“Your Highness, she is awake now,” a voice said to her left. Her thoughts of Edo were interrupted by the unrecognized voice. Though she was still groggy, Roxal instinctively looked towards it to determine who was with her. However, when she tried to turn her head in that direction, she could not. A panicked surge of adrenaline seemed to clear the grogginess as Roxal wondered if she were paralyzed. So far, her eyes were the only part of her head that she could move, and they did not allow her the range of motion to see who had spoken. She tried to move other parts of her body: her arms, hands, fingers, legs, feet, toes. Nothing seemed to respond.
“Thank you, Medic. That will be all for now.” Footsteps moved away from her on the left. She then heard the door open and close, followed by a brief silence before a different set of footsteps began moving closer. Where the first set of steps had been quick and crisp, these were slow, deliberate, and heavy.
Not knowing what was about to happen to her, Roxal tried to calm herself with what she did know. The ceiling, the only thing she could clearly see, was plain and lit with photocells spaced evenly in alternating rows. There was the smell of antiseptic and some other astringent scent. In addition to the heavy footsteps, she could also hear the beeping and rhythmic sloshing of some sort of machinery.
Finally, the maker of the heavy footsteps came into view, standing on her left and leaning over so that his face was floating above hers. The black covering was missing from his face, but the brown robes he was wearing clearly identified the man as a Keepers’ Representative. Roxal was trapped in a recovery unit alone in a room with a Rep. A tear escaped her right eye and rolled down the side of her face and into the dreadlocks that covered her ear.
“How fortunate to see you have joined us here among the living. For a while, the Medic believed you were going to die before we could execute you. However, he was told that we would show an execution with either you or him as the victim. That seemed to appropriately motivate him.”
The Rep moved away from her head and now walked along the length of the recovery unit, still on her left. More tears fell from both eyes now. Her hair was beginning to feel damp on both sides of her face.
“Then, when your body survived, we were concerned your brain had been damaged in the explosion. Not that brain damage would have stopped your execution. It is just, I was really hoping to have a chance to interrogate you before you died.”
Out of her field of vision, the Rep was standing somewhere near Roxal’s feet. After more silent moments, he continued again.
“But thankfully, we saw those lines of neural activity and knew it would be just a matter of time before you would awaken and I could have both my interrogation and my execution.”
Roxal remained quiet. She knew there was nothing she could say to help herself now. And something about this Rep made her believe he wanted her to beg even though they both knew it was useless.
He began walking again, taking measured and deliberate steps towards her head.
“Should your silence be interpreted as your lack of concern about your execution? Or is your silence your attempt at pretending to not be a traitor? I will admit we believed you to still be loyal to our gods. After all, your Earth Connection, Lauren, was still diligently building the microprocessor. In fact, she is the reason you were not rounded up in any of the initial blasphemer sweeps.”
Roxal’s heart pounded like it was attempting to break through her chest wall. It beat double-time in comparison to the Rep’s steps, reverberating her body as each of his footfalls reverberated in the room. He stopped walking again. Now, glancing to her left, Roxal could see him standing beside her, his brown, bulky robe making him appear large and solid. Formidable.
“Though to be fair, there is nothing you could say at this point to change your fate. And while you may be silent now, I am certain you will not be when the time of your death arrives. You were still asleep when we executed your Helper. His execution was quite a show.”
A whimper escaped her mouth, as the tears now freely flowed out of Roxal’s eyes at the mention of Edo. Without her hands to wipe them away, her vision was totally blurred. She sniffed repeatedly as her nose began to run.
“He begged and pleaded for mercy and leniency. But, of course, it was too late for leniency. Still, we Representatives of The Keepers can be merciful. So once he gave us the names of your traitorous contacts, we executed him fast instead of banishing him to the Wasteland to die. If you want the same mercy shown to you, you had better follow his example. Give us a reason to show you mercy.”
The Rep didn’t wait for her to respond. He simply walked away, leaving Roxal to fret over when she would be executed and to worry about what they had done to Edo. She remembered the Glorious Session that had started all of this. The way the Security Force had marched people onto the stage and had slaughtered them.
The swish of the door opening and closing let her know the Rep had left. She desperately wanted to raise her hand to wipe the tears from her face but could not. Her helplessness was the last straw. She wailed out, trying to release the pain the only way she knew how. After an unknown amount of time crying, a voice spoke, startling her. She did not know someone had entered when the Rep left.
“Roxal, I am Medic Quarx. I have been caring for you since the explosion.” Roxal did not speak. His healing her just so she could be publically executed was not something she was thankful for at this moment. “I need to check to see how you are healing.” Her crying slowed, but she still said nothing.
Using a damp cloth that smelled of antiseptic, he gently cleaned her face. Once the tears were gone, she could see his white hair, his age-lined face, and the high collar of his golden-yellow uniform floating above her. He did not talk as he shined a light into her eyes and followed that by touching places on her scalp, which felt tender; she flinched and sucked in short bursts of air through her teeth in reaction to his finding sore spots. Then he moved from her head and touched a place on her chin that also sent a twinge of pain through her body. Finally, he moved down lower on her body, along her left side and out of eyesight.
Roxal did not have any idea about the extent of her injuries but discovered them as the Medic poked and prodded them. As he touched her left arm and lingered for a moment, she braced for the expected pain from an injury of some sort. However, it never came. Instead, she felt the Medic position his hands on it and pause. Then he continued his examination along the left side of her body.
She could not be sure, but it seemed like he had positioned his hands to say a word in the hand gesture language Edo had taught her. Confused as to how to respond, she remained motionless. Once Quarx made it to her left leg, she heard him cross over to the right side of her body, and she felt him begin his examination again, starting with her right leg this time and working his way up her body. As he entered her line of sight, this time he looked into her eyes and formed the same word on her right arm using the hand gesture language. He held his hands like this while he spoke to her.
“It appears your wounds are healing properly. In about four helios, the nanos will be finished mending your broken bones and regenerating skin to cover your newly healed cuts and bruises. The Representative wants you to use this time to reflect on your choices. He also wants you to know your Connection is being watched. If she begins behaving strangely, you both will be executed without hesitation.” Still maintaining eye contact with her, he positioned his hands on her arm to say one more thing before walking away. The first word he had said on each of her arms had felt like ‘Friend’. His final word had been ‘Trust’.
Again, out of her limited field of vision, she heard a series of beeps. “I am placing you back in a therapeutic sleep,” Quarx said. “The nanos will work faster to heal you that way.”
Roxal was only awake long enough to see the lights dim.
***
Roxal entered an empty and black dreamscape room. She was alone and appreciative of the peace. So much of her life was spent with other people that i
t felt nice to have some solitude. She thought of a chair and a table and they appeared. After so many annums, it was easy for her to manipulate the dreamscape. She sat in the chair and took stock of her current situation. Quarx had said she would be healed in about four more helios. And she doubted the Reps would let her live much longer than that. So, four more helios and then her life was over.
The feeling of another presence made her look over her shoulder. She turned in time to see Lauren walk through a door which had not been there before. She watched as Lauren looked around the space. Then Lauren turned and saw her. Roxal both read her expression and felt her surprise.
“Hello?” Lauren walked slowly towards her, now smiling.
“Hello, Lauren.” Roxal stood, not sure if this was sleeping or awake Lauren she was greeting.
“Roxal? Are you Roxal?”
Awake Lauren. “Yes, I am Roxal.”
Lauren continued towards her. As she did, a big purple and green chair appeared on the other side of the table at which Roxal sat. Roxal knew she had not created the chair.
“You’re here. I’m here. I’m meditating at home, and I didn’t think this would work. But, you’re here.” Lauren now stood in front of her, grinning wider. Roxal did not say anything. “I thought maybe you were a figment of my imagination or my subconscious. But you are a person. I just thought… I can’t believe it. You’re here.”
Roxal watched her and saw the smile as it slowly drained from Lauren’s face, the fullness of realization dawning on her.
“This means you’re real, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, Lauren. I am real.”
“And if you’re real, that means all of that stuff about aliens taking over the Earth is real?”
“Yes, Lauren.”
“And I’m helping them take over the Earth?” Lauren questioned as she walked around her and then sat in the newly appeared purple chair. She pulled her knees to her chest and rocked back and forth.
“Lauren, this is not your fault. It is mine.” Roxal spoke from her side of the table as she felt Lauren’s guilt through their link. “I was reared in a world where I was taught that my only reason for existing was to serve our gods. I never thought about my actions. I am the one who has been making you help The Keepers since you were ten Earth years old. I was so determined to accomplish my goal that you never really had any option but to do as I wanted you to do.”
Lauren stopped rocking and looked up at Roxal with her eyebrows knitted together. “You’ve really been traveling into my dreams since I was ten?”
Roxal took a seat in the chair she was originally in when Lauren arrived. “Yes, I have. As I told you, I know you. I have seen almost every dream you have had for over twenty-five Earth years now. In fact, I have not only seen them, I have taken them over.”
“How is that possible? I don’t remember anything about you. Like right now, you’re a stranger to me. Though when you talk, when I sense your presence here, you seem familiar. But standing here looking at you, I have no memory of ever seeing you before.”
“That is how we work. Most Travelers are like me: we can only link with our Connections when they are asleep. Well, that was my limitation. And since we only link with you while you all are dreaming, you have no conscious memory of us. But during your dreams, we work tirelessly to plant a suggestion for what we need you to do for us, so that when you wake up you will follow orders. And since we begin so early in your lives, you begin to believe the suggestions from us are your calling, and things take off from there.”
“This is unbelievable.” Lauren stared intently into her face. “You said that most have to wait until the Connection sleeps to make a link. What about the others? How do they link?”
“There are some Travelers who are able to link whether the Connection is asleep or not. In cases like those, the Travelers do not last long. The Connections often begin thinking they are mentally sick and take drugs to cure them from being able to see into our world so clearly. And the drugs do cure them; they alter a Connection’s brain chemistry enough so that the Traveler cannot make contact anymore. These drugs can be the ones you get from your Earth medics or ones gotten illegally. They both do the same thing. That is why Travelers with that much power do not last long and have to work fast to complete assignments from The Keepers.”
Lauren nodded and looked up into the air. “What happens if you fail? For example, if I had decided to do something else with my life, what would’ve happened to you?”
“My case would have been reviewed by our ruling class, the Keepers’ Representatives. If the Reps thought I had done all I could to accomplish my assignment and it was you who was at fault, I would be reassigned to another position, hopefully as an Instructor or Medic in the Talented and Honored caste. However, if I was found to be at fault for your failure, then I could be demoted to Helper or Laborer or even executed.”
“Oh my,” Lauren said in a whisper as she slowly shook her head from side to side. “Your life sounds so… ‘Horrible’ is all I can think of, but it doesn’t really fit.”
“My life is my life. I am living the best life I can under the circumstances. Or I was before I was sentenced to death.”
“You were telling me about your death sentence earlier. You also said something about escaping to a wasteland because of it. And you said you were in an explosion.”
Lauren shifted positions. She lowered her legs, placed her hands and forearms on top of one another on the table, and rested her head on them.
“Edo, my Helper, was once a Traveler. He somehow joined the Resistors. When they told him the truth about our lives, he led his Connection to take drugs to sever their link. The Reps thought his failure was because he pushed his Connection too hard trying to succeed. He was demoted to Helper as a warning to us Travelers. He was fortunate that he was not executed.”
Roxal felt herself smile, but at the same time, she felt like crying. She closed her eyes and continued. “We became emotionally connected. He is my mate. He told me of the Resistors and I, eventually, joined him. We tried to carry out an attack within our compound for the Resistors. Our part of the attack was setting off an explosion. We were discovered, and while I was fighting, the explosion happened and I was caught in it.”
A feeling of warmth flooded Roxal. She looked at Lauren’s face and understood what the warmth was. Compassion. Lauren was feeling compassion for her, the person who was helping lead her world to a fate similar to that of Trebor.
“I still have so many questions.”
Roxal nodded. “I will answer all that I can.” There is no point in withholding information now, she added silently.
“What’s going to happen to you now? And what about Edo? What’s happened to him? And why is it that we can talk now? It’s still amazing to me that I’m talking to someone on another planet right now. But if you’ve only been able to visit me in my dreams for so long, why is it that now I can talk to you when I’m awake?”
Roxal paused with surprise. She had been certain Lauren’s first question would have been why she had not done the same as Edo and freed her.
“What has happened to me is I have been captured, and I am being healed so I can be put to death.”
“What!” Lauren sat straight up in her chair. “When? How? Roxal!”
“All is well, Lauren. Do not worry about me. Once I considered Edo my mate and joined him...” Roxal paused and sighed deeply. Then she continued, “I always knew death could be my fate. I was naïve in thinking I could avoid it.” As Roxal smiled, a feeling of peace washed over her because death would mean no more fighting and no living without Edo.
“As for Edo, a Rep told me he was also captured and executed while I was in healing sleep. The Rep said he betrayed the Resistors and gave names, but I do not believe it. Edo was loyal. No matter how terrible his death, he would not have betrayed them.”
Edo suddenly appeared smiling. Roxal felt a tear roll down her cheek, but when she reached up to wipe her face, it w
as dry as she had expected. She wondered if this meant she was crying back on Trebor.
Lauren stood and walked around the table to where dream-Edo was standing. Dream-Edo stood motionlessly, staring into Roxal’s eyes as Lauren circled him repeatedly, scanning him from head to toe. Roxal noted again that this dream version of Edo was close to the original but not quite exact. There was something about his eyes that she could not seem to reproduce in her imagination.
“How did you do that? And who is this? He is quite handsome,” Lauren said as she looked him over.
Roxal chuckled. “Edo, my mate. This is not the first time he has appeared in one of our connections. And every time he appears, you tell me of his attractiveness. Now I know you truly do find him attractive.”
“I see why you became a Resistor. I think I would join any cause he wanted me to join,” Lauren said as she laughed.
Roxal laughed in response. Except for rare secret moments with Edo, the only time Roxal ever laughed or even smiled really was with Lauren. Then Roxal realized this may be one of the last times she would connect with Lauren, and the smile left her face.
“As for your final question, why you can now talk to me while you are awake—I can only tell you what I speculate to be the reason because I do not know exactly how the link works. I believe I managed to make it to the dreamscape just before the explosion. I was not asleep, but I entered a meditative state of some sort and I saw you. Then I felt the explosion. It was something about that shared experience that has altered our connection ability.”
“Wait. Does that mean you’re the cause of my huge migraine headache and my inability to sleep? I was meditating at work, and there was a searing pain in my head. Was that because of you?” Lauren returned to her purple and green chair and sat down, pulling her legs underneath her body.
“I am not sure what a ‘huge migraine’ headache is, or about my connection to your inability to sleep. But if these problems are recent, then it is possible the injuries I sustained during the explosion affected you in some way. However, the good news is I am healing. So as I heal, your problems should cease.”
The Heaviness of Knowing Page 13