by Joe Darris
“A candle?” Luca asks. The weatherman understood little beyond high and low pressure, obsolete terrestrial technology was definitely not part of his knowledge base.
“Its an ancient light source that inevitably burned itself out. The system collapse will begin like that. We'll slowly sink as the increased current from the biselk's attacks causes the Spire to heat the magma flows that...”
The Council gave him nothing but vapid stares.
“But eventually... after as the charge builds and a circuit inevitably melts and short circuits... do you know dynamite?”
Blank faces warp into concern and fear. The Council is much more familiar with that ancient tool, but no one suggests any solutions, after all, the fuse is deep within the crust of the earth, and is shortened every time one of the elks collide with the Spire.
“What are you going to do Baucis?” Mavis Talik asks, dumbstruck. Tennay was thankful someone besides himself asked the ecologist what they had all doubtlessly been thinking.
“I'm ready for the final adjustment procedure. But we can't be hasty. We have to test the old one first. If we can't control him, there's no hope for the young one,” Baucis replied curtly. Just like that, they were back to their old patter. The Council lost at sea and Baucis with all his answers.
“Can we put all of our faith in the ape's implantation?”
“I see no other choice.”
“And if your boy misbehaves like he did last time?” Luca sneered. Baucis let the question hang in the air long enough to grow a skin on top of it.
“Do you truly believe Skup tried to strangle me?” Baucis asked, his voice like hot needles. The weatherman couldn't reply but only mumbled indistinctly.
“I don't think Luca is implying anything so direct. But I do wonder about the twin's psychological profiles,” Master Psychologist Mavis Talik said.
“You don't those demons corrupted my angels?” Ntelo asks incredulously.
“Impossible. If that was true then Urea never would have captured the Wild Man at all... why would they bring him all the way up here?” Rufus trailed off. His thoughts him like a charging prongelk.
“Their true intentions are anyone's guess,” Talik replied. Tennay agreed, but thought nothing could really be done about that.
“We could probe them. VRCs work both ways,” Luca grunted.
Ntelo gasps, “blasphemy.”
“For once I agree with the High Priestess,” Talik said, “Besides, Baucis has been like a father to them. Or as much as anyone is a parent up here in the Spire. I don't think that they're plotting against us... I just doubt their convictions. Maybe they've never questioned their actions until now. I'm sure any sort of hesitation is magnified during synchronization. The ape might be exploiting that doubt.”
“What are you recommending?” Baucis asked.
All eyes fell the soft spoken Psychologist. Mavis Talik looked around the room and saw a pack of wolves sizing her up for weakness. She cleared her throat, certain their eyes darted to her jugular.
“I would advise against either of the twins synchronizing with the ape.”
“They're are most talented pilots. If not them, then who?” Aurelius was beside himself.
“I don't think anyone should synchronize with the apes! This whole thing is just slavery in a new form!”
“People have been using animals for millennium,” Baucis said patiently.
“Not like this! Can't you see these are men? They really are are long lost brothers! They know how to live down there, among the Scourge! We need to release them! They just want the little girl. Give them to her, apologize and send them on their way! Ask them to call of the biselk. It's worth a shot!”
“I think you've been to too many of my services,” Ntelo said, her voice sticky silken strands of spider's web.
Mavis Talik turned bright red. “Maybe you're right. But you're deluding yourself if you think that everything you say is lies. Some truth crept in High Priestess,” she finished, her face thankfully less crimson.
“It appears the religion needs another martyr,” Ntelo made no attempt to disguise the threat with any hint of humor in her voice.
“Ntelo, please, don't be dramatic. Dr. Talik is supposed to look into minds, that's her job. Correct Dr. Talik?”
Mavis nodded hesitantly. But Baucis's voice was worse than Ntelo's, like he was building a steep pit with sandy walls, once inside there's no escape save the hungry jaws at the bottom.
“She makes a good point. The Council sees these issues differently than the rest of the Spire. We have a different set of data, am I correct in that assumption Rufus?”
T he media Baron nods, never one to make waves that don't attract viewers. Baucis continues:
“We can't trust any of the Pilots, not really. They've all been immersed in Naturalism their entire lives. They're confused, relics of their time. We can't blame them of course, but to expect them to synchronize with the force they've been taught to fear their entire life, well that's asking too much.
“Most of them simply can't do it. It'd be like asking Tennay to give up working with his hands. We're relics of our time, aye old boy?” Baucis doesn't wait for a reply. Tennay's grateful. He wants no part in whatever the ecologist's speech will crescendo with.
“But the youth never respect the status quo. Sure, some of them want to work up to our positions some day, but what of the rest? What of the intelligent, the doubtful, the capable? I remember how I changed things when I was boy, I upset the status quo, broke a cardinal rule and brought us closer to the surface. I imagine there's a rebellion again now.”
“Every inch of this place is monitored Baucis, we've seen to that for years,” Aurelius interjected.
“And every frequency? I remember as a boy being frustrated in the amount of time it took for my teachers to explain concepts that had already become established. They were complicated to them, but to me, they were second nature. Those children, for they are children, have had VRCs for years. Before the Scourge it was illegal to have one before eighteen. They had them at eight. I don't doubt for a second that the most capable have found new ways to use the technology, new ways to communicate.”
“But that would break person to person protocol.”
“Brilliant, Luca. Whatever would we do without your insights?"
Luca said nothing, only half stammered.
"Do you remember being a child? I was always trying to explore all of the hidden tunnels, the secrets, the forbidden. The youth haven't changed, just the taboos.”
“What are you getting at Baucis?”
Baucis waited a long moment, finally the lights flickered, the flourish he had been waiting for.
“We have a rebellion on our hands, of that I'm sure. The question is: who leads them?”
“And how do we figure that out? Who can possibly infiltrate the pilots??
A dull concussion a kilometer below and the lights dimmed briefly. Only Tennay was aware enough of the Spire's workings to listen for the ever present hum weaken then resume its full strength. Talik's skin crawled, and though she knows nothing of the static generated by the Spire's electromagnetic field, she explained the phenomena easily enough: Baucis's sneer is twisted and malicious. She fears for them all.
Chapter 34
We have been blessed with twin angels, and we thank Nature the goddess for that. Pray that they stay true, and don't fall to her dark power, for if they forsake us, truly, we are lost.
Urea prowls the hallway near Kao's cell. Skup should be here. She chimed him and he said he'd come.
Urea has to free the Kao and his elder. Baucis and his Council of controllers have no right to infiltrate their minds with sick machines and self serving ideas. Urea knows technology is not corrupt, only its application. For without technology, she could not have brought the seed of destruction into the Spire.
The halls rumble, an ominous sensation especially with its increasing regularity. The black outs are growing in length, soon they'll
be tenths of seconds long. The elk grow stronger, each collision leaches more power from the Spire. Jacob and his crew don't have the energy to stop the elk from ramming every hour of the day, especially with Jacob's Alpha dead and gone. His new Evanimal is fine but Urea can tell the difference, and that troubles her. Nights are becoming particularly frightening. Urea does not want the Spire to go down like this, and still she does not believe that it has to. The people of the Spire only have to see the errors of their ways before it is too late.
And the Spire will see, of this she is certain. Once their eyes are opened, people will be just as desperate to survive as ever. The surface will be a challenge, but does not possess all of the dangers in Ntelo's sermons. The Scourge is not what it is made out to be. The Wild Man is no more a demon than they are. If the Spire cannot see any of that, she will make them. Kao isn't dangerous, he just wants his family. He is more human than those in the Spire. Why can't they see that?
Between Baucis's Evanimals' exploits, Ntelo's religion, and Rufus's propaganda, the Council perverted Naturalism to a sick shadow of itself. Urea and her brother were the stars of the show. She despises what she had been tricked into doing since she was a girl. All the people she's lied to, all the pilots she's battled, the animals she's killed so people can feel closer to their beliefs and maybe get a taste of something real. Urea believes Nature is something to be studied and learned from, like what she does with her panthera. What the Council does is horrendous. Baucis wishes to enslave anything he can use, and the others work to justify any and all of his actions. None are innocent in her eyes.
Only the engineer truly helps the greater good. He keeps the city running yet his exploits remain anonymous. The Spire would be nothing without him. If he had chosen to, he could have stopped Baucis long ago. His complacence is his guilt.
But things like blame and justice are irrelevant when thrust against survival, and when people believe something helps them survive, no matter what it is, its hard to shake that belief. Urea wouldn't have to convince mankind that they didn't need the Spire, the biselk were seeing to that, but Naturalism? That belief would be tested on the surface.
What is clear to Urea is that Naturalism does not exist. Or maybe it does, but differently for everybody. Nothing's really clear to the troubled sixteen year old, but she hates that most people blindly give their minds to whoever claims them. Because of her, and the Spire's dull compliance, Ntelo's fake version of Naturalism was being swallowed by all. History files showed this had all happened before, too many times to count, yet here they all are, replaying the roles of martyrs and blasphemers, popes and prophets.
There are a precious few thousand human beings left, and most are obsessed with leaving their own bodies and using the Evanimals. A good deal of blame belongs to Urea. Before her and Skup, Naturalism had been a fringe belief, something people talked of and believed in, but never the dogmatically blind religion it had become. By going along with Baucis and Ntelo, she had allowed this to happen, rather, made it happen. She was a little girl then, and didn't know any better, but not anymore.
She doubts there is anything she can do for the biselk, or the howluchins. There are too many pilots, too many enslaved. Dozens and dozens of Evanimals are piloted daily, she cannot end that any more than she can end Spire City itself (Another dull thud brings that reality closer) yet her panthera is a different story. Urea has to save her from generations of enslavement. The panthera is intelligent, and even more importantly, craves freedom. She can do something about that.
But even that pales compared to the Wild Men. They are artists with feelings and language. They are human, or as close to it as the ghosts who live in the Spire. It sickens her that Skup had actually been in the mind of one of them, but surely he'll understand. He'd said the ape explained things, surely he saw their value as mindful beings. She doubts anyone else could control them. Ntelo had turned them into deities, for too long had that power gone unclaimed. That changes now.
Urea can't do it alone. She is a pretty figurehead, no doubt. The people love her panthera, but Skup has the real power. He commands a flock of more than twenty deadly aerial predators. If he wanted to, he could destroy the garden or save it. She was only one cat, one hungry predator against dozens of elk. She needs his help.
But he is late. She told him to meet her here, in Baucis's wing of the amplification Control building. Kao is trapped just down the hall. Seeing a man trapped in a cage will swing his heart. It must.
Footsteps echo down the hallway. Urea holds her breath, they shouldn't be here, but she can think of no setting more compelling than the rooms of invisible cages. Her and Skup's Evanimals aren't held like this, they live outside the Spire, and have more freedom than those than enslave their minds. Those trapped in the Spire are prisoners, captives, slaves. She needs him to see that. The footsteps grow louder.
Around the corner, taller than it should be, looms a shadow. It grows too large. Something's not right. A limp in the shadow's gate, a bow in its back.
Skup wouldn't have come here like that, would he?
The old ape rounds the corner, limping along. When he rounds the bend in the hallway his eyes meet Urea's, and the two freeze. She sees nothing of the old man's soul. His eyes have the bright blue electric spark the VRCs put into them. Urea cannot believe her brother came to her in this form. They can't even have a conversation. Still she had to try.
“How's the VRC working?” she asks hesitantly.
The hominid avatar smiles faintly, a gesture she had never seen the wise old ape do. It looked menacing and alien, like a panthera laughing at a joke she just told to a doe that she plans to eat.
“I thought there would be problems.”
The ape holds out his arms and Urea sees long straight scars, cauterized shut. There are scars in his fingers, down his back, in his legs, even his toes. Implants on every bone.
“That's revolting.”
The ape only shrugs.
“Aren't you spending too much time in the chamber? Days with your flock and nights like this?”
“Of course you are...” his body language betrayed his guilt. Urea couldn't hold it against him, “I wanted to talk to you in person.”
The ape sits down cross legged and pats the ground beside him. So some of the old Skup is still there. Urea sits. The ape puts an arm around her. She feels strangely comforted, but still wishes to see her brother. She wants so see his face, her own reflected back in twin, near identical save his hawkish nose and slicked back hair. She pushes the arm off of her, and scoots across the hallway, looks into the ape's eyes, and tries to see her brother.
“I don't think we should be doing this anymore.”
The ape points to his chest and raised an eyebrow.
Me? He asks, perhaps, This body?
“That's part of it, but there's more,” she takes a deep breath, she's been practicing this, each rehearsal racked her with guilt as she was forced to think how she kept something from her brother, the only family she has in the world. “You were right Skup, Baucis is...misguided. I think the howluchins want to escape, same as the biselk, my panthera, same as everything. We're doing something wrong here. We're playing gods. We're not working with Nature, we're abusing it.”
The ape stares at her for a long moment, then shrugs almost as an afterthought.
“I don't know what to believe anymore. I used to love all that we did for the Naturalism and the Spire, but lately it all seems so phony. We're all just puppets, Evanimals enslaved to the ideas the Masters put into our minds. Those of us with the most power are the biggest tools.”
The ape nods slowly. Urea sees realization dawn across his brow ridge. She continues, clinging to her momentum while words pour out like lightning from the Spire.
“I don't want to
be a princess for a religion I don't believe in. I don't want people to worship me for doing what I do. Naturalism should be about striking a balance with Nature, not subduing it, and definitely not fearing it. We need to return to the surface. I think everyone's lying to us about the dangers, especially the Council. They want us up here for their stupid games. I'm sick of all of them, especially Baucis. To think what he would do with that body,” she points weakly at the ape, “to think what he would make you do with it,” she sighs, exhausted.
“You know what I want to do?” there's life in her voice again, “I want to run my hand through her hair. I want to pet her, and hug her, and tell her I'm so sorry for using her. And if she decides to eat me then you know what? I don't care! That's what we deserve, Ntelo's right about that. We're awful.” Fat tears roll down her fair skin. She glances at the ape, who does nothing. She wipes them away.
“Maybe we're not though. I think we can survive down there. And I think he can help us.” Urea taps the ape squarely in the chest. “They've been down there this whole time. That other one killed a biselk with its bare hands, imagine what they could teach us.”
The ape shrugs again. So what?
“You know Baucis captured the other one, right?”
The ape only scratches his head.
“I didn't think Baucis'd tell you, Elia must've brought him up. He's being held at the end of this hall. I wanted you to meet him, but... not like this.” The ape grunts. Her brother could be so rude sometimes. She eyes the ape's body warily. “He's our best chance at survival down there. “The High Priestess always said we were the angels of both worlds, that we'd bridge the divide. I think we can. He told me... the full moon. I think he wants my help to escape.” she hangs her head, “I agreed.”
Her confession is over. She feels better, much better, like she just had a good cry and is ready to get on with her life.
The ape stands awkwardly, takes a deep breath. She knows it's a lot to take in. She hugs her brother, tells him it will all be OK, but he isn't here, not really. The body hugs her back, but its not his. Her voice must sound different through another's ears.
