The Signal - Seb D Law
The final excerpt from Macabre Multiverse
I first met Seb when he pre-ordered Who Built The Humans? back in 2019. We’ve since talked regularly about Lego Bionicle, sharing a love of science fiction toys. He has created his own comic book in the hears hence, and is now a collaborator on Macabre Multiverse.
The Signal
Seb D Law
In the furthest reaches of the galaxy, a lone vessel was cruising its way through yet-uncharted space.
“How much longer until we get there?” a bored voice called out from within the ship. It was Davor Supek, one of the four researchers on board, and the one whose mind was feeling the effects of long-term space travel the most. To give himself something to do while waiting for his monotonous journey to be over, he peered out of a nearby window at the empty blackness of space.
“It is estimated we have around ten minutes before we reach our destination,” Wayfarer, the spaceship’s self-piloting AI, promptly replied.
“See, Davor?” Mateo Molim, one of the other researchers, chided his peer. “It’s not long now. You can stop bugging the AI every three seconds.”
“Oh please,” Davor huffed in response. “This thing’s designed to answer questions, so what’s the harm in asking it? Besides, we’ve been out of range from any router worlds for weeks now. You can’t blame me for getting a little bored, Mateo.”
“Fair enough.” Mateo got up from his seat and let the calming feeling of zero gravity whisk him off the floor. “I’ll go tell the others we’ve almost reached our destination.”
He grabbed onto a nearby automated handhold and pressed the button that would cause it to pull him towards the common room at the back of the ship. The door opened with a hiss, and Mateo was greeted with the sight of Nicolas Zagreb and Daniela Luk, the last two researchers assigned to this mission.
“Hey guys, we’re almost there,” he told them. Neither one uttered a single word in response – this sort of behaviour had become the norm over the course of the few months during which he had been assigned to work with these two researchers. They didn’t even bother turning their heads to face him. Hoping he could get some sort of response out of them to confirm they had heard his announcement, Mateo pressed on.
“So, how does it feel knowing you’re on the track to Union-wide fame after we meet those aliens?” he asked with a grin. Still nothing. Mateo let out a loud sigh. “Come on. We’re talking aliens here. Aliens! Like, not in a sci-fi movie. In real life! Am I the only one slightly excited about this?”
“It’s probably nothing,” Ivan mumbled in a disinterested and barely audible tone. “Think about it. None of us four have been working at Afberg for a full year yet. If this really was such an important diplomatic mission, why’d they send us nobodies instead of, I don’t know, any of the 109 people they have on the Union Council? It’s not like they have a shortage of those.”
“Maybe they’re busy,” Mateo responded. “Or maybe they don’t want the other corporations on the Council to be aware of this yet.”
“If it makes you happy, you’re free to keep believing whatever you want.” Ivan’s voice took on a condescending tone. “But the truth is, whatever awaits us on that planet will turn out to be absolutely nothing special at all. Besides, ‘aliens’ are nothing new – humanity’s found plenty of planets with native bacterial samples on them.”
“You know what I mean,” grumbled Mateo. “And need I remind you, Afberg received a signal coming from beyond charted space. That means someone had to be smart enough to build a communications device and send that thing.”
End (of excerpt)
Tomorrow, you will be able to read the rest of this story, and the others, in MACABRE MULTIVERSE.
You will notice three more names. Jon Cellini was our cover designer, Marco Medina (scranill) did the chapter art you’ve been enjoying for the last few days, and BK Ntouris was our in-house editor, and shall continue to be so for future projects as well.
Macabre Multiverse was a massive undertaking, beginning around February 2024. I wanted to keep all authors to the same standard, so I didn’t reuse my older sci-fi horrors such as Menhir or Mycelial, opting to write a totally new story set in an alternate timeline from the main story universe you are familiar with. Humans exist, arthropod aliens on another arm of the Milky Way Galaxy exist; but this time something ancient and hungry shows up before any of the Earthloop events get to happen.
It is its own universe.
I hope you enjoy it.