The Reveal.

Page 1: The return to Earth

For generations, the Alizeans had called themselves guardians of Almag. Beneath the fixed sunlight, their towers overlooked a military landing field where enormous transports waited. Strength was their duty, order their inheritance, and the darkness beyond their borders a threat. But even guardians could lose their way.

Commander Thaeron stood before an image of Earth. Red markers recorded the places from which humans had been taken. “The human subjects will be returned to their planet.”

“All of them?” General Vorak asked.

“Every surviving subject. The experimentation programme is suspended until we understand why the human known as Mr Bigg cannot be transformed.”

“And the ones whose minds and bodies have already been altered?”

Thaeron hesitated. “They are to be returned as well. We will not create another problem by keeping them here.”

Figi stepped forward. “Commander, some may possess dangerous abilities. What happens when they reach Earth?”

“That is Earth’s problem to solve. Prepare the transport fleet.”

When the chamber emptied, Thaeron remained beside the blue planet. They had brought people here to make weapons. Now they would send them home and hope those weapons never turned against them.

His private console flashed: THIRD EXPERIMENT AUTHORISED. SUBJECT: MR BIGG. The authorisation sat beneath his own order to suspend the programme.

“What have we done?”

Meet General Vorak

Alizean military general

Vorak approaches uncertainty as a security problem. In his view, an unexplained capability is something to contain before it becomes something to fear.

His clipped questions challenge Thaeron’s authority. Their shared uniform of allegiance does not mean they share the same judgement.

Page 2: The orders beneath the orders

On the dark hemisphere, luminous channels ran between settlements beneath the stars. Inside the Maggis council chamber, an elder approached Lord Korvax.

“My lord, the Alizeans are preparing for something. Their ships are on standby.”

“Then discover what they are doing.” Korvax looked toward the councillors. Their own human subjects would be returned.

“You would release every human we have studied?”

“We have extracted what we can. Their bodies have taught us much, but their continued presence risks exposing our operations.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Elsewhere on Almag, the suspension had not stopped the preparations for Mr Bigg’s third procedure. Guards led him into a chamber larger than the previous laboratories. A metal frame enclosed a chair. Above it, a crystalline apparatus hung from hundreds of cables.

“Three experiments,” Bigg said. “Three different rooms. Same hospitality.”

“Sit down, Mr Bigg,” Dr Varken said.

“Where I come from, when someone says that and brings out this much electricity, you ask questions.”

“You may ask them afterwards.”

“That’s what you said the last time.”

Varken displayed a human brain within a web of Alizean energy. The first experiment had attempted cellular conversion. The second had tried to force Bigg’s biology to accept their energy structure. Both had failed.

“And your solution is something even more dangerous?”

“The third targets the relationship between your neural activity and Almag’s energy field. We believe your resistance is not merely physical.”

“And I believe you people need a hobby.”

Meet Lord Korvax

Maggis ruler

Korvax measures decisions against the survival and influence of his people. His restraint makes his orders no less consequential.

Cooperation with the Alizeans is not a comfortable idea. Neither is losing control of research that could change the balance between them.

Page 3: An untested machine

Varken stepped closer and lowered his voice. “Mr Bigg, I must warn you. We do not fully understand what this machine may do.”

“Then why turn it on?”

“Because if we do nothing, the war between our peoples may consume this planet.”

Bigg studied him. “Funny. Everyone says they’re trying to save the world. Nobody asks whether the world wants saving from them.”

The restraints locked around his arms. He could no longer shift away from the crystal overhead.

“Neural convergence sequence initiated,” the computer announced.

“Begin at ten per cent.”

The crystalline apparatus rotated. A low vibration travelled through the chair, and blue light spread across the floor. Bigg closed his eyes.

Earth, if you can hear me, I really need to come home.

The vibration sharpened. Symbols raced across the monitors.

“Neural activity rising beyond safe parameters!” a technician shouted.

“Reduce the frequency,” Varken ordered.

“The system is not responding.”

Meet Dr Varken

Alizean neural researcher

Varken studies the boundary between a mind and the forces acting upon it. Technical confidence gives him a vocabulary for an experiment; it does not guarantee that he understands its consequences.

What happens to Bigg will demand more from him than an explanation on a monitor.

Page 4: The door inside his mind

A thought arrived without a sound. If this experiment fails, the council will demand his execution. Bigg recognised Thaeron’s voice, yet the commander’s mouth had not moved.

Another followed: I should have stopped this. Varken. Then the technician: Please, not another explosion.

Bigg opened his eyes. “Wait. Who said that?”

“Said what?” Varken asked.

“You. All of you. You’re talking.”

A bright crack crossed the crystal. The technician shouted that the core was destabilising. Varken reached for the emergency controls.

“Shut it down!”

“WARNING. ENERGY CONTAINMENT FAILURE.”

“GET ME OUT OF HERE!”

The rupture swallowed his scream. Light struck the walls; smoke hid the chair and the people around it. When the emergency lamps came on, Varken lay beside a fallen console. Guards hurried to help him.

At the centre of the wreckage, Bigg remained motionless. Then his fingers twitched.

He opened his eyes. A faint blue light glimmered behind the lenses of his glasses.

“I can hear you.”

“Hear whom?”

He looked around the room, terrified. “Everyone.”

The apparatus had failed to impose the physical transformation they intended. But it had opened a door no one knew existed.

Page 5: A gift that feels like a curse

In the corridor, every person seemed to speak directly into Bigg’s mind. A fear of punishment. A daughter waiting at home. Suspicion of the human. A sudden, desperate wish not to die.

“Please,” he said. “One at a time.”

“What did you say?” a guard asked.

“Nothing. Apparently, everybody else is saying everything.”

The guard stepped closer. “Keep walking.”

For a moment Bigg saw a hospital bed. The same guard was holding a small child’s hand. The image carried a fear so immediate that Bigg answered it before he understood what he was doing.

“Your daughter will be all right.”

The guard stopped. “What did you say?”

“I don’t know how I know that. I just… heard you thinking about her.” The reassurance had been instinctive. He knew the guard was afraid; he did not know the child’s future.

The guard drew his weapon. “Get out of my mind!”

“I didn’t choose this! I don’t know how to turn it off!”

Varken arrived, shaken but walking. “Enough! He is as confused as you are.” He ordered the weapons lowered.

Bigg sat against the wall. “You wanted to understand the human mind. Congratulations. Now I can hear the things people are too afraid to say out loud.”

“Can you control what you hear?”

“Not yet.”

To hear a person’s thoughts was not the same as understanding their heart. Bigg had discovered the difference.

Page 6: Two worlds, one fear

Thaeron watched the explosion again. Beside it, a scan of Bigg’s brain flickered on the command-room display.

“The experiment triggered a neurological transformation,” Varken said. “His brain is responding to energy patterns beyond our instruments’ normal range.”

“What does that mean?”

“We believe he can perceive thoughts.”

“You believe?”

“I have no other explanation.”

Thaeron studied the recording. “Can he hear mine?”

“We don’t know the limits of his ability.”

The commander turned toward the window. If he discovers what the council concealed, everything could collapse.

At the doorway, Bigg suddenly looked up. “What did you conceal?”

Thaeron turned. “Take him away.”

Far away, Dr Neris examined a pulse caught by the Maggis monitoring network. It had originated in Alizean territory. Its pattern resembled their own neural experiments.

“Could they have developed a weapon?” a technician asked.

“Perhaps. Or perhaps they have created something neither side understands.”

Neris opened a stolen scan of Mr Bigg. The means by which it had reached her did not make the evidence less urgent.

“I need to see this human before they destroy him.”

Both civilisations were preparing to send their captives home. Neither understood what one human mind might reveal about them.

Page 7: Across the border

Neris’s vessel landed at the edge of an Alizean military outpost. Its dark canopy reflected the armed guards who surrounded it. She stepped down holding a small data crystal.

“You have crossed into restricted territory. State your purpose.”

“I have information concerning the human experiments.”

“The Maggis have no authority here.”

“And the Alizeans have no authority over the truth.”

When Thaeron arrived, his first question was why he should listen to a Maggis scientist. Neris showed him a scan of a human brain surrounded by unusual energy patterns.

“The same thing happened in our laboratory. We attempted a third-stage neural experiment. The procedure produced a surge our equipment could not contain.”

“You experimented on humans as well.”

“Yes.” She offered no qualification.

“And now you expect me to trust you?”

“No. I expect you to recognise that neither of us understands what we have created. Your people believe we are monsters. Mine believe your warriors are incapable of compassion. Yet here we stand, frightened of the same thing.”

“We are not the same.”

“Perhaps not. But our mistakes are beginning to look remarkably similar.”

She placed the crystal on the table. “Let me speak to Mr Bigg. His ability may be connected to the neurological experiments conducted by both civilisations.”

“If you are lying, you will not leave this facility.”

“If I am telling the truth, Commander, neither of our civilisations will ever be the same.”

Meet Dr Neris

Maggis neural scientist

Neris arrives with evidence from the other side of Almag’s divide. She is willing to name her own civilisation’s wrongdoing rather than hide it behind a rival’s.

For her, comparing results is a responsibility. The human beings inside those results must matter too.

Page 8: The future in his eyes

During the citadel’s rest cycle, Bigg sat alone in the recovery ward. The lights had dimmed, although the sun outside had not moved. A thought reached him from an Alizean soldier. Then another, apparently from a Maggis technician he had never met.

The room disappeared.

Almag burned. Alizean ships fell from the sky. Maggis cities crumbled. Humans with unstable abilities tore through the settlements that had once imprisoned them.

“No…”

He saw Thaeron leading an army against Lord Korvax. A weapon in Korvax’s forces sent darkness across the bright hemisphere.

Then a different vision emerged. Alizeans and Maggis worked together. Human survivors helped repair buildings. Children shared food beneath artificial lights.

It was not paradise. A soldier raised a weapon. A worker turned away from someone who needed help. An argument threatened to become a fight. The possibility trembled, fragile and unfinished.

“Wait! Show me how we get there!”

A voice entered his mind. The future is not a place you see. It is a consequence you create.

Bigg fell to his knees. “Then how do I stop the war?”

You cannot heal a wound that everyone is determined to keep open.

He found himself beside the recovery bed, trembling. The room was solid again.

“I’ve seen what happens if they continue.” He looked toward the shaded window. “And I’ve seen what might happen if they don’t.”

Page 9: The price of knowing

Varken examined Bigg’s neural activity. “You experienced a seizure?”

“I saw things.”

“Memories?”

“No. Things that haven’t happened yet.”

He described the ruined cities, the armies and the humans losing control of their abilities. He described the other possibility too—the repairs, the uneasy cooperation, the children.

Varken considered the readings. “Your brain may be combining the thoughts of people around you into possible future scenarios.”

“So they’re not guaranteed to happen?”

“I cannot say.”

“Good. Because I refuse to believe that a future full of dead people is the only one available to us.”

The doctor looked down. “There is another problem. Your neural activity is becoming increasingly unstable. Every time you try to connect with multiple minds, your body struggles to withstand the energy.”

“Meaning?”

“If you continue pushing yourself, you may permanently damage your brain.”

Bigg looked toward the rest of the ward. “And if I don’t do anything, those people might die.”

“You cannot save everyone by sacrificing yourself.”

“Maybe not.” Bigg stood. “But I can start by helping one person understand another.”

He had no proof that either vision would come true. He did have a warning about what using his ability might cost.

Page 10: What the councils fear

General Vorak confronted Thaeron before the Alizean council. “The Maggis scientist has been allowed into our territory. This is a security failure.”

“She brought evidence that our experiments may have endangered both civilisations.”

“The human must be contained. His ability could become a weapon.”

“He is a human being, not a piece of military equipment.”

The room fell silent. The words came from the same commander who had authorised people to be treated as subjects. They did not undo those decisions. They made his next decision matter.

Vorak broke the silence. “And if he exposes our secrets?”

“Then perhaps we should ask ourselves why we are so afraid of them being exposed.”

On the dark hemisphere, Lord Korvax received Neris’s report.

“You shared our research with the Alizeans?”

“I shared evidence that our actions may have consequences we cannot control.”

“You have endangered our people.”

“No. I have warned them that our people are in danger.”

Page 11: The warning

The councils issued new commands. The Alizeans accelerated preparations to return their human captives to Earth. The Maggis did the same. Each also prepared for the possibility of conflict during departure.

They had agreed on one thing: the humans must leave Almag. They had not agreed on what should happen after they left.

Bigg stood before Thaeron, Neris and Varken.

“We have made arrangements to return the surviving human subjects to Earth,” Thaeron said.

“Good. They deserve to go home.”

“Before they leave,” Neris said, “we need to understand your ability.”

“I can hear thoughts. Sometimes I see memories. Lately, I’ve been seeing things that haven’t happened.”

He reached out cautiously. The room seemed to darken. An impression opened above them, like a hologram: Alizean warships attacking Maggis settlements, Maggis weapons striking the capital, human survivors caught between them.

“This is what I see when I listen to the fear in your minds.”

“Is this a prophecy?” Thaeron asked.

“I don’t know. But I know what your fear is building.”

The image changed. Alizean engineers worked beside Maggis scientists. Human survivors received treatment. The energy systems of both hemispheres began to stabilise.

“I saw this too,” Bigg said. “It wasn’t perfect. There were arguments. There were mistakes. But people were trying.”

Page 12: What doing right requires

Within the shared vision of a possible future, Neris watched a human survivor accept help from people on both sides of the old divide.

“What made the difference?”

Bigg looked from her to Thaeron. “They stopped waiting for the other side to become good before they started doing what was right themselves.”

Thaeron studied the vision. “You ask us to trust a future that may never exist.”

“No. I’m asking you to stop creating the future you claim to fear.”

He turned toward Neris. “And that starts with what we do to the people we’ve hurt.”

The impression faded. Bigg lowered his hand. He had given them no certainty, no way to read every secret, and no guarantee that cooperation would be easy.

The figures above the table had disappeared. The people responsible for what happened next were still in the room.

Page 13: The first step home

The Alizean transports stood ready. Medics guided sealed sleeping pods up the ramps, checking the unconscious humans inside. Only Bigg was awake. The others knew nothing of what had happened since their arrival on Almag, and nothing of their departure now. Returning them did not reverse what had been done to them.

Bigg waited beside the ramp with hope and fear crowded together. For so long, home had been a direction he could not travel. Now there was a ship.

Across the planet, the Maggis prepared their own vessels. Neris watched medics load the human survivors aboard in their sleeping pods. Lord Korvax approached her.

“You believe returning them will erase what we have done?”

“No.”

“Then why do it?”

“Because the first step toward making something right is to stop making it worse.”

Korvax looked away. Behind them, the medics continued loading the sleeping pods.

Page 14: You still have to listen

Thaeron approached before Bigg boarded.

“You have shown me things I would rather not have seen.”

“Believe me, Commander. I’ve seen things I’d rather not have seen too.”

“Can your ability reveal the truth about everything?”

“No. I can hear what people think. I can feel what they carry. But a thought isn’t always the truth, and a vision isn’t always a certainty.”

Thaeron considered that. The answer offered him neither complete reassurance nor a new weapon he could command.

“If you want to understand your people,” Bigg said, “you’ll still have to listen to them.”

Then Bigg walked up the ramp alone. The other humans were already aboard in their sealed sleeping pods, under the care of the Alizean crew. Thaeron remained on the field as Bigg disappeared into the transport.

Page 15: What they have forgotten

Through the window, Bigg watched the bright hemisphere fall away. Farther around the curve, the dark hemisphere glimmered beneath the stars.

He closed his eyes to concentrate, still awake. For a moment, the minds of both civilisations seemed to reach him—their anger, their grief, their pride and their hope. He could not separate every voice or decide what each one meant.

Then another voice entered.

You have seen what they may become.

Bigg opened his eyes. “Who are you?”

Now you must discover what they have forgotten.

The connection vanished.

He looked toward the closed sleeping pods, then back at Almag. The other humans remained unaware of the world receding outside or the voice he had heard. No one answered. He was leaving with a way home and a question he could not leave behind.

Page 16: The greatest experiment

The Alizean and Maggis fleets departed from opposite sides of Almag. Each carried humans on whom its civilisation had experimented. Their ships travelled toward the same distant destination: Earth.

The survivors had not come to Almag seeking power. They had been taken by people who sought it. Now they left in sleeping pods, unaware of what had happened to them since arriving on Almag. Whatever changes they carried, they did not yet know them.

Bigg alone remained awake among the humans aboard his transport. Around him, the others slept behind glass while the Alizean crew tended their pods. The voices had offered no explanation of what waited ahead. Before their ship left Almag’s vicinity, flight control recalled it to the departure station. Earlier transports continued toward Earth. Around Bigg, the sleeping humans knew nothing of the change.

Beneath the planet’s surface, ancient machinery began to awaken.

A faint pulse travelled through the darkness.

Thumm. Thumm. Thumm.

The greatest experiment had only just begun.