Shadows of the Son

by E L Strife

  “Everything okay?” Bennett quirked an umber brow.

  “Ya-yeah. Any idea where I might find my sister?”

  “I just helped her move a few of her projects to Lab Four on Level Five. Why?”

  “Thought I’d bump into her. Take her some dinner.” He rubbed a thumb in his palm, pondering the residual tingling. “I know she isn’t sleeping or eating like she’s supposed to.”

  “She is a workaholic.” Bennett gave him a nod and turned back to his path.

  “H-how are you doing with your transition?” Lavrion stammered, instantly regretting taking more of the man’s precious time.

  Bennett stopped and glanced over his shoulder, his tone wilting. “Doesn’t matter right now. Only survival.” Then he continued on his way.

  Shoving his hands in his pockets, Lavrion bounced up the stairs. Those two are more alike than they realize.

  Exiting into the one mess hall open at night, Lavrion took a seat on a viewing bench and dropped his head into his palms. He had to collect his pieces before seeing his sister again. The center of his chest ached for everyone, but Bennett and Atana in particular. Why do you give me this power to heal all the physical ailments of the body, but leave out the most important one?

  —Flux—

  Chapter 14

  TINTINGTHE WINDOWS around him, Bennett slumped over his desk in the back of TACSIM. I want to rest, but I know you’re just going to send me somewhere else. Let’s get this over with.

  The flurry of black and orange clouds in his mind-space was becoming familiar, though the dizziness lingered. Bennett’s Ether wasn’t a cool after-rain walk on a foggy morning like Xahu’ré experienced. His burned like gold forges on a volcanic planet buried inside of a pissed-off star.

  Falling through black space in his dreams was normal, but not the corona of color or the bodyslam of air pressure upon his arrival. Part of him still expected to wake up in bed.

  A pair of small silver moons floated closer in Bennett’s ripping orange sky. Smoke gathered around them, forming a hominoid figure. It paused before him then led the way across a curved bridge of rippling black light to a row of windows at the helm of a ship. Not knowing what else to do, Bennett followed.

  Through the glass, he watched missiles paint the sky in stripes of red plasma. Freckles of sheared-off metal blotted out the light. Waves of ships crashed through one another, punctured hulls gushing plumes of life-support gasses littered with men and women.

  Bennett turned to see a face appear in the figure beside him. “What are you trying to tell me?”

  The features of the manifestation sharpened, and Sergeant Cutter lifted a hand directing out the windows. “Look again.” His hushed voice spoke like the overlay of a thousand harmonized beings. It wasn’t Bennett’s munitions specialist beside him, but something more. “You’re not opening your mind. Why won’t you open to me?”

  “I did, about Atana,” he defended.

  The being’s conjured skin shifted in the subtle breeze of Bennett’s breaths. “You still run. I have to force your connection.” It lifted an arm, directing out the window. “Look again.”

  Dragging his eyes back to the scene, Bennett wondered what the universe’s natural form was. “Don’t sugar-coat this. Show me what you are. I’ll have to accept it someday anyway.”

  “You are not ready.”

  “Then help me. You want me to get it, but then offer nothing I understand,” Bennett retorted, glancing back at Cutter’s scintillating eyes. “We aren’t making any progress this way. I don’t have time for this.”

  “You will make time.”

  “I have been!” Bennett snapped. I’m exhausted. I don’t even trust myself anymore! “I think you picked the wrong spark.”

  Ribbons of smoke drifted away from the universe’s conjured body, dissipating like fire in air. “I do not make mistakes.”

  “What about Nakio and Azure?” Bennett spat back. He was losing precious time and patience. “How about the Suanoa? Were they part of your plan?”

  “I do not make mistakes,” it mechanically reiterated. “Open yourself. Look.”

  Grumbling, Bennett returned his focus to the slaughter outside. Three Kyras boldly snaked through rings of debris around a smoldering Earth. It had been a standard assault for UP: hang back, wait for the assailants to break formation, then trap them and take them out in small groups from the shadows. But the explosive showers of broken crafts weren’t encouraging.

  Flotillas of enemy ships stuck close together as they dipped and wove, carving holes in Earth’s fleet before sliding back in line with the mother.

  Hive mind, well several, the way they cluster up. Bennett noted.

  “Good.”

  Bennett finally summoned the courage to ask a question he’d been pondering the answer to since his transformation. “If you see and know all—”

  “I cannot tell you how to win.” The being glanced at him before returning to study the battle outside. Its silver eyes reflected the scene with alarming clarity. There was no animosity in its tone, only the firmness of fact.

  “Why?”

  The sunlight faded at a rate too fast for normal orbit, casting shadows over the main bridge. Bennett turned to look. Beyond the mayhem, the stars stretched and warped as something large and transparent moved amongst them. Like chameleon skins, the object’s shimmer took a trained eye to catch. In three seconds, the Kyra warships’ propulsion systems brightened, and they vanished, leaving trails of red mist.

  Bennett couldn’t understand what the Suanoa had to fear as he strained to glean details from the moving object. What is that?

  The being beside him curled forward as if its stomach hurt. It peered up at Bennett, irises swirling like silver nebulae. “A result of free will.” It turned slow to stare out at the mirage. Bennett could’ve sworn he saw the being shiver. “That—is my nightmare.”

  A scream jerked Bennett awake at his desk. Heart slamming against his ribs, his right palm found his SI on instinct, and he scanned the few sergeants working on a transparent screen at the front of the TACSIM offices.

  None of them looked away from their tasks.

  Bennett zoned out at the linoleum beneath his boots, trying mentally to pinpoint the source. The tone was so familiar, but he’d never heard Atana’s voice make such a horrid sound. He leapt up from his seat, knowing something was wrong.

  His legs quivered under the strain of his demands as he bounded down the nearest stairs. Several shepherds and doku clambered out of his path, looking frightened. He shouted apologies over his shoulders as he bolted through the labyrinth of hallways to their rooms.

  He figured she was working in the new lab. Yet he stood at her bunkroom door, out of breath, and bracing himself against it as if it was her, and she was dying in his arms.

  The soft sobs he heard couldn’t have penetrated the metal or the distance between them. He was hearing them in Ether.

  Nakio?

  The door flung open, exposing Azure’s bare chest and lucent glare.

  Bennett peered around the warrior at his co-shepherd lying on her bed. “Atana, are you okay?”

  She whined a sound Bennett hoped was a yes. Azure moved into his visual path.

  “What happened?” Bennett demanded.

  Azure’s muscles twitched visibly under his skin as he stalked a step closer. His words fell to a snide rasp as tense lines formed on his face. “Had a memory-dream of Zephyr station. A Suanoa injured her in a Testing room. She almost died.”

  Bennett stuttered as the other team members poked their heads out into the hallway. The urge to touch her was beyond reason. “I want to check on her.”

  “I don’t think now is a good time,” Azure whispered.

  “I’m her guard. She is my responsibility.” Please, move.

  Azure steadied himself in the doorway, a muscle dancing in his jaw. “It’s a memory. They’re just Ether echoes. Her body is healthy.”

  “Yet she cries out in pain.” L
oud enough I heard it in Ether. “Let me in, Azure,” Bennett growled, his fingers curling up so tight his nails bit into his palms. But it was clear Azure had no intention to.

  Bennett tried to push inside.

  Azure moved in his path, his posture stiffening. “You cannot help her.”

  “You think you two are so different that she can’t benefit from us?” Bennett thrust a hand into the room, gesturing at Atana. “She’s part of us. You’re on Home Station, Azure. Not Agutra.”

  Azure sighed, the tightness in his face easing. You weren’t there, at Zephyr. I was. You can't help her through this. Let me go so I can.

  “Azure.” Her lungs rasped from the bed. “I’m fine. Tell them to go back—to bed.”

  “Can I get you some pain meds or melatonin?” Bennett asked over Azure’s shoulder.

  No. I need you to grab a pack out of the lab. Atana moaned and coiled her body tighter. It has six units to put in wrist bands. I want you—to try them out—no one else. A sharp inhale rocked her shoulders. They won’t hurt you if they malfunction. I would do it, but Hyras has—demanded we rest.

  “Sure, of course,” he replied boldly, hoping Azure would pick up on his amiability and maybe take a lesson from it. Bennett didn’t want her to have to fight him on anything. It was obvious Hyras didn’t give her an option, not that Bennett would’ve argued. But sleep wasn't restful if the mind was awake in Ether.

  Azure grumbled, expressing how Bennett felt: frustrated.

  “Goodnight, Bennett.” With one final piercing dissection, Azure grabbed the edge of the door and closed it with a soft click.

  Bennett huffed and glanced down the hallway at his approaching teammates. As he calmed, the images which had prompted his sprint to her door registered in his mind.

  Blood on her stomach—sparks flying everywhere—cables and hoses and straps tying her in an inescapable web.

  Her body had taken flight in the memory, and something large, like a metal desk, had crushed her. Bennett felt a sympathetic stab in his stomach that spread until every limb prickled as if he lay in a pool of needles.

  Bennett needed to touch her. Somehow, he knew it would calm them both. Only the heartless chill of the steel walls between them lingered beneath his skin.

  Azure’s deep voice rumbled through the wall. “Hush, Sahara. I’m here. You’re safe on Earth. This is your bed, your home.” The sheets rustled. Show me your favorite place again.

  Bennett followed her aura through Ether. Glistening embers danced in circles around him, a rainbow of light appearing and disappearing with the thunder in the background. Cool mist flowed over her skin in waves.

  The memory reminded Bennett of the island.

  “She okay?” Josie whispered beside him, jolting him from the vision. “Nurse Orley said she saw you running. Had Tanner track your position.”

  Bennett sucked in a breath and forced his watering eyes open. Tanner and Cutter stood at the hall corner, SIs in hand, in wrinkled exercise shorts and t-shirts. Tanner’s hair was a mess, and Cutter wasn’t wearing his hat.

  “Sir?” Josie scanned him with unnerving focus and lowered her voice. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine,” he choked out, rubbing his face to hide his momentary weakness. “Haven’t slept much in the last few days. Glad you’re all getting some.”

  Rolling his cramping shoulders to loosen them, he forced himself to stand there in the hallway. He wanted to bust into Atana’s room, shove Azure aside, and do his job. But the man was right. He didn’t understand.

  Bennett surveyed the sleepy eyes and bed-head of his team. This was why he loved them; they came to check on a teammate even though they were tired. “You should all go back to sleep. We have a lot of work ahead.”

  Josie reached up to fix her ponytail. “You know where I’ll be if you, or they, need anything.” She left, heading back to Panton’s room.

  Tanner ran a nervous hand down his neck, holstering his gun. “I’ll finish inputting the updated data for the rhizoras panels, ArcStrings, and what we’ve changed on the collectors in the morning.”

  “Understood.”

  Tanner stepped back and disappeared around the corner.

  Bennett and Cutter stood in a long, desolate silence. It was unusual seeing the man again after witnessing him as an embodiment of the universe.

  Cutter rested a hand on Bennett’s shoulder, patted it, then turned and followed Tanner.

  When Bennett transitioned to be a Prospector, he would be alone except for guidance from his father. He soaked in the stillness of the empty hall, trying to get comfortable with it. All he could think about was Atana. Needing a distraction, he sulked to his door across the hall and pushed it open.

  “Sir?”

  Bennett stopped.

  Cutter’s silver eyes glinted from the shadows much the way Atana’s did. “There will be times she needs you instead of him. The last decade or so, she’s been a shepherd like you.”

  Bennett nodded once to Cutter’s words, thinking his voice sounded a bit off. Body aching from Atana’s memory-dream, Bennett stumbled into his room.

  ***

  A hot shower numbed some of the tinglings in his limbs but didn’t ease his confusion. His muscles felt like they were asleep, yet they carried him to Command’s offices without complaint. Miskaht’s light was on above her private desk. He knocked.

  Her door cracked open. She didn’t look up. “Sergeant Bennett, come in.”

  The woman still wore her ashen robes even though it was eleven at night. The inside of her office was filled with tattered books—ancient things of printed text and pictures. It smelled of musty paper and cloves and the wax candles burning beside her.

  Bennett felt less silly hand-drawing maps after witnessing such a place. Scouring her walls, covered in Egyptian artifacts and medieval paintings, Bennett wondered about her age. He could feel it in the tone of the song her spark sung from the center of her being, the one he could look inside and see in her chest. Like he had with Atana.

  Miskaht offered a chair to Bennett with a hand. Her bold green and violet irises flickered with reflections from the imitation fireplace on the wall beside her desk. Folding her hands over her stomach, she leaned back and watched him intently.

  Sinking into the cushions of a wingback chair, Bennett struggled through what he wanted to ask. He didn’t want her to doubt him after the responsibilities she’d given him. A leader stepping down as a battle approached risked chaos.

  “How do Mirramor, like yourself, connect with the universe? What does it look and feel like? And how do you remember it?” Bennett asked. “I need a reference so I can understand how my visions are different from others.”

  Miskaht sighed and looked to the dancing candle flames on her desk. “We have dreams of small pieces which repeat. Sharing them is what creates things like prophecy. All Elites are the same but have different accentuated facets. Mirramor’s visions link to physical occurrences mostly. Primvera are more in tune with emotion and mind. But we can experience all.”

  Scrubbing his hands over his scalp, Bennett tried to make sense of her words. He was born a human, not a telepath. This was beyond the constructs of God or any other structured diety he’d heard of.

  “As far as remembering them, that comes from accepting what we see, not necessarily understanding it. Though it is easier to remember what we understand, the universe will always show what it knows to be true, at the time, and what it needs us to act upon. The only reason certain things change—” She stalled, tilting her head as if hearing something in the privacy of her mind. “Is because someone didn’t do as they were expected to. It’s rare, but it happens. Not everyone believes in a higher power. And the universe is a living being. It has problems—viruses.”

  “The Suanoa,” Bennett offered.

  Miskaht nodded slowly.

  “So why can’t I sleep? My mind wants a break, but I haven’t slept in days.” Bennett leaned an elbow on an arm of the chair, resting the side of h
is head in his palm. His gaze fell on a tiny statue of a gold heron, its wings spread, standing in the corner of her desk by a cup of wooden pencils. “Everyone else has someone to tutor them through this. My father can’t even tell me what the next stage is. I’m exhausted but growing stronger.”

  “Your body will adapt,” she replied. “It’s part of being a Prospector. You are the one unit the universe thrusts its tangible power into. You must be able to watch the universe’s back when it’s working elsewhere.”

  He squinted across the desk at her. “You talk like you’re in league with them, the universe and former Prospectors.”

  “The six Elites have always been close to one another and the universe. You are the embodiment of the present and future universe. La’kian and Suanoa are of the past. They hold bonds to the universe’s power but do not actively change with it. You evolve as it does, like the rest of us Elites.”

  “I don’t understand. I need to rest. Why won’t it let me?”

  “Because you’re limiting your understanding of the universe to this physical dimension. What you feel inside is not power of the here and now.”

  Miskaht lifted her hands, palms up. A pale pink nebula bloomed in their bowl. “Every tree has roots.” The image built in layers as she explained. “They grow from beyond a boundary—from the source energy of the universe.” Glittering roots formed until a hazy horizon line cut them off. “Our bodies stretch through this one.” A trunk climbed toward the ceiling, filling the room with peach light. “Our minds branch into another realm.” Passing a second line, the trunk repeatedly forked into a massive network of thinning twigs. “Our life-sparks live in a different dimension.” Leaves appeared.