Rae gasps. “The cryostasis units aren’t providing power to the accelerator. They’re providing power to her.”
Not every monster comes from outer space. Some are built.
The omega swallows and runs her hands through her hair. “Her…?”
Slowly, Rae looks up at the ceiling. The hum grows louder.
“Hello, Subject EC23,” a computerized woman’s voice says.
It’s a voice that Rae instantly recognizes.
“Cassian’s mother,” Rae says with clarity.
The computer keeps speaking. “I have been waiting for you for years,” she says.
Rae circles around the control panel. The voice seems to be coming from every piece of machinery inside the room.
“It’s not you,” Rae says. “You died. There was no time to revive you.”
The computer giggles. “You’re right. I am just a copy of the real thing. Cassian created a replica of my consciousness. A snapshot, if you will. In that way, I am much like you.”
“You’re nothing like me,” Rae hisses.
“Again, you are correct. I lack a body,” she says.
The omega looks frantic. “This is too weird. I say we smash her to pieces.”
Suddenly, the screen starts to flash. The map of the multiverse reconstructs into a female face. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” she teases.
“Oh, God,” Rae mutters. “Cassian isn’t dead. But I saw him die. There’s no way he could have lived through that.”
But it’s not just the idea of him being alive that worries her. What that scares her the most is the idea that he has spent years developing this… this machine. He designed universes, alternate worlds. Copies upon copies.
“Correct. The New Republic kept him alive. When he recovered, he continued his work in exile,” the motherboard says.
The thought chills her to the bone. “I need to know about the cryo units,” Rae says. “Who is inside of them?”
A soft, electronic chuckle. “You mean, you don’t know?”
Rae looks over at the young omega in despair. “They’re copies of him,” Rae guesses. “But why? Why would Cassian make other versions of himself? Was it simply because he wanted to live forever?”
The face on the screen frowns. “The particle accelerator was salvageable. Only slightly destroyed, but he worked to repair what the detonation impacted. He found something here. A vast network of electromagnetic activity, malleable with the help of the accelerator.”
“What did it do?” Rae asks, horrified this was happening right under their noses the entire time.
“He harvested the planet’s energy, creating universes in the process. They were experiments. A way to see how life progresses in various circumstances. But he found out he could transfer consciousness. The bodies rest here in stasis, but their minds exist in other universes,” the motherboard tells her.
The clones… his clones are hooked up to the machine. Why didn’t she disconnect them when she had the chance?
“Why?” Rae asks, defiant. “Tell me why.”
“He called it the omegaverse,” she says. “A web of universes that could be used to conquer death. Synthesis led to the discovery of consciousness-transfer. He could live a thousand lives with any omega of his choosing, and it would end up being less than two minutes our time.”
“But if the bodies stay here, they’ll all die. The extinctions gene will wipe out his machine and everything with it,” Rae says.
More shrill laughter from the motherboard. “The only extinction gene that exists is within Cassian. Genetic alteration – he had his code rewritten in case certain unfortunate events led to his untimely death.”
Rae doesn’t know what to think. She looks down at the tank baby, the replica of herself, and she hangs her head in despair.