The God Complex: The Book Of Alan, Destroyer Of Worlds

Chapter Thirty-Three

Susan slammed the light plastic door of her allocated quarters, aboard the Civilian shuttle assigned to her on evacuation - it made a deeply unsatisfying click.

'I don't wish to speak out of turn, but there are a lot of people aboard this shuttle that don't bloody well deserve to be saved.'

She plopped onto her bunk and fumed.

'What happened this time?' Sighed Alan fluttering gracefully towards her.

'Someone threw a tomato at me! A whole tomato,' she picked at the remaining pulp from her cardigan.

'Did you teach them the lesson of the two Politicians, as I asked? Where one gives his creator the credit it deserves and the other...'

'Dies painfully of syphilis, of course I did, but they do not listen! They are beyond help.'

'Then it is time, O' Susan the Unworthy, to put my plan into action, for as a great man once said: I have spent too long pleading to their better nature, trying to win their respect when they should have been earning it; falling over themselves, competing to win it back - and fall they shall.'

'Right, well actually that was me,' declared Susan, 'but regardless, you're not going to do anything rash, are you? It's just that you made that last bit sound rather sinister.'

'Gird your loins for the long journey ahead, Susan the Unworthy, for the hour of reckoning is at hand.'

'Loins, yes, of course, but you will promise not to get too carried away?'

'SQUAWK!' Squawked Darwin as he flapped his wings with, what had now become an almost perpetual look of, utter confusion.

'Oh my,' said Susan quietly.

***

'You better wake up Gabe, you need to see this.'

Gabe slowly opened his eyes and peeled his head off the control panel to see Jaibles standing over him.

'Urgh, what happened?' He said trying to rub away the fogginess from his brain.

'Your guess is as good as mine, Geezer,' said Monkey absently. He was standing in the far corner of the control room, away from the others, staring intently out the window as his breath fogged the glass. 'You're going to want to see this.'

'Wait!' Said Gabe, his head beginning to clear, 'The military tanks, Stone, where are they?' He stood up, panicked and dizzy.

'Not sure,' replied Jaibles quietly, 'probably in there somewhere,'

Gabe followed Jaibles gaze out towards the stars to see the entirety of Earth's fleet, tens of thousands of shuttles, all wrapped and contained in a gentle twinkling glow of a force field, it would have felt so serene, so comforting, so safe, if it wasn't so confusing.'

'Why?' Said Gabe quietly to himself.

'Probably because of that thing,' said Monkey, still staring out of his window. As Gabe and Jaibles stumbled over to join him, their jaws dropped.

Looming mountainously over them was a billowing continent of celestial cloud and light, it's shape forever changing and collapsing in on itself; forever forming and reforming. Gabe stared deep within the cloud as an infinity of galaxies and solar systems formed, swirled and imploded, their lifecycle playing out in seconds in front of his eyes.

He felt a warm tear roll down his cheek.

'SILENCE,' the word boomed in his mind. No noise, just an inner voice, strange and powerful, deep and threatening.