Sun

by J. C. Andrijeski

  I followed his gaze instead.

  I saw what he saw. The color was gone, leaving nothing but silver, mirrored panes. I saw no seams, nothing to break up that molten sheet of metal. It appeared to have been painted on not only the walls, but the ceiling and floor.

  Dead metal didn’t look like that. Dead metal didn’t feel like that.

  Only organics did.

  The pulsing had stopped, though. The light I’d felt around the entrance was gone. Even before I used my own light on it, I knew it was completely dead.

  In places, it looked like it had died in mid-motion. Much of the metal surface was relatively thin, only a few inches in width over the rock I felt behind it. In some areas it bowed outwards though, its thickness growing up to several feet, rippled by waves, as if it had been moving and reconfiguring up until the instant it died.

  “You didn’t imagine it,” Revik said, answering Balidor belatedly as his eyes scanned the cave walls. “They were green. Dark green, as you said. Fully conscious. Telekinetic.”

  He frowned at the metal-coated womb, his gaze drifting up to the silver ceiling, then down to the floor. I could tell by the faint blur of his irises he was using his seer’s sight.

  “I’ve never seen anything like this, brother,” he said after another beat. “Have you?”

  Balidor shook his head. “No.”

  “I have not, either,” Feigran volunteered.

  Revik gave the other Elaerian a glance, then looked back at Balidor.

  “The living part of the machines… it’s just gone.” He shook his head, frowning. “Not dead. Extracted. Like the living tissue was torn out of the dead metal entirely.”

  Balidor turned his head, giving him a hard look.

  Then he was following Revik’s gaze. As he did, that harder look in his eyes continued to grow.

  “Is that possible?” he said. “How is that possible?”

  He glanced at me, as if he expected an answer.

  I didn’t have one.

  Revik continued to scan the walls.

  “That consciousness, that screaming––what we felt when we came into the outer cave.” He continued to turn around, still looking with his light. “That was identical to sound of the telekinetics Kali showed us. It sounded just like them. It felt just like them. The machine was clearly made of the body parts of those dead telekinetic seers, fused somehow with their aleimic structure. The machine itself had telekinetic powers.”

  Balidor nodded, his eyes nervous. “I know. It is a chilling thing, brother.”

  Revik glanced at him, then at me, quirking an eyebrow. “But Kali made it sound like they couldn’t open the door on their own. So how did they open this one?” His fingers tightened on mine. “Any ideas? If they can open the doors already, we definitely have a problem.”

  There was a silence.

  Then my jaw hardened.

  “I don’t think they did,” I said, my voice frank. “I don’t think they were the ones who opened the door.”

  Revik turned, staring at me. “Then who did?”

  I pursed my lips, returning his gaze.

  “We did,” I said. “We opened the door. Briefly,” I added, holding up a hand when I saw Balidor about to speak. “It didn’t stay open. There still wasn’t enough light to do that, or to stabilize that opening in any way. But I think I––we––opened it. After the Four connected light for the second time, I hit out at it, using everyone’s connections and that structure we’d built between us. I’m pretty sure that’s when it opened.”

  Glancing at Revik, I added, “The organic parts of the machine didn’t leave, exactly. They got sucked out the door, like you said.”

  I looked around, noting the pale, wide-eyed looks from the others, everyone except Feigran, who still seemed to be in his own world on the other side of the cave.

  “Maybe the doors only transport living matter,” I said, thinking aloud. “Or maybe, since we don’t see Varlan’s clothes in here, it specifically can’t transport dead metal. Maybe the door is what separated the living part from the metal.”

  There was a silence after I spoke.

  Then Feigran held up something to me, smiling. “Dead metal,” he said. “Yes. Dead metal stays here. It stays behind. Yes, yes… very smart. Very smart, sister Allie. Very smart.”

  I glanced at him, then at the thing he held in his hand.

  It was a curved, ornate knife. I recognized it as Varlan’s.

  “That was on the floor?” Balidor walked towards Feigran, bringing Cass with him by the hand. “Where? Where did you find it?”

  “Yes, yes,” Feigran said, smiling. He pointed at the corner, near the thickest part of the silver metal. “There. There it was. On the floor. I found it.”

  Balidor held out a hand for the knife, but Feigran snatched it back, pursing his lips.

  “Mine,” he said. “Finders keepers. Mine now. My friend. My knife. It’s shiny. I want it. You can’t have it, greedy, greedy Adhipan.”

  “I won’t take it forever,” Balidor said, exasperated. “I just want to see it.”

  “Give it to him, Fig,” Cass said. “I’ll make sure you get it back. Promise.”

  Warily, Feigran handed over the curved knife, watching Balidor like he expected the other seer to turn around and run out of the cave with it.

  Looking away from the three of them, I frowned, still thinking.

  “So the door took Varlan, too,” I muttered. “But why was he in here at all? Why did the machine take him? Did it see him as a threat, because of his high sight rank, or––?”

  “He tried to help Cass,” Balidor broke in, looking at me.

  He handed the knife back to Feigran, who snatched it from his fingers, gripping it in both hands against his chest. Ignoring him, Balidor walked closer to us.

  His voice turned grim.

  “Varlan picked up on the threat of the machine before any of us did. He saw there was something wrong with Cass, that it was affecting her more than the rest of us.” He glanced at Cass, squeezing her fingers, then looked back at me. “When she started screaming, he tried to take her back out of the cave, back through the wall and out into the corridor.”

  Frowning, Balidor made a vague gesture with one hand.

  “…The machine didn’t like that. It yanked him into the opening. That’s the last we saw of him. I don’t know if he was even alive by the time the door opened. I’d guess probably not, but hopefully he was. Hopefully he survived.”

  Swallowing, I nodded. Looking between the two of them, I frowned. “Why didn’t it go after you, ‘Dori? For helping Cass?”

  “It did,” Cass said, still gripping Balidor’s hand in both of hers.

  Looking around at us, she let out a humorless sound.

  “After what happened to Varlan, I was able to react quicker. We didn’t know the machine was telekinetic until it did that.” She looked directly at me. “I had to shield him. The whole time. It’s why I couldn’t keep it from pulling me towards the opening. I couldn’t do both, but I knew if I let the shield fall, it definitely would have killed him.”

  Glancing at Balidor, she shrugged, biting her lip. “As it was, I was running out of light. If you guys hadn’t come along when you did, we both would have died.”

  Still biting her lip, she looked at Balidor. He returned her stare, reaching up to caress her cheek with his fingers.

  Averting my eyes from where they gazed at one another, I nodded, going back to looking at the walls. I glanced at Revik, who was watching me, his expression still.

  “You opened the door,” he said. “You knew how.”

  Returning his gaze, I shook my head. Then, thinking, I hesitated, making a more or less gesture with my hand.

  “I mean, yes… I think I opened it,” I said. “But it wasn’t really intentional, and I had no idea what I was doing until I was doing it.” Giving him a more serious look, I added, “I definitely needed the Four to do it. All of us, I mean.”

  I glanced at
Feigran, then back at Revik.

  “I guess that’s good to know, but it doesn’t solve the power problem that caused the door to shut so quickly afterwards. If we’re serious about using the doors to go to some other, newer world, that’s no small thing. I wasn’t able to keep it open long enough to let through more than a handful of people. No where near the number of Listers we have, much less the refugees and everyone else. So in terms of actually using the doors, we’re kind of back at square one.”

  At that, Balidor turned, looking at us.

  Frowning at me, his eyes sharper, he shook his head.

  “On the contrary, Esteemed Bridge,” he said. “We learned quite a few things from this. One, no metal.” He motioned at Feigran, who still clutched his short sword to his chest.

  Looking back at me, Balidor added,

  “Two, it turns out you can open one of these doors without automatically destroying the world. Not a small thing.”

  Glancing at Revik, he firmed his jaw.

  “Three, it seems every individual door opens only once. At the very least, the ones with these telekinetic machines do. Perhaps there is some living matter here, even apart from the machine, that is required for operating the door. Or perhaps Menlim and his people harmed the doors in some way, coating them in these organic machines. Either way, this particular door appears to be dead now. Would you both agree?”

  Looking around, frowning, I nodded. “Agreed,” I said.

  Revik nodded too, clicking. “Agreed.”

  “Agreed!” said Feigran from the wall, raising one hand.

  Still frowning, Balidor glanced at Cass before adding,

  “We learned something else today, Esteemed Bridge. Given what we experienced here, I suspect it will be nearly impossible for us to breach the doors Menlim corrupted with these machines… at least not in a meaningful way, and not without losing a lot of people.” Grimly, he stared around at the silver metal. “If we end up having to send a lot of people through, as you say, that’s going to be a problem.”

  Revik looked at me too.

  Meeting his gaze, I realized he’d come to the same conclusion as Balidor.

  Fear and worry shone from his pale irises, from his light.

  Both feelings were unmistakably aimed at me. Looking at him, I realized he was struggling with a surge of overprotectiveness, even now. Worry for me, worry for the baby I carried, worry that I’d been the one who had to get them out of that mess with the organic machine.

  Worry that I might be the only person alive able to control the Barrier doors, which put me in the line of fire every time we attempted this.

  Worry that Menlim might have outmaneuvered us already.

  I saw the fear there, on the surface of his face.

  Before I could move closer to him, he took my hand, tugging me up against his side. I felt some self-consciousness on him when he did it, but he didn’t let go, wrapping his fingers into mine more tightly.

  Clearing his throat, Balidor motioned around at the silver walls.

  “I never would have believed you could pull the very life out of organically-bred metal,” he said. “I would have said it was impossible.”

  Frowning, I thought about his words.

  “Didn’t Dragon do something similar, though?” I turned, looking up at Revik. “Didn’t you say he stripped the machine there, too? In Beijing?”

  Shaking his head, Revik gave me the briefest of glances.

  “No. He didn’t. When Dragon left, the living portion of that machine remained intact. Only the consciousness was gone… the sentient part of it.”

  Shivering a little, he gripped my hand tighter.

  “That thing was fucking malevolent,” he said, grimacing. “At the time, I was just relieved Dragon had killed it. The specific personality of the organic, I mean, the part that was so alive. All that was left was the base living matter. It was like he’d wiped the mind of the thing, leaving just the organic matter, unstructured aleimi, and the metal itself.”

  Frowning, as if something just occurred to him, he gave me a longer look.

  “In fact, that door might still work, wife. Assuming it is a door, and not just a room filled with an organic machine.”

  “Did he open the door, do you think?” I said. “Dragon. Is that how he disappeared?”

  Revik frowned, as if thinking. Slowly, he shook his head.

  “I honestly don’t know,” he said. “They say Dragon is more like a god than a regular intermediary. At the time, I thought he’d just converted himself back into pure energy. I thought he was done with material existence, so he decided to leave.”

  Looking down at me, he frowned, his eyes distant with thought. I didn’t read him, but I found myself thinking I knew what the look meant.

  “You think we should try to access that door,” I said. “The one in Beijing.”

  He frowned, but didn’t shake his head.

  “It’s a possibility, right?” he said after another beat. “There’s no sentient machine on that door anymore, wife. You might be able to open it.” Tugging on my hand, he added, “You heard what Balidor said. We won’t be able to access the doors guarded by telekinetic machines. They’ll kill half our people even if you do manage to open the door and stabilize it in some way.”

  Frowning, I just looked at him.

  Then, clicking softly, I shook my head.

  “How would we even get to it, Revik?” I said. “Most of us would die just trying to access it, given the radiation levels and what Beijing is like now. We’d have to bring hundreds of people will us, hoping the radiation suits were strong enough that they didn’t die before we could get them inside. We’d flood the underground chamber with radiation, leaving the entrance open long enough to get everyone through.” Clicking under my breath, I added, “They told me it would be years before they could safely open the door on that bunker.”

  Thinking about that, my frown deepened.

  “…That might even be partly why Menlim bombed Beijing. That could even be what the bunkers were for. To cut off access to the doors.”

  I glanced up at Revik when he wiped his nose, checking his fingers to make sure the bleeding had stopped. When I looked back at the others, I found Balidor watching me and Revik, his eyes shifting between the two of us warily. Clearly, he’d picked up on some element of Revik’s hyper-protectiveness.

  He also seemed worried about our conversation.

  As if hearing me, he nodded, glancing at me.

  “I agree with the Bridge on this one,” he said carefully, giving Revik an apologetic look. “I am sorry. I don’t see Beijing as a viable option right now, brother. Not until we’ve explored some other possibilities.”

  “Like what possibilities, brother?” Revik frowned back. “Are there any, that won’t just get my wife killed? Along with the rest of us?”

  Balidor’s lips pursed, but he didn’t answer.

  After an awkward-feeling silence, he looked at me.

  “What do we do now, Esteemed Sister?” Balidor said, his voice subdued. “Where do we go after this? To more Shadow Cities? Do we attempt to access more of these doors anyway, taking our chances on the machines? You seem to have the most insight on this. You seem to have our only insight on this, apart from Kali’s vision. What do we do next?”

  There was another silence.

  In it, Revik’s light hardened. His fingers gripped mine protectively.

  Without looking at me, he stepped the slightest bit in front of me, between me and Balidor, giving Balidor a warning look that wasn’t particularly subtle. As if to avoid saying something inappropriate, he also clenched his jaw.

  I felt the protectiveness on him flare, growing overtly aggressive that time.

  He was afraid for me.

  He was afraid I’d be alone the next time.

  Sending warmth and light into Revik’s hands, I returned my gaze to Balidor.

  “I think we need to find a door Menlim hasn’t filled with an organic machine,”
I said, matter-of-fact. “If that’s even possible.”

  At that, I felt some of the tension in the room deflate.

  I think the fact that I hadn’t said we have to go straight to Dubai––or to Hong Kong, or to Zurich, or New Delhi, or Lhasa, or Singapore––and face off with an army of Mythers or the Dreng, single-handed, was enough to relax some of the vigilance in Revik’s light.

  I gave him a bare glance, conscious of the charge in his aleimi.

  “I don’t think we can count on surprising them next time,” I said, looking back at Balidor. “I suspect the machines talk to one another… including this one, before we killed it. They’re going to know we’re coming. Even apart from the machines, it’s going to be near-impossible for us to access one of the more heavily-guarded doors in a major Shadow city. Not without bringing an army with us, and casualties will be high if we go that route. We should expect the Mythers will beef up security now that they know what we’re after.”

  Exhaling, I combed my fingers through my hair, still thinking aloud.

  “Shadow didn’t just station telekinetics here to protect the doors. He merged them with the doors. They were fused to it in some way, likely through some kind of living being in the door itself. If ‘Dori’s right, and the doors are alive too, it’s probable they’re all connected, as well. Apart from the machines, I mean. Like a network.”

  Resting my hands on my hips, I frowned.

  “Frankly, I agree with Balidor. I don’t see how we can do anything with the doors the Dreng are heavily guarding. We might have no choice but to try, but I propose we do it first in a place where the odds are better. Better than suicidal, at least.”

  “Like where?” Revik said, gruff.

  I looked up, seeing the worry in his eyes.

  “Denver,” I said at once. “Maybe even Salt Lake. Somewhere the Mythers haven’t yet taken over and started herding humans and seers by the millions. Somewhere that isn’t going to kill us from radiation poisoning. Somewhere we might be able to reason with the organic machine guarding the door. With the help of say, Dante. Or Vik. Or Jem. Or all three of them.”