by Todd Brill
“Well I want to find out more,” Nomad replied, grabbing her hand tenderly. “I wanna find out if there’s a way outta here. Every prison has a way out — you just have to find it. I saw that on a documentary once. Earth had this place called Alcatraz prison a long time ago. They said nobody could ever escape from it but some people did. They also said the Titanic was unsinkable, but it sank.”
“The Titanic?” said Danik, looking at him quizzically.
“Never mind. I’m just saying that just because something seems impossible, doesn’t mean it really is,” he replied. Then he got up, kissed her hand, and turned to leave with his food tray, his food only half-eaten.
“Be careful, Nomad,” warned Danik. “Be safe.”
“Don’t worry about me, dear,” he replied and headed for Jorune’s hut after dropping off his tray.
When he arrived, Jorune was setting her little basket down on the ground just outside her front door. She had a fresh-looking yellow flower in her hair as always, and she smiled when she saw Nomad arrive.
“Hello, Nomad,” she called. “How does this new day find you, dear?”
“I’m fine, Jorune. How are you?” he replied.
“I’m alive and there are a great many things to listen to today. There are guards and other prisoners going about their business.” She nodded knowingly to Nomad, and he understood her warning. This wasn’t the place or time to talk of things best left until later.
“I just wanted to say good morning to you and thank you for last night. I was wondering if I could come visit tonight after the last work siren?” said Nomad.
“Of course, dear,” replied Jorune. “I’ll see you then.”
Jogging most of the way, Nomad got to his gate just before the siren. The guards didn’t appreciate it if anyone was late for work. They tended to take things like that personally. They would often beat prisoners senseless for less.
Telarch put him to work immediately. He told Nomad that some electronic equipment in hard plastic cases needed to be moved from storage to the tower building and unpacked. Nomad went to work, the whole while thinking about Jorune and what she told him about listening. He tried to listen at work but there was too much going on -- too much noise and commotion. It was difficult for Nomad to clear his mind enough to listen properly. Instead, he just focused on his tasks.
He visited Jorune that night after their evening meal. She had him practice listening again and again. Each time, the lessons focused on one aspect of listening, as though she was teaching him to crawl before he could walk. She would get him to focus on one thing at a time. Sometimes, she would tell him to focus on nothing at all.
“Listen to the silence,” she would say. “Sometimes silence can tell us many things too.”
After a few weeks, he was becoming proficient at listening to silence. It allowed him to quickly calm his mind, which allowed him to listen to other things more easily. He also discovered there was silence everywhere. Even in the busiest crowds or during heavy construction where the noise can seem overwhelming, there were gaps. Gaps of silence he could focus on. The silence helped center his mind.
“Silence is a powerful tool,” said Jorune one cold fall night. “It can center your mind, calm you, refocus your attention. It allows you to do things that require more concentration.” Jorune was sitting in the dirt of her hut with a single small candle flickering in the corner, her bone crutch resting on her knees as usual.
Then she closed her eyes and sighed, tilting her tiny blue chin upward slightly. Nomad began to feel the sensation of pressure on his skin. A tingling sensation like a faint breeze washed over him. He watched and listened. When he focused, he could almost see a faint blue nimbus surrounding her, stretching out to him through the air and caressing his skin in gossamer threads of pure willpower.
Then Nomad felt something peculiar. He was floating above the dirt floor suddenly, as if he had become a balloon. He looked at Jorune in the flickering light and saw she had risen off the dirt floor by several inches, her eyes still closed, her hands still resting on her crutch.
Nomad couldn’t believe it. She was lifting them off the ground with her mind! Nearly as soon as it began, she lowered them back down gently. The blue nimbus receded into her and the tingling stopped.
“Did you feel that?” she asked calmly.
“Of course!” said Nomad excitedly, “How the hell did you do that? Can I learn to do that?”
Jorune chuckled. “Calm, dear, be calm. Listen. If you practice and remain calm, then you can do this and more. This was nothing. A small demonstration. Some stories tell of great warriors who could rout entire armies with their power. But this power is not magical or supernatural. It is contained within all matter and energy. It is a part of the universe. Certain people are sensitive to it and can utilize this power. To do so, you must listen to it. To understand this truth, you must concentrate and ask the universe to cooperate. But the universe will only cooperate with those that listen to it. It can never be coerced. So, be calm, dear, and listen.”
They spent the rest of the evening listening to the wind and to silence spaces between things. His mind floated in the silence like a tiny ship in a giant dark sea. Bobbing along the frothing waves of watery sounds, he skimmed the silent energy and simply observed what he heard. It was peaceful and calm, and for the first time in a long time, so was he.
9
After several months, Nomad was becoming adept at listening. He was able to move small objects by listening to their particles and the particles in the air around them. He could make dust devils by listening to the dirt floor of his hut and make fire twisters from the small candles and fires they had to keep them warm during the cold nights.
He had arrived in late spring and had been working hard well into fall. He learned from others that the seasons on this world were a little longer than they were on Earth. It had been almost six months since his incarceration here, but it was only beginning winter. The days became shorter; the sunlight more pale.
Then the training changed. Jorune told him how proud she was of his progress and how quickly he grasped the basic concepts. But that wasn’t the only thing she needed to teach him. One evening after chatting about the day’s events and some nuanced lessons on the art of listening, Jorune asked him a question.
“What do you want to do with your life, dear?” she said. Nomad was startled by the question. During all their sessions, she had never asked him such a personal question before.
“I’m not really sure,” he began. “When I was a kid, I thought I wanted to be a soldier or a fireman. When I was a teenager, I wanted to be a great writer and be rich and famous. When I got older, I lost track of what I wanted to do. I wasn’t any good at writing and my experiences taught me soldiers and authority figures couldn’t really be trusted. I don’t even know how many run-ins I had with the cops. I guess that’s why I started travelling from place to place. I just wanted to figure things out. I’d been stuck in my hometown my whole life and figured there must be answers out there somewhere. Wherever that was. So I travelled and that’s how I got the nickname Nomad. I travelled from town to town, state to state. I even went to Canada and Mexico, too.
“But I never really found any answers. I still don’t know what I want to do. Survive, I guess? Isn’t that what everyone wants? Especially in this place.”
Jorune nodded slowly. He could tell she was listening to him even though her eyes were closed. She was focused and intent. He could feel the tingling and see the cool blue tendrils of energy surrounding them both.
“Yes. You need purpose, Ted.” She now called him Ted in private. She said it was because it was his real name, not a made-up name like Nomad. But she called him Nomad everywhere else.
“Purpose is what drives life. Without it, life is devoid of value. The trick is in finding your purpose. I sense that you know what your purpose is, but you aren’t fully aware of it. You feel it, like the wind flowing through your hair, but you don’t have
a name for it,” said Jorune softly.
“What’s my…” started Nomad before she cut him off.
“I can’t tell you what your purpose is, Ted. Nobody can. I can listen and hear hints of it, but only you really know for sure. Not until you can name it will anyone know what it is -- including yourself,” she said.
“But how do I do that?” he asked, puzzled.
“You need to listen to yourself. Listen to that intuition inside of you. Your ‘gut feeling’ as you call it. It knows,” she replied.
Nomad was sitting already, so he closed his eyes and folded his hands in his lap to listen. Jorune was quiet now. He began by listening to the hut, the dirt, the camp around him. He could feel the energy of all its particles.
Then he focused on his own body. He could feel the particles and energy that made up his body. It was amazing. He twitched the toe on his right foot and could feel the movement of particles and energy as they flowed from his brain, down his spinal column, and into his toe.
He experimented for some time with feeling his body and listening to its various processes: heartbeat, digestion, respiration. It was the most wondrous and bizarre experience of Nomad’s life. He came to realize his body was no different than the dirt on the hut floor or the alien wood that made up the walls of the small hut. They were all particles and energy.
Once he had satisfied his initial curiosity, he thought about the problem of his purpose. What is my purpose? he asked his body. A slight tingle at the base of his neck, but nothing more.
Is my purpose to simply live out my existence then die? Another small jolting tingle.
Is my purpose to help others? A small tingle. This wasn’t working. He sat and listened for a while, focusing on the particles and energy field surrounding him, for the calm in the silence. He felt as if he were sailing the sea at night when the water was tranquil and dark, reflecting the dome of the sky above, the darkness broken only by the sparkling light of the stars.
Maybe it’s bigger than that, he thought. Maybe my purpose is whatever I decide it is. Nothing is decided for me. It’s all up to me. A huge surge of movement in the particles of his body filled his head with a surge of energy and elation. That was it!
The fate of everything isn’t pre-determined, he thought. It just is. The actions and ideas of the beings that make up the universe determine what happens next.
“It sounds like you’ve made progress,” said Jorune suddenly, her small croaking voice filling the nearly empty little hut. The small candle had gone out and only a thin tendril of smoke wavered from the wick, splitting the already filtered light from outside the hut.
“It’s up to me to decide my purpose,” said Nomad quietly in the dark. “And I think I know what I want to do now.”
“Good, dear. Tell me, if you don’t mind sharing,” she said.
“Freedom,” he said. “I want freedom. Matter and energy are controlled by the laws of the universe but people are kept from being free by themselves alone. All I’ve ever wanted my whole life is to be free to decide things for myself. To be my own person and be in charge of my own life.” He was exuberant like he was going to explode with excitement at his newly gained insight.
“But that’s not all,” he continued. “I want to share this with other people. I want everyone to know what it is to be free. Freedom is the ultimate goal for everyone, and I want to help them achieve that. To feel what it’s like to be free. Being free is what brings hope for the future and hope is what makes people happy.”
“Very interesting,” said Jorune, her eyes open and looking at Nomad intently. “There are practical ways of doing this kind of thing,” she said. “Listening is key, of course, but isn’t enough. You’ve been training your mind. Rethinking your view of the universe and your role in it. But you must now focus on training your body too, for your body is your manifestation in this universe and interacts with all those people you want to help. If you have a weak body, your interactions with some people will be weak. If you have a strong body and mind, your interactions will be always be strong.
“Also, without a strong body and mind, the enemies of freedom will find it easy to defeat you and disrupt your purpose. This is the next phase of your training, Ted. We must train you physically as well as mentally to prepare you for your life’s work.” At this, she stood up. But Nomad noticed she didn’t so much stand as floated upward. She was using her power to assist her physically.
He listened to the particles of his body and asked them to lift him from the ground. They listened and his body was gently lifted as his legs unfurled beneath him. He was standing now, a strong vibrating blue-green glow around him visible only to those who listened for it.
“Let the training commence,” said Jorune in a suddenly iron-edged tone. With surprising speed and violence, she flicked her crutch up into her hands, holding it like a baseball bat and struck Nomad hard on his left thigh.
“Ow!” he cried, his focus wavering. Jorune moved more quickly than he could ever have imagined. The blue glow surrounding her felt fierce and was nearly blinding. She whirled behind him and jabbed him in the back of his knee with her crutch before he could react.
His knee buckled and he ended up on his hands and knees. She was in front of him again, a grim look of fierce determination in her little eyes. With lightning speed, her crutch hummed out and hit his left arm just above his elbow with a crunch, sending him sprawling to the dirt at her feet.
When he rolled up from the floor, clutching his bruised arm, she was sitting in her usual pose on the dirt floor again, appearing calm and unaware. He thought about jumping at her, wrestling the crutch away from her so she couldn’t hit him anymore.
“Your intentions betray you,” she said quietly. “My speed and power don’t come from my weapon. They come from listening and training. Come and take my weapon if you like.” She patted the bone crutch in her lap.
He paused a moment to consider. She might have bursts of speed but maybe now she was tired. She was small and old and tired. He could beat her at this contest. He thought this was just a test of some sort.
He quickly lunged out at her, grabbing at the crutch with his right hand. Except she was instantly further away with the crutch raised above her head. Instead of him grabbing the crutch, it came down hard on the back of his hand and an explosion of pain ripped through his arm.
“Ahhhhtch!” he cried, pulling his hand back. It had a large lump between the knuckles and wrist and was quickly turning purple. He rubbed at it furiously trying to alleviate the pain.
“Okay, you win, Jorune. Damn!” said Nomad.
“I’m sorry, dear, if there was any other way to teach this to you, I would,” she said, walking over to him and taking his wounded hand away from him. She closed her eyes and rubbed her little blue hand over the wounded area in a small circle.
Nomad felt a cold energy washing over the nearly broken bones of his right hand. It felt incredibly good. His legs were wobbly and a smile crept across his face as the tingling sensation filled his entire body, healing it from within, knitting his bones and tissue together.
“You healed me,” whispered Nomad in awe.
“I didn’t heal you,” Jorune pointed out. “Your body healed you. I just listened and asked it to speed things up a little.”
“Amazing,” he whispered, examining his now perfectly healed hand.
“Not so much,” said Jorune in an ominous tone, sitting back down. “What will be amazing is if you can survive your physical training. It will be very hard, Ted. Especially in this place. But you must learn to fight and to use your power to help you. Otherwise, your purpose will be lost. Now, let’s begin.”
10
Nomad sat down for the morning meal with the others. Every muscle in his body ached, his joints screamed with every movement. His arms were badly bruised and his legs felt like quivering masses of gelatin.
He grimaced as he lifted his spoon of gruel to his lips and ate. His hands were shaking and some gru
el spilled off his spoon to splat on his tray.
“Another rough night?” said Danik, who sat across the table from him.
“Yeah. I’ve got bruises on my bruises,” he replied, trying to smile at her. Yola was busy deciding whether to eat her gruel or just play with it.
“Did she say how long this training would take?” asked Danik, frowning. He knew she was concerned for him. Every night after hard labor, he would train with Jorune. And every morning, he woke up battered and bruised from head to toe.
“She said it depends on me,” said Nomad. “It depends on how quickly I get the training.” He grimaced again and swallowed the gray gruel-soaked piece of stale bread he had popped into his mouth.
“Do you want my breakfast?” Yola asked him, her face crinkled in disgust as she pushed her silver-gray tray across the table toward Nomad. “I don’t want it. It tastes terrible.” Danik slid the bowl back in front of Yola.
“This is the only food there is, sweetling. You need to eat it. I know it doesn’t taste very good, but it’s all we have,” said Danik. Yola frowned and then sighed, pinching her tiny nose shut with one hand while slurping some gruel into her mouth.
“Gah,” said Yola. “It’s yucky!”
“I wish I could taste things,” said a voice beside Nomad. It appeared to be a humanoid male. Tall and lanky with pale salmon-colored skin and yellow eyes. On closer inspection, Nomad noticed the man’s eyes were glowing slightly and the pupils expanded and contracted in a way that made him think they were mechanical. Like the iris of a camera lens.
When Nomad listened to the man, he realized instantly that he wasn’t a living creature. He was a machine. But not entirely.
“Are you a robot?” said Yola, her mouth hanging open in shock.
“That is incorrect. I am an android. My brain is made of organic matter, and most of my body is made of a super-heavy aluminum-composite alloy covered with a kinetic energy-reducing rubber-like material that also insulates my internal components from electromagnetic interference. My designation is Hiyadi-877, and I was born on the 53rd day of the solar calendar of my home world.”
