Rowdy Dead Productions

By David C. Daoust

“…so, I’m happy you feel like talking, Dakota,” Suzanne began sharply, partially to try and snap Dakota back into reality, partially at the sheer frustration of listening to nonsense for the past half hour, “but how am I supposed to make sense of any of that?”

“Hmm?” Dakota asked as she still studied the rather extensive holographic diagram of their ‘situation’ that displayed dead-center of the stark white lab, “What do you mean?”

“I mean…” Suzanne’s head spun as she tried to pull together enough of the information Dakota had just rattled off into something like a pertinent question, she gave up and instead asked, “Where are we exactly?”

“Oh um like, between, in between,” Dakota said again as she had the whole diagram spin, “well more like we’re ‘everywhere’ really. Yes, we’re in ‘the Everywhere’.”

Suzanne felt that sinking feeling in her chest, her eyes watered, as she watched her sister try to explain her insanity to her; filled with dread at what had been done to her.

Suzanne had been worried for days as Dakota tinkered around in this lab, terrified that her mind would never return, or that she would not recover. She had received updates on her, she learned of the metal device attached to the base of her skull, and that strange ‘being’ that was now working with her in the lab.

When Dakota summoned her, Suzanne was happy to see her, bright eyed and yapping- like her normal self… But this talk of ‘the Everywhere’??

“Yes, that sums it up better,” Dakota nodded as she continued her work on the hologram, that metal braid bobbed behind her, “It may be hard to grasp, but we’re not in normal space- but time, clearly, is moving. It was all Ergos… he had a deadline you see…”

Suzanne’s eye caught the strange ‘being’ nodding at her, as if in agreement with what Dakota was saying. It even began a strange murmuring sound, as if it was adding to the conversation.

Her life was now bizarre.

Suzanne had unified the Red Faction when they were leaderless and confused. She set the bots to task- freeing the lost humans. Suzanne did not find these lost humans alone, she had help, she had guidance. It was Dakota that showed them the locations of the pod clusters, built high up in the towers of the city-station. It was Dakota that freed the Monolith users, the lost leaders of the Red Faction. She did it all from afar, while she was still jacked into her pod, into that supposed uber-brain, Ergos. It was Dakota, all of it was Dakota… but to look at her now… She clearly had no idea she did any of this. What could have happened? Suzanne knew it was Dakota, Dakota that led her to the Red Faction, showed her how to break the siege, how to stop the bots from losing energy -the way everything in this place lost energy… Dakota showed her everything. Why lose faith in her now?

“No Dakota, I don’t see…” she said patiently, willing to try and make sense of it yet.

“Sol’s end came ever nearer… I covered this,” Dakota said somewhat exasperated, “the ancient sun was going to die- when stars die, well, I don’t care what anyone says, they don’t just flicker out…” as she said this, she spun the diagram back around to an expanding star, “And THAT is the sun they were using to maintain their biosphere.” Dakota stopped to study Suzanne’s face before continuing, “The other ships, those of our ancestors, transferred their links to Ail long before this end could occur, but this one lost a lot of its abilities, communication among them–”

Suzanne listened.

“So, rather than be wiped out with Sol’s dramatic death– Ergos shifted the entire Ark Ship into ‘the Everywhere’… that’s why there’s no dark sky out there, why you see no stars, just that stark white light…”

Suzanne was familiar with the white skies around the City-stations… this explanation helped Suzanne reconnect what Dakota was saying to sanity, at least a bit. They were, after all, within an impossible situation to begin with, why not trust a bit that Dakota had not been rendered insane.

“It’s actually genius; I don’t know where a mind would have to be, to even come up with this solution.” Dakota said all this excitedly, “Ergos took that Solar Gate tech and just… turned it inside out…!”

“How does this shift– help the link to Sol? What are they pulling energy from now?” Suzanne pressed.

“Oh they are still using Sol —they are just linked to the same time in space—so even if Sol does die, they are pulling energy from the time um right before they shifted. Get it?”

“No. Why do they need to siphon energy from us?”

“The Everywhere sucks energy away, back out into the universe.” Dakota pointed to another point in the diagram, as if this helped Suzanne in some way, “It’s not meant to be there, the solar energy can’t be stored by conventional means— batteries drain here. It is a pocket within a wormhole, open on the other side. They have to keep jumping to the next pocket—like, to the next day, thereby keeping the biosphere within a natural space-time, so it can grow the Lotus, while they exist in the energy draining ‘Everywhere’.

“I don’t think I’ll ever understand this Dakota,” Suzanne said honestly, there were some pretty obvious loopholes in this reasoning, “They need energy to make their jump?”

“Righto!” Dakota said as she shot a finger gun at her, “They sent their nanites into the Universe to siphon more energy, when the energy flow was interrupted, they sent their wraiths in, when the wraiths failed to acquire enough energy in time, they pulled both our ships in, all to power the next jump…

“How did they find us?”

“Oh the Solar Gates— the AI here is, well, kind of dumb— crippled; intentionally so.” Dakota looked a bit sad for the Ai as she spun the diagram to series of pictures meant to represent the three sphere’s, the children’s ‘nannies’, “The nanites are linked to this simple mind, these three aspects, they course through the Everywhere, and I mean everything in the Everywhere, throughout their bodies, in their blood, they don’t only acquire energy, they protect them all like, well, nannies. And I mean protect every cell, which is why they went so out of control when they were flushed from the cells on both Dori 5- and Twin Crown. They were blind to their environment, I doubt they had any idea where they were”

This information echoed in Suzanne’s mind as Dakota kept talking.

“They go out and scour the universe for energy, like a colony of ants.” Dakota explained, “It was only a matter of time ‘til they found one of our Solar Gates…I mean, the Everywhere is linked to the Solar Gates, naturally, Solar Energy itself passes through so fast, they can’t acquire it. It’s just not possible. Seeking out batteries and energy cells, they can siphon that energy back, in real time, to use for their jumps. The Everywhere is like a corridor throughout the universe-”

“Whoa! Okay, back up,” Suzanne interrupted her, “so you are saying, when I flushed those energy cells back home, I blinded a bunch of nanites…?”

“Right, these are very powerful nanites connected to this Ark. Their technology advanced differently from ours… not to mention…” Dakota had more to say, though was interrupted by Suzanne’s sudden sharp line of questioning.

“But the blinded nanites got inhaled by the population, and because they were scrambled from our flushing technique, they couldn’t figure what they were doing?” Suzanne felt herself sink into the truth, the truth of what she had caused, or more so, the lack of a villainous Wraith to shift the blame to.

“Right,” Dakota nodded excitedly, oblivious to Suzanne’s feelings, “and the nannites wound up fighting off the body’s natural defenses- which is what created the infection that effected all those people…”

“But why?” Suzanne wasn’t feeling good at that moment, “Why send these things to begin with?”

“They needed the energy,” Dakota shrugged it off like a simple fact. “They were supposed to siphon it from our energy cells; our ships batteries.”

Suzanne’s guilt took her, but Dakota was too far into an explanation to pick up on her shift.

“Ok listen, when you first discovered the cells, and tampered with them, all those Wraiths would show up, to steal the energy cells in whole, manually.” Dakota informed pointedly, “But when you flushed the cells, you managed to confuse the tech, damage them and blind them —so bad, the Wraiths were never sent in. But the nanites wound up infecting the humans, that just so happened to breath them in… which caused the infection…”

“-which got all those people killed,” Suzanne finished the line of reasoning herself, lost momentarily in her own mind. She felt the solid light hand suddenly clasp hers, tight, as the strange being sidled up beside her. It made a strange humming sound at her, and Suzanne felt Dakota. She found compassion in those strange glowing eyes- Some part of Dakota understood, even if she was momentarily bogged down with the sheer logic of their situation.

“Right,” Dakota answered as she continued to study her diagram intently.

“Ok so…” Suzanne collected herself and asked, “This whole thing started because they could not link to the Second Sun?”

“Right.”

“So now that they found the Second Sun…? Why don’t they take the energy directly?” Suzanne asked incredulously, “I mean there is a new source of energy, right there, clean energy that does not need to be siphoned or stolen, and does not kill anyone… why maintain the old ways, at all?”

“Well, put simply,” Dakota answered, “Ergos— Ergos is set in his ways.”