She smiled for the first time. “I guess it is kinda cool that I’ll get to see the future without getting old. But everyone that I know…” she trailed off.
I could imagine how disconcerting this must have been to her. “Do you know why they took you?” I asked, part as distraction—part genuine interest.
She shook her head. “They’ve given me some indications, but I don’t really know for sure.”
Before I could press much further, Tashmit returned, accompanied this time by a couple of other Tkosi.
“There’s someone I’d like you to meet,” she said to me. “Betty Ann, you’ve met him already. He’s one of our best intelligence agents and a recent addition to my team. I had to pull some strings to get him, but he’s totally worth it. I think you’ll find him fascinating—I learn something new every time I talk to him. Come with me.”
They led us to another room where a tall slender Tkosi was seated at a desk watching a hologram projected from a pad on his knees.
Tashmit introduced us. “Kelel is our foremost expert on ancient Tkosi technology and its use on Earth. He specializes in studying human societies, particularly how they’ve preserved or incorporated remnants of our ancient interactions in their culture and histories. Nathan here,” she said to Kelel, “is the visitor you’ve heard about.”
Kelel stood and bowed, touching first his forehead, then his chest with his thumb and index finger. “Tashmit likes to make it sound like she had to twist my arm to get me on board with this project, but when I heard that a human had come via portal, I was thrilled. I just hoped I’d get a chance to meet with him. When she asked if I wanted to work on the mission, of course I jumped at the chance. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Nathan.”
I certainly wasn’t expecting to be honored by an Enlil, much less one as esteemed as Kelel apparently was. I touched my forehead and chest as he’d done and he smiled.
“Well Nathan,” he said. “I hope you have an appetite for learning, because there’s a lot of ground to cover.”
I had so many questions, it was difficult to decide where to begin. I started with, “What mission?”
Ntkit a ka’a. Konkirei? The Tkosi conferred amongst themselves in their language—it reminded me of the sounds dolphins make, but slower and not high pitched—and then Tashmit responded. “We are in a state of increased hostilities with the Enki, another nation of Tkosi. Just short of war, really. We and the Enki are sister people, much like Arabs and Jews, or Ethiopians and Eritreans on Earth.”
“‘Brother people, actually,’” Kelel interjected. “Literally. Our two nations are descended from two brothers, Enlil and Enki. Like Isaac and Ishmael. Classic tale of sibling rivalry.”
Tashmit nodded. “The Enlil and the Enki have distrusted each other for much of our existence, but in the past 300 years we’d made great strides in eliminating the mistrust. The chain of events that led to the present situation began a little over forty years ago, when the Enki lost a war they started and were punished by the Tkosi Council of Nations. We helped them to rebuild, but there were conditions attached. The Council of Nations placed restrictions on what industries and technologies the Enki could develop, and they chafed at that.”
“And a lot of Enki saw our involvement as profiteering,” Kelel added.
Tashmit went on, “The Enki recovery was moving along, then about thirty years ago a volcano that hadn’t erupted in 200,000 years exploded and wiped out their biggest city—15 million inhabitants. It devastated the economy and threw the planet’s climate off for years. Ash that was ejected into the atmosphere resulted in plant and animal die-offs, and altered weather patterns. The Enki suffered nationwide droughts that lasted for years. Tens of millions died or became refugees.”
I tried to imagine what would happen in the U.S. if New York was just wiped out one day. All the people, all the companies, all the business that flowed through there, just gone. The whole world would be thrown into chaos.
“All of this turmoil left huge gaps in Enki society, there was no leadership. They set up interim governments that ended up staying in place for years and years. The nations of Tkosi poured tons of aid into Enki, but corruption was rampant. None of that aid did any good. Then about twenty years ago, a new leader came on the scene.”
“He’s the emperor now,” Kelel said. “Eanaki. He seemed good at first—he was stable and decisive, something that’d been missing in Enki leadership since the calamities. He gave the people hope and promised to make things better, which they needed to hear, but he gradually became more and more autocratic.”
“Enki is now a dictatorship,” Tati said, “and, Eanaki is a demagogue. He’s convinced the people that outside influences—especially the Enlil—are holding Enki from returning to its former glory. He’s always holding rallies and parades exhorting the Enki to reclaim their position among the nations of Tkosa.”
Kelel continued. “He’s always been militaristic, but his language has become plainly bellicose in the past few years. Plans to take back what’s rightfully theirs, and increased extra-planetary attacks on distant colonies. He hasn’t gone after Earth yet but we think it’s just a matter of time—there have been an increasing number of incidents involving Enki military forces here on Tkosi.”
“And you think war is next,” I said.
“I’m sure of it,” Tashmit said. “Eanaki is a severely damaged person and his existence threatens the entire planet.”
“Don’t you have emissaries?” Betty Ann asked. “Aren’t there systems to make sure this doesn’t go too far?”
Tashmit and Kelel both shook their heads. “They’ve shut down all normal diplomatic channels,” Kelel said. “We think there are people within Enki land that we think we can work with to coordinate a resolution. The problem is, we have no way to get in. The inner circle is closely guarded and difficult to access. We’ve sent envoys, but they were rejected. We’ve tried sending operatives too, but that hasn’t been successful either.”
“Which is where you come in,” Tashmit said. Both of you have rare and special traits that make you ideal for this mission. Nathan, you came to us because you have certain traits that allowed you to activate a portal that was lost to us.”
“What traits? Curiosity and impulsiveness? I activated it because I found the keys.”
“Yes,” she said, “but there’s more to it. That portal was thought to have been destroyed thousands of years ago, but you found it and used it. That you could even operate it means something.”
“Well, I’ve always been good with my hands,” I deadpanned.
Tashmit smiled, but quickly made it disappear. “If you’ll stop talking for a minute, I’ll get to the point. As good with your hands as you may be, you were quite fortunate —as were we—that the terminus is here in Enlil. If the terminus had gone to Enki, the result would have been quite different.”
I’d gotten used to the idea that I’d activated a dimensional link and traveled to an alien planet, but hearing that I could’ve gone to a hostile alien location was somehow disconcerting.
Tashmit continued. “Betty, we collected you because you have certain other traits we’ve been looking for. They’ll be helpful on your mission.”
“What’s this mission?” Betty said.
“We need you to find and activate the other lost portals on Earth. Working together, you two can find them. But the only way to activate them is from Earth.”
“Wait,” I protested. “Why us? Why don’t you do it yourself?”
If I didn’t know better, I’d have said the expression on her face became one of chagrin. “All of the portals were deactivated millennia ago and their programming was changed. Now only Talaris coded humans—like you—can open them. And you’re the only one who has actually activated one....”
“You don’t even know where the portals are,” Betty said. “You don’t even know if they still exist. How are we supposed to find them? Why can’t you just go through from this side and see where you c
ome out on Earth?”
“Only active portals can be used to travel from here to Earth. The terminals on this end are all still active but they’re inactive on the Earth end. The one Nathan activated can now be used, but there are no known others. They’re all silent. Most are lost. But Nathan carries the activation codes.”
“What does that mean?” I asked. “What activation codes?”
Kelel spoke up at this. “Our ancestors used humans to serve many functions and edited your DNA for their purposes. The way you program and store information in computers, we programmed and stored information in DNA. We modified humans to give them certain abilities useful to us. There were several classes of humans so modified. Some were laborers, some were guards, or messengers, warriors, and others. Some of these modifications remain common throughout the current human population— laborers for example, there were many of those. But both of you have someone in your ancestry who was a member of a class that was exceedingly rare. Nathan’s ancestors were coded as Talari, which is the only kind that can open portals on Earth. Not even we could open them now.”
Tashmit addressed me specifically. “We apparently identified you as a carrier early in your life and tested you. We made a mistake somehow and did not record the results correctly. You came back to us by serendipity.”
“Some background here would be helpful,” Kelel said, sensing my confusion. “Much was lost in the wars. The genetic manipulation that was done on your kind sounds unsavory to our current ways of thinking, but it’s a fact. It’s not much different from a historical and moral perspective than the colonialism practiced on Earth. Except that when we took our hooks out, we took them out more or less completely. Can’t say the same for the colonial powers on Earth.”
I noticed the corner of Betty Ann’s mouth turn up ever so slightly.
“In any case,” he continued, clasping his hands behind his back, “the Tkosi have always been expert at genetic manipulation and it’s something that we have done—and continue to do—on planets where we’ve had influence. On Earth, we coded humans to assist in world-building. Administration, war, security, governance…those types of things. But even though that was long ago and we’ve advanced in many ways since then, we’ve also—” he paused to find the right words, “regressed in other ways.”
“What do you mean ‘regressed’?” I asked.
He hesitated before answering. “The wars were tremendously detrimental to our base of knowledge, and despite our natural facility with genetics, we lost much of our capacity in that area. The coding used to create the rarer classes has been lost and we’ve not been able to replicate it. Radiation from the weapons deployed on Earth degraded much of the coding in the human population, and most humans of the classes we need most now didn’t survive. We’re only recently re-discovering some of what our ancestors could do. We’ve made progress, but not enough. So finding you two was nothing short of amazing.”
“I still haven’t been told why I’m here,” Betty Ann said.
“You carry coding of an Infil,” Tashmit answered. “Your class was essentially used as spies, and have a number of abilities optimized for that purpose. They were critical to the development of stable governments on Earth. You both have enhanced reflexes, endurance, healing, and some biogenetic ability. Probably the most significant traits for Infils are the ability to speak all languages and use Neuroconcealment.”
“Neuro…concealment?” Betty Ann asked.
“It is often better to appear to humans in a form other than our own,” Tashmit explained. “Humans can be more tractable when you appear to them in a form that their brain will accept. Less fearful. Neuroconcealment suppresses certain brain activity so that the brain it is acting upon will perceive something that isn’t there. Something that doesn’t anger or frighten them. And not question it.”
“Like a deer running alongside my car on Santa Monica Boulevard?” Betty Ann asked.
Tashmit smiled. “Exactly.”
“If it wasn’t a deer, what was it?”
“One of our ships,” she said. “Neuroconceal doesn’t tell your brain what to see, it just suppresses or heightens certain emotions, such as fearfulness. Your brain supplies its own response. You essentially see what you want to see.”
“So are you using a neural cloak on us now?” I asked.
“Don’t be silly,” Tashmit said. “There’s no need now.”
Kelel continued, “Your genetic coding also has blank, encodable regions—all DNA does—which is how we’re able to encode you in the first place. Think of it like unused memory in one of your computers. We can plug in additional ability modules in those spaces.”
“Do we have any say in this?” I asked.
Tashmit seemed amused by the question. “To an extent. You’ll both get what you need and the training you need and then you can begin. But there may be some room for your preferences.” Another exchange in their language. “We are ready to begin.”
“What happens if I decide I don’t want to do it?” Betty Ann asked. “You send me back to Earth, what’s to stop me from just backing out?”
“You’ve already been taken once,” one of the Tkosi said. “We can always do it again.”
“Yeah?” Betty Ann said. “So you kidnap me again and then what? You’re still not getting your portals open unless we go back home and do it.”
“I understand that the way you came to us was a little jarring for you—” Tashmit began.
“Jarring? You think kidnapping me and taking me away for decades is jarring? When I go back, everyone I knew will be old or dead. My abuelita is definitely dead, and my parents probably are too. I won’t know anyone or recognize anything in the world and you call that jarring?”
Everyone in the room could hear the contempt in Betty Ann’s voice. The Tkosi maintained their stoic appearances, but I could hear the compassion in Tashmit’s voice when she spoke.
“Betty Ann, you’re not locked into a shifted timeline yet.” Tashmit consulted some device that she pulled from a concealed compartment of her bodysuit. After touching it several times, she found what she was looking for. “We have almost six Tkosi months before the windows to return you to Earth on your original timeline close.”
Betty Ann’s face was a mixture of confusion and hopefulness. The tears that had formed in her eyes froze there, glistening.
“We want this to be cooperative,” Tashmit said. “We’re asking a lot, but we can give you a lot too. And if you complete the mission before the windows close, we can put you back in your original timeline. We’ve got six months.”
5
They took me to another gray room with the bluish light that I’d come to associate with the medical function among the Enlil, and had me lay down on another too-soft bed set into a wall recess. When I woke, I was looking up at a bright light and a Tkosi face above me. I tried to move and realized I was paralyzed. He leaned in closer.
They must have put me to sleep because when I awoke, my whole body hurt, but I could move again. They were watching from somewhere because several appeared as soon as I started moving. They gathered around me and started asking questions: could I understand them? Could I see clearly?
They would ask several questions and we’d talk for some time, but they kept asking if I could understand them.
“Yes,” I said, with a bit of an edge. “I can understand you. Why do you keep asking me that?”
“The update appears to have taken,” he said to his colleagues, who all nodded.
“What update?” I asked testily. “What have you done to me?”
“We’ve activated your Talaris biocoding,” he said. “Turned everything on, basically. We’ve also implanted you. I’m sorry we didn’t ask you first. Fortunately, it appears to have taken. Can you still understand me?”
“Yes, I already said I can understand you. What do you mean you implanted me? What implants?”
He walked around the table to look at me from the other side. “Neuro-el
ectrical stimulators. In your brain and throughout your body. They let us track you and they also upgrade your brain’s processing ability and do a few other things, notably give you the ability to generate and use bioelectricity. I think you’ll like it. And I keep asking if you can understand me to confirm that the other coding took. I’ve asked you that question in seven different human languages.”
I was furious and I let them know it. I wasn’t some guinea pig that they could do whatever they wanted with. My rant didn’t elicit any more reaction from them than a smile. And it slowly occurred to me why. I wasn’t speaking English. It was the same sensation I had the first time I rode a bike without training wheels. I was angry at my brother for not holding me up until I realized I was riding without any help.
“You see?” he said. “There’s some pretty cool stuff you can do now. You were just giving me a real piece of your mind in Russian.”
I was dumbfounded. I was still angry, but I had to admit—this was definitely cool.
“How many languages can I speak now?” I asked.
“All of the human ones,” he said. “Plus Tkosi. You’ll still have difficulty with some pronunciations, but you can speak fluently. Just now we’ve spoken French, Russian, Japanese, Arabic, Bantu, Navajo, and Amharic.”
That sounded impossible, but as he spoke, I knew he was right. Ok, so maybe there were some benefits to this. The door opened again and a creature that looked like a salamander the size of a shepherd dog came walking in. My heart jumped and I reflexively moved back and away from it.
“Is this a neural cloak thing?” I said. “I thought it was supposed to make things look less scary.” The thing opened its mouth and showed rows of serrated, steak-knife teeth.
Children of the Sky (The Talari Subversion Book 1) Page 5