Dark Metamorphosis

by John Coon

  “When Cavac gets here, help him load that pod into the ship. Xttra and I will take care of things here.”

  Sam’s eyes widened.

  “What’s going on? What are you planning to do?”

  Kyra simply shook her head and said nothing. He crossed his arms and stared at her, probing for an answer with his eyes. The Confederation pilot glanced away from Sam and stuffed her arca vox back inside its pouch again.

  What could she say? Xttra understood the frightening reality they now faced. But he also had no clue how to frame what they needed to do in terms the Earthian would accept.

  Norah had to die. Immediately.

  19

  Calandra curled one finger after another on her artificial hand. A radiant smile spread across her lips and reflected in her eyes. To see the metal hand finally working like a real hand brought indescribable joy. So much pain and anguish washed away like an unanchored boat in a swollen current. The storm receded and sunlight finally pierced ashen clouds smothering her soul.

  A functioning neural sensor made everything feel normal again. She felt the fingers and thumb pressing together when she closed the artificial hand. If she grasped an object with the hand, she experienced a similar sense of touch as with her natural hand.

  Warmth. Cold. Roughness. Smoothness.

  Her artificial hand experienced every sensation as though real nerves now sent signals to her brain.

  No doubt Xttra would feel equally thrilled. They both prayed long and hard for this outcome. Calandra longed to share this life-changing moment with him. His absence created an emptiness within their apartment. A void that taunted her and refused to recede.

  She picked up the small metal block Ominade imparted to her earlier from an end table near her bed. Calandra sat on the bed and studied the block, turning it over in her hand. The black colored symbol stood in stark contrast to the rest of the block’s metallic luster.

  Hope.

  The symbol meant hope.

  What message did Ominade intend to share with her?

  Calandra’s thumb hovered over the symbol. If she pressed down on it, Ominade or one of her fellow rebels would contact her again. Or so she promised.

  She could not bring herself to follow through with that action. Calandra set the block back down in its former resting place. Ominade unveiled a startling number of unbelievable revelations to her and Bo’un. If what she said was indeed the truth, it shattered everything Calandra believed about their chief sovereign, her own grandfather, and the Order of Ahm itself.

  I can’t reject her claims without question, Calandra thought. I need more information. If what she says is true, then evidence must exist somewhere to confirm what she said.

  Her first instinct was to go grab her trique and do a basic search through the public archives. Calandra glanced over at the device sitting on a small shelf on the other side of the room. She did not rise from the bed to retrieve it. If their chief sovereign truly had something to hide, she would not find it in such an open place.

  No. It became clear where Calandra needed to turn.

  She needed to dig into the Central Archives. And she could not do it alone. Calandra sprang to her feet and grabbed her arca vox from the same table where Ominade’s block rested.

  Alayna flashed a bright smile as soon as her image popped up on the holoscreen. It grew more pronounced when Calandra shared the news about her arm.

  “Let me see it in action. Move those fingers.”

  Calandra obliged and wiggled the fingers on her artificial hand. Alayna pressed her hand to her mouth. Tears trickled down her cheeks. She wiped her eyes with a cloth and the smile returned.

  “This is a joyous day!” Alayna said. “One we both hoped for. We need to celebrate.”

  Calandra matched her friend’s happy expression with a radiant smile of her own.

  “I love the sound of that idea.”

  “Today.”

  Calandra’s smile dimmed and she pressed her lips together. She hesitated to speak the words lingering in her mind, uncertain of how to reveal her true motive for contacting Alayna. Should she draw her friend into her quest and force her to share this burden?

  That question gnawed at her mind because she did not want to create trouble for Alayna. Still, her search for Xttra threatened to reach a permanent impasse without involving her friend in the search. Alayna worked for the Central Archives and Calandra had no means of gaining access to specific information inside the archives without her help.

  “Is something wrong?”

  Alayna’s question pierced through her thoughts. Calandra cast her eyes down and drew in a deep breath.

  “I hate to ask this, but I need a huge favor from you.”

  “Name it.”

  “I’m not sure how to put this—”

  Alayna laughed.

  “You’re acting like your whole life hinges on this single favor.”

  Calandra answered her with a silent worried glance. Alayna’s smile dropped off her lips.

  “What’s going on? What aren’t you telling me?”

  “I encountered that diviner … again.” Hesitation gripped Calandra’s voice. “She shared information that … concerns me.”

  Alayna buried her face in her hands and then rubbed them down her nose and mouth. Concern filled her eyes as she focused on Calandra again.

  “Self-professed diviners only create endless trouble in their wake. You’re smart enough to not entangle yourself with one.”

  “Ominade isn’t a diviner.”

  A knowing smirk crawled across Alayna’s lips.

  “Really? Could have fooled me.”

  “She’s actually a rebel from Delcor’s Islands.”

  Alayna froze and stared wide-eyed at her once those words left Calandra’s lips. Her thumb caressed a small starlight tattoo on her opposite wrist. An uncomfortable silence grew between the two friends.

  “She told me things about our chief sovereign that scare me,” Calandra said, finally cutting through the silence. “I need to know the truth.”

  Alayna shook her head.

  “No. I can’t do what you’re asking me to do.”

  “You’re the only one who can help me.” Desperation seeped into Calandra’s voice. “You have access to restricted records inside the Central Archives which I can never see as a visitor.”

  “Do you realize how much trouble I’ll create for myself if I take you inside there with me?”

  “You can tell them we’re collaborating on historical astronomical data research with the observatory. Or something else.”

  Alayna mashed her lips together and cast her eyes downward. She sat rigid on her chair, not saying a word. Calandra felt constrained to make one final appeal to her.

  “Please. I’m begging you as a friend.”

  Her friend finally glanced up again and answered Calandra with a reluctant nod.

  “I’ll do it. Meet me inside the main lobby at the Central Archives tomorrow morning.”

  Alayna reached out an arm and her image vanished from the holoscreen. Calandra felt some relief at enlisting her help. Now she had a real chance to finally verify Ominade’s claims for herself.

  ***

  Calandra attacked steps leading to the Central Archives entrance at a brisk pace. Gray stone pillars flanked each side of the main doors. The staggered square building towered over her like an inanimate monstrous giant, filled with front-facing windows serving as a swarm of transparent eyes.

  Alayna stood inside the lobby only a few steps beyond the main doors. She waved as soon as Calandra cleared the top step. Both main doors parted with a whoosh and Alayna ushered her inside. She greeted Calandra with a nervous smile and an embrace.

  “I secured an access stamp for you,” Alayna said, after pulling away again. She dug into an ebutoka
leather pouch hanging from a strap strung across her chest. “This will let you go through all checkpoint sensors beyond the main floor.”

  The access stamp resembled a thin oval disc with ancient Ra’ahm lettering occupying one side. Each letter had more elongated swoops than their more familiar modern counterparts. Calandra studied the lettering, trying to make sense of their meaning.

  “Hold out your right wrist.”

  She did as Alayna instructed. Calandra flinched. She glanced down at her arm as Alayna pulled away the disc. Each letter bled from the stamp and settled on her skin, taking on the appearance of a translucent tattoo.

  Calandra shot a wide-eyed look at her friend.

  “What did you do?”

  “Relax.” Alayna stuffed the blank stamp back into her chest pouch. “It’s designed to only last a day. The stamp will vanish within 28 hours.”

  She turned up a cuff on her shirt. A stamp with similar letters graced Alayna’s right wrist. Her heartbeat slowed from a gallop to a steadier, nervous rhythm brought on by a fear of discovery. Calandra recalled seeing such a stamp on Alayna’s wrist in the past, although she never paid it a second thought. She simply assumed Alayna wanted another clan tattoo to match the one already imprinted on her left wrist.

  Calandra followed Alayna between twin polished stone columns. Vertical rows of embedded circular lights ran down the middle of each column. Those lights blinked yellow as she passed. Once the lights detected the stamp on her wrist, yellow morphed into white. This same process repeated as Alayna led her between other columns. Finally, they reached a room housing a collected record depository.

  Glass doors vanished with a whoosh when Calandra and Alayna reached the depository entrance. Rows of horizontal cylindrical lights sprang to life on each wall when they entered the room. Towering shelves filled with parchment, metal plates, and bound books of varying shapes and sizes dotted the room from wall to wall. Calandra’s mouth dropped open as her eyes bounced from one shelf to another. Studying all the knowledge contained inside this vast depository would take a full year, even if she spent entire days doing nothing else.

  She followed Alayna to a central column set apart from a shelf. The column matched Calandra in height from its base to top. A square pad resembling a holocaster topped the column. Embedded control buttons were further down the column, only a short distance below the pad. Alayna pressed a button and a blank holoscreen appeared atop the column a few seconds later.

  “What exactly are we searching for in here?” Alayna glanced over her shoulder. “You know, that isn’t already accessible in the public archives?”

  Calandra fixed her eyes on the holoscreen. She teased a slight frown that threatened to turn into a larger one.

  “I need to pull up every scrap of information I can find on Valadius.”

  “The former prime oracle?”

  “Indeed. I was told the official familiar narrative is not the real story.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “I believe Xttra was abducted from Fengar, in part, to stop him from tracking down a friend of ours who fled Lathos after uncovering evidence Valadius still lives.”

  Alayna cast a glance back at the depository entrance. Tangible fear flashed through her sharp brown eyes.

  “That’s impossible. We all heard about the flare. We all witnessed his burial rites. My family shed so many tears on that day.”

  “Kevin told Xttra the same things Ominade shared with me. Where smoke billows into the air, flames are always present somewhere near.”

  Alayna opened a drawer on the side of the column and removed a pair of black scrolling gloves. Glowing circular spots equal in size to a Ra’ahm coin adorned each fingertip on both gloves. She tossed a right-handed glove to Calandra and kept the left-handed one for herself.

  “We better get to work in that case.”

  Alayna slid her hand inside her scrolling glove and cinched it tight. She enlarged the holoscreen with her glove and touched a scrolling symbol in the upper corner. The symbol matched the same one inscribed on the charm Ominade gave Calandra. She entered the name Valadius into a search box. Images of the former prime oracle popped up on the screen. Alayna split the holoscreen into two separate screens.

  One image showed Valadius raising his hands and addressing a crowd while standing atop a short tower outside the walls of the main temple of Ahm in Luma. Another showed him laying his right hand upon the bowed head of a young man to bless him. A warm smile adorned his face in both images.

  Calandra scrolled past images of Valadius speaking on her holoscreen until she finally reached an image of his adrift transport. She clicked on that image and words materialized below. Each word resembled narrow three-dimensional blocks on this holoscreen instead of flat letters on a page. It was an official report detailing how a solar flare engulfed the prime oracle’s transport and the aftermath of the accident.

  Calandra’s eyes trailed the words as she kept scrolling. Midway through the report, she let out a sudden gasp. Calandra jabbed her index finger at the holoscreen. The scrolling words froze. Her breaths grew shallower. Fear billowed inside her with the suddenness of a rolling storm cloud.

  The Stellar Guard found no bodies on the vessel.

  This could not be real.

  Calandra shook her head as she continued reading the report. It detailed how an escape vehicle was missing when Stellar Guard officers boarded the transport. No traces of the prime oracle or any other passenger were anywhere on that vessel.

  “He’s alive.” Calandra’s voice barely rose above a whisper. “I can’t believe it. Valadius lives.”

  Alayna pivoted toward her and studied the report for herself. The same fear gripping Calandra soon drew her into its grasp. Her lips trembled and she swallowed hard.

  “Why would our sovereign lie about this?” Alayna said. “There must be a different explanation.”

  Calandra stared at the holoscreen. She fiddled with a lock of her hair brushing against her cheek. What was the prime oracle’s true fate? Why did he abandon the transport in the first place?

  “Oh no. What did our sovereign do?”

  Calandra glanced over at Alayna’s holoscreen. Her friend shook her head and pinched her eyes shut. She pressed her hand against her mouth. The holoscreen displayed a letter inscribed on a metal plate, culled from a chronological list of historical documents. It bore an official seal from Valadius. The letter’s time stamp showed he sent it out three days before his reported death. His correspondence went to the first minister.

  Her grandfather, Janthore.

  Calandra’s eyes trailed each word on the holoscreen, and she mouthed what she read as she dug into the letter.

  Honorable First Minister Janthore:

  I send you greetings and salute you as a brother in the Order of Ahm, our Divine Creator. Peace be with you and clan Menankar this day.

  With a heavy heart, I write to inform you that I must withdraw my blessing upon Delcor to act as ruler of this great nation. Our sovereign committed unspeakable crimes that are unforgivable in the eyes of Ahm. Evidence of these crimes has come to my attention and holy words I have received constrain me to support Delcor no longer in his office.

  I invite you to meet with me upon my return from Fengar. We will discuss this situation further and consider options for a successor.

  Valadius

  Prime Oracle of Ahm

  Tears brimmed in Calandra’s eyes and splashed down her cheeks. Ominade’s charges against Delcor were true. Worse yet, her own grandfather knew their chief sovereign had done awful things. And he did nothing about it. Was he complicit in those same unspeakable crimes the prime oracle referenced in his letter? How much did her mother and father know about his activities as first minister?

  “We have to keep searching. We need to find out what the prime oracle learned.”

 
; Calandra’s words were meant for herself as much as for Alayna. No matter how painful it ended up being, she had to uncover the truth.

  Her eyes refocused on her own holoscreen, and she scrolled through more records from the first minister’s office. Reports. Letters. Speeches. No further clues surfaced as Calandra worked backward from the date her grandfather received the letter from Valadius.

  “We better wrap this up,” Alayna said. A rising fear seized her voice. “I don’t know how long we can get away with searching these records before someone decides to check on us.”

  Calandra shook her head and kept her eyes locked on the holoscreen.

  “We won’t get another chance to do this.”

  She reversed directions and scrolled forward until she came to the same letter Alayna uncovered. Calandra paused and cast a glance over her shoulder. No one else had come inside the room to check on them. Yet. Calandra let out a relieved sigh and continued scrolling.

  Finally, after a few minutes, she spotted an official memo from her grandfather. It did not say who received the memo, but the message instantly caught her eye.

  Assassination plot?

  Captured rebel claims to have evidence implicating our chief sovereign in orchestrating his father’s assassination. Disturbing accusation that seems impossible. Still requires due diligence. Must interrogate her further on the matter.

  Calandra stared at the time stamp on the memo. Her grandfather recorded it only one week before he abruptly stepped down from being first minister. She never understood why he left Lathos and never came back. Now the puzzle pieces were locking together.

  If their chief sovereign plotted his own father’s assassination so he could take over as Ra’ahm’s ruler, such an action qualified as an unspeakable crime. Perhaps her grandfather feared for his own safety after he uncovered evidence of said crime.

  “Now that we know these things, what do we do?”

  Calandra turned and faced Alayna. A numb shock adorned her friend’s face as she blurted out the question. No satisfactory answer sprang into Calandra’s mind. A new sensation also washed over her as she processed these revelations.