“I especially liked the stories about the twin AI’s,” Jude added. “They always sounded so surreal. The stories always portrayed them as more human than humans. Kind, gentle and always giving.”
“OK.” Drake looked pensive. “Is it safe to assume the sigma code you have came from your grandfather? If so, then who was he?”
“Yes he gave me the code shortly before he passed away,” Kade said with sadness in her eyes. “His name was Jake Tobias Alexander,” She added, leaving Drake completely shocked at the revelation.
“Wait… Toby! He was your grandfather? But we were…” Drake stopped mid-sentence, looking confused. He looked directly at the palm of his left hand for a few seconds, and then closed his hand and eyes tight as sadness overtook him.
“I see. Has it really been that long?” He asked as if talking to himself. “Please, continue.”
“You knew our grandfather? How?” Jude asked.
“No,” Drake said with a pained expression. “It would be more accurate to say that I know ‘of him’… but, unfortunately, we never actually met in person.”
“Was he a Shadow?” Jude asked excitedly.
“Yes,” Drake said with pride. “He was one of the two remaining members of the old guard. We had actually thought him dead a long time ago. It’s comforting to know that he lived on to raise a family of his own,” he said, genuinely happy at the idea.
“Sounds like there’s a juicy story there.”
“Ha ha, there’s a whole book-store’s worth, but we don’t have the time for that.” Drake smiled.
“I knew it!” Jude grinned. “Every time we asked him he would always reply with a ‘maybe’, and then give us this mischievous smile. It would drive us insane, and he enjoyed every minute of it.”
Drake mumbled, “Sounds like him.”
“What?” Kade asked.
“No… nothing,” Drake said dismissively. “So, when did he pass away?”
“It’s been almost 8 years now,” Kade said. “Just before he died he asked me to find this ship and bring something here. At the time I thought he was delusional for asking me to find the Shadows, but he was insistent and I just couldn’t refuse. Unfortunately, we ran out of time before he could tell me why it was so important to bring this sphere here.” Kade said, sadly.
“Sphere?” Drake asked.
“Yes, this thing.” Kade reached into her pouch. “He was holding it right until the end.”
Drake wondered what could have been so important to make Toby ask his grandchildren to take such risks. He had never been the kind of person to willingly put others in harm’s way, so what was so special about this sphere?
And as that thought coalesced in Drake’s mind he suddenly realised what the ‘sphere’ was and panicked.
“No! Wait! Don’t touch it!!” Drake shouted just as Kade’s bare hand made contact with the sphere.
Drake’s words caused Kade to look up at him. From his face she could tell that he seemed worried about something, and he seemed to be speaking, but she couldn’t quite understand him.
Numbness started spreading over Kade’s whole body. She felt as though she was rapidly becoming light headed, her vision clouding over.
As all her senses began to shut down Kade could faintly hear Jude’s panicking voice, “Kade! What’s wrong with her?” She could also hear Drake’s voice, but she could barely make out what he was saying, “She’s going into shock…” And eventually the voices trailed off into complete silence. She couldn’t hear, see or even feel anything anymore. All she could do was wonder: - Did I die? -
Back in the waking world…
“Kade!” Jude panicked as she grabbed her sister before she could collapse on the floor. “What’s wrong with her?” She asked with despair in her eyes as she looked at Drake and Zen.
“She’s going into shock,” Drake explained as he knelt down near Kade, seeing the sphere in her hand.
Jude held her sister gently as she tried to wake her, but Kade was completely unresponsive. Her breathing was shallow and erratic, and her temperature was dropping fast, becoming ice cold.
Drake held his right hand against the sphere, which was still in contact with Kade’s hand, closing his eyes as he stood perfectly still.
Jude didn’t understand what was happening, all she could see was that her sister’s life was slipping away and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
Jude screamed frantically, “Help her dammit!”
“I will,” Drake said as he snapped open his eyes and looked towards the chamber, looking conflicted about what he should do next.
“If we remove Nick from the chamber before the sequence is complete, he will die,” Zen said, stating a fact which Drake was already painfully aware of.
“I know that,” he said. “But the safeties failed to kick in because the unit is dangerously underpowered. I’ve managed to stop it, but we need to reverse it or she will suffer permanent damage.”
“What the hell are you two talking about?” Jude asked, incensed at their inaction.
“There’s no time to explain,” Drake said to Jude and then turned back towards Zen. “Power up the pods. The chamber probably isn’t enough at this stage anyway. We’ll have to do it the old fashioned way.”
And immediately after Drake had given the order the two pods, to the left of Drake’s own pod, immediately activated.
The status screens on the pods control consoles were cycling information at lightning speed as Zen worked to speed up the initialisation sequence which would normally take the best part of an hour.
“Please move, we need to get her into the pod, we can use it to reverse this,” Drake said to Jude as he grabbed Kade and lifted her in his arms.
“Why is this happening? Is she gonna be OK?” Jude asked as Drake moved towards the sleeper pod.
“This ‘sphere’ is Toby’s… well, that’s not important right now. I just can’t believe that dimwit never warned you two not to touch it with your bare hands,” Drake said, and then gently placed Kade in the pod, putting the sphere in a custom slot by her head.
“That thing? She’s had that for years, it has never done anything like this before, and you just touched it with your bare hands. What gives?” Jude asked, uncertain whether to believe in Drake’s explanation.
“In its discharged state it’s about as harmful as a paperweight, but it started building up charge the moment you all came on board the Zenith,” Drake explained as he worked the pod’s controls, causing the canopy to start closing. “And it didn’t harm me because it can’t harm me. Any more detailed explanations will just have to wait, now get in the other pod and lie down,” Drake ordered as he gestured to the spare pod next to Kade’s.
“Why?” Jude asked, uncertain of his intentions.
“So we can help your sister, now stop asking questions and get in the damn pod!” Drake said emphatically and then turned towards Zen. “I need you to finish preparing Jude as I get ready. And interlink the three pods once we are all inside.”
Zen nodded. Drake turned away from her and started getting back into his own sleeper pod.
Jude was standing by the empty pod, her mind filled with uncertainty. She didn’t know whether or not to trust Drake, but it didn’t seem like there was much of a choice in the matter. If there was anything she could do to help then she had to try, she thought as she got into the pod.
Zen approached Jude as she was lying down, and gave her a reassuring smile as the pod’s canopy closed overhead.
Jude’s heart was racing as the canopy closed, blocking out all sounds from the outside world. The only sounds remaining being her own breathing and a very faint hum that she could only assume was part of the pod’s mechanism… which was oddly relaxing.
Jude looked around the room through the transparent canopy. She could see her sister lying motionless inside the nearby pod, her body twitching ever so slightly as she winced. And Zen was standing by Kade’s pod control console, seemingly operating t
he controls without ever touching the interface.
Under normal circumstances Jude would have been fascinated by Zen’s ability to control the pod without touching it, especially since her own tests had determined the Zenith did not have any type of recognisable wireless interface system. But at this moment in time, none of that mattered to her.
As Jude looked on she could see a thin grey mist filling up her sister’s pod. And just as she started wondering what it was she heard a hissing sound, seeing a similar mist filling up her own pod.
It didn’t take Jude too long to realise that this was no ordinary mist. What she was looking at was no chemical or compound merely floating in the air, it was not dispersing and it moved as if with purpose.
She ran through the possibilities in her mind, realising what it was when she felt a sudden burning sensation in her throat as the mist entered her body.
“Can you hear me?” Jude heard Drake’s voice ask as though it was coming from inside her head.
“Please tell me you didn’t just do what I think you did,” Jude said as the pain in her throat subsided.
“That would all depend on what you think I did,” Drake replied, the sound again seeming as though it was coming from inside her own mind.
“Nanites you smart-ass! Did you just put Class-A illegal technology inside our bodies?” She asked, incensed. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
“Hmm, I suppose that the technology does share some similarities with Nano machines, but there’s no need to worry, it’s perfectly safe. It’s also the only way to help your sister, so there isn’t much choice.”
“It better be safe! If you harm me, or Kade, I swear I’ll kick your nuts into the middle of next week!”
“That sounds unpleasant.” Zen giggled.
“Indeed,” Drake said. “At any rate, Zen link us up to Kade’s consciousness.”
“Establishing interlinks, full merge in 10 seconds.”
“Wait… what?” Jude asked just before passing out.
Virtual reality, as a technology type, had been around long before interstellar travel had become a reality. And as such, it had matured considerably since its original development. But even to this day, a true immersion experience which could completely fool a user into thinking they were not in a virtual world did not exist… or so Jude thought.
By this point in her life Jude had played around with all the Virtual Reality technologies available on the market and a few which were still in development, but nothing she had used before could have prepared her for what she was experiencing right now.
She was floating in the middle of an impenetrable dark void that literally contained nothing but her. And yet she could still see herself, even though there were no light sources around her.
The sensation of weightlessness felt completely real. She knew her body was lying in the pod, but all of her senses were perfectly tuned to this environment she was floating in.
Just as she thought things couldn’t get any weirder, she heard Zen’s voice as it seemingly echoed off of invisible walls within the void.
“3… 2… 1…”
The count reached zero, and an almost infinite number of bright points started to appear. It was as if an entire universe was being brought into existence, and she looked on in awe as the scenery sparkled all around her.
“Jude to Drake Interlink successful. Ready for Kade consciousness dive,” Jude heard Zen’s voice say.
Something about the scene seemed so relaxing that all the tension Jude felt, just moments before, had all but melted away. But just as Zen finished speaking Jude felt as if her body was being shifted forward. It felt as if some unknown force was dragging her onwards at high speed, forcibly removing her from that bright and relaxing universe; forcing her towards an area ahead which was still devoid of all light and warmth… a cold and uninviting place.
Before she knew it, she had quickly found herself in the middle of another empty void. But this one felt different, there was a sense of despair in the air.
“Dive sequence complete,” Jude heard Zen say.
“OK… now what? I can’t see anything,” Jude said.
“Jude? Is that you?” A panic-stricken voice said, reverberating throughout the void.
“Kade?” Jude said.
Kade replied joyfully, “I hear you!” And then burst into tears from hearing her sister call out her name.
“Where are you?” Jude called out desperately, but there was no reply, all she could hear was her sister’s sobs filling up the void.
“Dammit all!” Jude screamed in frustration, “What the hell is going on?”
“What you’re seeing is a visual representation of Kade’s consciousness,” Jude heard Drake’s voice say, though he was nowhere to be found. “The shock to her system caused her mind to shut down, severing all ties in her conscious mind. What you’re hearing is what’s left. An echo of her soul, a remnant of her hopes and fears desperately trying to find a way out of the darkness,” Drake explained.
“So, she’s aware? Locked in this void… inside her own head? What kind of sadistic security countermeasure is this? I wouldn’t wish this place on my worst enemy,” Jude said, clearly upset.
“Kade’s awareness is limited. Like I said, right now she is just a remnant of the Kade you know. Though in a way you could also say that this is the purest expression of the Kade you know. And this isn’t a security countermeasure. The Core your sister touched was unstable. It must have been inert for a long time but began absorbing charge once you came on board the Zenith. But without an active consciousness to govern it, it attempted to merge with Kade when she touched it.”
“Merge with her? What are you talking about?” Jude asked, more confused than ever.
“Jude… please help me!!” Kade’s voice pleaded.
“I’ll explain later, for now you need to talk to her. Kade’s mental state is unstable right now. We need her to calm down, to focus. I can help her, but only you can reach her. See if you can get her to come to you Jude. All Kade has to do is want it to happen, and it will.”
Jude’s mind was full of questions, but she knew this was not the time or the place to satisfy her curiosity. The task before her was simple enough, and her sister’s pleading voice demanded action.
“Kade, I’m here for you, focus on my voice!”
“Where? I can’t see anything. I can’t feel anything! What’s happening to me?” Kade panicked.
Jude said reassuringly, “Everything will be alright, trust me. We’ll have you fixed up in no time, but I need you to do something for me sis. I know this will sound strange, but I need you to want to see me again. Wish for it with all your heart!”
A few seconds passed, each feeling like an eternity as the void became deathly quiet. And just as Jude was about to call out to her sister again, she saw it: A form started to take shape in front of Jude. The form’s eyes were shut tight, tears streaming down its face as it mumbled incoherent words.
Jude reached forward and hugged her sister, causing her to snap open her eyes in surprise.
Kade didn’t know what to think. It felt like it had been an eternity since she had seen another soul. To her, so much time had seemed to pass that she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to recognise her sister if she ever saw her again, her memories having seemingly atrophied over the years she had been trapped in this void.
She was still in the void, this cursed place which had kept her prisoner for as far back as she could remember, but this person who was holding her tight… it was definitely her sister, she thought.
Kade couldn’t stop crying, but this time it was out of joy. She couldn’t remember the last time she had felt this happy.
“Good,” they heard Drake’s voice say. “We weren’t too late. Step two is up to me, so kick back and enjoy the show,” he said happily.
Kade had finally managed to calm down when she and her sister noticed a single solitary star appearing in the distance. As the seconds pass
ed more and more stars emerged, the number growing exponentially as they filled up the space around them.
Jude recognised the display, it was similar to the one she had seen before, but there seemed to be considerably less stars in this scene.
“What is it?” Kade asked as she felt a warm feeling in her heart. The fear that had been her steadfast companion now having vanished without a trace.
“No idea.” Jude looked at the sparkling display, which somehow seemed warmer and more inviting than the one she had seen before.
“Memories,” Drake said. “Each point an experience which has somehow shaped your life and determined the person you would eventually become. Each one an insignificant part of the whole, and yet, each one an irreplaceable element of what makes you who you are,” he said in a tone which almost verged on romantic.
“Memories? There are so many of them!” Jude stared at the mesmerising scene.
“Is that what they are? Are they my memories?” Kade asked, equally in awe at the display.
“We’re almost done, hold on a bit longer, now comes the tricky part,” Drake said.
The lights started changing colours before the sisters’ eyes, as though a chain reaction was rippling through all the points in the same order in which they had originally appeared. Each point becoming either a bright blue or, occasionally, a deep red.
The scene had changed dramatically by the time the reaction had finished, with a multitude of deep red points interspersed throughout a veritable sea of blue lights.
“Interesting,” Drake said.
“What is?” Jude asked.
“Kade’s synchronisation ratio is at 2%. That shouldn’t be possible with such a brief exposure. I was expecting around one hundred cross contaminated memories at most, but this result shows something more…severe.”
“What does that mean?” Kade asked worriedly.
“Each red point represents a memory which does not belong to you,” Drake explained. “In your case, these memories would have been acquired when you touched the malfunctioning Core… but why are there so many of them? Hmm.”
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