The Ascension Myth Box Set

by Ell Leigh Clark

  The holo flicked up, and Molly started talking before the image settled. “Professor Von, sorry, I know it’s late …”

  A sleepy looking Abigail Von appeared on the holoscreen. “It’s quite okay. Is everything alright?” she asked, concern wrinkling her slightly puffy eyes.

  Molly didn’t even bother to sit down. “Yes, yes fine. I’ve just been thinking on the way back home. I was wondering if you’d compile a list of people you’d like on the faculty. Say, your top twelve?”

  Von answered slowly, her brain catching up with the processing. “Yes, I can do that.” Her voice conveying her curiosity. “Are you thinking of approaching people soon?”

  Molly leaned her hands on the console. “Yes, very soon. I’m thinking if we have a faculty and a full first semester of materials we could probably soft launch a program next cycle.”

  Von rubbed one eye, waking herself up some more. “You mean after this course has finished at Staðall, move the whole concept across to the new university?”

  Molly shifted her weight onto one foot. “It would be out of the way of the Dean and his cronies. We’d be free to teach what we wanted.”

  Von had leaned forward and rested her head in her hands. “But what about the students?” she questioned.

  Molly shrugged. “Well, we’ve proven the concept. The rest will be down to marketing and smoothing the mechanism for anyone who wanted to transfer, but we could handle all that. Right now I just want to be in a position to approach those who we’d want on board and make them an offer. But you’re the one who would know who we’d want in the mix.” Molly leaned up and stood a little straighter.

  Von nodded enthusiastically, dropping her arms to the table in front of her. “Yes. I would. In fact — oooo, this is going to be exciting!”

  “Great,” Molly said. “Well, I’ll let you get some sleep, and look forward to your recommendations.”

  Abigail bobbed her head. “Very good,” she agreed.

  “Good night, Professor.”

  “Good night, Molly.”

  The call clicked off.

  Molly stood in the darkened ops room, letting her brain catch up to where everything was moving.

  I think this could work, Oz.

  I have calculated a 92.9 % probability of success as defined by your previous comments of what success would look like.

  That’s good to know.

  It is. And in the meantime, you are overdue for some rest too. You’ve been working hard on this, and I noticed you have clocked very little REM the last few nights... perhaps on account of the worry?

  What worry?

  Oh, I dunno. The pressure of suddenly starting a university. Having your team out in the middle of the system undercover. Not knowing what’s happening with your realm jumping and the talisman thing.

  Hmm.

  I take that to mean you agree with my point?

  I do.

  Well good then. Time for bed, Mollster.

  Molly ambled out of the ops room with less vigor than when she strode in.

  You know it’s true what they say: Tiredness hits you when you stop.

  It appears so…

  Chapter 13

  Aboard the Flutningsaðili, Level 4

  Maya was midway through an information dump with Sean, once she was sure they weren’t being recorded. “Okay, so the cameras are on the no-record loop. I’ve made it look like just a glitch in the system in case anyone notices. A few other cameras on other floors are also experiencing it.”

  Sean’s eyes glinted with recognition at the technique she was using. “Ah, to avoid the no fingerprints syndrome.”

  Maya nodded. “I believe so, but that’s a human history thing, right?”

  Sean nodded. “I’m not sure. But it’s been rehashed on Estarian crime dramas so I’m pretty certain.”

  Maya stepped out of the elevator onto the fourth floor. She started walking confidently, in case there was anyone around who might see them. Sean followed, suddenly having to widen his gate to keep up with her.

  They made their way straight down the main corridor and then at the cross roads turned right and then left again and kept following it down.

  At the end of the corridor she could see the double doors that led to nothing. “That’s it,” she muttered quietly to Sean.

  He glanced around, trying to see if there was another way through. Then he looked up.

  “You’re kidding?” Maya gasped, looking up and seeing that he’d spotted a ventilation outlet.

  “Do you want in, or not?” he asked, without even taking his eyes off it.

  Maya looked around, realizing they had limited options. “I could hack the access. Given enough time,” she attempted.

  Sean looked down at her. “Okay. That’s one option.”

  “Also,” she added, “we don’t know if there is breathable atmosphere on the other side.”

  Sean glanced down at her, putting his hands on his hips. “Except we do know someone is going in and out of there if there are living, breathing hostages.”

  Maya pursed her lips, thinking. “Unless the hostages are elsewhere. Like on ice?”

  Sean bobbed his head. He was about to speak, but there was a faint bang off in the direction of the doors they had not yet approached.

  Maya looked at him, the whites of her eyes showing. “Is someone coming?” she asked.

  He moved, pulling her back in the other direction away from the doors. Looking back, he could see movement behind the glass.

  “Shit,” he mouthed to himself.

  Maya, in a panic, had run ahead of him and whipped around the corner at the end of the corridor they had just come down. She turned left, away from the lift.

  Shit, Maya, Sean cursed in his head, wrong way.

  He rounded the same corner too and almost bumped into her as she’d pressed herself against the wall. He glared, at her, then stood on the other side of her.

  Catching his wits, he checked down the corridor. There were doorways. With broken up shadows and recesses. He tugged at her arm, and pulled her along the corridor pointing at the doors. She understood and hid in one doorway. Sean took the next one down.

  They waited.

  Moments later they could hear the footsteps pounding up the corridor, almost amplified by the starkness of the passageway. They grew louder and louder. Maya felt her heart in her mouth pulsing with the anticipation of being caught.

  The footsteps reverberated louder still as their owner rounded the corner.

  They stopped.

  Maya pressed herself against the door, trying to hide her head from view. A moment later they started again, and within a few paces Maya could tell they were going in the direction of the lift.

  She cautiously tipped her head forward, stealing a glance at the suited, booted Estarian walking away from them. She waited, watching intently for his face as he rounded the corner. She caught a glimpse, and while she didn’t know the person, she did recognize him from the initial briefing. He had been one of the key personnel on the dais at the front of the room, introduced to them as someone who was in charge.

  She couldn’t for the life of her remember his name.

  She could sense Sean moving from his hiding spot and glanced over. He held one finger to his lips, and paused his own movement, listening. Maya held her breath, not daring to move.

  After a few more seconds Sean started moving, relaxing a little. “Okay. He’s gone,” he said softly.

  Maya pulled up her holo.

  His eyes fixed on her holo. “What are you doing?” he asked.

  Maya scrambled between screens. “If I can figure out who he is, I might be able to simulate his access codes and get us in the door.”

  Sean narrowed his eyes. “Did you get a look at him?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. I just can’t remember his name. He was on the platform for the briefing.”

  “Describe him,” Sean told her
.

  Maya looked up into the top of her eye sockets. “Estarian. Male. Late forties. Large nose, but slightly drawn face.”

  “Max Pike,” Sean said quickly.

  Maya cocked her head.

  Sean grinned. “I’ve gotten good at names and faces over the years. Plus, there is a training course the Federation has to help you,” he said, looking at her as if she should have taken it already.

  Maya smiled and returned to fiddling with her holo. “Ah yeah, that and the cyborg implants,” she said teasingly.

  Sean grinned. “Alright girlee,” he said cajoling her, “you actually think you can get us in?”

  She tipped her head from side to side. “Dunno yet. I can try. But it might trigger all kinds of alarms.”

  Sean sighed flatly. “Nothing is ever easy without an AI around.”

  She glanced up at him. “What about ADAM? Do you think he could help?”

  Sean opened his holo. “Probably. Lemme see if he’s available.” He poked a message, and one was returned almost straight away.

  “What do you need?” he asked Maya.

  She grabbed at his wrist and started communicating with ADAM directly.

  Sean looked around, straining to hear in case there was any activity around that they might need to react to. “Nearly there?” he pressed after a long minute, starting to feel like, under any other circumstances, he might not mind a female taking control of his holo that close and personal.

  “Uh huh,” she mumbled. “Let’s go.” She poked the screen again, and then closed it. “I need you nearby to pull the code over.”

  Sean followed her. “ADAM just wrote you a patch?” he queried, skeptically.

  She grunted the affirmative and continued down the white corridor where their mysterious access point lay.

  Sean shook his head. “Here goes nothing then,” he said, taking one last glance around and following her.

  Approaching the doors, Maya checked for cameras or sensors, hoping that something like that would light up on her schematics. She glanced down at her own holo and for the access she had. It all looked clean.

  “Wrist!” She demanded, commandingly, holding her hand out for Sean to oblige.

  Obediently, he complied and she pulled up the code she needed. Then, hurriedly, she poked around on the access panel, holding down key combos that she read off Sean’s device, presumably also from ADAM.

  “Uploading,” she whispered.

  There was a faint beep on the panel and she typed in 1234, and pressed enter. The door clicked open.

  Without a hint of hesitation she pressed forward on it and headed through, Sean following quickly in her wake.

  Once inside the darkness was illuminated in sequence, as lights came on down the length of the passage in front of them. “This is a lot of area to not have on the official schematics,” she commented.

  Sean whistled quietly between his teeth. “You’re not wrong,” he agreed.

  The pair made their way down the corridor, moving as quickly as they could. There were doors on either side every now and again.

  Maya’s eyes softened in dismay. “We can’t possibly search all of these,” she said, a hint of defeat in her voice.

  Sean slowed to a walk, and then stopped. “We may not have to,” he said cryptically.

  Maya turned and looked at him. “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “Hang on,” he said. “Calibrating.”

  Maya narrowed her eyes, trying to figure out what he was doing. She noticed he was looking at the wall and his eyes were moving slightly. “Hang on... you can see heat signatures? Like X-ray vision?” she pressed.

  Sean smiled cockily. “One of the perks of being upgraded by the Federation,” he told her.

  A moment later, he pointed. “I’ve got three warm bodies, over that way,” he indicated off in the direction of one of the rooms on the right.

  Maya scanned the corridor. “But which door do we go through?”

  Sean approached the one nearest him. “Try this one,” he said, pointing at the panel.

  Maya poked at the numbers.

  1234 enter.

  The door swooshed open, allowing them to pass through. There was a light on over in the far corner, behind what looked like a lab of hardware and equipment.

  Maya jogged forward, towards the yellow light. “That must be them,” she hissed quietly. Sean jogged after her.

  They approached, finding a glass meeting room with three people locked inside. One of them came to the glass, recognizing that these people weren’t their captors.

  She was Estarian. And she looked exhausted and bedraggled. They all did. Maya straight away recognized the old guy from his profile picture. That was Dr. Brahms. And the girl at the window was Lana Rey.

  She glanced at Sean who joined her at the glass. “Who’s the other one?”

  There was an Estarian girl, younger than Lana.

  Sean shrugged.

  Lana headed over to the door, pointing down at the access panel.

  Maya punched in the code.

  123-

  Sean grabbed her hand. “Wait!” he told her.

  She looked at him stunned.

  Lana looked at him and then at Maya. She banged on the glass and then pointed at the door panel again.

  Sean pulled Maya away. “We need to be smart about this,” he told her. “We let them out, and then what? They just come up to the upper decks? And then we’re no longer undercover, and they throw all five of us in there.”

  Maya turned back to the keypad, and tried to get her hand free. “Not if we integrate and give them a story to tell the rest of the crew. Whoever is doing this can’t just disappear that many people,” she responded defiantly.

  Sean wouldn’t release her hand. She looked at him, and then her hand, irritated.

  Sean shook his head. “They can. And they will. And you’re assuming the rest of the crew isn’t in on this.”

  Maya hesitated. She dropped her tone. “Could we play dumb?”

  Sean shook his head, letting her go finally. “Getting through all their levels of security? I don’t think so.”

  Maya called through the doorway to Lana. “Hey can you hear me?”

  Lana nodded.

  Maya explained the situation. “We can’t get you out. It’s not safe. For any of us. Are you hurt? Are any of you hurt?”

  Lana shook her head.

  “Okay, we know you’re here. We’ve been looking for you. Help is on the way. We know you’re Lana and that is Ainstel. Who is the girl with you?”

  Lana glanced over at the girl who was deliberately shying away from the interaction, leaning on the wall, her back to the others.

  “Her name is Anne,” Lana said, trying to be heard through the glass. Maya could just make out her words.

  “Anne,” she repeated. “Who is she? Why is she with you?”

  Lana shrugged. “She won’t talk to us. She says she’ll put us in more danger if she tells us.”

  Maya nodded. “We can’t deal with this now,” she muttered to Sean. “We need to get out of here and get Molly to extract us all.”

  Sean nodded.

  Maya wanted to check one more thing. “Are they feeding you? Are you okay?”

  Lana nodded.

  “Okay,” Maya called through, pressing her face near to the crack in the door, but still allowing Lana to lip read her through the glass too. “We’re going to get help. Don’t let on that we’ve been here. Everything is going to be okay, alright?”

  Lana nodded. Brahms had headed over and put a hand on Lana’s shoulder. He nodded his understanding too.

  “Stay safe,” Maya instructed. “We’ll be back.”

  She tore herself away from the window and together she and Sean made their way out. As quickly as they could.

  Without speaking they moved back down the corridor and out, heading all the way back to level 1 and the common areas for
personnel where they were meant to be.

  When they arrived, Maya sat down on a sofa and pretended to pick up a magazine. “What the fuck?” she exclaimed under her breath.

  Sean sat near her, looking around, pretending to be people watching. “Yeah,” Sean agreed. “Did you notice the equipment in that room, too?”

  Maya continued to pretend to read, restricting her body language. “No,” she responded.

  Sean looked out across the common area. “Big machinery. Easily our drilling equipment.”

  “Uh huh,” she acknowledged. “Wanna send a message to Pieter? I guess we have solved some of the puzzle.”

  “Yeah,” Sean concurred. “I’ll do that when I go to my bunk. The only other piece we need to sort out is who these guys are working for.”

  Maya frowned, and then pretended the frown was something in the magazine she was looking at. She pulled it closer and pretended to be reading the archaic printed material that some media companies started putting out during some renaissance of twenty years ago. “The only person who must know about that is the boss guy. What did you call him? Max?”

  Sean wiped his face with one hand and slid the other arm off the back of the sofa. “Yeah. He’s going to be harder to crack,” he admitted. “Not like you can just start chatting with him over a beer and ask him if he’s ever kidnapped anyone. And he’s unlikely to offer it up.”

  Maya nodded discretely. “So what do we do?”

  Sean glanced around the common area. “I dunno. Lemme think about it and I’ll let you know.”

  He leaned forward, readying to get up. “I’ll ping Pieter. But you need to go get some rest. I’ll be in touch soon. Good job.”

  Maya turned the page on the printed material. “You too,” she said quietly.

  Sean got up and wandered out of the common area.

  Aboard the Flutningsaðili, Level 2

  Sean found his way back to his shared quarters. It had been weeks now and still the maze of identical corridors made it difficult for any normal person to navigate around.

  Thankfully, he’d noticed various numbers placed on corridors or labeling facility points, like vents and electrical boxes, and used them to recognize whether or not he was in the right area.

  He stepped into the shoebox of a room and paused while the dim lights came up and the door slid closed behind him. His roommate, Tallus, was elsewhere. Probably still working.