Axiom
Page 9
Next to Malick and Chellis stood two odd-looking gentlemen, their faces darkened by the shadows while the high points were illuminated in geometric patterns of thin blue light. Black suits and trim collars framed their glowing faces. Their already unamused expressions were highlighted, and their demeanor distinctly identified them as Enninites, nPrints from the desolate enclaves left of Earth.
It was normal for this group to think they were of higher stature than anyone else. This was due to their culture surviving the Big Flare Event, but it really just allowed them to be pricks.
The elevator raced at a break-neck speed, and despite the volatile pace, Chellis noticed the only human on board was fine. Malick stood stoically, unbothered. The nPrinted gentlemen were all dressed to the nines for the event and wore medals and sashes representing the five factions of Annulus.
Chellis, having noticed Malick’s astute posture, also saw the real medals from Earth he wore. One medal had a royal deep purple band and a silver heart.
“You must be proud of your accomplishments from over the years, General Malick. Do you miss the military?” Chellis asked.
“Yes,” Malick replied. “The private sector has been interesting to see.”
“What does that medal stand for?” asked one of the Enninites.
“I saved a life in time of battle,” Malick responded.
One Enninite gentlemen straightened his clean modern contemporary garment and chuckled at the other.
“Is there something funny?” Malick asked.
Chellis tried to ease the atmosphere. “Please forgive them. They are not used to the concept of death or even saving.”
“I guess,” the rude Enninite said. “You could say we have already been saved.”
Malick quickly became annoyed and paid no attention to the classism the cultured faction of the Enninites liked to engage in. The door rang a melodic chime, signaling the ground floor of Annulus. The entrance opened to a grand sight.
Ten-story-high pillars supported massive swaying banners showing the five factions of Annulus in blue. The many Neopracts scurried about while trying to find their places and set up the many breakthroughs nPrinted students had been working on.
A young gentleman wearing a set of standard issue VR glasses walked closer to the group. As he neared, his smile grew. For a second, Aden experienced that childhood emotion that every human boy has when they see their father—love. Aden placed his glasses on his head as he bypassed Chellis and greeted Malick with a hug.
Malick seemed to warm up for a moment and awkwardly wrapped his hands around Aden.
“Father, it is great to see you,” Aden said.
Chellis awkwardly introduced the other gentlemen from the outer exclaves. “Aden, meet the Xavidoffs from the Enninite exclave on Earth.”
Aden proudly shook each of their hands, commanding a strong eye at each embrace. He knew the Enninite’s were proud people responsible for manufacturing the Cyber Libraries on Earth. They considered themselves a sub-enclave that worked as “Cybrarians” in creating goods/products for Annulus and any country left with functional tech on Earth.
With Chellis signaling the escort party, they all walked and eyed the various disciples working tirelessly to finish their project presentations to show Annulus’s great progress. As they descended the central stairwell, one of the Xavidoffs snickered to each other behind Aden’s back.
Aden halted. “Is there a problem, gentlemen?”
“No, sir. We were just surprised to learn about your age. Someone like you to be nominated as a Neopract on Annulus is courageous.”
Aden knew what they were getting at since he was by far the youngest human to come to Annulus and survey.
“Let me assure you, gentlemen,” Aden said, “my knowledge of the human condition is only outweighed by the pain I have experienced. It’s when the soul cannot learn to see, that is the real injustice.”
The younger Xavidoff seemed visibly embarrassed. “Please forgive us, sir.”
As the group reached the bottom of the glass stairs, they could not wipe the awe-inspiring look off their faces. One booth after another had unique, incredible events.
The Xavidoff’s quickly rushed over to a young boy showing a new way to model carbon nanotube structures while Chellis walked with Aden and Malick.
“Why did they send Enninites to perform the audit?” Aden asked.
“The UN finds their brute honesty a necessity in matters like these,” Chellis answered.
“And you sure put on a show for them,” Malick added.
“I need to dazzle them,” Chellis said, pointing to a table with a small, flashing and glowing orb.
A young man stood behind a clothed table and adjusted the dials as the pulses of light increased in a fiery orb.
“Is that a… pulsar?” Aden asked.
“Right. Here we are looking to collapse the soul backups into this star’s core. We could then, theoretically, project our consciousness outward into all parts of the universe.”
“By Tau,” Aden said in wonder.
“Tau, indeed, Aden,” Chellis said confidently.
Malick despised Chellis’s use of Tau. To Malick, Tau was the new word for God and to use it in such a disrespectful way was offensive. Furthermore, Chellis’s dreams of grandeur did not impress him.
“By having our beacon of light stationed at all parts of the galaxy,” Chellis continued, “we would no longer be susceptible to the risk of losing backups.”
“Attacks,” Malick plainly added.
18
Annulus Tower was a large complex, cylindrical at the top and descended into rigid sharp corners at the base. This showcased its avant-garde architecture in pristine perfection. NPrints flourished in the grassy fields that were kept trim like a number two fade on a guardsman’s head. The low Earthshine was supplemented by spaghetti strap lights of topaz blue and tangerine orange lining the walkways.
Elise stepped onto the field, crunching the perfectly grown blades of grass. She held a large duffle bag and peeked her head around the corner watching for PYSOP teams on patrol.
“Let’s hope that scan works,” she said to herself, dialing instructions into her second skin.
Her physical presence disappeared beneath the plastic disparity suit. An aberration hinted of only red, blue, and green glinted as footprints trekked their way across the grassy field and toward the Annulus tower.
Elise arrived at the front entryway where an eye scanner sat just off to the side. Gas filled the corridor, which prevented any unauthorized molecular displacement from entering the Tower. Elise knew this and accessed her second skin. With a few flicks, she was in the proper digital folder structure: Bio_Settings>Core_Features>Irises.
She typed in a replacement command, setting it recursively to swap with a new file. Her eyes subtly changed hue and form. She lifted the hood, and the eye scanner sensed her face and activated.
“Welcome, Solari,” the robotic voice said, opening the set of doors.
Elise smiled and entered unnoticed.
Inside, the crowd was massive and swarmed from table to table, admiring the fancy technology Chellis had put on for the show. Elise was intrigued but refused to be deterred from her goal. She kept along the walls and waited as she eyed the groups and the faces.
The vast lobby of the Annulus Archives was just off site from the Tower. Expansive and grand, the large red tapestries hung vertically on gray concrete walls to the floor. Between them were windows of the same length, tapering in old gothic style at its base.
Not far from the lobby were long corridors jutting back and extending outward, housing the physical archives in a constant chill of forty degrees like an old wine cellar preserving its fermented fruit. Since data could be corrupted or lost, Annulus decided to physically print all records on platinum tablets and stored them there.
Solari wrapped her arms around her torso to shield herself from the chill as she made her way to the back of the archives. She was still
unable to forget about her sister’s accusations. If there was any evidence to Elise’s story, the records of Naturalization would have access to this free information.
She walked further down the corridor lined with thousands of metal-plated information records and saw double doors at the end framed in red, indicating the records of the first to be Naturalized. While walking, a series of unique gold-plated records glinted in her peripheral along a side hallway.
“Interesting,” Solari said, walking to the gold plates, knowing gold was a restricted commodity to be nPrinted.
The tablet read:
Meson, Axiom Neopractioner.
Naturalized April 19th, 2083.
Interesting to think there are Neopract eradicates, she thought. She shook her head, clearing the digressing tangential thoughts. She must find Chellis’s Naturalization records. She put the gold plates back and hurried back down the hall.
Solari arrived at the archive double doors that towered over her. They were crested with a retina scanner. She looked up, and a red line pulsed into her irises.
“Duplicate entry!” the mechanized voice said, alarming a red light to pulse chaotically. Solari panicked. How could she be in two places at the same time?
Echoing alarms rang out to Elise’s surprise in the large gathering room of Annulus Tower. NPrints looked around, unaware of the strange sound they heard seldomly. Elise knew very well what was happening. Her window of opportunity was about to close.
She dialed into her arm disabling the disparity. A young nPrint looked alarmed when he saw a woman appear before him and fled for the doors with the evacuating crowd. Elise carried the duffle bag and rushed, her eyes searching the sea of people for the target.
A young gentleman with noticeable scars on his chin was escorted by a larger bearded man with similar scratches on his forehead. Elise stopped dead in her tracks. Humans in Annulus Tower? she thought. Her composure changed when a silver-haired man followed behind them. And there he was—dressed in white like a saint.
Chellis.
Elise threw down the bag, unzipped the contents and propped up a cylindrical tube that resembled a signal booster. She typed furiously into her arm and slammed a button, starting a countdown. Elise caught Chellis’s eyes just before she enabled her Disparity suit, disappearing into an array of colors and then thin air.
His reaction when seeing me and the device was priceless, she thought. Elise saw his maniacal smile. This was the man who represented the people and cherished perfection. He did not fear death.
She watched him raise his arm, barking orders to PSYOP teams into his second skin.
Elise ran like the wind to the closest table, tipping over the contents and shielding herself. The cylindrical canister exploded, and sticky black tendrils of goo ignited in all directions following a fiery blaze.
Peeking out, she made out the crowd in front of Chellis took most of the impact. Their nanite flesh seared in pain as the compound ate through to the bone and dripped to the ground, consuming the floor thereafter.
Chellis rolled on the ground, struggling with the substance eating at his shoulder and face. He scraped the tacky goop from his cheek and jaw, but the goo immediately began to eat his hand as he struggled to wipe it off on the floor. The pain looked unbearable to Elise as she watched with pleasure.
She watched the Chellis look for Aden and saw Malick on top of his son, shielding him from the blast. Malick was hesitant to move because he’d been wounded in the blast.
As Malick moved, Elise could make out his large body uncovering Aden. Chellis, next to him, saw the nightmare below. Shrapnel from the canister had impaled Aden’s chest. The floor quickly pooled with his life’s essence, as he lay dying in his father’s arms. Elise didn’t make a sound of regret as she left unseen.
19
Solari ran out of Axiom as the alarms flashed and rang. Chaos ensued as people ran in different directions, trying to escape while others screamed in agony, their skin eaten away.
She ignored the orders shouted out over the PSYOP comm. Kicking open the archive doors, she saw nPrints running scared for their lives, smoke billowing from the Tower’s base. She had never seen anything like that before on Annulus.
She darted across the grassy field, running toward the chaos. NPrints fled past her, screaming. They were covered in a black tar that ate away at their skin. She ran harder against the crowd, dodging each victim with an almost too-perfect stride.
She saw Carter approaching fast, his mag weapon raised as he scanned the area.
“What happened?” Solari yelled.
“Explosion. There was an attack on Annulus Tower. Some kind of dirty bomb.”
Solari looked closer at the victim’s wounds, and a dreadful feeling came over. Had Elise done all this?
Carter dialed into his second skin. He changed the output of his weapon from ammunition to a cleansing liquid before spraying the wounded to help sooth them.
“Sol, we have to help them,” Carter said frantically.
Solari stumbled backward as shock consumed her. When her back bumped into something, she turned watched as faint footprints appeared and disappeared as they walked away. She could see each shadowy print, but she couldn’t see the individual creating them.
“Disparity suit,” Solari said, regaining her composure.
She touched her temple, and her eyes turned a bright blue as she saw the AO. Before her was the unmistakable likeness of a strobing Elise. Solari drew her mag immediately.
“Elise!” Solari yelled, firing a shot at the projector on Elise’s back responsible for producing the disparity.
Elise was thrown to the ground with a loud huff. She was slow to stand, and her disparity suit malfunctioned wildly. “Sol, please, you can’t do this. You have to let me go.”
“Is this your idea of embracing imperfection?” Solari yelled. “By hurting people?”
“Sol, it’s Chellis. He’s causing the manifestations. You must believe me!” Elise pleaded.
From afar, Chellis exited the building while holding his half-destroyed face with a shaky hand. His good eye looked around frantically, watching. Malick was behind him, lifting a lifeless body onto a stretcher. Solari’s heart dropped when she saw it was Aden.
“Sky Team! I need a Para-lift! Stat!” PSYOP members called out over Solari’s radio.
She looked at Elise with a fiery hatred. Reaching into her pocket, she rolled a ball in her hand and collapsed a NIMBUS ring. She held it at her side, her eyes focused with deadly intent on her sister.
“I’ve always been faster than you,” Elise said, hesitantly stepping back.
Solari shot a glance toward Chellis, waiting for his nod of approval. “Not anymore, you’re not.”
Elise threw a left hook and an uppercut with a right, missing both times as Solari met her head-on and expertly slammed the NIMBUS ring on her sister’s head. Elise’s eyes rolled back as fiery blue electrical arcs shot over her cranium. She closed her eyes, accepting her next resting place; Axiom Pre-processing.
The Med Bed facility that Solari knew so well was in the upper core of Annulus Tower and not affected by the explosion. The smell of iodine and faint astringent composite materials filled her nose. The air was warm, but the room still felt cold to her as she walked closer to her reflection in the glass divider.
Beyond the glass, she watched Aden as Med Bed bots with articulate composite arms repositioned sensors on his body. Aden had suffered excruciating trauma to his body. Solari watched the nPrinted monitor display brain function waves oscillating at a normal rate. He is alive, but a prisoner in his body, she thought.
She tried to empathize with what he went through. She was nPrinted so many years ago the memories had faded of what it was like. While she had the emotions humans possessed, she did not have the fear of dying. That emotion eluded her, along with dread and fear. However, one thing bothered her right at that moment.
Guilt.
It’s all my fault, she thought.
A Med Bot hovered not too far from Solari, beholding an affectionate name tag that read Holli.
“What’s his condition?” Solari asked Holli.
“He has internal bleeding, and his vital organs were damaged,” Holli said in a mechanized voice.
Solari looked back at Aden, his head wrapped in blood-soaked gauze that would need changing soon. His chest was still covered in the pitch-black goo from the explosion but did not harm his imperfect human skin. The concoction Elise had dreamed up must have been meant only to damage nPrints. What a travesty, she thought.
“Will he survive?” Solari asked Holli.
“The consciousness in humans shuts down in the event of trauma so the body can fight what went wrong. He is now in a comatose state,” Holli replied.
Solari felt terrible. If only she had been able to convince her sister to believe in Annulus’s goals. Another Med Bot hovered in, followed by doctors from the Naturalization team confirming data on glass tablets while crunching data sets of numbers.
“Will he be Naturalized?” Solari asked.
“Since Aden is incapacitated, the decision will be up to his next of kin,” the Med Bot answered.
“Malick,” Solari said under her breath.
The Med Bot left the room, and Solari looked back at Aden while the Naturalization Team lifted his eyelids, shining light into his irises. She thought of how her sister had stolen her ID. She wiped the tears from her face and decided to act. She couldn’t just let this go.
20
Solari walked down a narrow hallway with purpose as three men from the Naturalization Team followed behind. The men carried worried looks behind their cyber-enhanced goggles, displaying eight disturbing arachnid eyes.