New Hope: Book 1

Ellie stood frozen. She was looking at the image of the Protagonists’ avatar but she couldn’t spit a word out. She didn’t know what to think. Elrael said he couldn’t come with her to the installation or even contact her until she was inside the Protagonists’ complex. Now, he was standing in front of her just like he did on the Moon!

“But how?” she managed to say. “You said you didn’t have a way to get here and we arranged contact once I get out...” she added in shock.

“Oh, Ellie, Ellie...” said the avatar. “You were more naive than I initially thought,” he said. “You see, I told you exactly what you had to hear to believe my story. I said from the start that I need your help executing my mission. However, I’m afraid the aim of this mission is the only common thing between my story and reality,” it said.

“I don’t understand... So, your task wasn’t to make sure people achieved a certain level of development and maturity to contact your creators?” asked the astronaut.

“I’ve got to say, your naivety is really starting to annoy me,” replied the avatar. “Why would the Protagonists leave me on the Moon? Really? Don’t you see that nothing adds up here? Do you know what the most logical answer is to this whole mystery?” asked Elrael. “I’ll tell you!” he added.

“The most logical answer is that the Protagonists fled when they got scared they had made the same mistake again as with the Sarassians!” he replied. “As soon as they realized they modified the human being too strongly, they decided to abandon this place and leave everything as it was. That’s why their artifacts are scattered all over the Moon, that’s why nothing works as it should, and why you were greeted by a hologram and not a live Protagonist!” said Elrael.

“I don’t know exactly what happened during the times those goody-goody Protagonists were here,” he said reproachfully. “You’ll probably ask why I don’t know anything if they’re the ones who created me? I had to have seen or heard something, right?” Ellie felt that the question wasn’t addressed directly to her. “Let me tell you. It’s because I wasn’t here then. I came just after the Protagonists had left.”

Ellie went pale and she felt weak. Did her naivety help this... being in something evil?

“Who are you?” she asked, though deep down she had her suspicions and she was terrified to hear the answer.

“You know who I am...” replied Elrael, sneering.

“You’re not the Protagonists’ artificial intelligence,” said Ellie.

“Warm...” said Elrael. “To save you time and energy in this game, I’ll tell you I have nothing to do with that race. Nor am I artificial intelligence. Not in the meaning your limited human mind is used to, anyway.”

“Then what are you? And what do you want from me?” Ellie asked in outrage.

“It’s simple... I want you and all your kinsmen to get yourselves out of this world and give the planet back to those who really deserve it,” said Elrael.

“And who is that? You?” she asked in disbelief. “You’ve got to be joking?”

“Oh, Ellie, let’s not go overboard. I don’t have such ambitions. What do I need this planet for? What would I do with it?” asked Elrael snidely. “No, that’s not it. I’m thinking about the most intelligent race in the Universe.”

“Your masters are the Sarassians you told me about?!” Ellie was devastated.

“How nice that when you hear about the most intelligent race, you connect all the dots and think Sarassians. Bingo! That’s what humans say, right?” replied Elrael.

At this, Elrael walked around the room between the consoles, his body making a clattering sound of metal legs on the floor, then he approached one of the control desks and started entering a sequence of commands into the computer.

“How is it that you can touch anything? You were an immaterial hologram on the Moon, so how...” she started asking fearfully. Being in a room with a deranged hologram is one thing, but being in a room with a physically powerful being who feels superior and treats you with contempt is something entirely different.

“You see, the Protagonists worked long and hard on immortality. They built robotic bodies into which they transferred their consciousness. This process allowed them to gain even a thousand extra years,” explained the avatar. “It just so happens that a few empty bodies have remained here in this complex, waiting for their new masters. When you deactivated the defense systems that were designed to block any signals, including those coming from the installation on the Moon, I was able to send my program here. And when I found the right body for me...” Elrael paused, deciding this amount of information to be sufficient. “You know, Ellie, you’re alive only because you can still be useful to me? Just so things between us are absolutely clear - if I decide your presence here threatens my mission in the slightest, you die immediately,” said Elrael, raising his head from the desk and looking Ellie in her eyes. “You believe me, right?” His smile seemed to be widening.

Seriously frightened now, Ellie didn’t reply, though she didn’t have to. Her body was giving the avatar all the signs that were needed to understand the scale of her terror. The astronaut’s mind tried to work at higher speeds. She need to find out exactly what was happening here and what the robot was planning. Once the initial shock had waned, Ellie swallowed nervously and tried to calm her breathing. “I’m not any threat to you, you know that,” she replied. She felt the best way was to buy time and minimize the threat to herself.

“We’ll see about that but, yes, you are defenseless, and you can’t activate the security systems again anyway,” he said. “I just blocked them permanently so if you were thinking about fiddling around with your console, forget it. You won’t accomplish anything aside from alerting me.” The avatar went back to work on his console, looking up at the astronaut from time to time and making sure she’s standing in her place.

“Can I ask you a question?” Ellie started carefully, hoping vanity is not only a human trait.

Elrael looked at her inquisitively and looked her in the eye for a moment, then went back to work. “I don’t see how answering your question could interfere in anything, and your doom - and the doom of all living beings on this planet - is sealed, so please, shoot,” joked Elrael winking at Ellie but not stopping his work on the holographic keyboard.

Ellie was aware she was just trying to buy time and it was highly unlikely she would learn anything that she could use against the remarkable robot. However, she didn’t want to just sit there and await her fate in silence. Instead, she wanted to take it by the horns and learn something that could help her get out of this dire situation.

“You said you have nothing to do with the Protagonists? Despite this, you were at their complex on the Moon. How is this possible? I mean, you had complete control over it.” asked Ellie.

“That’s true. I still uphold that the only thing linking me with the Protagonists is the aversion and hatred of my kinsmen,” he replied straining each word as if solely talking about the Protagonists caused him pain and difficulty. “You see, Ellie, the Sarassians also experimented with copying the mind into an artificial body. Only we were able to take it a few steps further.” Elrael looked at Ellie with an expression of triumph. “Actually, I was created on a world that’s more than fifty thousand light-years away from yours. It would take me many years to travel such a distance, even at superluminal speeds that are available to my race. So it was decided to digitalize my mind and send it via hyperspace transmissions to various places in the galaxy, hoping that one day I’ll reach a Protagonist installation where I will be automatically recreated,” it said.

Ellie’s breath was taken away. Digitalizing a real, live mind? she thought. “That practically means immortality!”

“I see that what I just told you is slowing sinking in,” sneered Elrael. “Yes, essentially, I’m immortal. I’ve spent the last several thousand years in the Protagonist complex that intercepted my signal. Quite some time for a biological organism, difficult to survive without health damage, especially mental health,” he added jokingly. “But for a digital organism... Ooooh, that’s something else entirely! When I realized I’d reached a Protagonist installation on the orbit of the moon circling a primitive planet, but with traces of the Protagonists’ presence, I had to inform my brothers and sisters about the location of this place. See, Ellie, we knew we hadn’t caught and killed off all the representatives of our creators, but we had no idea where they went. The galaxy is quite a large place, after all. We could have searched another million years and never come across them. If not for that installation, which allowed me to connect to it when it became possible. And despite not having met any live Protagonist here, and all the signs in the sky and on earth indicated that the last presence of this race’s members was recorded by the computers of the lunar complex several hundred years before my arrival, the fact of this installation existing suggested the Protagonists themselves could not be too far. Unless they became extinct, then my work became easier,” he grinned sarcastically.

“You came here only to destroy the remains of the Protagonists’ civilization?” asked Ellie, in disbelief that anyone could be that envious to go tens of thousands of light-years only to take revenge on someone. For something that took place thousands of years before.

“Not only for that, but solely for that purpose!” roared Elrael. “The Protagonists almost destroyed my race! Who gave them the right to take away the lives of billions of beings only because they didn’t meet their creators’ expectations?! So our life wasn’t as valuable as the life of other intelligent beings?” he asked rhetorically.

“No, no, that’s not what I was suggesting,” simpered Ellie in fear, trying to defuse the robot’s anger. “I was only thinking that undertaking such wide measures on your part, generally by your race, seems very... ambitious and meticulous.

“Flattery,” sputtered Elrael. “I know all too well that you’re outraged by this turn of events. Most biological races don’t understand greatness! Where you see weakness and cruelty, we see self-development and courage, as well as determination to achieve our goals. You see, small earthly astronaut, we’re not afraid to annihilate an anthill, if we only decide its end would contribute to our further growth. In other words,” said Elrael, “we’re not afraid to make tough decisions for the good of our kind. Where humans would wonder about the moral effects of their decisions, we see weakness and we delete it,” said the robot proudly.

“Right...” said Ellie. She was beginning to understand clearly that getting out of there alive was a wish upon a star. “Then why didn’t you inform your kinsmen about your discovery on the Moon as soon as you got there?” asked Ellie. She was hoping to find out something that would save the situation, if not herself.

“Well, I must admit, it was an oversight and my mistake!” replied Elrael. The robot had had thousands of years to think about it. “When I came to the Moon, I tried sending a broadband signal directed to the cluster of stars where we already had an established presence. It would take time for the signal to get there but, sooner or later, it would be received and a whole fleet of military ships would be sent here on the spot. Unfortunately, those Protagonists left an active intelligent security system, which blocked my access to the transmitters when it detected a threat. What’s more, they blocked my access to the entire terrestrial installation, and only that transmitter was strong enough to send a signal that could reach home complete. The transmitter on the Moon was destroyed by some stray meteor quite a long time ago, records of the installation were incomplete and damaged so I don’t know the exact date.” Elrael relaxed a little. “I think the Moon was bombarded by a meteor shower, which caused irreversible destruction to the complex. When the signal of the complex fell silent, the Protagonists outside this solar system must have thought it was lost and stopped coming to it altogether, afraid to encounter the Sarassians.”

Ellie realized that Elrael was probably right. That kind of event could indeed frighten anybody who kept looking over their shoulder, expecting their age-old enemy to appear. It also explained why the Protagonists suddenly disappeared several thousands of years ago from the surface of the Earth and the Moon. Perhaps they assumed the damage to the lunar installation was the beginning of the Sarassian’s attack? Meteor showers happen extremely rarely in our planetary system, and near the Moon, especially near such a huge planet as Earth. A single rock, yes. But a whole series that destroys expansive parts of the lunar installation? The chances for the natural origin of such a phenomenon are like one in a billion. Extremely rare. Not impossible, but so odd that people would certainly panic. Who knows how Protagonists see this? Maybe their way of thinking is not that different.

Ellie gathered her thoughts.

“Alright, then what now, when the defense system has been shut off?”

“What do you mean what? Isn’t it obvious?” replied the robot, almost offended. “Now, I’m going to regain control of this installation and send a signal to my kinsmen. Indeed, you could say Earth is practically at the outlet of the Milky Way, as it’s in one of its distant branches, and my civilization is on the other side of the galaxy, in a region that’s around 60 thousand light-years away, but don’t worry,” said Elrael. “My brothers and sisters will get here sooner or later.”

“But what for? There are no Protagonists here obviously! You can see yourself they abandoned this place a long, long time ago when humans were just starting to domesticate animals, farm, or build their first settlements. We’re no threat to you! We didn’t even know about the existence of other life in the Universe a few months ago, let alone try choosing who to side with in this galactic war!” said Ellie.

“My dear Ellie... There’s been some misunderstanding.” Elrael paused. “It’s not about choosing sides. There are no sides here. It’s only us. The Sarassians aren’t looking for allies, especially as weak as your species. We’re not looking for acclaim or splendor. We are the most powerful race in the Universe and we want to take our rightful place in the galactic pantheon. Who could be stronger than us, if we could rise from the ashes like Phoenix and destroy our executioner? An executioner who seemed so powerful, initially, it was hard to even imagine defeating them?” asked Elrael. “No, we’re not looking for allies, because in the end, we will be the only ones to remain in the Universe. Humans will join their creators in the arena of galactic oblivion,” he said joyfully. “Soon...”

Ellie felt a shiver run down her spine. Are the Sarassians and their members really so cruel and heartless, without any empathy? thought Ellie to herself, deciding to share it with Elrael.

“You honestly think there can’t be room for co-existence in the entire galaxy, perhaps in the entire Universe? Are you so afraid of other races that you prefer to destroy them in their bud?”

“We’re not afraid of anything!” roared the robot and took a few steps toward the astronaut. “We are the most powerful race the Universe has seen!” he thundered, still moving toward her. “Suggesting otherwise is inviting premature death,” said the robot in a low, almost growling voice.

Ellie took a few steps back and leaned against one of the consoles standing behind her. The impressively large robot towered over her just a few meters away. Ellie realized that one swing of its great big arm could quickly and painfully end her life. The rapidly breathing astronaut looked at Elrael. Seeing only rage and hatred in his gaze, she shut her eyes, awaiting the blow that would end her terrifying agony. For a moment, she even thought it would be better to go out right here in ignorance, rather than watch this monster summoning reinforcement, signing the death warrant on her whole planet and race.