by R. E. Carr
She wasted no time getting up, skirting her way around the sleeping cat-man, and stretching after that. It was once again evening, and crickets began chirping as she walked among her people. She counted ten shamans in all, each either standing watch or stringing beads and meditating.
“I will always be here if you need me, my Serif-fan,” Sotaka called after her.
“I know,” Jenn sighed.
“I hope you realize that Kei will also always be there if you need him.”
Jenn remained silent. Sotaka let her go off toward the shark shaman, shaking his head ever so slightly at the retreating girl. Whare kept his distance from the rest of camp. Over the course of the afternoon, his face had turned ashen and his nose seemed longer and more streamlined. The blue had drained from his eyes and been replaced by a luminous black.
“I can feel the energy you speak of, my Serif-fan,” he said as she approached.
“So, where’s the power coming from?” Jenn asked.
Whare stood up and began walking toward the electrified birches. He never touched them, but rather traced a careful line along the dirt until he reached a black patch of soil. He then grabbed a stick and began digging. Jenn hung back.
It took over an hour of hacking away at the earth with sticks to reveal anything, but they were the only nonconductive tool around. Sparks still jumped from pebble to pebble, nearly singeing the shamans. Kei staggered awake at some point, but Jenn said nothing to him. She watched, fascinated, as Whare smashed a ball of roots with his walking stick.
“Jenn?”
“Yes, CALA?”
“The static field surrounding the grove of trees is gone. I read no abnormal energy readings in the forest.”
“Wicked simple, my friend.”
“I will warn you, Jenn, that this seal is intended to be easily accessible. If my information from the scrolls and from Rheak’s database is correct, all other seals will be more difficult to locate and unlock.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“You are welcome, Jenn.”
“Serif-fan?” Sotaka asked as she snapped back to the present.
“I think we can get in now. Where’s Whare?”
“The transformation has left him quite worn. I have Adana and her pack looking after him. Do you and Kei need an escort?”
“I think we’ll be all right. Have you got an axe or something to start hacking through those trees?”
“We cannot chop down any of the trees in this forest, my Serif-fan. All life in here is sacred; there are rituals to perform . . .”
“Sotaka?” Jenn asked when she saw his black eyes widen.
“I think your Sora-khar just bent the trees,” Sotaka said.
Jenn ran toward the birches. She stopped briefly as she crossed where the old force field had been. Sure enough, Kei was standing before a new opening in the grove.
“How did you—?” she started.
“I do not know. It just opened.”
“Incoming communication. Shall I patch you into the stream directly?”
“What? Are you a fricking radio too, CALA?”
“Attempting to translate message.”
“This is Research Facility 362-481-Green requesting assistance. We are under attack. Repeat, we are under attack. Approximately fifteen strafe units are moving into our airspace. In our current state, we will be unable to defend ourselves. Please—”
The message disintegrated into static.
“What the hell was that, CALA?”
“It appears to be the final recording of an automated homing beacon. I am currently cross-referencing the data, but this message’s time stamp is over ten thousand years old and in one of the languages of the Ancients—the race that gave birth to the Network and Rheak.”
“I don’t get it. Back then, humans were just starting to think the hand axe was a really neat idea, not sending radio messages.”
“I am detecting faint energy readings underground. The main core of this facility may still function.”
“Facility? Where?”
“Many Ancient facilities were designed to blend seamlessly into their native environment. Our enhanced sensory capabilities and the Sora-khar’s latent genetic markers should be sufficient for locating the entrance.”
“What does Kei have to do with this?”
“The Sora-khar has Machidonian heritage. Although insufficient to sync completely with Ancient technology, it will activate simple locks and doors, such as the entrance in the trees.”
“Hey, so I picked a decent Sora-khar after all.”
“Jenn, I believe I have detected the entrance. Please head one-point-two meters south. The Sora—”
“Call him Kei, please.”
“Kei should be able to open the hatch. Disengaging.”
“Kei? I think the entrance is over there,” Jenn said, pointing.
“Are you quite done talking with the voice in your head?” he snarled.
“I don’t criticize you when you feel like licking yourself or playing with string, cat-boy. What’s with the attitude?”
He began scratching the ground around the stone. For a while, all he found was more and more dirt. Jenn tried to help him, but he kept moving away.
“Kei? What’s up?” Jenn finally asked, planting her face right between him and the ground.
“I do not want to talk about it. If you do not want my help, maybe I will go play with a ball of string or something.”
“OK, I deserved that. But—”
“I do not want to talk about it!” he roared. Jenn slunk away and sat on a rock. As she picked at her peeling skin, she felt a slight rumble coming from the stone.
“Hey, Kei . . . ,” she started.
He didn’t even look up. His clawed fingers were tracing a pattern in the ground. She noticed that the insects in the area suddenly went silent.
“Kei?”
“What?”
He looked up at her just as his non-fur-covered hand landed on the dirt. The vibrations increased to a tremor and a green light flickered through the soil. Kei grimaced as the same green energy shot up his arm. “Make it stop!” he cried as his eyes changed from feline to reflective blue.
Jenn ran over and grabbed him. As they rolled together in the grass, the dirt caved in all around them. Jenn tried to grab anything nearby, but she still sank. She heard the faint cries of Sotaka and the others.
“Kei!”
He slid into a darkness. As she clawed desperately and found a twig, she heard an ominous thump. “Kei!” she cried again. But it was too late. She dropped into the passage as well.
“CALA, help me!”
“We are currently descending rapidly—”
“I know that! Can you do—?”
“Ow!” Jenn yelped as she landed on her butt. A pile of dirt and her half-Machidonian husband had broken her fall.
She started clawing him out. “Kei, oh Kei! I’m sorry. Are you OK?”
“I will be better if you get off me,” he whimpered through the dirt.
She slipped on some damp leaves and toppled onto Kei again. He smiled briefly.
“If it was anyone but you, I think I would get excited,” he said with a raised feline brow.
Jenn flipped a dirt clod into his face. “I don’t get paid enough to deal with you, cat-boy. Come on, let’s go.”
“Sorry, but take heart. You are still way ahead of me on insults. Can you see all right?”
She tapped the gem on her forehead. “Everything looks red, but I can see. You know, you could have asked if I was OK—”
Kei began prowling the halls, his knife out. “Shh! I can hear something in these halls.”
Jenn closed her eyes. “It’s called static, Kei.”
“My hearing is better than yours. There is a faint voice coming from this way. I think it is over there, where the walls change from earth into metal.”
“Kei, this place is ancient. There aren’t any . . .” She stopped cold as light
s began to flicker in the hallway. The organic passage full of roots and beams suddenly melded seamlessly into a futuristic corridor of polished steel. A few weird symbols ran along the wall at eye level, and a trail of red lights pooled at their feet.
They tried to tiptoe through the passage, but every footfall echoed with a hollow metallic sound. Kei ditched his normal aloof distance and walked right beside Jenn, his tail occasionally flicking her leg.
“Can you read any of this?” he whispered, his ears twitching at blinding speeds.
“CALA, can you translate?”
“Certainly. It says ‘Level One.’”
“Gee . . . thanks.”
“Well, we’re on level one,” Jenn sighed.
“This looks like the cities my mother described,” Kei said. He ran his paw along a joint between plates. “I never thought I would see anything like it.”
“I feel like we are crawling in ductwork. I think it’s aluminum,” Jenn said.
“What is alu . . . alu—?”
“Aluminum? It’s a type of metal. Before you even ask, don’t worry about it.”
Kei moved cautiously toward an intersection. His ears perked up and turned toward the right. Finally, he opened his mouth and began to taste the stale air inside the complex.
“So have we decided whether the humming is good or bad yet, Kei?” Jenn asked.
Kei closed his eyes and started to reach for the wall with his more human hand. Just before his sweaty skin touched the metal, a stray spark snapped him awake. He recoiled.
“Kei?”
He continued to stare at his hand even as the weird lights made the shadows all around come alive. Jenn bit her lip as she watched a cobweb creep along the ceiling.
“Earth to Kei! Which way are we supposed to go?”
Kei remained silent and started cautiously down the right path. A few pipes ran along the ceiling there, clanking and whining with new energy as the couple passed. The hall began to flare out, and every few feet a grate appeared in the upper section of the wall.
“It smells fresher here,” Jenn remarked as they passed a vent. Kei paused to sniff.
“It is coming in from the river valley. I can smell the heart flowers and a bit of the mist. I also smell something greasy. It is not cooking fat—”
Jenn leaned in as well. “It’s machine oil. I guess when the lights came on, the other mechanical systems kicked in too.”
“You are familiar with these sorts of things?”
“I’ve worked at enough construction sites to know a little. Every house in Boston also had ductwork and pipes like this. Maybe that’ll help,” Jenn said as she stared eyeing the long rows of conduit above. “I bet that’s electrical—”
“Did the Machidonians take over your whole world? Is that why you were sent here?”
Jenn started to giggle. She stopped, however, as she saw the earnest look of concern on Kei’s face. “It’s just different over there, Kei. There isn’t some evil race controlling all the technology. Well, unless you count software companies, but I think they’re still run by humans. Hey, you do know what this means, don’t you? If the mechanical systems are on in this facility, there’s a good chance a computer’s working too. All we’ve got to do is let the voice in my head talk to it. They open the seal, and poof! One down and five to go, if you count me, right?”
“I do not think it will be so easy,” Kei muttered as they came to their first door. It opened automatically as Kei approached. Jenn continued on, blissfully ignorant of the dusty, dark corridor ahead.
“Relax. I mean, it’s just an abandoned—” she said.
Her foot crushed something. As she looked down, her eyes widened and she choked out a scream. The remains of a mummified hand stuck to her sandal. The rest of the body reached desperately for the wall. Its eyeless, bulbous head twisted at an impossible angle from its slender neck.
“It’s a-an alien!” Jenn cried. “A r-real alien!”
“Jenn, your mental state has entered the danger zone again. Jenn, please respond.”
“K-Kei! Oh God, Kei, they’re real. Those creepy-ass little gray aliens are real,” she cried.
Kei kneeled down next to the body and set his own four-fingered hand next to the creature’s remaining one. Jenn skittered across the hall, leaving a trail of tarnished-silver dust.
“It was a Machidonian, I think,” Kei whispered. “So small though, so delicate.”
“K-Kei—”
“He is broken in half, like a toy.” Kei’s own eyes widened as he picked gingerly at the creature’s calcified jumpsuit. “I wonder if it was a child.”
“Kei, that thing is really scaring me,” Jenn whimpered. “Oh God, your hand. And its hand. And its skin . . . Oh, God!”
She grabbed her sides and slid against the wall. Kei remained eerily still. Even his tail stopped twitching. Jenn followed his eyes up the rest of the hall. Bits and pieces of the little gray men were strewn about—a hand here, a foot there. Dark brown stains streaked the walls and tons of silver dust was piled up around the mummified wounds.
“Oh God!” Jenn cried again. She grabbed her head. A row of elongated skulls grinned at her. She finally just had to close her eyes.
Kei inched back slowly, never taking his eyes off the corridor ahead. Bit by bit, he slid down until he could wrap his arm around Jenn’s shaking shoulders. She stiffened next to him as his fur brushed her cheek.
“They have been dead for a long time. Whatever did this is gone too. It is all right,” he said, brushing his paw through her hair.
“No! No, it is not all right. Those little bastards are one of the few things I’m afraid of. I never could watch Close Encounters. My roommate Sara was into all this crap, but not me!”
“Jenn? Please respond to me. Your panic levels are reaching the critical zone.”
“Shut up, CALA. I can’t deal with you too. Oh God—”
The fans kicked on in the crowded hall, sending a new odor toward Kei. He jerked upright, placing himself between Jenn and the looming shadow. He hopped over a few body parts to examine a massive skeleton. Unlike the others, fluids oozed from its bronze armored shell. Its serrated claws scraped two lines into the metal floor. Three drops of dried blood were perfectly placed over the scratches. Kei picked at the old wound on the creature.
“Whatever killed this burned holes in it. Looks like fire,” Kei muttered. “But something also cut the arm—”
“Kei! Kei, don’t leave me over here with all the dead aliens. Please!” Red light began to pulse from the walls. “Did I trigger the self-destruct?” she asked with a pathetic laugh.
“Jenn, there is a transmission from this facility’s central core. Please respond.”
“I’m surrounded by alien bodies, CALA. I can’t take this shit!”
“Jenn, I am being hailed by another Construct Assistant. May I respond?”
“What?”
“I am being hailed by another Construct Assistant. It appears to be emanating from the core.”
“Sure! Why not? I’ve lost it now. You know, I didn’t feel too strange when I got the new body, or when I saw a mammoth. I took in a whole army being wiped out. I think I even handled marrying the furball with some grace, but this is too much, CALA. It’s all soaking in at this very moment, and I can’t take it anymore.”
“You are behaving irrationally, Jenn—”
“Hell, yeah! I happen to be talking to a computer program that is stuck in my head. Did I mention the gigantic ruby in my forehead yet?”
“You have entered a state of panic, Jenn. My failsafe system is coming online.”
“No!”
“Please, Jenn. Allow me to help you. The Construct Assistant is demanding a response.”
“I feel weird.”
“I am attempting to counteract the panic. You are experiencing the fear receptors in your brain being temporarily suppressed.”
“Stop it, damn it.”
“I need you to calm down. The Construct
Assistant is online now.”
“No—”
“I am Construct Assistant Level Alpha, assigned to Human DNA pattern HC-63-86-H57. This pattern is self-named Jenn.”
“I am Construct Assistant Level Beta, assigned to Human DNA pattern HC-62-04-A22. This pattern is self-named Praetor Yeiwa.”
“My pattern and I are here to reestablish communication with the Universal Network. We have reason to believe that this planet’s communication is being limited by this facility.”
“Processing your request. Please upload your identification and your pattern’s DNA signature into my Construct.”
“Complying.”
“She’s as wooden as you, CALA.”
“Upload complete.”
“You are recognized as valid visitors to our system. Activating Central Core. Please proceed to the operations room on your current level. Security doors opening now.”
“Ji-ann! Look out!”
She saw clouds of dust rolling toward her feet. Bleary eyed, she staggered through the bodies with surprising ease. Kei was crouched behind the mummified giant, ears flattened, as the end of the hall slid to one side.
“That must be the operations room,” Jenn said.
For a moment, both Kei and Jenn had to close their eyes. A bright-blue light scanned them from head to toe. Mist rolled in around their legs and a dizzying array of beeps and whistles filled their ears.
“Welcome, Jenn,” a computerized voice said. “My assistant told me you were coming.”
Jenn opened her eyes and saw a huge viewscreen. A human woman’s face smiled down at her. As Jenn saw brown irises and ivory skin, she wept genuine tears of relief.
“You’re human. I can’t believe—”
“You and your worker-hybrid may take a seat if you like. I am Praetor Yeiwa of the Hykerian Garrison Force,” the screen said.
Jenn stumbled into a dusty chair. Kei remained frozen in the doorway. The room was sparse, with two seats and a cobweb-covered control panel filling the space. Jenn stepped blithely over the three-pronged cables snaking around the floor.
“There are normal people in these bases? I saw the alien bodies. They looked so old . . .”
“I was the last human left in this research station. I downloaded my consciousness into the Central Core of this facility when our outer defenses fell to the Others. As a Dual, I could control the automated systems so our Guardian could fight. Our Guardian must have failed—the last thing I remember is the order to shut down all communications and encrypt the facility with my own biometric signature. That means only a designated representative of our defense forces could have reactivated this facility,” Yeiwa said from her screen.
