Justin Peacock                          Word Count:2851

jbpeacock@mail.com

The Phoenix

by

J.B. Peacock

Tim stood up from his computer and picked the wedge of boxers from his ass. They had worked themselves up there as he shifted in his seat during his marathon, eighteen hour writing session. Feeling slightly hung-over, he plodded to the bathroom to take a leak.

As he passed the mirror, he noticed his reflection. At first, he didn’t recognize himself. It took a second glance before he saw the unkempt mop of brown hair and the hazel eyes with the purple bags as his own.

“The prices we pay for our dreams,” he mumbled. Those eyes confirmed that sleep was necessary and the idea brought him warm, cozy feelings. It was decided.

He finished his business and went back to the computer. As he sat, he bumped the rickety desk with his knee and the Nebula Award balanced on the shelf above the monitor tumbled behind the desk to the floor. Tim grunted his dissatisfaction.

He gave his work a once over, saved it and shut down the computer. Try as he might, he could not avoid seeing that it was three in the morning. He flopped onto his bed and sleep took him.

Tim wasn’t asleep long before he was interrupted. There was a shuffle in the room, as if someone walking near his bed. A weight settled over his limbs, keeping him still. He felt himself being lifted into the air. “We've got him, let's go.” An unfamiliar man's voice said to his right. He tried to struggle, but his body refused to stir. There was only darkness. It seemed like an eternity passed before Tim heard more voices in the black.

Though he did not see anything, he knew that he was in a meeting of some kind. Voices surrounded him in the blackness, as if a dozen or more people stood inches from his face. Yet he felt alone just the same, isolated and floating in the dark with sound as his only sense. “Where am I? What the hell is going on?” Tim cried to the dark.

“The prisoner is in attendance!”, the same voice said. “Mister Whitcombe”, said a new voice. It was a man's voice and a familiar one, though Tim could not place it. “You have caused us quite a lot of trouble. This tribunal has come together to assess the exact level of threat you pose. You have been accused of some very serious crimes, Tim. A lot of people have died because of your actions.”

“Look.” Tim tried to remain composed. “I don't know what's going on here. I can't see anything and I don't know anything about a lot of people dying. I’m a writer for god’s sake. Whatever this is about, you have the wrong guy.” As he continued, he felt himself beginning to unravel. “All I know is that I was going to sleep and now I’m here and you’re telling me that I am a prisoner and I swear that I just need to wake up!” Tim was verging on hysterical. He tried to wake up, but it was not happening. Maybe he was awake, after all. Just then, he was able to place the voice. “Murphy?”, he asked the dark.

“That's right, Tim.” Murphy was the leader of the Gaian expeditionary forces in Tim’s stories. The man ho won him his Nebula award. He could have imagined much worse people to be his accuser. “You should understand that, while you may know me, I have only just learned of you. There are many here, including myself, that believe you pose a serious threat to our efforts. I am not pleased to know of you, Tim. Remember that.” His tone was merciless and Tim's heart sank.

“If this is a trial, do I get a lawyer?”, Tim was hopeful for that at least.

“You will be asked questions and must answer with the truth. You have been removed from your body and most of your brain's neural pattern has been replicated into a simple, temporary vessel. Failure to cooperate with these proceedings will result in the destruction of that vessel. Pay attention and consider these proceedings with earnest, Mister Whitcombe.”

It was a straightforward affair. First the charges were leveled. They had a laundry list of accusations; from conspiracy to aiding the enemy and sabotage somewhere in between. They even accused him of war profiteering! Discussion followed the leveling of the charges and Tim listened closely.

The tribunal continued for what felt like eternity.

Through the proceedings, he heard many voices that he recognized. They all explained that the The Kin had somehow managed to acquire a means to hop realities.

They had discovered Tim’s works and simply read the books before the respective battles began. The Gaian's only saving grace was that Tim was fairly liberal with creative license. Less men died because of that, they all agreed.

“So,the The Kin got a hold of the books.”, he thought. That was the secret climax he'd been waiting for. The big reveal. While it was real enough now, in the morning, he knew he would see it for what it was.

It was crap, he couldn't write this. He could imagine the look on his editor’s face when he read it. “Face it, you’re not Stephen King.”, Jack would say. That must be it, this was all his subconscious doubt and desire manifesting itself in this trial dream.

This was himself, nothing more than projection of himself as a critical part of this world beyond his mundane universe. Now that he understood, the spell would surely be broken and he would wake up any minute.

Tim came to the slow realization that the perpetuation of the war was entirely his fault. The only reason that the The Kin, a loose confederation of raiders, slavers and smugglers, could have been a problem for the Gaians was due to the information he’d published.

He loved his stories, but was beginning to see where the Gaians were coming from. He felt that he might in fact be a war profiteer. That realization in particular was most hurtful. He didn't mean to, surely they would see that.

The discussion ceased and Tim got the chance to answer for himself. “How could I have known that any of this was real?” He tried to remain calm, trusting that these people would be reasonable, as he knew them to be. “I only had the best of intentions in writing the stories. I don’t sympathize with the The Kin! I want you to defeat them.”

He made his case as best he could. When Murphy told him that the time had come to decide his fate, Tim was sure that he had screwed up big time. They were going to kill him, he had no doubt in his mind.

“Mister Whitcombe, we have reached a decision.” The voice of Murphy came through the darkness in a tone that made the words seem final. “We do not think that you have done any of this on purpose. From the tone of your writing, it is clear to me that you do not support the enemy in any way.

The fact remains that you have a very strong connection to this universe, and it will not do to have you continue to publish your stories. After all, a writer writes, as the saying goes. We have no desire to take away your means of livelihood, but the stories cannot continue.

We have decided that you will not return to your body or your world, but instead you will aid us, in reparation of the damage you have caused.” Tim was relieved.

“How can I help?” Tim was eager to make amends and to see his characters face-to-face, which led to a realization. “...especially without a body?”

“As you know, we are in the process of forming a relationship with a pan-dimensional consciousness. You call them the Dark Star Continuum, as you have called us Gaians.”

“Wait a minute, you aren't called Gaians?” Tim was stunned.

“No, that's terrible. We don’t speak English, either. You are simply experiencing this the best way for your mind to conceive it. You have the stimulus and apply the symbols you know to make sense of it.”  Murphy's tone had taken on a hint of impatience, as if it were an assumption that Tim should have made from the start.

“A dream would say that.”

Murphy ignored this and resumed his explanation. “The Dark Stars have invited us to take part in a ritual of sorts. They are planning on spawning another star into a new reality. Super-massive objects will be transported into another world and set to orbit. Energy is applied and the space is artificially manipulated into forcing the objects together, creating a fusion reaction, resulting in a new star.

This star houses the consciousness of one of their collective and serves as a bridge to the rest of the continuum. For this one, they want to integrate a human mind, to serve as an emissary for us. It is a position of great honor.”

“I think I understand what you're talking about. I am going to mind-meld with the stars?”

“An interesting explanation. Not one that I would have come up with, but not entirely inaccurate. The donor mind will be instrumental to the next step in our social evolution. This relationship with the Dark Stars will provide us with a new perspective on the multiverse.”

Tim weighed the man's words. He did see opportunity, and he was even feeling a little giddy at the idea of communing with a pan-dimensional consciousness that had suns for bodies. And it was not as if Murphy had proposed any options.

“Okay, I guess it's better than oblivion. Let's do it.”

Tim was alone in the dark for a long time. The nothingness was finally disturbed by a white glow at the edge of his perception. A mechanical voice came from the glow.

“Subject is being transferred to the mass centers…”.

The glow swelled, growing in intensity and size until pure white overwhelmed everything. Then, slowly, little flecks of rainbow light appeared against the white. Bifurcating patterns of straight lines and curves grew from the lights.

Music came to him from all sides. Tim did not know whether the pattern made the music or vice versa, but they were intrinsically bound, that much was certain. The pattern grew more complex and distinct images appeared in it.

The voice came again, “Subject is being integrated, perceptual faculties initiated”.

The whiteness split down the middle and peeled away. The rainbow-light shapes became boundaries for the white, and within them patches of black appeared. The blackness spread.

Now, between the black and white, the rainbow lights came together. Objects emerged from the shapes and took on dimension. All the while, the music became more refined.

Clear voices of instruments, strings mostly, emerged from the thunderous sound. As they did, the black flooded the white. Orbs of white light were all that remained, spreading out across his vision in varying sizes.

It occurred to Tim that he was looking out across vast space. “Beginning conscious blending with the continuum”, the voice said. He felt drawn to the nearest of the white orbs and approached it, though his movement was without the sensation of motion.

He resisted, awed by the presence of this beyond ancient being. Struggling was obviously useless. Tim gave up. He confronted the white star. The music settled into the background of his perception. A great, bass melody dominated the tune and Tim saw a purple shadow behind the star. This was a dark star.

He knew it, but could not explain why. He felt something there with him, some other next to his mind. It was inconceivably large, the weight of its presence oppressive.

The whiteness of the star faded and the purplish shadow came forward. The bass melody also came forward and Tim realized that this was the voice of the star. He listened, his mind trying to put together what he was experiencing.

As he did so, the voice of the star became clear and more dynamic. More, higher strings entered the melody. There were deep drones and the tinkle of chimes in the voice of the star.

The music grew stranger and more intense as the star approached, filling Tim with an increasing sense of imminence.

“Too much.” Tim thought. The star came closer and a mortal dismay came with it. He could feel the intense heat and began to panic. This astronomical force meant to consume him.

It came closer. The voice of the star began to produce images. Acts of creation, visions of supernovas in alien universes flooded his mind. He watched as countless whole, infinite cosmos were born and died in moments. Heat was pervading everything he experienced. It consumed him then, but for a mere instant. Then, time did not exist for Tim any longer.

The other multiplied. It was not a single, oppressive presence anymore, but multitudes of others spread out beyond his perception. “I must be with them now”, he said to himself. His heart confirmed this thought beyond doubting. It was this intuition that he grabbed hold of. He withdrew into himself to shut out the chaos.

He waited, focused inside himself. He let his anxieties melt and he began to relax. There was no changing this condition. In truth, he did not exactly want to. Though the multitudes clamored all around, he no longer felt in danger of losing himself.

He turned to the others, reaching out to them through the emptiness. There was a sense of the others reaching back toward him as he reached out. It was like coming home to lost relatives after the distance from them had faded them into ghosts of memory.

It would have brought tears to his eyes, if he had eyes. He was touched by the effortless intimacy of this new life. The mechanical voice forced itself on the moment.

“Integration complete. Beginning genesis reaction.”

Tim felt white hot in an instant. Pressure built up in him. He was spinning, twisting and engulfed in flame. In the depths of space, the super-massive objects began to whirl and came together. There was an explosion, a nova, and Tim screamed as he felt himself ripped to dust.

In the heat and force, the dust and rock gathered together into clumps. Some smashed into each other, others were flung out like musketballs. Eventually, the light from the explosion faded as the glowing gases disseminated through space.

Tim saw tiny specks of planets in the space around him. He felt them out there. Pieces of himself spread out among the black and warmed by the light of his awareness from the center of them all.

“I saw...creation. It came from me. Am I a god?”, Tim asked.

He knew in his heart that he was not.

“What does it all mean?”

The response was immediate. Myriad sensations bubbled up in his mind before he finished asking the question. The sensations turned to visions once more.

He saw a little rock, flying through space, housing a little patch of bacteria within it. It slammed into one of his planets and he felt a tiny pinprick. A dark cloud spread through the sky above the planet, but Tim felt movement below.

The bacteria grew, covering the surface with tiny copies of itself until there was no longer any spot on that planet that the bacteria could not be found. Then, they began to die. The bacteria starved itself as it spread, but as it did so, some of the cells changed and began to eat the originals.

The surface of the planet responded. To Tim, it felt like goosebumps. Some of the colonies worked together, finding new ways to live in the spreading waters that came from the dead. The moisture went up into the sky to rain across the surface. Tim could feel the water rising and falling, as if it were his own breath.

Slowly, some of the colonies became independent systems. Organisms, built of different colonies, began to appear in the waters. Plants grew from them and, finding the waters crowded, had no choice but to spread up from the new sea.

Creatures followed from them. When he put his mind to it, Tim was there with them, seeing from within them and beside them. Just as the continuum had when he was merging with it.

The living systems grew; the smaller ones adapted to the larger and the larger responded to the ever-growing complexity of the parts. Tim watched it all and was aware that, eventually, he or something like him would emerge from that process. In that far off space, beyond the knowing of any human, Tim watched and waited.

Though he did not know it, the whole Gaian civilization, everywhere it could be found, began a week of celebration in Tim’s honor. On every planet they occupied, every screen in every public place displayed the birth of Tim’s solar system.

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