Darkness Between the Stars

by J. Edward Neill

  She flitted off my shoulder and hovered right in front of me. I had to admit; the way she shrugged at me was so cute it almost made me smile.

  “I could see where you’d think that,” she said. “But it’s not true. I’m not allowed to plug into any of their computers. The room they birthed me in…it’s not connected to any other part of the fortress. They don’t tell me much. Doctor Abid says it’s because he wants me to grow up with you. Something about the bond created between those who spend time together without exterior influences.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You see? You called it a fortress. You know what people put in fortresses are, right? Prisoners. And c’mon, Cal. You’re an A.I. I’m sure by now you’ve learned everything there is to know.”

  “Wrong again.” She pouted. “My learning capacity is deliberately paced. Except for my initial knowledge base, I learn at roughly the same rate as a human. Now…if they plug me in and download specific things directly into my nano-cortex, I learn it right away. But for everything else, I have to do it like you. Slow.”

  Great, I thought. She thinks I’m slow.

  I looked her straight in her tiny eyes. It was eerie how much she resembled Tiana. The weird thing was – I’d begun to think Callista was prettier.

  I shook the thought out of my head.

  “Ok, fine.” I smirked. “What things have they downloaded into you? How to keep Joff in the dark? How to mess with a fourteen-year old’s head? How to wake me up ten minutes earlier every single day?”

  “No.”

  “Well what then?”

  “Hmmm, let’s see.” She touched her chin with her finger. “How to pilot interstellar spacecraft. How to corrupt hostile computer grids. How to solve complex equations involving trajectory, velocity, and mass. Oh, and how to fly a Sabre-class warship in live combat situations.”

  I sat up on the bench. It was safe to say my mind was blown.

  “A what class warship?”

  “Sabre-class.” She smiled so broadly I could see her miniature nano-teeth. “It’s a hyper-light speed spacecraft capable of both extra-orbital and atmospheric combat exercises. It’s equipped with the latest munitions, including micro-fracture ballistics, OTS bombs, and leech missiles. You know…the ones that never miss.”

  My mouth must’ve fallen open wide enough to eat one of the dumbbells I’d lifted all day.

  “You mean you’re some kind of war-sprite? My killer blue girlfriend or something? Let me guess, you’re not allowed to kill humans, but everything else is fair game?”

  “Actually…” She folded her arms. “The only three humans I’m not allowed to kill are Doctor Abid, Doctor Tiana, and you. And for the record…

  “…I’m not your girlfriend.”

  New Clothes

  “Joff, is that you?”

  I heard her voice and felt a lump rise in my throat. On the mess hall wallpad, I saw her face come into focus.

  “Mom!” I leapt up and stood beneath the screen. “Are you ok? Where’s Dad?”

  “Right here, Joff.”

  He walked up beside her. They were standing in our kitchen together. Both of them were crying. I snuffled back my own tears.

  Mom wiped her cheek. “Did you get the package we sent you?”

  Yes.

  Two mornings ago, I’d awoken to a thump outside my bedroom door. I’d shambled out of bed and found a little wooden box. Dad had made it using spare planks from the barn. I’d smelled the wood, and I’d known right away. Inside had been cookies, a little stale but still delicious, along with a vid-sprite from Aly, my old journal, and my skypad.

  “I got it.” I smiled at the memory. “Thanks for the skypad. Aly’s so big. I made a recording to answer hers. I think they sent it to her, but I have no idea if she watched it yet.”

  Dad put his arm around Mom. “She did, son. We heard from her just this morning. Of course, it’s just now morning there, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” I sighed. “Just now. I had griddlecakes again, but they’re not like Mom’s.”

  Mom smiled.

  I shook my head.

  I’d already guessed the fortress I lived in was on the opposite side of the world from the farm. Seeing the moonlight peer in through the kitchen window between Mom and Dad gave me the proof I needed. The thought of being so far away from home hit me harder than I expected.

  “How’re they treating you, Joff?” Mom asked. “We talk to Doctor Abid and Tiana as much as we can, but they didn’t give us much.”

  I didn’t know why, but I looked at my hands. The callouses I’d earned on the farm were gone, replaced by newer, harder ones in different places. My knuckles weren’t bruised anymore. My hands were stronger than they’d ever been.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “I mean…I’m ok.”

  That’s when it sunk in.

  I’d trained so long and hard, I’d almost forgotten how long it had been.

  A year, I thought, but didn’t say. Thirteen months and ten days.

  I was fifteen years old.

  And that morning was only the third time I’d talked to my parents since arriving.

  “I know they said you can’t tell us everything.” Mom looked worried. “But can you tell us what you’re up to? I mean…do you get any time to relax? Do you have any friends?”

  I let her questions hang in the air for a moment.

  “Just one friend,” I sighed. “Not much relaxation. It’s always training, training, training. I haven’t seen Doctor Abid or Tiana in two weeks. It’s all sprites, all the time, ferrying messages up and down the halls. Dad was right. All this tech…it’s too much.”

  “But you’re ok, right?” Mom pried.

  “Yeah. Mostly I am. I’m pretty sore most days. But they feed me well. And those cookies you made…mmmmm they were good. I’m in really good shape, I guess. I look like those weird boys Aly used to sneak peeks at on her skypad. You know, before Dad took it away.”

  They both laughed, and they both looked sad. I knew why. I wasn’t the curious, creative, shy young boy who’d grown up wrenching away at tractors and reading in the basement. I’d seen myself in the mirror and I’d heard Callista talk about it. I was a young man now, hard as nails, isolated in a world of chrome and glass.

  I wondered if they even recognized me.

  “They said something’s happening today,” I offered. “I’d tell you more, but they’re probably listening. Besides, I’m not really sure what it is. They haven’t told me anything new in a long, long time.”

  “But you’ve been training,” said Dad. “What kind of training?”

  I wanted to tell him. I really did.

  High-level mathematics, I wanted to say.

  Flight simulators.

  Psychology. Interstellar physics. Hand-to-hand combat with sprite-controlled fight dummies.

  “Mostly just strength training,” I exhaled. “A little programming. A lot of boring stuff.”

  I saw it in Mom’s face. She understood. She knew I couldn’t say more. I wanted to tell her about all the fascinating things I’d been exposed to, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t even tell her about my one and only friend, Callista.

  But Mom knew.

  And I couldn’t help but wonder if she’d always known.

  “Look, I can’t talk long,” I confessed. “They want me in the gym for something special. I think maybe they’re gonna tell me a little more about why I’m here. I mean, I have some ideas, but—”

  “It’s ok,” said Dad. “Abid told us about—”

  The screen went dark.

  Dad’s voice went silent.

  I wanted to throw a chair through the wallpad, but instead I just stood there, angry at first, then hollow inside.

  It’s a test, I told myself. They’re messing with me.

  It’s all they ever do.

  Red-faced, I walked out of the mess hall and down the corridor to the gymnasium. I passed endless windows on the way, beyond which the rain washed over the forest. It was a
vicious storm. The wind tore through the treetops and the rain hit the windows in hard sheets.

  But I couldn’t hear anything. The fortress silenced everything beyond its windows and walls.

  I craved to be out there.

  Halfway to the gymnasium, I slowed down. I couldn’t exactly hear her, but I knew Callista was floating behind me. I’d learned to sense her presence. It was strange sensation, given that she wasn’t human.

  “How’d you know?” She zoomed up beside me.

  “I always know.”

  “Nuh uh.” She made a face.

  “I can smell you.”

  “I don’t smell like anything,” she huffed.

  I started walking again. I couldn’t help but feel a little better with Callista near.

  “How would you even know about smell?” I asked her.

  “I can smell things.” She pouted. “They gave me sensor nodes. They’re calibrated to be as sensitive as humans’ are. I smell it when you eat griddlecakes. I smell your dirty socks after gym time. I can even smell the walls. They’re like this…metallic scent. I don’t really like it.”

  “Ok. I didn’t know all that,” I admitted. “So what’s your favorite smell?”

  I swore if thirty-centimeter tall nano girls could’ve blushed, Callista did so right then and there.

  “I’m not telling.” She crossed her arms.

  “Not telling?” I scoffed.

  “No.” She feigned being hurt.

  “Oh fine,” I said.

  We climbed a set of glass stairs and walked along another long corridor. The rain fell even harder outside. Callista must’ve caught me looking longingly out the windows.

  “You want to go out there,” she remarked just outside the gymnasium door.

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “I haven’t been outside since I got here. Not once. When I was a kid, no matter how rainy or cold it got, I always went outside at least once a day. Most of my work was outside. I miss it.”

  “Did you go outside even when you were sick?”

  “Sick?” I shot her a look. “What do you mean? I’ve never been sick.”

  She looked confused. “Oh.” She ran her fingers through her pretty blue hair. “I just…I thought humans got sick, that’s all.”

  I wanted to ask her what she meant, but the gymnasium door slid open and she flitted in ahead of me.

  “Come on,” she called back to me. “I think you’re going to like this.”

  I had no idea what lay in store for me.

  None at all.

  When I strode through the door, the first thing I noticed was the lighting. Instead of the cold grey lights I’d gotten used to, the whole room was lit up in an electric blue haze. It was almost the same color as Callista, only fuzzier. I walked in slowly, and I saw the exercise equipment was gone, every bit of it. The windows were blacked out and the floor left bare. It felt like I’d accidentally entered a different dimension.

  “Cal, what’s going on?”

  She floated farther ahead. The blue haze fogged the air in front of me, and I couldn’t see the far wall. I’d seen mountain fog before, but this was different. It felt alien. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go deeper into the room.

  “Joff, come onnnnn,” Callista called after me from somewhere in the haze.

  I walked ahead.

  The blue fog parted before me as though I were made of wind.

  And then I stopped.

  “Doctor?” I questioned.

  Abid and Tiana stood near the wall, wearing lab coats and unsettling smiles. It wasn’t them I cared about. It was the weird blue and silver thing standing between them. It was about my height, and it looked like a suit of armor. It had big spherical shoulders, a scary-looking chrome helmet, and chrome-silver arms and legs. The wide, angular breastplate was open from neck to groin, emitting the blue light that filled the room.

  I felt cold near it.

  It looked dangerous.

  I had no idea what I was looking at.

  “What…is it?” I wondered aloud.

  “What do you think it is?” asked Abid.

  “Um…well…it looks like a suit of armor. But not like the ones soldiers used during the Thousand Year War. It looks new.”

  “It is.” He nodded.

  It’s for me, isn’t it? I thought.

  It’s my size, maybe a little bigger, but my proportions.

  “A flight suit?” I asked. They’d had me do flight simulations in the same room I’d met Callista in, but after six months of doing the same sims over and over again, I’d begun not to care about their purpose. I thought maybe they were some sort of old world video game meant for my entertainment.

  “A flight suit…sort of,” said Abid. “Look closer.”

  Hesitant, I approached. The suit’s colors were blue and silver, almost mirrorlike in places. The joints were articulated, meaning whoever was wearing it could bend their arms and knees and still be protected by overlapping plates. The strange thing was: while the left arm looked normal, the right arm below the elbow was a long chrome tube. I looked in the round hole at its end. It was hollow.

  Being so near the suit, I couldn’t help but notice something.

  It gave off a bitter cold.

  I shivered and backed away.

  “This suit is one of a kind, Joff,” explained Abid. “It was made in a factory a few hundred miles east of here, in a city we use for high-end tech. It’s called the Vezda suit, named after its maker. It’s just for you.”

  I opened my mouth to let all my questions out.

  But I decided to answer them myself.

  The hollow tube on the right arm, I thought, it’s a gun. It’s a weapon.

  The helmet has four hoses coming out the neck. Breather tubes. It’s also a spacesuit.

  The boots have rocket holes on them. For jumping. Or for moving in zero gravity.

  It’s cold because they just unpacked it. It probably cost a fortune. Like…at least as much as a million skypads.

  I stood tall and looked Abid dead in his eyes. I wasn’t much shorter than him anymore. He wasn’t as intimidating as he had been.

  “It’s time you answer some questions,” I said. “Actually it’s way past time.”

  “Don’t you want to try it on?” Tiana asked.

  “No. Not yet.” I shot her a glare, and I saw Callista crack a grin. “What am I doing here? I’ve asked you before, and you’ve always avoided the question. I know the answer. But I want you to tell me.”

  “What do you think the answer is?” Abid walked toward me.

  “No.” I held up a palm, and he stopped. “You stay there. This is insane. You’ve locked me in this place. I could’ve caused trouble. I could’ve disobeyed or tried to escape, but I didn’t. I just went along with whatever you said. But not anymore. That’s all finished. You tell me what I’m doing here. I want to hear you say it. No more questions, no more training, no more nothing unless you tell me right now.”

  I looked to Callista for her approval. She winked at me. I knew then she’d told me the truth. She really didn’t know whatever it was Abid and Tiana had hidden from me.

  From us.

  “Joff,” Abid began, “in this suit you’ll be a god. You understand? There’s no bullet on Earth that could hurt you. It has no air tank, but you’ll never run out of air. With it, you can move as fast in water as you can on dry land. You can fire that little arm cannon and turn this fortress into molten glass. You can jump thirty meters in it, and you can run six times as fast as any man. You can fly and never feel gravity, no matter how fast you’re going.”

  “I don’t care about the—”

  “Let me finish.” Abid’s face turned red, and suddenly he was fearsome again. Tiana paled. Even Callista withdrew into the fading blue fog.

  “This suit, this armor, “Abid said, “you’re going to wear it. You’re going to train in it, and you’re going to live in it as though it’s your second skin. And then, o
n a day not so long from this very moment, you’re going to walk up to the descendants of Aiden Frost, and you’re going to kill them all.

  “Do you understand me?”

  And finally I did.

  Trading Places with God

  Floating in the vast darkness, I aimed the Vezda suit’s arm cannon and fired. It’s not exactly what I’d expected to do at any point in my life.

  But I had to admit; it was fun.

  The object hissing out of the arm cannon wasn’t a bullet or a missile or anything I’d ever read about in Aly’s books. A yellow sphere of energy as big as my fist sizzled through the darkness and struck the target, obliterating it in a cloud of smoke. It was raw destruction, smooth and perfect, deadlier than anything I’d ever imagined.

  Whoa, I thought.

  I wonder what Dad would’ve thought about this.

  Before that day, they’d never let me enter the mountain’s heart. I hadn’t even known about the giant hollow space behind all the rock, chrome, and glass. As it turned out, there was a door in the gymnasium that led to it, a deep, dark tunnel that cut straight into the great emptiness. In the hollow mountain’s heart, the real training grounds awaited me.

  The cool thing was; it was all zero-G.

  “Joff, look out!” Callista shouted in my ear.

  She wasn’t floating like I was. Upon entering the mountain void, she’d slipped into a tiny port on the Vezda suit’s helmet. After that, it was like she’d become a part of my brain. She said things, but I didn’t hear them in my ears. I heard them inside my head, and I understood them faster than my own thoughts.

  With my right arm, I clicked a switch inside the arm cannon. The thrusters on the suit’s back erupted. I spun around, aimed my right arm, and…

  …felt a sudden shock as one of the targets, crackling with red electricity, hit me in the chest and powered me down.

  “You’ve got to be faster,” Callista groaned. “Those things are coming from every direction.”

  Even though I couldn’t see her, I could imagine her crossing her arms and huffing at me.

  “I’m sorry. It’s just…this is only my second time. I’m not used to this thing.”