by Alex South
Ohm studied Kai closely as she tried to piece together her memories. “You met them in Istaar?” he offered up gently.
“Of course, it’s Istaar. Why couldn't I remember that?” Kai muttered angrily to herself as she tapped the side of her head.
“But you knew them, too, Ohm. Back in Istaar. They loved Istaar. Istaar is where we used to live. They must still be there. If I could just remember how to get there,” Kai said, purposefully overusing the name of the city in an attempt to affix it to her memory.
Ohm watched Kai carefully. Oa noticed the previous excitement of seeing Susan drain from the old Awoken as it was replaced by somber thoughtfulness. “They are most definitely still in Istaar. Is that where you are trying to go with the ARI?” he asked softly.
“Yeah, it is,” Kai responded. She paused a moment to glance down at her boots; then she looked up at Ohm. “I’m going to trust you, Ohm. I know Cale and Jess respected you. I don’t care if you sleep—what matters is that you’re a vital part of this ship. You can fly the ARI with that fusion drive of a backpack.” Her faceplate glowed brighter as she realized her goals were finally achievable.
“Please call me Fred,” the pack chimed in.
“Oops, my error, Fred; I forgot,” Kai apologized hurriedly. “I’m just so happy that the ARI works. Now we can go find Cale and Jess. Ohm, do you remember where Istaar is?” she asked hopefully.
“I do, and I will help you find the city. But we are going to need a new light. Istaar is dark and I seemed to have burned out the ARI’s current flood lamp. We will need to catch ourselves another photorb,” Ohm explained calmly, refusing to get caught up in the excitement oozing from Kai.
“Okay, but, before we go get one of those photorb things, I need to go do some final adjustments to the engine. It sounds alright but I heard a few odd noises when you pushed the poor thing into overdrive back there,” Kai complained, concerned about her ship.
Kai strode out to the open deck. Susan followed her into the chamber at the rear of the vessel, driven by curiosity. The hatch to the engineering room closed behind the pair as Kai set to work perfecting her masterpiece.
Oa remained where he was, facing Ohm. He had questions for his mentor. Once Kai was gone the Traveler spoke up.
“So, Fred and I discovered—”
“That can wait,” Oa said, cutting his friend off. “Things got a bit scary back in those canyons. You picked a wonderful time to drop. The Legion nearly had us.” He folded his arms across his chest.
“Yeah,” Ohm said sheepishly. “My apologies regarding that whole incident. I was meaning to tell you about the arm and stuff.” The ancient Awoken reached up and adjusted the hood on his head in the awkward silence that followed.
“Well, things worked out,” Oa said, breaking the silence. “Anyhow, Fred wouldn't tell me about it, and Kai doesn’t seem to need answers, but I want to know how it happened. Were you addicted to Void immersion or something? Do you still do it?”
Ohm stopped fiddling with his hood and began to idly tap the microbur canister attached to his mask. “Honestly, I don’t remember how I became infected. I just woke up from my first sleep all besmirched, and Fred is unable to tell me what happened.” He shrugged his bandaged arm. “I can surmise with some certainty, though, that one whopper of a beating occurred.”
Oa sensed his friend’s honesty. He sighed and leaned back against the chamber wall. “There is a lot of selective memory going on around here. Am I the only one with a working brain?” he huffed in exasperation. Then he chuckled slightly at the absurdity of the situation.
“Well, I don’t know what Kai’s excuse is, but I have been living with this crazy headache for close to a bajillion weebles,” Ohm said defensively as he pointed to his mask.
Fred pounced on the opportunity to correct Ohm. “The actual number is 5,289—”
“I don’t want to know the number, Fred!” Ohm said, interrupting the pack.
Ohm walked up to Oa and tapped the top of the shorter Awoken’s head. “You still have a lot to learn. You never considered the idea that not all Sleepers are voluntary addicts. Some might just be infected.”
“Alright, alright. I didn’t think of that. I believe you,” Oa said, annoyed as he swatted Ohm’s hand away. “So will that infection get worse?”
“The infection has not spread from my right side. Other than the inconvenient sleep, it doesn’t seem to affect me. I cover it up, though, because I despise the sight of it,” Ohm said, anger bleeding through his voice as he tried to brush the wrinkles out of the patched cloth that covered his right leg.
Oa nodded sympathetically. He decided not to push the topic any further. “So what did Fred discover about my powers?” he asked expectantly. “It might help explain why I couldn’t heal your Void infection. It thwarted my abilities somehow. A similar thing happened during my first cycle,” he said, remembering Buri.
“Ah, yes, our discovery. That is much more important than my deformities. You really derailed the conversation, Oa,” Ohm grumbled. He stood silently for a moment, choosing the best way to disclose his findings. “Fred and I were able to analyze Seeker’s inner workings when you used it in Bolleworth. It appears that Seeker runs off an unknown form of Void technology. Simply put, Seeker creates out of nothing. That sounds impossible, but we watched it happen.” He walked over to the viewport and gazed out at the dim sky. “I believe that Eol will hunt you using Seeker as a beacon. The Void is Eol’s home. He dwells within his own emptiness. He will never allow you to fix the infection he has spread. That is why his will defied your power. You must not create with Seeker anymore. Your gift is a thief to Eol. He knows when you try to steal from him. I hate telling you to suppress your potential, but you need to be patient until we can figure out a way to outwit Eol.”
In his mind Oa, called out to Seeker. The silver sphere obediently rose out of its satchel to hover above his hand. He looked at it for a moment, and his shoulders drooped slightly in disappointment. “I really dislike Eol, but there is nothing we can do about him right now. We need to stay out of his sight and head toward the Enlightened.” The young Awoken looked up hopefully. “Can I still use Seeker to swing around?”
“I believe so, that feature does not stimulate the Void core within Seeker so Eol should have no awareness of it,” Ohm reassured. “Your mental link to Seeker is outside of his realm. That device is quite the dichotomy. Our data indicates that Seeker links you to the universal programming as well as the Void, but that should be impossible. Perhaps Fred and I are getting daft in our age.” He turned from the viewport to face Oa. “Your new friend is quite amazing. Only Jess and Cale could have taught her so well. I am sure you have noticed, though, that Kai’s mind is not whole. She is missing pieces, or she is refusing to accept them. Istaar was destroyed in the great cataclysm that reduced this world to its current state. I was away from the academy at the time. Once I heard it had been obliterated along with the rest of the city, I decided it was time to retire. Fred and I have been wandering ever since.”
Oa thought for a moment before responding, “I promised Kai that we would assist her in return for a ride. We need to go to Istaar and help her piece her memory back together.”
“I concur. Cale and Jess were my greatest students, but a rift opened between us when they pursued research with a government I was not particularly fond of. I need to know what happened as much as Kai does,” Ohm agreed.
“Maybe we will find clues about Eol there; he might have had something to do with it,” Oa suggested. Ohm nodded, deep in thought.
“I’m going to go see if Kai needs any help,” Oa said as he walked over to the door. He was knocked back as Kai and Susan rushed back in to the chamber.
“Oops! Sorry, Oa,” Kai said quickly, brushing imaginary dust off of Oa’s tunic. “The ship is ready Ohm, so you sit back down and power the ARI while Oa and I go to the front and fly our way to some photorbs,” she commanded, eager with anticipation.
Ohm
snapped stiffly to mock attention, then nodded and sat down into the power hub. Fred whirred and clicked as the pack reconnected to the ARI. Oa shook his head at Ohm’s quirkiness then followed Kai through the corridor at the other end of the chamber. Orange light panels led them in a short arc around a corner into a cockpit. The ceiling dipped down, curving into a wide window panel that wrapped around the front end of the room.
“Welcome to the bridge!” Kai said proudly, motioning to two comfy looking seats in front of them.
She grabbed the chair on the right and spun it toward her. Kai sat down then whirled back to face the complex flight console in front of her. Susan came floating in. She brushed past Oa, winding her way into a small alcove behind the bridge. Oa realized that the hallway they had come through curved around the antechamber Susan had floated into. The walls, floor, and ceiling of the room were dotted with minuscule metallic nubs spaced out in a hexagonal pattern. He looked closer. Each nub was composed of an array of shiny rings stacked on a tiny pole.
“Oa, pull the lever on the side there,” Kai said, pointing to a blinking green switch next to the alcove entrance. Oa pulled the lever down into on position. It stopped blinking and remained lit. The room sparked and crackled as arcs of violet hued energy bounced around, shooting randomly between the nubs on the walls.
“I built it for Susan so she can rest better,” Kai explained as Oa sat down in the pilot’s chair next to her. “It reminds her of the sky knots she would nest in if she wasn’t following me around. Lighting varls enjoy the energy dense spots in the sky. It took a lot of work, but I turned that wasted storage space into a storm simulator and tuned it to Susan’s frequency. I was barely able to power it with the generator back at my cave, but she liked it so much I didn’t care if it made the lights go out.” Her face plate glowed at the happy memory.
“It was actually a hat closet,” Ohm interrupted. His voice seemed to come out of nowhere, startling Oa and Kai.
“Ohm, I thought you were in the power hub,” Oa said, spinning his chair around to see if Ohm had walked into the bridge.
“I’m still in the hub with Fred. Kai, you may not have realized the full functionality of the ARI when you rebuilt it. The seats contain cerebral audio feeds. If you’re sitting in one of the piloting seats, we can hear each other’s words no matter how noisy things get. So we don’t have to shout down the halls at each other,” Ohm explained.
“The accurate relaying of information can be vital while piloting this vessel during dangerous situations,” Fred added curtly.
“I love my ship!” Kai said enthusiastically. “So where do we go to find a photorb, Ohm? Also, what is that?” Oa leaned back in his chair, bored at the thought of another one of his mentor’s informative lectures.
“You must have found the ARI’s flood lamp intact, then, to not notice its custom inner workings,” Ohm reasoned before continuing to answer Kai’s question. “The flood lamp is not lit by heated loops of alloy like other lamps from this craft’s era. A living luminous creature powers the ARI’s flood lamp. Fred and I named it a photorb.”
“We have to stop asking questions he can drone on about,” Oa whispered humorously over to Kai.
“I heard that!” Ohm snapped. “Pay attention! Photorbs zip about, racing through the energy of the lightning forests. Most photorbs are too fast to catch; but when they get old, they grow weary of their pace. They become slow enough that we can see them. Photorbs can’t stop moving until they’re dead; but if you catch one, you can give it a peaceful way to rest its remaining weebles, comfortably fed by the ARI. Photorbs are incredibly radiant. They last a long time, even though they are relatively near death by the time they can be caught.”
“Oa’s right. That’s definitely the long answer. All I learned was that we need to go to a lightning forest,” Kai teased, flicking switches and adjusting knobs on the control board in front of her. “Oa, you’ll be having your second lesson in flight while Ohm and I navigate us to a nearby forest,” she said warmly.
“I thought you would want to fly the ARI first,” Oa said, surprised at the gesture.
“Don’t worry about it. There will be plenty of time for me to fly later. Besides, I’ve never piloted this exact model before, so you’re the test dummy,” Kai admitted cheerily.
“Thanks … I will try not to crash us,” Oa replied. I hope I do better at this than the glider, he thought to himself.
“Kai, if you will monitor the readings on the scanners for lightning forest energy signatures, I will pinpoint which branch has the highest concentration of photorb wakes. Don’t worry, Oa. You probably have the programming to fly. You will do great,” Ohm instructed encouragingly, knowing that Oa and Kai were slightly nervous about piloting the newly refurbished vessel.
Oa looked at the controls in front of him. To his left was a lever with a crosspiece handle on the top. On his right was a dome-shaped controller with a slot made for a hand to fit into.
“Activating restraint harnesses,” Fred informed the crew. Harnesses sprung out from the chairs snapping together across the crew’s waists and chests.
“Place your right hand into the navigation dome and grip the handle inside. It rotates in all directions, and the ARI will mimic the movements your hand makes. To adjust the power of the engines, push that lever forward with your left hand. It’s sensitive so you might want to start out slow,” Kai instructed Oa.
Her last words were strained by the force of acceleration as Oa thrust the speed adjustor forward. He slid his hand into the navigation dome and gripped the handle inside, rotating it down and to the right. The engines roared to life; and the ship arced down in a spiral, following his guidance. He let out a whoop as the ground seemed to rush up toward them. Just as they were about to hit the dirt, Oa halted their spin, leveling the craft out upside down as he raced across the surface of the world. He hovered close to the ground, weaving through the jagged terrain.
“Flying is way better than walking, Ohm,” Oa joked.
“This is amazing,” Kai agreed.
“I find they both have their rewards. Just don’t crash my ship. Kai probably can’t rebuild it again,” Ohm countered, bating Kai.
“Don’t tempt me old one. I will crash us just to prove I can rebuild MY ship,” Kai retorted. Ohm laughed.
Oa dipped the controls down as they went over a cliff enjoying the sudden drop. A solid looking wall of rock was ahead so he flipped the ARI right-side up and sent it rocketing back toward the sky before they crashed into the stone. They sailed upwards, drawing closer and closer to the sky. The beautiful dark clouds glowed with a bright golden hue. The light filled the cockpit as an especially grand coil of energy burned overhead. Oa leveled the ship off, flying directly beneath the clouds. He pushed the speed adjustor even further, taking care to dodge through arcing energy beams that flared out from under the clouds. The young Awoken was elated at how natural flying felt. He charted a course straight toward the peak on the horizon.
“Swing around to the right a little. I see a lightning forest up ahead on my scopes,” Kai instructed.
Oa brought the ARI into a hard turn rolling the ship end-over-end a few times for added fun. “Is this good?” he asked.
“Just get us there in one piece,” Kai said, thoroughly enjoying herself.
Oa dropped down out of the edges of the clouds and pulled the speed adjustor back slightly; casually winding the ARI back and forth as he followed the glorious vein of light in the sky.
“There it is,” Kai said, pointing to a glowing spot on the horizon. The land below was flat and desolate. Not a gust of wind stirred the dust on the smoothly-cut rock floor. Oa raced over the dry and desolate wasteland toward the deep green light Kai was pointing at. It appeared to rise up from the ground to meet the sky. Oa watched in wonder as they neared the pillar of light. Gradually, the blurry image sharpened into a green energy stream that rose up from a great fissure in the rock. The trunk split into numerous branches of lightning that dance
d and jigged as they tangled with the gold tinged veins in the sky. The sight was beautiful. Oa reached over and slowed the ship as they neared the forest.
“Do you see this, Ohm?” Oa asked in awe.
“I do. No matter how many times I have seen one, they never cease to amaze me. Head into the thick of the branches, up close to where they meet the sky. You have quick reflexes, but take care not to run into a branch. They tend to move about a bit,” Ohm replied, respect for the fierce natural beauty of the forest filling his voice.
The ARI cruised up into the forest. Gold and green light danced about in the cockpit and played across the metal paneling.
“Bring us further in toward the center,” Ohm commanded.
Oa weaved in and out of the branches gracefully, guiding them deeper into the forest.
“Bring us to a stop in the clearing ahead, Oa,” Ohm instructed.
Oa reached over and pulled the speed adjustor back, reducing the engine power to a crawl. They quietly glided into a clearing in the center of the forest where Oa brought the ARI to a halt. Around them, beams of energy crackled with life. Pinpricks of light drifted together, swirling around the branches and chasing each other through the forest.
“The ship is immobile. Releasing restraint harnesses,” Fred informed the crew. The harnesses retracted from around Oa and Kai to return into the seats.
“Come on, Oa. Let’s go take a look,” Kai said, jumping out of her seat. She ran out of the cockpit, flipping off the power switch to Susan’s storm simulator as she passed. Susan immediately perked up and flew out of the room in pursuit of Kai. Oa was not far behind the pair as they ran through the empty power hub chamber and out onto the open deck of the ARI. Ohm was already outside, leaning with his hand on the railing as he gazed out into the forest of light. He turned his head slightly as the excited trio came up beside him.
“You can see a herd of photorbs there,” Ohm said, pointing with his bandaged stump to a nearby branch of pulsing green energy. Numerous little balls of light flitted playfully about the branch. “I will go and wrangle one. Susan should come with me. It’s time she followed in her parents’ wake and caught the ARI its next beacon,” the Traveler said, his voice mysteriously reminiscent as he leaned down to pat Susan on the head. She bobbed lightly in the air, tongue lolling out happily.
