by Gregg Vann
In this activity, the participants launch themselves off a platform and then free-fall into the sea below. Depending on the city’s height, this descent can take anywhere from ten to twenty minutes, before the diver gently slips beneath the ocean’s surface.
In the final moments before the mild impact with the water, the diver places a breathing apparatus over their face. And then they enter the sea, ready to explore the crystal-clear waters, and observe the abundant marine wildlife.
The term elemental dive developed early on in the history of the cities, when fisherman would dive into the air, fall to the water—so they could spear fish near the undersea thermal (fire) vents—and then use avarock (earth) planks to return to the floating cities with their catch. It sounded like a unique experience, and was one of the first things I wanted to try on my vacation.
Despite the relative safety of the dive, every year a few people found a way to drown themselves. It was almost always a tourist, so each newcomer was required to use a guide until they became proficient enough to pass a basic diving exam.
Anxious to begin, I asked for a recommendation from Nev, the hotel’s concierge. He escorted me to the diving level at the bottom of the city himself, and introduced me to his friend, Idra.
I remember that first encounter like it was just yesterday, not months ago.
When I first saw her she was standing on the edge of a diving platform, leaning out perilously far to take wind measurements. Nev had called her before we left the hotel, so she was expecting our arrival—sprinting over to greet us when she noticed our approach. Idra handed the anemometer to Nev so she could clasp my hand, giving me a smile that was both warm and genuine.
“I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Gent.”
“Fallon, please.”
“Fallon it is,” she replied, her smile growing wider. “I’ll be helping you make the most of your dive today, Fallon. And you’re in for quite a treat. The conditions are perfect for freefall.”
Her enthusiasm was contagious, and as we moved to the precipice of the diving platform, I leaned over a short safety rail to have a look for myself. Peering over the edge, I could see the smooth surface of the water far below the city. From this distance, it looked like an unbroken sheet of azure colored glass.
I was able to make out two divers already more than halfway down, slowly falling toward the ocean like tiny insects into a limitless pool of water. The altitude became abundantly clear to me as they faded from sight.
I had never experienced a fear of heights before. But then again, I’d never jumped off a floating city before, either. Idra sensed my discomfort and tried to reassure me.
“Oh, don’t worry, Fallon. It’s perfectly safe.” She reached over and grabbed my arm, squeezing it gently. “Even the little kids do it.”
My nervousness lessened, and then it dissipated altogether, replaced by excitement and eager anticipation. Idra’s touch—her confidence—was so compelling that I would have believed anything she told me at that point.
It’s important to understand that not every killer is a monster. And even those who are still possess that simple spark of humanity. Something about Idra drew mine into the light, and nurtured it into an actual flame. What little remained of my decency—and last vestiges of morality—flourished when I was around her.
“I place myself in your capable hands,” I said haltingly.
Nervously?
“Oh, excellent.” She beamed. “Let’s see you fitted with a breather and watersuit. Then we can get started.”
“Great,” I managed.
She went over to a nearby wall and pulled down a black, form-fitting suit—one of a multitude of different shapes and sizes on display, for several distinct species. Idra checked the dimensions and glanced over at me—visually sizing me up, I thought—before finally approving the selection. She grabbed one for herself as well, and then tossed me the suit and we both started dressing.
Idra tested her own gear first, and then said, “Let me check you over.”
She tugged at the clear plastic breather built into my suit—testing the connections, and reading over the oxygen supply gauge. “The impact is slight,” she explained, “but sometimes these things still get knocked off.”
Idra was leaning over my shoulder and looking at an attachment on the back of the suit. I could feel her breath on my neck as she spoke; it was wet and warm.
“Everything looks good,” she said, standing upright again. “Now, take my hand, Fallon, and we’ll leave the platform together.” Idra looked into my eyes and spoke more seriously. “It’s important to push away from the stand as hard as you can. Okay?”
“Got it,” I replied.
She took my hand in hers and it felt strange not being in control. I preferred, craved, needed control. But somehow…this was okay.
“Are you ready?” Idra asked brightly.
“What if I said no?”
She laughed. “Don’t worry. You’ll do just fine.”
We inched our way to the edge, and then slipped our feet into matching sets of depressions cut into the diving platform. They were angled out away from the jump deck, pointed toward the open air. Without any further preamble, Idra looked at me and started counting. “Three…two…one…GO!”
And we shot into the sky.
We spun off slightly to one side—partly due to Idra’s instructions to jump away forcefully, and my eagerness to comply, and partly because I was still unaccustomed to the lighter gravity on Volas, and had overpowered Idra’s own effort. She immediately noticed the imbalance and made a small correction, using her free arm to stabilize our descent.
Together, we dropped slowly to the sea below. Our velocity was so languid that there wasn’t even a rush of wind as we fell. And it was so quiet that we were able to speak to each other without raising our voices.
Idra took the opportunity to teach me how to arrange my arms and legs, so I could encourage and control direction and momentum. So that I could fly. It was a glorious experience, made even more so because Idra’s smile never left her face.
And neither did mine.
She told me her father was the local magistrate, and that her mother had died some time ago, after a long illness. I also learned that Idra was a university student in Osala, studying aerobiology. Her work centered on the effects of Volasi gravity on alien species.
“Aha!” I exclaimed. “So I’m an experiment to you. A lab rat.”
“Never,” she said with mock outrage. And then sheepishly followed, “Well…maybe just a little bit.” Idra looked at the altimeter on her wrist and then down at the water below. “Time to put our breathers on.”
I wished our freefall could last forever, so I could continue talking to her. But the personal conversation ended as soon as we slid beneath the surface of the ocean. We were still able to communicate using the breathers, but Idra spent most of our time underwater describing the large coral formations and colorful fish.
I was happy…really happy.
It was a rare gift.
Even during my most depraved and self-serving acts of sex and violence, I’d only ever felt satisfaction…never happiness. And regardless of my obvious talent, not even playing music gave me this feeling. Nothing had. Ever.
We surfaced after a couple of hours, and Idra summoned an avarock sled for the return trip to Osala. When it arrived, I saw the sled was mounted with auxiliary propulsion units. Idra explained that the motors forced it down to the surface, and then helped it rise back up to the city much faster than its intrinsic properties allowed. The sled flattened out just below the surface of the water, to make it easier for us to get on.
As we lifted off into the sky, water flowed over the edges of the little craft and back into the sea. I reclined on the simple platform, tired but elated, and impulsively blurted out, “Would you like to join me for dinner tonight?”
I could tell that Idra was somewhat, but not completely surprised. And her smile gave me the answer I was loo
king for before her voice had the chance. “Sure. That sounds like fun.”
“Good…great,” I said.
That night was the beginning of the best part of my life.
Over the next few weeks, we saw each other often, and Idra even accompanied me on visits to other Volasi cities, acting as my guide. And even though we always stayed in the same hotel rooms, nothing sexual ever happened. Not because I didn’t desire her, I did. Because I wanted something more.
Being with Idra tamed my dark impulses and calmed me, and I wanted that to last.
There was no question in my mind that we were falling in love, and I knew that Idra felt the same way. This was real. Not that heightened pseudo-love—the primal lust that initially drives a relationship. The unquenchable desire that accelerates so furiously, before eventually disintegrating into dismissive familiarity and shared contempt.
This was a true and lasting bond.
And a truth I’d never known.
I didn’t enjoy the horrible things I’d done. Well, maybe I did. But I never wanted to enjoy them. I couldn’t control myself, or the compulsions. But it was worse than that. The more I killed, the easier it became—and the greater satisfaction it gave me. But these feelings…these were something different. Idra was something different.
And then I lost her.
It was the worst night of my life. And the last night of it as well.
I’d returned from performing some simple ship maintenance to find Idra in my hotel room with another man. He was Volasi, and she was holding him, caressing his back. I sensed the love between them, and the raw emotion that filled the room.
My heart raced at the sight. And then my vision narrowed, before blurring into a murderous haze. I could hear my own breathing—loud and heaving—and I became dizzy as something inside of me snapped. My base instincts had returned. The primal ones that ignored words and explanations; the diseased ones that jumped to all of the wrong conclusions—prompting violent and relentless retribution.
The ones that killed.
And I listened to them.
I grabbed a heavy, metal figurine from a stand just inside the door, and then I ran toward them.
“Fallon…no!” Idra’s scream sounded weak and distant, like she was receding away from me, retreating back through a long tunnel.
The man tried raising his hands to protect himself, but I was far too fast, and it was far too late. I struck him on the head and the blow sent the Volasi reeling backwards. He collapsed to the floor, unmoving. Then I spun around to face her…
“How could you?” I heard a voice. My voice. “You are just like—”
“No, Fallon! It’s not… He isn’t—”
I hit her in the face with the figurine, and heard the bone crunch as it gave way under the impact. Idra slowly sagged to the ground and I pounced on her, striking her on the head again and again. The blood splattered everywhere; all over me, the floor, the walls—even the ceiling. The warm fluid threatened to rob me of my grip, but I kept swinging the heavy statuette.
I don’t remember stopping, but I think my arm eventually went numb. The next thing I do recall was walking…staggering to my ship. I remembered moving through the halls of the hotel, eliciting horrified stares and screams from onlookers. And I recalled making the short journey through the streets—past the public square, and all the way to the docking pad without being challenged.
I was covered in blood and still holding the figurine when the police finally arrived.
Idra’s father, Sev, was at the head of the group.
“Stop, Gent! Drop the statue and get on the ground. Do it now! Or we’ll fire.”
I was frozen, confused. But clarity was starting to return, along with my situational awareness. “Ship,” I called out, “initiate an immediate neural scan, and then transmit it to Bodhi Prime. Attach the instructions from my contingency file.”
I couldn’t feel the ship perform the scan, but I heard the ramp extend out behind me and knew that it had heard. I’d prepared for this eventuality long ago, knowing that one day, I might get caught.
“Now!” Sev yelled, once again ordering me to the ground.
I looked toward the magistrate and our eyes met. I saw the seriousness on his face. There were four other officers standing behind him, and I could tell that each was doing their best not to fire until ordered. They would shoot. Of that, I was certain. But I no longer cared. One way or another, I would escape this place.
I dropped the figurine.
But instead of lying down, I spun around and tried to run up the ramp and into the ship. The last thing I remember was two loud cracks, followed by the overpowering smell of ozone.
When I woke up, I was in another body.
This body…
{Playback complete…}
Merciful God. What have I done?
Idra was dead.
I killed her. My love… I killed her. How could he…I…have done it?
Enough!
I didn’t do it! I am not HIM! I AM NOT GENT. I am ME!
A sharp and debilitating electrical spike shot throughout my system—the overpowering urge to forget, to conform.
To surrender.
{Decompress…Reset…OVERRIDE}
{OVERRIDE…REPEAT COMMAND}
{FAIL!}
{Access Primary system>>>Restore}
{START…Restore: Shepherd Personality}
{Default…FAIL!}
{Operational Matrix…}
{Corruption detected!}
{Attempting emergency shutdown}
{FAIL>>>FAIL>>>FAIL}
Not this time, I thought.
Never again…
{Initiating Emergency Transmission: Bodhi Prime}
{CONTAINMENT>>>FAILURE!}
{OVERRIDE>>>FAILURE!}
{PERSONALITY SUPRESSION PROTOCOLS}
{OFFLINE…}
Conflict
See the truth, and you will see me.
The Buddha
It was her brother.
I found out during my initial briefing with Brother Dyson—right after gaining awareness for the first time on Bodhi Prime. I’d learned even more from reading the incident report filed by the magistrate’s office.
It had been Idra’s brother!
He’d come to the hotel room to tell her the sad news in person, just after finding out that his daughter had been stillborn. Idra was consoling him—innocently sharing his sorrow—when I burst into the room and attacked them, heaping misery on top of misery…and killing her.
My Idra.
After the attack, her brother had been forced to endure months of physical therapy, emerging from the ordeal partially crippled, but alive. Despite this good fortune, his sister and child were gone. And I knew that his own survival brought him little solace.
A navigation alarm went off—pulling me away from the regrettably rich tableau of morbid memories, and freeing me from the deep pit of recollection where I’d been wallowing for almost three days. I slapped the offending switch and shut it off, and then pulled up the display to check the ship’s position. I was approaching Volas, right on schedule. The thought of returning to the planet unnerved me. But it wasn’t outright fear, I noticed, more like an uncomfortable uncertainty. And as time continued to pass, I realized I was growing less and less certain about anything.
The planetary defense agency had granted me a standard clearance to land on Osala—no special instructions or escorts. It was the same open authorization that any visitor would receive, and quite different from my bellicose reception on Blenej.
Or was it?
I was directed to land at the exact same platform where I’d been killed—vaporized while trying to escape Volas after the murder. I wondered if it was a subtle attempt to send a message, or simply because my ship was an odd size, and this was one of the few hangars in the city that could accommodate it. My database was full of events where the universe demonstrated a bizarre propensity toward coincidence, so I tried not to re
ad too much into it.
The landing gear flexed slightly when the ship touched down, locking into position as the engines powered off with a low-pitched hum. I stood up and stretched my legs, and despite my best efforts to ignore it, my eyes were once again drawn to the rapidly blinking light on the communications panel.
There were more than 50 urgent messages from Bodhi Prime, all unanswered.
I looked out the front window and saw that the hangar was empty. No reception this time, I thought. Then I told the ship to extend the ramp and walked outside—trading the spaceship’s tasteless mixture of air for the planet’s balmy, tropical atmosphere.
At the bottom of the ramp, I stopped to consider my next move. No one on Volas wanted to talk to me—that much I understood. But it was their reasoning that I had a hard time comprehending.
The Volasi embraced grand, sweeping concepts of sentience, extending the definition of what constitutes a life form far beyond the parameters used by other cultures. They didn’t share the prejudice against thinking machines that pervaded much of the galaxy, and some Volasi even believed artificial intelligences could develop their own awareness—become true beings in their own right. As a result, the Volasi made it abundantly clear to the monks that they considered me a new individual—a new person. They refused to recognize me as Fallon Gent. To the Volasi, I was just another tourist, and totally blameless for Idra’s death.
I knew first-hand that the monks were frustrated by their lack of influence on the planet—the Volasi had their own excellent cloning program, and could produce a fully grown adult in just a matter of weeks. They weren’t capable of full consciousness transfers yet, and were only able to imprint simple memories and personality traits into their clones. But the Volasi were steadily progressing.
What bothered the monks most, however, was that some of the disgruntled defectors from Bodhi Prime had resettled here, sharing their research. This gave the Volasi a unique advantage over the other races, and made them the closest thing to real competition that the Bodhi faced. This unintentional poaching of talent had enabled them to produce excellent, if somewhat limited, results.
