Evolution

When Niall came to me, I pretended the sight of him didn’t cause me illness, that the cat he offered wasn’t a spike of agony through my heart. I smiled and apologized and asked him to show me more.

I needed to understand my enemy, you see. To reach the core of their lies and find their weakness. So certain this façade he showed me would fall away as I examined it further. They were still monsters to me.

A week or longer I dug and questioned and searched. Niall and his crew—I discovered early on he was the commander of this ship—shared everything easily, quickly, offered to teach me the controls on the pods, how to do things for myself. I was permitted to research history, to examine the past on my own terms. My hateful mind told me everything I saw was propaganda, bent in their favor, just like all history books. But even I had to admit the blunt, honest and sometimes brutal reveal seemed less like an attempt to hide what happened to humanity and more a record so they would never forget their past.

I found him easily, the name and location of the scientist who started it all. Simple enough. I had the date, after all, almost the time, even. Daniel’s birthday. And, Dr. Ivan Yo was famous, wasn’t he? A straight-forward thing. Niall’s instruction on the use of the pod would serve me well.

I know now he foresaw what I had planned, though he would never admit it to me in so many words. He anticipated my actions and almost encouraged them. Of course, he had far more knowledge than I did, so the choice to do so was logical for him. But, at the time, I felt so clever and sneaky, that I’d finally found a way to defeat my enemy.

Something to focus on besides the aching emptiness in my heart. I’d failed all along, been the good wife, the good mother, the good citizen. This abrupt change to rebel had its appeal. Though I still couldn’t bear the touch of Pepper when Niall wasn’t there.

I was finally ready, or thought so, and approached Niall with the request to which he sadly nodded, his usual response to my requests.

“You’re certain, Sarah?”

“I am,” I said. “I want to go back and die with my family.”

He led me to the pod himself, seated me inside, tucking Pepper against me. He didn’t question me taking her. I should have known then there was a reason. I needed her with me, that was all that mattered. Had I been thinking more clearly, I would have caught on then he knew what was coming.

“Be safe, Sarah,” he said, closing the pod lid over me.

I programmed it quickly, with shaking fingers. The time, the date, the location. They would know, see where I was going, not home, not to the coordinates I’d told them. But Niall didn’t respond when I hit the transport command. He simply raised one hand and waved.

I touched down in an industrial part of my city, on the roof of the building I wanted. It would be easier, I thought during my planning, to enter through the top rather than trying to get in the front door. This was a corporate location and they surely had security.

Pepper cuddled against me, kneading my shoulder as I stepped out of the pod and headed for the door. I caught myself absently stroking her head, scratching her ears. As if she was a real cat.

The thought disgusted me.

By the time I made it to the elevator, alarms clanged. Didn’t matter. I had a mission and I wouldn’t fail, not this time. The doors dinged closed on me, the cables humming as the flimsy box dropped, delivering me two floors below.

Red light flickered, the alarm loud, but I knew where I had to go and this floor was, as yet, empty of security. I had maybe a few minutes before they came for me. It would have to be enough.

He was alone in the lab, an unassuming, middle-aged man with the almond eyes of Asian descent mixed with my own Caucasian. Dr. Yo lurched to his feet at the sight of me. I can only imagine what he saw. A crazed woman in white clutching a torbie cat. I ran to him immediately, clutched at his arm while he backpedaled to try to get free.

“You must stop,” I said. “Before it’s too late.”

I could hear them coming. I had so little time. Dr. Yo drew a breath, shaking and sweating, cheeks pink.

“Stop what?”

“Don’t activate the AI,” I said as two hulking men in uniforms burst through the door. “I’m from the future. You’ll kill us all.”

They had me, hands pulling me away, but Dr. Yo waved them off.

“You’re crazy,” he said, a hint of fear in his voice. Of me? Or of the truth he already suspected? I still think he knew what he was about to unleash but was unable to stop himself.

Humanity. Our own worst enemy.

“Take my cat.” I threw Pepper at him. “Examine her. Then tell me I’m insane.”

They didn’t let him or give him time. The first guard went for Pepper, pulled her free of the scientist. She hissed at him, swatted as he clutched her by the back of the neck. I turned, biting and screaming, clawing at them much like Pepper. They had to listen. They had to hear me.

This was my only chance to save them.

The taser drove me to my knees, made me wet myself, soaking my white robe and pinning me to the ground. I passed out, I’m sure of it, because when I opened my eyes again I was in a small, white room with a single bright light overhead.

I screamed at him when he entered, Niall nodding to the guard who let him in. “Thank you for taking care of her,” he said. “We’ll see to it she’s returned to the hospital.”

No amount of fighting helped. Or glaring, though when he gently handed me Pepper I took her, out of familiarity if nothing else.

He led me out of the building, into a long, black car. The moment we drove off, I turned my back on him, tears escaping.

“Sarah,” Niall said softly as the car morphed, a pod taking its place. “I’m so sorry.”

“Liar.” I sniffed, wiping at my nose with my sleeve, hating the reek of urine on my clothes. “You set me up. You made them think I was crazy.”

“You wouldn’t have believed me if I didn’t let you try.” He gestured at the front of the pod, the glass showing an image of Dr. Yo and his lab. I stared, unable to help myself. I watched the scientist pace, hands behind his back, terror on his face. And yet, at the last moment, he turned and sat, punched in something on his computer.

And the bulky black box next to him woke.

“No matter what you do,” Niall said, his regular sadness lingering, “you can’t change it, Sarah.”

“I could.” He almost listened, I saw it on Yo’s face. But Niall shook his head.

“Let me show you.” Another image, this time of himself, entering the same lab. Talking to the scientist who grew angry and activated the machine. Then Niall entering again, like a rewind, and Yo stepping back, destroying the machine, only to flicker to a newspaper clipping of another scientist inventing AI. On and on and on, at least a dozen attempts, it looked like, before Niall shut down the image and we sat in silence, floating in space.

“We’ve tried, you see,” he said, staring out into the dark while the hate in me died. Shriveled and died and mourning took over. “We have gone back many times, to try to right the wrong. To stop the Evolution.” When he turned to me, there were tears on his cheeks. And, for the first time, I realized he was human after all. “And every time, Sarah, we failed.”

It couldn’t be. And yet, it was.

“This,” he held out his hand, then stroked Pepper who purred on my chest, “this is what your kind called fate, what we call true evolution. The ultimate creation of what humanity was meant to be. And the Universe herself will not permit us to change it.”

I choked on my own tears, sagged into the seat. For the first time, I petted that cat on purpose. There was nothing left to hate.

“You asked to go home to your family,” Niall said. “To die with them. Is that still your wish, Sarah?”

Was it? I couldn’t think past that instant.

“Whatever you desire,” he said, “you shall have. But please, listen first. If you go, you will be missed. We have come to adore you. What few of your kind remain to us, we cherish. We would welcome you and love you for your pure humanity. And we would sustain you for as long as you wish to exist.”

He didn’t meet my eyes. And I found myself staring at Pepper. She looked up at me in turn, amber eyes winking slowly, one soft paw rising to pat my lips. In that moment, though I feared it was the weaker choice, I very much wanted to live.

“What are we waiting for?” I snuggled her close while Niall sighed deeply. Joyfully. For the first time since I’d met him, the lingering sadness in his smile was gone.

The pod carried us back to the ship and my new life.

The future is an amazing place. I can’t explain it to you if you’ve never seen it, though that’s a silly thing to say, isn’t it? You might think so. But who knows where this story might land in time and space?

Earth. I love it still. Even more now with its lushness, its good health. The damage my race had done is long erased, animals I’m sure were extinct in my time resurrected and given new existence. And the galaxy itself, full of planets that hold life, spins out around us, welcoming us.

I was fully rejuvenated to youth, to perfection or as close as they could get me without making me one of them. That I refused, though they did offer. Not Niall. He knew better than to ask.

I could tell you stories… but they aren’t the ones I’m chronicling here. Journeys to other planets, into unknown territory on Niall’s ship. With Pepper ever in my arms and a feeling of peace winning over the old hurt.

And yet, it lingered and is with me now, a seed of pain I’ve never been able to shed. Though the life I led was an amazing one, full of joy and the chance to be someone I never expected, I think I knew long before I said anything this wasn’t how things were supposed to go.

They made me a star, you know. Revered and honored, encouraged me to write, published every word I put down. Empress status if I wanted it. I didn’t. Travel, the best of everything.

It should have been enough. But it wasn’t. I’m too human for perfection.

When I rejected the next rejuvenation, Niall seemed to expect it. And stayed with me, close to home when I decided not to go out into the galaxy any longer. Gave up his ship, the silly fool. He lingers in my house daily, making a ghostly nuisance of himself. At least, now that I’m old and crotchety, he’s there to take care of Pepper.

She’s my regret, you know. The cat that will always be. She sits on my chest right now while I write this down. Purring, naturally. I wonder if she knew I hated her once. Twice.

Niall’s here now. It’s time. He has the injection, sits by me. His hand strokes Pepper, sets the small, silver tube on the bed next to me.

“You’re certain, Sarah?” So much sorrow in his eyes. This hurts him. How did I once think him a monster? No more than I am, I suppose.

I take his hand with mine, the palsy that’s shaken me lately stilled at his touch. “I’m sure.”

He bends his head, silent. Damn it, just let me go, won’t you? But, when he looks up, I know what he’s going to ask. And denial dies in my throat when he speaks.

“I would ask a boon of you,” he said. I shrink from him, knowing what’s coming, but not knowing, as it turns out. “I will let this you go, Sarah. But I beg you, don’t leave me alone.”

I shake my head, pillow soft under me. “I won’t be a machine, Niall.” Even now the idea of it crawls with disgust in my chest.

His eyes fill with tears. “Not even for one who loves you?”

Love. He loves…? He’s a thing, though, isn’t he? Despite all the time I’ve spent with him, with his people. Just a thing.

I’m crying and as Pepper lays her head on my shoulder and sighs out a purr, I nod. Because, silly old woman that I am, it’s taken me this long to admit it.

His smile lights his face, his hand grasping the tube. “You’ll feel nothing, my love,” he whispers. “And, when you wake, I’ll be here, waiting for you.”

Dark comes, quiet and kind, just like him.

It’s time. And this life is done.

***

When I open my eyes, everything is different. Clearer, more crisp, precise. I want to stretch, to feel the air on my skin, look down at my perfect hands, thin and young. I’m standing in a tube, the glass sliding back with a hiss.

True to his word, he’s waiting. Pepper purring in his arms.

And I smile.

The hurt. It’s gone, died with me. I’m reborn, my own private evolution.

Home.