by Eliza Green
A restrained ball of energy crackled at the centre of the black machine and illuminated the space in a soft, orange glow. Simon’s temporary mind mapping gave him the knowledge of an electrician to work the machine and that of a geotechnical engineer to understand how the machine related to the earth. But the harder his mind worked to retain both sets of information, the more he felt it slip from his mind. Regardless, he still knew enough to see that the stored grid power might not be enough to attract the Nexus to restore Tanya.
Tanya shifted in her chair but only produced minor movements. ‘How is this going to work? Do I need to stand for this?’
‘The machine will activate the stolen power and the gamma rock will amplify its reach. I hope it will be enough to communicate with the Nexus.’
Tanya frowned. ‘Communicate how, by talking to it?’
Simon understood her scepticism. She’d never experienced the raw potential of the Nexus. Neither had Simon, but he had felt the raw and excitable hum beneath his feet when he’d stood in the tranquillity cave that one time.
‘The Nexus is organic in nature and does not follow parameters and structure. It is constantly evolving. I had my team drill several conduits in the rock to pierce one of their tranquillity caves. I’m hoping the amplified power will coax it along one conduit, like a moth to a flame, so to speak.’
‘If you say so. Let’s see this thing in action.’
‘You’ll need to get close enough to the machine to touch the protective field around the stored energy,’ said Simon.
Tanya barely moved until her two assistants hooked their arms underneath hers and lifted her up to stand. They extended her hands out until her fingers almost touched the field.
Tanya pulled back a little. ‘How dangerous is this?’
‘The energy may loop back around and provide a kick back through the field.’
Tanya drew in a breath.
‘Don’t worry; you’ll be fine,’ said Simon. ‘The field acts as a dampener around the energy. It won’t hurt, but you might feel a jolt of power when the Nexus discovers it.’
Tanya released a slow breath and rested her fingers on the outer field.
Simon turned the machine on and it visibly vibrated Tanya’s arms.
‘How long do I need to wait?’ she said.
Her dark eyes, barely visible beneath skin folds, watched the machine.
‘Not long, I hope. The vibration the machine is emitting will act like a beacon. If the Nexus is listening, it should pick up the sound.’
Tanya closed her eyes just as the ball of stored energy grew brighter. The brightness sparked and shot to where Tanya touched the field. Tanya yelped and tried to break contact.
‘No, don’t let go.’
Simon lunged for her and steadied her arms to keep them rigid.
A thin rope of bright, white energy poked out from the conduit and appeared to look around. It snaked through the stored energy and pierced the field without trouble. Simon froze when the tendril wrapped around one of Tanya’s arms and licked at his hands. The bright rope delivered a sharp shock to him. He gritted his teeth against the pain and held on to Tanya.
Tanya’s head jerked and she yowled when the rope slithered farther down to encompass her body and legs. Simon released her. The tendril held her in place. Tanya’s muscles spasmed where the rope appeared to squeeze her. She grimaced and panted. Then, after a few minutes, the rope retreated through the stored energy and disappeared inside the conduit. The stolen energy that had glowed bright at the start had lessened to a minuscule amount and barely glowed.
‘What the hell was that?’ said one of Tanya’s assistants.
Tanya slumped forward in Simon’s arms, exhausted. He helped her to her chair.
‘I don’t know. The closest I got to the Nexus was when I toured one of the tranquillity caves.’ One assistant helped Simon lower Tanya back down. ‘I believe that when they connect to the Nexus, tendrils similar to that one pull them inside. But it’s all in their mind. It happens on a different plain to the physical one.’ He stared at the machine. ‘I may have accidentally designed a machine that gives the Nexus form in this world.’
‘Did it fix Elite One?’ said the second assistant.
‘I don’t know,’ said Simon. And he didn’t. He looked at Tanya, who had her eyes closed. ‘Elite One, how do you feel?’
Tanya’s appearance was serene, peaceful. Her eyes flashed open and she stood up without help. Her skin, so wrinkled it had almost swallowed up her appearance, looked tighter and smoother.
‘I feel... good.’
She swayed a little. Simon supported her.
‘That was... powerful. I feel like my old self again. I mean before all the changes, not the decrepit sack of skin I am now.’
She walked unaided out of the environ, leaving Simon to marvel at the machine. He had had no idea it would even work.
Tanya gained strength with each new step. She waved off the chair and her assistant’s help as she walked back.
‘I’m excited by this,’ she said. ‘Let’s heal the other Elite before the Indigenes notice we’ve got access to their precious Nexus.’
12
Laura stayed up all night combing over the details of the meeting with Simon and Tanya while Bill crashed on the bed. Her telepathic and empathic abilities weren’t as strong as others’ in District Three. She hated using them, feeling like imposter for using something she had only got through a rapid transformation of her mind and body. She’d asked Stephen to reverse the changes straight away and return her to human, as if her appearance disgusted her.
How could she look human and use abilities she had no right to keep? How could she claim to be something she was not?
Not that it mattered much. She hadn’t gained much insight from Simon. She’d felt him block any attempts she made to link with him telepathically. Her efforts had left her drained. At least Bill had been happy to talk. But while Simon had been a closed book, she’d sensed something from Tanya. When Laura looked at her it was like she saw two versions: one in her white robe, the other a black figure that peeked out from behind Tanya any time she promised Bill something.
She’d seen her ability in action before. It usually occurred right before a person’s nervous twitching alerted her to a lie. It was how Bill used to profile criminals and still did, using telltale habits that people could rarely hide. But with Tanya, it was different. The shapeless black mass representing the lie took form and looked straight at Laura.
Laura shook her head. She’d been another species for half a second eight years ago. And now she had a skill the others didn’t? It didn’t make sense. But this new manifestation prompted a desire to discuss her changes. Serena and Arianna came to mind. As did Margaux, the elder from District Eight with an ability to see what others didn’t.
Bill snored in the bed beside her. She snuggled under the covers, careful not to wake him. He rarely slept through the night.
Morning came a few hours later and Laura left a cosy looking Bill to sleep. Since she had started to see black shapes as lies a few months ago, her own sleep had suffered. Maybe her Indigene side needed less sleep than her human one.
In the kitchen she started on breakfast. She replicated the raw ingredients for an Irish breakfast—sausages, bacon, eggs—and set the pan on the heat. Few people cooked like this any more, even on Exilon 5 where raw ingredients could be sourced cheaper than on Earth. Laura found cooking therapeutic. She set a pot to brew in the coffee machine. Her husband’s favourite.
‘Something smells good.’ Bill appeared at the door. He slid into a seat and rubbed his eyes. ‘You should have woken me. I’d have made you breakfast.’
Laura shrugged. ‘No trouble. As soon as the sun’s up, I’m ready to go.’ She pushed half the sausage, bacon and scrambled eggs on to his plate and the remainder on to hers. ‘Besides, I enjoy the alone time.’
‘You thinking about last night’s meeting?’
Laura poured a mug o
f coffee. She placed it in front of him. ‘Among other things. I think we should find out more from the splinter groups, see what they know. I got a weird feeling last night.’
‘Me too.’
He ate too fast and drank half his coffee in one go.
Laura sat down and nibbled on her eggs. They had a slightly better flavour from being replicated raw and cooked.
‘You’ll get indigestion eating like that.’
‘I want to get in early. I’ve got some snooping to do.’
Laura ate quicker. ‘Okay, give me a minute to finish this and clean up.’
Bill got his DPad and called the car to pick them up. When they exited their apartment block, the driverless car idled outside. Bill climbed into the driver seat in front of a console with a hidden steering wheel. Laura sat beside him.
The car passed through the city that covered an area half of London’s size on Earth. Laura looked out at replicas of smaller parks and pretty streets with the prefix “New” attached to their old-world name.
Ten minutes east of the docking station and New St James’ Park, the car pulled up outside a large, glass building. The offices were located in the Whitehall/Shoreditch area known as New Shorehall. The area contained the best of replicated British architecture, from the old war office building to Westminster. But among the opulence sat warehouse spaces that once housed goods. They had been converted into glass monsters for use as luxury apartments and office spaces. Bill said the warehouses reminded him of the Shoreditch area in the real London, which had become a virtual tech hub in the late twenty-first century.
Laura got out and looked up at the glass building with six floors nestled between replica nineteenth-century buildings. The ITF occupied the entire building but only operated on three of those floors. She glanced at the entrance to a nearby MagLev train station that connected them to the other cities on Exilon 5.
In the foyer, they scanned their security chips at the security station—a tradition of the old regime. It didn’t matter that things were less volatile on Exilon 5 than on Earth. She and Bill had both agreed to keep the security in a world not comfortable in its own skin.
Laura headed for the stairs that would take her to the first floor and her team. She shook her head when Bill called the lift to take him to the top of the six-floor property.
‘Oh, I meant to ask... I promised Stephen I would,’ said Bill, with one hand on the open lift door. ‘Ben Watson wants something to do. Is there anything you can give him?’
Off the top of her head, Laura could think of nothing. But she remembered Jenny had sung the boy’s praises, said he was great at research.
‘I’ll give it some thought. He’ll have to sign a confidentiality agreement.’
‘We can give him access to non-classified information.’ Bill stepped into the lift. ‘I’ll do some independent research on these splinter groups, see what turns up.’
Laura nodded. ‘I’ll do the same and let you know.’
She jogged over to him before the door closed and kissed him on the cheek. Then she tackled the short climb to her floor. The brief burst of exercise did little to settle her nervous energy.
She exited the stairwell and entered a large, open-plan office with a dozen hot desks with monitors. Her team of fifteen often rotated between monitors depending on the work they did. To the left was a glass-walled boardroom. At the back, another glass-walled room: her office. A forensic analysis station took up the rest of the space.
‘Morning, Laura,’ said Julie, her second in command.
‘Morning. Let’s meet in the boardroom in ten minutes.’
Julie nodded; her blonde hair, shorter than Laura’s, bobbed. She announced it to the rest of the room while Laura slipped into her office with a view of the entire floor.
She sat down and activated her monitor. A list of documents appeared on screen and for a moment it transported her back to her old job in the Earth Security Centre where she had filed paperwork on the population and never asked why the ESC and government kept a paper trail on them.
While she still kept notes on the population, at least her reason was to help innocents.
The sun streamed through the window and caught Laura in its glare. She squinted and reduced the brightness in the command-activated glass with a flick of her hand. Lately, her eyes had become more sensitive to light. It had begun around the time she started to see the manifestation of lies. Maybe she’d never get used to sunshine. She’d suffered from Seasonal Affective Disorder for so long before Stephen treated her. And while the condition no longer afflicted her, she still wasn’t used to the sun.
Laura looked out at her team who read and listened in on conversations in the pursuit of peace and order. When she and Bill had first moved to Exilon 5 eight years ago, the ITF operation in New London had been much bigger. The board members with security detail to match the original numbers of the GS had still been human and active in the operations on Exilon 5. But as their interest, more notably Tanya’s, shifted to the geneticists they’d commissioned to work on their code, the resources went with them. Bill had had no choice but to scale back the operation. He and Laura had agreed to mirror the underground operations that were happening on Earth. Without Tanya’s knowledge, he’d reassigned men and women to work as undercover operatives who continued to this day. Their identities would remain known only to a few, including Stephen and Serena.
One of the roles of the underground operatives was to monitor the peace treaty on the ground, to get a feel for things. Things were not good.
Boxes divided up her inbox filled with chat-room conversations sent over interstellar wave that she and her team had hijacked. The illegal chat rooms used interstellar wave to transmit communication on Exilon 5, something that had been used to communicate between the two planets. The conversations rarely lasted long, disappearing seconds after they’d been posted. The rooms required round-the-clock monitoring. If anything of interest appeared, one of her team would take a screenshot and send it to her. Nobody liked the onerous task. Her team could spend hours watching data that yielded nothing. Ben Watson came to mind. Could this be a job for the boy?
Laura was in an enviable position. She saw the most interesting conversations, or moments of time, without having to trawl through the clutter.
Today, a screenshot showed a man discussing an attack on one of the power grids outside New Tokyo. She forwarded the snapshot of the terrorist threat to the ITF office in Tokyo. Another was of a group of three discussing ways to get inside the Indigene tunnels. This type of chat happened on a regular basis and never amounted to anything, but Laura took each threat seriously. She forwarded any chat referring to the tunnels to Anton.
Was this trio chat from one of the splinter groups working with the rogue Indigenes? There were plenty of humans who hated the Indigenes just because they existed. She couldn’t assume it was without a verification of the source. To do that, she’d have to locate the start of the group thread and find the original poster. If the poster was a recruiter, there could be some place they regularly met.
The sun disappeared behind a cloud, plunging her already dark office into a deeper grey. Laura looked out at the open-plan office. Julie had gathered her team in the conference room bar five including Mike, her senior analyst, who stayed behind to monitor the Wave.
Julie gave her a nod. She got up and joined the remaining ten in the boardroom and closed the door to give Mike and the others privacy. Members of her team, including Julie, sat around an oval, glass table, DPads at the ready.
She stood at the top of the room next to a large screen on the wall, sensing her team’s anticipation and excitement. They had no idea of her abilities or her alteration into another species. Laura had thought about telling them, but with the increased activities of the GS 100 and the splinter groups, it never felt like the right time.
‘We discussed yesterday how to locate the meeting areas where the human groups and rogue Indigenes meet. There seems to be very l
ittle chat about it over the Wave.’
Julie leaned forward. ‘It’s possible they’re staying off the Wave because they know we monitor it.’
‘So what does that tell you about this group?’ said Laura.
‘That they’re cautious?’ one of her team suggested.
Laura nodded. ‘Yes, but they’re also familiar with how the Wave works and what we do here. Not many know how the Wave works. These people could have been high-level operatives on Earth. Not every specialist on Earth was assimilated into the GS 100 fold.’ She folded her arms. ‘We know they’re in the cities but not using the Wave, which means they’ve found another way to communicate. What do we do?’
‘If we can’t monitor their activities online, we have to do it offline,’ said Julie.
‘That’s what I’m thinking. Suggestions?’
‘Old-fashioned detective work,’ said one. ‘Feet on the street. Talk to the locals, sound out activity of any large groups meeting in their establishments.’
‘A good suggestion,’ said Laura. ‘But as soon as we talk to locals, we tip off the groups and they move elsewhere. How do we pinpoint the activities of a group of men and women who have managed to evade us?’
The room fell silent and Laura sensed their frustration at the lack of progress. Actually, she felt it like goose bumps on her arm. She shook off the weird feeling. She’d never had it before.
Maybe it was one of her Indigene traits.
They had concentrated their efforts on locating these groups but now their work took an urgent turn with the GS 100’s new environ and drain of power. If she could locate just one group with knowledge of the GS 100, maybe she could shed some light on Tanya’s plans.
Her team’s tension sent a shudder through her bones.
‘What about the ships?’ said Lisa, one of her operatives.
Laura’s head whipped round to look at Lisa, drawing gasps from the room. She’d turned too fast. Only Julie knew what she had once been. The more she denied her abilities, they more they appeared to come out naturally.