by Tracy Korn
He looks over at me as I climb into my chair, then smiles and nods just a little as his seat conforms to him. The neural link rods hover over his temples, and I watch the lights running across the front of his shoulders blink blue and white until everything washes out.
***
Strips of color appear in the whitewash background until I see red, smokeless torchlight in the corners, wooden beams, then concrete blocks making up the windowless walls around us. Wooden beams run across the low ceiling too, and the floor is made of concrete. Is this some kind of bunker? I think.
A tall, white-haired man is gripping Arco's shoulders and talking seriously, looking him right in the eyes, while Lyden and Vox stand on either side of him. Fraya and Myra are standing behind me as a very tall, very thin woman suddenly grips my shoulders.
"Rinna, you know he won't stop until they listen to him, but you must make him listen," the woman says. Her eyes are so light blue they're almost translucent, and her pale skin shimmers in the red light.
"Wha—I mean, who has to—?" I start to ask, then suck in a breath when I see the gill flap open and close on her neck.
"Kray," the woman says, looking over her shoulder at Arco, who is now wearing a black cloak. The tall, thin man standing in front of him lifts the hood over Arco's head, then passes one to both Vox and Lyden. "He will listen to you," the woman adds, pulling my attention back to her.
"What am I supposed to make him listen to?" I ask, panicking when several other abnormally tall, thin people pull open doors the size of the wall itself. Several of their children pick up torch bases, then pull red flames up in their hands just like Arwyn and the Vishan. I nearly swallow my tongue.
"Rinna? Are you listening?" The tall woman asks, snapping my attention back to her.
"Yes, sorry…what?" I stammer.
"He must convince the others of our gifts, not engage in hostility. We are on the same side as the Council, and he must promote peace among the unprotected." The woman swings a dark cloak like Arco's over my shoulders, then covers my head with the hood just before pushing me toward the blinding light of the open door.
"Wait, now? We're talking to people now?" I ask, turning to Fraya and Myra, both of their eyes wide.
"Yes, child. It is the Gathering time."
"Gathering time?" I repeat, remembering the Vishan's Gathering when they burned the tribal scars onto Liv and Rav.
"They will not listen to me on this, I'm telling you," Arco says to the tall, pale man escorting him, Vox, and Lyden to the doors. "I don't believe in this. I don't believe the Council!" Arco raises his voice, and everyone in the bunker stops talking, moving, and maybe even breathing.
"Kray, we've discussed your responsibility to your people as their chosen representative," the pale man finally says. "You must quell this uprising."
The color fades from Arco's face, and I feel my chest freeze in the wake of his reaction. He tries to say something, but the words won't come out.
"Go to him, Rinna. He must address the untreated," the tall woman pushes me into the growing circle around Arco, which snaps his attention to me. Loud chants start in the dark outside the open doors, which makes several people rush to close them.
"No!" the pale man shouts. "Let the untreated come to Kray if he will not go to them. Let them come for all the Transcendents if he will not protect us."
"I'm not authorizing anything!" Arco shouts.
Authorizing? I think, "Arco—I mean, Kray, look at me," I say, but Arco is completely absorbed in a conversation that only he seems to be having. He's seeing something, I think.
One of them has to be the Glyph, Lyden says in my head. I look around for him, but don't see him anywhere in the crowd.
"Tell them how the Council gave us light in the dark," someone behind Arco says.
"The breath in our lungs!" another says.
Arco shakes his head when a few more of the tall, pale people behind him shout instructions. "You must choose, Kray! They will only listen to you!"
"Tell them to accept Transcendence! Save them from themselves!"
The crowd outside the bunker closes in on us, pushing us through the door into the darkness just as the crowd from outside approaches us. I scan for Vox and the others, but they've been swallowed into the group too.
"Jazz!" Arco shouts, his eyes wide and wild as he scans for me. A few seconds later, someone grabs my shoulders and pulls me onto a rolling platform.
"Kill the mutants!" someone yells once we're several feet from the bunker.
"Resist the Transcendence!"
Two tall, pale girls are hauled onto the platform with us, along with Fraya, Myra, and a very young boy.
"Stop!" Arco shouts just as a sheet of red fire flies up from his shoulders. The crowd quiets down, but several short, tanned men jump up on our platform and hold us all in place.
"Let Kray speak!" someone yells.
"He's Transcendent! He's not one of us anymore!"
"I am one of you!" Arco yells over the crowd as the sheet of red fire shrinks to a glow. Lyden and Vox move in behind him. "We can't keep fighting each other like this!" he says, meeting my eyes. I nod at him. "We are not the enemy…"
"He's right! It's the Council! They're the ones stealing our humanity!"
"They're trying to save humanity!" a pale, thin man a few feet from Arco shouts. "What will happen in a hundred years when the lands completely flood and the seas boil? Will you condemn your grandchildren?"
"At least we will die out as human beings!" someone else shouts from within the crowd of short, tanned people.
The crowd mumbles again, and Arco raises his arms to completely quiet everyone. "Is that what you're calling yourselves now, dragging people off in the night, ready to kill them out of fear?" he yells, pointing to our platform.
"They cannot choose our fate!" someone in the crowd replies.
"I'm not authorizing any termination!" Arco shouts in answer, then pushes the heels of his hands into his eyes.
His interview…I think. Rheen told him to 'authorize the termination of those he did not choose'. It's the Glyph trying to scare him off…
"Promise him, Kray!" I shout above everyone. "Shake his hand and promise you will not…authorize their termination." Arco looks up at me, his brows slowly relaxing until I think he understands…find that man…that's the Glyph, I think, wishing he could hear my thoughts. He takes a deep breath and straightens.
"Who was brave enough to speak up? Who said 'they cannot choose our fate'?" Lyden shouts, scanning the crowd, but no one comes forward.
"I will give you my word in front of everyone here that no one will choose your fate!" Arco says, his voice leveling.
"And what good is your word?" the same man yells from somewhere in the crowd.
Arco's fire completely disappears as he steps away from Lyden, Vox, and the other tall, pale people behind him.
A tanned, hairy man steps toward Arco now too, and those around him clear a path. Arco extends his hand to the man, who doesn't move to receive it.
"If my word isn't good enough for you here, then take me with you to the Council. I'll tell them myself—just let the others go," Arco says, making the crowd stir again with a mix of both cheers and protests. After a few minutes of conferring with several people around him, the man speaks up again.
"All right! Take him, release the Transcendents," the man says, and two men move to grab Arco as others shoo us off the rolling platform.
"Under one condition!" Arco shouts over the growing chaos. "You take me yourself. Choose one of these others if you have to, but have the courage to act as well as talk," he adds, throwing off his dark cloak, his arms bared in the long, belted tunic he's wearing.
The man's eyes narrow as he raises his chin at Arco, then nods. He waves off the man on the left and grabs Arco's arm himself.
"Arco!" Myra shouts. Arco looks up at me, then mouths the words, One…two…as he's hauled off past us. "Jazz, we have to do something!" Myra shakes my shoul
der, and a few seconds later, everything fades to white.
CHAPTER 39
Ghosts in the Queue
Liddick
The technician snaps closed the hologram of older Jazz's leg, and I'm still not sure if I heard Rheen's lookalike right…did she call her Ridley? I scan for the lieutenant's nameplate, but the glare from the med bay ceiling light makes it impossible to read.
"Don't put any weight on that for 24 hours, Lieutenant," the technician says, fixing a band in place just above Ridley's knee. When she touches the ends together, the band starts to glow blue. "This will help repair the surrounding area."
"Get some rest, Lieutenant," Rheen's doppelgänger says, then crosses to a white pedestal-style console and begins typing. A hover chair appears from under the lieutenant's table, and the technician helps her into it. When the light shifts, I can finally make out her nameplate: it is Ridley. I try to swallow, but my throat has already started closing up. What's going on in this cine?
"Don't let her…talk you into sending…anyone else down there, Folger," Ridley manages under her breath, fading out as the chair carries her past me and through the med bay doors. The technician follows her, and I blink hard to stabilize the images that flicker in and out of rows of scrolling code the farther away they get.
"She's dangerous to the cause, Folger," Greene says after a second, jerking my attention back to her.
"Who? Ridley?"
"She doesn't understand that this is everyone's fight. It's only a matter of time before they lose their minds and start killing each other down there. The Transcendents want our help to save their people," Greene says, relaying all this like she's being recorded. "What do they have left down there now? 70, 80 years before Evion Eight and Halcyon are both completely uninhabitable?" Greene continues as she waves a white baton over my chest. I flinch, instantly seeing her as Rheen with that neural baton at the Phase Two facility. Her eyes widen at me as I get to my feet. "Folger? What's wrong? Lie back down so I can check your—"
"I'm all right," I say too abruptly, then nod to her as she finishes tapping into the hologram at the side of my head. "I just need some sleep."
She half smiles, which surprises me since I'm used to the sneer on Rheen's face.
"Your eardrum is repaired—you're lucky it didn't rupture. Just try not to sneeze for the rest of the night," she adds with a wink that seems …out of character, except I wouldn't know anything about this character yet since I was just dropped into this cine. Do I feel like I know more about her because of the storyboarder clearance? I wonder. "Cathcart forwarded the latest brief to your room, but if you're not feeling up to meeting with the representatives tomorrow, I don't mind going in your place," she adds as I make my way to the door.
"I'm sure I'll be fine," I say, then wave off the beginning of what I somehow know will be more protesting. I need to find the older Jazz…I mean, Ridley, I think, heading down the narrow white corridor, where a floating holographic map appears in front of my face. "Widgets, excellent," I say under my breath, happy to see this storyboarder credential comes with something useful. I start pushing the map widget around with two fingers to see where the hell I am on this ship.
"Gaia is trying to lead a global initiative," a man behind me says.
I turn to face him, but apparently too quickly because I just see another wall of scrolling blue code. I narrow my eyes and try to focus on pulling out the images.
"What was that?" I ask.
"I said I haven't heard that term since I was a kid…" the man says, coming into focus now. He's a little taller than I am with a professor's goatee and short, brownish hair, which is gray at the temples.
"That's not what you—" I start, then feel cold water run down my spine. Is that supposed to be Hart? I look at him harder—it is him, but older, just like Ridley.
"You OK, Captain?"
"Yeah," I say, somehow out of breath. "I mean…what term? You said you haven't heard that term since you were a kid," I ask.
"Widgets," he tries to laugh, then looks me up and down. "You did just come from the med bay, right?"
I nod, still trying to put the pieces together. I need to get somewhere to think.
"Right, there was a little explosion down on…um…" What was the name of that stupid planet again?
"Halcyon?" he asks after a minute, dipping his chin and raising an eyebrow at me like I'm the biggest tweaker he's ever met.
"Right…Halcyon," I repeat. He narrows his eyes at me, then nods and blows out a breath just as I notice the lieutenant rank on his collar and his nameplate: Cathcart. What is this? Rheen—Greene, Ripley—Ridley…Hart—Cathcart…I think. Am I…generating these characters?
"Should I get Dr. Greene?" Cathcart asks. I shake my head.
"No, I'm all right. I just need to get somewhere to think," I say. "Greene said something about a brief you forwarded to me?"
"Uh, yes, sir. It's just…it's about the latest atmospheric readings from Halcyon. The radiation sickness is progressing faster than we thought down there," he says, holding up the tablet in his hand. "We're going to run out of time before we can reach the rest of the colony…"
"And you've no doubt discussed this with Lieutenant Ridley already, Lieutenant Cathcart?" Greene says, walking up behind him. She shoots me a know-it-all look.
"Yes, ma'am, but—"
"That will be all, Lieutenant. The Captain needs to rest." Cathcart thins his lips and nods, then nods to me before heading back the way he came. She watches him go, then turns back to me. "Folger, you're too casual with these new officers. It sends the wrong message. I'll walk you to your quarters so I know you'll actually get there this time," Greene says, extending her hand to the corridor in front of us, then starts walking.
"He said the radiation sickness is progressing faster than we thought. Shouldn't you know something about that if you're the doctor here?" I say, too harshly. Relax, Wright, I think. That's not really Rheen. None of this is real…no matter how real it seems.
"I was going to discuss that with you after you had a night's sleep, but yes. At this rate, we have about a week before the sickness begins interfering with their ability to articulate language."
"A week?"
"It's a slippery slope once the radiation reaches the prefrontal cortex. They've already lost much of their rational thought processes because we've delayed in approving more teams…" Greene says, then looks at me like she's waiting for a reaction. I don't give her one. "Folger, it won't be long before the only language they know is violence. We need to send more crews to the surface. There are children in those colonies," she adds.
I open my mouth to reply, but the words are stopped in my throat when a mob cine flashes in front of my eyes…people fighting, slashing, biting each other, and then it's gone. A split second of chaos, and my first thought is to wonder if I even really saw it at all.
"What's—" I start to ask her what's happening, what's wrong with this cine, but then I realize no one here can tell me. I'm in this alone.
"In partnership with the Carboderm Corporation and Biotech Global, port-cloud resources have safely funded Gaia's students for decades," Greene says, clearly. My eyes snap to hers.
"Repeat exactly what you just said to me," I say, letting my focus on the image of her fall away so I can see the code behind it.
Greene's expression is confused until it gives way to lines of blue code, which flickers in places when she repeats herself. Only, she doesn't repeat herself.
"I just said the partnership between the Transcendent Council and Global Cloud Fleet has been strong for decades. We can't abandon them now…" Greene says narrowing her eyes at me. "I think I should take you back to the med bay for another scan, Folger." Her image fleshes out again as she slips her bony fingers with the red dragon lady nails around my arm. I rip it away from her.
"No, I'm fine. Just edgy and tired. I'll see you tomorrow, Dr. Greene."
She closes her mouth, which had fallen open, then nods and presse
s her lips into a thin red line before walking away. I make my way through the door to my quarters, finally able to stop for five seconds and think.
The room isn't elaborate—small, with a white moulded table and a holographic screen that is already generated.
"Halcyon atmosphere report is in queue, Captain," a female voice says, which can only be the room's computer like in the Xenotrope trilogy.
"Later," I say, walking toward the star portal window. I lean my forehead against it and flatten my hands over the cold glass composite. I close my eyes and see nothing but code again, so I open them fast. Wait…I think, then slowly close my eyes one more time. "Reveal subliminal text," I say out loud, then watch the symbol patterns behind my eyelids flicker from blue to red in places again. "Latin alphabet. No encryption," I say, hoping there's something to this storyboarder credential. After a second, the red characters actually change to words, and I laugh, letting out the breath I've apparently been holding.
|
I am generating these characters…I think, then read more of the code:
|
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"What is this? Propaganda?" I say to myself. "You think pulling people out of my head and putting your words in their mouths will make me believe them? Is that what your idiot programmers think?" I almost shout now, but then take a breath.
"Captain, we have a situation," a woman's voice rushes through my head and obliterates the code; I open my eyes. The white walls of the room around me appear slowly in patches until everything is back to normal again.
"What is it?" I say through my teeth, looking around to see where the voice is coming from, then realize there's an intercom in my wrist cuff.
"It's Halcyon, sir. The Council representatives insist on speaking with you before tomorrow."
