by Julie Ishaya
Kieriell sighed and let go his fear of the laboratory. He could see for now that the kai had different intentions. The other screens displayed the spiraling images of a single magnified gene. It turned right and left, intricately looping around on itself, two golden strands spiraling around each other and linked by the rungs of a ladder: the double helix.
"Look," the kai said gently, pointing at the same screen. He laid an almost friendly hand on Kieriell's shoulder. "You see it?"
"See what?" Kieriell rasped, his voice still almost lost in a growl. He squinted again, but then the gene magnified until only one area of its surface dominated the screen. There were several points of light along the surface, each set equally apart from the next. Countless lighted loci sparked and winked in and out.
Then he made out the rest of it.
A webwork of minute lines connected each point. There were the webs within webs, just as depicted in the map room on Dyss, only without the sophisticated equipment to bring them to light, these would have been too tiny to be seen with the naked eye. Kieriell gaped, silent inside, lost to the most precious part of himself revealed on screen. He barely breathed, shattered to the tiniest cell, his blood heating until he felt the dizziness of this new shock.
"My techs have, as you can see, managed to create a virtual model of your DNA to study," the kai said. "We can narrow the focus down to one chromosome per cell, but we are still studying the overall structure of each cell, including the parent genes and the codon structure of the Nexian gene. And look—"
"I see it," Kieriell whispered.
"We can even simulate the way the micro-grid permeates the tiniest particle of your being. And look at this one."
The hologram changed to a complete set of chromosomes, mother and father, dancing around each other. The mother was much smaller, but it was alight with energy that extended to the father chromosome.
"Do you see what is happening here?" the kai asked with rising enthusiasm.
"I do."
"Look how the micro-grid shines from the mother strand. My guess would be that that is where the source originates. That is the portal into your ability. Do you see?"
Kieriell nodded, frowning at the implication. He felt sick. "I see." He couldn't bring himself to say it out loud, but the kai was all too eager to state it for him.
"It looks like your mother is the one who gifted you. She is where the—let's call it the transcendant effect—came from. Did your father never consider the possibility?" The kai laughed. "Ah, Nexian arrogance again. Adam doesn't carry the gridcode, yet his son does, and he never thought to examine the genetic structure of your mother."
"Please, leave her out of this."
"I was just making an interesting point," the kai replied tritely. "We don't need her when we have you, Kieriell." He walked back to the console with the holo image. "Now we have only to get to the heart of the model to examine what generates this phenomenon." He stopped to shake Kieriell back into alertness.
Kieriell raised his head slightly, glassy eyes unblinking, vacantly watched the minuscule grid lines gleam out from the model. They grew brighter and larger, until they began to bleed together from lines into whole fields of light. Transfixed by it, Kieriell gaped. Behind his eyes, the void opened up and swallowed the chromosome image, swallowed the entire room in its infinite embrace, and the inhibitor emitted a warning throb in his temple. He nearly reeled, mentally retreating, while his feet shuffled backward under him.
Rai Jinn was suddenly beside him, clamping a hand on Kieriell's shoulder to steady him. With a gasp, Kieriell snapped to. The light faded and the throbbing in his head ebbed. He wanted nothing more than to be out of this room; the air was too stagnant and hot.
The kai turned from the display to approach Kieriell, looking him in the eyes. "Is there something else troubling you, my prince?" There was no respect in the address, just curiosity. The kai had not seen the light bleed as Kieriell had. "You look disturbed."
Kieriell tried to think of a statement that would satisfy the kai for now and not provoke any more questions. "I don't. . . I don't understand it myself." He rationalized that without the inhibitor, he would be able to share the experience of the void as he had empathically shared it with his father and grandfather. Perhaps that place, so vast that it was terrifying, would teach the kai something. But he was sure now that the real activity within the grid's inner structure was only meant for him to see. "I can't tell you," he resolved. "There are no words."
The kai stared at him with embittered acceptance. Then his lips curled back to bare his teeth as he brought his fist down on the console.
Kieriell stepped back deeper into Rai Jinn's grip, shaking his head. "I mean it, I can't describe what I see."
"What you see?" The kai walked along the wall from one screen to the next.
"Yes." Kieriell looked around and saw that all eyes were upon him. The technicians were eagerly looking for answers as well. He understood why they would want to solve the puzzle. The kai had fed their interests to match his own. Returning his attention to the holo image, he still saw the glow within the model of the mother chromosome. And then the full weight of what it meant struck him. Mother, he thought. If it really did derive from her, then he would have to cooperate, less the kai set his sights on the last matron of the Mahlharium Dynasty. Dizzy with this new concern, Kieriell swayed on his feet, and then the floor rushed up to meet him.
Collapsing to his knees, he managed to get his hands under him before he tipped completely face forward. All sounds in the laboratory bled together briefly and then began to separate back into individual voices and the hum or bleeping of equipment. Kieriell heard the kai say, "Get him up." There was disgust in the voice but, importantly, there was also a tone of resignation that nothing more could be done for now.
Pulled back to his feet, Kieriell refocused on his surroundings and cast away the lure of the holo image's glow. He stared at the floor but listened to a few hushed words exchanged in Shiv between Rai Jinn and the kai.
"He's degenerating here. He can't adapt to the conditions we live under," Rai Jinn admitted irritably of the prisoner's condition. "We knew this was likely to happen."
"Not yet," the kai answered stubbornly. He made a gesture, and the guards moved to flank the doorway as it opened.
Rai Jinn waited for any further orders, but none were given. He took Kieriell's arm and steered him toward the passage. "Come on then."
Kieriell didn't insist on walking on his own. At this point, he needed all the help he could get.
He cooperated as he was taken to be bathed and fed again, and later he felt better when he was returned to his cell in fresh clothes. He paced for a long time, thinking about what he had seen and heard and what he knew.
New amazement stirred him with thoughts of his mother. Was it true? Had he inherited the gridcode from her? With that possibility came worry. Could the kai actually reach her? He rationalized that it was not something likely to happen, but Nex only guarded a single section of the nexus. The corner where titans met still reached deep into opposite regions of space, leaving much of it vulnerable to any rift tech.
He brooded on this until he fell asleep, the inner light succumbing to darkness and merciful nothing.
It seemed like only seconds later that cool flesh touched his shoulder. Memory and dream state collided to translate the sensation into gooey, invasive vines. Furious, he bolted out of sleep and reached up to grab the tendrils only to find that they were fingers instead.
Small, gentle fingers.
His heart banged against his ribs, and he turned to see Siri sitting on the edge of the bunk.
She gasped at his sudden, vicious movement and tried to pull her hand away, but he clung to her wrist. Her narrow, fragile wrist. If he squeezed any harder it would snap. "Let go," she hissed.
Coming back to his senses, he looked over at the doorway where the field was inactive. How long she had been in the room, he didn't know.
"Your
eyes," she gasped. "They are so red, and I see the scales. They look like jewels on your cheeks."
He loosened his grip and let her hand slip away, noting that his talons hadn't scratched her. Then he tossed his legs over the side of the bunk and hunched forward, rubbing the remaining fury out of his eyes.
"You slept for a long time," Siri commented.
He could only deduce that she must have been in the room for a good while and said hoarsely, "It's not wise to surprise a sleeping Nexian."
She giggled. "Really?"
With a groan, he shoved himself up from the bunk and resumed his pacing routine. He looked down at her sitting there and breathed a snide chuckle at the oblivion in her eyes. "How can you not see it?"
"See what?"
Again he chuckled, saving the words.
She shrugged in response, stood, and approached him until the distance between them closed to just within hand's reach. "I've been thinking about what you said about Valtaer and Nex." She inched closer so that Kieriell in turn fought the urge to retreat. She was wearing something perfumed, oil massaged into her hair or skin, and he found its sweetness inviting. And he found it absolutely inviting when her arms swiftly came up to reach around his neck. How could he feel this way about her? He was just as much her prisoner as her father's. "I want to go there," she insisted breathily. "When you are through here, helping the Shiv, I want to go back with you."
He was surprised by the strength she had, her fingers tangling in his hair, her arms locked in place. He cringed back, reaching up to work her hands free. "Siri—"
"I want to be with you." She kissed around his mouth, pursed lips shying away from a full, experienced kiss.
He started to squirm, but the more he backed away, the more she clung to him. Her hands played with the cord holding his medallion.
She raised up on her tip toes. Desperation brought a bleariness to her eyes. "Please, take me. I want this." She pressed her body closer to his, insistently nibbling at his chin though he moved his head from side to side trying to shake loose the intoxication of her. "I'm not doing this for my father. I'm doing it for me."
All that remained of the shift left him, and it seemed that his vision cleared, as though his eyes had been veiled by their red hue, and now, softened by the girl's naivete, he noticed the delicate sheen of tears along her silver-white lashes. Her more exotic and alluring qualities began to outweigh the ill appeal of her thin body. A single drop of hot sweat wove its way down from his brow, and Kieriell summoned all of his self control to prevent his own bodily desires from betraying him.
"Siri, no."
"I don't care what happens to me. . ."
"No." He finally gripped her hands again.
She wriggled one free and caressed at his chest. "Touch me, Kieriell, please."
He grew more frantic to push her away. "Gaad, I might break you!" He gave her a gentle shake, looked in her eyes and saw the hopefulness fleeing from her. "My lady," he said softly, "as tempting as your offer might be to me, I cannot accept it." He felt a horrendous pain in his chest when she blinked at him, her pride hurt again. If only she would stop blinking like that! He hardly knew her and yet he cared for the lost and frail thing that she was.
The hurt ceased to build up in her eyes to be replaced by awe. She began to chew on her lips.
"Don't do that," he told her. He traced a fingertip along her lower lip, barely touching the hard ridge of her teeth. He felt that he might tell her everything. How she would react, he did not know, but desperation pushed him to any risk now. Lowering her back onto the bunk, he sat before her and cradled her face in his hands, her sharp little chin cupped between his palms. "Help me, Siri," he pleaded. "Listen to me."
She sniffled, her brows rising to wrinkle her forehead with a confused frown.
Kieriell leaned into her, his lips close to her ear. A guard in the corridor might hear, or Rai Jinn in his stealthiness might be close by. There was also the possibility that Siri was already psionically monitored by her father, but Kieriell had to take that chance. "I am lost here," he whispered. "You know I did not come to the Shiv by my own choice, but Nex did not just hand me over either." He swallowed and checked to see that she was paying attention. "Your father broke the treaty of the negotiations and brought me here by manipulative force." She uttered a half-cry and started to withdraw, but he tightened his hold. "The negotiations have been ruined for the Shiv," he persisted, "and Nex will not stand for such behavior as the kai's."
"You're lying," she spat angrily and began to push at him.
"No. . ." he trailed off hopelessly. Before she could struggle up from the bunk, he grabbed her shoulders and pushed her over on the thin mattress. Pinning her in place beneath him, he felt again as though he might fulfill her wishes that they couple. She jerked her head from side to side, knocking him in the chin, and he unintentionally snarled at her. "Your father manipulated and killed my mentor to get me here. He never intends to let me go."
"You're just being cruel!" she snapped. "It's in your nature!"
"No." He bore down on the word with another snarl, beginning not to care how much his voice changed. "Do I look like I'm lying? Siri, look at me! Do I?"
Her pupils wide and dark, she scanned over his face, reluctant to really see him. Tears flooded over her lashes and became a free flow down her cheeks. "My father is very angry," she admitted, "but he wouldn't do that."
Kieriell gritted his teeth, hissing hot breath. Tears of his own boiled up, fell onto her face. He cursed sharply, then rolled off of her and settled on the floor beside the bunk in a kneeling position. She scrambled to her feet.
"You don't know him the way I do," he resigned. But, he reminded himself, she did know the kai in a way that Kieriell did not: as a father. And that was the block. Hopeless, he thought. His cause was hopeless. He stood and moved away from the bunk, not facing her. He was too mentally exhausted to really be angry, and while he looked at the passage, which Siri had left unbarred, it did not inspire him to try to run. Though he had paid attention to the corridors, he knew he would just get lost deeper in the hive.
He heard her approaching from behind, and he closed his eyes and dropped his head back in defeat when her hands came up to rest on his shoulders as if to comfort him. He swallowed down his disappointment and detached himself. Let her go with her ignorance. He pulled away from her touch and turned a cold, empty stare toward her.
"Kieriell, there must be some misunderstanding that has fallen between you and my father." Siri tilted her head in thought, brooding for an explanation.
He was out of words and full of disgust with himself. He had tried to move too quickly, and she had not been ready to move with him. If only he had waited, planned out his strategy longer. Having nothing more to tell her, he gave a head jerk toward the passage. "Go."
She gave him a disheartened stare for a moment before she took the hint.
Alone and with the field reactivated, Kieriell went back to sit on the edge of the bunk. He hung his head as he propped on his knees.
Something, he felt, was missing and when he massaged at his tight neck muscles, he realized that the cord was gone. His searching gaze darted over the floor and the bunk but saw nothing before he calmed again. He shook his head and swore to himself as he turned his moistened face upward and forced an empty laugh.
Siri had, apparently, taken his medallion.
26
Memory cells buried deep in the neural core were perceived in a virtual realm of glowing crystals encrusting the walls of a circular cavern. Some were domed and smooth, others jagged and rough to the mind's touch. Asmodéus' psyche flowed forward sending out requests for links to any cells holding information on past political reforms or proposals for reforms which had never been carried out. The response ignited a third of the cells. They went from glowing with soft yellow-white light to brilliant. Light rays drew the emperor down to one cell where he scanned the information therein. When it did not appear helpful, he moved on.
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From the depths of the core, Asmodéus could still feel his body seated on the throne far above in the palace. The pathways that maintained the connection registered that there was a clenching through his jaw, a burning beneath the lids of his closed eyes, all physical reactions to his mind's growing impatience.
He proceeded to the next cell and again found it of no help. Neither was the next one. But here he lingered, finding this cell's white-lit interior purer than the others. The useless information still fed into him, past him, as he associated that light with something else, something familiar to him. Pockets of the information moved within it, waiting to fill his consciousness, but he issued a soft command to stay it, and he continued to merely observe the vastness beyond the dimension of the cell's capacity. He thought he might be perceiving dimensions within dimensions, a reflection of the grid's structure in that light. So vast. Consuming.
Like the void, he realized. It looked like the void the way he had glimpsed it through Kieriell. With that passing thought of his grandson came the sting of resentment toward the Shiv.
The light in the cell dimmed, and Asmodéus shivered with a desperation to bring the light back—to bring Kieriell back. Transcendant, he thought, the word floating around and within him, creating a focal point in itself, and the cavern echoed back with a whispery, androgynous voice:
Trrrrraaaaanscend. . .
Then another cell, distant, buried in the further reaches of the core, the ancient storage houses that had not been opened in millennia, lit up and pulled him toward it. The core had perceived his private thoughts as a request for more information, and it responded to that one key word. Several other cells brightened, but he passed them up, intrigued that such an older, dormant, cell should come to life. He looked inside and briefly felt as though all remaining ties to his body had indeed severed, left him roaming free in the core. But then came a tingling sensation reaching down to him, and he recognized that it came from his spine, that it ramified down through his arms where they rested on the throne.