His order had been to travel to Kairngerm to bury and mourn a people decimated by the Empire. Many of the population had been followers or believers in The Path.
The Empire tolerated Seafu and the order and had allowed them down onto the planet to perform this task.
It was there that he had found Xera.
Creaton mothers often went into battle with their newborns strapped to their backs to allow them the taste of battle from birth.
Seafu developed an instant affinity to the little bundle when he picked her off of her mother’s corpse and nursed her wounds.
It was then he realized the dilemma he faced: return her to her people to become another weapon or raise her in the path of peace and justice.
In light of his duty to his religion, he welcomed the tiny infant into his heart.
Over the years, Xera had been a hard student to teach, yet he had grown to love her as a father loves a daughter.
She had learned well but seemed to take more to the martial arts taught by the monks of the Path than the spiritual lessons that accompanied them. Sometimes even the best students required a lesson in humility, lest they become too confident in their skills.
Seafu smiled as he remembered his student’s progression and slowly reached down to pluck a pebble from the ground.
Waiting, he heard the soft scrape of her foot on stone as Xera shifted her weight.
Anyone not attuned to it would never have known she was there.
A moment later, he flicked the pebble from his hand.
It bounced off of the pillar in front of him at the exact same time she leaped from her perch.
He rolled to the left and sprung to his feet with the deftness of a man half his age as her foot landed where he had been only seconds before.
Her following foot came down on directly on the small pebble,
causing her to slip and adjust her position to recover.
In the instant it took her to right herself,
Seafu moved with lightning speed to deal a quick series of blows to her midsection.
She gave ground quickly, trying to recover and find an opening to take advantage of.
Unable to find one,
and growing frustrated and impatient,
she sprang forward in an attempt to overtake her teacher with reliance on her speed and strength.
Seafu only flitted to one side,
and with a quick, single-handed motion smacked, his palm against her upper chest.
The forward momentum of her upper body ceased, but not that of her legs.
She quickly found herself on her back trying to suck in the breath that had been robbed from her lungs.
Seafu just smiled and held out his hand towards the young woman.
“You must learn to use patience and always to be mindful of your surroundings, lest you defeat yourself before your opponent has the chance to try,”
he chided.
“Yes Master,” she sighed as she rose to her feet and bowed deeply.
“One day, Master, you will have to teach me that trick with the pebble.”
She reached down and picked up the stone to examine it.
Seafu looked at the small stone thoughtfully for a moment, and then replied
“I merely asked the pebble to help, and it chose how it would do so.”
Xera rolled her eyes.
“You always say that, and I never believe you.” “One day you will girl. Now, unless you have come for a lesson in humility, I assume you are here for a different reason?” Her master asked.
Xera nodded.
“Master Cau sent me to find you. He said to tell you there were noises in the tomb.”
Seafu’s expression turned grave.
It was happening. Shiasla had said there would be a sign.
“Come, child, we must go see. Gather the elders quickly and have them meet me there.”
The old teacher said taking off at a lope and soon reached the tomb’s tall, stone structure with Xera in tow.
The posted guard moved aside from the heavy wooden door and allowed the monk entry. Entering the crypt, Seafu could hear a low droning sound resounding within the stone walls of the enclosure as he made his way down the single staircase.
His lungs burned from the heavy air and dust that had not been stirred in decades.
The stone walls were coated with a fuzzy, green mold, and the stairs themselves were slick with water.
As he stepped into the large stone chamber, he looked towards the floor and saw a set of familiar footprints: his own from when he had retrieved the box all that time ago.
A soft light emanated from underneath the lid of a large sarcophagus in the center of the catacomb.
He slowly made his way toward it,
then with some effort,
pushed the stone lid aside.
Dust floated into the air as it toppled and hit the floor with a resounding boom that echoed throughout the chamber.
The humming intensified as he peered inside the sarcophagus to see thousands of blue glass-like boxes lined end to end along the inside of the stone container, Thousands of them.
As he stood there, one of the boxes changed, its light now pulsing.
It reflected against the others, seeming to partially light the inside of the boxes near it with its soft glow.
As it grew in intensity, the light began to dance across the walls, as if reflected from a pool.
Seafu watched in amazement as more of the boxes activated and began to glow.
The lights brightened until he had to shade his eyes from their intense glow.
“It is time,” he whispered to himself in a resigned tone.
Seafu lowered his head and said another prayer. Looking up as the elders cautiously entered the room with Xera trailing behind them.
They stood in shock and amazement as they whispered amongst themselves,
trying to discern the meaning of this.
Xera quietly approached her master,
who stood off to the side with his face cloaked in worry, and asked in a low tone
“What does it mean, Master? What could have caused this?”
Seafu broke his stare away from the box at her inquiry.
“Child, I have an important task for you, but I must explain why this has happened before you go.” Seafu turned to the other elders and quieted them with the slow rise of his hand.
“The time has come. We must gather every one of the initiates and bring them here. We have a long journey ahead of us, my friends. I have much to tell you all.”
CHAPTER
SEVEN
SEVEN
Fly Girl
Shira was dreaming again.
She was running through a field of grass with the wet blades between her toes;
her legs blurred as they carried her,
hurtling forward at incredible speeds.
It was a good dream, but one of a reality Shira was sure she would never experience again.
As the vision faded, she opened her eyes with regret and stared at a stain on the ceiling that,
to her, looked like a phoenix in flight.
Oh, how she hated that stain!
With a sigh, she closed her eyes again.
At least it wasn’t the other dream, she thought.
In that one, she relived the horror that took away her ability to live normally forever.
Captain Shira Yael had been a pilot in the Israeli Defense Force,
flying missions in an F-16 Fighting Falcon,
during her time with the Tzahal.
She remained one of the few women to achieve combat pilot status.
Proud of her service and damn good at what she did, Shira had been excited when she was called upon to fly sorties during
Miv’tza Tzuk Eitan lit, Operation Strong Cliff.
That was, she was proud until a Hamas rocket ended her flight career,
along with her chances of returning home to a normal life.
Shira’s guns had jammed during an attempt to shoot down a rocket that was headed into Israel from Gaza.
In a desperate move to defend her country,
she lined up her plane and slammed into it in a desperate move to protect her country.
Coming to after a momentary blackout,
her leg and back felt like they were on fire as blaring alarms and smoke filled the cabin of the falling plane.
She frantically pulled on the eject handle,
and that had been the last thing she remembered until she woke up in a field hospital several days later.
The doctors told her it was a miracle she had survived.
Not only did she have nearly fatal amounts of internal bleeding,
but shrapnel had punched through her side and into her lower back.
The impact of her landing had further lodged the pieces into her spine.
As it stood, there were days she wished she hadn’t lived because all the shrapnel had left behind was a piece of meat with a mind that could now only reminisce on what it was like to walk around and move her arms.
She looked out of her open bedroom door into the modest apartment she had shared with her mother ever since her release from the hospital,
but she avoided glancing into the long mirror that hung next to it.
Despite the thin scar that ran down the left side of her face,
she was strikingly beautiful with long, raven-black hair, and green eyes;
if it weren’t for the muscle atrophy,
she would probably still have a good figure too,
but that didn’t matter now.
No one would ever want someone like her.
She had often thought of what it would have been like to die that day and save her mother the humiliation of taking care of all her basic needs. Instead, the 4th-floor walkup in the Ramat-Gan District of Tel Aviv was now her prison.
Flying had been a dream of hers since she was little, and every time she had gotten into a cockpit,
her troubles seemed to melt away as she rose into the sky.
Now, all she had were her memories and dreams. That is all she would ever have.
She still had friends who came by to see how she was doing,
but those visits grew further and further apart with every passing month.
She didn’t really mind it anymore,
because this way, she didn’t have to endure the same look that was always in their eyes- pity.
It was bad enough when her mother had friends over.
They would look at her, ask how she was, and give her the same
“Thank you for your service,” remark,
which really meant
‘thanks for doing your duty,’ and ‘better it was you than my child.’
She hated it, truly hated that saying and what it implied.
Luckily for her mother,
the Israeli Defense Force had taken care of her financially.
She was on full disability, had doctors that made house calls, and as long as she didn’t plan to buy a Ferrari or take trips to Tahiti,
she could live comfortably.
She didn’t think Tahiti would be good this time of year anyway.
Her doctors often quoted new drugs or equipment that would ‘improve the quality of her life.’
That was a joke since she no longer had one.
Every day was the same: her mother would come in to change her waste bag, give her a bath, and then open the shades so that Shira could look upon the world she was no longer allowed to be a part of. She would watch TV, usually something her mother wanted to watch like Soaps or a talk show, and then nap for a while.
While her mother brought her food, they would talk about this and that.
Eventually, it would be time for bed, and the process would start all over again come morning. Shira believed she was going insane.
She wasn’t positive, but she’d had her suspicions for a while.
Morbid thoughts that had once shocked her would now release a chuckle or a smile,
and the idea of ending her life took up most of her waking moments as she tried to figure out the best way to do it.
She couldn’t ask her mother for help.
She was progressive, but still held to certain older strictures of the Jewish religion,
and what Shira had in mind was a sin.
Her mother didn’t have it in her.
She took a sip of water from a long straw that was positioned near her mouth for such occasions.
With a sigh, a few tears escaped her eyes and trailed down her face.
She was stuck, and she knew it.
Suddenly, the television clicked on to a blank screen.
Shira watched as words began to appear, and when they were done, a small cry escaped her pale lips along with a breathless
“yes.” The simple phrase on the TV was:
W O U L D U L I K E T O F L Y
CHAPTER
EIGHT
EIGHT
Mad House
“Next!” the intern called out to the line of waiting patients.
Davidovich Vasiliev, or Davi, as he was called to anyone who knew him, even in passing, shuffled up to the cart and smiled at the tall young man.
It was Simon.
He liked Simon.
The broad-shouldered intern was always nice to him and never had a mean word for anyone, not even the most difficult patient.
“Good Morning Davi. Are you ready for your medication?”
Simon asked, his Russian a little broken as it was not his first language.
“Good Morning Simon,” Davi said in a whisper while Simon poked around on the cart.
Davi admired the man’s clean pressed uniform and shoes that had been shined so thoroughly that you could see yourself in them.
The young blonde orderly located the cup with Davi’s name on it and gently handed the pills to him.
He waited while Davi emptied the small cup into his mouth and accepted the water Simon offered him.
“Thank you,” he said pleasantly,
as he opened his mouth to show the underside of his tongue and the inside of both cheeks before the young man could even ask him to.
Simon examined Davi’s mouth,
and when he was satisfied,
he nodded at Davi and clapped him on the shoulder to let him know he was done.
Simon grabbed up the clipboard and wrote a note next to Davi’s name.
His handwriting was always neat and precise, much like the orderly himself.
Davi said his goodbyes and quietly went back to his room.
Once there, he closed the door and grabbed up a small washcloth.
He only paused long enough to ensure his roommate was not there before he quickly spit out the pills that had been stuck to the roof of his mouth, obscured from view by his front teeth.
He folded the small towel and then put it on the floor.
He stepped on it gently,
trying to be as quiet as possible,
and wincing every time the weight of his foot caused the pills to make a cracking sound.
Once he was satisfied,
Davi picked up the towel and opened it to examine his handiwork.
He poked at the remnants to ensure all the big pieces of the pills had been broken down.
Then, with purpose, Davi he strode over to the toilet and dipped the towel into the bowl.
He repeatedly wrung it out to ensure all of the medication had been rinsed off,
then ran his hand over the terrycloth,
examining his palm after each pass.
Davi nodded in satisfaction,
seeing no pill residue on his hand,
and then flushed the toilet with his foot while he hung the small rag on the shower rod.
It was a trick he had learned during his first week in the Serbsky Institute:
his prison after he was fired from MIT and deported home two months ago.
Appa
rently, a person with a severe mental illness can’t hold a sensitive position in a lab,
and more importantly,
can’t keep a Visa to stay in the country.
He sighed. They would never have found out had he not blown up the lab trying to kill those damn gremlins.
He walked over to the window, placed his hands on the steel bars, and looked through the wire-reinforced glass.
It was summer, and the sun had warmed the air to an almost uncomfortable temperature.
The view from the institute left a lot to be desired since it sat in the middle of Moscow, with only the drab grey of other buildings and the small brick street visible from the institution’s window.
He desperately wished he could see more grass.
It was amazing what you missed when you could no longer see even the small things you once took for granted.
Davi pressed his forehead against the glass and closed his eyes.
The mid-day heat radiated from it as he broke out into a sweat.
Davi missed the heat and the smells of summer.
He had forgotten what that was like,
incarcerated in the scent of bleached sheets and antiseptic cleaner in this place.
With a sigh, Davi walked over to his dresser and pulled out a pair of loose sweats and a t-shirt.
The standard uniform of a mental patient, he inwardly chuckled as he began to strip off last night’s clothes.
As Davi dressed, he began to recite prime numbers in his head,
starting with 1, to help him keep his mind sharp. He tried to keep his mind sharp.
It was an uphill battle.
That’s why he hated the pills so much;
they made him groggy and fogged his mind, making even the most mundane thoughts difficult. One day, he would be released and get back into a lab, and he wanted to be sure his mind was still as keen as the day he got dumped in this awful place. He kept glancing up at the vent lodged in the ceiling above his bed.
Davi knew the gremlins kept an eye on him here. They were just waiting until he was back in a lab somewhere working to torment him.
Waiting until he would enter back into a lab, waiting until he was working to torture him.
It was okay.
The doctors had told him that the gremlins weren’t real, but of course, they were;
it was just the doctors that could not see them.
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