“That’s not exactly true, now is it?” Trevor spoke to the sphere. It did not react. The humming continued. It glowed with the same intensity. “A collection of human memories, sure. But a few alien ones, too.”
Indeed, Trevor knew how to fly Centurian shuttles and understood the workings of the Witiko device, certainly due to this sphere’s library of knowledge. He had also found that Fromm-the Chaktaw leader on that parallel Earth-knew how to fly Geryon dirigibles, no doubt a gift from his bank of genetic memories, albeit Chaktaw ones with-apparently-some Geryon sprinkled in.
“A collection of human memories-and alien,” he repeated aloud to fully grasp the idea.
Those memories-or the people who had bequeathed those memories to him-were a tremendous weight of responsibility that nearly drown his humanity, leaving no room for anything other than the mission; an end that justified any means.
The Old Man had said at their first meeting that Trevor was a link in a chain. It appears that chain was, in fact, a chain of DNA stretching back to the dawn of man on one end and his son on the other. In fact…
“The conception of my son started all this; started Armageddon,” Trevor reasoned in the glowing sphere. “Sort of like the starter pistol to get things going, right? At the same time, you enter the picture. A coincidence? Somehow I doubt it.”
Of course Trevor had not known of JB’s conception at the time of the invasion. Ashley disappeared before she could tell him. His son’s birth had been delayed by more than a year due to his mother ‘riding the ark.’
“But that didn’t matter, did it? JB was the right genetic code. The reunion of an original strand of DNA the Old Man and his pals slipped into the primordial soup here on Earth. From there it dissipated and worked its way through the human race from the cave man days until me and Ashley conceived JB. Some kind of pure line of the genetic code. So being the father of the reincarnated original son earned me the privilege of becoming my race’s champion? What then does that make Jorgie?” He pointed at the humming ball of light and suggested, “What if you come from JB, too? You’re a ball of DNA, right? Maybe all that time that his genetic code was floating around the gene pool it started soaking up all those memories and knowledge and whatever. Then the Old Man and his buddies sort of pulled out a little bit of JB when he was conceived and made you? What about that? Could that be the truth?”
The ball hummed and hovered. Trevor could feel the energy radiating from it. He could sense the ideas and thoughts and power trying to seep into his mind. It wanted to teach. That, after all, was its purpose. It’s only purpose. Much like Trevor’s single-minded purpose demanding he survive, fight, and sacrifice.
“So where did it all start?”
Trevor remembered fragments from the conversation between Gods he overheard when plugged into The Order’s machine. They had discussed a ‘root cosmos’. No doubt an original universe in which the original versions of the Duass, the Feranites, the Geryons, the Hivvans and the rest-as well as humanity-had sprung. After all, Trevor had learned more than four years ago that humanity truly belonged on Sirius, if not for the powers behind Armageddon who had transplanted mankind to this Earth, just as they had transplanted each of the other races to other Earths across a series of parallel universes.
“Wait a second. Wait just one second.”
He smiled to himself as an idea came to mind. He felt certain he had discovered another piece of the mystery, one that could explain why his personal library of genetic memories included skills from alien races. Trevor took that idea and filed it away for another day.
“Ah, shit, enough of this,” Trevor muttered as he realized he needed to get this over with in order to attend the upcoming meeting. “Okay then-give it to me…”
He stepped closer to the glowing sphere. The feeling of energy grew as if the ball might be a fire and he stepped closer to the flames; closer to the raging heat.
“C’mon-give it to me…”
The memories came in bunches, but not in a recognizable manner. Images floated through his mind. He saw an ancient catapult pulled taut. He heard the battle cry of Zulu warriors. He felt the cold in the bloody snow at Stalingrad.
Trevor did not know which specific memories or skills entered his mind. They would rise to the surface when needed.
“I want more. Give it all to me.”
The energy crackled around him in a cocoon of static and fire. The ball glowed more intently. He closed his eyes and the images poured into his mind. A cloud of deadly mustard gas floating over a trench. A wall of water 150 meters high crashing into the Minoan ports on the north side of Crete. A Prussian general leading columns of Fusiliers toward Waterloo.
“More.”
Trevor held his hands just above the orb. The membrane pulsated and rolled like churning sea water. His hands shook as the energy tried to repel his reach.
It came. All of it in a line of images, sounds, and ideas. Trevor saw concepts on blackboards and computer chips from the inside out, weapons factories, and rockets carrying the first satellites to orbit. Shouts of victory, screams of pain, tears of anguish-one after another.
But he needed more. He needed it all.
He already stood closer to the sphere than ever before. Now, he took the final step.
Trevor grunted and plunged his hands into the orb. The membrane bent then popped in a flash. Tendrils of energy wrapped around his arms up to his elbows. He cried out as the power deluged his mind. The energy crackled across his entire shaking body. The sphere warped oblong, then round again, then its surface splashed and kicked in a turbulent storm.
Trevor no longer felt grounded in that sub-basement room. His eyes snapped shut and his mind floated through time even as the pain shocked his brain like a thousand electric eels swimming in his mind.
Colonial minutemen marching to battle-Shogun warriors fighting for honor-Genghis Khan’s hordes sweeping across the steppes-and-and…
— ancient Hivvan tribesmen first mastering the use of a cross-bow like weapon and using it to down a giant shaggy beast terrorizing their village-a Witiko scientist test-firing a powerful rocket across a jagged red landscape boiling under a red giant-a Chaktaw trainer subduing a monstrous Jaw-Wolf with an electric rod-warring tribes of duck-billed Duass battling through the night in a swamp filled with spilled blood-formations of Centurian soldiers marching in neat order under the heat of two suns…
The library of genetic memories flashed and unloaded. The beautiful sphere of blue and gray withered and crumbled into grains of black sand which fell into the open chest below. Trevor stood there, his hands clutching at nothing, shaking as the last impulses of energy bounced around inside his body and mind like ricocheting bullets.
And then the flood came, of information and memories, languages and skills, images and thoughts. The collection overwhelmed his senses and he fell to the soft floor of the secret room.
7. Exposition
“Whiles trembling horror did his conscience daunt,
And hellish anguish did his soul assail.”
— Spenser
The door to the utility closet under the stairs in the mansion basement swung open and Trevor stumbled out. He pushed the door shut behind and fell forward catching the conference table with one hand in order to remain upright.
“Trevor?”
The voice came from the basement stairs. Trevor barely mustered the strength to remain balanced against the table, let alone strike a more dignified pose.
Lori Brewer approached him with wide, curious eyes.
“Where’d you come from? I checked all around down here including the armory,” she referred to the heavy door leading to a stockpile of weapons and munitions. She added with a wise-ass tone, “Don’t tell me, you came out of the closet.”