by Ran Vant
Clara surveyed her new home that would go along with her new name, Katherine, and her new life. The settlement was nestled into the gently sloping walls of a shallow draw. Several small buildings emerged from the earth like scattered half-buried rocks left by glaciers in another age. Live grasses grew from the roofs such that only the front vertical surfaces were barely visible, and those were painted to a close approximation of the colors and patterns of the grasses.
At the bottom of the draw, a small spring fed a tiny creek that ran through the fields. As she would soon learn, it ran towards a larger stream some quarter of a mile away. The little creek turned twice in the course of its short run, concealing its source from anyone coming up the relatively larger stream’s modest valley. In the rolling hills and plains of the territory, the settlement was hidden from view from all directions.
“Well, Alaric, Pete looks a little empty. Where is everyone? I expected to at least see a guard or two,” Lothar asked, security still being at the forefront on his mind even in the seemingly endless wilderness.
“Ah, my friend, you doubt our competence? The guards are here; you just can’t readily see them. We walked right past a couple of the bunkers, hidden in the grasses. Rest assured, if we’d been Fanatics we wouldn’t have made it over the rise. But you’ll get your chance to see all of that soon enough when you get to pull your guard duty. Everybody pulls their weight on the mundane tasks, too. Security is boring here, and we intend to keep it that way by being vigilant. In the meantime, almost everyone’s waiting inside to greet you. We’d best not keep them waiting anymore.” Then turning to the little Katherine, Alaric asked, “Shall we go meet your new friends?”
Katherine silently nodded her assent.
Lothar took his daughter's hand in his and led her to their new home. It was the first time in a long while that he allowed himself to relax. It was the first time in a long while that he felt safe. He was among friends once again.
But Lothar knew that the hunters were still out there. And the hunters would not stop looking for him. Nor would they stop hunting for little Clara. For he understood that it was not him that the hunters ultimately wanted. They wanted her.
3.
Download
The mask hissed as he released the latch. He pulled the mask forward and off, his dark hair falling forward upon his brow. It took a split second for his mind to adjust from the 360-degree view of the mask to the narrow perspective of normal vision.
He placed his metal mask upon the stand. Turning, he walked around the large black chair and sat down. The chair gently reclined backward to the quiet whirl of electric motors. Two padded arms, one from each side, hummed as they swung upward on each side of his head. He closed his eyes as the warm pulse of the download began.
Michael Lightbringer, a Guardian of the West, relaxed during the routine conducted before and after each mission. The mission was downloaded from his brain to a central computer, an organic brain in the center of the floating castle, to be processed and analyzed before being reported to the Ancients. As he sat in the chair with the warm hum of the pads, more than just the mission was downloaded: his entire brain structure was scanned and stored. Michael understood that not only did this enable the Ancients to have a clearer picture of the mission, it also enabled the restoration of a Guardian should he fall in battle. But falling in battle was a rare occurrence for one such as him. It had not happened once in the last seven years. It was getting easier.
After a few seconds, a light turned blue, the arms retracted, and the chair up-righted itself. He stood and went to remove his suit of armor. His armor was like a second skin to him, but it was necessary to recharge and clean the suit on occasion. And standard operating procedure called for an inspection of the suit following each mission. The suit had never failed him before, and meticulous care was one of the reasons. If the slightest imperfection in a suit was identified, other identical suits awaited him to be used while the blemished suit was repaired.
In the room in which he stood there was a wall with twelve arched recesses slightly taller than a man. Into one of these recesses he stepped, placing his back against the wall. There was a latching sound and a small lurching upward as the maintenance bay gripped the suit on the back and at each foot. He placed his arms firmly in smaller latches on each side. Pressurized air hissed as the suit split open, liquid metal flowed to the sides, and Michael Lightbringer stepped out. The suit disappeared for inspection while another dropped into position, ready at a moment’s notice.
“Are you coming to the dining hall?” his silver-haired mate asked. Her hair was not gray from stress, nor was it silver from age. Like him, she looked no older than twenty-five. Rather, it was metallic silver by design. Her hair shone with the glimmer of highly polished metal.
“Yes, it would be good to eat,” he replied. It was time to settle in for another long wait. But he was patient. Missions did not come often, and the missions these days took little time.
Michael loved her more than anything else. Well, perhaps he loved her equally together with his job and serving the Ancients. But he didn’t need to worry about separating his love, for he worked with her, and together they protected the Ancients. His love for her was the same as for his job and the Ancients. To him, all three were one thing. And she loved him the same. After all, they were designed for each other.
4.
The Rebel
The boy slipped quietly into the room. Some ‘old’ guy he’d never seen before with thinning blond hair and a lame red beard was talking: “Without the Network’s knowledge base and technology it will be very difficult for the Natural Human Alliance to maintain the capability to…”
The boy tuned him out. If he was talking about Fanatics, he might be worth sticking around for, but since it sounded like city politics, he wasn’t interested. He thought he’d ask Conan anyway, just to make sure he didn’t miss anything good.
“Hey Cone, does the new scape know anything about what the atics might be up to?”
“He hasn’t said. He’s just gotten started. Brian, you missed the entire welcoming dinner. You been running around outside as usual?”
“Of course,” Brian nonchalantly replied.
“Well, don’t let Meredith catch you. She was a little torqued that you weren’t here to greet the new scapes.”
“Thanks for the heads up, Cone. But don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”
“I’m just trying to watch out for you little guys.”
“Conan, I’m already eleven.”
“That’s right, your birthday was last week. My bad.”
“And when I get old like you, I hope I’m not such a worrywart.”
“Old? I’m only twenty-three!”
“Here comes Meredith, I gotta run,” Brian said while coolly ducking behind Conan and then slipping into a connecting tunnel.
But he wasn’t quite fast enough. Frieda had seen him, and after making eye contact with Meredith, Frieda pointed down the tunnel towards Brian in retreat.
“Brian, come back here right now!” Meredith barked. Nobody else in the room paid attention since it wasn’t too uncommon of an occurrence.
Brian debated for an instant whether he shouldn’t just continue down the tunnel and pretend he couldn’t hear her, but then he thought better of it. Best to turn back around and deal with it now rather than the amplified wrath that would likely attend further delay.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“Well, out and about, you know,” he replied. “Who wants to sit around here and hear them talk politics? It’s got nothing to do with life here.”
“Brian, it has everything to do with life here. But since I know you could not care less, you can go back outside.”
“Seriously? You mean you aren’t going to punish me for skipping the welcome dinner?” Immediately, Brian thought better of the question. He should have just let it go and gotten out of there while he could.
“Well, there is a catch,�
� Meredith conceded.
“Oh, great.” There was always a catch.
“But it’s not that bad at all. Come with me.” They walked across the room.
Odin was asking Lothar some questions and Brian caught a little more: “How many do you suppose were compromised?”
“At least seven,” Lothar replied.
Meredith grabbed Brian by the shoulders and pointed him away from Odin and towards… a girl.
“Katherine, this is my little brother, Brian. Brian, say ‘hello.’”
He complied, unenthusiastically. “Hello.”
“Why don’t you take Katherine out and show her around the settlement. And Brian, she may not feel like talking. She doesn’t have to if she doesn’t want to, understand?”
“Of course I understand, I’m not an idiot.”
Meredith gave her younger brother the evil eye.
“Well, Katherine, let’s go. Follow me.”
Brian turned around and headed for the main door. Katherine hesitated. An encouraging head raise from Meredith was enough, however, and she trotted after him.
A little too late, Meredith called out in a hushed yell, trying not to disturb the others too much more: “And don’t go out past the outer sentry!”
**
“See that ridge over there? That marks the river valley,” Brian explained. “Chuck is just below that there – for now, anyway. We move Chuck around every once in a while, since it’s harder to defend over there and we leave too much of a footprint or whatever cutting the wood. Everyone's too scared of the atics.” Katherine wasn't following everything he rambled off, but she nodded anyway as if she did. Brian continued, “I guess we should get off the highpoint here. Odin would yell at us. He's got all these stupid rules. But you have to learn them if you want to stay out of trouble. Soon enough, though, you’ll learn that Odin’s rules don’t mean much and figure out the real ones. Follow me.”
Brian stood up and jogged down the gentle slope through the grasses. He turned back only for a moment to wave on the reluctant Katherine before continuing down between the hills. Katherine got up and ambled after. She wasn’t quite sure about the people here, but her dad trusted them so they had to be good people. They just had to be.
5.
Perfection
Gabriella Stormcaller tossed her silver hair behind her shoulders. “So, you think can run the scenario better than I can, do you?” she playfully called to Michael Lightbringer as the simulator in the belly of Fortress Magritte hummed to life.
Air jets sprang open from the floor as Gabriella jumped into the simulator. Powerful magnets and jets of air kept her afloat as she flew through a simulated city on the screens around, above, and below her. Lasers focused on her eyes to create the necessary multidimensional effects. Truds with various weapons popped up from behind buildings, and one by one Gabriella Stormcaller hit them with the precision of William Tell shooting the apple off his son’s head. She just happened to aim a few inches lower than the imaginary apple.
Now she turned and dove on the invisible jets of air, aiming for a team of simulated trud-men setting up a canopy gun on street in the valley below. A virtual beam erupted from her outstretched hands and hit one of the men. A split second later and she had felled a second and third man. But the fourth trud now had the canopy gun set up, and he let forth a solid dome of fire. The simulated dome of energy slammed into Gabriella Stormcaller, the simulator screens went black, and the jets of air slowed. She reached her feet toward the floor as the magnets spun down and air jets cooled. Her feet gently kissed the floor.
Michael Lightbringer shook his head. “You should have hit the canopy gun first, and then worried about the men once they couldn’t have harmed you, Gabriella,” he chastised her.
“Ah, but you didn’t watch the simulation closely enough,” she replied. “Simulator, replay the last 10 seconds. See there, in the parallel street?”
“Yes, that’s Dante Starmaker,” he acknowledged.
“You see, Dante was below the dome of fire of the canopy gun. By taking out the other three, I left only one for him to worry about as he turned the corner. I may have gotten hit, but I gave Dante a chance to capture rather than destroy the canopy gun. With the gun intact, we could learn where it came from and ensure that no more were manufactured. The foot soldiers wouldn’t have known; they’d make sure of that.”
Michael Lightbringer smiled at her quick, if unconventional, reasoning. “But then you would have been unavailable for another mission for the three days you were in restoration.”
“The intelligence about the manufacturing of the gun would have been worth it,” she answered. And as proof, seemingly on cue, the simulator screen showed the analysis of her performance and her score: perfect.
She was just as he had always known her. Ever the same. Eternal. And he was always amazed at how she could see the solution to the most challenging scenarios the simulator would throw at her. Gabriella Stormcaller was not easy to trick.
6.
Fanatics
Brian squinted into the binoculars. “Yep,” he whispered. “Four atics down there.”
Katherine felt her heart beat faster with fear and adrenaline. She instinctively grabbed the green pendant on her necklace with one hand and pulled the dog’s collar down to the ground. “We should go.”
“Just relax. They don't even know we're here. What are they going to do?”
“They could kill us,” Katherine argued. That's what Fanatics did to people like her and Brian. She didn't think that was a risk worth taking. She got down even lower to the ground. Thunder, the dog, laid down, eyes looking up at Katherine.
“They're Fanatics, not murderers. You just have to understand their rules. And besides, like I said, they don't even know we are here.”
“Brian, we need-”
“Shhhhh...” Brian hushed her. He did it primarily for the purpose of keeping Katherine from arguing rather than for security reasons. The atics were far enough away, the wind was to Brian's face, and they weren't yelling. There wasn't a chance in the world that the atics were going to hear them talking in low voices under those conditions. But he shushed her anyway. He just wanted her to shut up sometimes. When she first showed up, she didn't say a word and people were worried that she wouldn't talk. Now, several years later, sometimes she wouldn't shut up. Why couldn't there be a happy medium, Brian wondered.
Katherine was scared and wasn't about to make another peep. She tried to disappear into the grass, to will herself into invisibility. She imagined herself sinking into the earth, pressing herself lower, trying to hide from the dangerous eyes only several hills away. Thunder inched closer to her.
Brian studied them through the binoculars. These atics looked rather typical, if an atic could be considered normal. Normal in this case meant no clothes, a little dirty, unkempt hair, but human enough. He'd watched them before and thought he was beginning to understand them. Most people in the R.T. feared the Fanatics. Their marauding reputation, fearlessness, and animal-like behavior seemed to infect almost everyone with fear and disgust, Brian excepted. He knew from close observation that they didn't randomly kill each other. They only seemed to attack those who didn't follow their rules. Like stupid scapes from the cities. Stupid scapes offended nature and the atics, and therefore the scapes died. It wasn't that hard to figure out. Stupid scapes... Like Katherine was once, what seemed like a long time ago.
The atics rose, and Brian could see they carried wooden spears. The spears were blackened on the sharp end, as if they had been hardened in a fire. He was surprised that this group didn't seem to be carrying a blow gun or bows. This group's choice of weapons made them a safer group to observe since they couldn't attack from a distance. It might also be the group to one day approach for the same reasons. But he wasn't ready for that yet. He didn't understand them enough yet. Still, he was thinking about it.
The four atics ambled off along the riverfront and disappeared in the woodlands.
> “Are they leaving?” Katherine asked.
“Yep,” Brian responded.
“Good. We should get back to Pete,” Katherine advised. She wanted nothing more than to put more distance between themselves and the Fanatics. She heard the stories and, unlike Brian, feared the atics and what they might do. A concrete home buried in the dirt with armed friends standing guard sounded really good at the moment.
“Nah, I was having fun watching them.” Brian dismissed her worries. She didn't understand them like he did. Few people did. To understand them, one had to watch them. Most others ran or attacked when they saw atics. Most others died.
“They're dangerous,” Katherine reminded him.
“Maybe to a scape like you.”
“They'd kill you just as fast as they'd kill me. My dad says atics-”
“You'll have to learn pretty fast not to believe everything the old folks tell you.”
“But-” she tried to continue.
“Don't be a stupid scape. Use your eyes. Observe the world! Observe them, the so-called Fanatics. Use your brain, think for yourself.” Brian abruptly stood up, shouldered his backpack, and started walking back towards Pete.
Katherine didn't respond to Brian's rant immediately. They’d practically grown up together, and still he sometimes acted like she was a foreigner invading his space. A significant portion of her life had been spent in the R.T., and still Brian didn’t treat her as one of them. She sometimes wondered why she hung out with him as much as she did instead of Lock, Heidi, or even Edda. They didn’t roam as much, but was roaming worth it if you were always cut down? Lock and Heidi didn’t insult her by calling her a scape, while Brian still did derisively. For him, it wasn’t some chummy nickname like Edda used it. Even if it was perhaps technically true, it didn’t feel good. Plus, Brian acted like a know-it-all. Sure, he knew more about the Refuge Territories. He was also a little older. But Katherine, scape or not, wasn't stupid. He kept talking down to her. Brian thought he understood the Territories better than anyone else. Maybe he did, at least his little corner of it, but that didn't make him better than everyone else. He didn't need to tell her she was stupid just because she hadn't had the opportunity to learn. He didn't need to act superior. He didn't need to be mean.
