is going to take place almost entirely in the world of Re/Genesis. The main characters in Aurora Rhapsody have known for several books now that another universe—the ‘true’ universe, as it were—exists alongside our own, but Re/Genesis is the first real look anyone’s gotten at it.
This story started out as a sort of test run, a chance for me to dip my toe into the waters of the worldbuilding I was going to have to do for the next trilogy. But I quickly fell in love with the character of Eren and completely embraced the story, setting and all. It got me legitimately excited to dive into writing Aurora Resonant.
Who are your favorite fictional heroes and villains?
I’m an avid video gamer (though I have little time to play since I began writing full time), so I’d have to say my favorite fictional hero is Commander Shepard from the Mass Effect video game trilogy. Favorite villain? Probably the motiles from Peter F. Hamilton’s Pandora Star/Judas Unchained space opera novels. He wrote a number of chapters from their perspective, and their way of thinking, their worldview, their entire essence was so foreign and, well, alien. It was fascinating.
Where did your love of SF begin, and what authors have inspired you?
I’ve been reading science fiction since I was a kid. In the old days, I loved Isaac Asimov for the sweeping space exploration and fantastical future, and Frank Herbert for the deep world- and culture-building. Later, Catherine Asaro for daring to mix serious, hard science fiction with romance and Lois McMaster Bujold for daring to have fun with science fiction. William Gibson for painting masterful imagery with mere words and Peter F. Hamilton for telling vast, grand stories.
Any Works in Progress?
Always. Aurora Renegades: The Complete Collection, will be released in the fall; it will include all three Aurora Renegades novels and the Apogee short story, plus some bonus content. I’m now deep into writing Relativity: Aurora Resonant Book One. No release date yet, but I’m targeting December 2016. If anyone wants to know more about Aurora Rhapsody, they can visit gsjennsen.com, or go directly to gsjennsen.com/aurora-rhapsody.