The Fourth Sage (The Circularity Saga)

by Stefan Bolz

  44.)) 7.0x0 partial log 3.2 to: Board of Direct. SELKOM CORP. —end of upld //#1.00047

  Aries opens her eyes. Her head rests on Max's arm. She must have dozed off.

  "Did I fall asleep?" she asks, sitting up.

  Yes, Max replies.

  "For how long?"

  An hour, more or less.

  Slowly she becomes aware of her surroundings. Behind her and across the round opening, a monolithic wall of stone reaches far up. Where the first five hundred feet or so lie in the shadows, the upper part is illuminated in soft light. The wall extends in a wide circle on both sides as far as she can see. Immediately surrounding them, jagged rocks stick out of the ground, interspersed with crevasses and narrow patches of flat rock. A soft, green growth covers everything. About a half mile away, a massive pillar reaches to the ceiling. Its lower part is not visible, blocked by the rocky hills in front. The pillar is covered with the same growth. The air is warm and moist. A slight mist covers the ground and some of the rock outcroppings. The contrast to the previous cave is striking, and although they can't be more than a quarter mile apart, it seems as if they have entered a different world altogether.

  Born-of-Night, where are you? she thinks. She had felt their connection until they had jumped into the water but from then on it had been vague.

  I'm trying to find a way to you. There was another sandstorm. I'll be there soon.

  "I found some berries," Kiire says, appearing from behind a large boulder and holding up his shirt that seems to be filled with something.

  "How do you know they aren't poisonous?" Seth says.

  "They are blackberries. I've seen pictures of them," Kiire says. "Very tasty." He carefully sets the berries on a flat rock in front of the others. "There are more where those came from. A lot more."

  "Listen up," Ty says. "If you have anything on you that could be useful, let me know. We also should all try to dry our clothes as best as possible."

  Aries realizes that she has lost her tool satchel and belt. The RSC chip is gone as well. The power bar is still in her other pocket. She takes it out, breaks it into little pieces and places it next to the berries. Then she takes off her shoes, lets the rest of the water pour out.

  Tevis sits beside C.J. "Let me take a look at your feet," she says.

  C.J. hesitates. Then she stretches out her legs toward Tevis, who touches one of them gently.

  "What you did, back in the other cave," Tevis says. "With that terrible monster thing in the water... was very brave. You saved Seth's life and most likely all of ours. Do you have any idea how you were able to... how you pushed it back?"

  "I don't," C.J. answers. "I just lifted up my arms like that."

  C.J. put her palms up to her shoulders, facing forward.

  "How did you know how to do that?"

  "I don't know. I just... felt... something inside. And I thought that was the only way for it to come out."

  "Was that the first time you experienced this?"

  "No."

  "You want to tell us about when it first happened?"

  C.J. looks up and into the faces of the others. For a while she is quiet, as if looking for the right words. "There was this man," she says. “He came to me... I was... I couldn't..." Her voice cracks. "I'm sorry."

  "Why don't you start from the beginning?" Tevis says.

  "Okay," she says after a while. "I... I came home from work one evening and just before I got to the elevator to go down to my apartment, a woman and two men came up to me. The woman was nice at first and told me they’d like to speak to me about a promotion. I didn't want to go with them but the woman insisted. She told me I could make much more money and might be able to help my parents move into Tier Three. So I went with them. We went all the way up in the elevator and then walked across the bridge to the other building. The woman spoke to me about how pretty I was and how beautiful and that she wanted to see how I... how I looked without those clunky coveralls and see how I would fit into a business suit and makeup and how my hair would be nice without the hard hat.

  "They brought me to a room that looked like a med station. There was a doctor, or at least I thought that he probably was one. He was nice. I had to take off my clothes and he examined me. The woman told me it was necessary to determine if I was fit enough to be considered for a management position. He gave me a shot of something. I didn't want him to but he told me it was part of the test. When I woke up... my legs were tied to the bedposts and I didn't remember how I got there. And there were all these men that came...

  "But the last one, when he came to me, I felt something inside that I hadn't felt before. I didn't know what it was. All I knew is that this feeling inside wanted to come out, come out of me. So I lifted my hands up and when I did, I saw the man become afraid and then I pushed him, I think, out of the bed. When I woke up, he was lying... on the other side of the room. I think he was dead. From then on, the other men didn't come back. I think I made them stay away. They didn't come back, thank God. They didn't come back..."

  C.J. begins to cry. Aries sits there, unable to stop her own tears. Then she goes over to her, sits next to her. "We're all here with you," she says quietly. "You're with us, now. We'll take care of you."

  For a while, nobody speaks. Aries can see C.J.'s pain reflected in the faces of the others.

  "How about you, Kiire?" Tevis says. "Can you tell us what happened to you?"

  "Nothing even close to what happened to C.J."

  "For you, it might have been equally traumatic."

  Aries can't help but think that the responsibility for what happened to Kiire lay partially with her. But as she listens to his story she realizes that their friendship and their meeting in his room had nothing to do with his fate. He tells them what he found out, what the Corporation had done to the city's inhabitants more than eighty years ago. He tells them about the construction workers who worked for low wages on the buildings, only to find out that their spot inside was already taken—sold to someone with more means. And he tells them about the parasite that had killed everyone and every living thing within a ten-mile radius of the city.

  "That alone would have been reason enough to put me away for good," he continues. "But there's more. In the exact spots where the high-rises were built, judging from the satellite images I found, there were indentations in the earth before. Five of them, arranged in a circle of about a mile in diameter. Those indentations were originally filled with water and everybody must have thought they were lakes. But they weren't lakes. They were covers. Covers over a large hole that led straight down and deep into the earth."

  "We came through one of them," Seth says. "It goes from the ground floor of the building straight down. And there are platforms..."

  "Yes! Those are locks," Kiire continues.

  "Locks?" Ty asks.

  "Yes. I don't know why they are called that and what their function is, but there are several documents that mention them. There are three of them and below the third one, the lowest one, the Corporation has built something. I couldn't figure out what it was but I'm assuming, based on everything else, that it must have to do with conversion from one form of energy to another. I don't know what's being converted but I know that what comes out on the other side is electric current."

  "We saw power lines in the shaft," Ty says.

  "They must be part of it," Kiire replies. "But there's something else. One of the files contains data about a project that has as its goal the decoding or translation of symbols written on large stone plates that have been found."

  "Where?" Amber asks.

  "I don't know," Kiire answers.

  "I'm s-s-sure, Amber could transl-l-late them."

  "If she could do that, that would make her the most valuable person in the world," Kiire says.

  "And the most sought after," Seth replies.

  "I wonder why all this is so secretive that they would torture you to find out what you know?" Tevis says to Kiire.

  "They must
have at least translated them partially," Amber says. "Otherwise, why build a high-rise right above a large hole in the ground?"

  "I don't think they know." Ty says. "I think they found blueprints somewhere down here that made them think something would happen if they built it like that."

  "From what you’ve told me," Kiire says, "between Jeremiah and Amber alone, it seems that you two could probably solve their riddle in a short period of time. And by now, they must have found those drawings down where you lived. They must have figured out that you have, if not all of it, then at least a good amount of the information they need to connect the dots. So, in us coming here together, in us being together, we might be playing right into their hands. We might as well hold up a silver platter and say: Here we are. The combined knowledge of a group of brilliant kids who could give you exactly what you need."

  Aries looks from one to the other. Something falls into place within her, makes sense suddenly.

  "I think the only place where we can stop them is down here," she says. "And the only way to do it is through all of us. Together."

  "Esla Ar Foyelle," Amber says into the silence that follows.

  "Never apart," Aries replies, remembering what Amber had said before they left the Forgotten Floors to find Kiire, C.J., and Seth.

  "I think I've been here before," Amber says.

  "What do you mean?" Tevis asks.

  "I'm not sure, and... it wasn't me personally but I think I've been here before... genetically. I know this place, somehow. I knew that... thing in the water. I knew the activation code for the force field."

  "The genetic code can be passed on through hundreds of generations and thousands of years," Kiire says. "A genetic memory, triggered by something deeply ingrained in a certain group or species, can bring out a response in someone with that very same genetic blueprint, millennia in the future."

  "So, this thing you all saw," Ty says. "Amber, you're saying that you're genetically tied to a species that had contact with that... fish or whatever it was. And because of that contact, which happened a long time ago, you experienced that same fear all over again?"

  "Yes. Pretty much."

  "That would explain your knowledge of the language," Kiire says. "And you knowing what to do with the force field and how to get Aries and myself down on that platform. It's embedded in your DNA."

  "You should trust it," Tevis says. "Trust this knowledge."

  "I don't know enough about it," Amber says.

  "I think you do," Tevis says. "You all have extraordinary gifts. Some of you don't even know it yet, I'm sure. The more I think about it, the more I feel that this must be why you all found each other. Remember the nursery rhyme the old man had discovered? That plate, I'm sure, was written in Amber's language and the man who came out of those mines and who remembered it, he must have been like you. He must have had access to the very same information. He just couldn't articulate it. He was a simple mine worker. I'm sure there are many more like him, like you, but they are all so desperate to simply survive, simply let each day go by and be left alone by the Corporation, that they might never use that knowledge. You, all of you, have to bring it out in them. You have to find the very foundation on which this whole insane apparatus rests and you have to pull it out from under them."

  After a moment of silence, Ty gets up. "It's energy," he says.

  "What?" Aries replies.

  "It has to be. It has to be energy. That's what all this is about. That's the secret."

  "What do you mean?" Aries asks.

  "I can't put it all together yet, but what if they have found an energy source, a free energy source, something that will give energy in perpetuity, like a small sun? And what if they used it for themselves and have the rest of the population pay for it, have us work for it all our lives. Take that away, expose that, and their system crumbles."

  Aries can see the excitement in Ty's face.

  "That same secret, however," Kiire says quietly, "they will guard with everything they have. They will defend their most precious possession at any cost. What's a thousand androids to them? Or tens of thousands? In order for us to steal it, in order for us to take it from them, to expose them for what they've done, we have to go into the inner sanctum of their operation. We have to enter the lion's den."

  * * *

  They had taken a little time to rest, to dry their clothes as much as possible. Tevis had wanted to give C.J. her shoes but she insisted she was fine. Ty's suggestion to take inventory hadn't turned up anything. Mila had a piece of charcoal in her pocket, carefully wrapped in plastic. Sam had found a small pocketknife. Kiire took it, held it up in the air, and shouted, "Attack!" For a while, Aries saw smiles on the faces of the others.

  "We should try to reach the pillar ahead of us and go from there," Seth says, as he helps Tevis to her feet.

  "Thank you," she says. Then she reaches up and gently touches his face. "You are a very considerate young man, Seth. I wish I could have known you sooner."

  "Thank you," Seth replies, slightly embarrassed. "But I don't think you would have liked what you saw."

  She studies his face. "Nonsense," she says. "And who you are right now was already in there, back then." She taps a finger on his chest. "You just didn't know it. And because you didn't know it, neither did anybody else. I think we've all had our past shortcomings. But now we are here and none of that matters anymore."

  At this moment, Aries realizes for the first time the magnitude of what Tevis has done for the children over the last two years. She not only saved them physically but also, and even more importantly, on a much deeper level. She believed in and held up an image of who they could become, who they would later be, so that they could recognize it and remember it during times of doubt and peril. And for a fleeting moment, Aries can see herself through Tevis's eyes. She sees the strength that sleeps there, the potential to become someone or something that goes beyond what she can currently imagine. She becomes aware that were she to accept who she is in truth, there would be no limits to what she could do—for herself and everyone around her. But the moment passes and as much as she tries, she can't hold on to it—like a snowflake in summer, the thought lingers for a moment and then disappears, leaving her with a sense of loneliness and despair.

  Aries, she hears Max think.

  When she looks at him, he shakes his head as if to tell her not to go there in her mind.

  What we are trying to do is impossible, she thinks.

  You don't know that, Max answers.

  Yes, I do. We're in no shape to do anything against them and we should admit it to ourselves right now and not continue with this fantasy of the things we're capable of.

  She is surprised by how strongly she feels.

  We need you.

  No, you don't. You'd do fine without me. Look where I've gotten you!

  And there it is. Not only did everyone trust her to do something she can't possibly do, she has pulled them all into a situation from which there is no escape. For any of them. The Corporation has probably already taken the other kids. Thinking of Tuari and the others in their hands, tortured and questioned until they are broken, makes her heart hurt. And in a few hours, Max and Ty and Kiire and all the others will most likely be overrun by a legion of artificial life forms who will not spend one single thought on the pain they will inflict.

  But when they begin to climb through the jagged rocks, past deep crevasses and toward the pillar in the distance, Aries can't find the one moment in time during which she could have made a different choice. Not to listen to Born-of-Night to come to the Forgotten Floors would have been an option. But it was already too late then. Maybe if she had stayed on the job to exchange the corroded cable on the 172nd floor that day. But she wouldn't have been able to stay there, stay in her life as she’d known it. What if she had never met Born-of-Night, never saved her in the ducts? She could have left her there and gone back to her room. She would not have met Kiire. But they would still have C.J., a
nd they would still have gotten Kiire for what he’d found out. And he would have found out because that's who he is: insatiably curious. And Ty, good old Ty. She couldn't have convinced him to stay away if she’d had a gun in her hand. He would have come with her either way.

  "Stop!" Sam says in front of her. She is so engrossed in her thoughts that it doesn't register until she almost runs into him.

  "What is it?"

  Max and Ty are further down the path, peering at something below. For the last fifteen minutes, they’d been climbing through the jagged rocks until they’d hit a narrow trail leading through them. This path, not wide enough for two people to walk side by side, leads behind a large rock outcropping ahead. The others have caught up and now Aries gets a chance to see what they see.

  The path continues to their left, along a massive rock formation that is almost completely covered with thick, silvery moss. To the right of the path, a straight cliff drops down about two hundred feet. At the bottom, there stand the remnants of an old stone building. Even in its current state of deterioration, it is still four stories high. Blind openings for what must have been windows once peer at them from behind the green vine cover that envelops the building. Slightly behind it, a steep creek bed ends in a waterfall that rushes into an abyss below.

  The image is dizzying, and Aries has to concentrate on the solid ground below her feet in order not to feel sick to her stomach.

  "Keep your hands on the rocks to the left. We should be fine," Ty says.

  The others have already begun to walk along the cliff.

  You okay? she hears Max think.

  "I will be," Aries replies, trying to get rid of the dryness in her mouth. She can't say whether the knot in her stomach stems from the drop or from the general feeling of dread over what might await them before this day is over.

  Do you see this? Born-of-Night asks.

  For her to see what the hawk sees, she would have to close her eyes—something she can't risk without possibly taking a wrong step.

  "Can you stop for a second?" she asks Seth and Tevis behind her.