The Martial Unity

The laminar integument’s words struck him like a slap in the face. He had never considered the role of the terraformed solar system in the virus’s operations. Why had it changed the entire solar system, making it larger, to the point where even their sun was bigger than it used to be?

What did the laminar integument talk about when it said that the sun was the objective? This entire time, it felt like the planet was the objective to him.

“…I don’t understand.”

His voice confessed to the complete confusion that had consumed him despite being in a Gigabrain state of mind. The laminar integument continued to hover in outer space gently and gracefully as a myriad flashes of light flowed through its body in a network.

A tendril came forth, gesturing in all directions.

“Look.”

It gestured to the cosmos in the background.

The blood-red suns within the depths of his eyes bore deep into the background, following the gesture of the laminar integument. He found himself gazing at the exquisitely beautiful background of the universe.

The vast canvas of the cosmos stretched in the background, comprising trillions of stars that came together to paint an unfathomable piece of art that was the reality they lived in. It was a sight so breathtaking that one could lose one’s entire life trying to appreciate the beauty within its depths.

And yet, it was not the beauty that the laminar integument wanted him to pay attention to.

“Look. All. Stars. In. Universe.”

Even the stars that they could see were only a fraction of the observable universe, and even the stars of the observable universe were likely an even tinier fraction of the entire true universe.

“Stars. Radiate. Energy. Radiate. Gravity. Affect. Fields.” The laminar integument explained the basics of what they did. “Galaxies. Collections. Of. Stars. Held. Together. By. Dark. Matter.”

This was elementary, of course.

“Universe. Born. Big. Bang. Singularity.” The laminar integument continued. “Initial. Few. Hundred Thousand. Years. No. Stars. Then. Stars. Form. Galaxies. Form.”

It explained what was known to be the trajectory of the universe.

“Dark. Energy. Expanding. Universe. Making. Universe. Grow. Bigger. Grow. Bigger. Faster. Stars. Mature. Stars. Grow. Old. Stars. Burst. Implode. Eventually. Die.” It continued. “Universe. Eventually. Have. Heat. Death.”

Rui’s eyes widened as he realized where this was going.

“Universe. Born. Rapid. Growth. Mature. Grow. Old. Lose. Light. Gravity. Energy. Eventually Die.”

The laminar integument’s light signals grew more intense.

“What. Remind. You. Of?”

Rui’s expression grew severe with reckoning.

“A lifeform.”

It wasn’t an unprecedented connection, but it contextualized everything they had experienced with the alien virus. It was not an alien virus.

It was a domestic virus.

A virus domestic to the universe.

It was not infecting planets or even stars.

It was invading planets and stars to infect the universe.

“What does that have to do with the virus not exploding stars?” he asked with a severe tone. “What does that have to do with needing the power of the information dimension to defeat the alien virus?”

“You. Not. Understand. Yet.”

It gestured to the cosmos.

“Look.”

Rui frowned, following its gesture. “I see all the stars.”

“No.” The laminar integument insisted. “Not. Look. At. Stars. Look. At. Universe.”

It was an almost incomprehensible suggestion, making him wonder if he was having any translation errors. But he tried following the words of the laminar integument as he focused his attention outwards. He shifted his senses from combat mode to long-range interstellar mode, allowing him to perceive the universe itself. His perspective shifted from focusing on the individual stars that composed the galaxy, and began expanding.

He could perceive electromagnetic radiation from across the entire observable universe. Light from distant stars red-shifted by gravity to widen their wavelengths, exiting the visible range for normal humans. But he could see them all the same.

He could see distant stars from across the entire universe, but he chose to focus on the broader picture, rather than honing in on the stars. He saw the Milky Way and its neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy. He saw how they came together to form clusters, like the Local Group they were in.

He saw the distant galaxies in other groups, held together by invisible dark matter, that wrapped around it like flesh and fascial connective tissue wrapping around the bones that came together into an even larger supercluster.

The Virgo supercluster. It was an unimaginably massive cluster of galaxies that spanned a truly vast amount of distance. And yet, it was only a part of an even bigger supercluster, the Laniakea Supercluster.

And yet, even the Laniakea Supercluster was just a tiny part of the observable universe. The observable universe was so astronomically titanic that individual stars were no longer even perceivable. They became indistinguishable from pixels on a large screen, displaying a vast image of darkness and a web of light.

Gigantic superclusters formed long strings of light that spread across the entire universe, known as galactic filaments that stretched across the observable universe, held together by dark matter. There were giant supervoids in the universe, and dark energy seemed to reign supreme, pushing forth at an even greater rate than it normally did. What struck him, however, was what the broader observable universe looks like.

It was a web of light, with countless connections, nexuses, and nodes that made up galaxy clusters that stretched across the entire universe, sprawling into a vast network of energy.

A vast network of information.

His eyes widened with realization.

Realization of pure horror and awe in equal parts.

The resemblance finally struck him, and it struck him hard.

“A brain.”

His voice was low, shaking with the sheer weight of the realization that dawned on him. All at once, the full truth struck him like a meteorite, leaving him reeling.

“The universe is conscious.”

And that was when the Fear he felt in his heart became a passive, mysterious, instinctive Fear into an active, clear fear. It was a fear that came from comprehension of a greater truth so unfathomable that he was left frozen where he stood.

And that was when the laminar integument chose to strike. Its tendril phased through the very fabric of reality itself, coursing through space and time.

It struck his neck.

His mind, still shaken by the weight of this realization, failed to react in time.

SPLAT

The tendril smoothly tore past his neck.

It decapitated him in the blink of an eye.