Fort Liberty, Volume Two by M Orenda

Author:M Orenda [Orenda, M]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Nevada Scientific LLC
Published: 2015-03-12T22:00:00+00:00

ONE

BIOSTAT STATION

VAULT LEVEL

MARS DATE: DAY 25, MONTH 12/24, YEAR 2225

An end. A beginning. Niri floats, suspended in the bright glow of sound, the song of the formless, the sightless, the deaf… These are the shimmering beings of the Arupyadhatu, of infinite consciousness. Separate, but one, a voice that slips from all directions, on her skin, and under it, inside her. Here are sensations, tones too ancient to be human.

She drags air into her lungs, feeling a foreign warmth coiling through her, searching. One. You are one.

And the life slowly pulls out of her, a million ghosts set free, the murmur of a dozen languages. It’s the song of Earth, its sky muted by a yellow haze, its ghettos flooded with mothers and children. They are the helpless ones, the weak, the afraid. It is a world overrun by scavengers, partitioned by warlords, laid waste by monsters of ego, and by the old religions of blood and darkness, servitude and murder.

The worst of us.

The War of Last Nations, glittering cities gone dark, integrated economies, law and order, everything buckled under the strain of cyberattacks and physical destruction. It was quick, and ruthless, and took less than thirty years to move across the globe. Remove the fragile structures of civilization, and human nature does the rest.

Earth was destroyed because the wrong people wielded the wrong power, destroyed the truth, stirred hatred, and set cultures against another in a way that became unstoppable.

The death of us.

Earthbound civilization was a sparkling moment on a blue planet, the elaborate dance of empires, and the music of singular voices, dreamers who took flight into starry skies, warm creatures propelled through the blackness of space.

It seeded the great Empire of Mars, generations born on a different world.

The flood of it passes through her, along with images she doesn’t understand, symbols memorized at the temple, designs, and maps. It flows into the luminous consciousness, absorbed into its soft mesh of color.

The Devas listen, their divine quiet interrupted. It is understood. It is recognized. This is the beginning. You are one.

It doesn’t sound like a question, but it is.

The Devas are waiting.

She must choose.

Her human body, or the colony.

Detach. You are one.

There is no risk, and the world of light beckons, it’s history forming just out of reach, vast and unexpected. There are stories here, memories that should not exist. There is knowledge that is specific, not formless, not without sensation or sight, or experience.

It was not always the way it is now.

Niri understands some of it, but not all of it.

The colony has a history too.

She hesitates, surrounded by their light, and humbled by what is offered. One. I am one. I can go where others cannot. I can understand what they do not. I can join. I can live. I can perceive, but there is no return. Not for me.

Detach.

It should be easy, but it’s not.

In the haze of dreams, it seems as though she is turning her face from the glow, and looking back, trying to see the man behind her.

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