A new voice entered the conversation, one that sounded timid and shy as if not meaning to be heard. “No big deal,” Nina mumbled in reference to the photographs.
Everyone stopped and gaped at her, even Trevor. Nina blushed.
“What did you say?” He asked.
Nina nearly shriveled into her seat. The thirty-four-year-old woman looked more a bashful teenager called on in class.
“Um, look, I’m just saying it just doesn’t seem like that big of a deal.”
“Not a big deal?” Eva Rheimmer did not suffer what she thought to be foolishness. “My dear, that’s three new armies to contend with. We’re already in a tough spot.”
“Let her speak,” Trevor said. “Go ahead, Captain. What’s on your mind?”
“Well, sir, unless there’s more to them than these pictures, then there’s, well, I’m just saying there’s not a whole lot of them. Not when you look at what The Order is throwing at us. Listen, if I were these Geryons and Redcoats and whatever, I’d think it’s kind of a waste of time for me to send a couple hundred troops and a few ships here and there all the way across the world to pile on.”
“Pile on?” Trevor asked not so much for clarification, but because it struck a chord with him. “What do you mean?”
“Look, we’re in bad shape. The Order doesn’t need these reinforcements, he grows his own wherever and so far he’s got us on the run. It’s like they’re here just to get in on the action. You know, to claim some of the glory for themselves.”
Trevor listened to her and kept staring right at Nina Forest with a glazed expression. She turned a greater shade of red.
Instead of ridiculing her, he said, “You’re right. Shit yeah, you’re right. That’s exactly what they’re doing. They’re piling on.”
“Trevor,” Gordon Knox broke in. “No one appreciates Captain Forest’s observations more so than I but let’s be real. These alien governments are tight on forces as it is. They wouldn’t send what little they’ve got off to do battle with us for no reason.”
“You’re wrong, Gordon,” Trevor nodded his head as the answer formed clearly in his mind. “That’s exactly what they’re doing. Voggoth will wait until these guys get into position, then he’s going to pummel the crap out of us. When he’s done he’ll let these guys-the Chaktaw, the Centurians, and the Geryons-go marching right across the Mississippi to finish us off. The same way Eisenhower let De Gaulle and the Free French spearhead the liberation of Paris; more a symbol than a necessity.”
“Okay,” Shep glanced at the others around the table and then to Trevor and said, “Seems to me you know something that the rest of us don’t.”
Silence fell over the room. All of the attendees stared at Trevor, waiting for answers.
Trevor thought, this time, the reply, ‘ I just picked it up’ won’t feed the bulldog.
“You’re right, Shep. Truth is, I still don’t know the whole picture, but I think I can make some educated guesses now. Lori told me a little while ago that this is probably the last meeting. I think she’s right. That means maybe the time has come to tell you what I know. I think that would be fair and if there’s any harm in it, well, I don’t think it matters much at this point.”
He felt an eagerness on behalf of his people to hear the truth. He could also sense apprehension. They wanted to know, but they also feared knowing.
“I wish I could tell you the why. I don’t know that for sure yet, although I have my suspicions. But I can tell you what. And it starts like this: eleven years ago the invasion began. Alien animals and alien armies from eight different points of origin. Four years ago we learned something new, something we have not shared with the general public. My trip across dimensions showed that there are also eight different parallel universes with eight different Earths, each one serving as an arena of battle. The difference is that on each of those Earths a different species plays the home team. Here it’s us. Where I went it was the Chaktaw and human beings were a part of the invading force.”
As the only one at the table who had not previously heard any of it, Nina’s eyes widened with each revelation.
Brett Stanton cut in, “Now hold on now, you told us that mankind was originally from Sirius in these other universes. Am I remembering that right?”
“Yes, and we would have been from Sirius here, too, but our life form-our DNA-was transplanted to this Earth millions of years ago.”
Omar spoke for the first time, “My Anita told me that all of the life on this planet is theorized to have come from an original strand of DNA. Evolution created man just as it created timber wolves and trout. But all from an original source.”
Trevor agreed. “Yes. I think that’s why animals came through, too. It’s as if all life from each of the races is being judged but that each version of the DNA developed only one sentient species; one race for each ecosystem at the top of the food chain, I suppose.”
“Judged?” the idea offended Lori. “Judged by whom?”
“That’s a good question,” Trevor did something he rarely did anymore; he smiled in an attempt to lighten the mood. It did not work. They greeted his smile with a collection of gazes ranging from blank to shocked.
“Near as I can guess, all of these universes-including ours-are secondary. Maybe that’s not the right word. What I mean is, somewhere there is a core universe, or cosmos. One where humanity and all the other races evolved over billions of years. That’s who I think is behind this. They set the stage and wrote the rules.”
“So we’re just-we’re not-” Nina’s expression suggested amazed and sad together. “We’re not important. Just tools or pawns. Machines?” And she looked to him with the expression of a child searching for assurance.
Trevor saw the damage that idea did to Nina, a woman who often questioned her humanity. Trevor could imagine the thoughts going through her mind; thoughts of self-loathing, of smallness. When he had first met her, she felt life held nothing for her other than fighting. With time she learned otherwise, only to forget again.
“No. No I don’t believe that at all,” Trevor told everyone in the room but his eyes held on Nina. “You raised a daughter. Is she just a tool? Of course not. What about you, Lori? Is Catherine a machine? I know-I know I’m not,” but he wondered. “We are living, thinking beings who had lives before all this turned our world to Hell. We’re not fighting because we want to, we’re fighting because we have to.”
Eva Rheimmer asked in a bitter tone, “You said something about rules?”
“I don’t have a handbook, Eva. But look at our nukes. They don’t work. The beings who pulled all this together had the power to do that. Something at the sub-atomic level, I’ll bet. Same with bio weapons. I don’t think weapons of mass destruction are allowed. The folks behind this want a slug fest.”
Lori wondered, “Are they-are they Gods? Our God?”
“No,” Trevor felt sure of that. “Highly-evolved beings is my guess. What looks like magic to us is probably just incredibly advanced technology. They probably don’t even look like humans anymore, or Chaktaw or Geryons. We’re what they were a couple of eons ago.”
Omar, his accent completely gone, joined the discussion once more. “Before our world changed, there were theorists hypothesizing about an eventual technological singularity; a moment when our computers and machines became so advanced and so intertwined with people that it would change the nature of our existence. That mankind would become something unrecognizable, perhaps outgrowing our bodies, perhaps transcending the physical laws of the universe as we understand them.”
Trevor thought of the Old Man and how he seemed a projection. “Maybe even things like-things like time will become irrelevant.”
“Now hold on here,” Shepherd leaned forward. “Who said we had to fight in all this? If this is some kind of game, I’m sick of playin’. I’ve watched a lot of good people get cut down and the idea that this is sport doesn’t sit good with me.”
“It’s not that easy,” Trevor answered while most of the table nodded in agreement with Shep. “I don’t think ‘sport’ is the right way to characterize it. A challenge. A demonstration. A contest, maybe. Point is, we haven’t got a choice. Once they made us a part of this we had to win.”