by A. K. DuBoff
“I asked Michael, and apparently he was aware. Darin is in the Militia Division, so he wouldn’t have come across your desk as a new Trainee.”
“That makes me feel a little better.”
“What’s strange, though, is he was brought here to study some newly manifested ability of precognition.”
“Wait, what?”
Wil nodded. “Sounded very strange to me, too. And I don’t understand why no one on the medical or research teams reported it to me.”
Saera smiled as she took her seat. “I’m certain they did. How many of those reports do you actually read?”
He sat down next to her. “Point taken.”
“Aside from him being a medical curiosity, why are we meeting with him?”
“I want to question him about this transdimensional connection. I’ve been kicking around some ideas following our last discussion, and I’d like to see if there’s a link.”
The door opened, and Jason entered with Darin in tow.
“Hi, thanks for meeting on short notice,” his son said, sitting across the table from Wil and Saera.
“Sir. Ma’am.” Darin bobbed his head respectfully before taking a chair to Jason’s right.
“Darin Suro, correct?” Wil said.
The young man nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“It’s good to have you here in the TSS. I hope you’re settling in.”
“I am, sir, thank you.”
“So, Darin and I had an interesting chat earlier,” Jason began. “I thought you’d like to hear what’s been going on with him since his contact with the Erebus.”
At the mention of the aliens, Darin swallowed hard and flushed a little.
“Some kind of limited precognitive ability, correct?” Wil asked.
Darin took a quick breath. “Yes, sir, it seems that way. I’m still learning to control it, but sometimes I get flashes of a thing before it happens.”
Wil eyed him. “That’s quite unusual.”
“Which is why I thought you might want to speak with him,” Jason explained. “With the talk about the Erebus’ higher dimensional existence, I got to thinking…”
He is very much my son. Wil smiled. “This is quite a complex puzzle we’re trying to solve, and this may be an important piece. Tell me, Darin, did you ever experience these flashes before your encounter with the Erebus?”
“No. It started shortly after I woke up from the coma, though it took a few months before I started to realize something significant might be going on. At first, I thought it was just an issue with my vision or concentration.”
There was likely some denial that had prevented him from noticing, but Wil could understand a person’s reluctance to admit they were different. “When Jason reached out to me about this earlier, I decided to take a look at your medical records. There’s no clear physiological explanation for this ability, though scans do read like a Gifted person actively using telepathy.”
“Which is what has everyone so stumped… sir.”
“Don’t worry about the honorifics right now, Darin. I’ve never been much of a fan.”
The young man nodded. “Okay.”
“I know it’s difficult to talk about,” Wil continued, “but I hope you can shed additional insights into what happened on your ship—knowing the people involved and their general temperaments. I’m aware that you were unconscious during the events themselves.”
Darin shook his head. “I don’t understand what that thing was doing or why it was messing with us. All I know is that it took everything I love from me.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thanks. I’ll answer what I can.”
“I’ve been particularly curious about how your engineer managed to determine what you were dealing with.” Wil folded his hands on the desktop. “We had quite a difficult time trying to recreate the conditions under which your ship captured the first transdimensional image of the Erebus. I can’t figure out how it happened without you blowing yourselves up. None of our attempts to duplicate the conditions produced the desired results. We had to start over with an entirely different approach.”
“I wasn’t awake for that.” Darin shrugged. “Were your probes and ship inside an Erebus during testing?”
“No.”
The young man flourished his hand. “Well, there you go.”
Wil turned to Saera. “How did we miss that?” he asked her telepathically. “We never actually replicated the original environment—we were missing that detail.”
“I can see how being inside a transdimensional entity would alter the conditions… you know, just a little.”
He had to smile at her sarcastic mental tone. “Thank you for clearing up that portion of the mystery,” Wil continued to Darin. “As for your own manifested ability, that’s more complicated.”
“Yeah, I’ve been hoping for an explanation of that myself.”
Wil nodded. “It’s been our suspicion that your coma was a result of direct contact with the Erebus as it reached down from a higher dimension to interact with you. What I hadn’t considered is that a portion of the framework for that transdimensional bridge may have remained intact.”
“What does that mean?”
“Think of it like digging a trench. Even when the dirt is filled back in, it’s always going to be a little looser than it was before the ground was disturbed.”
“I don’t have any experience with trench-digging, but I catch your meaning,” Darin said.
“See? This is why I rarely use planet-bound analogies, because it means nothing to us space-reared kids,” Wil said with an amused telepathic smile in his wife’s mind.
“Well, I thought it was quite apt.” The situation had been reversed when the two of them met, and Saera never failed to remind him how much life experience played into a person’s perspective.
“What I mean to say is,” Wil continued, “that the Erebus needed to reach down from the higher dimension to make contact with you in our reality. We’re not sure how they accomplish that, precisely, but it’s clear it created a telepathic link with you. I suspect your premonitions have something to do with that link—that it left a tether between you and the higher dimensions above spacetime. I can’t explain why you’d get flashes for some things and not others, but it sounds somewhat like the access we gain to the cosmic energy pattern when gazing into the nexus. The Aesir read those threads.”
Darin scrunched his brows. “Sorry, I only tracked about half of what you just said.”
“There’s precedent for precognitive visions, but the way it seems to be working for you is unique,” Jason summarized.
“Should I know about these Aesir?” Darin asked.
“No, they keep to themselves, and they’re also frustrating and unhelpful most of the time,” Wil replied. “Anyway, all of this suggests that the Erebus you encountered was interacting with spacetime in a different way than they did when they attacked the Alkeer Station and Tararia. It learned something from the encounter with the Andvari and shared it with the others of its kind.”
“That sounds bad.” Darin frowned.
“I also find it strange that you experienced a PEM failure, your crew encountered a strange array of ships, you went after a replacement PEM, and then the Erebus handed the TSS a new type of power core.”
The young man’s eyes went wide. “Wait, they what?”
“Yes, a ‘gift’, they said. It’s a loose connection, but in bizarre transdimensional being logic, I can see how they may have inferred meaning,” Wil told him.
Naturally, the Andvari’s crew had gone after a new perpetual energy module when their system was damaged, so it tracked that the Erebus may have interpreted ‘power source’ as being the most important thing to Tarans—being the first thing they sought when they became stranded. What better gift than to offer the thing people desire the most? It just so happened that MPS’ issues intersected with that need.
Darin shrugged. “I wish I could offer a big b
reakthrough understanding of what’s going on. I can’t. I was unconscious. When I woke up, I was a physical wreck, homeless, and without my family. Now there’s this new precog ability, and I don’t know what to do with it.”
“You’ve been through a lot,” Saera said. “We’ll try to get you answers.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ve got a place to call home for now.”
“I’m glad to hear you feel that way.” Wil gave him a sympathetic smile. “This has given me some things to think about. Thank you for speaking with us. I’ll reach out if I have follow-up questions down the line.”
“Happy to help. And thanks for believing me. Some people thought I was crazy when I first brought up the visions.”
“I’ve had far stranger experiences myself.” Wil stood. “Take care, Darin.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“I’ll check in with you later, Jason. I want to process this,” he told his son telepathically. “Thanks for bringing him here.”
“Sure thing.”
Jason departed with Darin, leaving Wil and Saera alone in the conference room.
“That was rather illuminating,” his wife said.
“Indeed. Everything keeps coming back to the transdimensional interactions, and it’s got me going down some very strange hypothetical trails.”
“You? I’m shocked,” Saera jested.
“It makes me wonder what things would have been like for ancient Tarans when they first encountered the Erebus.”
“Did they have a way to protect themselves? Did they understand how to control the energy link between the dimensions?” Saera mused.
“Right. And then I got to thinking…”
“Hmm?”
“Now, I might be making connections that aren’t there, but I started wondering about Earth. Raena is helming that archaeological investigation, which might be related to the ancient war, given the suspected age of it. Okay, so that’s all well and good. But then there’s this facility we adopted as TSS Headquarters. Well, not us specifically, but you know, the Priesthood.”
Saera tilted her head. “What about it?”
“The unique construction method, suspending the facility in a subspace bubble. We still have no clue how they even pulled that off, but it was brilliant. The perfect defense from interdimensional attack, which is what made it so ideal for the Bakzen War.”
“I see where you’re going with this. The facility predates that war by at least a millennium.”
“Precisely! So why was it originally built? Perhaps because of knowledge about the ancient war with the Erebus and Gatekeepers, before that information was lost or suppressed?”
Saera nodded. “That actually makes a lot more sense.”
“There’s another wrinkle, though. Part of the TSS mandate has always been to serve as stewards of Earth.”
“Was that driven by the Priesthood when they founded the TSS, or did it evolve when Earth’s space exploration kicked off?”
“I’m not sure, honestly. Either way, it doesn’t explain how or why the Aesir built this facility. Dahl refuses to give me a straight answer whenever I try to broach the topic.”
His wife sat in silence for a few seconds. “Did the Aesir build it?”
“I don’t know. That’s what we’d always assumed, but… it’s a mystery.” He paused. “I might need to press the issue with Dahl. If the location of this base has anything to do with this emerging ancient tech discovery on Earth, then I doubt it’s a coincidence that such a specialized thing was constructed here.”
“Perhaps it was intended to be an observation outpost to keep an eye on a device of great importance?” Saera suggested.
“Yeah, something like that.”
She sat in silence for a while. “Was it a mistake for us to transition the facility out from subspace?”
As he had walked through the branching possibilities, Wil had wondered the same thing. “All I can say with certainty is that our ancestors knew more than we do right now. We need to learn everything we can.”
Chapter 11
A blaring alarm snapped Lexi to attention at her workstation. She squinted against the glare of red, pulsing lights she hadn’t known where even installed in the room.
“What’s going on?” she asked no one in particular.
“That’s the evacuation alarm,” Shena said. “What—”
She cut off as a loud boom sounded outside, and the building shuddered, bits of dust and plaster raining from the ceiling.
Stars! Lexi instinctively ducked. “Are we under attack?”
Shouts sounded from the lounge room followed by the sharp crack of breaking glass.
Everything had been fine for the preceding hours of the afternoon. She’d had lunch with Kira and Leon and then gone back to work at her station. Nothing had seemed out of the ordinary until the alarm sounded.
More screams and rumbles carried from outside. A particularly loud quake accompanied another boom close enough to hurt her ears. More plaster flaked off the ceiling, a cloud of debris filled the air. She spat out the chalky taste.
“We need to get out of here!” Shena shouted, making a run for the nearest door.
“I’m right behind you.” Lexi had no intention of going anywhere just yet. She needed to locate her friends. They’d never find each other if the sounds from outside were any indication of the chaos breaking out across Duron City.
She jogged back toward the lounge room at the intersection of the various work areas. If Kira was coming to find her from her usual post location, she’d pass through the room.
Halfway across the lounge, a powerful blast shook the building, causing the old light fixtures to spark. A section of the ceiling cracked apart, which sent a fresh cloud of dust billowing on the wind streaming in from the broken windows.
A cough sounded from the doorway and Kira stumbled into view, covered in white dust and dark smudges.
Lexi waved away the dust in front of her, to little effect. “Kira! Are you okay?” She ran to her.
The other woman had a small trickle of blood streaming down from her hairline. “Yeah, just a scrape. I’ll be fine. Have you seen Leon?”
“No, not since lunch. What’s happening?”
“Shite. I wish I knew. I can’t find him. He was summoned to a meeting this afternoon, but he didn’t come back.”
“Meeting with who?”
“Alliance leadership. Something about their research.”
Another explosion in the distance rocked the building foundation.
“Fok!” Kira exclaimed. “This must have been the plan all along.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think the Alliance might be cleaning up loose ends.”
Lexi glanced toward the window. “It sounds like the whole city is falling apart out there.”
“We knew the Alliance was planning something, but I didn’t think it would be this.” She shook her head, seemingly on the verge of a more emotional display but her poise as a seasoned soldier kept her focused.
“We’ll find Leon,” Lexi tried to assure her. “Where was his meeting?”
“Down in the basement.”
“Then he might be trapped down there. Or, there are all sorts of underground passageways leading out, so he could have been taken that way.”
“If that’s the case, he wouldn’t have gone willingly.” Kira swore under her breath. “I need to try to look for him, to make sure he’s not being held somewhere onsite.”
Lexi waved her arms. “The building is falling apart!”
“I won’t leave him here to be buried in rubble. If he’s here. I have to be sure.”
“I’ll help you look.”
“No, Lexi, you should go. Now,” Kira urged.
“I’m not leaving you here alone.”
“I can look after myself.”
Lexi crossed her arms and stared down the other woman. “I have no doubt, but that doesn’t change that I’m the reason you’re here. Helping the a
uthorities stop the Alliance—or Coalition, or whatever—is the only thing separating me from the criminals behind these attacks.”
“There’s a lot more that makes you different.”
“It doesn’t matter. I want to see this thing through. I won’t run away.”
Kira sighed. “All right. But I can’t promise I’ll be able to protect you if things get dicey.”
Lexi flashed a confident smile. “You’re not the only one who can look after herself.”
“Let’s start with the basement, since that’s his last known location. Maybe there’s a clue.”
The two women broke into a quick jog toward the staircase. The corridors were a mess of dust and minor debris that had fallen from cracks in the ceiling and walls.
No one else was visible in the building, presumably having already evacuated. That was the smart thing to do. Running deeper into an unstable building went against Lexi’s gut instincts and everything she had been taught, but she agreed with Kira; they had to make sure Leon wasn’t trapped somewhere.
The basement was in even worse shape than the upper levels, being of an older construction vintage. Several bricks had broken free from the mortar and now littered the central hallway. The pervasive musty smell in the space had intensified, filling Lexi’s nostrils with a strong aroma of mildew and wet stone.
Lexi followed Kira toward the back of the basement to a room labeled B-27. She had never been to that portion of the facility before, but she’d heard it referenced by management. The door was cracked open and the room empty, aside from the spartan furnishings.
Kira, undeterred by the lack of people, immediately began examining the room. “Look for any computer access. We might be able to pull up recent files.”
“You know how to hack?”
“Not as well as Kyle or Nia, but I can get by.”
“Who?”
“Some of the best soldiers you’ll ever meet.” Kira spotted something and knelt down next to the back wall. “Ah ha! Control panel for the holoprojector.” She took out a multitool from her pocket and began prying off the covering.
“You just carry that thing around with you?”
“You don’t have one?” She popped the panel off, revealing a mess of data ribbons and a crystal matrix. “This would be so much easier with the right equipment.”
