nineteen
The entity did not feel fear. It had a rude intelligence; it understood something tried to contain it, but not why. There was no backward movement or retaliation, only methodical probing of the periphery, scout tendrils of black matter sliding and tapping at the edges of the field. Still, it understood enough about its existence to struggle, to demonstrate the fact it did not want to be contained. The substance of it swelled, waves of swirling, writhing black, until the field bulged…and expanded.
"So, let's get this straight. We've wrapped the Octopus of Doom in a cosmic bubble and now we're going to feed it and watch it grow."
Shepard felt a sigh roll through his consciousness. Was it him, or the kernel? "You're back," he said.
"Never left. Miss me?"
"How can I miss myself?"
"Missed a good portion of us for over two hundred years. Quite the revelation, there, John Shepard. Hero, traitor, N7 designated Alliance Marine, Cerberus operative—"
"Don't need the resume. I remember."
The kernel snorted, the sound a disturbed structure of consciousness that poked through the confusion regarding every aspect of his existence. He hadn't changed. His mission parameters had not changed. But they never had, had they? He'd been the one to force change, to step outside guidelines and draft new method.
The skin of the containment field continued to stretch. Shepard began the journey toward Herschel. By himself, he could move instantly from point to point, imagine being there and arrive. With cargo, he was somewhat restricted by the laws of physics. He did not understand why that should be; the containment field had no propulsion, no atmosphere. The substance within might as well be weightless, though it had a definite mass. It had a size—ever increasing. It was.
"We weren't an astrophysicist."
"Probably just as well."
Half the stunts he'd performed had been in defiance of any known laws.
"What are we going to do if it eats the sun?"
What a question.
"Maintain containment and carry it to dark space."
"Long trip."
"But probably necessary."
The entity might not consciously mean harm, but it did not distinguish between matter. It 'ate' everything it encountered and grew accordingly.
"It hasn't eaten us."
No, it had not. In fact, having consumed every speck of dust inside the containment field, it had stopped growing. Shepard checked in on the thumb sized portion he'd cut off earlier and discovered it had also been rendered inert.
He faced another choice. Keep a sample for study, or destroy all of it.
"Will we name it Black Beauty?"
"Shut up."
He knew himself too well.
The first gusts of solar wind breezed through his existence. The creature inside him reared back, a wave of blackness rolling toward the rear end of the containment field. Stiffened tentacles of dark coloured matter—not dark matter, thank all the stars—poked at him again, stretching portions of his skin to outrageous lengths. Shepard stiffened the substance of his self, pushing the creature back into the centre of the field.
He did not ride the solar waves; he did not surf through the flares and lashing whips of nuclear fire. He barreled toward the middle of the star, encouraged by the restrained panic of the entity.
The ensuing struggle looked like cellular warfare on a grand scale. Two entities, one so light as to be invisible, the other as dark as the space between galaxies, writhed and tangled. The dark creature punched out in a thousand directions at once, desperate to escape the energy of the sun. Shepard blocked every strike, adapted to the strain and continued into the centre of the blue star.
"Ready?"
It might have been the first time he addressed himself directly, which marked a turning point, he supposed—in the small corner of self that debated such matters, who was now aware of his existence, properly.
"Let's do it," he answered himself.
The bubble evaporated, exposing the black creature to the sun.