by Adam Thielen
Tsenka nodded slowly. “I think I know what you mean.”
“Anyway,” Daria continued, “I supposedly go into a coma for a while, and they take out my polonium. Later a doc said my aura was strange. Wild, he called it, and it had reacted with the polonium. The voices quieted, but they didn’t go away, and I wasn’t me anymore, I was sere cray. Couldn’t feed myself ’cause my mouth kept movin’, all sorts of problems.”
Daria stared into Tsenka’s eyes, then broke away and took another drink of water before continuing. “Thing is, there are not many places to take care of an invalid, and well, I had signed up for four years. So the Constanta Trading corp partnered with the uni and decided since I was already broken, they could toy around with me and figure out some neurology.”
Daria furrowed her brow. “That’s when the pain started. A lot of pain, and my brain didn’t understand time. I may have been there forever or just short. I guess they got tired of operating on me after that eternity and started jacking me into virtual worlds that were batshit. Like one crazy dream after another, just to see how I’d react, how my brain would handle it. But then things got weird. I started getting better. My motors started workin’ right. I started adding things up again. So they thought that was just fanto and ran me through all sorts of experimental militia training sims.”
“You’re putting me on,” accused Cho.
“I feckin’ ain’t,” Cretu said. “And I got good. And the voices started making more sense. I was tapped into something. Whispers that taught me about this world and the one before it. I realized that I was dangerous, and I didn’t know what these freaks were gonna do when they woke up to it, so I downplayed my recovery, milked my feebleness in the real. The place was low sec, so it wasn’t even hard to get out. What was hard was getting anywhere without money. My legs gave out before I even got to the border. I found a place to lay low, and then the miracle happened.”
“What kind of miracle?”
“The goddess appeared to me,” Daria revealed. “She seemed different then, didn’t try to boss me around, and she told me it was our destiny to change the world. Desre helped me get here and find other people like me.”
“Others like you?” Cho questioned.
“The outcasts.”
“Right,” Tsenka recalled. “They are like you?”
“So, not like me with the magic fingers, but we were all sort of lost together. It’s like a support group.”
Tsenka felt pity for the girl. “Do you have family back in Romania?”
“Ma and some others, but mostly my ma,” she said. “But it’s too dangerous to go back.”
“You were going to tell me how you became a renowned vampire slayer,” said Cho.
“I did, that’s what happened. I can slay other things, too.”
Tsenka laughed. “I’m sure. But you said you killed a vampire once.”
“Oh, that. Some guy was spying on our group, watching us. He got handsy when confronted and things sorta went from words to guns. I guess I was a little faster.”
“A vampire… was spying on you,” Tsenka scoffed.
“It’s true. You think I killed him just ’cause I’m crazy. Some poor hobo got his face shot off ’cause I thought he was a vamp,” said Daria loudly. “But he was.”
“A’ight,” said Cho. “I believe you.”
“Betta’,” Daria returned, ending the conversation. The two sat around for a while, trading song requests and snacking on the slightly stale foodstuffs Tsenka was too lazy to rotate out of the copter’s cupboards.
Cho sighed. “It’s time I get going.” She checked Taq’s location, then looked at Daria.
“Aw, hun, don’t leave me,” cooed Cretu.
“Have to.”
Daria pouted her lips. “Fine. Just come back whenever you’re done with whatever.”
“I’ll come back,” Tsenka assured. “Just stay safe, alright?”
Cretu stood and puffed out her chest. “I don’t do safe.”
Tsenka smiled. “Try it once, for me.”
“Maybe.”
Cho walked up to her and put her hands on her shoulders. Daria pushed herself against Tsenka and wrapped her arms around her. “Don’t forget about me.”
Tsenka scrunched her eyebrows. It pained her to have someone suddenly so interested and affectionate toward her, especially when she could not return that level of emotion. “I won’t.”
Daria stood outside the monocopter as it lifted away. She waved, uncertain if Tsenka would be able to see, and found herself fighting back tears. Over a stupid vampire, she thought. A stupid, sexy vampire.
* * *
Anne Courtemanche set her tea on the glass table surrounded by executives, scientists, and security personnel. Her eyes stabbed into the man across from her. His discomfort was perceptible to all in the room, if only on a subconscious level.
“You seem to have underestimated Ms. Somer’s abilities, Mr. Broadus,” accused Courtemanche.
Broadus’s uniform gave away his position as head of security. A precisely shaped goatee rested on his dark skin. He surveyed the room, knowing he was not among friends. The people who conspire to exploit others do not become friends. He shifted in his seat.
“We discussed the possibilities,” he said. “This was one of them. It was unlikely then and it’s unlikely now.”
“It is not unlikely now!” Anne said, slapping her hand against the table. “It’s reality now.”
Two of the council members jerked at the sound while the rest sat still.
“You have Jones, and Cho already left the country,” Broadus pointed out. “Clearly, she failed.”
“You think she left because Somer failed?” said Courtemanche. “Is that what you are telling me?”
“I’m not telling you anything, Anne.”
“Good, so let me tell you something,” she began. “We have a tracker on her craft and will know exactly where she goes.”
“That’s great,” said Broadus.
“You still don’t get it, do you?” asked Courtemanche. “This is part of her game, and we are still a step behind. Ask yourself, why go there? Why now?”
Broadus looked down at the glass. “I don’t know what you expect of me.”
“I expect you to fix this,” she yelled. “Since the breach happened under your watch.”
At this Broadus stiffened and looked Anne in the eyes. “This was all set in motion when your scientists decided to give her access to the machine.” He pointed at the men and women seated to his left.
“Ey, we were following the directives this council was formed under,” said a woman with a nameplate reading Porlan.”
“Enough blame,” said Courtemanche. “I want solutions.” She waited in silence. “Well?”
“I have an idea,” said the man sitting next to Ms. Porlan.
Anne sighed and took a drink from her teacup. “Let’s hear it, Stanley.”
“What we need,” said Stanley, “is another psionic mage. When two seers fight, theoretically, they cancel out the abilities of the other.”
Broadus cursed under his breath while Courtemanche mulled it over.
“But we don’t have one,” she said.
“We have Ethereal seismic data that supports our—” he paused to point to Porlan and the man on the other side of him “—theory that the MQ council in Pakistan is hiding one in their university.”
“Stealing a mage from them would be unwise,” cautioned Broadus.
“You have a better idea?” Anne challenged.
“I realize this might sound too simple, but send fighters to down Cho’s monocopter and kill the mage.”
“As much as I would like to entertain that thought,” started Anne, “I need both of them. Trap or not, I want to know where she lands.” She looked down at the glass tabletop as it displayed charts and reports that she had no interest in reading, then over to Stanley.
“We’ll get you a psion,” she said, turning to Broadus. “Consider th
is your last chance to prove yourself useful.”
The security chief folded his hands on the table. “Just so I’m on the record, I believe this to be the wrong course. But my men and I will get you your seer. If I may?”
Anne bowed her head slightly, and Broadus stood. He nodded to the others and marched out of the room.
* * *
Tsenka Cho stared out the cockpit window at the blue horizon stretching across her field of view as it reached down to collide with the blue ocean. Headed south, she plotted the destination in the monocopter’s nav computer. Even at full throttle, it would be ten hours before reaching the coordinates in Matthias’s message.
Antarctica, thought Cho. What the hell are you doing in Antarctica? She moved to the rest cabin and turned on a pop music playlist, then lowered the volume until it was barely audible. She lay flat on the cot, its thin layer of foam cradling her body, and closed her eyes.
Tsenka’s mind wandered to memories of her time with her mentor, her creator in many ways, and her lover for several years. She dredged up the good and the bad, recalling things she had buried long ago, and with them, emotions she had not felt since she left him.
Episode 11: The Refuge
The cops are gone now. It’s safe to return, Matt decides. The fresh air ruins the tolerance he had built up to the smell of human waste inside the public restroom. It’s morning and the sun is shining, but Matt’s schedule is clear. Ephemeral concepts of human civilization swirl around his head, but they won’t hold still long enough for him to figure out what a person is supposed to do with themself.
Another intruder. Black skin, weathered face, tucked-in shirt. His smooth voice echoes off the walls of the small abode. Matt continues lying on his side, pretending not to notice.
“Son, my name is Luis Flore,” he says, the words soothing Matt’s nerves. “What’s your name?”
Matt thinks. He hasn’t had a need to refer to himself, and no one else needed to for the past week either. A distant part of him emerges for a moment. “M-Matt,” he manages. “I think. Matt.”
“Nice to meet you, Matt,” Luis says. “I have a home, a shelter, not far from here. It will be warmer at night. Cleaner, too. Can I take you there?”
“I… don’t know.”
“If you don’t like it, I will bring you back,” Flore assured. “There’s food. We have some chips and salsa right now from a restaurant down the street. How’s that sound?”
The lost man raises his head from the piss-stained floor and squints at Luis. Somehow, this man is tugging at Matt’s very soul, with an invisible cord from far away, even as he stands right in front of him. Suddenly he knows at least one answer. “Yes. Yes,” he repeats.
The shelter smells not dissimilar to the bathroom, though its pungency is of a lesser magnitude. Still, the promise of food is kept, and as Matt eats, the coldness he feels in his bones lessens and his thoughts clear, even if just a little.
The next day, Luis sits on the cot next to Matt. He holds a clipboard and pen. “Tell me about yourself, Matt,” he says.
The man has a strange feeling of déjà vu as he tries to remember his past. “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean?”
“I… don’t know,” Matt explains. “I don’t remember.”
“Is there anything you can tell me?” Luis asks. “You remembered your name.”
Matt closes his eyes. “I don’t know.”
Luis sighs. “I’m going to send in your fingerprints, and see if you are in the system. How long have you been homeless?”
Matt shakes his head.
“Have any family?”
“I think so,” replies Matt. “Everyone does… I can’t remember. Am I married?”
Flore rests the clipboard on his lap. “We’ll figure this out.”
“Should have never come,” Matt blurts out.
“Come? As in here?” asks Luis. “The shelter?”
“I’m not from this city,” Matt says, remembering.
“Hutchinson,” says Luis. “You aren’t from here? That’s something. How do you know?”
Matt places his hand to his forehead. “Head hurts,” he complains. “Just something I know.”
Luis nods. “Take your time.” He hands Matt the clipboard. “Little things like that can be valuable. So you think of something, scribble it here right away.”
Matt nods.
“Now,” says Flore. “You can stay here as long as you need, but this place won’t run itself. Would you consider doing a little cleaning to help out?”
He nods. “Sure. Whatever you need.”
It’s a statement that Luis hears often, but Matt makes good on it, toiling and cleaning the floors, the bathrooms, and the kitchen. He washes the soiled sheets of his new brotherhood and makes the beds look neat. As he works and eats and waits, his sense of loss dissipates and a familiarity with his body and mind grows.
On the third day, Luis, a police officer, and a psychologist gather with Matt in Flore’s office to lay out what they know about Matt, presenting him with public records and documentation of his former life. To his surprise, much of it feels familiar. The more he reads, the more hopeful he feels.
The psychologist asks him questions about his emotions and the cop offers to drive him back to the small town with the large factory where he had spent the last two years slaving.
“No,” says Matt. “No, thank you.” He scoops up the papers, knowing they will help him withdraw money from his checking.
“I don’t understand,” says an exasperated Luis. “You have a home. There’s a time when you need help, and a time to help yourself. Don’t you think your friends and family wonder what happened to you? You can’t just stay here.”
When Luis breaks his stream of objections for a deep breath, Matt seizes the opportunity to get a word in. “I can’t leave,” he claims. “I came here for something. Something important.”
“What?” Flore demands.
“I don’t know,” says Matt, his expectation of skepticism in Luis’s face exceeded. “But I will figure it out. You’ve ensured that. If you let me stay, I will keep this place perfect. I just need time.”
“That isn’t how this works, Matt.”
“Please,” he begs. “I will look for paying work. I just need some time.”
Flore slumps in his plain wooden chair, defeated. He looks at the man across from his desk and realizes that it isn’t the same man he found in a park toilet. This man is lost, but he isn’t confused.
* * *
The vampire Matthias Trent opened his eyes. His chest heaved as he stared at the ceiling. It would be night soon, or what passed for it there. He felt like he had woken from a dream, but could remember none of it. He swung a leg off the bed and sat up.
His nose picked up a peculiar odor. I’m getting old, he thought. Starting to smell. That thought in mind, he moved to his room’s shower. The small apartment’s walls were carved out of rock, smoothed nearly flat, and coated with sealants. Radioactive pucks recessed into the ceiling provided dim light.
After his evening rituals, he pulled on a baggy pair of pants held up only by a rope belt then donned a black tank top. Before he could step into the common area, the phone mounted onto the stone next to his sliding door beeped. Trent stared at the throwback device. He received calls when Diego or another friend wanted to chat or arrange a meet, but usually not so early in the night.
He picked up the receiver and placed it to his ear. “Yes?”
“Matthias, your guest has arrived,” said the caller. Matthias recognized the voice of Bromley, the head of receptions. “Do you vouch?”
Trent expected that to be an easy decision. Why else would he have invited her? But now he had to commit, and take responsibility for her actions. The weight of it left him speechless for a moment. “Y-yes, yes, I vouch,” he said.
“Very well,” said Bromley. “She’ll be at new arrivals soon. See you there.”
The line clicked dead an
d Matthias lowered the receiver, then lifted it and hooked it back onto the base. He felt a nervousness he had not known since he himself had first arrived.
* * *
As Tsenka Cho flew south, the vast blue gave way to white. Ice-covered mountains reached up into the sky, surrounded by a desert of frozen flatland. She neared the coordinates and had disabled her radios for the trip, while her neural interface had lost connection hours ago. She thought of Taq, and hoped she could use some sort of satellite com to check on him soon.
The monocopter traveled along the western side of Antarctica at low altitude. Not far from the foot of a mountain range, Cho’s copter landed. No one had attempted to contact her. Temperature alarms sounded in the cockpit. The hotbox that powered the rotors diverted its energy to warming the inside of the craft in hopes of preventing mechanical failure.
Tsenka stared out of the window as wind whipped across metal, whistling menacingly. What am I supposed to see out here? she wondered, suspecting that perhaps she had been the victim of a prank gone too far.
Her radio came alive with static that was then joined by a voice. “Attention, pilot of the black monocopter, please grant access to your navigation system. Confirm.”
Tsenka pressed a finger to the console, hesitated, then spoke. “Confirm.” Her craft lifted off and began flying an erratic route that confused her own built-in gyroscopes. The screens went blank, and she had no idea where she was headed.
“Right,” Cho said to herself. This isn’t what I think it is, she repeated in her mind. Then, Dammit, Matthias.
After several minutes of additional travel, the monocopter again set its three feet onto the ice with a crunch. Cho pressed her transmit button. “Hello?”
For a minute, the craft sat collecting flecks of snow and frosting over while Tsenka wondered if she was supposed to get out. Then the body of the copter came to life, its floor shaking under Cho’s feet. Several alarms inside the cockpit fired into Cho’s eardrums and a signal light mounted to the ceiling flashed brightly once per second. The operations computer determined that staying grounded where they were was dangerous and advised Tsenka to immediately lift off. The vampire buckled herself into the pilot seat and shut down the alarms.