Heart of a Traitor

by Aaron Lee Yeager

  Nariko held out her sword and the blade extended again. With a flick of her wrist the dumpling landed with a splat back on the tray.

  “How are you doing that?” Keiko asked anxiously, her hair changing to jade.

  “I’m not really sure,” Nariko said as she tugged on the sleeve of her prison jacket, her long white hair pooling on the floor around her. “I think it’s because I bound myself to it, long ago. It was an alien artifact on one of those dead worlds we sometimes come across and I wanted to learn its secrets. Of course, that was back when the curse was still fresh and we hadn’t realized what you lost when you used the binding power.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Keiko said. “Binding is supposed to...”

  “Binding isn’t some strange ability Drak’Nal gave to us,” Nariko purred as she stretched, emphasizing her voluptuous curves. “It’s a trait shared by all demons. When you bind yourself to matter, it becomes eternally yours.”

  Nariko closed her bright red eyes. “I can still see the CIC room at Jerricus. I know what is happening there right now, even from a sector away, because it is a part of me.”

  “How is that even possible?” Keiko asked, her hair changing to a dull jade.

  “Possible?” Nariko repeated, as if she didn’t understand the word. “Such a strange term. Things just are. This just is.”

  Keiko did not like what she was hearing. Just listening to Nariko’s voice made her feel strange and dark inside. She turned around to leave the room, but Nariko began speaking again.

  “I suppose it could be said this way: knowledge is power, power is energy, energy is mass, and mass is matter.”

  Keiko wiped some sweat from her brow and continued to walk. As she reached the door, she was stopped by a twanging sound. Turning around, she saw that Nariko was playing with something in her cell.

  Coming closer, Keiko could see that Nariko was holding a manpack communicator, flicking the sticky release lever with one of her clawed fingers.

  Nariko, where did you get that?” Keiko asked uneasily, her hair turning white.

  “I’m not sure. I called it to me and it came.”

  “I’m not sure you should play with it,” Keiko cautioned.

  Nariko turned and looked at Keiko with her fierce red eyes. “Why not? It’s mine.”

  The barriers were opened sequentially for Keiko and she walked up to Nariko and snatched the manpack and sword from her taloned hands. Nariko offered up no resistance.

  The barriers were opened and Keiko walked briskly toward the exit. Just as she reached the door, the sword and pack disappeared from her hands.

  Keiko turned around and saw Nariko in her cell, tapping the code runes on the manpack with the tip of her long white tail.

  “You can do it too,” Nariko divulged. “All demons can.”

  “Look, Nari,” Keiko said as she walked back over. “You’re really scaring me. I just don’t think it’s healthy to practice using your demon powers.”

  “You’re right,” Nariko said disconnectedly. “I could end up in prison.”

  Nariko held her hand above the manpack and it crumpled and compressed itself, the different materials transmuting at her command until it became a perfect sphere of iron. Nariko flexed her fingers and the iron sphere changed shape, covered with needles like an anemone. She pinched her clawed fingers together and the iron compressed down further into a ball of solid gold. Nariko opened her hand and the gold ball became a cube, then a pyramid, then a rhombus.

  Nariko turned to look at Keiko, a mischievous smile on her lips. “You might want to cover your eyes.” Nariko balled her fist and the material compressed down further into a marble of white-metallic uranium. The room’s augers blared to life upon detecting the presence of a radioactive material and another barrier came down over the marble.

  Nariko stood up, now towering over Keiko and stretched out her enormous white wings. With a snap of her finger the marble compressed further and exploded.

  Keiko covered her eyes as the room filled with light. The explosion strained the emergency barrier, but it contained the blast. The room quaked and the lights flickered. Alarms blared as security guards and robots poured into the room, weapons drawn, faces astonished.

  Keiko uncovered her eyes and stood up, petrified.

  Nariko fell to her back, gleefully kicking her feet in the air as she cackled maniacally. With a wave of her hand, the smoke and cinders gathered back together and reformed into the manpack, exactly as it had been before.

  “Nari, look what they did to you,” Keiko said sadly, her hair shimmering to gray.

  Keiko spent the next few minutes repeating the same explanations over and over again to various people who refused to believe her. Harsh words and outright threats were breathed out against Nariko, but she ignored them as she lay in her cell, rolling around listlessly.

  After some time the extra security removed the sword and manpack from the cell and began to disperse. The room gradually became less occupied until finally Nariko and Keiko were left alone again. Keiko pulled up a chair and sat before the confinement chamber, resolving to set aside her uneasiness for a few minutes.

  “Nari, I need to talk to you about something important.”

  If Nariko heard her she didn’t show it as she lay curled up in a corner, her tail wrapped around herself.

  “Back in the caves, you indicated that Inami had gone mad that she was going to get us all killed.”

  Nariko looked up slowly, confused.

  “You even planned on removing her from leadership to stop her. I need to know what Inami is planning.”

  “I’m really not sure,” Nariko said, resting her head back down. “Somehow...it just doesn’t seem important anymore.”

  “I need you to tell me, please,” Keiko pleaded. “Something big is coming and if it is bad we’re running out of time to stop it.”

  “Time?” Nariko asked, puzzled. “Such a strange concept. When I look at you, I can see you five years ago and five years from now. Which is the real you, or are they all real at once?”

  “I know it’s hard, but I need you to focus...”

  “Do you think they would have looked like him?” Nariko interrupted, running her hands over her toned stomach.

  “W-what? Who?”

  “Our children,” she doted.

  Keiko’s hands fell into her lap. “A-are you pregnant now? That’s impossible.”

  Nariko rolled her red eyes around, confused. “Which ‘now’ are you talking about?”

  “Um, the one I’m in, I guess.”

  “Then, no, at least I don’t think so.” Nariko indolently crawled up the wall of the barrier and hung upside down from the ceiling of the cell, swinging slowly.

  “I would have wanted his,” she admitted at length, some sadness in her voice. “Such strong children. I would have had them if it wasn’t for you. At least then I would have had something to remember him by.”

  “I can’t hear any more about this,” Keiko said in disgust, her hair turning a bright green. “I’m not going to sit here and listen to my friend yearn to be a rău-matrice. The Nariko I knew fought against that fate as hard as she could.”

  Nariko giggled. “You know, it’s strange. When I was a human, the idea of becoming pregnant was very strange to me, even a little repugnant. Now, it seems irresistible. It’s all I can think about.”

  “That’s because your body was designed to feel that way, Nari. You need to fight it; those aren’t your true feelings.”

  “Aren’t they?” Nariko mused. “It’s strange. You say these feelings are artificial, but they don’t feel fake, not in the least. It feels like something I’ve always wanted, right down to the depths of my being.”

  “You can’t let them control you, you just can’t.”

  “I wonder. If you do exactly what you want to do, are you really being controlled?”

  “Chains made of silk are still chains.”

  Nariko yawned and rolled to her sid
e. “We were wrong about them, you know?”

  “What?”

  “The demons, what they are after. We were all wrong about them. They are not evil; they are only doing what is natural for them.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “They are made from human emotions, but they cannot express them. Not fully anyway. They are just energy, passion without expression.”

  Nariko’s tail flicked around excitedly. “Don’t you see? It’s not destruction they want, it’s matter. Excitement, joy, pleasure, they are all a million times more vibrant when you have a body to experience them with.”

  Nariko wrapped her wings around her like a cloak.

  “They don’t feel guilt, or remorse. They are better than humans. They are pure.”

  “Pure?” Keiko said, amazed. “They want to destroy us.”

  Nariko chuckled deeply. “They only want what humans want and humans want to destroy themselves.”

  Nariko dropped down from the ceiling and twisted like a cat, landing on her feet. Her long white hair hung about her like a mane.

  “That is how we do it, you know? That is why humans accuse us of being so cruel.”

  “Do what?”

  “The cruelest thing you can do is give someone exactly what they want. People want things that will destroy them.”

  “Some people, perhaps.”

  Nariko’s wings flapped angrily. “No, not just some people, ALL people. You take any person out there and give them what they really desire...not what they say they want in mixed company, mind you. I’m talking about what they really want deep down inside, even if they won’t admit it to themselves. Give them that and they will inevitably destroy themselves with it.”

  “You’re being unfair,” Keiko accused, her hair flashing red.

  Nariko snorted and turned away.

  “You are! Just because people want something doesn’t mean they act on it. A man may have a desire to steal but that does not make him a thief. It is our choices that define us, not our desires.”

  Suddenly Nariko was right on top of her, pressing her face angrily against the barrier.

  “Demons never cry, did you know that?” Nariko gushed.

  Keiko fell backwards out of her chair in start, her hair white.

  “They never feel sad, or guilty. There’s no conscience, no sense of right or wrong, so they can’t feel remorse, it’s impossible. They are better than humans, you know? They are perfectly honest about what they want, at all times.”

  Nariko lifted her hand and the manpack appeared in her taloned grip.

  “If I can do this much with just a few pounds of matter, think what you can do with more! A city, a planet, a system. Think about it! You wouldn’t have to live by anyone’s rules but your own. You could be your own god, experience your own joy on your own terms, in your own way, requiring permission from no one.”

  Nariko hooded her red eyes. Keiko found herself completely transfixed, unable to look away.

  “You’ve always chafed at the rules imposed on you. Keiko, don’t you realize you could make your own?”

  Keiko tried to move, but her body was held fast. Nariko’s shadow extended out and wrapped around her. Keiko could feel her resolve eroding away, her ability to think was collapsing in on itself. Her mind felt foggy. A pleasant, irresistible fog that drained away all thoughts of resisting. Keiko wished she could wrap herself in this fog like a blanket.

  “And, I’m not just talking about trivial things like what to wear and how to speak. I mean you can be free from all the laws that bind you, even the ones you’ve lived under for so long that you no longer perceive how much they limit you. Laws like gravity, time, symmetry, and causality. Think about it, you could go back in time and watch the great orbital gates of Terra being constructed, or just build them yourself. You could go forward in time and watch the stars die, or extinguish them on your own. You could create a world made entirely of laughter, if that is your thing.”

  Nariko’s eyes slanted knowingly. “You could even go back and save her...”

  “H-how can you know about that?” Keiko stammered.

  “I don’t. At least, not exactly. But, I can taste it on you. You radiate it like a fire.”

  Keiko felt scared, disgusted, and excited all at the same time. She felt a black energy in her gut. It filled her with exhilaration, but, at the same time felt dark and unnatural. The chance to save her was overwhelming. Every fiber in her being wanted this freedom that was being offered.

  Without even thinking about it, her hand came up toward the seal on the back of her neck. It was right there for the taking, all she had to do was reach out and grab it. The possibility itself was intoxicating, the reality exhilarating. Keiko’s hand moved closer and closer.

  “They are free. You could be free too,” Nariko beguiled, licking the barrier with a long red tongue.

  Keiko’s body trembled as she struggled within herself. She cried out at the sheer ecstasy of it all, feeling her rational mind completely overcome and swallowed up. She could feel the layers of her mind flaking away, civility grinding down to barbarism then animalistic instincts and then even deeper, to the pure core of existence itself. She felt her raw desires bursting out of her body, no longer restrained by natural limitations...

  “No!”

  Slowly Keiko’s hand came back down and her breathing slowed. The fog lifted and she was in control of herself again.

  For several moments neither of them said anything.

  “I must admit, I almost took you up on that offer just now,” Keiko said between breaths. “But let me ask you something first. If you could give it all up and become human again, would you?”

  Nariko’s face changed to a look of shock. Slowly she backed away and sat on the floor. Her red eyes darted back and forth as her tail wrapped around her feet and her wings folded around her.

  “If you could give it all up and become human again, would you?” Keiko repeated.

  Slowly tears began to form in Nariko’s eyes.

  “Yes, I would,” she admitted.

  Nariko lowered her face into her clawed hands and began sobbing. Keiko had seen many things in her life, but she had never seen anyone cry so absolutely. Nariko’s entire frame shook pitifully and Keiko felt like her heart would break just looking at her. Keiko placed her hands against the barrier, her hair a bright indigo. In her heart, she wanted nothing more than to comfort this poor wretched soul, but there was nothing she could say that would change anything. Nothing she could do that would make it better. This could not be fixed.

  “I miss him,” Nariko whispered between whimpers. “I miss him so much I could die.”

  “Nari, I...”

  “Please leave now.”

  Keiko placed her hand over her chest.

  “I...I just want you to know that...”

  “LEEEEEEEAAAAAAVE!” Nariko howled, the room shaking.

  The manpack flew apart and formed an iron shell around Nariko, shielding her from Keiko’s gaze.

  Keiko turned around slowly and walked out of the room, the sounds of Nariko’s bitter tears echoing in her ears.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  The Onikano’s Interrogation Room

  The young are much quicker than the old to treasure their free will. As we grow older, it gives us an increasingly vibrant example of all our shortcomings lest we think too much of ourselves.

  -Attributed to Cardinal Katherine Agina of Ural 3320-3391rl

  The interrogation room, like the rest of the ship, was well lit with high vaulted ceilings made out of polished blue steel. The spaces in between the load-bearing columns along the walls were filled with access panels and all sorts of storage compartments and equipment distributors. A small polisher robot was hard at work in the doorway, trying to get out a stubborn spot in the otherwise flawless room, its little servos whirring with all their might. There was a rectangular slot in the center of the circular floor, with a wide ergonomic control station directly be
hind it.

  The automatic doors whooshed open and the furious Marshal Rochestri floated silently into the room. The silver hover throne that bore him beeped irritably at the polisher robot, which chirped an apology and moved out of the way as the hover throne positioned itself over the rectangular slot and slowly lowered itself in. The sound of metal pistons signaled the throne’s security and with restraining straps holding his legs, arms, and head in place, Rochestri could only look directly forward at the door he had just come through and wonder how he had come to this place.

  Despite his capture, he felt no real fear. He was far too important to dispose of, far too useful as a bargaining chip, a hostage, or as a source of information. Long ago, he had taken steps to ensure his rescue. When he failed to check in, members of his home staff would open sealed vaults, which contained instructions and the resources necessary to raise sufficient forces to come to his aid.

  “It’s only a matter of time,” he reckoned to himself. All he had to do was wait.

  The polisher robot floated up to the ceiling and returned to its work cheerfully. The doors opened again and one of his captors entered the room. She had pulled her hair back into a functional ponytail, held in place with a carved wooden clasp and hair stick. She took the time to present herself well and it showed. She had a healthy and refined glow about her. A poise and balance, combined with the energy and vitality of youth. Marshal Rochestri found her truly stunning, but immediately averted his eyes reminding himself that the vile allure of the demonic took many forms and all must be avoided. He scolded himself for his momentary lapse in focus. The supernatural allure of these creatures was not to be underestimated. She walked by Rochestri and grabbed him by the collar, her hair changing to a bright red.

  “You better be worth this,” she spat. “Because right now I’d trade ten of you for what we lost to capture you.”

  Rochestri was amused by the pain in her eyes.

  The doors opened again and another jailor noisily bounded into the room. As was her custom, she had copied the taller one, but added her own touch to it. Her hair was pulled back with a hair scrunchie and teased out into a huge, poofy pink ponytail that had been decorated with some sort of sparkly material, which would catch the light and refract it into various colors when she bobbed her head this way and that. She carried in her hands a small metal tray with steam coming off of it.