Altered Reality

by Eliza Green

  Laura thought about denying any knowledge of the boy, but they may have seen her talking to him somewhere else and already know the answer to that question. Keeping the kid safe became her only priority. She smiled as sweetly as she could and took advantage of the flush of red that flooded her cheeks while she lied. ‘He has a crush on me. You know how teenagers can get.’

  ‘How well do you know each other?’ The tone of the orb’s tinny voice was flat and matter-of-fact, but the question could so easily have been taken out of context.

  Laura rushed a couple of replies through her head; which one would get her out of the situation faster? ‘What are you implying?’ she asked indignantly, frowning sternly at the camera.

  It continued to hover, unfamiliar with the concept of double entendres and not sure how to answer her. ‘How well do you know each other?’ it repeated.

  Laura kept the pretend look of shock on her face. ‘I refuse to answer that question!’

  ‘How well do you know each other? I won’t ask again.’

  Clearly the nuances of speech were lost on the camera; it wasn’t about to give up. Laura rushed to think of a different tack to take. ‘Not very well, actually,’ she said eventually. ‘He’s a kid I see in the building sometimes and he seems to like me enough to follow me around.’

  The camera moved in closer, Laura’s reflection growing large in its shimmery exterior. Idly she wondered if it was the same camera that had harassed her the day she was caught talking to Chris and Janine some time ago.

  ‘Look, just leave the kid alone,’ she added. ‘He did nothing wrong. Punish me, if you have to.’ She really hoped that it wouldn’t come to that.

  The camera hovered around her head for a few seconds; when it spoke again, Laura thought she could detect a slight change in its tone: ‘Laura O’Halloran, we’re watching you. We know what you’ve been up to. We will be watching you even more closely from now on.’

  The camera backed off just as another camera arrived on the scene. As the second one flew past, the one in front of her merely said, ‘You are in a restricted area. Get back to your workstation.’

  Her eyes followed the two cameras as they whizzed out of sight together.

  Shit, shit, shit. She ran back to the empty room and retrieved the DPad and communication device from their hiding place in the wall. She’d have to think of another place from which to call Bill.

  Was the camera threatening her? So what if it was. She knew how to fake emotions for them. They just weren’t capable of understanding the more complex human emotions such as deceit. But the change in its tone worried her. It had been barely perceptible—maybe she’d imagined it—but it was also possible that someone was watching her in particular.

  Chapter 12

  There was a huge noise—the same sound the Surface Creatures had made when they first detonated their bombs. The explosion seemed to rip his head apart. Rocks tumbled around him, trapping him.

  He gingerly turned his head one way, finding himself in a dimly lit space, but he was unable to see anything of significance. He should have been able to identify shapes easily in the dark—wasn’t that one of the things he was supposed to be good at? For some reason, his vision wasn’t working the way it used to. He could feel the panic rising. The light ebbed and flowed around him, licking at the corner of his eyes before pulling away. He sensed something stronger, more powerful, just beyond his line of sight, and when the light vanished, he found himself looking into a void darker than space.

  Something made him turn his head the other way—a glowing light that fanned out into a beautiful prism of colours. Corner-of-the-eye phenomena played games with his vision. He desperately tried to pin down the movement but everything was frustratingly just out of reach.

  His memory was of no help. His head was fuzzy. He had no idea what had happened. He couldn’t even figure out what was real and what wasn’t. He tried to ignore his thoughts and concentrate on the light, the rainbowed light that would guide him out of the blackness. Water-logged voices came and went—and when they were close, he could sense their emotions: fear and panic. He opened his mouth but the words wouldn’t come. Humans were staring at him with bright pained eyes. Then they just mumbled things to one another. The noises peaked and dipped. He tried to isolate individual sounds, but a fog descended and his head spun wildly.

  Then his vision cleared enough to see the humans’ blurry outlines as they stood in front of a weak source of light. He watched them, distracted by the light that changed colour with their emotions—strong reds and yellows turning to cold greyish-green. They glided about and shimmered as though they were lighter than air. They looked so beautiful.

  Reality came crashing in as their actions became more invasive. He tried to recoil as they thrust masked faces towards him and gave him no room to breathe. They poked him, and sliced him open. A blinding white heat shot through him as their instruments gashed his leg, the pain subsiding quickly while the wound knitted closed.

  He could decipher their mumblings now. They were asking him questions, the same ones over and over. He tried to get up, but something heavy weighed him down. His emotions rose and crashed like a tsunami. Dizziness and shock washed over him.

  They barely spoke to him now other than to ask stupid questions like, ‘Are you all right?’ He wanted to yell back, what do you think? He decided not to say anything. There was no point.

  ‘Cut him. He’ll heal,’ one kept saying.

  ‘I can’t,’ a lone female replied, her voice shaking with uncertainty, the primrose yellow glow around her confirming her indecision.

  They hovered again over his useless, limp body. It was hard to breathe. He tried to reach his hand to where it ached the most, but his arm refused to budge. He needed to conserve his energy; he slowed his breathing right down. The humans’ colours intensified and changed to blues and greens.

  A light source swooped in out of nowhere, its heat finding his face. The light vanished, returned and vanished again. Confused, he concentrated on what little he could control. He tried to communicate with them using his eyes, but the effort drained him, so he gave up.

  He wanted to yell and scream, to order them to stop what they were doing. The pain in his throat became unbearable. His eyes shot open. This is it, he thought, this is the end.

  He made one last effort to get through to them. Stop what you’re doing. You’re killing me! But they didn’t. Why won’t they listen to me? Surely someone could hear him. Was he speaking too fast?

  Suddenly, the pressure on his throat subsided and he spluttered violently. He gulped in air, grateful that they’d changed their mind. But his lungs weren’t gaining relief. He sucked in another mouthful. A slow burn began inside him, charring his insides. He recognised the contamination in the air.

  A mask appeared in front of him and enveloped his nose and mouth. He couldn’t see whose hand held it, only that the colour around them was strong. The burn eased and he drew in as much air as he could until his lungs relaxed, satisfied. What now? he thought. I want to leave. Let me go.

  ‘Stay with us,’ someone said. ‘You’re almost free.’

  No more. I have to go. And so he slipped to a place in his mind where they couldn’t reach him.

  Exilon 5

  Stephen awoke violently from the dream. Sitting bolt upright in bed, he touched his freezing skin; it was covered in a cold sweat. He took a minute to attune to his surroundings, his mind slowly making sense of his thoughts. His loss of control unsettled him but once he realised where he was, he relaxed somewhat. He recognised the few items in his dome-shaped private dwelling—the human 3D digital recorder and the mirror that helped him to practise his human movements. He recognised the equations that he had daubed on the wall a few years ago when an idea hit him, the rust red paint now a ghostly image on the wall illuminated by the blue light of the double moons that filtered down the light shaft from the surface to the centre of his ceiling. Then he saw the atomic timepiece made of Fortium, a
highly reactive Exilon 5 metal, that was propped against the wall. He counted the rotations of the small hand at the bottom of the timepiece—eighteen hours. He’d lost almost a day. He took a few deep breaths to calm his racing heart.

  The dreams were coming more frequently now. The first, on board the passenger ship as he returned from Earth, was all blurry images and hadn’t given him much cause for concern. But his latest dreams twisted his stomach into knots and made him worry about Anton, all alone on Earth, struggling for survival amidst a largely hostile race. Stephen shivered.

  The dreams had evolved to the point where it felt as if he was there—present. He thought again about how they felt as if Anton was reaching out to him. Nothing else so readily explained the vividness of the imagery. And the emotions Stephen felt were so raw, so terrifying—it had to be Anton, trying to tell him that he wasn’t okay.

  But one thing gave him pause: as far as he was aware, Indigenes were unable to communicate over distance; telepathic communication only worked when they were in close proximity. And he had never heard anyone speak of dream-induced telepathy, let alone telepathy between Indigenes on two different planets. Yet Stephen had a strong conviction that Anton was still alive; perhaps he was in such pain that his telepathic powers had strengthened in an effort to survive. Then a more sinister thought crossed Stephen’s mind.

  He got up and paced back and forth inside his room. He pressed the sides of his head, still thumping as a result of the dreams. Physical wounds healed in Indigenes, but they had never had to cope with any kind of psychological trauma. If Anton was still alive, what other kind of things were they doing to him? Could Indigenes survive psychological torture? And how would the other Indigenes react if it turned out that humans could break them so easily?

  The burning rage he’d felt at the end of the dream still lingered, feelings that he put down to his own guilt for having abandoned his friend. He took a deep breath to try to neutralise the rage, and reminded himself over and over that it was better the humans only caught one of them, not both. A few days earlier, Pierre had spoken to him about his guilt.

  ‘You can’t hold onto it forever. You’re not to blame,’ he’d said. ‘You only did what was necessary to protect the Indigenes—your home. It’s so much better for the rest of us that one of you was able to return to tell us what was going on.’

  ‘I just can’t forgive myself—not yet. Not until I know he’s safe.’

  ‘You must, for the sake of your own well-being.’

  Stephen, Pierre and Leon had deliberated for days over a plan to rescue Anton. But as time went on, they realised there was only one course of action they could take: remove him by force, and that wasn’t a realistic option. Pierre ruled the idea out altogether when Leon volunteered to go alone. An angry father on a suicide mission would be the wrong message to send to the humans about their society; they needed to find a more peaceful, reasonable and intelligent way to get Anton back.

  Stephen thought about Bill Taggart’s efforts to locate Anton. As soon as they found a way to increase the power of the communication stones over distance he would ask him. Bill and Laura were never far from Stephen’s mind. Pierre had always been more open minded when it came to collaborating with humans, but Stephen was never more acutely aware that if Bill and Laura had not risked their lives to help him, he would have been captured along with Anton. Their willingness to help get him home safely had forced him to rethink his opinion of all humans.

  How odd it was to use that term ‘human’. Previously, it had applied to the Indigenes, although they never referred to themselves as such. The Indigenes had evolved into a race that was superior to the one the humans had first created. They were an independent species now, regardless of how they had started out.

  Stephen stopped pacing and leaned against the cold blue wall. Deep in thought, his arms hung down by his side and he stared at the ground. His eye caught the movement of a small insect scurrying across the floor. It had such short legs yet seemed undaunted by the scale of the task. It was probably stronger than it looked; it was also confident in its own ability to survive.

  Stronger.

  Stephen’s eyes widened. Could he strengthen or enhance his telepathic link with Anton somehow? Could he relay a message to him to let him know he wasn’t alone? If Anton could do it, there was no reason why he couldn’t too. Perhaps he could harness the power of the Nexus to help him amplify his thoughts and so reach Anton.

  One thing was sure—he could no longer keep the dreams a secret. Anton may have survived the physical torture, but Stephen sensed he was losing the psychological battle. He had to tell Pierre about the dreams and what he thought they meant.

  Stephen moved nimbly through the tunnels that led to the Council Chambers in the eastern section of District Three. It was where he expected to find Pierre, mulling over the day’s events. He moved at speed out of one tunnel and through a circular area with private dwellings, before he changed direction to head north-east through the tunnel on the other side.

  As he approached the midway point, where several tunnels converged in a large meeting area for the east and south, he noticed a group of Indigenes huddled together in a tight group. His curiosity was piqued when he noticed his friend, Arianna, speaking to the group. He stopped to see what was going on. Collectively, the group turned to look at him, each set of eyes searching his face, trying to figure out what he wanted. He took a few steps back, so they couldn’t engage with him or delve into his secrets, and motioned Arianna over.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he whispered, using his voice rather than telepathy.

  Arianna glanced briefly over her shoulder. ‘We’re discussing Anton’s disappearance and how it doesn’t add up. They’re questioning the story told them by the Council—that he was alone when he went hunting for animals. Everybody knows we aren’t supposed to hunt on our own. The elders aren’t saying much, and they’—she nodded at the group—‘suspect there is more to it.’

  Stephen remained still. He supposed it was only a matter of time before the Indigenes would question the elders’ story about Anton’s disappearance. And Anton was too clever to succumb to such an easy fate.

  ‘Anton is gone. There’s nothing more to tell,’ he said. He hated lying to her. ‘You must trust that Central Council are doing everything they can to protect us. They’re not trying to mislead you.’

  ‘Aren’t they?’ Her eyes searched his. ‘Look Stephen, my senses are all over the place at the moment so I can’t detect much, Elise isn’t acting like herself and Pierre has been locking himself away in the Council Chambers for months. Can’t you tell me what’s happening?’

  Stephen was tempted to tell Arianna everything, but it would only saddle her with a deep and disturbing secret and he couldn’t do that to her. His punishment must be to bear the weight of the secret alone.

  When Stephen stayed silent, Arianna continued: ‘Some are saying that Anton isn’t dead but was captured by the Surface Creatures—not on this planet, but a different one. Is that true?’

  Stephen was taken aback by the accuracy of the conjecture, but maintained his composure. ‘Who told you that?’ he asked. The elders had worked hard to keep the truth under wraps, but somewhere along the lines it must have been leaked.

  Arianna didn’t answer straight away, and Stephen was unable to detect what she was thinking. He had known Arianna since they were young Evolvers—when they had both lost their parents, they bonded through a common grief—but he didn’t know the group of Indigenes she was with, and suddenly he was unsure if he could trust her.

  He decided to rephrase his question. ‘Where are you getting that story from?’

  ‘Hunters mostly. Some of the military Surface Creatures have been talking about an Indigene capture. And since Anton is the only one missing—’

  Stephen’s pulse raced. ‘What are they saying?’

  ‘That an Indigene was captured on a place called Earth, wherever that is, and that they have found a way
to get the best from him—whatever that means.’

  So Anton was still alive! A smile formed on Stephen’s lips, but his expression changed when he saw Arianna watching him closely. Without flinching, he held eye contact with her. ‘Ari, there’s nothing more to say. I’m sorry.’

  To his surprise, she shrugged. ‘Well, you should know that there’s mounting unease in the district. Some are talking about sending out a search party for Anton. They’re prepared to expose our location in order to get the information they need.’

  ‘Central Council won’t allow that to happen. It’s not just their own safety they risk but our continuing survival. The hum—’ Stephen caught himself; only a few knew the other race’s real name. ‘The Surface Creatures mustn’t find out about us.’

  ‘They already know about us,’ Arianna pointed out.

  ‘Yes, but not where we are. That’s our only defence. We need to allow the Council to do their jobs.’ He paused before adding: ‘I’m going to have to tell them what you’ve just said to me.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You need to calm this growing dissent. Please convince them that there’s nothing to worry about.’

  Arianna frowned. ‘You’re asking me to do the impossible, Stephen. They’ve already made up their minds. Democracy, remember? Plus I’m only an empath. I can’t control their urges. I can only feel them.’

  Stephen placed his cold hands on her shoulders. ‘I’m not asking you to control them, Ari. Just use your ability to influence them, like Elise does. If they don’t feel as threatened, they may just change their minds. Give them the truth as I’ve given it to you. The rebellion of a few isn’t going to help bring Anton back.’

  Arianna tilted her head to the side. ‘Is anything going to do that?’

  Stephen let the pretence slip just a fraction. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, sighing wearily. ‘But I won’t rest until I’ve exhausted all avenues.’