“Aren’t you going to have some?” Von asked her.
“No, I’m okay,” she said. “Everything smoothed over with Bryce?”
“He’ll be fine,” Von said. “As long as we can get that chronotrace working and find the Developers. That’s what he cares about now.”
“I hope this device of yours works,” Sierra told Adan in a pensive voice.
Adan stared beyond them to the others spread up and down the passage. Would Gavin really be able to help these people? He hadn’t been able to stop the Developers the last time. Even the destruction of Oasis had only seemed to slow them down.
Zain entered the chamber and strode over to them.
“I found three chips,” he said. “I had thought there were more, but hopefully this will do. With Numinae, little is much, as we say.”
“Thank you, Zain. It’s enough to at least try.” Adan took the precious yellow chips from Zain. They let off a welcoming glow in his hands.
“Now, tell me about this miraculous recovery of yours,” Zain said. “Sierra was trying to explain it to me, but it didn’t make any sense.”
“I don’t know if it’s a miracle or not, but somehow everything is back to normal,” Adan said.
“But your wounds are less than half a day old,” Zain protested, his mouth and brow pinching skeptically.
“Something like this did happen once before. A few days ago, actually. Though I wasn’t this badly injured.”
“Let me check you with an activator.” Sierra pulled out her metal rod and ran the lights up and down his body several times, pausing on the injuries.
“He’s right. Totally healed.” She shook her head in disbelief.
“Are you certain?” Zain asked.
“It’s like the bones were never broken,” Sierra said.
She and Zain regarded him with searching looks. Adan could sense their minds struggling to find an explanation for what had happened.
“Well, I don’t see what the problem is,” Von chimed in. “I’d rather have him healthy than injured, wouldn’t you?”
“Let’s keep this between the four of us, though,” Sierra said. “I don’t think the others should know about it until we figure out exactly what’s going on.”
Zain’s eyes brightened. “Numinae walks in the high winds. Far, far beyond what we can see.”
Sierra and Zain pulled the last of the yeso off Adan’s ribs and let it fall to the floor. They had moved to a small section of the tunnel where the supplies were kept, leaving Von to finish his mosh.
“Praise Numinae,” Zain said as the white substance crumbled to the ground.
Adan nodded nervously, still uncomfortable with his accelerated rate of healing. “Well, I better get to work with the chronotrace.”
“Yes, your friend,” Zain said. “Let me go find a place for you to do your work uninterrupted. People might need to come here later to get supplies.”
Zain disappeared around the corner, leaving Adan and Sierra to themselves.
“Zain was right,” Sierra said, “there is something special about you.”
Adan shifted self-consciously beneath her gaze. “I hope you’re not just saying that because I’m a quick healer,” he said, offering a feeble grin.
“No, no, it’s more than that. You care about people—I mean Zain is like that too, but the way you do it is different.”
Adan’s level of discomfort only grew. He looked away and tried to compose himself, but nervous energy fluttered all through him.
“I’m sorry,” Sierra said. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”
“No, it’s all right. I…I appreciate what you said and I, um, I think of you in the same way—as a caring person, I mean—no, really, I mean it. Now that I think about it, I saw it even when I was in the Institute. You were the only one there who acted like I was a real person.”
Now it was Sierra’s turn to look embarrassed. She blushed and ran her fingers through her hair as the two of them stood in an awkward silence.
Zain’s quick return broke the tension.
“I found a place for you in one of the unused tunnels. I told Von to make sure you’re not disturbed.”
Adan pulled out the bismine chips from inside his garrick. “Let’s just pray it’s enough.”
“We cannot know more than we were meant to know,” Zain said. “But I will pray all the same.”
“I’ll let you get to work.” Sierra gave him a nod and took her leave. Adan watched her walk off feeling like there was something more he should have said to her, but not knowing what it was.
Zain and Adan walked in the opposite direction, heading towards a round hatch at the end of one of the tunnels. Von stood in front of it, waiting for them.
“Here we are,” Zain said as they arrived at the door.
Von moved to open the latch. With a hiss, it swung open, revealing a dark tunnel beyond. Von pulled out a lumin from his robe and set it on the ground where it glowed with a soft, steady white light.
“Thank you, Von,” Adan said, “this will do fine.”
“I am glad we found each other once again, my friend,” Zain said, placing his hand on Adan’s shoulder and looking him in the eye. “I believe it was the will of Numinae. Nothing that comes to pass does so without his consent.”
Adan studied his friend for a moment. He was anxious to get started with the chronotrace, but there was something on his mind he had to ask first.
“Zain, do you ever regret coming to Oasis? I mean, it’s wonderful the way you’re helping these people, but this is not your home. You belong out in the Vast.”
Zain gave him a piercing look. “Remember what you told me on the ridge? That this place was not the eternal city told of in the legends. I did not believe you then. I had to see it for myself. I never wanted to follow the Wayman path, but it was the only way I knew. But now, with these people, I feel like I have been given a second chance at life.” His eyes grew moist, but he held his tears. “My parents dreamed of this day, my friend—the day when I would be free. They never got to see it, but I intend to live free as long as Numinae wills it.”
Standing in the tunnel, his garrick tattered and dusty and his hair and beard unkempt, Zain could not have looked more out of place. He was a man of the desert, a nomadic wanderer who had been brought to this city under the pretext of a lie, but Adan could see in his eyes that he belonged nowhere else other than where he stood at that moment.
“Your parents would be proud of you if they could see you today,” Adan said.
Zain was silent, his eyes blinking away the tears which now came.
Von stood solemnly watching the exchange. Adan could read in his eyes the deep respect he had for the Wayman. Adan was certain he would have echoed Adan’s own words if he were a different sort of person, but the look on his face said enough.
“I’ll take my leave of you now, my friend.” Zain straightened himself and, with a wave, he and Von turned and departed down the tunnel.
Adan sat down near the wall and placed the chronotrace at his feet. He shoved the bismine chips into the array beneath the device and closed it back up again. The black half sphere sat there, lifeless and dim, but Adan’s mind could sense its presence now, waiting for his thoughts to awaken it. He reached out with his mind and the chronotrace sprung to life, lighting up the passageway with its effulgent glow, its top spinning in a burst of light. As the temporal bubble expanded around him, Adan sat and waited expectantly for the chronotrace to unravel Gavin’s fate.
Seventeen
Manx Core
Gavin spit the grains of sand out of his mouth as he stumbled across the dune. He had landed face first in a steep bank of the coarse gray substance. His chin was mangled and he clutched his arm in pain, but he had not fallen onto any of the jagged scraps of metal littering the ground around him and that had probably saved his life.
His lentes having gone missing, he scanned the landscape around him as best he could. Only a single microslice had pass
ed since the crash, but in that time, the forces converging on the lev seemed to have dispersed. All he could see were two walls of shifting sand as the storms made their way towards him. The one on his right was only about two hundred paces away. Inside it, a mote of white light appeared, growing larger by the moment. Something was coming his way.
Gavin did not wait to find out what it was. He turned and ran in the opposite direction. A low hum closed in on him from behind. A moment later, a white-robed somatarch came flying through the air along two beams of bright light. Gavin ran hard towards a clump of machinery buried between two dunes, but he could not outrun his pursuer. The somatarch swooped down and caught him under one arm, barely slowing as it swept up the hapless Developer and headed into the oncoming storm.
The wind rushed past in steady gusts, but the storm was soon behind them. Though at first Gavin had struggled to break free, the somatarch grabbed his throat and held it like a vice until Gavin grew still. Even if Gavin had not been injured, he was no match for the creature.
The somatarch’s skates left a trail of intense light blazing along behind them. It stood out like a tear in the fabric of the dimming landscape of the Vast. They traveled like that for a day and a half, Gavin clamped on top of the somatarch’s shoulders, only let down every six slices when the somatarch took a few moments to apply viand patches to the both of them.
Pitch black ruled the night, except for the glowing trail of the skimmers. They raced along, two spans off the ground, progressing relentlessly in the direction of Oasis.
When Gavin awoke on the third day, his surroundings had changed dramatically. Gone were the endless dunes and buried mounds of scrap. In their place lay the cracked and broken expanse of the Desiccant Flats. They had passed the nidor strands and were already about half way to Virid Ridge, though neither the foothills, nor the ridge itself could be seen, lost in the massive storm raging across the Vast.
The giant wall of grayish sand ahead was filled with dark, menacing shadows which swallowed the light. The storm was far worse than the one they had come from. It seemed certain they would be dashed against the rocks of the ridge if they attempted to fly through it.
The somatarch drifted towards the ground just before they reached the edge of the storm. Re-adjusting Gavin on its shoulders, it strode forward, continuing the journey on foot.
Though they had yet to enter the thick of the storm, the sheer violence of the winds was already threatening to knock the somatarch off its feet. A normal person would have looked for shelter, some sort of protection from the vicious gusts, but the creature plodded inexorably forward, straining against the unending blasts, its body leaning so close to the ground it would have fallen over if not for the force of the wind. The air and sky grew blacker and blacker until at last the light failed completely. Still, the somatarch pressed on, gripping Gavin fiercely in defiance of the tempest.
It wasn’t long before the somatarch was forced to crawl, dragging Gavin behind it by his uninjured arm. The savage winds ripped off the band holding Gavin’s kaff in place. The sash unravelled in an instant, tumbling off into the void. His face now exposed, nicks and cuts opened across Gavin’s bare skin. His injured arm hung uselessly at his side, unable to shield him from the blasts of sand.
Just when it seemed the storm would carry off the both of them, they came up against something large and solid which shielded them from the wind. The somatarch pressed against it and, a moment later, a crack of light opened up along the surface, widening until it was large enough to walk through. The creature drug Gavin inside and the opening snapped shut behind them.
Though the winds no longer threatened them, they continued to beat against the outside of the structure.
The room was empty except for a large black disc floating over a circular shaft in the floor. The walls looked like the ones inside the Institute, but they were nowhere near the city yet; they had not even passed beyond the Desiccant Flats.
When they arrived at the disc, the somatarch forced set Gavin onto the platform. The creature stepped onto the pad and the disc shot down into a chute enveloped in white light.
The light flashed by in an instant and the disc jettisoned itself into another open space. Descending to the floor, it came to rest in the corner of a large square room. The room was about three times as wide and twice as high as the one they had just left. Strips of light ran around the edges along the floor, similar to the emergency lighting in the Institute and Annex.
A large, semi-transparent cube of white locus energy rested in the middle of the room. The side directly facing Gavin was open. The glowing container hovered just above a square-shaped opening in the platform. Below the cube was a line of light, made up of thousands of tiny, shimmering motes. They stretched downwards and curved away through a wide tunnel. Inside the cube stood two white-robed somatarchs and a grey-robed assessor.
The assessor motioned for Gavin to step inside. Gavin studied the man intently before passing into the cube. The gray-robed man returned his stare, the two regarding each other silently for several long moments.
“If you want to say something, you’ll have to speak,” Gavin said. “I’m not letting you inside my mind.”
“You have no need to fear,” the assessor said. His face was a mirror of Gavin’s, but his expression was stiffer. “I will not tamper with your thoughts. I am only an assessor.”
Gavin stared blankly at the energy wall in front of him.
The somatarch who had brought Gavin through the desert remained outside as the cube’s missing wall shimmered into existence, sealing off the opening. The glowing white box plunged into the tunnel below, following the tiny thread of light.
“Where are you taking me?” Gavin asked as white lights pulsed by. The man took a moment before replying.
“To the Processing Room,” was all he said.
The cube wound its way through the underground network of circular tunnels. There seemed to be an endless number of them. Though the container sped through the various branches at an alarming rate and changed direction several times, no one inside was the least bit affected by it.
Gavin closed his eyes, concentrating. At last he opened them and said, “Someone’s waiting for me. Why don’t you tell me who it is?”
The man blinked several times, refusing to look in Gavin’s direction. “I’m sure they can tell you anything you need to know once we get there,” he said. The energy cube swiveled around a corner and plunged into another shaft along the endless pulsing track of light.
The tunnel Gavin dropped through was the longest yet. Several moments went by before an opening came into view below. The cube rushed towards it and shot through, bursting out the top of an enormous cavern. Smooth walls, forty stories high, enclosed a space almost as large as Oasis. The chamber was about half again as long as it was wide. Immense tunnels opened out of it on every side.
Hundreds of glowing spheres drifted about like bubbles on a gentle breeze near the cavern roof, but Gavin’s cube passed through them as if they weren’t there.
Buildings covered the left half of the floor below, neatly arranged along paved streets. The right half was occupied by a large fleet of vehicles and ships of all shapes and sizes, the majority of them crafted from a dark gray synth metal. Levs floated along the streets. Half a dozen box-like cargo ships called rakers were in the process of being loaded at the docs. Towards the far end of the cavern sat a fleet of at least forty trammers used for transporting personnel. They were long and high with paneled sides and no discernible front or back. They looked more like floating crates than ships. Near the trammers sat a sizable group of vapors. These small assault vehicles were equipped with blink thrusters making them extremely difficult to target in battle. Several rows of highly maneuverable lancers were lined up behind them: long, triangular ships with energy shields and locus pulsers. A handful of citus axomvacs sat next to these. They were long like the lancers, but incredibly narrow. They had no offensive capabilities whatsoever, bu
t were the fastest ship yet and were used primarily for picking up and dropping off supplies or recovering downed ships with their axom field generators. Interspersed among the other ships were the wide hovland artillery ships, used for taking out enemy structures. Their gigantic wings were not used for flight. Instead, they served as a place to house a wide array of long range assault weapons. They looked ominous and impressive just sitting there; however, they were not the most daunting aspect of the fleet. Overshadowing the entire armada and docked at either end of the cavern sat a pair of praxis cruisers. With their wings retracted, their bulbous hulls looked like giant door knobs to the center of the planet. The ships bristled with oscillathe cannons and locus pulsers and dozens of antipersonnel guns. These heavy assault ships were so large they looked more like floating buildings than vehicles capable of flight.
“You’ve got an army down here,” Gavin said. “What are the Developers planning?”
The assessor’s impassive stare deepened, but he failed to reply.
The cube veered towards the arrangement of one story buildings on the left. The exteriors were all made of the same deep blue, glass-like material. Its appearance was striking, reflecting the floating cube on its polished surface as it descended across the chamber.
Most of the buildings were square, but the one in the center was rectangular and twice as long as the others. When the locus cube touched down on top of it, the roof opened and the cube passed inside.
They drifted down a short shaft before emerging into a wide open room. The locus energy walls surrounding them dissolved away once the cube touched the floor. Four somatarchs stood in front of one of the two exits. The door behind them was made of black metal, the other across the room was made of pure locus energy, like the walls of the cube. It was to this second door that the assessor walked.
The walls of the room, opaque from the outside, were semi-transparent from within. A large contingent of somatarchs walked past the building. The shadow from a large ship, most likely a raker, passed over them as they marched by.
The Chronotrace Sequence- The Complete Box Set Page 50
