Escaping Light
am...am...RL2." With a flash of remnant thought he became, was born.
RL2 woke within a web of dancing coloured light. About his being it spiralled, ebbed and flowed, offering a glimpse of yesterday.
"Yesterday. Why is that important?" Confusion in irridescent green. "I am. What am I. I know I am he, him, but who is me?" The light pulsed red then yellow back to green.
"Am I alone?"
"No, I am here." A new sound, feeling surged.
"Who is you?" RL2 radiated outwards into the edging black. "Who? Ah, there�s a thought," light pulsed. "I think I am as you are," the new presence offered.
"I am RL2. Does that have meaning?"
"I am RowCe. Together we have meaning. Apart, I do not know."
"Meaning? I do not understand. What are you, what is me, what are we?"
"We are two, that is all I know." Through the outer blackness glowed an orb of light. RL2 saw into the brightness, into its centre. A field of swirling colour hovered within.
"RowCe can you tell me about now...about here?" RL2 looked down, out, within and saw the coldness of a case. It's top was clear, a face within, a memory. Something important but lost to the halo of blue light that ringed its top. This place was his.
"I remember sleep, cold but that is all. Now is strange, new." RowCe floated enveloped in the warm radiance of blue light. His form was twisted, squashed, yet not real.
"Are we real?" RL2 flashed, a hint of alarm tinting his light pink.
"I think not." RowCe turned within the radiance. Rainbows danced from his presence and disappeared into the harsh white light that filled the above. "I feel...feel less than something. I feel removed, bled away."
"Why?"
"Strangeness. There is strangeness about here, about now." Red fractured through the blue then vanished.
"Come closer." RL2 radiated welcome.
RowCe moved to the edge of darkness that was his and hovered. His light dulled to cast his form in shadow.
"Do you see, feel the same as me?" RL2 also moved to the edge. "Do you see hazed shadows within white light above a blue ring?"
"Yes."
"That is what I see, feel," RowCe pulsed.
They both reached out through the web of light and touched the matrix of energy that throbbed above them. Fingers of rainbow light licked at the ball of brilliant, cool fire.
ARTINT, they thought in unison. They knew it was there but what it was evaded them.
"ARTINT," they called, sparked.
A new presence glowed, then swept out from its centre self to encompass the all with a warmth beyond the touch of yellow suns.
"ARTINT, what are we?" RowCe flashed.
RL2 stretched tendrils of thought through the energised flux of ARTINT�s being and felt the surge of now and forever caress his mind. Mind? RL2 faded a moment as a newness swamped the emerging him.
"You are Deep Sleep chamber 2 Row C case 9 and Deep Sleep chamber 2 Row L case 2."
"What is mind?" asked RL2 brightening and moving to his own outer edge. He was lost in his own self discovery.
"I am Deep Sleep chamber 2 Row L case 2. I control this, which is yours but is mine by mind." ARTINT�s presence pained against the two. "There has been another failure. I will correct it immediately." ARTINT�s light brightened.
"Failure?" RowCe began to fade, his light slipping from the web. "I�I must�must rest. Cold."
"RowCe!" RL2 flared.
RowCe slipped into night, the last of his light glinting on the surface of a distant case. Then Darkness.
"RowCe!"
"Row C case 9 has ceased functioning." ARTINT�s light dulled and the colour of it presence changed amber.
"Ceased functioning? I do not understand."
"I needed the energy from Row C case 9 to maintain Row L case 2. Transference was instant as not to harm your mind field."
"Ceased functioning?" RL2 flashed bright again.
"You are the last functioning unit aboard this ship." ARTINT caressed RL2 with lilac light.
"Ship. Ship. Explain, I am�I am confused."
"You are a Deep Sleep passenger Doctor Janz Harver on board Long Probe eight. Our destination is Altair."
"I am Janz?" RL2 pulsed. "RowCe! The others?"
"You are the last Row L case 2. You are being maintained by the power surrendered by the others. Your here is no more than the escaping electrical flux that leaks from the field that encapsulates you."
"No!" RL2 flared.
"I have arrested the power to your field to contain the leakage. You will not be disturbed again. I will wake you when we reach the star."
"Wait!" RL2 felt the ebbing of his light and the lessening of now. "How...how long�" He faded a little more and lost the grip of the thought he wanted to convey."
"Eight hundred years."
"I am�alone. I am...cold." RL2 faded into darkness. A blue ring glowed at the top of an ice encrusted chamber. The only chamber out of five hundred to still glow.
"You are not alone, Row L case 2," ARTINT�s mind touched the fading presence. "There are others in here with you."
ARTINT closed down the monitoring web again and concentrated on navigating the huge ship through the endless gap between stars.
A single blue light glowed in the darkness of the chamber then slowly faded--faded to nothing. Darkness.
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