The Today God, Part I

The blackness had no variance, no hope for light at any angle or hint at escape. It was so dense that it seemed as empty and as enormous as it was simultaneously claustrophobic. He felt like he could reach out and peel it, like some kind of sticky curtain.

Then the lights came in a brilliant torrent of blurry shapes, crisping as his vision returned to him. Men and women in protective suits darted about him, and a trio looked down upon him as he recalled the cold steel table beneath his back. Their faces were unfocused, though appeared covered in medical veils.

“He’s conscious. Reading?” a gruff man’s voice.
“He eclipsed every phase. He’s wired,” the second was a woman’s youthful timbre.
“Van, are you with us? How do you feel?” the third asked, a man younger than the first.

He wanted to move, but his muscles defied his intentions with but a twitch here and there. His flesh felt frosted, as if he had been sprayed with ice, and his voice crept out of his throat in a little trickle that resembled “Yeah.”

“You’re alright, the grogginess will go away soon,” the woman’s voice was soothing, and Van suddenly remembered that he knew it from somewhere, “You successfully linked with Boss.”

Boss. T-BOS. Thought-based operating system. It was as if a switch connected directly to his memory had been thrown. His pale grey eyes snapped about the room from his limited viewpoint, noting all the intricate devices meshed together by webs of shiny cabling within the sterile, white room. It had all been hooked up to him. Hooked up to his brain.

Van struggled to sit up, his body gradually becoming more amiable to his commands. His joints ached. His mouth felt like sandpaper.

“I don’t feel anything there,” he reached back, dancing his fingertips over the plated node at the back of his skull. It felt like a small hole, inset within a plastic-metal implant.

“You shouldn’t feel anything until we hook you up,” the older man responded, flipping his fabcric mask down below his stiff, silver beard.

“Can I get something to drink?”
“Sorry Lieutenant, we don’t have enough time for that.”
“What, are they close?”

The three exchanged grim glances, betraying the true gravity of the situation. The woman – Elise, Van recalled – curtly removed her latex gloves as she spoke, the snapping of the material punctuating her fast words, “They’re here.”

“We’re under attack,” the third one interjected, albeit quietly, “London, New York and Paris just went dark.”

Van had seen it before, but not here. Not on Earth. Entire colonies, entire planets, wiped clean of life. No harm came to the land, no flames or explosions or ruins. It wasn’t a war in the traditional sense, where the enemy would advance, and both sides would exchange fire until the ashes assuaged and the victor was the last one standing. No; they would come, and life would simply disappear. It wasn’t war at all - it was extermination.

“I’ll make do, then,” he swung his legs over the table’s side, shakily getting to his feet, “What now?”

Elise came to his side, steadying him, “We get you to your weapon.”