The Arcane Messenger

by J G Smith

  I look up to the window I came through. It isn’t there. At least, not in this room… or wherever it is I am. Curious. I look down, from where I came, and then to every other reflection in the walls, roof and floor. Confirmed. The window is in all the other reflections; just… not here.

  This is… I feel strangely excited and frightened, all at the same time.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  A QUESTION OF IMPLICATION

  “If I had seen the future. If I had known. If I had calculated every possible outcome and seen this happen, I wouldn’t have changed a thing. I wouldn’t have said a word. If it meant changing this—us, then I’d have it happen the exact same way. My name is Reuben Price… I am an Alversia and this is my story.” Reuben Price.

  §

  My sister, not much older than me, stands at my bedroom door, leaning against the frame and gleaming with a snide and coy expression. “I see there’s a girl in your bed,” she says, smirking and cocking her brow. Her sudden appearance catches me off guard, moving me from the seat at my desk to an upright position before her – rather quickly, I might add.

  “So?” she continues expectantly, cross-armed. I’m not sure what she’s playing at. I would’ve expected a different reaction from her, considering there’s a stranger in the house. “You may as well tell me,” she adds. “Mom and dad won’t be as cool about it.”

  I start the umming and ahhing process to figure out how I’m going to tell this story. I’m dragging the response out longer than I should – long enough for my mother to walk past and ask what’s going on. My hands flail around awkwardly to accompany the verbal fillers as she and my sister walk into my room. Before I know it, my father is in the room as well. As if it wasn’t awkward already.

  “Who’s that, Reuben?” my father asks with a rather stern look on his face – scowling, actually. His voice is rough, as usual, but not as monotonous as I’m used to. There’s also a slight waver in his pitch that I’d expect if he were disappointedly concerned on a moral standing instead of a you put us at risk standing.

  We’re clearly not on the same page. “I haven’t quite gotten that far,” I reply with a nervous laugh. My mother is bewildered, my father is unimpressed and my sister is trying her best not to laugh. She just barely manages to hold off with a hideous smile. “But don’t worry,” I add, trying to assure them, “I analysed the risks and there doesn’t appear to be any immediate threat.”

  Their reactions are not what I expect them to be. I’m not generally good with social cues, but I’m more than certain this should be about me bringing a stranger and potential spy into the barracks. Right? It’s the only thing that makes sense at this point. Not?

  My mother looks uncomfortable, to say the least, giving off readings I can only describe as being disgust, anger and disappointment. “Natalia,” she says, not even turning to look at her. “Leave us. Your father and I need to speak with your brother, alone.”

  I’m scrunching my eyebrows, trying to figure out what’s going on. My sister wants to stay, I can see it, but obeys the instruction like the good soldier she’s striving to be.

  “Wait!” I say, stopping her as she reaches the door. “Can someone explain to me what’s going on? I know I brought a stranger into the house, but why all the tension?”

  My sister looks back at me, genuinely surprised by my ignorance and whispers, “Don’t make this any worse than it already is. They know. Anyone half a sector away could see it.”

  “What?!” I reply, communicating more with my hands and face than anything else.

  My mother stops me almost immediately, instructing me not to speak in that manner, especially toward my sister. “We’re doing you a favour by sending her away,” she says, maintaining her composure in the midst of her heightened emotional state. “These matters are private.”

  “I would think this involves the entire troop,” I say.

  Now they’re confused. My sister requests permission to clarify the privacy matter, which my mother grants.

  “You do realise you’ve been caught with a girl in your bed,” my sister says. The calculations show a bit of condescension in her tone.

  “Yes,” I say, slowly. I’m still not sure what she’s getting at.

  “There’s a girl in your bed,” she repeats; louder, clearer and a lot more condescending. Apparently, she doesn’t see the confusion on my face or the fact that my hands are wide open, waiting for someone to explain what they’re thinking.

  “What happens when a girl and a boy are left alone together?” she asks, not budging on her patronising approach.

  “It depends on the girl and the boy,” I respond calmly, without hesitation. I don’t understand the relevance of her question.

  My father’s eyes don’t move from me and mother’s eyes remain averted, not looking at anyone. Of course, they don’t think twice about how my sister speaks to me. Girls can do what they want, when they want, so long as they listen to the General’s instructions. In this case, my mother.

  Her high-strung demeanour takes a few steps down the scale, taking a less accusing stance. “Did you and that girl do anything you shouldn’t have during your last sleep phase?” she asks.

  I start umming and ahhing again, which doesn’t seem to help my case. “I didn’t do much sleeping,” I say, with my hand against my head. My father is more visibly upset. I see the numbers tracking my mother’s heart rate spike. “Look,” I tell them, “she didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

  “Reuben,” my sister starts again, “we’re talking about the deed.”

  “What deed?”

  My mother rolls her eyes. My father’s scowling look falls flat… he’s flabbergasted. And it’s at that moment I realise what they’re thinking, with my sisters persistent nudging and gesturing. “No, no, no, no, no, no, no,” I tell them. “You’re way off ball with this one. Nothing like that happened.”

  My mother immediately lets out a sigh of relief, looks down and puts her hand to her chest while my sister turns from my gaze, a little embarrassed. My father simply smiles, saying, “That’s good to hear. You had your mother and I frazzled. Now, why is there a girl in your bed?”

  “And how is it that you don’t even know what her name is?” my mother adds.

  These tones and expressions I understand. Well, mostly. My sister is still recovering from her self-inflicted shame.

  I start from the beginning, still umming and ahhing as I explain how, and where, I found her. The troop is glued in, one hundred percent. “I found her in no man’s territory—”

  “What were you doing in no man’s territory?” my mother asks firmly, already interrupting. I’ve been in trouble for unauthorised expeditions on a number of occasions, making the why part a little difficult to explain. It’s one of the reasons there are so many verbal stumbles escaping my lips. “I thought we came to an understanding,” she says, not wavering on the General front.

  My sister wants to say something, to me, but keeps it to herself. She isn’t surprised by my unsanctioned gallivant, but she is somewhat disappointed. I see it in the way she shakes her head. I don’t even need to interpret the quantitative displays reading her motions and expressions.

  My dad, however, is surprised – mostly because of the danger I may have put myself into.

  I know my answer won’t be satisfactory, but I go for it anyway. I tell them that I saw the readings for a rapid influx of energy at a particular point in no man’s territory and that I wanted to see what was causing it.

  “It could have been a bomb!” my sister exclaims, almost shrieking.

  “Natalia,” my mother says calmly, trying to hush her. “Your father and I can handle this.”

  It doesn’t stop me from responding defensively, though. “I know what the readings for a bomb look like. I didn’t just wake up with this ability yesterday, and I’ve seen more than my fair share of explosives, and explosions. These readings were different. There was a lot more energy and it was a lot more stable. Som
e of the formulas I didn’t even recognise.”

  My mother and father tag team in telling me off for the tone I just used with my sister, reminding me that I am not to speak to her in that manner, under any circumstance.

  “Now, back to your story,” my father pushes, gently. “Your mother and I will discuss disciplinary matters for your behaviour later.”

  My mother concurs and then asks if I was able to uncover anything relating to the peculiar readings. “Is it a new weapon the Artificials are working on?” she asks.

  “I don’t think it’s a weapon,” I tell her, now apathetic. “And, by the time I got to no man’s territory, the readings were no longer there.”

  My mother shakes her head, disappointed in my failure. “It may have been disabled by the time you arrived, but you could’ve scouted the scene—searched for the disabled device. Not so?”

  “I’m getting there,” I say, more than a little frustrated.

  My sister walks closer, back to where she stood before my mother wanted her to leave.

  “That’s where I found the girl,” I continue, moving over to my chair to lean on it. “She was being tossed around by an artificial child, about nine years old. She was unarmed and—”

  “Were you unarmed?” my sister asks, probingly. We’ve entered even more serious grounds.

  I bite my lip, trying to feign innocence. “Yeah,” I say.

  “You’re always unarmed,” she says, raising her voice. “What’s your aversion to weapons? We’re in the middle of a war.” She’s passionate about her firearms and her need to be always ready for an attack. Even now she has a hyperdrive pistol on her person. My mother and father have concealed weapons too. As for me, I’ve never been a fan.

  “It was a scouting mission,” I tell her, building up to another heated defence. Our predecessors used to call it sibling rivalry before it was expected for all males to accept and submit to every female whim. “I wasn’t planning to shoot anyone.” My mother glares at me as I speak those words, trying to keep my tone in check.

  “Then how did you and that girl escape the Artificial’s grasp?” my sister asks in suspicion.

  “That’s the interesting part,” I say. “As the Artificial, one point three times her size, handled her, a white light with a silver tinge moved out of her body like a mist. It materialised into a white dragon with little horns on its head and reflective diamond-like scales over its body. It’s large eyes and juvenile features—”

  My sister interrupts. “A dragon?” Her eyes open wide as she rhetorically lists typically dragon features. She doesn’t believe me. I don’t think my parents do either.

  “Just continue,” my father says.

  “She called it Liffen,” I say, “but I think she meant Lithen. I noted a speech defect in her communication signature. Also, Lithen reads with the root word Ighten meaning light in a language I wasn’t able to recognise. Liffen reads as an error.”

  As I explain, Natalia expresses blatant readings of apathy while my mother and father appear jumpy, as if they want me to get to the point.

  “The dragon breathed out a white flame,” I continue, “scorching the Artificial. That’s how we escaped. The dragon then vapourised and returned to the girl’s body, as light.”

  “And you didn’t think about investigating the foreign signature then?” my mother questions, sarcastically – I think.

  “The risks were too high,” I defend, now spinning my chair. “The dragon only scorched the Artificial – causing it to run away crying, most likely to find an adult Artificial. My first priority was to bring the girl to safety.” I sneer and add, “That was a mission.”

  My sister takes a seat on my large bed – big enough for an adult Artificial – and continues to listen to my story. The girl remains sound asleep through all of this, probably because of the neural mappers I glued to her scalp, but maybe she was tired to begin with.

  My father leans against my desk and my mother shakes her head ever so subtly. “I’ll go back during the next global sleep phase,” I assure them. My mother frowns in a way that makes me rethink my previous statement. “With authorisation, of course,” I add, under duress.

  My sister digs into my account of the event, ensuring that she has all the details. She’s particularly sceptical about the dragon part, but who can blame her? Dragons are mythical creatures. They’re found in legends and stories from Alpha Irrilium Prime’s primitive ages. “And then she just came home with you?” she asks, doubting. “To sleep?”

  “Well,” I chuckle, awkwardly, “she didn’t exactly come easy. Language, for one, was a problem. She doesn’t speak Irrilium and she’s stubborn as—”

  “Then what does she speak?” my sister asks, interrupting again.

  I shrug. “I don’t—”

  “Can’t you see the language with your formula vision thing?” she asks, confused that I haven’t figured it out yet. I’m getting a little frustrated with her cutting in incessantly. It derails my thought process and leaves a blank expression on my face. My sister waves her hand in my face quite vigorously to get my attention. She’s always been a few steps ahead of me on these grounds, but I’ve always been faster than her on actual ground.

  “It’s called formulapathy,” I mumble, admittedly with a bit of an attitude. I accept the glowers from my mother and father on that regard and continue speaking, more professionally this time, “I didn’t recognise any of the readings monitoring her speech. It isn’t a language found on Alpha Irrilium Prime, so far as I could tell. Or, if it is, it’s a new one. I managed to pick up on a few words, though—eventually. Enough to convince her that staying wasn’t an option.”

  My sister is quiet, for once, waiting for more. My parents are also waiting. I tell them that she – the girl – seemed to know me… that there was a look in her eyes when she was able to properly see me. “We tried speaking the whole way back to Organic territory,” I tell them, “and that’s when I realised she didn’t have anywhere to go.” Then, under my breath, I add, “She didn’t even recognise the access procedures to an Organic city.”

  She’d look to the ground and grab her right arm with her left hand. The scene left an indelible impression on me.

  “So, you invited her here?” my sister questions interrogatingly, or asks... I can’t really tell the difference when it comes to her. “To the bunker?” Now she’s back to being condescending. “What if she’s an Artificial?”

  “She isn’t!” I tell her affirmatively. “I’ve read her signatures. They’re Organic.”

  My mother and father call out my name, scolding me for my behaviour, and mutter between themselves about how rebellious and non-conforming I am – as well as what they’re going to do to rectify it. “A week without any missions.” That’s what they decide. “Except for your investigation into the abnormal readings in no man’s land,” my mother says. “I’ll have your sister in charge of all matters relating to it. Report to her.”

  “Of course,” I breathe, loud enough to gather disapproving looks, but soft enough to have the correction end there.

  “And what about the girl?” my sister asks.

  I answer immediately, saying that I’ll keep an eye on her.

  “You don’t know anything about her,” my sister shoots back.

  “I’ve analysed the risks,” I say, fighting to defend her—the girl. “Having her around will do more good than sending her away.”

  My father looks to my mother, who nods in agreement. “So long as there isn’t any funny business,” he says, pulling a face.

  “What?” I’m confused. I don’t understand his readings.

  “Don’t stress,” my sister says to me, caving in to my parents’ wishes.

  My mother assigns my sister to stick with me and to report any suspicious activity, approving my sister’s authority to make executive decisions when necessary. I’m not comfortable with her having this amount of power, but there isn’t much I can do about it. What the General says, goes.
r />   Our meeting adjourns with my mother and father informing us that our breakfast would be ready at the start of Dark Shift. Hyacintho and Caerulea will be setting soon, giving rise to a new day.

  My sister makes herself even more comfortable on my bed, knowing that she won’t be leaving with our parents. That smug look on her face gets to me. If someone could just wipe it off…

  “Dad,” I call, remembering something before he and my mother leave. They stop and listen. “There are readings from the girl that I haven’t seen anywhere else,” I tell them. They look puzzled. I continue, “The only other place I recognise seeing those readings is, well, in the mirror. With no one else but me.” Their faces turn pale and prefigure a moment of silence.

  “It must be a coincidence,” my father says, acknowledging a sullen look from my mother that I can only interpret as her shutting him up.

  “It must be,” I whisper, doubtingly, as they continue exchanging non-verbal cues on their way out of my room.

  At least my sister is just as out of the loop as I am. “What was that about?” she asks.

  I shake my head and take a seat in front of my computer. She catches on quickly, restraining herself from prying further. I don’t want to speak to her; much less answer any of her questions. She doesn’t need to know everything.

  I open the file mapping the girl’s brain activity and focus particularly on the readings from her language centres. That’s what my sister caught me doing when she asked about the girl in my bed. Such a hasty conclusion on her, and my parents’, part.

  “So, you think she’s an ally?” my sister asks, not comfortable with the silence. Her tone is now more genuine than before. She doesn’t have my mother watching, so there’s no need to prove herself or pretend to be a different person.

  I look back at the girl. My sister’s gaze is on her as well.

  “Yeah,” I say, giving a simpering smile.

  “I know what it looked like before,” my sister starts, trying to defend her previous actions, “but if you think she’s an ally, and that she doesn’t have anywhere else to go, I’m with you. I wouldn’t mind helping whatever errand this is. Plus, it’d be nice having a sister in the troop. Though, she probably has a place she comes from.”