She looked around the room. Thousands of holographic screens hovered around her, covering every aspect of her life.
From moments in the labs she couldn't even remember, to just a few moments ago when she walked through that door. Every triumph and moment of joy; every failure or drop of tear she ever shed in the silence.
This was her enter life. It was all there.
She took a moment to absorb it, then turned to the man sitting in a chair, calm, avidly tracking her expression, every subtle detail.
He looked very much like Audrey's commander Vostok. Perhaps, on purpose. Like Cetra copied Synthia or Carlista copied Eve's childhood appearance.
'He isn't here. This isn't his real form. Whoever he is… wait. Carlista's master!!'
"Right on the spot!" His lips moved but the sound surrounded her, voices coming from everywhere, even from inside her head.
"So you made Carlista."
"I didn't make her. I partly programmed her."
"Are you what we call the Threat of the Dark Galaxy?"
He smiled lightly, arms crossed. Even his suit matched that of Audrey's fallen commander. "That is hard to explain, but you can say there is a connection."
"Well, we are in a simulation and we've got a lot of time." Her hands rested on her hips as they shifted with subtle hips movement.
"I can answer your questions, but only if you ask the right quesions."
"Start with yourself?"
"I'm one of the ancients. My species is ancient. We have survived many universal cycles and evolved, in both form and function."
"Keep going."
"A beings from my time also reside in your very genes. You have sensed him, haven't you?"
Eve's mind raced. The ancient being? The demon of the Virtuality we defeated. The creature that wiped out a highly advanced civilization like a…
"Like a plague. His glimpses you have seen. During your ten-year stasis on Saiyara, when you experienced your hyperxenomorphesis for the first time, or when you touched the monolith on Kaal," he could read her mind, "Andromeda, we are talking about the same entity."
All her life she'd been haunted. Eve wanted answers—she wanted to know more.
He stood up, approaching her, placing his hands lightly on her shoulders. "Let's walk."
As he explained, the simulation showed it everything, as if it were happening right in front of them.
"I belonged to a peaceful species. An advanced civilization, carbon-based like yours. Our times were difficult. Constantly at war against a swarm that had been ravaging the universe for centuries. A legend rose on the horizon. Vestos. The right hand of the lawful side. A hero. They called him The Dread..."
"...I met him on one of the missions against malignant outrage. An inter-species alliance. I became a fan, he became a friend. Then it happened. An exponential swarm explosion. We decided to venture toward its source. End it once in for all. The Hive. A planet, a strange phenomenon…"
"...Vestos led the mission. I was assigned on the task team. We were completely outnumbered. They wiped out all our forces. Only a few strong commanders strived and moved deeper in that cave, we encountered the source—the intelligence behind the swarm…"
"...he had the chance to destroy the artifact. End it all. He chose differently. I couldn't stop him. I tried. The artifact transformed him. Whatever controlled the swarm endowed him with unseen powers. He became the new swarm master. He became the swarm. Remainder of us had no choice but to flee…"
"...back home, the first monolith appeared, the original monolith, the one housed in this very Maze. We used its power to create this Maze, the Sactum. A refuge for the last of us. The word spread. Refugees clustered, flocked in from all over the universe..."
"... everything outside was destroyed. The swarm spread out like a dark cloud, wiping out every living creature in its wake..."
"... the sanctum was hidden deep inside a gravity well, camouflaged. Decades passed. Scouts ventured out. The universe we knew was gone. Darkness reigned. The swarm fed upon itself…"
"...we knew the sanctum won't be able to protect us forever. Our researchers and scientists studied the monolith, harnessed its power, developed new weapons against the swarm and its master, Vestos…"
"...a decade of mutilations and mutations. All of us. All the species. Some adapted, some couldn't. Things we had to embrace, sacrifices we had to make…"
"...eventually, the swarm found us. We fought back. Swarm was cleansed. Vestos destroyed. Or so we thought..."
"...what we asked of the monolith had a price. We were forever trapped in the sanctum. It became our heaven, our prison. The monolith dictated those who used its powers to transcend were confined forever in its walls…"
"... so we seeded new life in the universe from DNA we once carried. It took eons to replenish life in the universe. We watched it grow as mere observers. We could only whisper things. That's what we had become…"
"...we studied the monolith, tried to unlock its secrets. With each new layer, we discovered new realities, new laws. Until we realized it was infinite... the point of further discovery and knowledge became irrelevant. The monolith itself is sum of all knowledge past, present or future…"
"...Monobeacon. That's what we call it. The first and only true monolith. A signal frozen into an obelisk, older than stars, older than cycles. It does not speak, yet all knowledge flows toward it. The ultimate black hole. It knows everything; nothing can ever know it."
"...our identities kept merging. We transcended into Primethians. The highest specie. Further convergence stripped our being from us and give it away to Monobeach forever. Some chose to merge further, became part of it. We remained behind…"
"...that universe met its natural end. Entropy. Inside the sanctum, entropy had no effect on us. We were frozen in time and space. Eons passed. There was a flash of light. We slept. Woke up in the next cycle. A new universe…"
"What happened to Vestos? How did he survive?" Eve Asked.
"Turns out, the artifact Vestos had absorbed was part of the Monobeacon. A Key, the imperfection the Monobeacon separated from itself and cast away to wander the cosmos. It is all the darkness the Monobeacon cannot contain…"
"Unfortunately, the Key, the Monobeacon cannot jump to the next cycle without... and since the cycles never stop; one way or another, the Key always finds its way back to the Monobeacon. They collide once every universe, ending one, creating the next…"
"That Key now resides in your genes."
The simulation ended. They were back in the room with the holographic screens.