She was just about to apply her professional law enforcement skills to her sweet roll, when the Captain came over the Com on their tactical channel. “Betsi squad, get ready. We have a paramedic unit inbound to your location. Escort them to the dressing room when they get here.”
Maya’s heart skipped a beat. Something had gone wrong. The medics, who had been on standby like themselves, arrived only a minute later, and she escorted them straightaway to the star’s room. And while they worked, she overheard enough to puzzle out the reason for their visit.
Celina had collapsed onstage. After being examined, and declared to be out of danger, the medics advised the performer to end the concert then and there, and get herself some rest.
She was in no shape to argue with the firewomen. She was still pale, sweaty and mildly disoriented. Instead, she quietly packed up a few things to take with her, and then let Maya and the other policewomen walk her out to her limo. A few moments later, she was gone, with an escort from Traffic Division bracketing her vehicle.
“What happened?” one of the other kaapers asked. She was a rookie just like Maya, and had only been recently assigned to the precinct from the Academy.
“She collapsed,” Maya explained. “The ‘medics said it was from exhaustion.” Personally, she hadn’t seen anything as profound as this since her own experience at the Port when Sarah had used her talents against her.
She just hoped that the star would get better soon.
***
Entering the Cheyr mis Famme Madame t’Annya noticed the two uniformed police officers eating their lunch right away. It wasn’t that she had never seen policewomen dining before. It was simply that in all her visits to one of Thermadon’s most exclusive restaurants, she hadn’t ever seen kaapers frequenting the establishment. As much as she hated what it might have said about her, they seemed out of place. The Mis Famme was simply more ‘upscale’ than the kind of establishment that normally catered to law enforcement, and she had to admit that the sight was somewhat jarring.
Not as jarring as Celina had been however. Her breakdown onstage had been bad enough, but not the worst of it. Ever since she had returned from the ETR, the performer had been unable to talk about anything except the injustices that she had witnessed there, her anger towards the Sisterhood, and at SNN.
Madame t’Annya didn’t like to think of herself as being unsympathetic to the suffering that Celina had described, or disinterested in righting wrongs. She just didn’t believe that either of them had any business being radicals. Her stock in trade, as she had told her, was music, and representing artists like herself, not championing sweeping social change, or charging the ramparts of tyranny.
Celina hadn’t listened to a single word of this though. She had refused to set aside her passions, and had insisted on taking some form of action.
For Madame t’Annya, the only ‘action’ that had resulted from their heated conversations had been her ulcer reawakening itself. Out of deference to her condition, she decided to order a light lunch, and to put the temperamental woman out of her mind for at least as long as it took her to eat it.
When she was shown to her table, she placed her order, and then added a glass of sweet white Aarntwyyn. She didn’t ordinarily drink this early in the day, but her sour mood made this a special occasion and she forgave herself when it arrived ahead of the salad.
She was halfway finished when she noticed another anomaly among the Cheyr mis Famme’s clientele. This time it was a statuesque woman, dressed in a fine slate-colored comerci, offset with an elegant light burgundy cravess, and a rather stunning bershaki shell stick-pin. All this, along with her stunning green eyes and golden hair, identified her as a member of the Thermadonian elite.
The woman had been eating her own lunch at a nearby table, and without any warning that she was about to do so, she rose, and walked straight up to her, taking a seat for herself without asking for an invitation.
Madame t’Annya began to demand an explanation, and the stranger obliged her by producing a small wallet, opening it, and then pushing it across the table. She was, T’Annya realized to her horror, General Angelique bel Thana, with the Regila da Securité par Estat, the State Security Service.
“Bian midi, Madame,” Angelique said. “I’m so very sorry to interrupt your lunch, especially since you have such a great deal occupying your mind. But we need to discuss one of the artists that you represent.”
“This is about Celina, isn’t it?” T’Annya guessed. Her hands were shaking as she took a very deep drink of her wine. She wasn’t used to dealing with law enforcement. That was for women starring in realies, not talent agents.
“Yes,” Angelique replied. “I’m afraid that it is. And just in case you have been wondering, those officers eating their lunch over there are accompanying me. If our discussion goes poorly and we fail to reach a workable understanding, then regrettably, their job will be to take you into custody.’
“I also assure you that there are others, waiting to do the same thing to Celina. The charges against you will be several violations of the National Security Act, with conspiracy added on. In the light of all that, do I now command your fullest attention?”
“Yes,” T’Annya answered, setting her glass down before she dropped it. “You also have my total cooperation.”
This earned her a smile. “Good,” Angelique returned. “I am so grateful that we could handle this matter in a ladylike fashion.” She glanced over at the uniformed officers and gave them a slight nod. At this, they rose, and left.
“Now,” she said, her voice assuming a decidedly unpleasant tone. “Let's talk about your pet bitch and muzzling her little cunt of a mouth. After that, we'll discuss some of the cute tricks that I want her to perform for me.”
***
After her terrifying encounter with Angelique, Madame t’Annya’s day steadily deteriorated. The moment that she had the opportunity, she contacted Celina at her hotel and demanded to meet with her. When they were finally face to face, it was all she could do not to shriek hysterically at her.
“She had everything!” she wailed. “All the files that you said you got in the ETR. She even showed them to me!”
“I knew it! I knew they had them! Do you see now?” Celina returned with equal heat. “I wasn’t exaggerating. Everything I said is really happening!”
“What I see is that we are in real trouble!” T’Annya exclaimed. “That General is not fooling around. She said that if we don’t do what she says, we’ll both be locked up for twenty years. Twenty! You have to stop what you’re doing.”
“I won’t,” Celina retorted stubbornly. “The truth has to get out!”
“Then you’re on your own,” T’Annya said flatly. “I’m not going to throw everything away for you and spend the rest of my life in some correctional colony. And that’s exactly what will happen to you Celi, unless you do what she says.”
“No.”
T’Annya’s tone softened. “Celina, please. Be reasonable. The General said that if you just go to Ashkele, and stay there for a little while, your files will disappear. Everything will vanish. I think that’s a fair trade for your freedom.”
Celina folded her arms, and glared at her, clearly unwilling to concede any ground, but she didn’t offer up any more arguments.
“Please,” T’Annya begged. “You said it yourself; the women at SNN were going to look into things for you. Let them. They’re the experts. If there’s anything to find, they will. Please, go to Ashkele, take a vacation, and be satisfied that you did your part.”
Still, Celina said nothing, but T’Annya had worked with her long enough to know that she was finally making progress. Clio, always the more sensible of the two of them, would do the rest.
“Think about it,” she said.
Celina did. The next day she called T’Annya. She hadn’t slept, and agonizing over her decision had only compounded her exhaustion, so she kept the conversation as brief as possible.
“I’ll go,” she agreed. “I’ll go to Ashkele. Tell your General that. Also tell her I hope that the Goddess sends her to the furthest hell that she can find for her.”
“Thank you Celina,” T’Annya replied. “You’re finally being sensible. I’ll make the arrangements.”
Elysium Gardens, Marpesia District, Thermadon Val, Thermadon, Myrene System, United Sisterhood of Suns, 1049.01|03|00:41:69
Maya lay in her bed, wide awake. She was exhausted from a long day on patrol, and her body desperately needed the rest. But her brain wouldn’t cooperate. It kept bringing her back to thoughts about Felecia, and her growing sense of disquiet.
Ever since being demoted to Metro patrol, her lover’s calendar had become too full for them to spend any time together, and Maya was beginning to suspect that the connection they had once shared was fading away. She hadn’t lost Felecia yet, and she didn’t think that there was anyone else in the young woman’s life, but the possibility was starting to loom ever larger in the back of her mind.
Staring up at the ceiling, she found herself praying to the Goddess that she wouldn’t lose the only decent thing that she still had left. She didn’t know if the Lady had heard her or not, or if she did, that she would care to show her any mercy. But at this point, hope was all she really had.
Unable to bear any more of this inner torment, she turned over and forcefully applied the disciplines that Lady Ananzi had taught her, pushing her thoughts back, and focusing on replacing them with inner stillness. Eventually, and only after a long, hard struggle, she succeeded, and sleep came for her at last.
So did did a nightmare. It proved to be more troubling, and far stranger than any that had come before it.
She was back at the Tree, as always, but this time the Drow’voi weren’t present. Instead, a human woman was waiting for her. Although everything about the scene was as clear as being awake, this figure was the exception. No matter how hard Maya tried to perceive it, the woman’s face kept changing. One moment, she was her mother Jora, then she seemed to be Felecia, then Skylaar, then Lady Ananzi, and even Sarah at times.
Somehow, she knew that all of these faces were nothing more than masks, concealing something beneath them that her mind didn’t have a definition for. She also had the distinct feeling that she should have known what it was—and in fact, did know on a deeper, unconscious level that refused to yield to her.
The woman seemed to be fully aware of her confusion and smiled patiently. She pointed to the Tree. “Choose,” she said.
Maya blinked, uncomprehending. Then, the knowledge came to her like the feed from a teaching realie. The Tree, whatever it really was, could grant death just as it had for the Drow’voi, but it could also grant life.
“Not just life,” the figure gently corrected, “but new life.”
After that, things got really klaxxy. Everything except her guide melted away and transformed. She found herself standing on the shores of a shallow sea on some distant, and wholly unfamiliar world. The water sparkled with light, and at a gesture from her companion, Maya looked up.
Above her, covering the entire bowl of the sky, was an eye-dazzling cloud of interstellar gasses, and in their midst, clusters of newly born stars that seemed to burn with the very fires of creation itself. Once again, knowledge surged into her brain, and looking back down at the waters, she realized that at her feet, the nascent stirrings of microbial life were taking root for the very first time. New life, just as the woman had promised.
She awoke from this more confused and agitated than ever. Between these klaxxy dreams, her concerns about Felecia, and all the recent upheaval in her life, her sanity felt as if it was hanging on by only the thinnest of threads.
She had to find a way to sort it all out, she decided. To make sense of things and achieve some form of resolution. Staying in her little apartment and brooding in the dark certainly wasn’t the solution.
She had to go somewhere else, and do something that would center her and bring her emotions back under control.
Her eyes fell on her ka’na. It was propped up against the opposite wall, its sheath gilded by a ray of sunlight coming in through the apartment’s only window. This was her answer.
Rising immediately, she seized it up, dressed herself in her bodysuit, and made for the roof, and Rebá. Then she rode straight out to N’Dayr Memorial Park.
Once she arrived, it wasn’t long before she found herself a quiet, sunny place to work out in. Then she began with a set of basic drills, trying to lose herself in the repetitive exercise.
But her ability to attain inner peace kept evading her like a skilled opponent dodging one of her cuts. All she could think about was the strange woman in her dream and their mysterious interaction. That, and Felecia.
Finally, her agitation reached its absolute summit. “Fek!” she shouted, slashing the air angrily and following through with another cut that was equally as violent. Her outburst caught the attention of some joggers, but when she adopted a more sedate routine, they moved on.
It wasn’t long before her inner turmoil reasserted itself however, and as she struggled with herself, she realized that she was being watched again.
This time though, it wasn’t another group of joggers. It was Skylaar, carrying a pair of practice swords.
Maya blinked at her in utter disbelief. She had simply assumed that in addition to all of her other losses that her time with her martial arts teacher had also come to an end.
“Sena-tai!” she exclaimed. “It’s you! You’re here!”
Skylaar smiled and looked down at herself, then back at Maya. “So I am,” she replied dryly.
“I-I never expected to see you again!” Unable to contain herself, Maya burst into tears of joy and ran to hug her.
After a moment, Skylaar gently disentangled herself from Maya’s fierce embrace and stepped back a pace. “Sarah’s decisions are not mine,” the woman explained. “Our time together is not over, even if your role as an agent for the RSE has concluded.”
Maya gave her a bow that went much deeper than mere formality might have demanded. “Sena-tai, it’s so good to see you! When Sarah told me—“
Skylaar raised a silencing finger. “No more about that, Maya. What is done, is done, but nothing changes our studies. We both need more practice with the ka’na. May I join you?”
“Yes—please!”
“First, I think that a lesson is in order.” The Nemesian gave her one of the practice swords, and once she had taken it, unholstered the needlegun on her hip. She handed it to Maya, butt first.
“Take this,” she instructed, “and embrace your symbiote.”
Maya did so, and Skylaar joined her. Once they were outside of the normal time stream, her teacher gestured towards the pistol.
“Now, shoot me.”
Firearms had never been included in any practice with the symbiotes before this, and Maya was only halfway certain that they could be defeated by the time distortion. “Um, are you sure?” she asked uncertainly, but Skylaar repeated her request.
The young woman raised the weapon, pointed it, and after a moment’s hesitation, pressed the trigger.
The weapon tried to discharge, but nothing left the barrel. Puzzled, Maya looked at the thing, wondering if she had been handed a defective device.
Skylaar regarded her with a detached amusement. Then she took up a fighting stance with her practice sword.
“Now, guard yourself.” Even as she finished saying this, she attacked.
Maya immediately discarded the useless pistol, backed up, and parried the strike. But Skylaar pressed her attack with a pivoting follow-through, and Maya spun with her, deflecting the blow, and coming over her sword in an attempt to stab her. As laudable as this maneuver was, her blade only met empty air as Skylaar dropped backwards into a roll and then came back up at her legs with a low slash of her own.
Now it was Maya’s turn to evade, and with a quick move of her hips, she sent her lower body sliding backwards, and im
mediately carried through with a leaping roll, and a one-handed slash as she passed over her teacher.
The cut missed, but it also forced the Nemesian into a roll of her own. When Maya landed on her feet, she realized that she was now too far away to attack without first closing the distance—and telegraphing her next move in the process. So she waited where she was, her breath misting in the air. Skylaar did the same, and after a moment, saluted her with a half bow. Their match was over.
“So, do you want to tell me what happened with the ‘gun?” Maya inquired. “Is it broken or something?”
“No, Maya. It is fully functional. The problem is that needleguns, energy weapons, and even chemical armaments are simply useless here,” her teacher said, gesturing at the colorless, timeless world around them. “Do you think you can tell me why?”
Maya shrugged. “Um, little Zommerlaandar Alfs?”
Skylaar chuckled and shook her head. “Not quite, Cho-sena. The reason lies in the nature of the symbiote itself. You were taught that it alters the time-stream, which it does, but it also modifies quite a bit more than that.”
Maya regarded her quizzically. She had never been told exactly ‘how’ the symbiote worked. Only that it did. And to her chagrin, she also realized that it had never occurred to her to ask any questions.
“The symbiote manages its little trick with time by changing the laws of local reality,” Skylaar explained. “It places the user in a bubble where everything functions differently.”
“Okay,” Maya replied. “So why don’t the guns work?"
”Because chemical reactions that we take for granted in normal time and space can’t occur inside the symbiote’s bubble,” Skylaar returned. “Electronics fail, and even magnetic fields are distorted beyond any usefulness. The result is that projectile and energy weapons as we know them, simply won’t fire.”
Sisterhood of Suns: Daughters of Eve Page 43