by Lucia Ashta
Lila brought all ten of her fingers, one by one, up to the scanner. The device scanned every single one of her digits with care. This seemed like total overkill to me, as the only deception it appeared to prevent would be if someone severed an employee’s finger to gain entry, the person would have to possess all ten digits. If someone was willing to sever a finger, why not a hand, or two? And how would the person bypass the rest of the biometrics, even in possession of the two lopped off hands?
Once the device in the panel beside the door approved her fingers, Lila put each of her eyeballs against it. It scanned each one before flashing its approval and requesting a sample of her blood. Again, Lila brought a finger toward the device. A needle lashed out and then the device suctioned a droplet of blood inside it. This took longer to confirm, but the device eventually flashed its approval message another time.
By now, Dolpheus and I were looking around us, keeping watch for anything unexpected. I’d imagined Lila’s entry would have been rejected by now. Why bother with all the steps if she was going to be rejected? Unless her request for entry had triggered an alert that was even now summoning guards our way. My ears were on full alert, my hand resting on the hilt of my sword. Dolpheus mimicked my position. We didn’t need to confer, not even between minds, to realize that we were all in acute danger. Lila, Ilara, and Kai didn’t seem to notice, but we knew. Our position was far more precarious now than if Lila’s entry had been refused from the start. We could have fled immediately and put distance between us and the lab before Dolpheus and I planned to head back, in the cover of night and the least-frequented work shift on O. Or maybe we’d finally be able to talk reason into the others and avoid the illfated mission entirely.
Last was the breath analysis, the smartest check of them all. To pass the breath analysis, any intruder would have to have one of the employees there, alive. Of course, that didn’t prevent coercion to force the employee to breathe into the device, and with the prevalence of greed and corruption on O, the danger of an ill-doer being able to secure the cooperation of an employee was possible. But it was as secure a system of entry as I would’ve been able to come up with. There was little improvement that could be done to it, other than carefully vetting each employee before hiring, something Brachius and Aletox surely did.
When the noise of a door popping open sounded behind us, I snapped my attention from the clearing behind us back to the door. My jaw dropped open for a brief moment before I snapped it shut.
I looked at Dolpheus. His eyes were as wide as mine must have been.
We definitely hadn’t planned for this.
18
I would have preferred the deafening clashing and clinking sounds of battle to this. The only thing we could hear once inside the lab, with the door latched ominously closed behind us, was us. The sound of my breathing echoed loudly through my head. Even though our combined footsteps were quiet, every soft pad of our shoes against the tile floor amplified in my mind. I imagined we sounded like mowabs stampeding through the lab, even though I realized we didn’t.
A bead of sweat broke free from my hairline and traveled down my face in one straight, determined line. I didn’t wipe at it. I was too worried about what might jump out at us from the shadows, what might appear after the next turn.
This silence was the kind that was deafening, the kind that hid secrets and did it well.
Even though I knew Dolpheus well enough to assume he was thinking the same thing I was, he didn’t mind speak. Probably, like mine, every single one of his senses was on high alert. Any distraction, even one that only rung through the mind, could be the death of all us.
My fingers clenched and unclenched around my sword, the only one of my actions that had no purpose. My sword made me feel safe, and had I not fretted about the sound it would make if I pulled it from its scabbard, I would have it in my hand by now. Dammit, why didn’t I pull my sword before we walked in here? I’d already realized our circumstances were suspect then, when Lila got us in far too easily.
Nothing in this world was easy, and if it was, alarm bells clanged in my head until I discovered the real reason behind the perceived ease. Nearly always, there was one, and it usually put a high price on the easy situation, whatever it was.
Ease concerned me in a way that difficulty never did. I was used to difficult. I’d been dealing with difficult most of my life. Difficulty didn’t hide or play coy. It announced itself boldly. That’s precisely how I liked it.
We’d tiptoed past the spot where I crashed into Lila the last time Dolpheus and I broke in here, another time when things had seemed too easy. Before long, life revealed the steep price we had to pay for that apparent ease. We were still paying the price of our last breakin. Every time Lila blew up at us we had a fresh reminder.
We walked in a huddle down another of the many long and sterile-feeling hallways. Lila was leading us toward the same room I’d visited twice before. The room with all the cold, metal drawers in it, the ones that housed lifeless-looking bodies and had hidden Dolpheus and me while trying to rob the life from us too.
Another bead of sweat broke free to roll down the other side of my face.
The entire facility was dead silent, except for us, the only living, breathing, sweating signs of life in the whole blasted building.
I held a shiver of premonition back, and it gave me the uncomfortable sensation of holding in a sneeze.
We made a final turn into the hall that contained that door, with its small resin panel, into the room with the wall of frigid, lifeless drawers.
There was no going back now. We were farther from the lab’s entrance now than from that dreaded room. The hall took a sharp left beyond the room’s entrance, presumably leading to another long hallway, though I didn’t know for sure. Behind us were stretches of sharp turns and hallways, obstacles on our way to the exit and freedom.
Faster than I wanted, we arrived. Like I’d done the last time Dolpheus and I were here, Lila plastered her face against the small resin panel inlaid into the door to see if anyone was in there. When I’d done it, I’d looked out to see if anything barred our escape. Somehow, this was worse. Lila was checking to see if it was safe to trap us inside this room. There was nothing safe about it.
Lila didn’t glance backward to confer with Dolpheus or me. She pushed the door open, peeked in, then opened the door wider, and stepped in. We all slid in behind her.
The instant I was in, I scanned a corner of the room, deemed it safe, and grabbed Ilara by the arm and tucked her behind me in the corner. She didn’t utter a word of complaint. I felt Dolpheus at my back, and I pressed the width of my back against him in battle formation. As a unit, we turned to scrutinize the entirety of the room.
I felt Dolpheus’ body go rigid behind me before I discovered the reason for it.
19
“You’ve kept me waiting,” Aletox said.
Seated rigidly in a chair at the far end, in the darkest corner of the room, it appeared as if he had been waiting for us.
I didn’t bother to say what I was thinking. With Aletox, I needed every speck of focus I could muster. Already, I was battling to resist feeling flustered by his predictable actions.
It wasn’t that I anticipated that Aletox would be here, sitting in the near dark, waiting to surprise us. But I had known that things didn’t feel right. Aletox’s voice was the first thing outside of us, the intruders, to disrupt the suffocating silence that permeated the building. Even the walls seemed to hold in silence the way they’d ordinarily hold in heat or cold.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” Dolpheus quipped, far before I was ready to speak.
“I’m used to it,” Aletox answered, his voice laden with as much attitude as Dolpheus.’
As if Aletox had any reason to indicate he was disappointed with either one of us. Neither Dolpheus nor I owed him anything. Even if I was his son, I didn’t owe a man like him a damn thing. He didn’t get to act like a father—and a shitty one at that—if h
e’d only been one for days.
Lila asked the question Dolpheus and I wouldn’t bother with. The answer wasn’t that hard to imagine. “How did you know we’d be coming here? We only just decided to come here ourselves.”
“Is that what you think? That this decision wasn’t made far before you realized it? Come on, Lila. I thought you were more intelligent than that.”
Lila didn’t reply, but she looked unnerved.
Aletox had been trying to crawl beneath my skin since I was a young boy. I was used to it by now. It would take a lot more than this to get a rise out of me. Even though Aletox had been around my father as long as I could remember, even before my mother left us, he didn’t speak much or often. But whenever he did, it was to put me or someone else down. After so long, he might not have any other way of being. Maybe he was different when he was with Brachius behind closed doors, away from prying eyes.
Uncharacteristically, Aletox was more forthcoming than he’d ever been before. If possible, it made me even more suspicious.
He stood and approached us. “I knew you’d come because I’m the only one who has the answers you seek.”
“About splicing?” Lila eked out.
“About her.” Aletox’s eyes found Ilara behind me with the exactitude of a true-flying arrow. My body stiffened before I forced myself not to betray how much I wanted to avoid any contact between Aletox and Ilara. Already, back at the village, I’d revealed more of how much I cared for her than was wise. Aletox was a scavenger, he’d capitalize on any advantage he came across. He already possessed more than was safe for us.
“You think we’re here to find out whether she’s the princess or not,” Lila said, this time with a firm voice. She was a brave woman. Her personality didn’t match her mousy physical traits. But even Aletox had gotten through her shell at the start.
“Isn’t that why you’re here?”
“Of course it is,” Lila lied easily. Or perhaps it wasn’t a lie, but it was a partial truth. That was only one of the reasons we were here. Perhaps Aletox didn’t know everything, after all.
I hadn’t explained to our companions the importance of not revealing any information than was necessary, especially in such company. I had to hope that Lila and Kai knew better. It was a lesson most Oers learned early on. If Ilara was the princess, then she’d understand this better even than Dolpheus and me, and if she wasn’t, well, she was still Ilara. To be similar to the woman I’d loved for years, which she’d already proven herself to be, she’d have to possess a healthy sense of self-preservation.
“You sent everyone away today, didn’t you?” Lila asked.
“Yes.”
Dolpheus asked, “Does Brachius know what you’re doing?”
Not that any of us, not even me, could consider the man, who’d claimed to be my father for four hundred and forty three years, an ally, it was still a valuable fact to know.
So of course Aletox wouldn’t give it to us.
“That’s none of your concern.”
I thought it was very much my concern, but I didn’t bother saying it.
“What is your concern is what I’m willing to trade for the information you desire about this Ilara.”
Finally, I spoke. “What are you willing to tell us about her?”
Aletox grinned. Gleaming white teeth beamed as if they were lit. “Well, obviously I won’t tell you that before you give me what I want. But I will tell you that I have information about these parallel worlds, and how it might be that this woman is a holographic princess and not your princess at all.”
I sensed Ilara moving behind me and I jutted a hand out to stop her. She deflected my hand and stepped past me, moving directly in front of Aletox.
She stared him down. Aletox didn’t flinch at the cosmos of her eyes. I wondered if he felt at all. Not once had I been able to gaze into her cosmic eyes and not feel everything within me bubble to the top.
“You’ve already told us that,” Ilara said, her words imbued with power. She sounded like the princess. “You have nothing to trade.”
“Oh, but I do. I can give you all the details of how these parallel worlds work and just how identical these other versions of us are.”
“Details? You want to give us measly details we’ll be able to figure out ourselves with enough time. Details you’re unlikely to understand fully, because these are parallel dimensions we’re talking about after all. It’s not exactly basic science.”
Aletox’s angular jaw hardened. “I have far more than ‘basic science’ to offer.”
“You’d better. Because there are five of us and only one of you, and you gave everyone else the day off.”
“I could transport out of here before any of you could manage to do me serious harm.”
Could he, really? I considered Dolpheus and I skilled at transporting, but even we couldn’t find that space of stillness required to accomplish it that fast, especially not with the distraction of impending attack. Then again, Aletox had managed to transport out of the royal palace, which supposedly prevented transporting within its force field, when guards were nearly upon us in the tunnels. He left me behind because I couldn’t.
Any other thoughts I might have entertained about Aletox’s level of skill vanished in a puff.
“And if you did that, you’d be a coward,” Ilara said.
If the environment had been still and dense before, it grew even more so. My breath hung in the air when I exhaled.
I doubted anyone had ever called Aletox a coward before. But the fierce woman I loved just did.
“A courageous man faces the consequences of his actions, whatever they might be, instead of running from them. You sound like you’ve been evading the consequences of your actions all your life.”
Aletox’s entire body became rigid. Ilara hit on something, and I desperately wanted to know what it might be.
I waited to see what Aletox would say or do. We all waited. I wrapped my fingers firmly around the hilt of my sword, wondering if I’d have to draw it. Would I have to slay this man before discovering whether or not he was my father?
“Whatever opinion you or anyone else might have of me is your concern and not mine. All that matters to me is what I think of myself.”
I’d expected a variety of seething, cruel retorts. I didn’t know what to make of Aletox’s reply. Could he somehow be a misinterpreted good guy? No, he couldn’t. There wasn’t a drop of good sprinkled anywhere across his body.
“Do you want to deal or not?” Aletox asked. “If not, I have far better things to do with my day.”
What any of those things might be I could only ponder. Aletox was a mystery that only got deeper the more layers I unraveled.
“All right. Let’s deal,” Ilara said, behaving as much a princess of O as she ever had.
Aletox nodded a quarter of a nod, as if he suddenly respected this woman because of her ability to cut to the heart of matters, or rather, to the heartless part of matters. “I tell you everything I can about these parallel worlds and holographic individuals, and in exchange, you take me with you.”
“First of all, you don’t tell us what you can, you tell us everything you know.”
“All right. I’ll tell you everything I know about these parallel worlds relating to multiple manifestations of the same human being.”
“You tell us everything you know about these parallel worlds. Period. No limiting clauses.”
Aletox studied Ilara with a shrewd eye before saying, “Okay.”
“And where exactly do you want us to take you in exchange?”
“Why to Planet Sand, of course.”
“Planet Sand?” Ilara asked, sounding as perplexed as I was. “Why would we go there?”
“You’ll see. Apparently, you just haven’t reached the decision yet. But you will.”
My mind reeled and I assumed it was the same for the rest of my companions, including Ilara. Only Aletox continued to look smug and at ease despite the tension of our meetin
g.
That we should go to Sand, with Aletox no less, was a ludicrous notion.
“Assuming that we decide to go to Planet Sand,” Ilara began, “which I make no guarantee that we will, the deal you offer is too much in your favor.”
“It isn’t. You have no other way of finding out these things I know.”
“Perhaps, perhaps not. Regardless, we won’t deal under these terms.”
“Oh?” Aletox arched a dark eyebrow.
“You tell us all you know about parallel worlds, identical manifestations of humans, and you tell us all that you know about splicing, and what it is you guys are actually doing with the eternalities you take from people, because we know it’s not to replicate the client later on.”
Aletox arched the second eyebrow too, but he didn’t call her bluff. We weren’t sure of this. It was no more than a theory, but Aletox didn’t necessarily realize that.
“We want to know why, when, where, what, and how you’re taking these identical manifestations of the splicing clients and bringing them back to O and pawning them off on your splicing clientele as the result of your scientific process instead of body snatching.”
Once the words were out in the open, all five of us kept our expressions blank. I was proud of us. Not one of us looked like we were fishing with the biggest, slimiest, and wriggliest of worms.
Aletox breathed in and out audibly. I couldn’t remember him every doing that before.
“Fine. I’ll agree to your terms if you take me to Planet Sand with you and you protect me while I’m there, as if I’m one of your own. You added on some terms to the bargain that have heavy implications for me. So you need to up your end too.”
Aletox was wriggly enough to agree to our terms and later claim Ilara’s suppositions to be incorrect, so he didn’t need to tell us anything about how Brachius and he went about being interstellar body snatchers. But I didn’t think that was the case. His shock at discovery had appeared on his face before he scrambled to hide it away.