Minds eye, p.12
Mind's Eye, page 12
part #2 of Skyward Series
The nutrient bars are the same this morning as they were the day before. Not that days have any real meaning on Cobalt - the lights here shift to simulate day and night, but there aren’t seasons, calendars to keep track of.
Sax is grateful for the protein. For the energy. Especially when the familiars show up again. They look at him, at Bas with their blank blue faces. There are two of them this time, and when they point to Sax, he’s not surprised.
“Another exercise?” Dalachite says. “I’ve made some adjustments. I think you’ll find it more interesting this time.”
If there’s any lingering animosity from yesterday’s events, Sax doesn’t hear it. As if the Amigga has moved on, chalked it up as a squabble not worth mentioning. Sax is fine with that. He’s made his transmission to Evva, and there’s plenty of weapons for the Oratus in their quarters. If things get worse, they’ll be ready.
“Do you want me to go this time?” Bas says.
“I would much prefer him,” Dalachite interrupts. “I’m calibrating the familiars, and so I need a consistent source subject. One whose styles I can analyze and then see how effective my tweaks have been.”
“What kind of tweaks?” Sax asks.
“It would ruin the purpose of the demonstration were I to tell you ahead of time. The whole exercise lies in how well they, and you, adapt.”
Sax, beneath the table, sneaks his tail beneath Bas and delivers two quick taps to the bottom of her own tail. He stands up, looks at the two familiars. “Fine. Now that I’ve got a full stomach, you’ll have all the advantage you need.”
“To win?” Dalachite laughs.
“Oh, you’ll lose,” Sax replies. “Just more slowly.”
The two familiars lead him through the hallways and back to the same training room. It bears the scars from Sax’s gunplay the night before, burns Dalachite does not acknowledge. This time the two familiars go to the center of the room and turn back to Sax.
“Another chase, like yesterday?” Sax asks.
“I think it would be the perfect place to start,” Dalachite says. “Whenever you’re ready.”
This time the familiars don’t even move. They stand there, watch Sax. He looks at them. Both familiars are the same size. Both have the same two legs and arms. Neither one capable of outrunning an Oratus. Neither one wearing any sort of weapon. How is this going to be any different than before?
Not that it matters. Sax bares his teeth, clenches his legs, fakes towards the one on the left, and then lunges at the one to the right.
His clawed feet pump into long leaps, and Sax catches the familiar with his midclaws, cuts it to pieces. The familiar explodes in a tremendous blue spray.
Something bites Sax’s back. A micro stunner’s tingling burn. If Sax wasn’t wearing a mask, he’d be in a lot more pain. As it is, the spot in the middle of his spine feels like a lit candle is being held up to it.
“So you’re cheating today,” Dalachite says as Sax whirls around to see the other familiar. Rather than running to the wall as it did on the day before, the familiar sprinted right to the cabinet. Cut behind Sax after the Oratus went right, and armed itself.
“You’re one to talk,” Sax roars. The micro-stunner could damage the mask, if Sax let it. “You said this was a chase. Not an attack.”
“The battlefield changes constantly, Oratus.”
The familiar fires again. The bolt strikes Sax in the chest, burning, but otherwise dispersing through the mask’s defenses.
If that’s how the Amigga wants it, then Sax will play its game. He darts towards the second familiar, this time using his feet to dance to the right. Towards the door and the wall around it. The familiar tracks and fires another shot. This one misses. A little too slow. Sax angles slightly left, jumps, uses the gravity to hit the padding above the door and spring off so that he’s flying towards the familiar at a diagonal angle.
The familiar can’t get the miner aimed quickly enough and Sax smashes it, presses the familiar back against the cabinet where his claws rend it into goo.
Any taste of victory dies when Sax hears the door open behind him. Turns to see four more familiars walk in. These are not empty-handed. Each one holds another sword. Not an old model from the cabinet either. These are newer. They shine with circuitry. With buzzing edges. Made to cut right through metal, or through a mask.
“Well done, Oratus. You’ve exceeded my expectations. However, you’ve also tried to undermine my station with your little message. I’m sorry, but our experiments are over.”
Sax reaches behind him, pulls a pair of miners from the cabinet. The broken ones from before. He takes a quick glance back, sees the working one that he used with Malo and Viera, but it hasn’t been recharged. There’s one sword still left though. So he takes that. The four familiars advance slowly, each one holding its blade in front of it, level towards the Oratus.
Sax sinks to crouch, drops the broken rifles and holds the sword in his left foreclaw. The four familiars march in a line, which means the ends are the weak spots. Sax doesn’t want to get trapped against a wall, so he feints to the right. Away from the familiars and towards space. Then he uses his tail, grabbing the inside of the cabinet, to yank himself back left. Sax claws the up the wall and jumps. He’s not going for an attack this time and soars high over the row of blue heads.
The familiars all turn to follow him as Sax lands on the far end of the room, plenty of clear padding between him and his enemies. As Sax hits the ground he bursts forward, charging right at the center of the line. His legs and midclaws scramble on the ground, pushing faster across the room. The four familiars prepare their swings. Sax rolls. His right claws bite into the padding hard. Pull Sax towards the door. Towards that side of the line and out of the range of the two left familiars swinging down towards where he should have been.
As Sax spins, his tail lashes over his shoulders to catch the head of the closest familiar, the one on the end of the right side. The blow doesn’t break it, but sends the familiar reeling back.
Buys Sax a second.
Which is all he needs.
Sax completes the roll, he catches himself on his legs and darts forward at the next familiar. Its blade sweeps to meet him, and Sax catches it with his own. But where the familiar only has one weapon, Sax has many. He presses the familiar’s blade up and sweeps beneath it with his midclaws.
The familiar breaks apart, and as Sax’s skin is pelted with blue goop, he catches its buzzing sword with his tail as it falls to the ground, and flips it at the next familiar. The sword spins end over end, slicing right through the familiar’s liquid middle. Which leaves only two.
No, four. Sax counts quick. The other two are back near the cabinet. The ones Sax tore apart earlier. They’re grabbing the small, stunning miners.
So that’s it then. Sax sees it all in an instant. The familiars putting themselves back together. They’ll keep coming, keep hacking away at him until Sax inevitably makes a mistake. Until he gets too tired, or simply misses something.
He notices a red glow above the only exit.
Sax won’t leave this room alive.
31 The Grand Design
The opening door shocks me awake. The lights rise from their dim glow to bright scalding white, and as my eyes come into focus I see the blank head of a blue familiar standing there. Staring at me, or at least I think so, though I can’t see its eyes.
“Time for our next session,” Dalachite’s voice says.
I get out of the bed and the familiar watches me as I put on the mask. It’s the only clothes I have now, and the mask feels better than my old robe and cape. Fewer scratches, less dirt. It warms me up to the perfect temperature. The mask is also, aside from the Cache, the only real possession I have. It’s a comfort to have it close.
I follow the familiar down the hallway, noticing that both Malo and Viera’s doors are red-locked. I don’t even know if Viera is out of the med bay, and when I ask I receive no response. Part of me wants to stay back, to resist the familiar just to see what would happen, but Ignos tells me not to.
Making Dalachite angry is only going to hurt you more.
This time we go to a different room. There’s no platform, no spherical wall, but instead a single long shelf on one side and, on it, a tank full of greenish water. There’s nothing else in the room, though I can see some scuffing on the floor. As if furniture had been here at one point, and now moved. There’s another familiar in the room, near the tank. It waves me over. As I go, the familiar that led me shuts the door and, I notice, moves to stand in front of it.
I know what’s going to happen.
I don’t.
When it does, I want you to remember that I’m on your side. Remember that I want the best for the both of us.
I know that. I don’t necessarily believe it, but I trust it when Ignos says that its own survival depends on me. It’s in my head after all, so if Dalachite decides now is my time to die, it seems likely Ignos would go with me.
I get near the tank. The familiar directs me to the center so that I’m staring across the water. The tank itself is about a meter wide and nearly half a meter deep. There’s nothing in it, aside from the liquid. I don’t see fish or anything swimming, no plants growing.
The familiar shoves me in.
Not all of me. Just my face and my head. The familiar holds me down and pushes me beneath the surface. I start to shout, to scream, but then I realize I don’t need to. I’m still able to breathe, and it’s not hard to know why. The mask. It’s doing the work for me. So I stop struggling and wait to see what’s going to happen next.
I don’t have to wait long. The familiar holding me down doesn’t relax his grip, but, through the blurred walls of the tank, I see the other familiar come close. He reaches beneath the shelf, and comes back with a shiny silver device almost as long as my arm.
This may hurt Kaishi, but it will be worse for me than for you.
The familiar reaches over with the device, pushes it beneath the water. I feel the ripples as it comes close and I know exactly where it’s going. Now I struggle; my hands and arms jerk. I try to kick with my legs, but the familiars are strong. Stronger than me, anyway, and they ignore my attempts.
Stop it, Kaishi. They will only hurt you.
They’re going to do that anyway. Ignos, though, is insistent, sad. So I let myself relax. Shut my eyes. Feel the silver piece slide into my ear. The mask coats my skin, but there’s something about the device. Something that makes the mask recoil and creates a hole. Ignos starts to tell me, and I catch the word electric, before all is lost.
Before, in the first session, I felt it when Ignos experienced pain. When it thrashed and turned and writhed in my mind. This is similar, only not so random. It’s as though Ignos is caught in a net. Stuck on the end of something, and the thrashes are focused. They prickle the right side of my head and my temple burns, and then I feel it. A rushing, slimy thing, leaving tiny scratches across my ear as it moves.
There’s a sudden pop. A vacuum. My ears clearing and then I’m being pulled back. Out of the water and away from the tank.
“Look at it,” Dalachite’s voice comes into the room.
The Amigga doesn’t have to tell me, because I can’t look away. In the tank is something both small and terrifyingly large. A narrow, sloping body nearly transparent, so that I can see the small batch of organs inside. The very top seems to fray into a thousand strands: long, stringy things that stretch out through the tank as the water shifts. That drift all the way to the edges.
“That is a Sevora,” Dalachite says. “That is what is inside you. What is telling you the things that you should do. That is whose demands you’ve been following.”
The thing about nightmares is that they’re often scarier when you can’t see them. When they travel through the shades of dreams waiting to spring upon you, and you know that they’re there but you don’t know what they are. Here though, here I’m seeing Ignos in the flesh. I’m seeing the thing that was inside me.
I know then that when I slipped into the black ink in the jungle, this came into my mind.
“There’s something very special about your species Kaishi,” Dalachite says. “Something that we have not seen before. Something the Sevora did not expect. Do you see all those fronds there? They wrap and ensnare your nerves. They splice into all that you are and take you. Twist you and turn you into a puppet. But this didn’t happen with you, did it?”
“I could hear it. We could talk to each other.”
I remember of course. I remember after I woke up. With Ignos my head. When it complained about how it couldn’t move me. How I couldn’t move my own legs until it gave the control back. Why?
“That is why the Sevora are the enemy of the galaxy,” Dalachite continues. “They take intelligent races and subvert them to their own ends. A true evil. A parasite. You, and the rest of your species, may hold the secret to preventing that.”
“What secret?”
“Somewhere in that body of yours is the reason that Sevora is unable to take you over as it would any other species. It’s my job to find out what that is.”
I’m afraid to ask but I do anyway. “How?”
There’s no answer, at least not a verbal one. But I find out soon enough. The familiars take hold of me again and bring me back to the tank. Press me under the water. My eyes are open and I watch, they even let me tilt my head enough to see the Sevora. To see Ignos.
It doesn’t swim so much as bob, until the strands flutter. They move as one, waving back and forth and pushing the Sevora towards me.
When Ignos touches my head, I feel its stringy tentacles. They press against the mask and then bounce away. The Sevora can’t, doesn’t try to go back inside. But instead it sits there, hovering near my head.
I should be horrified, I suppose. Should be screaming or panicking. I’m not. Partly because, I think, I know it’s Ignos there. I know that it’s had so many opportunities to hurt me and hasn’t. Not directly, anyway. I also have no choice. I can’t fight these familiars.
Not alone.
Part of me, too, is curious. The silver thing comes back into the water, guided by a familiar’s hand, and approaches my ear. This time, when it punctures the mask, I can feel it moving around, almost touching the sides of my skin. The mask recoils from it, and the space gives the Sevora a chance to shoot forward into my ear like an arrow. The trailing edges of its tentacles crawl once more into my mind.
Into me.
This time, I know what to look for. I feel a second consciousness tap into mine. The tingle in my nerves as they say they’re no longer sending messages just to me. When my head pulls out of the water moments later, I hear Ignos.
I’m sorry, Kaishi.
32 Attrition
He’s never going to be able to beat these things.
Sax runs around the room, jumping and leaping and rolling. Making precise moves when he needs to take out the two familiars that keep trying to get the micro-stunners. The four with the swords chase, but they’re slow. Sloppy.
Sax is going to get sloppy too. His muscles are already burning. His mask bears scorch marks from near misses. He’s going to make a mistake and die beneath a familiar’s blade.
How is he going to get out of here?
Sax takes another flying leap up the wall and then from there jumps onto the ceiling, latching on with his claws. The familiars with the swords head to the sides and begin their weird suction run up towards him. Sax has only seconds to breathe. Meanwhile the two stunner-wielding familiars are re-assembling themselves from the latest thrashing. There’s nothing else in the room, except the glowing red light over the door.
The door.
It’s metal, too strong for Sax to break through with his claws alone. There’s more than claws in this room, however. More than micro-stunners and swords. He glances at the cabinet. The one miner still in there. Half-charged from his show time with Malo and Viera, but even half should be enough to blow a hole in the door. Weaken it for Sax to get through.
Now that he has a plan, Sax wastes no time. He skitters along the ceiling, towards a sword-wielder reaching the top of the wall and turning upside down. Sax meets him, and as the familiar swings his sword, the Oratus bursts forward. Sax gets beneath the strike and slams the familiar into the wall. They both fall, the low gravity and padded floor letting Sax hit the bottom without injury, though his claws mean the familiar can’t say the same.
The other sword-wielders drop themselves, and while they’re doing that, Sax gets a free run at the cabinet. Jerks it open, grabs a rifle and turns face-to-face with a pair of micro-stunners. They fire, and the two blasts catch Sax right in the chest. The stunners burn, searing hot and a strange wave of numbness spreads through Sax.
He can’t give up now or he’ll get hacked to pieces.
There’s a thing that happens with Oratus. When they’re desperate, angry, when they’re fighting for their lives. Sax calls it the bloodlust, and it wraps him up in fury now. Pushes away the burns, the aches, the exhaustion. Sax surges, takes another two blasts and then he’s through the familiars. Bashing them to the ground and throwing the stunners across the room.
A pair of sword-wielders is next, and Sax sidesteps them. Does a quick jump towards the center of the room and swings, in the air. He aims the miner at the door. Pulls the trigger as he floats and unleashes a lance of azure energy that strikes its target. The door’s center-right side glows orange before curling and blackening away from the beam, which sputters out a moment later.
Older miners suck power like a Fassoth sucks food. Sax has forgotten how many power packs they used to carry.
The third sword-wielder catches Sax from behind, nearly lops off his tail, but Sax feels the air moving as the sword comes and only suffers a gash instead. The Oratus turns and, with a single bite, obliterates the familiar’s head. Swallows the goop. Sax isn’t sure if it’ll make him sick, but he knows the stuff won’t be going back to reform the thing.
