Dominy, along with the others, laughed. Too late, I’m already used to it.
Petrece smiled. “Now, everyone, picture in your mind’s eye the perfect being.”
Dominy straightened his back. “Genna!”
Laughter erupted. Genna glared at Dominy.
Nalton whispered, “Good one.”
Cal, sitting in the front row, swiveled his head. “You sure it’s not Shalene.”
Dominy shook his weary head. He slumped over.
Petrece scrunched her eyebrows. “I don’t want any of your ill-conceived notions now. Try again.”
Perfect being? The image in Dominy’s mind was blurred. He’d always dreamed of becoming a scientist or maybe a musician. But, obviously, a perfect being was much more than that. He slapped his face, warding off the exhaustion.
“To progress, one aspires toward that perfect being, for anything else would be—as my fellow masters would say—illogical. Now, close your eyes.”
Dominy squinted through half-closed eyes.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to disappear. Everyone, close them all the way and contemplate the attributes of that image you conjured in your mind.”
Eight hands shot into the air, waving like flags in the wind.
“I said contemplate. Remember, the perfect being is, well, perfect. It’s your definition which is not. The good news is your definition will evolve over time as you progress. The Code, your masters, and yes, baffling as it is to imagine now, at some point, even your fellow Firsts, they’ll all shape your understanding of this perfect being. Name it whatever you’d like, I call it Divinity, capital D, the Aspirian archetypal Divinity, that which transcends all, that to which you will aspire.”
Dominy leaned his head back. His head jerked forward and back. Forward and back. Forward and…
A door closed, jolting him, bringing him back to the moment. Where is everyone? Adrenaline surged through his system. My test? His monitor flashed the number zero. I missed my test!
All the other monitors in the empty room were flashing, too, but with a different message. “Mandatory meeting for all masters and students, Sector Three. Subject: Decimation Ceremony.”
Chapter Seven
Dominy jumped off the Pow at Sector Three, the venue for promotions—and the Decimation Ceremony. He spotted Nalton shuffling toward the crowd and raced after him.
“I nodded off.”
“You were more like comatose.”
“I know I’m in galactic trouble. I desperately need to fix this.”
Students, laughing and smiling, flooded into Sector Three from all directions: from the north, where the laboratories and study domes of glass bubbled up from the ground; from the west and east, where a cornucopia of geometrical shapes of metals and composites housed the competition arenas, libraries, galleries, particle accelerators, and data centers. I can’t lose all of this. Sweat streamed down Dominy’s face. He aggressively wiped his cheeks with his sleeve. “But I’m not worried, I’ll talk to Petrece. I’ll explain myself. She’ll help me.” He pointed at the gathering students. “But what’s this about?”
“Petrece said Ceremony is the operative word.” Nalton accelerated his shuffle pace. “That a long time ago, the Decimation solved the problem of weak masters. Bottom decile got the cutting block. It’s now based on the Algorithm, the one for masters. Their test scores, research achievements, assigned students’ progressions, all quantified, you get the idea. But no one’s been decimated in a generation.”
“Thank the Divinity.” Dominy had liked Petrece’s word choice. Still strange, though. That old Codebook he memorized never mentioned the Decimation.
“Now it’s just a simple annual celebration of masters.”
“But it wasn’t scheduled.”
“Leadership springs strange surprises all the time.” Nalton pointed to his head. “Keeps us sharp. More unique experiences mean more neural connections.”
Throughout the Sector, brightly colored red awnings ratcheted higher with the rising sun. They passed a boy sitting on a bench staring into space.
Speaking of strange surprises. Dominy stopped. “Hold on a nano.” The boy’s eyes glistened and his shoulders slumped. He looked like he didn’t have a friend in the galaxy. Other than Shalene, Dominy hadn’t seen a student looking depressed, not at Aspiria. “You okay?”
“Leave me alone.”
That relationship book suggested that getting closer, physically, can work wonders. Dominy placed one hand against the overhead water spritzer and leaned toward the boy.
The student’s lips quivered. “I was assigned a new master. Sergian.”
Dominy sat next to him. “That’s good, right? They say he’s fresh-robe. New ideas. And he’s a fair man. Hey, you could introduce me to Sergian. He placed his arm over the sad boy’s shoulder. “I need to help Shalene, she’s another friend.” And I could use a little help myself.
“I’m scared.” The boy on the bench lowered his gaze and gnawed his fingertips. “Don’t know if I’m up to it. Me, a First, with the head of council? I might fail.”
“Join us.” Dominy pointed at the growing crowd. The sad boy looked around nervously. His angular face seemed composed of geometrical shapes: ears, nose, and mouth all trapezoids and triangles.
“Uh, I’m not sure.”
“We outsiders won’t bite you.”
The boy stood and half-smiled. “I’m Matham. Odd, I know—because I’m strong in math. My given name was changed, by my mother, uh… oh, sorry.”
“Hey, Nalton, Dreamer, we’re over here!” Genna waved her arm.
Speakers hissed. “Decimation Ceremony. Two minutes, Sector Three.”
The class of eight outsiders, along with Matham, scurried to open spots along a deep semicircle of students in the open quadrangle.
Cal shoved Dominy aside. “You’re blocking the way.” The bruiser plowed ahead and clipped Nalton’s heel, and down he went. His face smashed the gray composite surface. “Get up.”
Dominy grabbed the spindly boy’s thin shoulders and levered him up. “You okay?”
“Barely a scratch.” Nalton rubbed his chafed face.
“How do you put up with him?”
“Who, Cal? Don’t let him hear this…” Nalton popped a pebble in his mouth, leaned in and whispered, “I actually like him.”
“But the way he treats you.”
“Exactly. Just like he treats everyone.” Nalton’s eyes reddened. “C’mon everyone, let’s get closer.”
They squeezed together and stood under the protection of an expansive flame-red canopy, about twenty meters from the ceremony platform.
“Oh, no.” Matham stared at his notepad, his lower lip hanging loose. “Sergian, he needs me at the base of the stage.”
Dominy tapped the nervous boy’s forearm. “Remember, nothing to worry about.” Matham scrambled through the crowd and stood cowering next to the platform.
An ancient man hobbled up a ramp to the stage. He wore the purple robe of the guardian. So that’s Everlen. The pulled-back shoulders and the raised chin. The old man looked familiar, somehow. Dominy must’ve seen a picture of a younger guardian in his pre-entry study materials.
The guardian turned ninety degrees, facing Dominy. Those eyes. The man’s white filament hair framed piercing topaz eyes set against nearly translucent skin. Looking at Everlen’s face was like looking at the sun—tempting but dangerous.
A procession of red-robed masters swung parallel to the students, puffing their chests and smiling proudly.
A breeze freshened and whistled a two-note tune as it passed through the canopy’s support structure. Sergian and the council split off from the other masters and ambled up the ramp, encircling the guardian. There was Petrece. He waved and smiled, hoping it would help his cause when the time came to explain his test disaster.
Everlen, microphone in hand, addressed the audience. “Celebration time!” He punched the sky with a shaky hand. “We’ve had many notable acc
omplishments by our masters recently. Here are a just a few.” He hobbled to the front of the stage. “Refinements in the force-inducing ring encircling the ST-2 have reduced spacecraft size by sixty percent!”
The crowd roared. Everlen stomped his foot. “We have proved the existence of a pattern in prime numbers!”
The cheers exploded louder, the energy vibrating through Dominy’s bones. He yelled to Nalton. “Oh, Divinity! Petrece was working on that.”
“We’ve brokered a peace treaty between P8 and P9.” Everlen balled his fists in front of his chest. “And we have, finally, accounted for the total mass of the universe!”
The audience slammed forward, raising their hands and fluttering their fingers like mad at the great man. Dominy shimmied over to Genna and screamed. “I hope they leave something for me to do.”
A wide smile lit her face. “Dream on!”
Dominy caught Matham’s attention and shouted, “See, no worries.”
Everlen spread out his arms toward the crowd. “The galaxy is a better place because of all of you. He scanned the buildings rimming the quadrangle. “Aspiria! What a beautiful place!”
“And you’re a beautiful person!” Dominy blurted out the words.
Everlen gazed out at the crowd, searching for the speaker. He rubbed his wrinkly skin and laughed. The crowd did too. The ancient man lowered his arms, palms down. “In Aspiria’s glorious history, Decimation was critical to our evolution. In a bygone era—the time of the founders, the Academics—necklaces were awarded to masters based on teaching performance. Each metal medallion varied in degree of brightness. The bottom ten percent didn’t merit any necklace and were exiled. In recent times, with the advances in our competitive training, the algorithmic scores for masters have clustered in a tight statistical range, making Decimation a rare, if not an extinct, curiosity of our history.”
The guardian turned to his left and held out his hand. “Head of Council, the data pack, please.”
Sergian raised his head, ascending to the guardian. The head of council, his eyes protruding from his enormous cranium, scanned the surroundings. He handed the data pack to Everlen as if it were radioactive and retreated to the side of the stage. He bent over and whispered something to Matham.
The guardian smiled. “I will now read a few words from the original Decimation. By purging Aspiria of weak masters, Aspiria grows healthier, stronger.” He unsealed the data pack and cocked his head.
Was the guardian welling up? With those eyes, Dominy couldn’t tell. The breeze strengthened to a wind, buffeting the awning, and that sweet tune turned to a low-pitched howl.
The guardian’s hands tremored. “Petrece.”
The crowd gasped and fell silent. The wind slashed through passageways between the masters’ studies, coating much of the southern quadrangle with dust.
Tears streamed down Everlen’s cheeks—Dominy was sure of it. What’s happening?
The entire assembly of masters froze. They seemed to realize this Decimation wasn’t just a ceremony.
Petrece lurched forward, away from the council, and staggered past the gathered students. Matham raced over to her. They both listed side to side as he escorted her onto the Pow.
Dominy gulped the particle-filled air. His throat burned. Petrece? Then the full realization finally hit him. My master!
Chapter Eight
Dominy entered the private laboratory of his newly assigned master. He marched in, sliding his fingers along the gleaming stainless steel counters, scanning the precision equipment, ready to prove himself.
Talia waved him closer. He took two steps and a chemical smell stopped him short. “Come on over, you’ll get used to the different odors. Me, I find the smell of sulfur on a warm day comforting.”
The Aspirian Algorithm. Dominy’s new master was renowned for simulating experiments using customized algorithms. “Yes, Master.” He strutted over. She had an odd shape for a woman, narrow of chest but very wide, beaker-flask wide, at the hips and thighs. Many of the masters Dominy had seen were big and Talia was no exception. Perhaps it was some genetic predisposition.
Talia’s oiled hair was parted straight down the middle. His mother had the same style, claiming it was her one chance at beauty, for she had seen beauty in symmetry. The Algorithm and the Auto-matron would have gotten along, for sure.
His gaze met her impenetrable, reflecting eyes, and he ascended. She nodded.
In the distance, liquids gurgled and centrifuges whirred. He eyed a microscope on a lab bench next to her and smiled.
She sat on a stool and stroked its barrel. “It’s a three-dimensional electron scope. I’m mapping the neural connections of the entire brain.” She pointed at a stool across from her.
He sat and shook his head at the magnitude of her effort.
“Based on my new simulation techniques, I’m on pace to finish in three years. The data’s impact on science and medical research is unimaginable—not to mention how it will revolutionize our training methods. Aspiria benefits, the galaxy benefits.”
Dominy raised his fist. “Master, this is what I’ve waited for. I so desperately want to assist you, to prove my worth. I also have done research on high-temperature superconductivity and—”
Talia rapped her fist down, shaking a test tube stand. “The neurons in the typical brain numbers one hundred billion, the number of neural connections, multiples greater.” Talia wriggled a medical glove on her plump hand.
“Master?”
She snapped the elastic at the wrist line securing his attention. She plucked out a pinkish gray lump from a glass container. A lab brain. “Now imagine this is your brain…”
Dominy’s flesh turned arctic-cold. He didn’t want to imagine it. He wanted to throw up.
She brought the brain to eye level as if counting the neurons. “This brain might not have the average number of connections.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You need more connections. I was surprised you were assigned to me. I don’t usually work with remedials.”
No! Dominy slumped forward and gulped to keep from welling up. Sitting so low, his line of sight passed through a kaleidoscope of chemical beakers, distorting his view. I just need another chance to prove myself.
She tilted her head and stared at him through tufted eyebrows. “But then I’ve been surprised by a lot lately.”
The Decimation, perhaps. “Master?”
“I’m off the council,” she whispered.
Dominy flung his head back. “But the Meritocracy? You’re not devastated?”
“They want my time devoted to research. For the best in the long run.” Talia licked her lips, petted the lab brain and set it back in the container. “Research is my only love. Let’s go. I must see you perform.” She ripped off the medical glove and tossed it in a waste can. “See what I’m up against.”
Dominy and Talia stepped off the Pow. The violet awnings of Sector Four fully retracted with the setting sun, sending students all around them scrambling for adventure, competing for fun. This was Dominy’s scheduled free time, his quadtime.
“Don’t worry, leadership doesn’t record these results. But we need to see you in action.” Talia cast her hand out. “Choose anything.”
He raced down the so-called Midway. Venues lined each side: Three-vee-three Debates, the Star-A-Wheel, the Elimination Lectures, the possibilities were endless. How can I impress Talia? He joined a crush of white-robes at the Impromptu Games.
He heard a familiar voice in the distance. He broke through the crowd gathering at a large rectangular platform. Nalton hobbled toward the raised stage.
“Hey, stranger, what’s the game?”
“It’s Building Replication. And I’m the announcer.” Nalton grinned. “Translate two-dimensional plans of Aspirian buildings into physical scale models up on that.” He pointed at the platform. “It’s supposed to be a scaled-down academy. The structures you build will rim the stage.”
Dominy smiled
. As a child he loved building scale models of Aspiria. Sure, this game seemed silly, but he had something to prove to Talia, to himself. His new master, her oily hair shimmering in violet light, hovered at the back fringe of the crowd, notepad in hand, staring at him.
Cal waited amongst the scores of students standing about. Dominy hoped Cal—a top performer—would lose. Oh, Divinity! Did I just think that? That wasn’t the first time. Yeah, he wanted to be the best, and he did feel better—for about a second. I feel horrible.
“Hey, Cal, ready to play?”
“Surprised you’re not exiled by now.”
Dominy dug his fingernails into his palms. “Well, good reasoning.” There, he said it. And he meant it. I did, didn’t I? Cal squinted suspiciously, but at least Dominy felt better.
He spotted Genna and raced over to her. “It can’t be random chance we’re both here.”
She tapped her forehead. “The Impromptu Games are my favorite. Worms have an equal opportunity. What’re you doing here?”
“Besides playing this game?” He looked back at Cal. “I’m working on my personality.”
Throughout the entire quadrangle, lights switched on. At the Midway, laser diodes dispersed violet and white light through separate waveguides that undulated like two ribbons.
Genna twisted the tail of her hair. “Personality?”
“I didn’t have much of a chance where I came from, so I’m creating one now—a personality, that is.”
Genna’s eyes widened.
He leaned in, and shrugged while sporting a wry smile. “Still a work in progress?”
She bit her lip, but her violet-tinged cheeks dimpled, making it look as though she was smiling at him. Maybe she was. “You don’t give up, do you?”
A warning chime rang.
“All interested, step forward!” Nalton counted the players. “Twenty-four. Okay, two-person teams today.” He matched up players by pointing at them with his forefingers. A finger toward Dominy and…
Dominy smiled. “Genna!”
Aspiria Rising Page 4
