TCS: Fate Of The Cosmos

Chapter 18: Remember that night?

The shattered moon above graced the deep dark landscape with a gentle light and the occasional howl, or distant roar broke the silence of the night. A blanket of stars rested across the black sky, stretching out into infinity, blinking and flashing, smiling down onto the sleeping planet earth.

Below the clouds and the ocean of stars, rested both beast and man, only a few being bold enough to stay up and face the night. The usually buzzling settlement, although still well lit up, laid quiet now. Its inhabitants had gone to rest hours ago, the only ones still awake were the armed, metal-donning guards who patrolled the streets, and the walls that guarded the people and their homes.

They were not the only ones who were up and about though, as on a distant clifftop, looking over the lush and wild landscape, two souls were still very much awake and both restless.

Locke's hair blew over his face, and he kept shoving it away with his hand, as they made their way down the mountain. Up here, the wind blew stronger, and more ruthlessly. This was to be expected of a cold august night like this one.

"Man... It felt so surreal- as if it was a dream."

"If it was a dream, I highly doubt I would be present there with you."

TK led the way through the thicket, down the carefully crafted stone path they had made, leading up to their cliff-side hideout. Knowing he would spend a lot of time up there by himself, to rest a bit and get some alone time, Locke took the time and effort to make a road that lead up to it. Although flying down would of course prove more efficient, this time he refused to, as he was afraid the sonic booms of his tek jetpack would disturb the rest of many other living beings out there, including the likes of his friends and family in the great settlement.

Struggling to catch up with the floating tek suit helmet, Locke had to push through and walk a bit faster. "What even was that place? There were rings of tek material spinning all around us, and a weird beam of light...?"

"I would assume it was some sort of... hallucination, a reverie. A conceptualization of something that exists elsewhere in this world. In simpler terms, a vision, of sorts." TK explained.

"Hm... It's strange... We haven't seen Helena since that day when we activated the reseed protocol, and now she just suddenly shows up out of nowhere, without warning. I thought she had passed on after that... As the rest of the Homo Deus did."

"...Well apparently that was not the case, and now we have more worry on our hands."

Locke took a moment to think. There was a lot of information for him to digest, and he felt as if his mind was about to explode. The two of them had just had a run-in with the Homo Deus; Helena Walker, once a pioneering survivor who with the help of others, broke out of the system and discovered the secrets of the arks, now an omnipresent, higher being, who watched over Locke as his guardian angel. She always had done so, from the moment he woke up on the beaches of the island, making sure he and the chosen survivor program would succeed and its purpose would be fulfilled.

"I just... I can't believe it... Rockwell is alive... He survived our confrontation on the broken ark!"

"I find it amusing that this is so surprising to you. I mean, you had the gut feeling since the very day we activated reseed, that something was off. We even went as far as to search the crash site of the broken ark for his remains. When we ended up finding nothing, yet I was so sure he was still out there."

"... I guess I'm in denial. And where was it she needed us? Genesis? Where is that? What is that?"

"Well we've never heard of it before, despite all of the old tek systems and ruins we've turned upside down for information about the past. I suppose we might find out once we go to Arat Prime, now that its coordinates have been embedded into my systems."