Second Contact

by Guerric Haché, Keezy Young

  Before long they had dragged five bodies into the clearing near the gun, and stripped them of their armbands. Zoa called out again, sending panic down Isavel’s spine, and Hail took the armbands from Isavel. “I’ll bury these - you deal with them.”

  Isavel nodded, and stood tall, calling out to the coders before they became suspicious. “Come on, it’s safe. Take a look at this gun, will you?”

  Before long Hail was done her digging and burying, and the coders and Erran had joined them on the top of the hill. She looked over at Hail, who seemed only marginally uneasy with all of this. Her bodyguard met her glance and nodded, and they greeted their companions.

  Zoa was clutching at her left shoulder, and nodded towards the corpses. She looked deeply unsettled, no doubt not as familiar with dead bodies. “Who were they? Any ideas?”

  “No idea.” Isavel wasn’t sure what to do, but she had to say something. “Any chance they were ghosts?”

  Erran laughed. “Pretty sure they shot at me first . I doubt it.”

  “Well, they’re obviously not from the army.” Hail’s voice was completely flat. “No armbands, and they shot at the Saint Herald.”

  Zoa nodded, her lips pursed, and sweat staining her brow. “Obviously. You’re sure they’re not ghosts?”

  “We have a bigger problem right now.” Ren was looking back down the hill, to the smoking wreck of their hauler. “We don’t have a ride, and we’re stuck in the middle of the woods with no idea what’s going on or where we need to go.”

  Isavel shook her head, quickly pulling out her locator stone. “That’s not quite true. Campus is that way.” She pointed. “If we’re heading slightly west of Campus, then we know more or less what direction we’re going. We just need to figure out how to get there quickly.”

  Erran spoke up. “Some worlds are easier to travel through.”

  Zoa scowled at him. “None of that will help if someone sees the walk bubble and starts shooting at us from the outside again .”

  Erran looked annoyed. “Some of the worlds look like ours, so it won’t be completely fucking obvious.”

  “How similar?”

  “As similar as it gets.” Erran gestured around them. “There are several worlds that seem to have different spirits and architecture and stuff, but for the most part they’re the same, especially in the little, inconsequential details, like where particular trees are. It’s just left the way it is, I think.”

  Ren was inspecting the gun on the tripod. “This could help us if we got into trouble again.”

  Zoa shook her head, leering at Erran. “Takes too long to set up, and I’m not letting him have a weapon.”

  The walker frowned. “Look, we just need a world where we can find vehicles, or maybe a spirit willing to help us out.”

  Isavel remembered just how helpful and friendly Tevoria had looked to her. “Or that spirit could decide it wants to kill us. Don’t think I’ve forgotten Tevoria’s threats.”

  He threw up his arms. “Fine, fine. She could help, you know, but I doubt I could convince you of that.”

  “How far is it to Campus, from here?”

  Erran thought about it. “On foot? I have no idea.”

  “Guess.

  He sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe two days?”

  Isavel nodded. “Then let’s get moving, in the real world. Erran, you can walk up ahead and search the worlds for something better, but we need to move now.”

  The coders exchanged glances, but they didn’t protest as the walker set out in front of them. Isavel reached over to Zoa’s arm. “Are you okay?”

  Zoa jerked her arm back and glared at Isavel, then, almost belatedly, winced. “Sorry. It’s probably just cuts and bruising. I can still feel everything.”

  Isavel bit her lip. Would that the gods had thought to give her the medic’s gift among all the others - she would have preferred to be more than just a weapon. But there was nothing she could do to ease the pain, so she let the coders walk away first, staying behind with Hail so they could keep their eyes on everyone.

  She felt strangely vulnerable, in the forest with three people whose gifts were almost useless in a fight. She glanced at Hail and saw the same feeling - or maybe a more overt sense of being burdened - in her pale features. Hail met her eyes and glanced at the gun, still mounted on its tripod.

  “It’s still active. Should we take it?”

  Isavel thought about it for a moment, but really, there was no reason to leave such weapons active for others to find. She was trying to reduce the amount of damage people could cause each other, after all. She reached out with a fist, calling up a warrior’s blade, and sliced into the metal. It sputtered and sparked, then fell silent, its ancient code broken. “Best nobody gets to use it.”

  Hail nodded slowly. “I agree.”

  They hurried after the rest of the group and soon found themselves navigating dips and bumps in the forest floor, walking along hillsides and through creeks as Isavel checked the locator stone at regular intervals. They kept the right course, more or less, but Isavel had no idea how much ground they had covered in the hauler. How much longer until they found those tanks? Could she really allow them to fall into either side’s hands?

  She looked over to Hail, her ever-loyal bodyguard, and wondered just how much she could tell her without testing that loyalty. Hail had been quick to hide those turquoise armbands, but how far would she follow Isavel down the path of deliberately slowing down the army’s progress and stymying their ability to kill?

  “Hail, how would you like to see this war ended?”

  Hail looked at her. “You’re the gods’ chosen one. If you want it to end peacefully, then I believe that’s what we need to do. You know better than anyone.”

  Isavel’s eyes flicked up ahead, to the people walking in front of her. Two coders she thought of as friendly acquaintances; a ghost walker, untrustworthy but hopefully with enough common sense to see his own self-interest. Still, she lowered her voice, enjoying the privilege of being the only one with a pathfinder’s sense of hearing.

  “I hope waiting for these relics will delay them for long enough… but what if it doesn’t? What if they keep rushing, and we don’t gain any time at all? Then I’ve just made things worse.”

  Hail frowned, staring at the ground in front of her. “We could destroy the tanks. Make them wait, then give them nothing.”

  Isavel pursed her lips. “We could. It would be risky, though - I don’t think people would be happy with me.”

  “With us.” Hail nodded behind them. “Then again, they already seem not to care. It’s only us and the gods, now.”

  “The gods want us protecting the world. They said Ada might be threatening it - they said Earth isn’t safe.” Isavel ran her fingers through her hair. “Gods, what if I’m doing the wrong thing? What if I should be convincing Ada to stop… whatever she’s doing?”

  Hail rested a hand on her shoulder. “That is what I would do, and what most people would do. But most people have not been directly addressed by the gods so often.”

  Isavel bit her lip. “I wish I wasn’t the only one. The gods should just be plain with everyone. The outers have sat on this island for a thousand years without being a threat. Ada changed that, but I can get Ada out of the picture.”

  Hail blinked. “You’ll kill her?” She sounded genuinely skeptical, and rightfully so.

  Isavel shook her head. “No, not like that. I think I can convince her to leave. That would be enough, I think, except that Mother Jera and Elder Magan both seem to want her dead. And they don’t seem to trust me much, either, as far as I can tell.”

  Hail started to look grim. “You’re worried they could be trouble.”

  Isavel had no idea. She was walking a dangerous line here, trying to subvert the people who were nominally her allies while coordinating with someone dangerous and potentially volatile. But she had looked Ada in the eyes many times already, and she felt a sense of certainty and familiarity that ease
d the process. She was less alone, now, in some strange way. Even as everything slowly unravelled.

  She shook her head. “I don’t know yet, but… I’m counting on you to have my back. Anything could happen, at any time.”

  Hail squeezed her shoulder. “Of course.” Her face darkened. “They tried to kill you. I can’t believe it. I almost wish we had let one of them live, just so I could get the answers out of them.

  The spark of anger on Hail’s face was a little intimidating, and recalled to Isavel’s mind the fact that Hail was standing on the far side of an impulsive, violent past. She hoped that if something broke Hail’s efforts to remain stable, that anger would at least be directed at someone threatening them both.

  They continued through the woods for a long while, eating fresh leaves and fungus and insects they found in the wilds to preserve their rations. The sun soared overhead, briefly dimmed by the ring, but little else changed.

  Around mid-afternoon, Erran raised a hand. Oblivious to whatever that might mean, Isavel and the others clustered up close to him - but not too close. He didn’t appear to be walking the thousand worlds, but Isavel was still wary.

  Apparently, it was a good instinct. “I found a good one. Looks pretty much just like ours, but there’s a vehicle up ahead, and a clear path.”

  Isavel stepped sideways, lowered her head, and suddenly she saw it. As though she were staring through some kind of glass lens, suddenly the world up ahead changed, and in a circular space around Erran she saw a dip in the forest, a clear path covered in gravel and hard-beaten dirt. A machine sat there, a boxy, wheeled thing that looked oddly beaten by weather and… something else. Looking a few feet to either side of Erran, none of this existed.

  Zoa and Ren were also staring through, and Ren frowned. “What is that thing? It doesn’t look like a hauler. It doesn’t even look like a relic.”

  “It’s not.” Erran shrugged. “I don’t know what the spirits call these, but I gather it’s even older than ancient relics. It works here, though. Come on.”

  He looked over his shoulder at them as he started towards the old vehicle, as though goading them. Isavel followed as close as she could, but she was still reluctant to step too close, though she couldn’t clearly tell where the otherworldly bubble around him ended. Not until the ground suddenly parted ways with reality, dipping down towards the gravel path.

  Erran stopped, and looked at them all. “You’re going to have to step inside. This thing is halfway underground from reality.”

  Isavel exchanged glances with Hail, took a deep breath, and stepped forward. She felt nothing, but suddenly her view of the true forest vanished, replaced by this eerily similar version that differed only in the presence of this long, winding path.

  The thousand worlds were strange; she wondered if she’d ever get used to them.

  The others behind her were invisible, but they soon followed her lead and stepped into the walk as well, and together the five of them made their way to the machine. The coders gingerly laid their hands on it and inspected it, looking increasingly confused as they did so. And with good reason - its bare metal and dull, oddly articulated parts didn’t seem like any relic Isavel had ever seen. It seemed altogether more primitive.

  “Zoa, do you think you could drive this?”

  The coders peered inside, and Zoa gave a desperate laugh. “This is… I don’t even know what I’m looking at, but I’m pretty sure there’s no code anywhere here.”

  Erran cracked his knuckles. “I’ll drive. I’ve done it a few times.”

  As Isavel approached the vehicle she found a few pockmarks on the side, as though something small and powerful had struck and dented the metal. A few seemed to have pierced it clean through. The thought of it unsettled her - were there predators here, demons that might attack them?

  There were narrow, uncomfortable-looking seats inside the vehicle, two in the front and three in the back, an oddly convenient number. Erran sat in the front-left, one hand on a strange mechanical wheel, and waved the others in. Gingerly, they all climbed aboard, Hail taking the other front seat and keeping a keen eye on the ghost as she did. Isavel sat behind her, leaving Ren to peer curiously over Erran’s shoulder while Zoa sat on the other side, still nursing her shoulder. Her blue hair was falling awkwardly in front of her eyes, but she didn’t brush it aside; Isavel wondered what she was thinking about, or whether she was in more pain than she was letting on.

  “Remind me which way we’re going?”

  Erran’s question startled her. They were on a path that only went two ways; he shouldn’t have to ask. Still, she pulled out the locator stone, checked it, and pointed. “That way. So keep going straight ahead.”

  He shrugged. “Hopefully. You never know how these things might twist and turn, though. I’ll try to keep that heading.”

  The bottom of the vehicle was plain sheet metal, and thick metal bars traced a squat, boxy outline above the open seating areas. A dark, uncomfortable colour stained the floor in a few places. Isavel really didn’t like the look of this thing - it looked like it had seen combat. “Erran, have you ever been in this particular world before?”

  He turned to look at them through a window in the back of the vehicle’s cab. “Not exactly this one, but similar ones, sure. Why?”

  “This thing looks like it’s been… mistreated.”

  He pursed his lips. “Some of the thousand worlds are violent.” He glanced to either side of the gravel road. “But we’re in the middle of nowhere. Even if there is a war going on in this world, I doubt it’s anywhere near here.”

  Zoa grunted. “Words to die by.”

  Ren reached down for his gun, gripping it as though he might have to use it soon. Isavel could sympathize, her fingers twitching. “Then let’s get moving before something proves you wrong.”

  Erran nodded eagerly, and did something with clanking mechanisms near the front of the vehicle. Suddenly the thing came to life with a horrible sputtering sound, a deep groan, and a profoundly sickly smell. Her nose wrinkled, and she gagged silently. Whatever kind of technology this was, Isavel hated it already.

  “Did something die in here?” Ren pinched his nose.

  “That’s the machine!” Erran shouted over the sputtering of the engine. “This old crap always stinks.”

  He was right. The smell was foul and didn’t abate, even as the vehicle started rattling along the road with so much jostling that Isavel started to feel disoriented. She closed her eyes, then firmly pressed the locator stone between her fingers and kept her mind on that instead. Closer, closer, a difficult and winding road.

  Chapter 13

  Sam was shaking her head. “Seriously, Ada, we have at least three medics. Let me go get one.”

  Ada’s attention was divided between two screens, an ancient book, a floating miasma of code suspended above the table, and the bloody gash on her arm, but she had enough wherewithal to turn to Sam and scowl. “I can do this - I’ll get it this time.”

  Arshak shook her head, ears flexing backwards with disapproval. “You’ve pointlessly cut your skin open two times already.”

  “I healed too fast.”

  Tanos snorted. “While trying to figure out how to heal yourself.”

  Ada smirked. “Look, it makes sense, okay?”

  Sam pointed at the three vials sitting in a cooling unit next to her - one filled with her own blood, one with Tanos’, and the third empty but covered in code. “You realise your experiment to save the world is just sitting there waiting, right? Do you really have time for this?”

  She didn’t, not really, but she was so close . When Arshak had told her about a mending devices that could heal humans wounds - the outers kept it for emergencies and curiosity, not because it was any good to them - she knew this was something she should learn. She was so close , it would barely make a difference if she had spent an hour on this. Or a few hours. It was probably more like half a day at this point. So close.

  Tanos shook his head.
“She’s off on another spiral. Let’s just leave her.”

  “No - no, I’ve got this!” She was ready. She knew it. She raised her bloodied arm, the cut still stinging, and slipped into time dilation. The miasma of code she was tweaking could feel her flesh, the tiniest parts of her body, and she had found everything she could that would manipulate that flesh, mend it, stitch it together.

  The code descended on her skin, pulling and prodding, black spindles of control interwoven with more complex structures that funneled healing powers of some kind down into them. She pushed and pulled at the bits her body was made of - cells , the outers called them - and watched as they started to knit together, the blood rising and clotting and beginning to scar, and she felt heat build across the wound as blood gave rise to skin and the wound healed.

  She let herself return to real time, and wiped the blood away with a wet cloth. This time, there was no bruise under the skin - it looked good as new. She was sweating a little from the complexity of the task, but she beamed and cheered. “Yes! I told you! No medic for me.”

  Sam raised an eyebrow. “We should still get a medic to look at your head, Ada. Something’s not right in there.”

  Ada stuck her tongue out. “Seems pretty alright in here to me.”

  The three of them didn’t seem nearly as enthusiastic as they should, but Arshak the doctor at least had a modicum of scientific curiosity animating her. “Will you finally test your cure, now?”

  Ada blinked and smiled. Today was a good day. Today, everything was working out. She had spent days pouring through any archive about ancient code she could find, comparing and studying how the immunosupplement worked and how these gifts were created with machines, and the results of that research were etched in a dense webwork of dark code on the empty vial, staring at her from the cooling unit from alongside two full samples.

  She reached in and grabbed it. “Yeah. Let’s change the world.”