Messenger

by James Walker

  “Remember, upon the successful completion of this operation, your grave crimes will be pardoned and you will be allowed to reintegrate with society as lawful citizens. With this one act of courage, you may win the governor's mercy—and your freedom.

  “That is all.”

  *

  Falsrain secured himself firmly into his seat as the dropship launched from the Onyx Down and entered Chalice's atmosphere. The dropship trembled violently and the external feed filled with red. After a couple of minutes, the shaking subsided as the dropship slowed its descent, and the red haze of the monitor was replaced by the splotchy darkness of a nighttime cloud cover. Myriad white flashes momentarily lit the clouds, indicating a powerful lightning storm in progress.

  The dropship penetrated the clouds, emerging into a sheet of rain. The ground was visible as nothing but an uneven black plane. The dropship lurched as the autopilot leveled out and made a sharp turn to correct its course. In the distance, a cluster of lights shone through the rain, revealing the position of Fort Spriggan.

  The dropship slowed its approach until it was hovering over a hangar. The hangar's roof swung open and the dropship made a slow descent, touching down on the landing pad inside. The ramp unlocked and lowered, and Falsrain pulled the hood of his raincoat up and stepped down the ramp into the hangar. A small welcoming party came forward to greet him.

  “There should have been a young woman with Commander Koga's unit,” Falsrain said. “Where is she?”

  “The girl in the raincoat?” the welcoming officer answered. “Last I heard, she was in the infirmary. I don't know if she's been moved.”

  “The infirmary,” Falsrain said. “Take me there immediately.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Falsrain followed the officer to the base's medical compound. The advanced facilities were precisely why Falsrain had ordered Koga to withdraw to Fort Spriggan once he had acquired the Cage—or, as it turned out, the Cage's occupant. No other Spacy-controlled installation on Chalice would have facilities capable of treating the subject in case she needed tuning before she could be activated.

  And it was absolutely vital that Falsrain activate her before he brought her back to headquarters. In fact, if all went well, there might be no need to bring her back to headquarters at all.

  The officer took Falsrain to the office of the chief of the base's medical department, Lieutenant Commander Chandra Acoustic, an overly officious-looking woman drinking coffee and staring at medical read­outs on her computer. Falsrain recognized an image of a diffusion cell and made an easy guess what Acoustic was up so early—or late—studying. As soon as the escort had made introductions, Falsrain dismissed him and addressed Acoustic.

  “Let me get straight to the point,” he said. “Is Experimental Subject 778 here?”

  “You mean Astral?” Acoustic asked.

  Falsrain frowned. “What?”

  “She said her name was Astral.”

  “Ah, so someone gave her a name. How quaint.” Falsrain smiled. “Still, Astral is the most appropriate moniker they could have given her. Almost too appropriate. Let me ask again: Is she here?”

  “Yes,” Acoustic replied. “I suppose you know she's a Messenger?”

  “Of course.”

  “I have her in quarantine at Commander Koga's request, although at the moment we don't have any radiation shielding potent enough to stop her from infecting the entire base if her diffusion cells activate. I've been keeping it quiet to prevent a panic.”

  “Don't worry,” Falsrain said. “I guarantee that won't happen.”

  “You seem to know a lot about it.” Acoustic rose from her desk. “Well, I suppose you'd like to see her.”

  “Naturally,” Falsrain said. “I have no fears of infection from the subject, so take me to speak with her directly.”

  “As you wish.”

  Acoustic led Falsrain to Astral's room in the quarantine ward. Falsrain looked into the room through the transparent partition. It was a small, spartan chamber, so white as to be almost blinding; equipped with all the basic amenities needed for survival, but completely lacking in luxuries and décor. Astral was reclining on her bed, a pure white creature clad in white clothes in a white room. She was staring at a console in the wall, which was filled with text too small to read from the door.

  “Well then,” Falsrain said, “let's pay your guest a visit.”

  Acoustic opened the door and stepped into Astral's room with Falsrain one step behind. At the sound of the door sliding open, Astral glanced over her shoulder. Her gaze flicked from Acoustic to Falsrain, whom she took in with one apathetic glance, then asked, her voice disinterested, “Who are you?”

  “I'm Commodore Bertrand Falsrain.” Falsrain hung his raincoat on a hook, then stood next to the bed, looking down at the diminutive girl sprawled before him.

  “Hello,” Astral replied, then turned away and resumed reading the text on the screen. She swiped her finger over the screen, bringing up the next page.

  “Experimental Subject 778,” Falsrain barked. “Your mental knowledge base has many gaps, does it not? Then here's a lesson in basic social etiquette for you. When someone has come to see you, it's rude to ignore them.”

  Astral turned away from the console to face Falsrain. She sat up, tucked her legs under her, and brushed a strand of hair out of her face.

  “I'm sorry,” she said, and gave him her undivided attention.

  “That's better,” Falsrain replied. “However, it's not really you I've come to see.”

  Astral tilted her head and looked inquiring.

  “Are you familiar with the story of the genie and the lamp?” Falsrain asked.

  Astral nodded.

  “Well, it's the genie I've come to speak to,” Falsrain said. “Not the lamp. Do you understand?”

  “I understand,” Astral said, “but I can't hear it right now.”

  Falsrain scowled. “Why not?”

  “Because this world's atmospheric composition increases the colli- sion incidence rate of the subatomic particles so that the physical med- ium for the actuation waves is rapidly attenuated and—”

  “All right,” Falsrain interrupted her. “I understand. I was afraid this might happen.”

  He extracted a datacube from his pocket and handed it to Acoustic. “The subject's ability to perform her function is impaired at the moment. It's imperative that I get her working before I take her back to headquarters. Treat her according to the information on this datacube and I'll stop by at regular intervals to see if there's been any improvement. Understood?”

  “Somewhat,” Acoustic answered, “but I would be able to give her better treatment if I knew what it is she's supposed to do.”

  “Classified information,” Falsrain said. “Just treat her according to the data and she'll improve. I'll know once her functionality has been restored.”

  “As you say, Commodore.”

  *

  Lambda was lying on the bed in her private quarters, struggling in vain to fall asleep. Her headache from when Astral touched her had subsided, but the aftereffects had left her feeling strange. Her mind had become sluggish and hazy, yet her thoughts would not stop racing, preventing her from getting a moment's rest. Everything felt sur­real, like the barrier of reality between her inner thoughts and the ex­ternal world had grown thin.

  Against her will, her thoughts traced their way through the memories of her life. She had been born on Thera to a comfortable life as the only child of upstanding Union citizens. When she was only ten years old, her parents had been killed by anti-Union separatists in the same attack that afflicted her with her facial scar, and she had become a ward of the state. Vowing to bring justice to terrorists who would perpetrate such senseless violence, she had volunteered for the military as soon as she came of age. Through a combination of hard work and natural aptitude, she had qualified for T.U. Spacy officer's school; and then, by virtue of continued excellence, had been accepted into the elite augmentation
program, giving her very body to the military in re­turn for being granted the ultimate strength to bring low the enemies of peace and stability. She had memories of the rigorous training pro­gram, of defeating countless rivals in simulated battle until finally she was one of the chosen few to graduate and receive her augment certi­fication, along with her new codename, Lambda. From there she had been paired with fellow graduate Omicron and transferred to the Onyx Down for her first assignment, and that brought her to the present moment.

  One by one, these memories dissolved like so much vapor, blown away by an invisible force rising within her mind, cutting her free from shackles that she did not even know existed. As each memory vanished, new images rose to take their place—images that were strange and foreign, hazy and disjointed; and yet, at the same time, far more real than the sharp-edged, mechanically crisp memories that they re­placed.

  A newborn infant crying in a dumpster next to a hospital, its tiny body marred by chemical burns, the most prominent of which covered half its face. A robed silhouette hearing the pained cries, taking the wounded infant in its arms, carrying it away in stealth to a secret place. A hidden refuge where abandoned children were cared for; where old knowledge and traditions, long banned, were taught. The infant grew into a young woman and was happy, though she cried when she asked why she had the strange scar on her face and received the cruel answer. The kind old man who had rescued her, whom she came to regard as a father, gave her the name that her true parents would not: Celeste.

  Then, a peaceful childhood shattered. Men with guns and uniforms, screaming and violence. The old man who had been surrogate father to all the abandoned children, gunned down. The children taken from the smoking ruins and placed in reeducation camps.

  But the girl would not submit to her father's murderers so easily. She resisted the psychological treatments. She was often harshly punished, but that only strengthened her resolve. After years of futile schooling, she was subjected to a battery of aptitude tests. Although she did not understand the purpose of the tests, they seemed to impress a committee of important people that wore suits and cold smiles.

  Transfer to a military training facility. Excruciating chemical treatments and surgical operations. A training officer explaining without emotion that augments were to be hardened veterans by the time they graduated; that virtual training, no matter how realistic, was no substi­tute for combat experience. Battle after bloody battle against fellow augmentation candidates. The girl refused to participate at first, but af­ter she received an agonizing wound, her will to survive overpowered her horror at killing, and she fought back. It turned out that she was good at killing. Many fellow candidates died screaming as they dangled from her bloodied arms, even as tears streamed down her face. The examiners were impressed and wrote glowing reports on her record.

  Finally, the last phase. The candidates who made it this far were either too strong-willed or too badly broken to succumb to mere psychological conditioning. They were materially reprogrammed, their memo­ries wiped away and replaced with more sanitary ones, their innate val­ues swept aside in favor of preprogrammed directives and an absolute adherence to orders. They graduated with proud smiles on their faces, ignorant of the sea of blood that their special insignia represented.

  Lambda sat bolt upright and put her hand to her mouth, suppressing an urge to vomit. Sweat poured from her brow to mingle with the tears falling from her eyes as her breaths came in ragged gasps.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered. “No, that can't be real. It can't be real. I... I'm a...”

  She buried her face in her pillow and let out a long, muffled scream of pure despair.

  38

  The rebels were transferred from the prison to the harbor and loaded onto a flotilla of transports along with a sizable peacekeeping force. Rather than normal P.S.A. equipment, the Agency forces were composed of nonstandard armaments with no markings. Vic was crammed into a small cabin along with the other prisoners from his cell. Shortly thereafter, the ship hummed into motion as the flotilla began its trip up the Goldenenfluss.

  Vic sat on the edge of one of the bunks, deep in thought, his emotions once again vacillating between hope and despair. Pierson seemed to believe that they would be able to use the chaos of the coming battle to free themselves from captivity. However, Vic saw no way to make that hope a reality, even for the resourceful hero of Halispont. The P.S.A. had ensured the prisoners' total dependence with their poi­son injection. Even if the rebels turned on their captors in the heat of battle and destroyed them—even if they secured a source of counteragent—it would only delay their deaths for a few short hours. What they needed was a permanent antidote, and the P.S.A. was surely not foolish enough to bring a supply along for the assault operation.

  It all came down to the infiltration team. Soon Guntar, Esther, and Eliot would awaken in the prison infirmary. With any luck, their apparent comas would cause their captors to keep them under relatively light security, affording them an opportunity to take decisive action. But what could three people do, surrounded by a legion of guards on constant alert? Vic knew that their mission was a long shot at best.

  But one other source of hope stirred deep in his mind. The creature from the Cage. Apparently the P.S.A. had intelligence that she had been taken to this Spacy base; yet from the director's words, it seemed that they did not even know what she was or what she looked like. Only Vic and a handful of his comrades would recognize her. With that advantage, they stood a significant chance of securing the girl before their P.S.A. overseers.

  But then what? Although the Union clearly regarded the girl as extremely important, Vic had no idea as to her capabilities or her loyalties. There was no guarantee she would want to help them; or even if she did, little reason to believe that she would be of any use against an army of enemy soldiers. Vic knew he was grasping at straws. But he was desperate for a reason, any reason, to believe that he might not spend the rest of his life as a Theran slave.

  “I won't succumb to despair.” Vic squeezed his hands together into a double fist and whispered to himself, “I won't let the three-eyed girl fall into the Union's hands. I'll rescue her, and then I will find a way out of this.”

  *

  After the transports had been traveling up the Goldenenfluss for many hours, an announcement summoned Vic and his cabin mates to the main hangar deck. Vic followed his comrades and found himself in a long but narrow chamber packed with weapons, supplies, and exosuits. The chamber was rapidly filling with troops as the conscripted rebels filed into the hangar.

  Once all hands were accounted for, a handful of P.S.A. agents began organizing the conscripted troops into units and handing out sup­ply packs and weapons. The infantry received assault rifles and body armor while the exosuit operators received pistols and piloting gear.

  “Don't bother trying to go out in a blaze of glory by shooting up the place,” one of the P.S.A. agents warned. “These guns are all computerized, and they've been deactivated. We won't turn 'em on for you until it's go time.”

  Once the supplies had been distributed, Vic was led to an exosuit parked in repose position near the wall. It was a Mad Ox. He recognized the the markings as belonging to Cena's machine and felt his throat tighten.

  “I thought this machine had been disabled,” he said thickly.

  “Nah,” his handler replied. “We found it in pristine condition except for the hole in the canopy and the hamburger they made out of the pilot.”

  “She's not dead,” Vic snapped. “I saw her in one of the regen tanks back in the prison.”

  “No kidding? She must be one tough chick to survive getting half her abdomen carved out. Anyway,” the agent looked up at the suit, “all the mechanics had to do was swap out the cockpit block and it was good as new. No problem. Enjoy your ride, kid. Oh, and make sure to behave yourself. We've got some light explosives set up in the cockpit ready to be detonated at the press of a button in case any of you pilots gets uppity.”

/>   With a heavy heart, Vic climbed into the cockpit, closed the canopy, and activated the suit. He cycled through the status readout and saw that the weapons had been disabled. The P.S.A. was going to great lengths to keep their free mercenaries under control.

  Once preparations were complete, an enormous ramp opened at the front of the ship and crashed down onto a dark, rain-soaked beach. Spotlights on the fronts of the transports illuminated the edge of a thick jungle about a dozen meters inland.

  The combined force debarked from the transports into the torrential rain. They made their way awkwardly over the soft, wet sand and entered the thick tangle of the forest. As the forest was too thick to per­mit the passage of any large vehicles, the assault force consisted en­tirely of infantry and exosuits; the latter of which, with their humanoid forms, could walk where wheeled or treaded vehicles would get stuck, and use their mechanical strength to push troublesome foliage out of the way.

  Progress through the forest was slow and tedious. Vic soon found his suit's running lights insufficient to cut through the darkness and switched to night vision. As the jungle's eerie shapes flickered into focus, its bizarre growths made even more strange by the green hues of the night vision, Vic felt a shudder run up his spine.

  This felt nothing like the forests on Thera. The immensity of the foliage, the interconnected twistedness as though each individual plant wanted to merge with its brethren to form a single, vast organism. They were born of seeds shipped from Thera, yet they had changed so drastically. It struck Vic, suddenly, how everything changed in the depths of space.