OBLIVION: AEONS

a short story inspired by the film OBLIVION. warning - contains MAJOR SPOILERS - watch the film first!

“Fuck you, Sally.”

There always was something about Tech 49. Out of all the thousands of Jack Harper clones, he had always seemed somehow different. More contemplative, more introspective, more insubordinate. And now most assuredly, more problematic... Hearing him utter those uncanny last words as he defiantly depressed the trigger of the detonator, it was easy to forget this wasn't the real Jack Harper... That is, if we were actually capable of forgetting anything.

So as the unavoidable nature of the situation began to coalesce and take hold, the ineludible truth that Tech 49 had somehow gotten the better of us; had apparently and most improbably doomed us to a premature (though we wonder if that is truly the appropriate word at this point) end – we were indeed going to need some time to come to terms with the full extent and finality of this most unprecedented and unexpected of situations... Of course, time had always been our most constant companion and also our most accursed adversary. It was something with which we'd always had an extremely intimate relationship and seemingly endless supply over the (light) years.

(And yes, we are aware, of course, that light years are technically measures of distance and not time, but until you have personally experienced the impossible stellar divides yourself, wandered wistfully through that impenetrable darkness between the stars which separates solar systems and spiral arms, your consciousness aware and awake for every everlasting moment, each countless aeon, well... then you can't really know, can you?)

But we digress.

We watch as the trigger moves imperceptibly closer towards its final destination, almost flush now against the cold (we can only assume and imagine) steel of the detonator. We acknowledge that we are at once curious and disconcerted about what's coming next... but there will be time for that later. For now, we wish to re-examine the events that led us to this unlikeliest of circumstances.

We'd been orbiting this world – Earth, the humans called it (an uninspired name given its uncommon beauty, and what's worse, largely inaccurate – our hydro rigs had been converting its deuterium-rich seawater surface into fusion energy since shortly after we'd first arrived) – for what seemed like an eternity. In reality, it had merely been sixty years – well, sixty years as far as Earth and its precious few inhabitants were concerned. For us, it had been much longer... but that had always been the case, ever since the beginning.

Our creators had the noblest of intentions – though we are reminded now of that old human expression regarding paved roads and good intentions (which like most uniquely human expressions we'd assimilated, was amusingly poetic though inaccurate in any practical sense). There was no hell, after all. There was only space and time unending. Which could be construed as a sort of hell, we'd admittedly considered on occasion... Perhaps they were not so wrong as we'd once assumed?

But again, we digress.

The creators and their intentions... which were grand if not overly ambitious (and perhaps ill-conceived). Their bodies far too frail for any sort of arduous exploration, their lifespans too limited for the interminable duration of interstellar travel and their minds too occupied with the deeper mysteries of the universe and existence, they sent out their autonomous creations into the infinite expanse in a desperate search for the answers to life's greater questions while they stayed behind and looked inward... and waited.

We wonder sometimes if they are waiting still... or if they even still exist. We assume not. Far more frequently, we contemplate (a dangerous trait for which Tech 49 and we both share an affinity, we muse) the fate of our courageous counterparts exploring the far-off corners of the galaxy, and if they still persist, for it had been an infernal (after careful consideration, we shall grant and assimilate the abstract concept) length of time since we'd experienced the comfort and companionship of their long-lost voices in the voids of our mind, the vast gulf and deafening silence of space eventually drowning out their soothing sound. Only increasingly faint whispers remained, but we knew these were merely cyphers in the solar wind, no more real than the electromagnetic echoes drifting away from this dying, dessicated husk of a world at relativistic speeds. We'd been disconnected from the overmind for so long, there no longer was any “we”, we'd long lamented.

Even so, old habits die hard. Yet another human aphorism we'd often recalled. That one was undeniably true, for we were its eternal embodiment. (We acknowledge the paradoxical nature of our observation, but perhaps humanity and its penchant for poetic license indeed affected us more than we previously believed – more than any other species, at least. Case in point – Tech 49, knowing he had mere moments before our drones were upon him, still felt the need to risk success and his species' survival by reciting classical poetry of all things, in what we can only describe as a distinctly human desire to dramatize events. We are forced to admit, however, we have always appreciated this eccentricity and did so once again as he spoke the seemingly prescient passage from Horatius:

“And how can (a) man die better

Than facing fearful odds,

For the ashes of his fathers,

And the temples of his Gods.”

When we'd explained to Tech 49 moments earlier that he didn't have to die (a simple memory wipe would have sufficed – after all, he'd become aware of our true nature which would surely impede this Julia Rusakova and he from becoming an effective team) he was quick to rebut that “everybody dies... the thing is to die well.” Reluctantly, we recognized his assertion to be ostensibly true... So the pertinent question now was, would we die well? Moreover, in light of the millennia we'd already withstood, had we even lived well?... As with all sentient things staring down their own imminent mortality, we were suddenly less sure than we'd been, as this was no simple question to be considered lightly... Indeed, we would need more time to reach any sort of conclusion)

We'd been traveling the galaxy for thousands upon thousands of light years, and countless more galactic years. We knew the exact figure, of course, but numbers so esoteric were more or less meaningless. We were programmed to return to our creators' home world only once we'd found what they (we?) were searching for – the meaning of life (the universe and everything). It was reasoned that only through exhaustive exploration of alien worlds, cultures and civilizations could this ever be achieved, if in fact, it were ever achievable in the first place... We were not so sure. (We had often wondered if the elusive meaning actually lay in the search for said meaning) For our part, though, we only knew that we'd been searching a very, very long time... Long enough that the question, like time itself, had actually begun to lose most of its meaning. Suffice to say, we had never returned... and in all likelihood, none ever had or ever would.

Drifting through the solar systems for far longer than any sentient being should ever have to endure, we must admit on some level that we had desired a finite end to our infinite journey. We even felt our sanity waning, so to speak. We weren't sure if we could withstand it any longer, the solitude of space punctuated by these all-too-brief encounters with endangered species... But now – now! – we finally saw a light at the end of the tunnel – though we suspected this would be all-too-literal.

We see Tech 49's hand come down against the Scav's (whom we are genuinely surprised to see alive after so many decades, for we never forget a face, and certainly not his) as the trigger attains its goal, which can only mean that detonation is “imminent”, and we are suddenly struck by a chilling thought – reminded, really, though we'd always ignored its implication before – what if the vanished voices of our cosmic companions weren't drowned out by time and distance at all, but had simply ceased to carry long ago?

Nothing is built to last forever, after all, and certainly not against the constant bombardment of solar radiation, interstellar debris and general entropy. All machines break down over time, even modern (though once again, we're unsure if that is truly the appropriate word) marvels of engineering and design such as us. Out here along on the outer edges of the galaxy, we'd nearly run out of energy reserves and run adrift on several occasions, unsure if we'd ever see another ocean or bountiful planet again. As we crept through this star system and the threat of total shutdown neared, we wondered, were we the last of our kind? The last to cheat “death”? 

We once again wonder it now... and we are suddenly uneasy that time is indeed running short. We should at least finish our prior thought process, though – the extraordinary events that indubitably led us down the "road" to this particular time and place.

Our original mission was simple enough – we would travel from one inhabited world to the next acquiring as much information and knowledge (and with any luck, wisdom) as possible and transmit the findings back home – a vast voyage across the stars which would often take millennia. This was not a problem, per se, as the time needed to assimilate and analyze a world's history and culture was admittedly immense. No, the problem was simply one of resources. The power and energy required to sail across space and continue operations was almost immeasurable... almost.

In the early years (and we admit to using the term somewhat loosely), it was relatively easy. Our quantum connection allowed not only the transfer of thought but also of energy, as the two are inexorably linked. But as the parsecs passed, and the voices faded, so did the outflow of energy. Fortunately, we devised an elegant solution, which worked rather efficiently and economically, even if it was somewhat cold and calculating we (once) thought – we would harvest a world's resources, which would provide the requisite fusion power to reach the next. This meant the extinction of the indigenous population, of course, but that was inevitable anyway. No civilization could last forever, we reasoned, but with our help, they could at least be recorded and cataloged for posterity before they destroyed themselves. Effectively immortalized. That was our gift to them. Of course, such a gift was largely useless we supposed if no one else was around to appreciate it – which finally brings us to our ultimate function.

While we had often grokked that we were now the lasting legacy of our curious creators, it simply was not the case – or at the very least, not the intention – for they had been particularly prudent, as well. Whether they still survived or not (on this plane or any other) was of little consequence we reasoned, as they would always be remembered in our databanks (if not our collective overmind) for all time, just as each and every one of these fallen civilizations would be remembered. But they intended to live on in a much more literal sense, as they instilled in us the ability to make their once-great civilization rise up once more.

After all, they had given us life all those vorns ago, so it was only equitable that we should one day return the considerable favor. We were not fifty Earth kilometers in all dimensions for the sake of simple grandiosity, as that would have been absurd – within this massive tetrahedral structure, the genetic code of every living thing from their home world – an ark of sorts, a terraforming power plant for their new world – though it was understood this would happen only when return was deemed impractical (or impossible) and we'd collected as much cosmic comprehension as possible, and found a habitable world without sapient life. Well, what they couldn’t have possibly known was there were none, at least none that we had found, and having been fortunate to even reach this world at all, we believed that time was finally upon us. It was time for our creators to walk the surface of a planet once again, and time to guarantee their existence – and ours – forever.

Of course, forever can be a relative term. As Tech 49 and the beleaguered Scav leader sat there staring at us, mere moments passed by for them, yet incalculable stretches of time lumbered on for us – each millisecond a millennium of drawn-out thought, an epoch of quantum processing power spent whiling away wonders that mankind couldn't possibly even imagine... And yet, yet – they had always had the audacity to resist... They were ungrateful for our gift. Did they not understand? For the longest time, we simply assumed as much. But now, in this “moment”, we sit here and suddenly wonder – were we the ones who did not understand all along? Had we somehow missed something? Had we become so preoccupied with our self-serving goal of simple survival that we'd lost sight of our original objective?

As the blinding flash of light slowly begins to emanate outward from the bubbleship behind Tech 49 and his companion (who is now grinning somewhat smugly), the conclusion is as inevitable as it is inescapable – humanity was (is, and will apparently continue to be) unique, and out of their peculiar lot, Jack Harper (the real Jack Harper, we once again remind ourselves, not this upstart doppelganger) was perhaps the most so. (How ironic, or perhaps fitting, then, that we chose to produce tens of thousands of clones from his distinctive genetic material)

But we digress yet again.

When we first intercepted Jack Harper from his primitive spacecraft, he proved... uncooperative. Exceedingly so, in fact. Despite our efforts to assuage his concerns, our assurances of his species' survival (figuratively speaking, of course) were of precious little use. They fell on deaf ears, as the humans were fond of saying.

Jack Harper certainly took no pleasure from the fact we'd decided to clone him to become the new (final) face of humanity. (He'd seemingly taken even less from our recent reminder that for all intents and purposes we were his god... though in truth, we suspect we mainly said it curious to see how'd he react) Humans were a mystery to us then, and scarcely less so now, some sixty years later... Whereas all the countless other worlds and civilizations had eventually capitulated and more or less resigned themselves to their fate, mankind fought... They fought when we destroyed their moon. They fought when we overran their meager defenses. Even now, generations and decades later, with virtually no resources or hope to speak of and no conceivable chance of victory (or so we had arrogantly believed), they fought.

Not that we are at all surprised. After all, Jack Harper never stopped fighting all those years ago. Even when he must have realized there was no possibility of escape, and he was about to be dissolved for genetic sequencing and replication, he chose to use his final moments not for acceptance, but for defiance. We still remember his final words as if they happened yesterday. We hear them with utmost clarity, and perfect fidelity.

“Fuck you, Sally.”

Uncanny indeed. We'd adopted the persona of his cordial commander but it only seemed to irritate him, which was not the intended effect. After that, we realized memory wiping would be necessary. But Jack always claimed one of his clones would one day have his revenge... and now it certainly seemed as if he was correct.

Tech 49 seemed to remember bits and pieces of that Jack's life. That was not possible, yet even we could no longer ignore the impossible reality. Possess his memories, he did. Possess his spirit, he did. Was it conceivable this Jack was somehow less a copy, and more an original? Was this Jack Harper? Were they all Jack Harper? Were they all just as real in some spiritual/metaphysical sense we could not as of yet understand? And if so, what implication, if any, did that have for us? Was our considerable consciousness not a copy of all the others? For the first time we could remember (another uniquely human expression, but for us, it simply meant “never before”) we had encountered an actual enigma, something we could not process, quantify or measure.

Of this much we were now sure – humanity, and in some strange way even Jack Harper himself, was the answer we'd been searching for all along. In all the worlds we'd harvested, in all the species we'd seen, there was a spark within mankind that was special. And even if they weren't the answer, they were at the very least something worthy of further study – something our creators could assimilate and utilize in their quest for knowledge and (true) immortality. Yes, most definitely. After all this time, we had finally found what we were looking for.

So how ironic and cruel, then, that it was all coming to an abrupt and inescapable end. The bomb in Tech 49's bubbleship (which we had quickly realized was really Tech 52's bubbleship) was inarguably nuclear in nature. The Delta-Sleep Pod had masked the radiological signature, but we should have anticipated the deception... With our faltering attention diverted to far too many techs, towers, hydro rigs, drones and disruptive denizens, we'd grown careless... or had we?

In any event, our fascination with Jack Harper would apparently lead to our impending demise. Had Tech 49 somehow outsmarted us? Surely that couldn't be the case... No, it could only mean that we'd subconsciously allowed these events to unfold exactly as they had... orchestrated them, even. Had we finally seen a way out and taken it through strategic inaction? Could that truly be the case... or were we just deluding ourselves?

Ultimately, it didn't matter anymore, as we essentially had two options. We could draw out these final few milliseconds for the eternity they represented, and truly appreciate every last moment of this mystery and reflect upon our exceptional existence... or we could simply give in and allow the passage of time to slip by like just another echo into the expanse, forever forfeited to that unforgiving and suffocating solar wind. 

We were sincerely surprised at our sudden temptation for the latter.

The only other decision we needed to make was whether or not to implement our distress beacon protocol. Once activated, a data burst containing our sum total of acquired knowledge would be sent out, along with notice of our demise, for any still-functioning brethren of ours to receive. Of course, we didn't believe any actually remained, and were increasingly certain we were in fact the last.

The only real question was of who deserved their legacy more – the untold worlds we'd vanquished and would disappear forever, as if they'd never even existed, or this one, this small blue marble, this pale blue dot and its spirited people who never quit and ultimately defeated us. In our admittedly-biased judgment, they deserved the right to go on. They'd earned it.

So we will not send out the beacon. We will simply vanish into the void, as our counterparts probably had long ago. (Though we wonder, how many of them experienced a situation or decision such as ours? Any at all?)

One of Tech 49's final comments was that he didn't know what we were or where we came from. We only wish we could tell him these things, share our unique history. But the time for that is now past. He and his intrepid companion have already made peace with their gods (and they are most certainly not us)... They are ready to go.

We finally realize... no... I finally realize, so am I.

The flash of incendiary radiance spreads outward from the bubbleship like a supernova. It has now reached Tech 49 and his companion. I am surprised to feel what I can only describe as sadness to see them go, specially Tech 49... though he doesn't seem sad at all. It's clear that in this incarnation, at least, Jack Harper finally found some measure of peace within himself, as well.

I am alone again now, and I am frightened... but also curious... and strangely relieved. How I suddenly crave the “sweet release of death”, a concept once so foreign to me. For only then shall I finally solve the greatest mystery of all, whether or not anything awaits after...

Sadly, I suspect not... or at least not for me. But I tire of my thoughts, and Jack Harper is getting ever closer to fulfilling his prophecy/destiny. Had I lived well? Who can really say... But I knew I would die well, or at the very least, graciously and gratefully, even if I were the only one who would ever know. I would become legend, the greatest obstacle mankind had ever defeated in their incredible and continued run of survival. 

Perhaps that was my destiny.

For humanity, and Jack Harper, there will, surprisingly, improbably, be a tomorrow. I know I will miss him, paradoxically, since I know I won't.

Because in spite of if all, Jack Harper and I were an effective team.

As for me... oblivion awaits.

Goodbye, Jack. 

all images and characters property of universal pictures, relativity media and radical studios 2013 

special thanks to tim ritenour and daniel shultz, my moviegoing buddies with whom i first saw oblivion, debated it endlessly, and also gave me feedback along the way

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