The Last of the Ageless

by Traci Loudin

  As the words left the Azaiah’s mouth, Dalan’s head fell forward. His arms flew out, as though he’d tripped, but recovered. Ti’rros grabbed him around the torso and supported his weight. “Dalan?”

  “Saw… something,” the boy said. “A mental image, like from Saquey, but not. From Nyr’s eyes.”

  “What?” Azaiah’s brows furrowed.

  Dalan pushed Ti’rros away and stood on his own. “Believe it may be a message from Caetl, a plea for help. Nyr’s in trouble. We’ve got to go. If Caetl isn’t protecting Nyr against the Wizard…”

  “The Wizard can torture me as easily as Nyr,” the Joey said. “I can do nothing out there. Go.”

  The boy stared at her before handing her his weapon. “Need this more than I do.”

  Then he dropped to his hands and feet. As he transmelded the rest of the way into the golden horse-like creature, Azaiah’s expression shifted from awe to disgust to pure envy. The boy galloped toward the northern wall, kicking up dust in his wake.

  “Give me the gun, Joey,” Azaiah stepped forward, out of the doorway.

  “Try to take it,” Ti’rros said, pointing it at him.

  Jorrim shouldered past the four-eyed Changeling into the building. Korreth followed, knowing Ti’rros had Azaiah outmatched, tail for tail.

  “What’s the plan, Jorrim?” he whispered.

  “I was hoping you had one.” Jorrim’s teeth flashed in the darkened interior.

  Korreth held out a hand and looked Jorrim in the eye. As they clasped hands, he said, “Fight well. We’ll make it through this somehow.”

  Jorrim said, “Let’s hope we don’t have to fight at all.”

  They arrived to hear Soledad say, “And I suppose if I simply agreed to join you, I too, could share in your knowledge and power. You think I’ll give up on the Prophet’s Mandate, just like that?”

  Zen ran his hand along the wall. “I don’t understand why so many Ageless are married to the ravings of one man who probably died centuries ago. But if you really do believe in the Prophet’s words, you’ll know that his first and foremost goal of splitting us apart was to separate the technology so that no tyrant could take possession of it in the chaotic years following the Catastrophe.”

  “Yes, and if we’re the tyrants…”

  Korreth and Jorrim fanned out to either side of their mistress. Korreth found himself wondering where the mystic was. Maybe Caetl had disappeared because the Wizard had control over him, just as he’d warned.

  The giant didn’t spare them a glance. “Tell me, Soledad. As you said before, it’s not like we hid much technology. The Prophet knew people would find and salvage whatever they could in the early days after the Catastrophe. So why give us such an impossible task of guardianship?”

  “He always meant for us to give the knowledge back one day. When people are ready. When we can be sure they won’t abuse it.”

  Her gaze locked on Korreth, as though trying to communicate without words, like a mystic. His faith that she was manipulating Zen faltered.

  “I think it’s safe to say that’ll never happen,” Zen replied. “We remember all too well what it was like before the Catastrophe, so we know how technology can be abused. They don’t. We can only safeguard it if we survive.”

  “Thanks to you,” Soledad reminded him.

  “Sometimes I forget the limits of your non-enhanced bodies, since I’ve been living with my cybernetics for so long. I’d apologize, but what good would that do? Let us band together to avoid extinction. And one day, if his prophecies do come true by some miracle, we can be stewards and shepherds, teaching our descendants what they need to know to avoid making our mistakes. And if not, in the meantime we Ageless will endure, and improve upon our shared knowledge, and never have to fear death again.”

  Korreth remembered back to when Soledad had told him her hopes for the future… That she wished humankind deserved to have all the technology back. But his words notwithstanding, Zen wanted to hoard it.

  Soledad nodded along, like a child being lectured by an elder about something she’d already learned. “Look, I agree with most of what you’re saying. I get that we all have our philosophical differences, but I refuse to betray Kaia. If you think you’ll be able to win her to your side by holding her people or the lab hostage, you are sorely mistaken.”

  Zen’s demonic red eyes lit up. “Yes, she does care about them, doesn’t she? She must, or why else would she have let them flee before she herself fled? My hope is that Liang can convince her we mean her followers no harm.”

  “No harm? You slaughtered Liang’s people!”

  “And I’ve since learned that others feel more strongly about their followers than I ever did.” He motioned to Korreth. “I will endeavor to treat yours more carefully.”

  A young boy with bushy red curls burst into the building. The stick he carried was taller than him, until he grew in size. As he aged into a teenager, the boy raised the stick to his lips and pointed it toward Zen.

  A feathered dart flew out of its tip, but Zen sidestepped. Korreth sprang into motion.

  The dart buried itself in Soledad’s neck.

  “Gryid!” Azaiah screamed, tackling the teenager from behind. Zen’s foot came down on the stick as it rolled his way.

  Jorrim caught Soledad before she could fall to the floor. Her eyelids fluttered as the crow’s feet around her eyes disappeared, then reappeared. “Stay close to me,” she whispered. Then her muscles went slack.

  Zen’s voice boomed in the cavernous room. “You didn’t have to sneak in, Gryid.” The stick snapped. “I’m happy to talk to any Ageless who wants to ally with me.”

  “I’m sorry,” Azaiah said to Zen. He struggled to keep Gryid pinned to the floor.

  Gryid aged into a man, got his knee underneath Azaiah, and tossed him over his head. Azaiah landed heavily, but his tail snaked out after the Ageless. Gryid slipped through his grasp as a boy. Without a backward glance, Gryid ran back out the door.

  “Get him!” Zen roared.

  Azaiah scrambled to his feet, leaving Korreth and Jorrim alone with the cyborg Soledad had enslaved them to kill.

  Zen’s red eyes fell on Korreth before latching onto Soledad. “Is she still alive?”

  “Yes,” Jorrim said. “But I’m not sure how.”

  “I believe she de-aged when the dart hit,” Zen’s voice rumbled. “A smart move on her part. It must’ve spread the poison between ages.”

  The sticky sound of fluttering insect wings caught Korreth’s attention. Dalan’s dragonfly buzzed overhead.

  Without another word, Zen headed to the door, and the dragonfly followed. Outside, the cyborg let out a growl of frustration. “Why can’t any of them understand?”

  “What should we do?” Jorrim whispered.

  “We need to get her out of here.” His friend’s brows drew down, but Korreth went on, “She gave us an order. We can’t go anywhere without her now.”

  “She’s unconscious, maybe dying. Let’s just see what happens.”

  “I tried it before, Jorrim. While she was asleep. I ran into the same problem we had when we tried to escape at the oasis.”

  Outside, Azaiah’s winded voice said, “He’s gone.”

  Something hit the outside wall and slid down. The cyborg poked his head back inside. “I think I managed to convince your mistress before we were interrupted. I assume she’d want me to keep you alive, so your best bet is to join us… as our early acolytes.”

  Korreth and Jorrim stared at one another. Zen may have just killed Azaiah, also one of his ‘acolytes,’ but what choice did they have?

  Zen paused on the threshold. “How is my lovely ally doing? Give her to me.” He held out his huge hands to Jorrim.

  “We… we can take care of her,” Korreth said.

  The cyborg’s eyes glowed. He towered over them and plucked Soledad from Jorrim’s grasp like a doll from a baby. “Take a load off.”

  With Soledad in the crook of one arm, Zen ducke
d back through the doorway. A breeze picked up as he disappeared outside.

  Jorrim’s cheeks drawn in, he clamped his lips together and got to his feet. Korreth padded along the floor to the doorway and peeked out. Blood smeared down from an indentation on the building’s outer wall, but Azaiah had disappeared.

  He caught sight of Zen lumbering away.

  Jorrim’s voice echoed inside the empty building. “Did he kill Azaiah?”

  He shook his head.

  “We’ve got to get out of Searchtown.”

  “She’s going to wake up any minute,” Korreth said. “You saw how she shook off having her throat slit by—”

  The air squeezed out of his lungs as a loud crash came from around the corner. Unable to take a full breath, Korreth rushed as fast as he could to see what was happening. He heard Jorrim gasping for air behind him. The cyborg lifted his leg and drove his foot and all of his body weight forward toward one of the doors, which surrendered.

  “The wind will crush us unless we stay close to Soledad.” Korreth’s words were heavy, but his thoughts centered on the secrets he might uncover inside the lab. He cautiously stepped over the crumpled door and found himself in a wing of the temple he hadn’t previously seen.

  “You’re insane,” Jorrim wheezed, but he followed.

  Zen pressed onward, Soledad dangling from one elbow. Korreth poked his head through the doorway and looked both ways before entering the room, empty except for some unrecognizable objects sitting atop the tables. The wind’s grip on his lungs loosened, and he took a deep breath.

  He followed in the cyborg’s wake, always checking for potential traps before intruding. After a few more rooms and hallways, Korreth caught up to Zen. The cyborg paid him no attention, running his hands along blocky structures, unknown artifacts of another time, another world.

  “Where is it?” Zen shouted, his voice rough with frustration. The cyborg twisted the lever of an interior door and entered the next room. By now, Korreth guessed they neared the tip of the V-shaped building.

  Zen’s sudden intake of breath made Korreth freeze. He hoped Zen had triggered one of Kaia’s traps.

  “What happened?” Jorrim stepped up behind Korreth but went no farther.

  “I had no idea.” Zen’s voice filled with reverence, sending shivers up his spine. “Somehow she kept them preserved for all these centuries.”

  Drawn by the mystery, Korreth approached the door as it clanked closed. Kaia and Soledad had hinted at so many things they’d seen over their Ancient lifetimes. He couldn’t help but share Zen’s curiosity. He reached for the lever.

  The sound of something behind them made Korreth whip around, his SCL raised. Ti’rros stood in the ruins of the previous hallway, one foot on debris, another on the broken door.

  “You startled me.” Korreth pointed the barrel back toward the ceiling.

  The Joey’s deep blue eyes traveled from Jorrim’s face to Korreth’s. “What do you plan to do?” The hairs on the Joey’s head waved around, her expression unreadable.

  Before they could answer, the door clanked behind Korreth, and Zen’s presence filled the room. “While we wait for Soledad to awaken, you’ll want to see this,” the cyborg said.

  When Korreth faced him, Zen was staring at Ti’rros. She followed him into the other room, where Korreth caught a whiff of a salty scent.

  The cyborg’s hand hovered over one of two tables covered by clear cases, sealed and bolted down to the tabletops. They glowed faintly, illuminating his patchwork body. Though he’d touched everything in sight in the previous room, here he hesitated. Drawn forward by curiosity, Korreth reached the threshold.

  Jorrim’s voice made him jump. “I’d be careful. Kaia warned us about traps. What if they’re clever enough to recognize the Ageless?” Jorrim caught him by the elbow.

  “Don’t tell me you think Kaia’s traps will let Changelings and Joeys go through, but not Purebreeds.” He shook his hand off. “I want to know what could still surprise an Ageless after so many centuries.”

  The salty scent pervaded the room. He let the Joey reach the glass-covered tables first, hanging back in case Jorrim’s paranoia was right. When Ti’rros laid eyes on the figures inside, her body went rigid, from the undulating hairs on her head to the long tail behind.

  Her long-fingered silver hands caressed the clear case. “It is impossible… What does this mean?”

  “I might have thought so myself,” Zen said. “But somehow Kaia’s kept it up all these centuries.”

  As Korreth approached, a shiver traveled up his spine. A blue-green fluid cycled through tubes connected tanks, making it difficult to determine what Ti’rros had reacted to. Heat radiated from the containers, and Korreth feared to touch them. Once he reached her side, he saw two identical silver-skinned bodies floating inside, one in each tank.

  The main part of the creature’s body consisted of two elongated orbs, stacked one atop the other. Undulating tentacles as fine as hairs covered the top one. Its mouth gaped open, exposing thin, interlaced teeth. On the lower orb, two eyes with dark blue irises stared forever at the ceiling.

  He ducked down to get a look from the side. From the back of the body, hundreds of tiny hairs waved with the motion of the fluid flowing through the tank. Long, ropey tentacles stretched from the lower orb. Their blue-rimmed suckers reminded him of the underside of a Joey’s tail.

  His breath caught in his throat.

  “These are your ancestors, Ti’rros.” Zen’s voice broke the spell in the room, irreverent in the presence of the well-preserved aliens.

  “If they look like this,” her quiet voice barely disturbed the air, “why don’t we?”

  “Because you aren’t their direct descendants. We made your kind.” Zen turned to her, but Ti’rros didn’t meet his gaze. “Some of us specialized in alien biology, but at that time, all that meant was bacteria and small one-celled organisms from asteroids and—” he waved it off, apparently remembering none of them would understand. “The point is, we’d never seen complex alien lifeforms. But after the Catastrophe, we took a chance and created hybrids—Joeys—by blending together K’inTesh and human physiology.”

  Korreth could only imagine what Ti’rros must be thinking, to learn that she had as much in common with Purebred humans as she did with the bodies in the tank.

  “Why would anyone do something that crazy?” Jorrim’s tone made his heart race. “Everyone knows the Joeys came here to conquer. The Ancients should have tried to destroy them, not make more of them.”

  His fingers wrapped tightly around the SCL’s grip. They couldn’t escape without Soledad, still nestled in the cyborg’s grip.

  “Not everyone believes that. Some of us Ageless think that it was us, forcibly prying open one of their ships, which caused the K’inTesh to lash out.” Zen’s solemn voice filled the room. “Others think some smaller country decided to impress the big dogs with its military might against an enemy everyone could hate. I’m sure others have other opinions and think the K’inTesh came to invade. But the truth is, we could’ve coexisted.”

  Ti’rros examined the bodies from all angles. “So my people weren’t conquerors?”

  Zen shook his massive head. “The Prophet believed your ancestors didn’t want to fight, and he predicted the unfortunate outcome if humans struck out in fear. He called it ‘the end game.’ We didn’t fully realize what strange variations in matter might exist from other parts of the galaxy… But some of us suspected.”

  His nostrils flared, which seemed oddly human on his mostly cyborg body. “You want to know the most ironic part? Much of our ice caps had melted, and the seas were warmer and saltier than ever before. It was like we were made to coexist—us on land and the K’inTesh in the oceans. Of course, we didn’t know that until after we cracked one of their hulls and found it full of water, not air.”

  “And the Changelings? Where did they come from?” Korreth asked.

  “When combined with the firepower we threw at
the K’inTesh, the chemicals that rained down into the Earth’s atmosphere were catastrophic in the extreme. The K’inTesh retaliated immediately against our satellites, space stations, and cities. Rumor has it, both sides used biological warfare. And in the panic afterward, no one was left to maintain the technology we did have.”

  Korreth felt sick to his stomach. “No one could’ve stopped the Catastrophe.”

  Staring at the bodies in the tanks, he thought he saw one of its tentacles twitch. Ti’rros straightened, her expression as blank as always. He couldn’t imagine how Zen’s revelations must be shaking her worldview. All the Joeys he’d ever come across believed they were superior to humans, even though their ancestors had failed to defeat the Earth’s natives. No one he knew had ever suspected why they looked so similar to humans.

  Zen’s speech slowed, as though he relived the past, “We still had high hopes after the Catastrophe, though. We created your kind to bridge the communication gap, but by the time we finished, it was too late. You hybrids easily learned English, but we never managed to crack the alien language, not completely. By then it didn’t matter. Everything had collapsed.”

  Korreth reeled, unable to stop his thoughts from falling out of his mouth as words. “So then the Prophet told you to hide your technology instead of helping your fellow humans. Not to mention your hybrid children.”

  When the cyborg’s glowing eyes locked on him, it took all his self-control not to take a step back, to bolt.

  Zen’s mouth quirked up in a half-smile, half-grimace. “It’s not like we could ever hide it all. Plenty of Ancient technology sat in plain sight, not that it did anyone any good. A great example—nuclear power plants. Without their caretakers, the radiation soon leaked out into the world, killing and mutating people who’d already been exposed to other forms of biological warfare. It’s not that simple.”

  Korreth shook his head, not following so many unfamiliar words. Their mistress looked so small and fragile, cradled in the crook of the cyborg’s arm. He was beginning to wonder if she really would wake up. But then he remembered the other Ageless—Gryid?—had been aiming for Zen, and probably hadn’t accounted for aging away the poison in the dart.