by Chad R. Odom
“Good thing, I never want to.”
“Play your cards right, and I might just handle you tonight,” she said to Oryan.
“I always win.”
“Do you?”
“Every time. Even when I lose.”
Celeste noticed a small spot of blood on Oryan’s arm, probably from something unseen he had hit on the ground. Celeste took her usual mental inventory of the scars he had collected over the years. So, she took note of where the injury was and filed it away so she could use the salve Eldar showed her how to make.
Despite her misgivings, Tecton had done nothing to deserve her mistrust. He genuinely loved Oryan and her son. Unlike Sicari, Tecton wasn’t a mystery. He was a simple man with heartache he’d never recovered from and there was sympathy for him buried somewhere in her heart. He was a broken, flawed human being but in many ways he was beginning to remind her of her Centauri mentor, Madrid.
Her shoulders dropped as the walls around her heart did. “It’s going to be a cold night,” she said.
“I hear the best way to stay warm is to get naked with another person under a blanket.” An impish grin crossed Oryan’s lips.
“Then you better hope Tecton’s in for that kind of thing.”
“He is pretty sexy,” Oryan replied.
Celeste rolled her eyes. “Or, you could go with him out to the shed and get more firewood.”
Oryan sighed. “That’s almost as much fun as the blanket idea.”
Oryan left her side and scooped Asher off Tecton who was feigning defeat.
“Awww, Dad!” Asher complained. “I had him!”
“Yeah, well, I was saving him from you.”
Asher was strung over his father’s shoulder, watching Tecton get off the ground. His mom squeezed his thigh as he passed. Tecton got up and brushed the dirt off his arm while yawning as if to taunt the boy.
“Your dad saved you! I was just getting my second wind!”
Asher scowled at him, silently vowing swift retribution.
Oryan carried Asher into the house. Tecton stayed on the ground and held his peace. Celeste’s looked everywhere but at him. She drummed her fingers against her thigh. He knew she didn’t trust him and, on some level, understood why. Making friends wasn’t his strong suit, so he preferred silence to engaging her in even idle conversation. Shadow yawned and stretched before trotting to Tecton and licking his face.
“You would have made a good father,” Celeste said quietly.
Tecton could hardly believe his ears. If silence was uncomfortable, a compliment from her was worse. With his usual charm, he replied, “What the hell am I supposed to say to that?”
Celeste burst out laughing. Tecton grinned awkwardly then went back to uncomfortable confusion. He hadn’t been joking. Was she laughing at him or with him or what? He decided to simply return his focus to Shadow, but seconds later, a strong but feminine hand was extended to him. He followed it up her arm across her shoulder and to her face. Brown eyes stared back at him. They weren’t filled with affection, but there was something there that hadn’t been previously. Acceptance. He took her hand and, with a strength defying her size, she pulled him to his feet.
“You’re a good mom,” he managed to say to her.
Celeste’s memory flooded back to Madrid lifting her off the ground when she was a youth. “I know you’re trying. It doesn’t go unnoticed. I thought you should know.”
“Oryan told me you’ve been through a lot,” he replied. “Thank you for letting me be a part of your family and, uh, thanks for not kicking my ass yet.”
Celeste laughed and this time, Tecton laughed with her.
“She’s taken,” Oryan said as he stepped out of the house.
“Where’s Asher?” Celeste noticed her son’s absence.
“Bath,” Oryan reassured her. “Come on, Tecton, we’ve got work to do”
Oryan and Tecton walked to the woodshed. Celeste watched them go, knowing they would find the wood supply very low. They would head out and collect more. They would engage in another testosterone-fueled competition of who could cut more. That was the point. This bought her needed time.
After Armay’s scroll uncovered Sicari as the traitor, she hurried back to the camp to get Asher out, but she’d been too late. Sicari had taken them both within hours of her return. Since then, the tumult of her life made her forget about Armay’s secret scroll and the small cylinder she’d found with it. Before they were taken, she’d removed several stitches from the pants she was wearing and slipped them between the fabric. She wore those pants the day before, and when she’d slipped them off to bathe, she heard a strange tick when they hit the floor. Only then did she remember the mysterious object she had yet to decipher.
At first, she wanted to tell Oryan, but a familiar fear crept back into her heart. She had no idea what the cylinder was, or if there was any other information contained on the scroll. If she showed it to him before she knew what was on there, it might stir the desire to pick up where his father had left off. His sense of loyalty ran deep. The loss of Armay and Oryan’s inability to do anything about it ate at his soul. If that part of him was touched enough, he would leave again. She knew she wouldn’t stop him, which is why she couldn’t let him go.
***
“Do you want to talk to Grandpa?” Celeste asked Asher. She had introduced Armay to Asher via the scroll on her necklace. Asher stopped what he was doing and ran to her like Shadow for a table scrap.
Oryan and Tecton watched over him and played with him and did what they could. They were great for Asher, but she regretted the circumstances that forced them to isolate him from other children his age.
She placed the lens on the floor in the center of the great room and dropped the scroll inside. Armay beamed to life. Armay remembered Asher immediately.
“Hello, Grandson,” Armay said with the same enthusiasm Asher displayed. “What are we in for today?”
Celeste loved this. Armay provided company that wouldn’t get tired of Asher and wouldn’t grow weary of his incessant questions. It was an interactive journal from the life of a good man. He even taught Asher the more complex games he had played as a youth. They were strategic in nature and required Asher to try and out maneuver his grandfather which, to date, he never had. Asher loved to spend time with him, and she could implicitly trust him. The irony had not escaped her that, other than Oryan, the only person she fully trusted was a ghost.
“Tell me more about what you did when you were my age!”
Armay stepped away from the center of the lens. His image couldn’t go far from the source, but it could appear to step aside to show in full detail the places, people, and events in Armay’s life just as he lived them.
Celeste watched Asher talk to him, ask his questions, laugh at the responses, and altogether become entrenched in the storytelling. After patiently watching—when she was sure Asher was completely distracted—she went into her bedroom and closed the door. She had to have a conversation with Armay, too.
***
Asher talked with Armay and loved to hear his stories, it was true. He learned about his grandmother, Kathrine. He learned about Acamar, Navarus, and the story of his family. He soaked in every detail, but he always kept track of his mother’s whereabouts. He stopped his playing and asked his grandfather to stop.
“Just like last time if Mom comes back and I don’t see you go right back to here got it?” he directed Armay.
“I understand,” he replied.
Asher stood up and moved to a place where he could see Celeste come back down the hall, but she couldn’t see him. He didn’t want her to know what he was really learning.
“Okay, Grandpa. Teach me to fight like Dad.”
***
Celeste lowered the lens Eldar had given her and retrieved the scroll she had found in the coffin of the unknown. The tiny gem clicked as it rattled around in the bottom of the lens, but as it always did, Armay came to life.
“I don’t kno
w you, but if you’re here, that means you’ve come to the same conclusion I have and then you know as I do, there’s no time to lose. There’s an Agryphim in the camp—”
“I know,” Celeste cut him off. “Sicari’s already killed everyone there.”
The image grew still. Like the other one she had, it contained only limited information and could only give programmed responses.
“Sicari’s dead. I’m not here to talk about him.” She held open her hand, in which lay the small cylinder. “I’m here to find out what this is.”
Armay studied it for a moment. “I don’t really know.”
Celeste balled her fists and her cheeks flushed. “How can you not know?”
“My responses are limited. You must ask the right questions.”
Celeste reset and tried another tactic. “How did you get it?”
“When I suspected a traitor, I retrieved the scrolls of previous Arkons and studied them one at a time.
“What I found is almost every Arkon suspected a traitor or at least an information leak, but their investigation didn’t materialize much. I would imagine because Sicari would discover their intentions and shut it down.
“After a while I found an Arkon who, through his research, became extremely paranoid and withdrew from the Archide camp—similar to me except he kept contact with Corvus and Sicari. It was he who taught me how to conceal portions of my scroll.
“There were portions of his record that seemed odd to me. Almost as if there were things he outlined, then went back and erased. On first glance, you might blame his paranoia, but I couldn’t escape that he—or someone—had erased portions.
“He kept mentioning secrets he would take with him to the grave. I took that literally. I went to the tomb of the Arkons and opened his coffin, hoping to find a scroll not unlike the one you’re seeing now. I didn’t find one, but I did find the cylinder.”
“What’s it for?” Celeste asked when Armay concluded.
“I don’t know. I would have left it be, except for where I found it.”
“In the roof of his mouth?” she asked, recalling where she found it at the tomb of the unknown.
“Precisely,” Armay confirmed.
“Was there anything else?” Celeste hoped to come away with something more than she started with.
“There is an inscription on the side.”
Armay stood still and silent. Celeste raised her eyes, hoping he would take the hint and tell her what the inscription said. She shook her head at her own foolishness, realizing it wasn’t going to give her any more information than she asked for. It wasn’t really Armay, after all.
“What did the inscription say?”
“The key with no door.”
She rotated the cylinder in her palm to try and see the inscription Armay was talking about. “What does that mean?”
“My responses are limited. You must ask—” The sound of Oryan and Tecton coming into the house snapped her out of her train of thought.
“Terminate session!” Celeste barked in frustration. She scooped up the lens and the scroll, shoving them between the mattresses. She reached for the door only to realize the cylinder was still in her hand and Oryan was down the hall. She tugged a stitch of her bracelet loose, tucked the cylinder under it, and pulled the stitch tightly against it just as the door opened.
Oryan came in sweaty and covered in dirt. Celeste eyed him with a combination of curiosity and humor. “I take it getting wood went well?”
“Slight disagreement, nothing major.” Oryan grinned and made his way to the shower.
“Who won?” she asked him.
He poked his head out from behind the wall. “I went easy on him.”
She raised her eyebrow. “Of course you did.”
Brain Patterns
The door opened and the doctor came in followed by Valac. They both stopped in front of Tamrus. Cadron Valac, or Cad as he was known, was a territorial governor in Navarus. He was the hand of temperance after the Empire’s collapse. His skill at diplomacy was unmatched—and so was his military strategy, the world had only now learned.
His borders had been raided and attacked by Roanoke and his armies, and Valac had successfully repelled the attempts. Even though Roanoke was still on the loose, Valac’s success had been a ray of hope.
He was the only person Tamrus trusted in the former Navarite Empire. Tamrus never truly trusted anyone, but when the charge came to find Kovac, Valac, and his military leader Brand Wall, were the only people who had produced results.
“Governor Valac. Good to see you.” Tamrus greeted him with a handshake.
“Likewise, my friend.”
“Cephos Mod…” Tamrus read the chart outloud. “One of our missing physicists. How did you find him?”
Valac shook his head. “Completely by accident. The raft was spotted by my privately-owned merchant vessels. They intercepted it and found whatever this is.” His blue eyes peered deeply at the shell of a man they were observing. “I wouldn’t have bothered to tell you about it until he started babbling about the target you asked me to watch out for.”
“Has he said anything else about him?”
“He’s only repeated what you’ve already been told,” the doctor answered. “Considering we found him on a raft with a bunch of corpses, severely dehydrated, collapsing organs, and delirious—amongst other things—it’s amazing he can even get that out.”
“What do you mean?” Tamrus asked.
“Well, aside from the physical manifestations, which you’re watching, his brain patterns are like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”
The doctor touched the portable console he had tucked under his arm and projected an image onto the panel opposite the glass. “Here’s a normal person’s brain activity.” There were waves scrolling across the screen. “Here’s what positive reinforcement—recognition, entertainment, food, sex—things along those lines, does.” The waves became taller but farther apart. “Here’s the opposite—fear, pain, sadness.” The waves shifted, this time closer together and ranging in height. “These things we see all the time. Patients who are clinically insane, or who suffer from other forms of mental illness show a variation of these patterns.”
“Here’s your physicist.” The image shifted to a flat line. They watched it for several long seconds.
“When did you record this?” Valac asked.
“This is real-time, Governor,” the doctor replied. “The only time you see this is from a corpse. There’s no brain activity, but watch this.”
The doctor pushed a different button. “Professor Mod?”
The man in the room mumbled his acknowledgement, but the brain pattern stayed the same. “How are we feeling today?” the doctor asked.
Another unevolved response.
“You killed those men, you know that? The men on the boat with you? You killed them in cold blood.” There was another mumble, but even the intentional comment to get a rise out him caused no movement on the screen.
“You see,” the doctor explained. “His mind is working, but not at the same time. You can tell he’s responsive. I can’t explain it.”
“All the same,” Tamrus said, “I want to speak to him.”
“Be my guest,” the doctor replied and punched commands on the console. The door to the room clicked, and Tamrus headed to it.
“I’m coming, too.” Valac followed.
The pair entered the room, but Mod took little notice. “Hello, Professor,” Tamrus greeted him. Mumbles came back. “My name is Mr. Tamrus and this is Governor Valac. We’d like to ask you about what happened to you. Would that be okay?”
Mod mumbled louder.
“What were you doing on the boat?” Tamrus asked.
“How did you get there?” Valac added. “Do you know where you are now?”
Valac placed his hand on Tamrus’s shoulder. “Professor,” he called gently. “The doctor showed me the video from when you were dreaming. You said some names in your dream. D
o you remember?”
Mod remained unmoved.
“What can you tell us about Roanoke?”
Mod’s breathing became audible and ragged. His usual agitation turned even more noticeable, and it seemed to be coming from a genuine sense of fear. Instead of a mumble, a single monotone noise rose from his mouth and did not cease.
“You know about Roanoke?” Tamrus repeated. The monotone noise grew. “Can you tell us about him?”
Tamrus shot a glance at Valac and then back at the mirror. “There was another name you said in your dream. Do you know that name? It was Kovac.”
Mod finally made eye contact with Tamrus. The noise stopped. His eyes widened, highlighting their bloodshot state from the lack of sleep. He began whispering. Tamrus and Valac leaned in. He was speaking in a language Tamrus didn’t recognize.
“You know something,” Valac said. “Tell us what you know about Lucius Kovac.”
Mod threw himself against the far wall; he covered his ears with his hands and beat his head against the wall. “Get out! Get out! Get out!” he repeated in rhythm with his pounding.
“What do you know?” Valac asked.
Mod stared at Valac through eyes lined with blood and tears as he screamed at an ear-splitting pitch, “Get oooouuuuuut!”
Tamrus and Valac stepped back. The door behind them opened, and the officer spoke very calmly. “You might want to see this.”
No sooner did they close the door behind them than Mod returned to his previous state. The doctor was fixated on the screen monitoring his brain activity, which remained as flat as it had before.
“What are we supposed to be seeing?” Tamrus asked.
The doctor paused the live feed and rewound the image. “This is when you asked him about his ordeal on the boat.” The line didn’t move. Suddenly, there was activity—subtle but recognizable as brain activity in duress. “Here you asked him about Roanoke. This, I can understand. Roanoke has this effect on everybody. What’s coming up when you asked about Kovac I…I can’t…” The doctor’s voice faded.
The line jumped everywhere. The doctor slowed the response down. “Sheer terror, but that’s not the strange part. I’ve seen nearly every mental illness on record, everything from schizophrenia to multiple personalities but never this.” He pressed the next button and the flat line returned. “Look at the time stamp,” the doctor pointed out. “This is during what you just saw. Now watch. I used colors to make it clear what you’re seeing.”
