Antumbra - A Lost Cause

The Inevitable - Chapter Seventy One

Arva stared into the void, an emptiness unlike anything comprehensible surrounded her, embraced her, suffocated her. It was as though she were plucked from her body and dropped into oblivion, and only when she saw a light flicker beneath her did she come to gradually understand. The light was, at least to her understanding, Antumbra. Or rather Antumbra's essence. It flickered like a flame, and she approached it, eager to bask in its light and warmth in this frigid emptiness. She outstretched her hands, which she suddenly had in the ethereal realm, and the flame grew slightly. Against all reason, her body compelled her to grasp it, to hold it, and the moment her fingertips touched it blossomed into an inferno, washing over her and the emptiness as if to burn the darkness away. In its place were green pastures, hills, a picturesque blue sky with hardly a cloud in view, and clean air blowing against her skin. She felt the grass beneath her feet and looked down, finding herself fully realized in this world, yet she seemed somehow not a part of it. The world was tangible, but Arva herself seemed almost ethereal, partial, like an observer and not a participant. This sensation was confirmed when the green lands gave way to towns of people, none of which seemed to notice her. The ghostly individuals phased in and out of existence as the towns evolved into cities, and the cities continued to grow. It was a metropolis unlike she had ever seen, even surpassing the Habitat, yet something was amiss. Her perspective of this world scaled back, from it being life-sized to almost a picture before her. Something she could see in detail but was too far away to touch. The cities grew, conjoined, evolved, until something happened. A sense of animosity dominated the colours she saw against the backdrop, and anger became the dominant energy she felt from the world she was witnessing.

War broke out. Suddenly, yet predictably. The lands were ravaged, cities decimated, and no real winner was obvious. At first Arva couldn't see the fighting, not before peace seemed to return, but the change in the landscape affected the rebuilding that slowly began. Then conflict came again, and this time she saw vehicles crawl across the ground. The fighting grew intense, then ceased as the cycle of war and peace repeated. The next conflict saw airplanes, after that tanks and jets, and then missiles fired from great distances. Technology expanded, experimented, new ways of killing and destroying lived and died in seconds before her eyes, until time began to slow. Then she saw the unmistakable: a man in a suit of armour. At first it was little more than a man clad in mechanical-looking knight's armour like she had seen in story books, but then it grew to a larger scale around the man. Then it encapsulated him completely, resembling a blocky toy robot, before growing and streamlining. Each revision brought it closer and closer to the thing she knew it was, and finally she saw it.

Argonauts, as she knew it, had been created. Now soldiers were the tanks, the jets, the missiles. What took a squadron or barrage from afar could be done in instants with a single machine, moving with unmatched speed and grace at a scale of several stories tall. The ultimate weapon of its time, yet Arva noticed something else. This technology created for war gradually influenced the world around it. Advanced robotics used for everyday tasks, advances in computer processing, engineering. The world bred war, and war grew the world. From the death and destruction came an almost renaissance of progress, and Arva had mixed emotions over this. She realized now this was Antumbra showing her the past, trying to teach her, but the message made no sense. Was it trying to tell her war was a good thing? Yet the suffering, the pain, it was all too much.

No, that wasn't it. The way it was presented was impartial, complete and laid bare. Antumbra was merely showing her the facts, which made her believe the point of this vision had not yet been reached. Indeed the Argonauts spread as much death as they created breakthroughs, but something loomed on Arva's mind. This civilization was different. Humans occupied still lush, fertile lands that stretched beyond the horizon, yet gradually bled them dry. Their cities were far-reaching, nearly every inch of the world featured some development. It was almost out of hand, the world seemed to be consumed, yet people were prospering. It seemed so natural, but if this was really a memory or record of the past, then where had it all gone?

More things came into view, the image of the land enhanced to the life-sized scale it was before, and time slowed to normal. Arva found herself standing behind three men, their faces darkened, as though she knew them but had long forgotten their features. One had long silver hair that billowed in the wind as they stood atop a massive structure, and their postures all suggested a solemn and grievous tone. The three men were distinct from each other, yet shared a common goal, she could tell. It's as if she could hear them speaking, but instead of words it was as if the knowledge simply existed in her mind. Antumbra was trying to show her the history, but of what still wasn't clear.

The world around the three men went from a tower at the edge of the clouds to a dark, subterranean room. Now they were gathered around a table, one which emitted light in the shape of realistic images, technology Arva had never seen. The images were that of the landscape, which expanded gradually into the whole world, with particular areas picked out in red as though they were areas of conflict or risk. The world map then became an image of a man, and around that man gradually formed shapes and parts that built up into an unmistakable shape.

Umbra. This was how it was conceived, in response to some global threat, and the ghostly image of the suit drifted in front of one of the men. He was dark, looming over the image with an unsettling posture. Then another image constructed itself much the same way into Penumbra, and it moved across the table to the second man, who stood at ease with his arms at his sides. Finally, the clearest and most detailed image was of Antumbra, and as it finished being constructed it, too, moved before the third man. Unlike the other two, this man's face became clear. His posture was straight and implied strength, but his features were softer than his body suggested, and his expression was grim. Arva stepped through the dream-like memory towards this man to get a better view, and she saw the conflict in his eyes, as though he didn't want to do this.

The room and the table disappeared, unraveling in wisps like sand in the wind, and the men were replaced by their Argonauts. The landscape was a desolate battlefield, ruined buildings in the distance, fire and smoke filling the air as war waged around them. It was unclear who started the war, but the three machines seemed pitted and scarred as though they'd been through hell and back. They gathered around one another, and Arva watched as each one of them began to bristle with energy. The same energy she had unleashed before, only this time all three machines were uniting. A storm of arcs and sparks enveloped the group, yet as it grew in intensity something happened. Antumbra stepped back from the group, and took with it its share of the power. This seemed to anger the other two, and they lashed out, striking Antumbra before a brutal melee culminated in a three-way standstill. Antumbra was being held by its brothers, and the combination of energy began again, Arva's machine an unwilling participant. The maelstrom of light seemed to build exponentially, until it became so bright that even in her ethereal state Arva couldn't look directly at it, and once it subsided and her gaze returned, nothing was left.

In an instant, the combined power of the three machines had erupted across the world. Spreading like flames it burned away the surface, turned forests to deserts, vapourized oceans, and wiped entire cities off the map. The level of destruction was unfathomable, unbelievable, but Arva could sense so clearly that it was real, until the only thing left was the three machines standing amidst the glowing red hell they created. They were somehow unharmed, but something was very clearly wrong with them. Penumbra did not move, frozen in place as if its life had just vanished, and Umbra dragged it itself away until it, too, collapsed. All that was left was Antumbra, who merely stepped towards the wasteland, its posture distraught. Arva could feel its pain, its regret, or rather that of its pilot, and watched in horror as the suit knelt down in a familiar pose. Its hatch opened, and the man with the solemn gaze stepped out. He glimpsed the devastation he wrought for only a brief instant before the intense heat of the world lit him aflame, and in moments his suffering ended as his body burned completely away, leaving only the machine knelt in somber repose. Ash began to fall from the dark clouds that encompassed the world, and Antumbra was slowly covered and consumed, the heat melting the ash into a thick crust around it until it resembled a lone statue left to mark the site of a great tragedy.

Arva watched as the vision began to blur, gradually fade, and then cease entirely as Antumbra's recollections ended, the only thing left was an empty void and total, utter silence.