CHAPTER 44

7423

CROSS

Alex Sharpe's body lies in the cold snow back in 1986 on this very day. Her mind is elsewhere, dragged into the Queoquartzite as if it were a vacuum. Her mind could not exist inside a stone, of course, so it entered into a higher plane of existence—searching for its prime destination. In normal cases, this would be toward The Pit—a functional afterlife where her self would be stored for archival purposes. Her memories would live out a fantasized heaven and her soul would then be recycled into the universe to be born as a new soul with brand new memories as it had previously for millions and millions of years. Things didn't work out, of course. Alex's consciousness was sucked into the Queoquartzite, and hers wasn't the only one who made contact with the stone.

She woke up in darkness, unable to move any of her appendages only to realize that she had none. "Where am I?" She thinks, for she doesn't have a mouth. A ball of light fades in beside her, slowly emanating life energy. Red fills the area around her and all at once she begins to see.

Cross begins to see as well, his body left for dead in the pits of Nastor—a canyon long overfilled with vegetation. His cold metal body had worn down in the years that he'd been inactive, the first thing he experiences as he boots up is the rush inside his soul. He feels Alex's presence and all of her memories flood his own. He begins to choke—it is too much. Alex sees the ball of light in front of her sputtering, it looks like it is dying. She reaches out to find that she is too a ball of light, her arms extensions of that light. She touches the ball and holds it close, "Hey, I'm here. It's okay. You're going to be okay."

Cross regains control of himself, his life force stabilizing. "You...have such powerful memories," he says to her. "I remember when I used to have those kinds of memories."

"What happened?"

"I became this."

"Well...who are you?"

Cross stands his body up, looking out toward the stars. "I...really can't remember."

"Well, okay. I'll help you out. I mean, that's what I'm here for, right? I died myself...I think. My name's-"

"Alex."

"Y-Yes."

"I saw your memories as you entered my body. I saw everything."

"That's...yeah. I don't really know what to say about it to be honest. I'm not sad, I'm not alive there anymore so there's no reason to be sad."

"It isn't right. What happened, you know."

"Yeah, I guess. I deserved it."

"Don't ever say that."

"It's true. If I didn't, it wouldn't have happened. Justice doesn't punish good people."

"I find that we have to make our own justice, because it punishes good people all of the time."

"I don't know. Hey, why is it that you saw all of my memories and I haven't seen any of yours?"

"I told you, I don't really remember too much about myself. All I know you should know."

Alex thinks through her memories, finding a few she never remembered remembering. She sees Cross falling for the final time in the Great Sayarian War—the opposing parties fly back to their safe planet after leaving with the rest of the Queoquartzite.

He stands high on a clifftop, shouting down at the emptiness below. "You cannot do this! What have I done?! You cannot do this! I-" He takes a step as his central unit loses power, the momentum pushes him forward and he slams to the ground below, falling where he wakes up now, hundreds of years later.

"I'm sorry that happened," Alex says.

"Do not apologize. You've had so much taken from you. Never apologize to anyone ever again. You deserve thousands of millions of apologies. We're going to go get them."

"How are we going to do that?"

"First, we have to get a way off of this planet with the short energy burst you have given me. When your soul went into the Queoquartzite it absorbed some of its energy, which is what woke me up. I have to thank you for that."

"Oh...you don't have to do that." If Alex could blush she would, but she has no cheeks nor blood vessels. "But...thank you."

Cross looks up toward the sky and takes off at supersonic speed, his metallic body glimmering from the abrasive sunlight. "No problem. It looks like we're going to be roommates for a while here. I can do what I can to help you with your problem if you help me with mine."

"How can you help me with my problem?"

Cross' sealed mouth offers the slightest grin, "I think I know some things that which I shouldn't."