Dysphoria- Rise

by Terra Whiteman

  EXO’DAIUS , HALON IV, alpha-INSIPIA

  XVI

  TO HALCYON

  Pariah Andosyni—;

  THE TUNNEL SYSTEM WAS PITCH BLACK AND stank of mold and rust. The smell took me off guard and made me re-think a few of my theories behind the Collective timeline. Of course drainage systems couldn’t have been maintained, so it was possible that the rot was due to abandonment, but what upper-echelon civilization wouldn’t build something to last at least several hundred years?

  But this was neither the time nor place, so I kept those questions to myself.

  Our gait was no longer confident. Though we could see just fine in darkness, most forms of security machinery had senses on par with ours. The tunnel wound every fifty feet or so; and at each bend we slowed, pressing our backs to the rotting walls, waiting for the tiniest indication that we were not alone.

  The tunnel opened into some sort of bunker. Another surprise came in the form of paper documents scattered along tables and seating arrangements akin to anthropoid societies. Zira grabbed a sheet off a chair, skimming its contents. “Why is there an Altrian fort below a Collective city?”

  I shrugged. “If you don’t know, I certainly won’t.”

  “Keep the flattery coming,” said Zira with a scoff, reading the sheet one more time. His brows furrowed. “This is in military format.”

  “An underground base?” offered Sapphire.

  “Yeah, must be.” Zira threw the sheet aside. “Who do you think came first?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “The Collective were the last on this world.”

  He regarded me with smug authority. “If that were true, all of this stuff would have rotted away by now. Attica reads a footprint of 2.4 parts Arogian-10. This was here at roughly the same time as the Collective city.”

  I picked another sheet up, taking a look for myself. It was largely illegible from sitting in a damp room for centuries, but what I could make of it confirmed Zira’s notion. “Well, who doesn’t love a good plot twist?”

  “I guess we don’t have to worry about sentries,” said Sapphire.

  “I wouldn’t be so sure,” said Zira. “There’s no telling how these people died, or where there bodies went.”

  A chill descended my spine. “We should probably get a move on, then.”

  Zira nodded to the only door left ajar, which revealed the entrance to another tunnel. “I’ll lead the way. Telepathy-only from here on out.”

  *

  The more we explored, the more we realized just how complicated this planetary take-over was. It wasn’t a simple sweep; digifeed DSDs revealed that the Collective were at war with Altrians for centuries. The indigenous took to the underground after world-reconfiguration began. They sabotaged Collective progress through guerrilla warfare. Astoundingly, the Collective cut their losses and left. The price of owning Niaphali-X far outweighed the reward.

  There wasn’t a single automated security machine sighted in the hour that we’d scoured bunkers and tunnel systems. I was beginning to ease up, paying more attention to the little details of our surroundings. Beneath the structural rot there was something else; genetic markings. DNA. Blood. My sight switched to organic remnants only.

  There were Altrian DNA markings all over the walls and furnishings. It was clear from the fluorescent streaks and erratic splatters that things did not end well for them.

  Sapphire offered a sad conclusion moments later.

  —The Collective must have left with the intention of returning after their enemy died off. The air was toxic, the land riddled with killing machines; it was only a matter of time. They died a slow, painful death.

  —And why didn’t the Collective return? I asked.

  —That happens sometimes. They find another world with better resources or they leave the system entirely, said Zira.

  —Seems like a waste, I said.

  —Depends on whose perspective you’re looking at. To the Collective, the Altrians were nothing more than clever pests living in a giant field awaiting harvest. Survival of the fittest applies to the universe, too, said Sapphire.

  —Thank you for that sobering piece of logic, I said.

  —You’re welcome.

  —Wait. Listen. Zira halted our thoughts.

  There was a faint sound coming from somewhere beyond the room. By now we had made it to a fifth bunker, having traveled an estimated five or six miles. This place was big, and at one point fortified. From a pitch-black southern corridor, the sound of skitters and wet noises perforated the otherwise dead silence.

  We all shared a daunted look.

  Zira and Sapphire crouched simultaneously, cuing me that stealth was now necessary. I did the same, and we crept toward the corridor. The noises grew louder as we made our way ever so slowly down the hall, peeking behind a closed door on the right. I switched my view over to organic markers once again.

  There was a huge mass of fluorescence beyond the door. It was so bright that I almost had to look away.

  —Hold on, I tried to warn them, but Zira kicked the door in, having seen the same as me.

  Beyond the door was a walk-in pantry stocked with dehydrated foods. The dampness of the corridor had turned the food into bloated sacks of bacteria, and the stench hit me hard—;

  But not harder than the sight of the body on the floor.

  At first I thought it was moving, but then saw the insect-like machines, crawling in and out of numerous orifices, making ripples across gelatinous, translucent skin. It was an Altrian corpse, but I saw its chest heaving for breath and heard the gurgling wet noises from somewhere inside its mangled face. Confusion quickly settled in, disgust soon after.

  The machines were keeping it alive.

  Perhaps ‘alive’ was too strong a word.

  And then it started twitching.

  Zira slammed the door shut and we backed away, slowly.

  “They won’t come for us,” said Sapphire, breathless. “The Collective programmed them to be Altrian-specific.”

  Zira grimaced. “That doesn’t mean I want to keep looking at it.”

  “So, that was their parting gift to the Altrian survivors,” I said. “Talk about kicking a person while they’re down.”

  “I don’t want to know anymore,” muttered Zira, resuming down the corridor. “Let’s just get out of here.”

  *

  The further we walked, the more sophisticated the technology became; manual doors turned automated, ibthium lights and grime-covered televised screens adorned the walls. Their tech had been convenient for them, but not us—now we had to cleave through passages with our scythes. No power, no automation. This slowed us down considerably.

  After a little more than twelve hours of exploration, we made it into the final sector of the passage. The narrow tunnel opened into an underground waystation two floors high, inactive computing systems lining rows of panels within the center of the ground floor.

  We jumped when the lights turned on and strange sounds (which I quickly presumed to be Altrian music) played from muffled, half-functioning speakers on the walls.

  One of the computing screens flickered on, casting an eerie glow against the wall. The music and lights continued to stay active. Nothing else happened for a minute, and we relaxed.

  “Motion sensitive,” I deduced, glancing at the lights. “There must be a generator of some kind in here.”

  “Still functional, after so long?” asked Sapphire, incredulous.

  I shrugged. “If they’re only activated by someone entering, I imagine the system hasn’t used much of its power reserve.”

  Zira stood in front of the blinking computer screen, his expression puzzled. “Come and look at this.”

  Sapphire and I took Zira’s side. The screen showed a single line of Altrian script, blinking repeatedly:

  YOU ARE ON THE ROAD TO HALCYON…

  PROCEED?

  Halcyon. Sounded nice, but the cadence of our journey so far suggested it would be anything bu
t. I pressed a flashing button on the panel below the screen. Zira and Sapphire looked at me like I’d just detonated a bomb.

  A door on the left side of the room slid open. Darkness awaited us through another narrow passage. The screen changed its script.

  PLEASE REPORT TO THE PRIMING FACILITY. THEY ARE EXPECTING YOU. ALL POTENTIAL ASSENTERS MUST VERIFY THEIR CONSENT PRIOR TO NEURALTRANSFERENCE.

  MAY YOU RISE IN PEACE.

  “How foreboding,” said Zira.

  I didn’t respond, still trying to determine how neural transference, verified consent and rising had anything to do with going to a place called Halcyon.

  “Halcyon isn’t a physical location,” said Sapphire, eyes trained on the screen. “In fact I think it’s some kind of euthanasia instrument.”

  “Last resort, eternal utopia-like rhetoric?” asked Zira, brow lifted. “Altrians didn’t have any religion, nor were they culturally spiritual.”

  “The end of a world can do that to an irreverent civilization,” said Sapphire, somber. “You just want the suffering to end. If there’s a chance that a higher existential plane exists, that’s just an added bonus.”

  Zira hesitated, considering Sapphire’s explanation. Despite their decades-long feud, they seemed to harmonize well; their debates were more of an exchange of ideas built on top of each other. Zira’s behavior had changed ever since he’d learned more of her. No longer did he take everything she said merely with a grain of salt, but with a mountain. A second later he looked back at the screen, deflated.

  “There’s nothing here,” he sighed. “Do we keep going in hope of finding another way above ground, or turn back?”

  We mulled over the options. “Turning back loses us a day, guaranteed,” said Sapphire.

  “I agree,” I said.

  “Onward, then,” said Zira, heading for the open passage. Quietly, he added, “May we rise in peace.”

  *

  We had only walked ten minutes down the passage when an attica automated update invaded our minds. We thought Qaira or Adrial had added something new to the active threads.

  No, this was a multiversal map addition. Judging by the others’ expressions, such an update was not a frequent occurrence.

  EXO’DAIUS , HALON IV, alpha-INSIPIA

  … Was that our headquarters? Attica found our headquarters?

  I was so immersed in this discovery that I only heard Zira shout to stop and look after he’d said it three times. I froze, but it was too late, flinching as a click beneath my foot announced I had just stepped on a glyph-panel. The passage was bathed in light and we squinted from the sudden and intense stimulus. A bright, golden beam framed both walls and an Altrian synth-voice warned no one of sequence-anomaly intruders.

  Just as I realized that we were the sequence-anomaly intruders, a giant explosion erupted from beneath the glyph and I was propelled into the ceiling. I felt my neck snap, and then I felt nothing, not even when I landed face-first on the cold metal floor.

  The warnings faded, replaced by a hiss of multiple sliding doors. Zira dragged me from the unfolding scene as Altrian sentries stepped out from numerous panels that we’d previously thought were just part of the corridor walls. None of us had thought to switch views to an electrical grid, and robotic AIs held no biomarkers or heat signatures while dormant.

  I caught a glimpse of my body while being pulled backward and found that I no longer had legs, just two oozing stumps; one thigh-length, the other knee, leaving smears of blood along the floor. My screams (I had been screaming the entire time but didn’t realize it, nor recognize it as it was a sound I’d never thought myself capable of making) abruptly died as my vision tunneled and shock quickly settled in. The tunnel behind my eyes closed in, and I fell into stasis as the thunder of artillery and shouts of my companions dropped into distant echoes—;

  Darkness, silence.

  XVII

  A NON-CONFORMING EVENT

  Regalis Sarine-375—;

  LELAIN WAS STARING AT ME AND I was having none of it. It was bad enough that I had nothing to show Authority after days of interrogations; I didn’t need his condemnation, too.

  He wanted to kill that Vel’Haru.

  I wanted to break him.

  And I would, given enough time. But time was a currency outside of my control.

  Per standard operating procedure, all non-conforming events of the Breach were to be reported at once to Authority. The term ‘non-conforming’ was used for any event not going according to plan. Like the Vel’Haru surviving.

  The theme for the room was chosen by Regalis Adon-875 of Halon I. Across every wall was a glimpse of swimming flora, made to look like we were at the bottom of a magenta ocean. I recognized the scenery to be from his native system. It was pretty, if a bit distracting.

  So was Adon, with his blue-streaked hair and scintillated paint on his jaw and eyes. Last cycle he had been female and it was difficult adjusting to the new body. Four other Regals stood around the Grid-cast in the center of the room. Lelain stepped aside as I completed the circle. We were but a small portion of the Framer Authority, yet having four galactic Regals attending my NCE announcement was overkill already.

  “Sarine,” greeted Genzophi-155, Regalis of Halon III. “I can’t say I’m excited to be here. What news do you bring?”

  “I’ve already updated the Breach ephemeris,” I said, smiling warmly, for they needed some warmth with what I was about to tell them. “But it has been found that the dissenter-variant known as Vel’Haru was not exterminated ten thousand system years ago, as reported in the ephemeris.”

  “The cross-breeds from Philo?” asked Adon.

  “Yes,” I said. “They have been living in the Breach, cloaked by a time-stasis code that evaded Grid’s surveillance.” This was not easy to admit, as I was very good at my role and usually NCE meetings weren’t led by me. That was why so many Regals had attended. “The code was broken a week ago, and not by us.”

  “If not by you, then who?” asked Genzophi.

  “I don’t know yet, but I will soon. For now, I have a working theory.” My eyes settled on the Grid-cast and I displayed the woman at the lost Fehe’zin colony. “Once the code was broken, Khilikri scavengers tracked their activity here. They were a group of twenty-two. She killed four of them with a telekinetic attack.”

  “Her arms…” murmured Adon, amid the murmurings of others. “And those eyes. That isn’t classic Vel’Haru physiology.”

  “Not monstrous enough,” added Genzophi. “What is your theory, Sarine?”

  “My theory is that they have evolved since we’ve seen them on Philo in Simulation-1, and she broke the code. Unwittingly, probably—an underling I’ve captured says they have no knowledge of us or their ancestry.”

  “You have one?” asked Adon, intrigued.

  “Yes, but he isn’t compliant with any of my critical questions. He doesn’t know much about himself, but he knows that we are a threat.” After a moment of silence, I added, “The harder I press, the angrier he gets. I was nanoseconds away from killing him and he called me a ‘gaping cunt’ and that he ‘didn’t need any hands’, he’d ‘peel my face back with his teeth.’”

  “At least their savagery hasn’t changed,” said Genzophi.

  “He is useless, Authority,” injected Lelain. “He should die and Halon IV should cleanse Exo’daius.”

  “I disagree,” I said, smiling again. “We don’t know the level of threat that the island carries, not with her still free.” I gestured to the Grid-cast. “Others may have ascended genetically as well. The underling, known to them as Ky-ra, is important to that woman, evidently. Let’s dangle him on a thread and wait for her to come to us.”

  Lelain already knew that they would side with me. His irritation was evident despite the inscrutable look on his face. That was the telling point. “I have been doing some of my own research,” he said, catching me completely off-guard, “and it appears there is Vel’Haru activity in Simulation-1, Avadara.
More curiously there are dissenter code fragments near their current location.” The Grid-cast switched to the map of Simulation-1, providing evidence to his claim. “Let us at least send an envoy to investigate and perhaps communicate with them.”

  “Communicate what?” asked another Regalis.

  “Find out their intentions. They may not know anything about us, Authority. Once we find that out, then we know they have not planned defenses against us.”

  “I retract my objection against my partner,” I said, acknowledging his brilliance. “But I still wish to hang on to the Vel’Haru captive. There is much yet to glean from him and he provides us with a secondary option.”

  After very little thought, Authority motioned us to follow through with both of our proposals. Lelain took this victory emptily, as his prime objective was to kill my hostage. The entire NCE made him uncomfortable; and anything that made him uncomfortable, he erased. I would try to sway his opinion later on, for now we spoke informally and discussed current events within the Halon Supercluster.

  *

  “You should have told me of your findings,” I said when we reached our vault some hours later. “I would have listened, you know.”

  “I know,” said Lelain, thinking up a forest theme across our aperture panes, like something you would find from a Khilikrian world. The space within the room was filled with painted winged insects surrounded in red luminescence. Red like the coiled sparks within his eyes. “That wasn’t why I brought it to Authority.”

  “I know,” I said, drinking a stasis tonic from the dispenser that had molded up from the floor. I handed him some, and he took the drink with a cumbersome gaze. “Which Framer do you think will volunteer to be the envoy? None of us have entered simulations since our tenth cycle. That’s like going out into uncharted territory without any comfort of knowing the code or feeling a basewave.”