Unascended

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There was nothing. It might have been a few hours. It might have been years. She had no sense of time, no sense of self.

Nothing.

Floating in near-absolute zero space, trapped in a non-functioning replicator body, days might have passed. Or eons. There was nothing.

“Elizabeth.”

There was a voice, and in some dim part of her she knew that. She knew something. There was a voice, and it said her name.

There was no way she could answer. Frozen synapses and circuits could never respond. She could not even think an answer, not in any conventional way. She knew it was not possible.

She knew. Which should not be possible either. Thought should not be possible. Consciousness should not be possible. She should not hear a voice, or even dream that she heard one.

And at that the part of her that was still Elizabeth Weir leaped, a frail flame trembling in determination. “Who are you?”

There was a net, a golden net that twined around her. For a moment she saw it complete, gold strands formed into knots, each one different, each one tied by hand, “You are safe,” the voice said. It sounded like her mother, like a woman’s voice, but that couldn’t be.

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