“Thank you, sir.”
Cyprian waved his hand to bring the bright lighting Tetla had required, back to the mute lighting in which he preferred to work here in his chamber. Tetla glanced first at Coru, then quickly packed up his gear before taking the brave step Coru had encouraged him to take while here in the First Councilor’s chambers. “This is your chance”, he’d told Tetla in the Terre transport on their way to see Cyprian today. “I’ll back you up all the way.”
Cyprian looked up inquiringly at Tetla. “Is there a problem?”
“First Councilor Wisla, may I be so bold as to request your recommendation for future assignments?”
He’d done it! Coru felt like a proud parent, though Tetla was ten years older than he.
Cyprian strapped his com-screen back to its customary perch on his shiny head and glanced up at Coru. Coru murmured, “Throw him a bone, father.”
So his game name was Coru? He was going by his game name here at D.O.A.? Was Coru’s whole life a fantasy? Surviving the BSV had done something to Coru’s—or whatever his real name was—grip on reality. Whatever had happened to him had traumatized him so deeply that he now thought of himself as this Coru character in the game. Was he stable? Should she be trusting him at all? Chewing at her lower lip, she listened more.
It had been difficult for Coru to ask Cyprian on Tetla’s behalf, as he prided himself in not depending upon his father’s high station on Cloud Rez.
Cyprian lifted one eyebrow imperiously. “Coru recommended you and he was correct in his assessment. I will forward word of your skills. Frankly, it will come as a relief to many.”
“Thank you! Thank you, First Councilor! Your son is a fine man, sir; a hard worker. His willingness to work with us in restoration has healed many wounds.” Tetla was looking at Coru now, his eyes glowing with gratitude for the introduction.
Cyprian turned back to his boards, his face now displaying his deep disapproval of his son’s choice to work at Surface. Coru was glad Tetla couldn’t see the abrupt change—he might think it was directed at him, while Coru was certain it was his own life choice that was responsible for his father’s dark expression. According to Cyprian, Coru had so many more promising options, and had tossed them all away in a dramatic exit from their family quarters, decrying the inequities of the haves and have-nots of this world. “All very romantic”, Cyprian had yelled back at his departing son, “But hardly practical. You can’t outrun your high station, no matter what you shout at me as you abandoned Cloud Rez for a martyred life on Surface. You’ll be back!”
That had been six years ago. They did not speak of it.
According to his younger brother, Payton, their mother Moira and Cyprian had had many words on this very subject, Cyprian accusing her of abandoning Coru and babying Payton. “Why do you insist upon shielding Payton’s actions and decisions, yet leave Coru drifting in the breeze?” Cyprian would rage. Coru was always skeptical of this supposed concern on their father’s part. Cyprian had never expressed these concerns to Coru, only his continued disapproval of his oldest son’s choices.
Registering the fact that Tetla was still speaking brought Coru’s attention back to his father’s chamber.
“…a help,” Tetla was saying. “Coru being with us. It gives us hope.”
Coru fought to hide a smile. It must be hard for Cyprian to hear something positive about Coru for a change. Cyprian claimed all tales brought to him about Coru’s behavior had always been Coru screwed this up, or Coru thought it would be fun to — fill in the blank with any inappropriate action — and you had the latest Coru drama. Cyprian had had hopes his son would forge his life path using his brain rather than his brawn, but Coru’s head was filled with other ideas. Cyprian thought it was a complete waste.
Cyprian gave the tattooist a grim smile. “That’s kind of you to say. Good day Citizen Tetla. May fortune smile on you and all your children.”
Tetla bowed solemnly at the dismissal, stepping smoothly from the chamber, the door dilating closed behind him with a barely audible snick.
Coru stayed behind, as his father had requested. There was a problem with Payton he wanted to discuss with Coru — this a complete surprise. When did his father discuss any problems with him, much less a problem with the perfect Payton?
Cyprian’s attention was again captivated by the huge bank of boards and screens before him, absorbing, controlling, anticipating and predicting all that was needed to keep Cloud Rez operational, eating up the hours of Cyprian’s life in what seemed barely a heartbeat. And he would make Coru wait.
Coru fought back an impatient sigh. He’d asked his father for this favor, for Tetla’s benefit, and now Cyprian would exact payment in some form. Things never changed.
An explosion ripped through the atmosphere, a sonic boom slamming Coru’s eardrums with excruciating pain. He cried out and gripped his head as everything began to shake, starting, it seemed in his very core, not just in the room around him—a strange fleeting vibration deep in his brain, his gut, as if some cosmic laundress had taken up the whole of his body and surroundings like a damp sheet and given it a mighty snap. His father’s massive keyboard shimmered like rippling water. Around them the furnishings and walls roiled, the tiny lights that quietly attested to completed background tasks collectively dimmed. Coru felt more than heard a sorrowful exhalation of the carefully modulated air pressure.
Cyprian stood, swaying on his feet, and flicked his com-screen from its skewed position on his head down to his eyes, putting him in touch with all eight sectors and their councilors at once. Coru watched the mother screen overhead, already alive with committee directors demanding answers, their tinny voices sounding far away to his ringing ears. Some looked angry, most looked frightened.
Cyprian said, “Your mother’s home alone and she’s been so fragile of late. I should go to her at once.”
Coru refrained from rolling his eyes. Fragile was never the word that went with Moira’s name in his world. Moira did exactly what she wanted, got exactly what she wanted, at all times. How his father was not aware of this fact was the greatest mystery of Coru’s life.
As if protesting the direction of his thoughts, his father’s chamber gave another shudder, this time the floor under his feet rising like a stormy sea swell rather than the renewable bamboo from which it was constructed. This was not the puny rattle of last year’s Surface Rebellion that Cyprian had snuffed out like a candle flame between thumb and finger. This was far beyond Surface abilities.
A vision of thousands of Cloud Rez souls plummeting through the atmosphere back toward earth chased across Coru’s mind. He grabbed hold of Cyprian’s desk, not quite trusting its solidity.
“Ladies. Gentlemen,” Cyprian cautioned, injecting authority and calm into his tone, something he did very well. “One at a time.” The com-band silenced at once. “Report your findings in sequence. Omni, record.” This was an unnecessary instruction to the computer, Coru knew, as all council discussions were recorded by the mainframe as a matter of course, but, the familiarity of control was probably what his father needed now. Coru could see his father would deal with this first, then rush to Moira’s side.
Each in their turn, the eight councilors reported similar experiences—wavering surroundings, changes in air pressure, diminished structural and computer function. A picture of what Coru might term ‘fringe’ damage emerged. Nothing was pointedly down or incapacitated, just slightly diminished. No one had an answer as to why. But how do structure and energy suddenly and together, simply go off kilter? Cyprian strained to hear the council discussion and worked the boards with sure hands, putting teams together to investigate the soundness and safety of Cloud Rez, muttering he may have to initialize a massive return to Surface. How stable was Cloud Rez?
Coru turned at the sound of his father’s chamber door dilating open.
“Cyprian!” Anala Patterawadee rushed in, her pretty face a mask of alarm, followed by her assistant Sean Keyes. “He fracking did i
t!
She stopped. “Oh. Coru.” Awkward, in light of their recent parting.
Cyprian snapped, “Why are you here, Patterawadee? Who did what?” Coru knew his father disliked common language, something Patterawadee seemed unable to control. She’d once told Coru she often did it to get a rise out of Cyprian, knowing he had no sway over the Time Bore project or crew. She called it poking the bear.
Today, she was not poking the bear—today she was crazy scared. She gasped, “Zhang went through the Time Bore. He went back and took everything with him. Took it or destroyed it. We’re freaking finished!”
Keyes nodded vigorously in agreement, looking as if he was about to explode with the information he had to contribute, but in First Councilor Cyprian Wisla’s chamber, he knew his place.
Coru barely registered Anala Patterawadee’s low language was accompanied by the fact she’d addressed his father by his first name. What he heard was Time Bore. Zhang had finished it and then he’d used it? And just as Cyprian had feared, already their present world was affected, and not in a good way.
Coru sank into a chair, staring around himself. The chamber, now uncomfortably warm, continued to flicker, barely perceptible aftershocks to what could only be Zhang’s betrayal. These aftershocks — Coru could think of no other name for them — were barely perceptible, but if you were looking for them — and they were all looking now; they were riveted — the variations were definitely there. Fluttering pixels randomly appeared and disappeared like toxic butterflies scattered around the chamber, playing tricks with his vision. It was as if he were inside a computer program as reality was systematically and deliberately corrupted.
Moira’s worried face appeared on one of Cyprian’s desk top personal screens. “Cy? Cy? What’s happening?”
Cyprian barked, “Not now, Moira. Give me a moment.” He turned toward Patterawadee and flicked his com-screen to pan to include the view of his chamber. This way the councilors would be updated along with Cyprian, a solution arrived at together. Coru guessed already they had to follow Moses Zhang through that damned Time Bore and haul him back home to WEN 2341 to face a tribunal.
Cyprian’s eyes drilled into Anala. “When?”
“It looks like he’s been gone for over twenty hours.”
“That’s almost an entire day!” Cyprian blurted before he could rein in his reaction. He brought up digital visions from the hanger on the mother screen. Running it forward, it showed no activity for over a week. “How did this happen without anyone knowing? The hanger’s been deserted for days.”
“Simple digital loop in camera feed,” Keyes replied.
“Too simple.” Cyprian muttered. “And I was stupidly relieved interest in the Bore had waned.”
Keyes nodded as if understanding his thoughts. “It’s an old trick, but effective.”
“Zhang is supposed to be under constant supervision while in the hanger—the man’s certifiable. Where’s his guardian?”
“Dead.”
A moment of incomprehension hung in the air.
“Murder?” Coru cut in, barely believing he was asking the question. Until this moment, he’d known Cloud Rez to be the most secure, crime-free place on the planet.
Keyes glanced hesitantly at him, then his father, obviously unsure if he should be answering Coru’s question. When Cyprian nodded his assent, Keyes continued, “Yes, Zhang had to have taken him by surprise. His head was—well, it-it was caved in… sir.”
The chamber shuddered again, this time the motion was accompanied by a distant moaning sound that sent alarm crawling up Coru’s spine. Was that one of the main supports? Coru locked a hand around the center post that rose from his father’s desk to the ceiling. Had there been changes already they hadn’t noticed, or had Zhang done something in the past just now that had ramifications here in WEN 2341? Would Zhang’s actions in the past transmit changes in their present quickly, or would it be gradual? Would it happen in real time?
Chatter on the com-band rose again, the fear he saw in the faces on the mother screen perfectly reflected in Patterawadee’s and Keyes’ here beside him. Cyprian was too disciplined to show fear; allowing himself only a quick glance at Moira’s screen. She was crying now, looking around herself in apprehension. Coru saw something fall from above her, saw her jump in reaction, and saw his father’s reaction as well. His father was halfway across the room toward the exit before he made himself stop. He was First Council. He had no choice.
Returning to his desk, he sat back in his chair and spoke to his frightened wife in a comforting tone. “Moira — stay calm — I’ll come as soon as I can.”
Her face changed to stony resentment and the screen went blank.
Here once again was proof of his mother’s hold over his father’s heart. She made Cyprian’s job so damned hard. He had to focus on everyone on Cloud Rez; she knew that. Zhang was his priority now.
But Cyprian was back to all business, allowing time for the com-band members to vent, biting back, Coru knew, this perfect opportunity to point out that he’d been right about the ethics of time travel and especially about Zhang, all along. The mother screen flashed more frightened faces, blasted angry voices pleading, yelling over one another, the chatter growing louder, more emotional rather than quieting down. A practical man, Cyprian was silent, letting them run themselves out before stepping in to restore order.
Cyprian had never liked the Time Bore project and had campaigned hard against it, but Moses Zhang had people in high places, higher than Cyprian, foolish people with too many credits and not enough to do with them, in Cyprian’s often vented opinion; people willing to finance Zhang’s pipedream of time travel. It was a romantic notion to these people, envisioning traveling back to a simpler time, walking among people and societies they could now only study theoretically. Coru had remained uneasily neutral on the subject, agreeing with his father as to the dangers of time travel, of upsetting the natural flow of events to a degree. But did traveling to another time necessarily mean interference? Part of him remembered a younger, energized Moses Zhang, when they had still been friends in university, excited about his discovery of Charles Wood’s old research—
Wren was out of Coru’s head with a gasp. Charles Wood! Her father, Charles Wood? Was this a game, or was this real? She scrambled back inside Coru’s thoughts, her heart thundering inside her chest.
… library archives, now Payton’s domain… time travel was totally possible, a natural next step in human evolution. Moses had imagined returning to the past, righting the wrongs that were done, correcting history was how he had described it …
But this? Murder?
Today’s Moses was not the Moses Coru had befriended years ago. Yes, they agreed the Cloud Rez and Surface situation was abhorrent, but this was where their agreement stopped. Coru believed in a change of direction now, and had committed to making those changes by throwing himself into Surface restoration. Moses dreamed of a correction in the past, thus his campaign for realizing Wood’s dream of a Time Bore. Moses wanted to interfere.
Cyprian had raged at summit after summit, his argument being just because they theoretically could build a Time Bore; did that mean that they necessarily should build one? There had to be a reason Charles Wood hadn’t built his Time Bore. Wood had had the power, yet had not followed through. Did this not indicate the Time Bore should not be built?
As for Coru, buried in Surface muck day after day, he could think of dozens of more worthy causes for investment—cleaning up the planet, for one. Not a popular idea amongst the Cloud Rez population, untouched by the disaster that existed below their privileged world. They preferred Moses Zhang’s romantic descriptions of the opportunity to actively participate in past civilizations.
The com-band had quieted again. Cyprian said, “Alright, people, let’s think now. Citizen Patterawadee, tell us what you know. Without the language, if you can manage it.”
Patterawadee scrubbed at her shiny head with both hands and paced back and f
orth, channeling nervous energy into physical activity. “I went into the hanger when I kept receiving computer reports of atmospheric anomalies. They just didn’t make sense. Once inside the hanger, I saw immediately that the Bore had been activated. The bloody thing —I mean,” she caught herself, struggling to calm her voice and correct her words. “The Bore — was still humming. Moses Zhang’s guardian lay dead, blood all over the place. I knew it could only mean one thing. But I called up Zhang anyway, hoping I was wrong. No answer. That’s when I called in Sean.” She waved a shaking hand at her assistant, her voice rising again with pent-up emotion, the words coming now in a rush. “We tried working the control panel, but it was truly and freaking fried! We barely got the Bore shut down before the whole thing blew.”
“Father!” This time it was Cyprian’s younger son Payton on the screen, his image beamed erratically down from research where he worked in historical documentation. “Mother just called, but then her transmission—.”
“She’ll be fine,” Cyprian cut him off. “Stay online and listen and you’ll understand.”
Cyprian nodded to Anala to continue.
“Then we searched Zhang’s chamber. I was praying to The Mother I was wrong, but it was obvious the moment we entered that he’d packed up with no intension of returning. We checked Terre Transport, in the wildly unlikely chance he’s gone to Surface without authority. Nothing.”
She hesitated a moment, then reluctantly added, “The main frame was destroyed as well.” She pulled a jagged piece of motherboard from her tunic and held it out, blackened and distorted.
“Then how did he get...?” Cyprian frowned. “He destroyed it before he went in?”
“He had to have set it to self-destruct after he was through, is all I can surmise. Zhang’s too damned self-serving to put himself in harm’s way. He likely calculated what time he needed, then set it in motion just before he went through. It’s obvious he has no intention of returning. He doesn’t give a damn how his actions in the past will affect us here in the future. Not his problem. Sean managed to stop the destruction, but we were too late.”
Lost Sentinel: Post-Apocalyptic Time Travel Adventure (Earth Survives Series Book 1) Page 24