Resurrection Dawn

by Marc Secchia

  “Tomaxx!” Alodeé yelped. Nerves made her leap out into the open. “That was my –”

  Ash growled, “Tomaxx! What’s the matter with you?”

  “I – uh …” He spread his massive hands awkwardly. Alodeé tried but failed not to check out his flat, incredibly defined pectorals. “What the – why were you hiding back there, Alo? You made me – Ash, I’m so –”

  “Stow it,” she hissed.

  Passing nearby, Yane hissed, “Perverts.”

  The towering Oraman swung toward him, fists bunched, but Ash touched his wrist. “Don’t. It’s her fault.”

  I’ve really hurt my friend. What … how? Her Oraman honour?

  “Students, form up!” Bold thundered.

  Let the trials begin.

  * * * *

  Isska worked with the recording crew over at the tech console, setting individual timers for all the students. The cheeky shape-changer had added three extra arms today, which meant they expected to be busier than usual. Two judges sat behind playback stations, rather more grim-lipped than Alodeé felt might be justified, given that this was only trials. The adults meant to ready the students for life’s realities. As if life were an obstacle course.

  Maybe sometimes it was?

  Shortly, the klaxon sounded and the 5-sec countdowns began. Alodeé waited in line behind Asmurti, stretching out her nerves.

  Yane, five places ahead, turned to give her the leering once-over. He smirked nastily and called, “Suffering lumoslugs, you really are a stick. Complete anorexic.”

  Just behind him, Harroo, one of the few Class 1 boys taller than her, smiled much more gently and made a sign for perfection that the much smaller Yane must have caught from the corner of his eye.

  “Keen on those legs? Give me a break, man.”

  Harroo blushed, but stammered, “She’s b-beautiful and y-you lost out, Y-Yane.”

  So earnest and sweet. I like Harroo, but … just not that way. When he looked at her, his eyes gleamed with admiration. Yane’s betrayed hunger mingled with disgust. Wish this skin wasn’t so form-fitting. Am I too thin? I train so hard … this is just muscle, right?

  They turned to the fore as the count moved through the first min. Twelve students away. Alodeé had drawn starting number ninety-eight. Argh, the waiting! Given the challenges of the course, top times were expected to come in around 24 mins and to be set by the Class 4 students. Obviously.

  By the time she shuffled up to the starting line, seven students had already dropped out. None were at the halfway mark. Asmurti sprinted away as if shot by a cannon. Grief. Rocket on legs.

  Ready, Alodeé. You’ve got this – go!

  As the klaxon sounded, she hurtled toward the combat crawl at breakneck speed. Under the nets. Fast wriggle through the log maze, down through the tunnels, side-to-side along the section called the twist, which definitely favoured the smaller competitors. By the time she wormed out of the far side and sprinted for the next obstacle, her name was amber and in third. Half-sec edge on Asmurti? Really?

  Pacing oneself mattered. She slowed deliberately to conserve energy.

  After rocking the minefield and agility tests, which basically equated to not losing more than 5 secs against the ridiculous Class 4 crowd, who now occupied places one through eight, she headed into the alligator pit, her fury burning as much as her shame. Tomaxx was right in the middle of the muddy morass, raising a bow-wave of water as he powered past Yane like a freighter boring past an agile fighter. Easily twice as wide as the other boy. Incredible cardio for such a big hunk. Lugging all that muscle around the planet could not be easy.

  She launched off the edge, leaping as far as she could – directly at a metal alligator trap rising at Yane’s left elbow. Complete gamble. Her foot shoved the trap away from him as she skimmed over his hairstyle, so close that Yane screamed in fury and threw up his hands.

  Tried to catch her? Total moron! Or didn’t he remember that they had judges watching the recordings today?

  Rage turned her chest into a pool of lava.

  Tipping forward, she took the dive beneath the first overhead net – strung to prevent Avians from just flying over this obstacle – as cleanly as she could. Still, the cold, muddy water hit her head with a vicious slap. What speed! Her heart vibrated violently in her chest as she curved up and burst out, dancing over the jaws of snapping traps toward the second net. Never did it this way before! Practically walking on the swamp water. Dive! Smash a trap away with her elbow! Rise and go, go, go!

  Alodeé hurtled through the overhead holds section, using her strength and long reach to skip every second hold. Asmurti blurred ahead, moving faster than a hyperactive monkey. Here came her assigned path through the jungle gym complex, lit up so that she did not interfere with the other racers she was now overtaking.

  Use the anger like Dad taught me. Make Yane chew on my dust!

  Nothing could have prepared her for moving at this velocity. She made three mistakes before forcing herself once again to slow and smooth out her movements. Taking the sharp turn for the heights, she reeled in a difficult double-bonus waypoint before exiting the jungle gym, incredibly, still breathing down Asmurti’s neck even though she’d lost a few secs.

  She felt stronger than ever. Charged up. Invincible!

  Time for the underwater maze. The particular beauty of this obstacle lay in its design, which forced the competitor to balance breathing needs with potential shortcuts. Taking a massive breath, she dived straight in and went deep, angling for the fastest and most dangerous route. Plenty of competitors had to be pulled out of here after misjudging the length of the underwater swim. She knew she could do more. Instinct ruled as she motored through the maze, kicking off walls with perfect timing as she changed direction, feeling the water pulling at her ears and hair as she switched back again. Oxygen deprivation blackened her senses as she evaded a tunnel trap and powered up toward the light.

  Surfacing with a gasp, she yelled at herself, Breathe and go!

  Holo check? Alodeé #1. Asmurti #2. She glanced back over her shoulder. The shock on the Class 4 girl’s face was palpable. She’d made up 10 secs in the last few obstacles?

  Blowing past three Class 3 tanks, the two girls raced neck-and-neck up to the climbing wall. Alodeé’s massive vertical leap took her 5 mets up before she took her first grip and almost flew the rest of the way, having only to touch the handholds as she left the other girl well in her wake. Gripping the top in the crook of her elbow, she flipped over and scooted down the far side, using her slightly cushioned soles to control her speed. Onward! Faster! Pushing herself as never before, Alodeé ran strongly between obstacles, danced like a lightning bolt through the balance beams and the roller pit and charged up to the new lookout tower with Asmurti 7 secs back and losing ground with every step.

  Seven! Adrenaline surged through her system.

  Would she pay for this crazy surge of speed in the second half?

  Ahead of her, four or five students clambered off the nets to return for another shot at the lookout tower. She glanced up at the times. 10 mins 50 secs! Wow! Burning like starfire!

  Burning too hot?

  Jinking sharply to avoid the students in her path, Alodeé monkey-ran up the 40-met inclined wall so fast that she jumped, wailing and flailing, off the top and caught the slingshot’s dangling arm with reaction speed she had not known she possessed. The machine squealed as it rotated; she sprinted against the gear to make it rotate even faster. Her feet blurred against the flywheel, her momentum increasing beyond anything she had thought possible. Three turns or four?

  Give it everything, Alodeé! Stronger! Blaze!

  Alodeé screamed out her exhilaration as she released her grip on a trajectory that would slap her against the tower. Only, to her utter shock, she just kept on rising and rising further, in an arc that launched her way over the tower’s roof with its camera pod and the nets atop the retaining wall, straight into the top loading chute of the garbage compactor.
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  Fear stabbed into her belly.

  The aperture was far too wide for her splayed arms and legs.

  She remembered looking down at a sea of massive, churning, many-toothed metal rollers in there and thinking, That’s going to hurrrr …

  KERUMP!!

  Everything went black.

  Chapter 4

  Standard 1301.05.02.28 Cal Week 17. Dinner.

  ALODEÉ FOUND HER FATHER holding her hands, panting. He let her go as if burned. His dark eyes brimmed over with moisture; he swiped almost angrily at the tears.

  In a shaky voice, Dymand said, “They found you beneath the third level of rollers in the compactor. How you got there … is a miracle. If you were anything like Tomaxx’s size, you’d definitely be dead. Since you’re so skinny, maybe that saved you. The tech switched off the instant she got the emergency flash. Took them a while to release your left hand. It was trapped between the diamond-tipped grinder bars.”

  “They messaged you?”

  “Yep. Classic. ‘Your daughter’s fine, but she’s had a bit of an accident.’ Couple of details which sort of freaked me to the stars and back again. That was before I saw the vid replay. I – my heart pretty much stopped there and then.”

  “Fine-ish,” she said. “Thanks for coming home so quickly, Dad. I’m feeling pretty wiped.”

  “Fine-ish but not finished,” he agreed, stressing the similarities between the two words. Wan joke. Had she ever seen Dad so rattled? “Guess I’m pretty rattled myself.”

  Thought echoes?

  “Alomonster, did you suspect anything? Before today, I mean?”

  “Not really. I guess, looking back – if I’d known to watch out for something …”

  “Sorry.”

  “Sorry if I scared you.”

  “Just glad you’re alive.” They shared a cautious smile. After a moment, he said, “I guess you took your own medical readings?”

  “Medic Tamanzi wanted to know how I managed to measure a heartbeat of 817.” Isn’t that just a bit awkward? “Then, my resting pulse went down to 31. From super-crazy to super-fit.”

  “Could I review those readings?”

  She sighed in resignation. “Still don’t trust my word?”

  Dymand returned her sigh, amplified, weary, almost … grieving. Dark eyes glistening, he whispered, “The answer is U.”

  “You … me? Come on, Dad, you could at least try to make some sense.”

  “You are a Class U Humanoid.”

  “What do you – there’s no such – really?” Waving her hands, she joked, “Do you mean U as in, we don’t know what the heck U are?”

  Her father did not even crack a smile. “Yep, Class U stands for Unknown or Unclassified and I’m sure I don’t need to warn you how dangerous and secret that information is. Do I?”

  Alright, freak status duly confirmed. Way to go, Alodeé! Class U?

  “Dad –”

  “You take after your mother. She was also Class U.”

  “Holy …” So, that explained a few things about a few things. Like why her parents must have ended up on a colony ship in the first place. Escapees from society …

  I’m a product of a cross-Class marriage. Feel like swearing right now, but actually, I’m kinda proud of Mom and Dad. Weird, right?

  “Here.” She offered him her good wrist. “Feel.”

  Dymand checked her pulse. One eyebrow shot up. “Hopping! I can’t even count that fast. 500 plus, at a guess. Your body appears to have some kind of … hyperdrive mode, judging by the way you told your story. Plus your DNA constituent index and the insane blood pressure. That’s different to your Mom. She didn’t have your extreme physical gifts, as best I know.”

  “She didn’t?”

  “No, but she could walk through fire.”

  Alodeé’s jaw dropped open and stayed that way.

  “She also had the most amazing legs. I’d have married her just for those long, long legs –” he aped a wicked grin “– but that the rest of the package was also smoking hot, did not hurt one bit.”

  “Dad!”

  “Yane is a moron, as you said. I saw that clip on the way over. He even lodged a formal complaint that you interfered with his run –”

  “Canid-sucking poxurix!” she swore for real this time.

  “Quite. The judges ruled that you actually helped him escape an alligator and docked him points for making a factually baseless claim on top of the blatant attempt to catch your feet.”

  “Ha, serves him right.”

  “On the other hand, your friends Harroo or even Tomaxx – they have the right idea. You do have totally awesome legs.” Overriding her complaints, he said, “Trust me, I’ve seen legs just like those around the planets before. Chased them a few places, too. Listen to your old man. Next time you wear your combat skin, girl, wear it with pride. You’re Class U – Un-freaking-believable!”

  Yay. Class Untouchable legs. Go me.

  She opted for a mild glare followed by a smile. “Honestly, can we get off those stupid boys and back onto the subject?

  He nodded and said, “Alo, that morning of the generator fire … school used to take place on the fifth floor of that main building. The automated systems failed. Flames roared from fuel some fool stored in the basement up through the emergency stairwell, elevators already burned out. Samodeé took fireproof blankets, ran in there and brought forty-one children out by herself, three or four at a time. Right through the flames. I watched her do it. You couldn’t get within 50 mets of that blaze. She charged right through – again and again and again … and never burned.”

  Pausing to dab at his eyes, he said in a hollow voice, “She told me that if she didn’t make it out again, I should know that she loved me more than life itself. The adults sent all the kids out first, with her. She kept going back, even though she knew the generator might blow. I begged her not to … Samodeé said, ‘I can’t not do it, Dymand. I’m the only one who can go inside.’ I understood.” He wept freely now. “Your mother’s … a heroine, Alodeé. The blast left a hole 20 mets deep and a hundred wide. Vaporised the entire building. I saw her silhouette, there at the last. I saw white flames bloom ahead of her in the doorway and her arms outspread as if she had wings and there was nothing I could do.”

  He had never told her the raw details before.

  “Dad, it’s alright.” Carefully, she draped her good arm over his shaking shoulders. “Thank you so much for telling me.”

  His arms trembled with desperation.

  After the longest time, he drew back and pinned her with his gaze. “Next time, you’ll rock that combat skin, alright? Do it for your mother. Their hormones will bounce off the moons.”

  “Alright, Dad – because that’s so important in the face of me being Class U.”

  He said, “Just you follow orders, soldier! Next order of essential business, let’s get the bathroom sanitary to clean all this blood and swamp gunk off you. Hate to break it to you, but you’ve never looked more like an Alomonster. No boy’s kissing this mess.”

  No boy, ever. Unless I can catch me another Class U …

  “Dad, honestly?”

  “Shower, young lady!”

  “Wrapped up like a mummy?”

  “Really, you one-handedly hack a secure medical database – a highly confidential database, might I add, Miss Fancy-Fingers – but you can’t programme a bathroom sanitary?”

  * * * *

  What she discovered she could not do, was stand in the sanitary cubicle for more than 3 mins before her legs gave up and, eventually, there had to be a humiliating incident involving a naked Alodeé being simultaneously rescued and yelled at by her father.

  My life – groan!

  With fatherly support, the sanitary cubicle was indeed persuaded to render her presentable and she made it to the couch. Not the pod bed. Too high to be safe or practical, given her state.

  Dymand bustled about – bedcovers, restorative brew that tasted as foul as it was like
ly nutritious, dinners one, two and three. By the time she had scoffed her third large plateful of burzigan root pasta, the clock on the wall read:

  Standard 1301.05.02.30 Cal Week 17

  That was standard notation which meant Year 1301, Month 5, Day 2, Hour 30, of Calendar Week 17. Since Central liked to be all neat and tidy, the year had been apportioned into calendar weeks. As the 30th hour of the day popped up on the display, the door chime pinged and announced pink-haired Medic Tamanzi’s arrival, after performing an urgent operation, to check up on her disobedient patient in light of her exciting little shower adventure.

  “You assured the Nurse you were fine, Alodeé,” she complained, giving Dymand an exasperated frown that caused him to back up a step. Impressive. Her silver medbot unit skimmed in behind her. “What’s this I hear?”

  “Knees came unhinged in the sanitary, Medic Tamanzi,” she said cheekily.

  “Brain’s permanently unhinged,” said Dad.

  That would be his brain, she grinned inwardly as his gaze appreciated Tamanzi’s 157 cents of short curviness from behind. Naughty. She cleared her throat. He made a decidedly unapologetic shrug. Was there hope for her old man after all?

  Turning about, Tamanzi said, “May I check her vitals?”

  Oh, freaking lumoslugs! Battle on …

  This Medic was no fool. Taking in their identically blank, perfectly schooled expressions, she said, “Patient confidentiality does mean something to me. I’ll erase the medbot’s records afterward. And I knew about Samodeé’s unusual physiology, having treated her for hypertension during pregnancy. You’re not the only one who can alter records, Dymand.”

  As they continued to stare at her like a pair of children caught with their hands stuck in the sweetie jar, she huffed, “It’s not like the Class system is at all reliable, anyways. Random fact: I know of no less than seventeen cross-Class couples or relationships around this Settlement, not that I am accusing anyone of anything. After all, my own DNA is only a 79% match to standard Class 1 pools.”