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!

insignificant in the face of such an event. Mankind was only one intelligent species across the stars, and internal divisions no longer mattered. If the aliens willingly shared

that wouldn’t need biological weapons? For a moment, Eva found herself dreaming of a world that wouldn’t need her

then, she remembered

true, but it was at war. The scientist had

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

one direction,

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

truth. Somehow space had folded on itself, creating an endless loop. Either the outside 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

one place to

the crack. When the scientist pointed her light through the rift, she couldn’t see much. But there

there someone there?” Eva called

she heard before the crash

put her hands into

to slip to 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. The flashlight revealed strange stains of green slime on the walls, which Eva was careful not to touch. Maybe it was a biological weapon

atmosphere had slipped inside the vessel. The inside of the ship was cold, but nowhere near so

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

black metal as the rest of the ship, so sleek that Eva couldn’t find any trace of welding.

had been designed to house creatures of various sizes. But

Eva’s voice resonated in the empty vessel,

happened in this place? She didn’t have to wait for long to find out. After a long, solitary walk, Eva finally

Or rather, blasted open.

Eva assumed. The hangar was as vast as an airport, and housed a dozen vehicles as big as commercial airliners. The devices reminded Eva of stealth bombers and flying wings, flat

foul stench filled the

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

cast light on

flashlight wavered, revealing another, gargantuan shape in the darkness. Entrails and weird organs had spilled out of its gut. Her breathing shortening, the frightened Eva waved her flashlight at the ground to get

Corpses.

Corpses everywhere.

her horror, Eva had

the dozens, 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

broken robots. The machines had legs and arms like humanoids, but sharp claws, cannons on the chest, and a single

had the ‘M’-like symbol engraved on their armor. She found the same mark on some of the robots, but crossed out or savaged.

through them. Their tips had opened to reveal hatches full of robots, most of them blown to

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

flag as their enemies, but crossed…

of nightmare

corpse, in case one of them was… she didn’t know herself. Faking the dead? Only wounded? Her hopes were quickly

It wore futuristic, orange armor like some of the others, but the body shape... two legs, two arms,

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

went

It…

was a human’s

replaced with cybernetics, but the eyes and

the ship’s bowels, walking among the dead. By the time she exited the hangar for the rooms beyond, she could hardly take a step without

was the least disturbing

walked into some kind of lab, where countless specimens floated inside heart-shaped, techno-organic machinery. Cable-veins pumped the containers with green liquid, while maintaining the inhabitants in stasis. Transparent scales

scaled creatures of various sizes. One was an embryo the size of a dog, 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

exception stuck out from the

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

echoed to

on herself, pointing her flashlight in a dark

little taller than she was crawled in the 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.

you’re alive?” Eva you idiot, of course it

with a sad sound. It

Eva, but it was intelligent enough to establish communication. And it didn’t seem

a compassionate woman by nature, she couldn’t ignore an

the creature, to better examine the wounds. “I… I have bandages in my car, but I will need

noticed a change in its eyes. Something cold, and cruel. A glint that instantly

reflexes saved her 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

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

No more ammo.

her. The scientist quickly rose back to her feet and stepped back, horrified. The creature might suffer from terrible

in its wound. Unable to support its weight on the stump, the monster collapsed visor first, letting

lower my guard and kill me. It was dying, and it still tried

her core. She had always thought alien civilizations advanced enough for

She had been wrong.

and she had

remember that the alien had

over her shoulder, only to watch a tide of blue slime fall on

her whole, head first, filling her ears, fusing with her skin, entering her bloodstream. It filled her cells and her marrow, overloaded her nerves with blue light, and stuffed her brain with knowledge. She tried to claw her eyes out as she felt it move behind them,

existence, 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

fusion between two entities making a whole greater than the sum of its parts,

had finally vanished and Eva could see again, she

Ten other Eva Fabre looked back at the original. Some carried a flashlight, others guns.

of emotion surprised her. By this

a double said. “Another

all are,”

frowned, skeptical. “Who won the last presidential

the doubles said, at the same time others answered with “Raymond

edge. “François Mitterrand won

doubles all grinned, before saying at the same time,

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

they explored another corridor with the armed

flashlight. They had grown more numerous the farther the

listened attentively. “We aren’t truly alternate versions of each other, but possibilities

“We can create

none of us

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

touched the ship’s blue doors, causing them to open. “The aliens probably use

grimly, hands on her gun. “Somehow, I don’t think bullets will

in stasis had survived the purge, and they hadn’t crossed paths with a robot still active. “It seems

Racial genocide?” Eva-4 asked.

they can,” Eva-6 pointed out. “This slaughter was clearly a war of mutual

broken remains of a large gate. “But I want

“We will,” Eva-3 agreed.

strangest. The dome had circuits pulsating with blue energy straining the walls, all joining at a colossal glass tank full of colored liquid in the center. The structure was

robotic invaders getting anywhere near the brain. The giant destroyed so many of them that the Evas had to climb over a hill of ashes and broken parts

strangely, a severed organic tentacle once linked the monster’s head to the brain, with a dozen others waiting inside liquid pods. Some were thick enough for

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

checking up on the dead alien. “Perhaps the ship crashed when

the spatial jump was

one way to find out,” Eva-One replied, as she grabbed a tentacle fit for her

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

can’t find a way out,” Eva-One replied. “Eating alien flesh might prove toxic, and nobody will

want to learn the truth,” Eva-4 said. “And you’re not even sure