The Arcane Messenger

by J G Smith

  “I think we have something in common,” she added, not even getting into what she knew about Alversia – yet. The whole thing sounded far-fetched already, but he believed her. She didn’t expect that.

  Perhaps it was due to him having his own peculiarity or the fact that it (his peculiarity) granted him more than obvious markers for lie detection than is normal for most other human beings. Perhaps it was both. Regardless, having him believe the breadcrumbs she was throwing his way made her wonder if she could share with him everything – especially the part about his death.

  “I believe so too,” he said, replying to her note on their commonality. He then scrunched his t-shirt into a ball. “I don’t understand most of the énergies coming from you, but some of them I recognise from when I look in the miroir… and in those strange lectures that took me to terre de rien – the place where I found you.”

  It was more than a chance meeting for them. It was Fate working her magic. I’m certain of it.

  “It must be Oliver you’re seeing,” she muttered under her breath, having understood miroir to mean mirror.

  “Sorry?” asked Reuben, not understanding her context.

  “You’re an Alversia,” she reported. “I think what you’re seeing has something to do with that.”

  Just as Reuben was about to dig deeper – about to learn something solid from the stranger he had taken in – Natalia stepped into the room with a bewildered look on her face. The stranger closed the door, slightly, and her cheeks flushed bright red.

  That confused Robert.

  Natalia said something in her language with distinct passion, almost dropping the clothes, and shoes in her hands. Though, she wasn’t as successful in keeping her jaw afloat.

  “Quelle?” asked Reuben, with his question directed mostly towards Natalia. He didn’t seem to understand the situation. Not immediately.

  He looked down and, in one swift motion, straightened his shirt to cover his chest and belly – with his back (and tattoo) still exposed. At that moment, his cheeks matched hers and he straightway began defending the matter.

  Reuben and Natalia heard the bathroom door close and the steam shower turn on. It wasn’t long before they heard a yelp… no, a screech. “What is this on my head?!”

  She came out the bathroom, barely dressed, and repeated the question, demanding to know. She had found the small rubber discs attached to her scalp and wasn’t happy. Natalia shot a smug look Reuben’s way. You know the one I’m talking about; the one that says I told you so.

  Reuben tried explaining that the discs were neural mappers and that he had put them there to make learning her language a whole lot easier than it would’ve been without. But that answer wasn’t good enough. She had a lot to say about the matter and threw a lot of loudly spoken words into the mix. The poor lad didn’t stand a chance and his sister wasn’t going to save him.

  Eventually, the one-sided yelling subsided and Reuben was able to offer a gel that removed the discs quite easily. Natalia handed her a dark blue and silver jumpsuit that looked like it belonged in space, along with an odd pair of shoes that fitted the style.

  “It has hidden les poches,” commented Reuben, pointing them out near the sides. Though, there didn’t seem to be much interest from her end. She simply returned to the bathroom and continued her preparations.

  §

  Not long after, the three of them made their way down a spiralled flight of stairs. It had a single metal railing and matched the open and spacious room in stunning white and hints of glossy black. A large dining table made of marble stood in the centre and an array of doors coated the wall to their left.

  To their right was a single large door with three distinct and pointed arches. It triggered a vivid memory of her entering through there with Reuben the previous day. They moved from a rundown city flooded in poverty to a luxurious road and upper court, housing the mansion they were in. The scene was a striking contrast and had guards and fences ensuring the segregation.

  “Le héraut nous sauvera,” said the civilians, appearing desperate, as she walked uncomfortably through.

  She remembered Reuben placing his hand on a pad alongside the mansion door. After scanning his prints, a holographic screen popped up with the name Reuben Price, a bunch of other words which weren’t in English and a strand of DNA.

  She could still see the rotating double helix in her mind’s eye and knew that something was off about it. Scattered across the ladder-like links were additional and distinct segments of deep purple. She didn’t know what to make of it.

  She also remembered the words ‘Accès Autorisé’ appearing over the holographic image in dark blue as the door opened into the wall, like in Star Wars, if I recall her description correctly. It wasn’t a common scene on Earth, or Lithon, at the time.

  She gazed at the spot Reuben stepped on when they entered the mansion; the spot that effused a circular pattern of light, rippling outwards as they continued through the room. She thought back on that scene with delight. She hadn’t expected to see anything quite as extravagant up close and in person.

  “Salut, mon nom est Sandra,” greeted an older lady, calling her back to reality. “Je suis la mère de Reuben,” added the lady. Her hair was also short and brown, like Natalia’s. Only, more muddy than golden.

  She looked at Reuben, not understanding the older lady’s words, and he translated. “This is my mother, Sandra,” he said, now more fluent in English.

  She smiled and introduced herself, feeling a lot more comfortable with the name she now remembered.

  A grey-haired man, wearing an apron, approached to shake her hand. “Je suis Charles,” he said, “le père de Reuben.”

  She felt she understood him, but looked to Reuben just to make sure. “My dad, Charles,” he said, having seated himself at the table.

  “Aha,” she muttered, satisfied with the confirmation.

  There were gestures and motions for her to follow Reuben in taking a seat at the table, which she heeded. Charles, set the bowls and brought out a large pot of porridge. I can only imagine her smile fading away as he did. She hated porridge – and still did last I saw her.

  She was hungry, though, and a growl of her stomach confirmed it. “Porridge? Even here?” she murmured softly, trying to hide her disappointment from the family that had just taken her in.

  Though, Reuben noticed. “Don’t inquiéter,” he said, pulling a face. “I don’t like it either. But there isn’t much variété to go around. Dad says there was a lot to choisir from before the guerre started.”

  “Guerre?” she asked.

  “You know,” he tried clarifying, searching for other words to help her understand, “a fight? A big fight; between us and the Artificielles.”

  “A war?” she asked as the remainder of the family took their seats and began eating. She gulped and reluctantly followed their lead. It was better than nothing – and she didn’t want to be rude.

  Reuben nodded in response to her translation, bringing to light a memory of hers – of when she entered Reuben’s hidden city. It came as a powerful vision, as if she was reliving the moment.

  She and Reuben came to a rusty gate, after walking quite a distance. The gate barred entrance into the cavernous city. Though, she couldn’t exactly tell how big it would be from where they were.

  Three men and two women, she recalled, wearing torn and tattered clothes stood waiting. They had wounds, small and large, and there was a butch, military feel about them. They also wore curious metal gloves.

  One of the men took out a transparent tablet, which appeared to be made of glass, and brought it closer to Reuben. They said a few things, as if they knew each other, while Reuben placed his hand onto the tablet, causing it to emit a blue light, along with the term ‘Naturelle de l’homme’ in a large and darker blue font.

  The same man then typed some sort of code into the tablet, causing the rusty gate to open with a loud and unnerving grate. He started walking in. She tried followin
g, but was stopped by one of the women, dressed in a sleeveless V-neck top. The woman, too, took out a clear tablet and said something in French.

  Her response, she remembered, was something along the lines of, “I don’t understand what you’re saying.” But it was probably more colourful than that.

  She kept walking, trying to follow Reuben into the dimly lit underground city, but quickly felt something grab onto her, holding her back. It was a holographic, yet tangible web – dark blue in colour. She turned her head and found that it came from the right glove of the woman that tried speaking to her.

  “Où pensez-vous que vous allez?” said the woman.

  Reuben stopped and looked back to see her retaliate with loudly spoken words – that neither of them understood, by the way. With his peculiarity, though, Reuben recognised that she was genuinely confused.

  That was strange, for him. So far as he knew, all Organic humans were familiar with the entrance procedure to Organic cities. And, so far as he understood from his readings, she was Organic.

  As the men and women that stood guard at the gate forced her hand onto one of their tablets, Reuben watched. He wanted to see what would happen, especially with regard to the curious readings he saw from her.

  After much resistance, the other woman’s tablet was able to scan her right hand. The tablet emitted a deep red light, which jittered with the words ‘Artificielle de l’homme’. The men and women immediately reached for a metallic orb from each of their belts, ready to press a button on them.

  Reuben was surprised… shocked, even. She didn’t have any Artificial readings, strange as her signatures were. He was about to step forward when the tablet flickered and shifted from its deep red theme, to dark blue.

  Even the words ‘Artificielle de l’homme’ changed from deep red to dark blue and then from ‘Artificielle de l’homme’ to ‘Naturelle de l’homme’. Everyone there paused, confused by what had happened.

  I would have assumed it was a glitch. And I assume they did too.

  The men and women tried scanning her hand-and-fingerprints with another tablet. There was no confusion with this reading. It identified her as ‘Naturelle de l’homme’ with dark blue from the get go. The woman holding her down with the dark blue web released her, still suspicious of what had happened.

  There was clear contention about letting her through. The women, especially, were opposed to it. But the decision was ultimately in her favour.

  That’s around the time Reuben started showing interest in this peculiar stranger that had followed him home. It was around that time that his curiosity started getting the better of him – more so than usual.

  As the memory faded, the image of the monitor returned to her mind. The monitor from her dream, that is; the one that read as The Peters Project. The part that stuck out more particularly, though, was the part that read Artificial Life.

  Recalling the ‘Artificielle de l’homme’ text made her think that something was there. Though it was in a different language, she felt strongly that Artificielle de l’homme meant Artificial Life. No, it didn’t answer why the scan glitched upon her first touch, but it did make her wonder if Robert and Reuben’s world had had contact before. Or was it merely a coincidence?

  As she returned from this detailed recollection, she found a bit of commotion around her. Reuben was asking if she was okay, while his mother and father entertained a number of men and women on the other side of the room. They also wore strange jumpsuits; similar to the one Natalia had lent her.

  Apparently, she had zoned out for a solid seventy-three seconds, according to Reuben’s account.

  Natalia moved from her position, from standing and watching her, then said something to her mother. It seemed that even she was in a hurry to get something done.

  “What’s happening?” she asked Reuben.

  “Over there?” he asked, pointing to his mother and father, and the large group of people. “Or with you?”

  Sensing the direness of the situation, she hurried through her explanation of his concern over her. “It’s my peculiarity,” she said. “You see how things work. I see things that have happened, or will happen.”

  Reuben stared at her blankly with a little shock and a bit of an epiphany.

  He tried asking more about her ability, but she cut him off. “What’s happening over there?” she asked, noticing each of the men and women attach silver balls, curious-looking knives and guns to their jumpsuits.

  “The Artificielles—”

  “Artificials?” she asked. “As in artificial life?”

  “Yes,” he said. “They’ve gotten through one of our postes de défense and into one of the outlying périphérique Naturelle cities.”

  She scrunched her brows, somewhat confused. She had other questions, but they fell away with this insight. Before she had been sucked into her memory at the rusty gate, Reuben had started explaining that they were at war with these Artificials.

  “This is the first time I’m hearing about this kind of thing,” she admits to Reuben.

  “That large kid that attacked you in terre de rien was an Artificial,” he explained, notably baffled by her ignorance on the matter.

  She was confused even more by that statement. If Artificials are oversized, then why is Robert ‘normal’? she pondered.

  “Where are you from?” he asked.

  “I’m still trying to figure that out,” she said. “But I know it isn’t from here.” Noticing that Reuben was in a daze, she added, “I’m from another world. I just don’t know which one. Before I came here, I was on Lithon – also another world. I don’t know how I got there, but I do know that I stepped through some sort of portal to get here – to where you found me.” She lifted her right hand and looked at the ring she had kept from the tomb bearing Oliver’s name and whispered, “…with the help of this.”

  He didn’t seem to believe her and before he was able to say anything the group of people scattered with a commotion. Some of them left through the large front door while the others departed through the smaller doors on the opposite end of the room.

  Reuben’s mother said something to him, which he acknowledged, and then said something to Natalia and Charles.

  Natalia’s voice rose in answer to whatever it was her mother had said, but she was quickly reminded, “Vous avez votre devoir.” Sandra looked the stranger’s way and so did Natalia. Except, Natalia crossed her arms as she did this; not happy with what she was told.

  Charles looked at Sandra and, as he was about to say something, she interrupted, “Je vais aussi avoir besoin de toi pour rester. Vous avez aussi votre devoir.”

  Natalia’s arms fell from their crossed position. Both she and Reuben seemed terribly confused. Charles, however, seemed to understand; though, not happily so.

  As Sandra left, Charles and Natalia continued eating. They were both in a foul mood and she could feel their dissatisfaction through the air.

  She took her spoon and continued eating, one slow spoonful at a time.

  During this, she and Reuben were able to talk, shying away from the other world topic.

  Reuben explained that there were artificial humans on his planet and on several of their moons. He explained that they had been at war with them for longer than he’d been alive and that his mother was a military general.

  He further explained that the men and women she saw meet with Reuben’s parents were part of their garrison – living in troops (what she figured to mean families) inside the mansion.

  The doors opposite the entrance of the room opened to their quarters and some to underground tunnels that led to various cities and key locations.

  Reuben explained that Natalia aspired to follow in their mother’s footsteps and wanted to go with her to tackle the Artificials’ movement into their territory, but had to stay because she was assigned to watch over her.

  “I’m not going because I’ve been excluded from assignments,” he said. Then, with his eyes fixed on his father, he ad
ded, “But I don’t know why he is staying.”

  After this explanation, she approached the topic of her most recent dream. “I think Robert’s an Artificial,” she said.

  Reuben’s eyes opened wide. He dropped his spoon, which was almost to his mouth and froze.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  A LAND OF SHADOWS

  You already said no more speculations, I remind myself as I pace the room of mirrors. But I can’t help myself. Strange things are happening and everything I knew is falling apart.

  I should’ve gone back to the campsite, I think to myself. But what if the girl is still around? I can’t leave her.

  Be a man, Robert! I tell myself as my stride lengthens and my pace quickens. Go through the light. It takes a little bit of hyping up, but I finally convince myself.

  I stand in front of the archway of glimmering light and wonder where it leads. Another part of the tomb? I shake my head. Another world? I think of the lady that appeared out of nowhere while we were at the hospital. Lighkame?

  Stop it! I tell myself. I’m procrastinating, uncertain of my ability to embrace unchartered territories. Come on, Robert. Don’t back out now.

  I move closer to the archway, more intent on walking through, and notice a shadowy figure peer through, briefly. I step back. My heart rate rises.

  It could have been your shadow, Robert, I think to myself, trying to explain it away. Don’t be stupid, another thought retaliates. The room is so bright at every angle there shouldn’t be a shadow in sight.

  I try telling myself, then, that it was just a figment of my imagination, but the things I saw and heard in Rex’s tomb make it difficult for me to even pretend.

  Robert Peters, I think to myself, get a grip. She could be in there.