Sanctuary Falling

by Pamela Foland

  The corner of Tina’s mouth turned up, and she looked at Niri. Niri was worriedly obsessed with being the cause of Annette’s condition, and, Annette knew it as clearly as if Niri had told her. Tina caught Annette’s eyes and Annette realized Tina knew what Annette suspected, but when she spoke, Tina didn’t even imply it, “Well, I suppose that’s what it was then. It can happen. Niri, I don’t think this was your fault. I’ve been talking with this runt’s foster parents and I know how intense she can be. I really don’t think this is anything to worry about. It should straighten itself out on its own, though I do prescribe at least one day of rest. Niri, I would suggest you enforce it by taking her to the movies or something. The rest would do you good too, Niri.”

  Niri nodded violently, guilt partially assuaged by Tina’s words, “We’ll do that.”

  Tina smiled at them, “I’m not sure how long it will be before I can say anything for certain about that scan.”

  Niri smiled at Tina strangely, “I thought the results should be in by the end of the week?”

  “They should be,” Tina responded, “What I’ve already seen leaves me with a lot more questions. Though answers may be forthcoming.” Tina looked Annette in the eyes. Niri looked confused, but Annette wasn’t. Somehow she understood what Tina hadn’t said. What Tina had meant was that Annette would probably find out the hard way very soon.

  - - - - - - - - - -

  Chapter 5

  Another Day, Another . . .

  ------------------------------------

  Angela pointedly ignored the mirror while she washed and dressed, like she had for some time now. She had been leery of her image since the day several weeks ago when she had realized her age. Talking with Annette had resolved some of her anxiety at the time, but since she couldn’t completely understand why, Angela had avoided setting herself off again. This morning she was having a harder time than most. More disturbing rumors of worlds and dimensions disappearing had surfaced. Some were recent. Others were older. Many could be explained by the three crunch bomb detonations she knew about, but there were a handful which could not be explained.

  Angela shuffled into the kitchen, and found herself alone, Daniel still snored in bed. She thought about the twins, they slept in the student dormitories, like a pair of refugee children without parents. Nuts! Angela was taking the wrong mental off ramp again. Now all she could think about was how little time she had spent with any of her children. No wonder Evelyn had rebelled and taken Colony with her. Angela was a great chief, but a terrible mother. She should have stopped having kids after the first set of twins. The trouble was that Daniel loved children, and he was an excellent father. She couldn’t say no when he asked for more children, and it wasn’t like the act of making them was unpleasant.

  Angela flushed at the thought. Then she smiled. It was quite un-chief-like, and anything un-chief-like had become extremely precious to her. Angela thought of waking Daniel just to share her brief happiness with him, but the clock began to strike eight and the time for the idea passed.

  Angela teleported to the communications center. Someone handed her a cup of coffee and a doughnut. Angela nodded thanks in the woman’s direction and received a smile in return. The communications center always had fresh coffee and doughnuts in the morning. That’s why she’d added it to her morning rounds, but she wasn’t about to tell them so. She left them to their own speculations on her presence. Angela looked around the room, full of casually dressed but very busy people. They monitored transmissions and reports to and from all of the factors in the field and what few external organizations and groups that had allied themselves with Sanctuary. Everyone was working hard to respond to the demands. They would have better luck with a staff twice the size, but communications wasn’t glamorous work like factoring, and even applications to become a factor had tapered off.

  Her original communication’s people had retired, now their grandchildren were doing the work. Angela paused to think, a lot of changes had happened in a lot of departments over time. The changes bothered her being that her job, her duties, had remained the same. She suddenly needed something that was the same. The trouble was that there were few places within Sanctuary which hadn’t changed.

  Angela ran through a list of her old haunts in her head. She knew Club 52 was still in operation, but she also knew that the new management probably wasn’t aware of where the name came from, or the orders that Angela had given which caused it to open. Angela chuckled at the keggers Johnny had held in the quarantine room 52 back before Sanctuary had even had a name. She’d had to be strict at the time, but hadn’t really wanted too. The Chief within had still been young back then. Angela remembered Johnny’s disappointment at the time, and the look on his face. She could practically see him. Her memory pulled a cruel trick, changing Johnny’s face to the memory of the last time she saw him. That face had been torn, bloody and singed. Annette squeezed her eyes shut to close out the memory.

  “Chief?” The doughnut woman was suddenly standing in front of Angela. Angela got the sense that the woman hadn’t teleported but instead had walked into that place, while Angela’s memories had her occupied.

  Angela straightened her shoulders and searched for the woman’s name in her memories, “I’m fine Ruth, just thinking about things. It’s still early, and I’m not entirely awake yet.A

  “Yes, ma’am,” Ruth said returning to her station with several backward glances. The rest of the room had dropped its usual business, most eyes were on her rather than their communications screens.

  “I should be moving on,” Angela excused herself. Worried looks followed her out of the room, she felt them as she went.

  Angela stopped in the hall just outside the room. She leaned against the wall, overwhelmed by a renewed grief over Johnny’s loss, so many years ago. There were so few left in Sanctuary that even remembered him. Gene was one, and his clinic didn’t suffer as badly from the disease of change. Angela set her course to see him, teleporting there in a fraction of the time walking would take.

  His waiting room was a little older for wear, but not dingy. No matter how absent minded Gene was, he never tolerated dirt. Angela started to knock on the door to his office, but it opened to her before her knuckles could make contact. She looked around, searching a few of the open exam rooms before finally finding him humming to himself in a store room. During her search she discovered that there were no patients at the moment.

  Angela watched him quietly while he sorted through supplies looking for something. She didn’t want to disturb him, but, she didn’t have all day to wait for him to notice her. “Hey, Gene.”

  He jumped, tossing a box of packaged bandages up in the air. He spun around and looked her in the eyes. “Oh! Hi, Angela. What are you doing here? Did I call you?”

  Angela felt the grief draining away. She smiled at him, “No, you didn’t call me, and we don’t have an appointment. I just stopped by to see a friendly face.”

  Gene smiled back, showing the wrinkles smiles had made over the years. “Oh, well, then, I’m happy to see you.” He began walking slowly past her into the hall. She followed him quietly, to the waiting room. He found a soft chair and sat. She sat across from him. The walk had spoken volumes on her old friend. Age had clearly slowed him.

  “When did you get so old?” She asked, only half voluntarily.

  Gene smiled and laughed, “I thought I was the space cadet. I’ve been getting old for quite some time. I’m just starting to look it. I’m only human and there’s only so much I can do with hormones and other rejuvenation treatments. You are lucky. At birth you were endowed with more years than I’ll see no matter how well I take care of myself.”

  Angela rose and fidgeted with the magazines in the rack. Gene had kept the tradition he had grown up with. Some magazines were hundreds of years old, Angela wondered whether it was Gene’s sense of humor or just an absent moment. She wanted to be angry at him for bringing up the weight of years. Then again he hadn’t. Angela
was the one that said he was old. Finally she responded, “But I’m old too!”

  Gene nodded, it seemed like he hadn’t even noticed her hesitation. He smiled gently at her, “Yes, I suppose you are. You know what it is of course. It’s this place. You give it and us too much.”

  Angela frowned, and smiled, and sat. He was right. She knew it. It was the problem that had worn at her for years. Now all she had to do was figure out what to do about it. Angela tried to clear her mind, to relax. She watched Gene as he tapped the screen of a pop-pad he had found underneath his seat cushion. “Cool!” He mumbled.

  “What?”

  “I always did think that girl was special! She was such a cute child too,” Gene mumbled, almost as if he hadn’t heard Angela’s question, “Did you know Annette was briaunti?”

  Angela sat up straight, “The test results came in?”

  “Yep, and by the looks of them, our girl is very special, almost as unique as Yllera. There’s another special one.”

  Angela was on the edge of her seat, “How so?”

  “She’s briaunti, but not from any known lineage. She doesn’t have D'llenic eugenoplasts,” Gene answered.

  His words rocked her world. “But all briaunti have D’llenic eugenoplasts, my mother was the only one successfully engineered at birth. All other lines received their eugenoplasts, from her! Heck, you still use them when someone needs to become briaunti.”

  “Yeah, but these results mean she is descended from a second briaunti which was successfully engineered from birth,” Gene answered throwing the pad up in the air and catching it, “That’s what is so cool.”

  If Gene was right, everything Angela knew about herself and the origins of her species was wrong. Just the idea turned her entire understanding of the universe on its ear. Somewhere out there the potential existed for another unrelated group of briaunti. She sighed, “Yeah, cool.”

  - - - - - - - - - -

  Yllera laughed, she’d forgotten how good it felt to hang out with people she didn’t have to conceal part of her life from, but the novelty was wearing thin. Francine and Jerry weren’t exactly friends, but they had been roommates during the last year of her factor training. Frankie had a habit of repeating herself and Jerry had an accent so thick it couldn’t be cut even with a knife. They weren’t exactly annoying, but she could only take so large a dose of them at once. She was approaching her limit.

  “So anyway, this lug put the ring in the cake and I nearly choked on it,” Frankie said, “You are coming to the wedding aren’t you?”

  That was it, the line had been crossed. It was the fifth time she had asked if Yllera was going to come and the seventh time she’d relayed the ring story. Yllera fervently wished that someone or something would come to her rescue. “Yeah, if I’m not on assignment at the time. From what I understand I’m going to be in it pretty deep and may not be able to pull myself out on a whim.”

  “You could ask to delay the mission, stay here until the wedding,” Frankie suggested. Jerry nodded, knowing she could communicate much better than he could in English.

  “I don’t have quarters, at the moment. I’m staying in the temporary dorms. That is an experience I would rather not prolong, besides I’m not sure how time-sensitive my assignment is,” Yllera tried to sidestep.

  “You could stay with us,” Jerry managed to say.

  Yllera was knocked speechless, they seemed intent to knock every one of her excuses out from under her. They seemed determined not to allow her to bow out gracefully. Suddenly she felt a vibration in her hip pocket. Silently, Yllera enthusiastically thanked god and whomever it was on the other end. “I really should take this,” She said pulling her pop-pad from her pocket.

  Jerry nodded and Frankie waved, “We should get going anyway, we have a wedding to plan.”

  Yllera gratefully watched them leave and tapped her pad. The screen lit up with Erica’s face, “Yllera, I just received Tina’s message officially restoring you to active duty. I’m downloading your mission briefing to your pad. We don’t have much direct information on the Agurian culture of Jelaria. They are a lot stand-offish.”

  “Angela did explain things a little,” Yllera said, to interrupt the flow of information.

  Erica paused, “I’m pulling a Niri, aren’t I?” Yllera smirked and nodded. “Well, then I guess I’ll leave the briefing to the information packet and tell you about your appointment.”

  “Appointment?” Yllera wondered if she had to undergo yet another tedious medical scan.

  “With a guy in R&D to get fitted for your survival suit,” Erica answered.

  Yllera wondered about that. She thought that maybe she remembered about Angela mentioning an extreme environment. “When am I supposed to be there?”

  “You’ve got about an hour travel time, and you may need it all,” Erica answered.

  “Why?”

  “Because, the department is shielded to prevent the disturbance of some delicate equipment down there in research and development. The pods won’t even send you there. You have to walk and it’s a maze. I’ll send you a map. Good luck!” Erica’s face disappeared and was replaced by a map showing the way from the transport pod outside of research and development to the office of the man she was supposed to see. A small frame to the side of the map offered text directions.

  Yllera examined the map thoroughly while finding and waiting to use the nearest public transport pod. By the time it was her turn, Yllera had come to the conclusion that calling the place a maze was a serious understatement. Yllera stepped into the pod and instructed it to take her to research and development. It squeaked and informed her she would be delivered to the pod just outside, because R&D was a restricted transport zone. Yllera made a face and tapped the activation button.

  Research and development was the lowest and oldest level. Each new level of Sanctuary had been dug deeper into the planetoid than the last, but artificial gravity generators made the side of tunnels nearest the center of the planetoid the ceilings. So, while the orientation of the artificial gravity generators decreed that nothing was below R&D, everything could be considered beneath it. The outer research and development tunnels were rough. They hadn’t been smoothed because they were never intended to be more than a work zone. The original living quarters and the oldest section of medical services were later dug in above and more carefully finished.

  Yllera examined the walls on arrival. They surprised her. Just the look of them drew her touch, causing thoughts of the history they had seen. Yllera glanced at her pop-pad. She was supposed to find the door to cavern one. She walked up and down the hall until she found the right door. It opened with an asthmatic squish as opposed to the usual silent sliding into the wall of most Sanctuary doors. On the other side, Yllera expected to find busy scientists and researchers fiddling with shiny doohickeys or bubbling thingamajigs What she found was a high ceilinged stone cavern divided into ceiling-less cubicles, and narrow walkways by dingy nine-foot-high extruded plastic walls. It was an ugly place, with ugly smells, and the ugly sounds of metal grinders and arc welding. Smoke of various colors wafted up over some of the walls and was sucked into air cleaners on the ceiling. Yllera looked down at her pad and began following the map.

  After an absurd amount of time wandering amongst the cubicles, catching glimpses of people working on projects that were far removed from the slick finished devices she was used to, Yllera finally came to a door. Yllera checked her pop-pad, and went over the path she had taken, in her head, through the maze of the research and development complex. Small, grease stained, absolutely filthy, it looked like a janitorial closet, and it was of the oldest type in Sanctuary. Not only did it have a knob it had a manual lock as well. Yllera hesitated, this couldn’t be the place. While she stood there staring at the knob, it turned.

  The door swung inward revealing a man wearing a grungy leather apron over a simple blue shirt and slacks. He looked middle age, but there was no telling the number of years he’d seen. His h
air was mostly sand colored and his eyes an ageless blue. On his face was a slightly mangled grin. All together, he was instantly likeable.

  “So, you would be Yllera,” The man said plainly. His voice was soft rich and deep. Yllera nodded and tucked her pop-pad back into her pocket. The man’s smile broadened.AMy name’s Ralph. I’ll be your tailor.” He gestured for her to enter the room.

  Yllera entered hesitantly. Inside the room was relatively clean, as compared to the rest of the research department. The walls were smooth, white and met the rougher, though mostly flat, ceiling at nearly right angles. Shelves and baskets of stainless steel, filled one long wall to the ceiling. A long white plastic work surface spanned the opposite wall. The plastic was stained, worn, singed and in places had electronic components melted into the surface. The short wall opposite the door held a media screen and small desk. Several chairs of various heights were scattered around the room. One chair floated free from any support, with an attached foot rest. It hovered near a portion of the work surface with clear electrical burns. The room smelled of melted plastic and lubricants, and the hum from the air filtration system was much quieter than in the room outside. Nowhere did Yllera see anything resembling a survival suit.

  “So, is this your first assignment, or are you an old pro?” The man asked taking a small scanner from a shelf. He held it to his eye and began walking around her.

  “It’ll be my first as a secondary. I just finished an assignment on an earth,” Yllera answered eyeing him.

  “So you’ve used my stuff before.” Ralph took the scanner from his eye and tossed it towards his shelf. It landed neatly, and softly where it belonged, with a clear telekinetic assist from Ralph. He reached for a pop-pad, “Your med-file doesn’t mention any allergies. Are you aware of any that you haven’t reported?”

  “No, I haven’t come across any yet. So what is this survival suit suppose to protect me from?” Yllera asked.