Chapter 1: The Legacy And Its Caretaker
Chapter One: The Legacy And Its Caretaker
The Vessel bobbed up and down gently as I clung to the rudder with a death grip. Quite literally, as the Time Stream was currently sucking the life out of me. I used what strength that was left in my young and slightly less feeble upper body to haul my old and extremely feeble lower body into the Vessel. As I lay prostrate in the vessel, heaving for air, I think back to what had transpired. Or what was transpiring. Not sure which is more accurate. I'm not a quantum physicist. Earth, when I last saw it, was on the verge of total annihilation. The Sun was about to go supernova. In all honesty, we should have died off a long, long time ago. But no, humanity is tenacious. As proved by myself bobbing in this tub in the literal middle of nowhere. What was Mackenzie thinking when he shoved me into the Vessel?
His last words to me were, "Take care of us, Caretaker." What in the hell is that supposed to mean? My legs twitched, indicating that they had been restored. Well, that's one perk of being in chronological purgatory, I suppose. For the time being, at least. Immortality doesn't really sound too good a deal to me right now. I'd rather have died with all my friends then be alive without them. But Mackenzie had shoved a last minute job upon me without a lick of explanation, as always. God damn that man. He knows how I work, inside and out. I wish they gave me another overseer when I was in incubation.
Huh, I could probably turn this tub around and make sure I have another, more rational overseer so I won't have to be the on to deal with this mess. I halted and my hand went smoothly from the tiller to my face. Mackenzie... He wants me to go forward in time and make sure the Gene Eggs we sent to a distant, habitable planet would survive. I popped my head over the railing. I saw nothing but featureless glassy-green "water". No way to tell if I was going forward or not. I looked at the wake trail the Vessel was leaving. The waters were extremely smooth, almost like an actual pane of glass. I stared deeper into this portal and saw a blue-green planet being swallowed by a wall of light.
I flopped back into the boat. Well, there it is. I am now the only human left in existence. I looked towards the prow of the boat. Something tells me I'm gonna get tired of the phrase "For the time being" real quick. The waters in front of the boat were rippling at a regular rate. They seem to calm when you agitate them, instead of just swirling faster. But I can't just stick my hand in there and stir it around, as me falling off the Vessel has proven. There should be a tool of some sort on this thing... Oh, that looks like a toolbox.
"... A stick?" I had just drawn a long, thin object from the box. It was jet-black and impossibly smooth. Other than that... Well, I had a shiny new science stick. At least it'll save my hand from crumbling to dust. I stuck it in the water and stirred it around. It became smooth again, and through it I saw... "The Legacy. They launched it." The Legacy was exactly that, the last legacy of humanity as we knew it. It contained all the most prime Gene Eggs, the most likely to survive on that distant planet. I should know, since I manufactured most of them myself. I wonder if She's still kicking. It was inevitable that some of the Eggs would die off early due to conflicting gene combinations, and more would die once they reached the planet and were unsuited to the environment. But my egg, the one that had my genes, particularly the Immortality Genome, was the fall cushion.
I guess I should explain the whole immortality business. I am the first and last Immortal human. Sure, when I was conceived, there was a whole ruckus about "playing God' and whatnot, but I'm the furthest thing from God. While I was in incubation they nicknamed me "Caretaker", because that's what I would do. Originally, I was supposed to go with the Eggs on the Legacy and take care of them. But our temperamental Sun decided to go kerplooey just before everything was ready, eliciting Mackenzie to shove me in the Time Vessel so I could still do my job. ... I guess all this doesn't support how I said I'm not a God, what with being immortal and taking care of the last hope of the human race and whatnot, but that's all I can do. Take care of things. Nothing more, nothing less.
I prodded the viewing portal with the science stick and it zoomed into the ship. Now I could see all the Eggs. What I saw was horrifying. Almost all the Eggs were already dead, save for mine and a few others . Great. Just friggin' great. I looked for my egg. There it is. Thank God you haven't died yet. At least there's one thing I can still hope for. I zoomed in further, to see the gene combo label on my egg. My genes, human, and the genes of a particularly fine mare. Hey... What's that weird goop on you? Nevermind, I'm sure it's nothing.
To further ensure the survival of humanity in any way possible, most of the eggs had been spliced with genes from various animals. There were a few purebred Homo Sapiens eggs, but those had all died already. I was surprised to see how most of the eggs that survived were splicings of humans and equines. Well, horses were hardy creatures, without a doubt, but I didn't think that their hardiness would extend this far. Oh, look, here's Anton's egg! He was spliced with a zebra. And here Andrea's! Hers was an odd one, spliced with both eagle and lion. And there's David's! Another mix, this time with horse and falcon. It feels like all my friends are just sitting right there, just waiting to see me again. Well, just you wait. I'll see you soon enough. Just give me a little time...