The Perfect Run

• December 12th, 1992, Antarctica.

Eva Fabre loved watching the night sky.

She couldn’t see the stars in Paris, but Antarctica had no light pollution to hide them. Auroras danced in the heavens, while the Milky Way shone brightly above her head. The night seemed alive and full of wonders, the darkness of space overwhelmed by islands of light.

Was there ever a more beautiful sight?

Eva had wanted to become an astronaut when she was a child. But being born in the wrong place at the wrong time, her chances had been dim from the start. Instead, she became a geneticist, and eventually rose through the ranks to become the head scientist of Station Orpheon. Instead of landing on the moon, she led a large team in studying dangerous plagues.

The French government had chosen Antarctica as the site’s location for a few reasons. Mostly, it was meant to avoid dangerous containment breaches, but also to study ancient viruses frozen beneath the ice. Some of them could devastate the Earth if unleashed, and Eva’s superior wanted to keep an edge in the field of bioweapons. The USSR’s collapse left the future uncertain.

Some would have resented working on weapons of mass destruction, but Eva slept soundly at night. International relationships were based on force, and strength derived from technological superiority. For her country to survive, it needed to stay ahead of the competition by any means necessary. Maybe her work would kill millions one day, maybe not. Though she would rather see nukes stay in their silos, they would come in handy if doomsday ever came.

Eva was paid to do a dirty job, but it was a necessary one.

Standing near her special 4x4, Eva sensed the cold creeping into her suit. Though she wore heavy clothing, including a parka, goggles, mittens, and a balaclava, Antarctica was Earth’s harshest environment. No one was truly safe from it, and she was kilometers away from the station, surrounded only by ice.

But Eva didn’t care. The night sky’s sight warmed her already.

She knew aliens existed above. The samples she found in Antarctica had all but convinced her that life came from space, in the form of primordial viruses and bacteria. What kind of strange and wonderful creature inhabited the stars above her head?

She hoped to live long enough to find out.

“Pierre to Eva?” Her assistant called her through the intercom. “Pierre to Eva?”

“I’m here,” she replied. “Just stargazing.”

“Oh, good, I was getting worried.”

Of course he was. Pierre was anxious by nature, and he always advised Eva not to go out alone. Truth be told, the scientist enjoyed these quiet moments of solitude she couldn’t find in the communal station. Eva didn’t particularly feel close to anyone, and didn’t want to. Her work was her life.

“You should go back though,” Pierre said. “We’re picking up abnormal electromagnetic activity in your area.”

“Probably the auroras,” Eva replied absentmindedly. Now that she said that, their colors seemed to change from green to a light shade of violet. “I’ll be back soon.”

“Sorry I did…” Pierre’s voice turned into a radio static. “Eva…”

“Pierre?” Eva called out, her communicator starting to bug out. “Pierre, can you hear me?”

No answer but a static.

“Pierre?” Eva asked again, only to squint through her goggles. The auroras above her head had grown brighter, streaks of purple light illuminating the frozen wasteland. The static turned into a droning sound, almost ear-piercing. “Pierre?”

Another voice answered, but with a bestial roar rather than a word.

The ground shook beneath Eva’s feet, small rifts and cracks forming into the ice. The heavens brightened further, until the night turned into a purple day.

Realizing something was wrong, Eva immediately jumped back inside her vehicle and smashed the accelerator. The strong, reinforced wheels dashed on the snow, while the scientist immediately drove back towards Station Orpheon.

“Pierre? Pierre?” Eva kept calling through the intercom, but all she heard were strange, incomprehensible sounds. “Pierre, are you seeing this?”

Two violet auroras had split the skies in half. Space itself was being ripped apart, like the lids of a giant eye opening. A black spot widening in a sea of purple light, a black hole growing from the heart of a phantom star.

Though a part of her was desperate to get away, Eva ended up peeking through her window to get a better look. Her curiosity overwhelmed her survival instinct.

The black spot had grown to gigantic size, giving the scientist a direct window to look through. Only then did she realize that she was looking at a gate into the very fabric of space-time.

A colossal, black structure with metal wings crossed the void of space, carried by reactors leaving a crimson streak of light in their wake. The immense machine was as large as a human city, smashing through asteroids like a tank through pebbles.

A swarm of small red, spearlike machines harassed the giant vessel, violently ramming into its hull like daggers. The giant black machine retaliated with confusing flashes of blue light and red lasers. Orange energy coated the hull at some points, the red vessels shattered when they tried to pierce these areas.

Starships. These were starships.

A battle, Eva thought, both awed and horrified by the sight. They’re fighting.

Aliens existed, and they were at war.

The giant ship’s hull faced down, towards Eva and Antarctica. By now, most of the red swarm had either been destroyed, or successfully pierced the hull. The rest backed away, as the black starship started crossing the portal and moved ever closer to Eva.

It was about to crash.

“No, no, no!” Eva drove faster than ever before, the car’s engine steaming. Yet though the starship’s fall was slow, it was inevitable. The ground shook beneath her wheels as the kilometer-long cruiser’s bow impacted Antarctica not so far from her location. The earthquake caused her car’s alarm to blare like a dying screech of agony.

“Holy—”

Eva never finished her sentence, as a bright purple flash swallowed her whole, followed by a tide of snow. Ice shards were blown in all directions, cracking her reinforced windshield and tussling the vehicle to the side. Her head smashed against the airbag as her car rolled a dozen times, and the darkness swallowed her.

When Eva regained consciousness, her car had been turned upside down, the roof on the snow, the wheels pointing up. The scientist’s vision blurred as her hand reached for the door, and it took her a few minutes to crawl out of her vehicle’s husk. Snow had piled up around it, forcing Eva to dig her way out with her bare mittens. A few drops of frozen water slipped inside her suit, making her wince.

When the scientist managed to stand up outside her vehicle, she wondered if the stars had vanished in the skies. It took her a moment to understand the truth.

An enormous dome overshadowed her.

The starship had crashed into Antarctica’s surface, most of it now buried beneath the snow tide raised by the impact. Its sleek metal surface was as black as a starless night, and eye-like windows seemed to observe her.

Eva gathered her breath. Though she didn’t believe in any God, she had to admit her survival was nothing short of miraculous. If she had chosen another spot to stargaze, the ship would have crushed her 4x4.

After quickly checking if she had any wounds, Eva immediately attempted to contact her base. “Pierre? Pierre, can you hear me?”

No reception. Eva carefully stepped out of the ship’s shadow to look at the skies, and to her shock, the stars were gone. Darkness ruled absolute, besides a few violet lightning bolts. The strange meteorological phenomenon probably interfered with communications.

Eva tried to dig up her car, but quickly realized it was hopeless. The successive shocks had ruined the engine, and she had no idea how to repair it. The emergency radio didn’t work either, so there was no way to contact her base.

She had emergency rations left in the trunk though, alongside the flashlight, a portable heater, shovels, and other basic tools. She could hold out a few days in the hope of being rescued. There was no way her fellow scientists would miss the crash.

Still, doubt gnawed at her each time she looked up. Eva took the flashlight, checked the battery, and toured the crash site.

It took her hours.

The ship’s size defied comprehension, and more than half of it was now buried under tons of ice. She remembered seeing wings and reactors during its fall, but only the dome and upper decks remained above ground. Nobody came out to intercept her either.

The scientist eventually found an entrance of some sort, namely advanced blast doors on the alien ship’s right side. A cursory analysis informed her that they were made of strange, orange metals she couldn’t recognize. The crash had breached the gates, leaving a crack large enough for Eva to slip in with some effort.

She almost tried her luck, before deciding it was too dangerous to go alone. She needed to call Station Orpheon, her team, the military. They had to know. Everybody had to know.

Aliens existed.

This… this changed everything.

This was the greatest event in mankind’s history since the discovery of fire! This would… this would alter the fate of the world forever! Eva would live long enough to see mankind make first contact with a highly advanced civilization, one clearly capable of interstellar travel!

of such an event. Mankind was only one intelligent species across the stars, and internal divisions no longer mattered. If the aliens willingly shared their technology, then nobody would

maybe this discovery would foster universal peace? The creation of a unified human government that wouldn’t need biological weapons? For a moment, Eva found herself

she remembered the

scientist had no idea how the extraterrestrial survivors, if any, would react

Station Orpheon, or at least find a place with better communication. Once she left the strange meteorological phenomenon’s range, she could reorient herself with the stars. Her flashlight was adapted to Antarctica’s frost, but she didn’t have limitless

traveled two hours in one direction, only

left and right, north and south. Each time she returned to her starting point. She

world had been closed to her, perhaps as a defensive measure by the ship… or Earth stopped existing outright. No wonder she couldn’t get a good reception. Unfortunately, this completely dashed her hopes of a quick

only one

her breath, Eva approached the blast doors and examined the crack. When the scientist pointed her light through the rift, she couldn’t see much. But there was enough space

called out through the

answer. Even the strange gnarls that she heard before the

mustered her courage, put her hands into the crack, and

the other side, Eva found herself in what must have been the ship’s airlock. The next set of doors had been ominously torn apart, while icy dust floated in the room.

Either the aliens needed oxygen to live, or the outside atmosphere had slipped inside the vessel. The inside of the ship was cold, but nowhere near so as the Antarctic

walked through the next row of doors, and entered a network of enormous metal corridors. Red crystals embedded in the ceiling provided light, but half of them had shattered. Sometimes, Eva walked more than twenty minutes in one direction with only her flashlight for comfort. Her steps echoed in the cavernous structure,

same black metal as the rest of the ship, so sleek that Eva couldn’t find

came into pairs, with a colossal door surrounded by two smaller, human-sized ones. Clearly, the ship had been designed to house creatures of various sizes. But Eva didn’t find any

in the empty vessel, but

for long to find out. After

Or rather, blasted open.

bombers and flying wings, flat triangles with advanced reactors to carry them. All of them showed signs of damage, and carried

foul stench filled the

using her flashlight to search her surroundings. Very few of the red crystals remained active,

cast light on an animal’s

to suppress a scream. Her flashlight wavered, revealing another, gargantuan shape in the darkness. Entrails and weird

Corpses.

Corpses everywhere.

Eva had

maybe by the hundreds. All of them wore a strange kind of futuristic armor, combining orange metal plates with circuits of various colors, a visored helmet, and various organic weapons embedded in the arms. But they all came in different sizes and shapes. Some were reptilian humanoids

red metal and broken robots. The machines had legs and arms like humanoids, but sharp

Eva panted as she examined the corpses. The aliens all had the ‘M’-like symbol engraved on their armor. She found the same mark on some of the robots, but crossed out or savaged. From the way they were

ramming ships piercing through them. Their tips had opened

figure out what happened. The robots had boarded the larger ship by ramming their smaller vessels into its outer shielding. The inhabitants had put up a fierce resistance, but were overwhelmed through

since the robots wore the same flag as their enemies,

gathered her breath, trying to calm down. What kind of

of them was… she didn’t know herself. Faking the dead? Only wounded? Her hopes were quickly dashed. The

futuristic, orange armor like some of the others, but the body shape...

could see hints of a dead heart with wires for arteries, and lungs of metal. The armor had been surgically grafted

shiver went down

It…

was a

replaced with cybernetics, but the eyes and the nose… there

the dead. By the time she exited the hangar for the rooms

the

techno-organic machinery. Cable-veins pumped the containers with green liquid, while maintaining the

another a reptilian humanoid with two eyes. The next container held a larger, leaner variant with four eyes and elongated arms, and the one afterward a spiked, armored monster with five ocular organs. The more eyes the

stuck out from the lot,

a hand on the alien glass separating them, the slime manifested tentacles and bumped at its

noise echoed

her flashlight in a dark corner

darkness, its orange armor drenched in green blood. Its left arm was a cannon, the right a bloody, broken stump. An armored lizard tail wavered behind him, while three eyes pleaded at Eva through a cracked visor. The alien let out a

alive?” Eva you idiot, of course it was alive! “Can you

answering with a sad sound. It then glanced

but it was intelligent enough to establish communication. And it

couldn’t ignore

sure I can help.” Eva carefully approached the creature, to better examine the wounds. “I… I have bandages in my car,

human, Eva noticed a change in its eyes. Something cold, and

life, as she dived to her right. The monster raised its cannon as fast as a gunslinger and opened fire, a crimson laser barely missing the scientist. The blast vaporized some of her parka’s hair, and shattered

cannon at her head again. Instead of unleashing a laser, the weapon let out

No more ammo.

her. The scientist quickly rose back to her feet and stepped back, horrified. The creature might suffer from terrible wounds, its three eyes glared at the

support its weight on the stump, the monster collapsed visor first, letting out a hiss of pain. More blood flowed out

my guard and kill me. It was dying, and

Eva to her core. She had always thought alien civilizations advanced enough for interstellar travel would have moved beyond

She had been wrong.

and she

she remember that the alien had

shoulder, only to watch a

her bloodstream. It filled her cells and her marrow, overloaded her nerves with blue light, and stuffed her brain

divided like a cell. She remembered kissing an old boyfriend and a girl she had never met, filling out a doctorate in genetics and another in quantum physics, watching night and sky. She was Eva Fabre, and she was someone else. She split again, and again, one woman becoming two then four then more. Her mind splintered as

two entities making a whole greater than the sum of its parts, only for it

and Eva could see again, she

original. Some carried a flashlight, others guns. A few had dyed hair,

surprised her. By this point, facing copies of herself

think I’m you,” a

are,” added

won the last presidential

at the same time others answered with

instantly put Eva on edge. “François Mitterrand won the 1988 presidential

grinned, before saying at the same

clones of herself left a strange feeling in Eva-One at first, but she quickly got used to it. Humans felt safer with

asked, as they explored another corridor with the armed copies first. “Clones?

grown more numerous the farther the group advanced, probably because the defenders

would say quantum echoes,” Eva-3 theorized. This one had a doctorate in physics, so the others listened attentively. “We aren’t truly alternate versions of each other, but possibilities made physical. Living

Eva-6 said while looking at Eva-One. “We can create more of each other, but if you die we

us is

Eva-8 had perished when she accidentally triggered an alien corpse’s weapon. Her body had collapsed into

the ship’s blue doors, causing them to open. “The aliens probably use this energy as a biometric signature,” Eva-3 said. “That should give us partial access to

nobody shoots us,” Eva-4 said grimly, hands on her gun.

and they hadn’t crossed paths with a robot still active. “It seems they massacred each other to

asked.

conflict if they can,” Eva-6 pointed out. “This slaughter

they reached the broken remains of a large gate. “But

“We will,” Eva-3 agreed.

visited yet, and the strangest. The dome had circuits pulsating with blue energy straining the walls, all joining at a colossal glass

with none of the robotic invaders getting anywhere near the brain. The giant destroyed so many of them that

cheese, and lost all its blood. Most strangely, a severed organic tentacle once linked the monster’s head to the brain, with a dozen

examined a tentacle. The organic device’s end opened to

must be neural interfaces,” Eva-2 guessed while checking up on the dead alien. “Perhaps the ship crashed when the attackers managed to slay the

jump was

to find out,” Eva-One replied, as she grabbed a tentacle fit

removed the clothes and goggles protecting her face. “You’re sure?” Eva-3 asked. “If it

out,” Eva-One replied. “Eating alien flesh might prove toxic, and nobody will

truth,” Eva-4 said. “And you’re not even sure you’re ready