Walking Toward Extinction

A soldier of the future searches for something he has lost.

         Walking Toward Extinction          | LoneWolf

         
         









         

Walking Toward Extinction

          The shimmering heat radiated from the cracked asphalt, blurring the horizon into a liquid mirage. Elias, a man defined by a coat of dust and a hollow stare, walked down the precise center on Route 66. The road stretched before him, a black ribbon unspooling across the endless tan and ochre of the New Mexico desert. To his right and left, the landscape was a monotonous symphony of scrub brush, sun-bleached rocks, and the occasional skeletal tree, a testament to a life long since surrendered.
          His journey had no beginning and no end. It was simply a state of being, a slow, deliberate march towards a destination he knew existed but could not yet name. His clothes, once a crisp uniform of the Galactic Federation's Survey Corps, were now a tattered second skin, their once vibrant blue faded to a dull, sun beaten grey. He carried no pack, no weapon, no water. He was a man stripped of all possessions, save for a small, metallic device embedded just below his left ear. It was a relic, a remnant of a life he had been forced to abandon.
          The sun, a relentless white disk in a washed-out sky, beat down on him turning his skin into a leathery, tanned hide. Yet he felt no heat, no thirst. His body, augmented and enhanced for the rigors of deep space exploration, was a machine of perfect efficiency, a biological marvel capable of withstanding the most extreme conditions. His cells converted the latent energy of the environment into sustenance, a silent, internal furnace that kept him alive. His brain, a complex network of organic and synthetic components, processed information with a speed and accuracy that would have been impossible for a baseline human. He was, for all intents and purposes, more than a man.
          But in the quiet solitude of the desert, he felt profoundly human. The memory of the crash, a blinding flash of light and a soundless concussion that had rocked his shuttle, was a constant echo in the back of his mind. He had been the only survivor. His ship, the Odyssey, had plummeted through the atmosphere, a falling star of fire and metal, before crashing somewhere deep within these sun scorched lands. The last thing he remembered was the ship's AI, a disembodied voice named Iris, whispering a final, cryptic message: "Initiating Protocol Echo, find the source, the anomaly."
          And so, he walked. He had no compass, no map. His internal chronometer was offline, leaving him adrift in a timeless expanse. He moved forward, guided by an instinct, a primal pull that seemed to emanate from the ground beneath his feet. It was a faint, almost imperceptible hum, a low frequency vibration that resonated deep within his enhanced senses. It was the anomaly that Iris had spoken of, the source of the electromagnetic disturbance that had caused the Odyssey to fall from the sky.
          On the third day, by his own silent reckoning, the landscape began to change. In the distance, a huge mesa rose from the earth, its flat top a stark contrast to the ragged mountains beyond. The hum, the vibration, grew stronger, a rhythmic pulse that thrummed through his bones. He felt a sense of both dread and anticipation, a dual current of fear.
          As he drew closer, he saw them. They were not human, not in the traditional sense. They were bipeds, tall and gaunt, their bodies covered in a leathery, gray skin that seemed to absorb light. Their heads were large and bulbous, their eyes, two obsidian orbs, stared out with an unnerving, unblinking intensity. They moved with a jerky, disjointed gait, their long, spindly limbs seeming to defy the laws of physics. They were the Children of the Void, a species native to a distant, gas giant's moon, and they were, as far as the Galactic Federation knew, extinct.
          Elias stopped, his heart, a synthetic construct of bio gel and micro motors, hammering against his ribs. He was not afraid, not in the traditional sense. His training had long since purged him of such a debilitating emotion. He was simply, wary. The Children of the Void, or "Voiders" as the Federation called them, were a peaceful, telepathic race. Their extinction was a mystery, a historical footnote in the galactic archives. Seeing them here, in the middle of a New Mexico desert, was an impossibility.
          One of them, the largest of the group, turned its head towards him. Its obsidian eyes seemed to bore into his very soul, sifting through his memories, his thoughts, his fears. Elias felt a mental pressure, a silent voice that was not a voice at all, but a direct neural transmission, it was a question.
          "Who are you?"
          Elias did not speak. He had no need to. His device, the metallic implant behind his ear, was a universal translator, a direct link to his neural network. He simply thought his response, a cascade of information, of his name, his mission, his ship.
          "I am Elias. I am a survivor looking for the source."
          The Voiders' minds, a network of interwoven consciousness, processed the information. He felt their collective surprise, their wonder. They had not seen a human in centuries. They had thought their own kind were the last.
          Another voice, a different consciousness, spoke to him, "The source . . . the Anomaly. You are here for it?"
          Elias nodded, a small, weary gesture. He wanted to ask them who they were, what they were doing here, but he knew they would answer in their own time. He felt them shift their attention, their collective consciousness focusing on the mesa in the distance. He felt a surge of energy, a cascade of images and feelings, a silent story being told directly to his mind.
          They were not extinct. They had simply, retreated. Their home world, a moon of a gas giant, had been slowly dying, its atmosphere thinning, its oceans freezing. They had sent out a single ship, a vessel powered not by fire and fuel, but by the very fabric of spacetime itself. They had been seeking a new home, a new Eden, and they found it. Not on this planet but beneath it.
          The mesa was not a mesa at all. It was a shell, a natural rock formation that concealed a massive, subterranean city. The city was a technological marvel, a self-sustaining ecosystem powered by a star sized quantum singularity, a miniature sun that provided light, heat, and energy. It was the Anomaly, the Source that had brought down the Odyssey. The Voiders, in their silent, telepathic way, had explained that the singularity's energy field, a byproduct of its power, had caused a minor ripple in the fabric of spacetime, a ripple that had inadvertently sent a ship from the future crashing to their doorstep.
          "We did not mean to harm you," the collective mind of the Voiders transmitted.
"It was chance. A consequence of existence."
          Elias understood. He felt no anger, no resentment. He was a scientist, a man of logic and reason. He had been a victim of a cosmic fluke of physics.
          "Can you help me?" he asked, his thoughts a plea for help. "I need to get home."
          The Voiders minds responded with a wave of sorrow, "We cannot. Our technology is not a science you would understand. It is a form of art, a form of spiritual communion. We are not builders, we are weavers. We have woven a new reality for ourselves, and it is a reality that is tied to this place. We cannot leave. We cannot undo what has been done."
          Though the Voiders could not give Elias the gift he asked for they did have something to give him. It was a golden apple they recovered from his ship. A token of their friendship and sorrow. He was stranded, a man from a distant future marooned in an ancient past. The Voiders were refugees, just like him. They had found their home, their sanctuary, and they offered it to him.
          They had given him something worth far more than anything short of sending him home. He would be staying here, with the last of the Voiders, in a world that was both alien and familiar. He would become a bridge, a link between two worlds, a man of the future living in the past, a silent witness to a new chapter in the history of a forgotten race.
          And so, as the sun dipped below the horizon, painting the sky in a final, fiery masterpiece of orange and purple, Elias turned his back on the road and walked toward the mesa, toward the new home he had found, with the golden apple that contained Iris, his ship's AI. A small golden apple that held his history, his knowledge and a voice. His solitary journey had ended, but a new one had just begun.



         

THE END

Word Count-1492

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