by Alex South
“Explosion? Everything is undamaged, Ohm. What are you talking about?” Oa asked, confused.
“I don’t understand yet either, Oa. There was only one weapon that could have done something like this. We need to find the center of the blast. The view screen in front of you will direct us to the focal point. Fred has input the parameters for the scan,” Ohm replied somberly.
Kai looked over at Oa. He shrugged, not knowing what weapon Ohm was talking about. Then he remembered Ohm’s revelation about Cale and Jess. Could their research be involved somehow? he thought. This was not the aftermath of catastrophe Oa had imagined when Ohm told him Istaar had been destroyed.
“Alright, but remember we are still going to find Kai’s friends, Ohm. That was part of the deal. Kai, I think we should come back around that tower and head the other way because these buildings are getting shorter. We don’t want to go too far from the center of the city,” Oa said.
After a moment, Ohm responded. “I have a hunch that both Cale and Jess will be at the source of this shroud.”
All this must be related to the research he was referring to, Oa thought to himself. He looked over at Kai. Her heel was bouncing nervously again. He turned to the view screen on the console in front of him. The ARI was depicted as a little blue dot at the center of the screen. The cityscape was depicted by grey outlines. Around the ARI, numerous pulsing red lines permeated the city. The lines jaggedly traced the explosion’s signature that Fred had taught the ship to read. Oa realized that the lines flowed together, all heading toward a singular point of origin. He followed the trail, guiding Kai through the city toward the epicenter of the blast. Suddenly, their destination appeared on the screen, a chaotic jumble of red so thick it looked solid. From within the node, every trace of the mysterious explosion emitted out to the ends of the city.
“We are approaching the source of whatever Fred is tracking. It’s coming from within a squat, round structure just past those three towers,” Oa said, pointing ahead.
Kai banked the ARI to the left, arcing around the farthest spire Oa had pointed to. She pulled back on the speed adjustor, bringing her ship to a halt. As they hovered in midair, Oa pointed the flood lamp at three towers curved in a half circle. Each structure had a giant metal glyph on it. From left to right, the glyphs read ‘UNI’. He tilted the beam down below the superstructures to where a squat round building stood on a single metal pillar rising out of the ground. The upper architecture consisted of a broad flat disk with six pods hanging from its edges. The pods appeared to be a mishmash of cubes, collaged together. The rooftop was marked with yellow guides that Oa assumed indicated landing zones. He aimed the lamp at the center of the guides.
“We should land there, Kai. This has to be the where Fred’s scans are leading us to,” Oa said, looking over at Kai. She sat motionless, staring at the building.
“Kai,” Ohm’s voice cut through the silence.
Kai jumped slightly. “Sorry Ohm. I just remembered this place … I think.”
Oa could see that the eeriness of the city was getting to Kai so he reached over and put a hand on her shoulder. “Nothing seems to be damaged here. Maybe whatever caused this mist only concealed Istaar and did no harm. Awoken might still be here somewhere. Cale and Jess could still be alright,” he insisted reassuringly. Ohm might be mistaken. Something is definitely wrong here, but Awoken could still be alive. I don’t see a reason for them to be dead, he reasoned to himself.
The landing pads extended from the bottom of the ARI, and Kai set the ship down within the perimeter of the guides. It settled with a slight bump. The safety restraints retracted off of the crew, and Oa reached forward to shut off the floodlight. Immediately, darkness surged back around the hull. Oa got up out of the chair and walked back to turn off Susan’s storm simulator.
“Come on, Susan; it’s time to help Kai find her friends,” Oa said, waking up the varl. Susan uncurled out into the cockpit and filled the space as she stretched out lazily. She reared her head up and yawned. Her whole body lit up with new energy. Oa shoved the giant creature down the hallway, snickering. “There’s no time for all that. We have to be quick.” He looked back to see Kai slowly getting out of her pilot’s seat; he waited for her to catch up. “It’s going to be alright, Kai. You have Ohm and I to watch your back, no matter what we find in there.” Kai nodded silently and they followed Susan down the corridor.
They arrived in the power-hub chamber to find Susan already floating eagerly by the exit. As Ohm stood up out of his mechanical throne, Fred disconnected from the ship. The lights overhead dimmed slightly as the ARI entered into a dormant state, in order to conserve the power it had stored up during the flight.
Ohm leaned forward slightly and rolled his shoulders as if to adjust the weight of Fred on his back. “We are going to need some way of navigating through the mist outside.”
Oa called Seeker from its satchel. The little orb leaped to his hand. “That’s easy. I will just make Seeker glow really bright.”
Ohm shot a look at him. “You can try, but if Fred says it is drawing power from the Void then you must stop.”
Kai looked back and forth at both of them. “I don’t get it. What’s the worst that little ball can do?”
“Ohm and Fred believe that some of Seeker’s abilities can be traced by the Legion. But we’re in this thick haze, and we need a light. I think we will be fine,” Oa explained optimistically. He levitated the silver orb in his palm. Seeker knows how to glow, I have seen it when I heal. He willed the strange device to become luminous. The orb responded slowly, growing brighter as he focused. The light cast the group’s shadow up against the chamber walls. Seeker’s blaze filled the room, until even the shadows where lit.
“A happy medium between complete darkness and blinding light will suffice,” Fred remarked dryly.
“I can dim it, of course,” Oa laughed. With a thought, he diminished Seeker’s light, reducing it to a comfortable glow.
“That’s gonna work fine,” Kai said. She clapped Oa on the back then turned toward the exit. “Well, all my preparation and work rebuilding the ARI has led me here. I have two new friends supporting me and the greatest varl ever. I’m ready.” She walked over to the door, opened it, and walked out. Susan followed, floating just behind her.
Oa looked at Ohm. “Is there a chance her friends are alright?”
“With those two, anything is possible,” Ohm replied warmly.
They walked out to the open deck and joined Susan and Kai on the ARI’s exit ramp. Kai reached over and pulled a heavy lever on the hull. With a whirr of turning gears, the deck lowered them down. They stepped off the ramp, looking around in silence at the rooftop they had landed on. The access ramp folded up behind them with a heavy thump. Seeker illuminated a decent portion of the landing zone around them but not enough to see the edges of the structure. The fog isolated them in a cocoon of light.
“Well, we sure got off to a roaring start; but what now?” Ohm asked. “Fred can’t get us any closer to the source because he claims to be too accurate.” He reached back and patted the pack condescendingly.
“The source of the explosion is everywhere around us. According to my readings, once the explosion was initiated, each point of space in the vicinity of this building simultaneously became the source of the blast. It is unlikely that I would guess the exact point that started the chain of events,” Fred countered defensively.
“A lightning varl can find the source,” Kai replied quietly as she stroked Susan’s head. “Thank you for leading us here Fred. I would never have found this without place without your theory. Cale and Jess seem to be involved in this. I want to know what part they played.”
“You’re welcome,” Fred replied as warmly as his monotone voice would allow.
Kai reached down and grabbed a tiny chunk of metal from a pocket in her baggy jumpsuit. She held it up to Susan. The object was a small cube carved with intricate symbols too minuscule for Oa to read from where he st
ood. “This used to be Cale’s. He carved it for Jess. She gave it to me just before—before …” Kai let her words trail off as she struggled to remember.
Kai shook her head once in agitation, as if she were trying to rattle the memories loose. She gave up and continued to speak, ignoring the gaps in her story. “Susan can track anything,” Kai explained as Susan took the cube in her paws. Power swelled from deep within her chest and pulsed once, coursing down to her two paws. There was a loud crack and a flash of light. Susan dropped the little cube to the ground then gracefully glided across the surface of the roof, pressing her paws to the ground at regular intervals. Her pads filled with energy, which sizzled and cracked in the air.
At first, nothing happened. Susan thoroughly investigated around the immediate vicinity of the group. Suddenly, her search yielded success. As her paw lightly tapped the ground for the umpteenth time, a coil of purple energy sprang out, arcing along the ground away from of the group. The sparks died out after a short distance. Susan floated in the direction the energy had gone. She pressed her paw to the ground lightly and several more tendrils of violet lightning darted out, leading toward the edge of roof. The ARI’s crew followed silently as the varl moved away from the ship. Seeker floated above Oa’s outstretched hand, providing a soft warm glow that parted the mist ahead of the their steps.
They had not been walking long, when they came upon a round white depression in the seamless reflective gray material that made up the top of the architecture. At the center of the sunken platform sat a head sized black dome. Susan stopped next to the black dome. She turned back to the group and let out a growl, power rumbled in her throat.
Oa looked to the boundary of Seeker’s light, but he still could not tell how close to the edge they were. We should be directly over one of the hanging structures by now, he guessed. Kai stepped down onto the white platform. Immediately, the black dome lit up, projecting rays of green light up onto her. Oa was startled and staggered back slightly. Ohm seemed unfazed by the event. The emerald beams traced Kai’s outline, mapping her body completely.
“It’s just a lock. Hopefully Kai is one of the keys,” Ohm explained quietly to Oa. The dome gave an affirmative beep. The rays blinked yellow and disappeared. The platform rotated slightly. A sequence of faint thuds reverberated through the ground as bolts drew back, unlocking the door. Oa heard a slight hiss as air long trapped within the dwelling escaped. The platform began to lower down into the floor with Kai standing resolutely at its center.
“Better get on now unless you want to jump,” she called. Ohm quickly stepped onto the descending platform. Oa followed, hopping down. Susan shrunk back to her normal size to fit with the group on the elevator. She nuzzled Kai’s hand with the tip of her snout, looking for attention. Kai reached up and lightly stroked the lightning varl’s head between her pointy ears. The creature curled up in contented bliss. Oa looked around, curious to see what they were headed into. There was nothing to see as the platform continued to drop down the shaft. As they descended, the walls lit up in a cool white glow. Above them, a secondary door slid shut closing them off from the outside world. The loss of a clear exit worried Oa, but he didn’t voice his concern.
The platform dropped out of the shaft, lowering into the center of a dark room. Seeker’s light did not reveal anything, causing Oa to wonder just how spacious the place was. He noted that the mist was also with them inside the dwelling. The gloom stalked around the edges of Seeker’s light, concealing the full extent of the room. The elevator softly landed in the center of an open plaza. A soft white glow spread from where the group stood, gradually flowing through every surface of the chamber. The fog melted away to reveal numerous flights of stairs that branched out from the plaza. Some steps climbed upwards and others descended below. The glow spread across the steps, reaching various antechambers that populated the interior of the structure’s shell. The rooms were various shapes and sizes, and some protruded further into the main chamber than others. Eventually, every surface was lit: walls, floors, and ceilings. Not a trace of the mist could be found. Oa slipped Seeker back into the satchel at his side. He decided that the complex hive of odd rooms and stairs must be one of the strange hanging pods they had seen from the ARI.
“Omni-glow alloy? I haven’t seen this in a long time,” Ohm said softly. Kneeling down, he brushed his bandaged stump over the luminous floor. Oa noticed that Ohm’s hand strayed to the strand around his neck again. Ohm stood up quickly. “Lead on, Susan,” he said. His voice seemed to warm with the light of the room.
Susan uncurled and renewed her hunt, tracking the purple sparks as they bounced from her paws. She led them across the plaza to a set of stairs. These stairs led straight up to a completely enclosed room that hung from the ceiling. Susan floated upwards, tapping several of the steps to make sure she was still hot on the trail. She was followed by Ohm, Oa, and then Kai. At the top of the stairs was a short landing which led to the only entrance into the tear-drop shaped chamber. Susan and Ohm walked through the door without pause. As he reached the top, Oa turned and looked back. Kai was a few steps behind, her head hung down.
“I don’t want to go in there,” Kai said quietly.
Oa could hear the fear and hesitation in her voice. Questions nagged at him. Where had the Awoken of Istaar disappeared to? Who was responsible? Instinct told Oa that answers lay in the room ahead. Despite his burning curiosity, he still felt uneasy about the nature of the answers, for Kai’s sake.
“A part of me doesn’t want to know either, Kai. I want Cale and Jess to be alright. I don’t want to see your hopes dashed. Ohm says I have the ability to believe things will turn out alright no matter what happens. I think you are similar. No matter what we find in there, it’s going to be okay,” Oa said comfortingly. He paused and waited while Kai considered his words.
“We will see about that, Oa,” Kai said wryly. She looked up at the entrance, her visual receptors bright and ready. “I have to know either way. I dragged all of us here, after all.” She walked up the stairs and brushed past Oa into the room. He turned and walked in behind her. He looked over her shoulder at the chamber’s interior.
Ohm stood to the side of the door. His blue ocular plate was dim, and his hand clenched his ruined arm tightly. Susan floated next to him, her head held up nobly, her task complete. The lit room was a workshop similar to Kai’s. The shelves were clean and all the tools had been put back into the storage hatches that lined the walls. There was no more work to be done, the tools were no longer needed. Only two things remained in the vacant room. The first was a metal birth cell resting in the direct center of the chamber. It did not glow as the other surfaces in the room did. The cell was scorched black, and the hatch laid open. Oa observed that the cell was much bulkier than his own. Extra sheets of alloy had been grafted onto it like armor. The second thing in the room was far stranger. The sight disturbed Oa. On the ground, next to the birth cell, a cloud of haze refused to disperse with the light. At first glance, it seemed merely to be an amorphous cloud of fog. As Oa looked closer, he realized with horror that it had a shape. The shape of two figures. Cale and Jess, he thought to himself with grim certainty. The figures where kneeling on the floor facing each other, arms clasped around each other in a final embrace. Kai walked over to the mist. She dropped down to her knees next to the apparition. Ohm stood in silence, his head bowed. Oa walked over and stood next to Kai, looking down at the strange figures in the mist.
“Where did they go?” Kai asked. The sight of her lost friends released the holds on her mind. Memories poured forth as she reached out to try and touch the spectral images. “There was so much confusion. They told me we would see each other again after it was all over. I waited in my birth cell until it was safe to come out but there was no one. Just this …” she trailed off, motioning to the fleeting echo of her former friends: her family. “There wasn’t even a soul ember left to hold.” Her voice broke slightly.
Susan rested her head on Kai’s
shoulder, sharing in her friend’s grief for a moment. Then she glided over to the far wall. Susan pawed at the omni-glow alloy as she traced another trail. She uttered a thunderous roar and lightning leaped from her mouth, tearing open a gash in the wall. Startled, the Awoken looked over at the varl. Susan had burned away a fake wall revealing a concealed cubby. Inside the slot sat another black dome, similar to the lock at the entrance. It activated automatically, casting light out into the room. This time instead of scanning the group for a key, the light formed two outlines. Oa recognized the shapes as Awoken. The taller one began to speak. His was a bold and educated voice, though it was tainted with worry and urgency.
“We don’t have much time left, but if you have found this, Kai, then you are safe. That is all that matters to us at this point. You need to know what happened and how sorry we are. This new job was so alluring, a chance to study and create technology reverse-engineered from the remains of the Destroyer. That is what we were told. We jumped at the chance to work on something we thought was only legend.”
“It was as if we were living in one of the overused and long-worded stories Instructor Ohm used to tell us at the academy,” the second figure added in a kind and spirited female voice. Ohm gave a derisive cough at the statement.
“Our curiosity was naïve though, Kai. They only wanted us to weaponize our findings. We tried to get out of the project; but they threatened us, saying they would use you if we left, so we built the weapon. We tried to convince them it was dangerous, but we knew they meant to use it no matter what we said. We can’t let them win. We have to destroy it before they have a chance to use it on a large scale. We engineered a remote containment field to hold the blast. We had to sneak over to the lab to place the field projector, but we will be right here next to you when we detonate it. There is a chance the fission will tear through our containment field; this whole place would be caught in the center of it …” the voice paused, “well, we just hope we are there to greet you when you step out of your reinforced birth cell. We redesigned it to withstand the Void itself. You will be safe no matter what happens. If for some reason our efforts fail and we aren’t there when you emerge, please know that you are the most special Awoken we have ever met. You’re always so eager and ready to learn. We know you will do amazing things. Be safe, Kai,” the figure said with a wave. That must be Cale, Oa decided.