The Heaviness of Knowing

by Sharolyn G. Brown

  Civort threw his head forward, and Gerig stepped in front of her and began walking. Edo let go of her arm and pointed to Gerig, then raised his weapon. She followed Edo’s prompt and began following Gerig, making sure to not let him get too far ahead of her. She took a quick glance behind her and saw Edo was following her. Shortly after entering the hall, there was a door. Gerig walked just past the door and leaned against the wall, all the while continuing to point his weapon down the hall. She walked to the door and stood beside Gerig. Edo walked up to the door and tried to open it. Unsurprisingly, it was locked.

  He took a position on the side of the door opposite Gerig and pointed his weapon in the direction from which they had come. Next, Nawad ran up and placed a malleable light brown substance on the door on the side near Edo. Then she attached a circular timer and tapped Edo’s arm to signal him to move. As Edo and Nawad stepped away, Roxal and Gerig moved further up the hall and waited.

  Instead of a loud explosive sound, like that which accompanied the breach of the outer wall, there was a low concussive explosive sound that made the wall and floor rumble. When she walked back to the door, it was now slightly ajar. Nawad was standing to the side with Edo as Gerig returned and attached a device with a large bar on it. With Edo’s help, they used the device to manually slide the door into the wall. Once it was open about half-way, Edo shouted into the room, “Anyone inside must come out with your hands raised. When we come in, we will have to eliminate all threats.” His voice was slightly muffled because of the mask, but should still have been clearly heard by anyone inside.

  There was silence from the room. Edo removed one of the metal cylinders from his belt, twisted it, and then threw it through the door. There was a pop, a bright flash, and a high-pitched sound. Screams were then heard from inside. She could not tell how many people were screaming, but it definitely sounded like more than one person. Tano, Pruda, and Civort raced into the room. Roxal had not even realized they had joined her, Gerig, Edo, and Nawad.

  “Stay down,” she heard Civort yell shortly before she heard weapons fire. Then there was silence. More time passed before Civort gave the all clear and they entered the room.

  As she walked through the door, Roxal now understood the purpose of the test mission. This control room was a larger version of the smaller one they had accessed. Instead of only one screen and one control pad, there were multiple screens of various sizes covering every wall surface except the door. And as for control pads, there were at least six at different locations throughout the room. As she looked around, taking it all in, she saw the bodies of three people on the floor. All three were wearing gold Talented and Honored Citizens caste clothing. She did not bother to check to see if they were alive or not because no one in her group had the non-lethal paralyzing weapons.

  “Time to get started,” Edo called out, his mask now removed and reconnected to his suit.

  Roxal nodded and removed her mask likewise. Breathing was much easier than it had been in the hallway, but each breath slightly irritated her throat, which felt kind of scratchy. Edo walked from console to console, stopping at the fourth one.

  “Roxal, I believe this is the one we want,” he called, waving her over to where he was. There was a chair built into the floor in front of the control pad. Instead of sitting in it, Edo continued searching the room. By the time she had walked over to the console he had indicated, he had walked away and was now returning with a chair in his hands. He sat it beside the stationary chair and then sat in the one in front of the console. Roxal sat in the chair he had just brought over and took a deep breath.

  The inhale resulted in a coughing exhale. Edo smiled at her. “I realize the conditions are not the best, but I believe you can do this,” he told her and then faced the console. “It is locked similarly to the other console. I am going to work to get into the BIOS while you connect with Lauren.” With that, Edo went to work and left Roxal to do her job.

  CHAPTER 40

  “Good luck today,” Jess called out to Lauren as she walked through the corridors, heading to the lab where she would be connecting with Roxal.

  “Thanks, Jess,” she called back to the woman from her group. During yesterday’s meeting, she had confided in them about how nervous she was. As a show of support, Jess had met her for breakfast and had also walked her to the secure wing.

  Once she was through the security scanner, she went to the lab and found Estella already in the room waiting for her. Lauren could not see into the observation and control rooms, but she trusted Ray was in the control room. She didn’t want to know how many people were there just to observe.

  “Are you ready?” Estella asked her as she walked towards the reclined chair.

  “As ready as I can be,” she replied as she got into the seat.

  Estella started connecting the sensors as she had before. Lauren lay there with her eyes closed, doing what she could to relax. Her biggest fear was that she would freeze up and not be able to make a strong link with Roxal. Ironically, her fear of not being able to make a strong link could actually cause her not to make a strong link. Nothing like a horrible self-fulfilling prophesy.

  Lauren’s concerns were apparently easy to read because as she applied the sensors, Estella said, “Lauren, we’ve practiced and practiced this. You can connect with Roxal in your sleep. Literally. Connecting with her today will be just another interface.”

  Lauren nodded and then opened her eyes to look at Estella while she spoke to her. She was too nervous to laugh at the small joke Estella had made. “I know. I just don’t want to mess up. I realize the stress that I’m putting on myself will ultimately make it harder to connect. But she’s my friend and I don’t want to let her down.”

  “You won’t let her down.” Estella was finished applying the sensors and now placed her hand on Lauren’s shoulder. “Just trust yourself and your ability. You were born to do this.”

  Lauren nodded, closed her eyes again, and inserted the earpiece.

  “Are we good to go, Ray?” She asked. She wanted to test the ear piece.

  “All set to go in here,” he replied in her ear. The volume was just as she liked it. “I’m sitting in front of the mock Treborian console waiting to start.”

  With nothing left to say, Lauren began taking deep, regular breaths and cleared her mind. As she did, random and unrelated thoughts began going through it. Instead of trying to fight the thoughts, she just let them come until there was nothing but silence. Then she felt herself start to drift. She had made it to the dreamscape.

  As with the practice mission, and the many practice sessions that had followed, her surroundings looked like the lab in which she was currently located. Roxal was not present yet, but it didn’t worry Lauren because she had intentionally connected early in case there was a problem. She changed her lab chair into her comfy chair and then waited.

  The rate at which it felt that time passed in the dreamscape and the rate at which time passed back in her reality was not the same. Sometimes if felt as if barely thirty minutes had passed while she was in the dreamscape and in the real world several hours could have passed. Other times connections that felt like they had lasted hours were actually half as long. Today in the dreamscape, time seemed to drag on as she waited.

  “Lauren, your heart rate is beginning to increase. Whatever you’re worrying about, you need to stop.” Estella said softly.

  Lauren chuckled. “Sure, I’ll just stop myself from feeling anything. Why didn’t I think of that?”

  I wish there was a switch I could flip to make me calm. But humans aren’t wired like that, she thought.

  Just as she finished the thought, a table with a light switch on it appeared in the dream-lab and Lauren started laughing.

  “Is everything okay?” Estella sounded concerned.

  “Yeah. My mind is just trying to relieve some stress.”

  Lauren stopped laughing, and just as she did, Roxal appeared. Normally she wore the equivalent to hospital scrubs
when they connected. This time, she was wearing some kind of weird military uniform. It was dark gray and had things like a mask and a weapon of some kind hanging from it.

  “Roxal, you made it.” Lauren was relieved to see her friend.

  “Yes, I am here and we are in position. Let us start.”

  CHAPTER 41

  Sitting in the chair with her eyes closed, Roxal listened as Edo finished his preparations. She was in the bright, white lab version of the dreamscape with Lauren. The Earth team was ready to go. Roxal brought the control console and a small section of the control room with her into the dreamscape. This time, though, a dream representation of Edo was included in Roxal’s addition to the dreamscape. He was sitting at the console typing on it. In the real world, Edo gave her the information to pass along.

  Before she could speak, Lauren said, “I see your mate is still as attractive as ever.”

  This comment made Roxal smile in spite of everything that was going on around them. “Edo says he was able to reset the switches, like before, and get into the BIOS. He has connected the new drive and is currently changing the boot order so that the operating system from our drive is what loads.”

  As Lauren relayed the information to her listeners, Roxal conjured up a chair for herself near where dream-Edo was working. Back in her reality, the ‘new drive’ Edo was connecting was the drive they had taken from the control room during the test mission. When they brought it back to the compound, Rodan had an intelligence team who worked on the drive and managed to break the password protecting it. With the password broken, they were able to study it to determine how the Reps set up the connections in their communications network.

  In addition to studying the system for the upcoming attack, they had also loaded several programs for the mission. One of the most important software programs loaded was a passcode cracking software.

  “Once our operating system loads,” Roxal continued, “we will start forcing our way onto the Reps’ network.”

  “Sounds good. You’ve made a lot of progress,” Lauren told Roxal, then addressed the people in her reality to let them know what was happening.

  After a few moments, Roxal gave Lauren an update, “Now we have our drive loaded. We will work to link to the Reps’ central terminal.” During all of this, dream-Edo continued diligently working on his console, never looking up or interacting with either of them.

  “Good. Maybe you guys won’t need us after all,” Lauren said and smiled at her. Then she said, “Really? You guys really believe in superstition?”

  “What?” Roxal asked, confused as to what Lauren was saying.

  “The people with me in my reality said I just jinxed your mission by saying you wouldn’t need us. It’s a stupid Earth thing, I guess. Just ignore them.”

  “What is jinxed?”

  “It means because I’ve said you won’t need us, that the mission will start going wrong somehow. Like I said, Earth nonsense.”

  Just then, real world Edo spoke up again, and Roxal relayed his message. “It may not be nonsense because we have a problem. We cannot get our drive to connect to their master terminal. Apparently there is a port assignment conflict. Edo said that is likely why only an unmanned sky-droid was sent to attack us on the test mission. The Reps knew that no matter what, we would not be able to get into their network.”

  The smile disappeared from Lauren’s face. “I’m so sorry, Roxal. I didn’t mean anything. I didn’t think—”

  Roxal walked over to where Lauren was seated and took Lauren’s hands in hers. “Lauren, it does not matter now. Now we need to focus on this problem.”

  “You’re right, Roxal,” she replied and then relayed the new information.

  Roxal sat and listened to Lauren’s half of the conversation, which consisted mainly of “How?”, “Why?”, and “Oh.” After listening for some time, Lauren asked, “Is there a way you can have both the new drive and the one you removed connected at the same time?”

  “No, not that we can figure out right now,” was Roxal’s relayed reply. “Why?”

  “Because Ray can help you guys change the port’s assigned number on your drive. The only problem is you’ll need to reset the terminal connection to this compound for the new port assignment to be recognized.”

  Roxal relayed the information, and there was silence from both Lauren and Edo. Then real-world Edo spoke up, “There is another control room. And, according to Rodan, it is redundant.”

  “Yes, which means we could reset the link from there,” Roxal added.

  “Exactly my thought. Only the solution is not simple. We would have to get to the other control room, access the terminal connection settings, and reset it. At the same time, we would have to leave our drive connected in here. And someone would have to deploy the virus from this room also because the only copy of the virus we have is on our drive,” Edo continued.

  “Could you set up a simple executable that would make the virus deployment easy?” Roxal questioned.

  After several more moments of silence, Edo replied, “Yes, I can. I will work on the executable, and then Ray will walk us through the port assignment. Meanwhile, I will have Civort and the team determining who will stay behind and who will go with us. You let Lauren know what is going on. Once we have finished our preparations in here, we will leave for the other control room.”

  Roxal heard Edo as he called out to Civort. Then she focused on communicating with Lauren and getting ready to work with her to instruct Edo on what he had to do next.

  CHAPTER 42

  Roxal blinked her eyes and stretched. It had taken a lot of back and forth messages between the people on Earth and Edo to get the port assignment changed. However, as painful as it had been, Roxal knew it would only have been worse if not for the fact that they had practiced sending detailed instructions back and forth during their preparations for this mission. In fact, one of their practice sessions had been instructing Lauren and her team on building a mock Treborian computer console.

  Now she stood, stretching, getting ready to make the trek to the other control room with Edo, Nawad, and Gerig. Civort was staying behind to help Tano keep possession of this control room, and Pruda was staying to upload the virus when given the go ahead.

  “We have two options for how to get to the other control room. We can continue down this hallway, which will take us through the Reps’ living quarters, which may still be guarded. Or we can go back to the outer hall through which we entered. That path is slightly longer, but with all of the fighting that has been going on, it may be cleared,” Edo, the de facto leader for their team, explained as he pointed to a projection of a map.

  “I say we take the shortest path. I would feel safer doing this as soon as possible. For all we know, this compound is being disconnected from the main server as we speak. I believe we need to do this quickly before The Keepers figure out what we are doing,” Roxal responded.

  “It would likely be safer to take the outer hall, but if time is a concern we should go through the Reps’ living quarters,” Nawad agreed.

  “I am ready either way,” Gerig answered.

  “It is decided, then. We will go through the Reps’ section. Weapons ready. That means you too, Roxal,” Edo instructed.

  Roxal removed her small handheld weapon from its holder with trembling hands and stood behind Edo. Nawad placed her calm hand on Roxal’s arm.

  “We practiced for this. You can do this,” she said as encouragement. Roxal nodded.

  Edo’s plan was that he would lead, followed by Roxal, who would be flanked by Nawad and Gerig. This mission was the highest priority, so the order was shoot to kill for anyone offering resistance or showing aggression.

  They walked over to the door, and Civort pulled it open while standing behind it. Everyone was behind cover to make sure that if there was someone on the other side of the door, they would not be able to easily shoot them. The door was clear. Next, Edo made a series of quick peek-out looks to confirm it was
safe to exit. When he was certain, he walked out, and the rest of their small team followed. Initially, the trek was uneventful. However, at the first hallway junction, someone was waiting.

  Edo must have seen the person just as they were coming out to fire because he stopped suddenly and began firing his weapon. The suddenness of his movement and the sound of the injured person’s scream startled Roxal. The person lay on the ground in a black Security Force uniform. Edo called out to Gerig to check for others in the hall while Edo covered him.

  Gerig checked and did not see anyone. He stood guard at the conjunction while Edo led her and Nawad past the hall. Gerig followed after them, now walking backwards to maintain a watch on the way from which they had just come. There were several times as Edo led them through the compound that they got into small skirmishes with one or two people. Thankfully, they were able the dispatch these attackers without suffering any damage.

  After some time, Edo turned and told them they were near the second control room. It was around the next corner. He signaled for them to stay back as he checked out the location. With his back pressed against the wall, Edo slowly moved to the edge of the corner, and slid down the wall into a crouched position. He then raised his weapon above his head and allowed the tip to protrude past the cover of the corner.

  As Edo had apparently expected, several weapons fired at his large gun. They hit the walls and the floor, but thankfully not any of them. The shouts of numerous people could be heard as they prepared for Edo, Roxal, Nawad, and Gerig. Edo used hand signals to communicate his next instructions. Nawad was to get closer to the corner and then onto the ground. She would fire from that position. Gerig was to stand over Nawad and fire at the same time. With the two of them laying down cover fire, Edo would then enter the hallway and neutralize as many as he could. Roxal was to stay put. Edo did not have to say why. She was their link to Earth, so everyone on this mission was expendable except for her.