“Thirty seconds,” the voice in her helmet said.
An opening appeared on the wall. Who cares.
They shoved the rest of the Dreamers through the doorway, then Moirah and David carried Azalia inside to a much smaller version of the clone room. No more than a dozen pods lay on its sides.
David grabbed the device strapped around his thigh and pressed it against the wall, right next to the door.
“Ten seconds.”
Lehmor barrelled into the room. The door shut behind him. “Do it!” he screamed at David.
The device’s dark skin turned silver.
“Nine…”
A blue light blinked.
“Eight…”
Slow at first, then faster, the light pulsed.
“Seven…”
Agonizingly slow, a beam of pale blue light shot from the device to the ceiling.
“Six…”
A second beam burst downwards.
“Five…”
The two beams expanded onto the ceiling and ground.
“Four…”
They met on the opposite wall.
“Three…”
The beam now shot left and right, over their heads and under their feet.
“Two…”
It covered all the room, leaving a faint iridescent flicker behind it before returning to the device. Moirah grabbed Lehmor’s hand.
“One…”
Moirah fixed her eyes on the bubble surrounding them. Sudden doubt filled her heart. Would it even hold? She shut her eyes and squeezed her husband’s hand.
The lights flickered, then died. Even through the iridescent skin of light keeping them safe, they felt a rumble. The ground shook. Dust fell from the ceiling. A red light filled the room. It passed over the bubble, then disappeared behind them.
We’re still alive! She wished she could read Lehmor’s expression. As if reading her mind, he slid his palm over his helmet to reveal his taut face. She mimicked him, wondering if her face was as drawn as his.
Their eyes locked. Their mouths met.
“Go for it.” Azalia released Moirah’s arm before pushing her into Lehmor’s arms.
Their bodies melted against each other. Moirah closed her eyes and traced Lehmor’s face with her fingers as they drank from each other’s mouths. One of her hands pressed his head towards her. The other held his back, holding him close to her. Tears streaked down their faces, bringing a salty flavour to their unbroken kiss. It’s over. It’s finally over.
City of Oras
Lehmor
They had made it! Lehmor could hardly believe it. Everyone around him cheered and whistled in joy. He touched his brow against Moirah’s and wiped the tears from their eyes, enjoying the moment.
Cyrus’s voice crackled in his ears. “…there?”
“Cyrus?”
“Lehmor! Thank the Lady. We thought you guys were…” His voice trailed off.
“Everyone’s fine,” Moirah said. “We are in the matrix room.” She took a reluctant step back, her hand dropping on Lehmor’s waist.
“And the clones?” Cyrus asked.
“Dead,” Lehmor said.
“How many casualties?” Azalia asked.
With a twist of his hand, Lehmor shut off the conversation. His mission was not over yet. Not until he had rescued Oran. He squeezed Moirah’s hand, then stepped away to examine the small room. Only half the pods were lit. The ones on the opposite wall probably serve as sarcophagi.
He pushed aside Dreamers caught in their celebrations to make his way to the far end of the room, where a small white desk stood. As soon as he approached, a seat shot up from the ground. He touched it. The fine white material followed the contours of his fingers.
When he lowered his body onto the seat, myriads of thoughts flooded his mind. Full immersion? The question echoed in his mind. He shot up and stared at the chair in disbelief. After a moment, he sat down again. This time, he let the thoughts flow through him, become part of him. Full immersion? He closed his eyes. Yes. The surroundings faded away.
He found himself lost in a swirling mist. “Oran?” he cried out.
“Pratin?” a voice asked.
Lehmor spun around, searching for the voice’s origin. “No. Lehmor.”
The mist morphed into a familiar shape. “Lehmor?” Oran’s eyes betrayed his surprise. “He trapped you, too?”
“I’ve come to rescue you.” Lehmor hoped his voice did not betray the fact that he had no idea how to do that.
Oran sat on the ground. The mist disappeared. Lehmor found himself on a sandy beach. Tiny blue flowers covered the sand. The waters had an orange colour, mimicking the light in the sky. They licked the sand, then withdrew in small waves. Ancient trees with fat, smooth trunks shielded the beach from a scalding hot wind. Their peeling bark shone in an iridescent light. The leaves covering the slender branches were the colour of rust, although under a different light they might have been purple. They swayed in the wind like anemones. The air felt different, thicker, as if they were underwater. “Is this…”
“Our planet?” A bitter smile played on Oran’s lips. “Yes. Or its memory, anyway.”
A splash in the water caught Lehmor’s eye. Thousands of lobster-like creatures played in the waters, making gurgling noises. They ran onto the beach to roll into the sand before jumping back into the water. Lehmor guessed the sound was laughter.
Oran followed his gaze. “My children.”
“I’m sorry,” Lehmor said. “Do you even wish to return?”
Oran grinned. “Why don’t you tell me what happened first?”
Lehmor explained what had happened since they had last met. Oran listened quietly, only interrupting a couple of times to ask for clarifications. By the time Lehmor finished his story, four more Iotas had gathered around them. A fifth one came to stand behind him. Lehmor turned his head to address the new arrival. His breath caught.
“Pratin!” Lehmor jumped to his feet. “What…”
Pratin lowered his eyes. “I’m sorry for the pain my avatar has caused you.”
“Avatar?” Lehmor’s brow furrowed.
“We’re the original Oras,” Oran explained. “Or at least their memories. Every time we get cloned, we absorb our clones’ experiences. So few of us are left by now, that we can clone ourselves hundreds of times and still not fill our city.”
“A clone is an avatar,” Lehmor guessed.
Oran nodded. “Exactly.”
Lehmor’s brow creased. “What are you, then?”
Oran scratched his chin in thought. “When our planet died, we transferred our consciousness…” His voice trailed off as the wrinkles on Lehmor’s face deepened. “Our essence,” he corrected himself. Lehmor’s face lit up. “We transferred our essence into a machine. Everything that made us us – our thoughts, our memories. Everything is stored here, but we can copy it into our clones, our avatars. When an avatar dies, his experiences return to us and they’re absorbed by our essence. His memories become ours. Our next avatar remembers everything that’s happened so far.”
“Not always,” Pratin interrupted him. “My avatar stopped the procedure before his experiences filtered down to me. He knew I would have stopped him otherwise.”
“Would you?” Lehmor snapped at him.
“Yes!” Pratin’s eyes widened in surprise. “Of course! My avatar exposed our presence to everyone, broke our most basic rules. I won’t be reborn for centuries. I must absorb his experiences, figure out what went wrong.”
Lehmor glared at him. “So you don’t get punished?”
“Punished?” Pratin let out a bitter chuckle. The sea and the sand faded away. Hard, grey stone took their place. Only a cold breeze broke the eerie silence. Dead, empty space surrounded them. Nothing grew on the barren, desolate ground.
“We’re dead, Lehmor.” A dark cloud descended over Pratin’s face. “There’s no feeling here. Only our consciousness exists. We hold lonely vigil over the memory of a world
long gone. This”—he waved his hand towards the scorched earth—“is where you go to survive when there’s no other choice. You can’t die here, because you’re not real. No one can take your life from you here, because you haven’t got one.” Agony flashed in his eyes. “I have lost everything. Family, children, friends. My world. I have nothing but memories left. Do you wish to take them, too? Be my guest. Perhaps I can finally rest then.”
“He doesn’t understand, Pratin.” Oran placed a hand on Lehmor’s shoulder. “Even before the humans arrived, we had dedicated our lives to the pursuit of knowledge. Immortality was the price we paid to keep learning. Evolving. Now, it’s the price for remembering.”
“How can immortality be bad?” Lehmor asked.
“You’re right. He doesn’t understand.” Pratin turned to face Lehmor. “You wanted to punish me, but you can’t fight pain with pain. Only with love. With no one to love us, immortality means eternal pain.”
“You control this. You could forget the pain,” Lehmor said.
“To deny our suffering is to deny our lives,” Oran said, his face hardening. “Our world still lives, even if it’s just a memory. But only as long as we remember it. The day we forget, it will forever die.” He steepled his fingers. “Yes, we have control. But we have chosen to relinquish it. Someday, we hope to push through the pain to find happiness. Some of us already have. Others have given up. We’re all free to do so.”
Lehmor ran his fingers through his hair. This might be the last time I meet Oran! “Will I see you again?”
“Why did you save us?” Pratin asked, instead of an answer. “You jeopardised everything to do so.”
“Oran…” Lehmor hesitated. “Oran’s my friend. My teacher.”
“You have proved yourself to be a friend of the Iotas. You could stay with us,” Pratin offered. “I doubt this world would mean much to you, but a lifetime of learning does have its appeal.” He chuckled. “It might even do wonders for your vocabulary.”
“Pratin!” Oran reprimanded him. “Lehmor, you could also return to your family, live out your life. If you wish to return later, that’s fine, too.”
Why would I want this? Still, immortality… A lifetime of learning. “I need to think about it,” Lehmor said after a moment.
Oran smiled. “As well you should.”
“What about the Whispers?”
Oran shook his head. “They’re not ours to control. You have to deal with them on your own.”
“And you?” Lehmor asked.
“We have a lot of work,” Oran said with a sigh. “We’ll probably spend centuries studying what went wrong. When we re-emerge, everyone on the planet should have forgotten about us.”
Lehmor coughed to clear his throat. “Why don’t you want to rule the world?”
Oran placed a hand on his shoulder. “Because we remember. We know what we really are. We are here to learn, not get caught up in the illusions of the world. Ruling the world is just another illusion.”
Lehmor shrugged. “Isn’t everything?”
Oran shook his head. “No. Love is real. It’s what made you risk everything.”
The sky turned brighter. Lehmor shielded his eyes as his surroundings exploded into light. When he lowered his hand, he found himself back in the matrix room, dozens of eyes staring at him.
Moirah rushed to him. “What happened? You gave us such a scare!”
She helped him to his feet. His legs trembled under him; he had not realised how exhausted he was. He longed to spend a lifetime with the woman he loved. With any luck, his fighting days were over, at least for a while. It was now a time to re-join their tribe, to claim back their life. To raise their daughter. Immortality could wait.
He smiled a grateful smile to his wife as he steadied himself on her arm. “Let’s go home.”
Anthea
Sol
The earthy aroma from the dish before her made Sol’s mouth water. She broke a piece of bread and dunked it in the rich mushroom sauce. The thought of the frown this would cause on her old maid’s face brought a smile to her lips. She grabbed the bread defiantly and shoved it into her mouth. Anyway, only Satori was present. Sol licked her fingers, savouring the delicious flavour. “So, how’s our guest doing?”
Satori dug her fork into a potato, swirling it around to catch the sauce. It was one of the things Sol loved about her. The young woman reminded her so much of herself. Even the scars on their faces were complementary. The scar an arrow had left on Sol’s face during the assassination attempt on Temple Hill started from right above her left eye, whereas the deep gash left on Satori’s face during the fall of Ephia ended above her right one, disappearing into her ebony hair.
“Who, Gella?” Satori mumbled with her mouth full.
Speaking with a full mouth – this was something else the old maid would disapprove of. Sol fought a smile as she wiped her mouth with a linen napkin, enjoying the silence for a moment. Only the crackle of the fireplace breaking the November chill was heard in the room, gentle accompaniment to the soft patter of rain on the window. It all made her feel safe, serene, like a small girl about to go to bed. “Who else?”
Satori tapped her fingers on the wooden table. “Well, she’s good with the men. She drives them to the point of exhaustion, but never beyond. Did you know she fought with Parad?”
The smile on Sol’s face could hardly be contained. Of course she knew that, and more. But she did not want to break Satori’s enthusiasm, so she bowed her head, seemingly to study her food, while nodding for Satori to continue.
“Well, she did. She’s also using a lot of Scorpio’s training on the men. Not the hard stuff, she claims, but I’ll be damned if that’s her going easy.” She paused for a moment, a bemused look on her face. “Does that sentence make sense?”
“Sure.” Sol cut up her meat. It was slightly overdone, so she soaked it in sauce in an attempt to tenderise it before raising the fork to her mouth.
“Then there are her seminars.”
“Seminars?” Sol had not heard of that, and she cocked an eyebrow.
“Well, not real ones. That’s just what we call them. She instructs officers in Capital manoeuvres and tactics.” Satori paused, as if her next words pained her. “Her tactical skills are impressive.”
Sol spat out a hard piece of meat on her fork, then shovelled it on her plate’s edge. She would have to have a word with the cook. “But?”
Satori leaned back, crossing her arms. “But nothing.”
“But?” Sol insisted.
Satori puffed. “She treats everyone like she knows better. Take today, for instance. She—”
“Does she?” Sol interrupted her.
“Does she what?” Satori scowled.
“Does she know better?”
“Yes, but that’s not the point. She—”
“What’s the point, then?”
“if you stop interrupting me, I’ll tell you.” Satori glared at Sol, who motioned her to continue, struggling not to grin. “She’s bossy and arrogant and…”
When she paused to search for another word, Sol finished her sentence. “And she’s the Butcher of Ephia.”
Satori’s full lips were pulled into a frown as she worried her lower lip between white teeth. “And she’s the Butcher of Ephia,” she repeated, deflated.
Sol wiped her lips and took a sip of water, flavoured with a lemon slice. She took Satori’s hand in hers. “I understand.” Satori tried to draw her hand away, but Sol held fast. “I really do. But I can’t bear the thought of anything happening to you. Or to my city. And Gella can see to that.” She leaned forward to lock her eyes with Satori’s. “Are you telling me she’s wrong for the job?”
After a moment, Satori looked away and let out a soft sigh. “She’s perfect for the job. She can have the men ready for anything Altman throws at us.”
“Then, can you work with her?” Sol insisted.
“I don’t have a choice, do I?” Her lips pursed. “But I don’t have
to like it,” she added in a plaintive voice after a moment.
Sol laughed at this and patted her hand. “No, you don’t. We’d all be better off if she were less of a soldier and more of a politician. But there’s only one way to make no mistakes.”
Satori arched an eyebrow, noticing the smile playing in Sol’s eyes. “What?”
“There was this great general, who was an archery master. He searched throughout the land to find his match, but bested everyone. One day he came across a tiny village. All trees around it had bullseyes on them. Right at its centre, they all had an arrow. ‘This is incredible,’ he thought to himself. ‘I have to meet this man who has not missed a single shot.’ He waited until a little girl came by and started to collect the arrows. ‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘Do you know who shot these?’ ‘Sure,’ the girl replied. ‘I did.’ The man was aghast. How could a little girl draw her bow with such accuracy? ‘I have to know your secret,’ he pleaded with her. ‘Will you show me how you do it?’ ‘Sure,’ the girl replied, and fired an arrow at a trunk. When it dug deep into the wood, she pulled some chalk out of her pocket and drew a bullseye around it. ‘Bullseye!’ she said grinning widely.”
Satori burst into laughter. Sol mimicked her for a moment, before turning serious again. “Anyway, before you tell me what Gella did today, I have some news about your father.”
The laughter froze on Satori’s lips. Her hand twitched under Sol’s fingers. “Oh.”
Sol kept her tone deliberately neutral. “Have you heard from him?”
Satori pulled her hand to grab her fork and stab her meat. “Why would I’ve heard of him? He doesn’t even know I’m here.”
“He might, now that he’s the Capital’s number two.” Sol watched Satori cut up her meat and shove the fork into her mouth, chewing loudly. “From what I hear, he’s doing a lot of good,” Sol continued.
“For a traitor,” Satori mumbled, her mouth full.
Sol fought a sigh. “We all have our breaking points. Altman knew his. Paul would do anything for you. But he’s a good man. You must remember that.”
Satori pushed the plate away. “I’m not hungry anymore.”
Pearseus Bundle: The Complete Pearseus Sci-fi/Fantasy Series Page 86
