The Edge of Obliteration

Prologue Just outside of Spartanburg, SC October 16th, 2077, 0644h Quinn Sondheim stopped his morning jog to catch his breath and take a quick swig of water from the light belt he wore. Sondheim was not young, but he was not old, either, and he had been faithful to maintain the discipline of running two miles each morning for the last fifteen years. He was now thirty-eight and wondered if he would ever have anything worthwhile to ever show from all of his hard work. True, he did own his own small pharmaceutical company based out of St. Petersburg, Florida by his own name, but Sondheim Incorporated still had a long way to go before they could truly achieve any of his higher ambitions. Quinn hoped one day, as did many scientists of his ilk, to rid the world of the horrible disease of cancer. There were some doctors who had come up with several treatments and remedies to slow it down, perhaps, but no one could beset the effects from its mitigation and prevent it from ever invading the human body in the first place. Day after day, year after year, he and his fellow scientists squabbled over theories, hypotheses, and eventually experiments. But nothing worked, at least to his liking. The volunteers who had so generously donated themselves to their study rarely survived; naturally their families and loved ones desired revenge. If he didn't have such brilliant lawyers, Sondheim would have been out of business years ago. Sondheim swatted away yet another swarm of mosquitoes and cursed to himself for neglecting to apply a liberal amount of bug spray onto himself before departing from his parents' house. Suddenly, he heard an electronic disturbance not very far away. It sounded like it was coming from not twenty yards behind him. He finished his water, slowly turned around, and removed a small rectangular object from his belt. Sondheim tapped three times onto the LCD screen and held the "magnafone" up. "Magnafones" were like smart phones of older days in the twenty-first century but could do much more than send an email, surf the internet, take pictures, capture short movies, or play video games. When modified or 'modded' on the street, they could also serve as a pair of binoculars, disable complex electronics, detect infrared sensors as well as bugs, or even pick up the distortion fields that simple cloaking devices used. However, much to Sondheim's confusion, the magnafone saw absolutely nothing. Again, he heard the noises but saw nothing with the magnafone or his naked eyes. A part of him told him not to go any closer, to just turn the hell around, and go back home. But that same boyish curiosity which led him to pursue a career in science drove his legs, though they were trembling, quite a bit closer. The noises were reminiscent of the 20th century film "The Wizard of Oz", in which Dorothy unmasked the high and mighty wizard as nothing more than a charlatan. He wondered if he would be able to do the same with this unseen conjurer. However, this one did not speak or ask him what he was doing here. Sondheim took a huge breath to try and calm down his high blood pressure. Nowadays, before children were even born, their parents could introduce gene therapy into the baby before he or she fully developed as early as eight weeks. The therapy was still somewhat flawed, but no longer did parents have to worry about their children contracting some of their malignant hereditary traits, such as diabetes, myopia, or high blood pressure. However, Sondheim's parents did not opt for that treatment not only because of the steep price but also the fact that it was completely experimental at the time. The risk was too high for a hope and a prayer. So like many of his ancestors, Sondheim bested his genetic condition with exercise, a moderate diet, and medication. He shoved the magnafone away into a sweaty back pocket of his shorts and hid behind the great trunk of an oak tree. The disturbance was now less than two yards away from him; suddenly, a large field of electronic energy, which he now assumed correctly were indeed cloaking fields, dispelled. A man in front of him with shockingly green eyes, platinum blonde hair, a soul patch, and an emerald overcoat turned away from what he had been working on and kicked the object. That cloaking field also dissipated to reveal a very large space craft. "Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore," he whispered to himself as his jaw dropped in awe. "Who said that?" The man whirled around. "Show yourself or die by my hand right now." His hand withdrew some kind of pistol from his side. Turn around and run away now, you fool, Quinn's father told him. Quinn, if you know what's good for you, leave this place now, his mother urged him. Sondheim ignored both of his parents' warnings, stepped away from the tree, and made himself visible to his perturbed host. He held up both of his hands in surrender and slowly walked towards the man. "Do not come any closer to me, human," the man ordered and held the pistol at Quinn. His voice was not pleasant, nor was the intonation completely homo sapient. "Believe you me, I won't." Sondheim's eyes warily glanced at the weapon and then went back to the person in front of him. "So if you call me a human, you're obviously not one yourself. What are you?" "The proper question is 'who are you', not 'what are you'?" The man corrected him and put away the gun once he realized that Sondheim was apparently unarmed. "You may call me Mercury." "But-" "I have selected it because your species used to worship this deity many years ago. He was a messenger for the gods, and you may think of me as such," Mercury candidly replied. "My people are in great need of your kind's assistance."