by Nirina Stone
He doesn’t seem sure, though what he says makes sense.
Still, I move on to my next question.
“Did the fall do—any damage to the baby?” I ask, anticipating his answer. “I mean, I haven’t felt anything different—I don’t even know how I feel about it, I mean it’s—” then I stop, remembering that this is not Father I’m speaking to. That I would normally talk things through with Father, but not this—holo.
“It’s fine,” he assures me. “It’s healthy, its heart is strong. Would you like to see?”
I nod before I can change my mind. He raises an arm and the lights dim as a screen I hadn’t noticed before shows a brownish blue image of a scrunched-up prawn. That’s the best way I can describe what I’m looking at. Still, there’s no doubt that the tiny thrumming thing in the middle of the image is a heart beat. It races along without a care in the world. Then I’m suddenly aware that the holo’s watching my face.
Remembering Azure and the Diamonds, the Sorens, everything I’d gone through in the last few years. I wonder how drastically different things would be right now if Mother had had her way—if I didn’t go to Azure—if Father was not killed—over me.
I’ve already mourned Father. So talking to this apparition that looks and sounds exactly like him, about all this overwhelms me. And then the heartbeat. The baby. This all feels unreal, somehow. Wrong.
In some bizarre way, it’s like having Father around and I’m sharing something new with him, something that he would have helped me get through once upon a time. It’s simply too much. I’m not sure how to react to it all.
And I know better than to trust everything the holo says, but everything’s too confusing.
So I mutter a quick “Bye,” without looking at Blair, and walk out of the room for some fresh air. Or as fresh as the air can be in an underground compound. I have too much to think about and the walk is the only way I know to compartmentalize. Besides, since they don’t stop me from walking around everywhere, I might as well explore, and think.
I turn a new corner and gasp as I walk into some sort of darkened hub with relaxing ocean sounds—waves crashing against the shore, wind whipping palm fronds together, and the occasional seagull. Sounds that definitely don’t belong under the ground.
As the room lights up slowly, I note it looks much like their other rooms but for a massive curved glass across the eastern wall. It’s as impossible as the sounds, I realize, because behind the glass is the middle of a deep ocean somewhere I know can not be here. The water is a clear dark blue, and it is filled with whales and other beings I’ve never seen up close. It’s a sight I’ve only ever imagined, from the deepest waters of the earth’s oceans.
I walk up closer and gingerly touch the glass, then I realize it’s not glass at all, but a sort of screen. The fish and whales swim and disappear on either side though, giving it the illusion of a real viewing window, akin to windows in a submarine.
Still, despite knowing that it’s but a screen, I back away from it when another being comes into view—something like what I’d imagine that beast, Maya, looks like. Its entire body is bloated, but for its long black tail that throws sparks and flashes in the water, making the other fish rapidly swim away. As it floats closer, it opens its mouth wide, then wider still. It takes its time to swim up to a blue whale that floats easily in the water. Then the Maya-like beast’s mouth opens up even bigger, seemingly impossibly so, and it only shuts when the blue whale has been swallowed whole.
I shudder, remembering how close the thing was to me on my expedition with the missions team, and I walk out of the room.
I head back into Blair’s room, meaning to get more answers from Father’s apparition. I stop dead in my tracks around the corner from the door. Hearing a soft, feminine hum from the room, I peek around the corner until my eyes land on Blair’s bed.
Father’s holopersona is gone. In his place is a slight girl, sitting beside Blair, with her eyes closed and a hand stroking his arm, up and down.
She hums a soft melody I don’t recognize and tucks a wisp of her auburn hair behind an ear as she continues the hum. Then she opens her eyes and wipes a tear. There’s something jarring about the way she looks at him—something like affection or possession. Whatever it is, it’s too intimate for me to watch, so I back away slowly.
As I walk away, I’m not sure what to make of this unusual tightness in my chest. Or why I suddenly don’t want this girl to be there with Blair. That I want to question who she is, what she wants. On the other hand, I felt more like the outsider in that equation. So I keep walking.
I walk for a while, not really planning on heading anywhere specific, but finding myself back in the clearing where the Metrills were doing their exercise. There are four of them now, gathered in a small circle, holding hands with their eyes closed and their heads tilted up as if in meditation. They don’t speak a word. I stand still for a few minutes, just watching them breathe.
Then, without a sound, they break apart and move away from each other, forming that same position I saw, as if they’re about to do the exercise again. They start with a small bow, with their right fist against their left palm, much like how Sanaa trained me before every sparring session we’d had. But this doesn’t look like sparring to me.
I watch for a moment, then my hand moves up in response, to do the same movement they’re doing. I don’t stop it, and don’t say a word. My other hand moves up as well and, before I realize what I’m doing, my entire body shifts in response.
I’m doing the dance as well, though I’ve only watched them do it that one time. I watch them carefully and my movements mirror theirs exactly. I think of turning right around and walking away, but it’s quite relaxing. I didn’t know it when I watched them, but it stretches my muscles in such a way that feels good.
I don’t try to resist the dance anymore, and go with it. When their feet move forward slightly, so do mine. When they bring their arms down in a soft sweep, only to bring them back up again on the other side of their bodies, so do mine. We sway together and pull air to our faces together. I breathe in deeply and notice a small hum in my chest as though I’m meditating too.
Then, as I’m getting the hang of the dance, they stop and walk away to different directions like the first time I watched them. Hmm. I wonder what that’s about, why they don’t speak to each other. But I know they won’t likely answer me if I ask, so I walk away as well.
I end up in that clearing, doing the dance, over the next few days. They don’t seem to mind I’m there and, at one point, one of them even waves me forward, allowing me to participate amongst them.
I say, “Thank you,” and she nods and continues dancing, not bothering to reply. We dance and sway together in silence, then they disperse again.
The more I do the dance, the stronger my limbs become, but more than anything, it helps my brain relax and focus better on my thoughts. It helps me breathe and it brings my heart rate down so much, I wonder if I actually fall asleep sometimes. It’s quite unlike anything else I’ve learnt.
I close my eyes and take part, swaying back and forth, moving my arms along, knowing without opening my eyes that I’m perfectly in sync with the others. Knowing that every movement is aligned exactly as it should.
When I open my eyes again, I already know they’re all moving away from the clearing. I pull myself up to do the same when my eyes land on someone in the distance.
He sits on a glidingbot and watches me with a slight smirk on his face. Blair.
I jog up to him and, before realizing what I’m doing, I lean in to give him a tight hug. He huffs aloud. “Missed me, did you?”
My instinct is to say no, to say I was worried he’d died and that was all. Even then I’m not willing to admit I was worried about him, really.
I look down and smile at his grin. “I’m glad you’re okay,” I finally say. “It would be nice to talk to someone for a change.” It’s not entirely a lie. The complete silence from the others is annoy
ing, and I’m not keen on chatting away with Father’s apparition quite yet.
“Ha,” Blair says. “It doesn’t look like you’re having much problem staying silent though. What are you doing here?”
“I’m—well I’m dancing with them,” I say.
“You are that,” he says. “From what I’ve learnt, it’s a form or meditation for them. A prayer of sorts, they call it nirvana. Do you know, they learn this talent at a young age? They can actually kill themselves that way, by stopping their hearts.”
Wow, I think. I’ve never heard of such a talent. Then I remember that my heart beat did slow down and I worry for a moment that I might accidentally stop it forever. I reach up to touch my chest and feel a healthy beat.
“It takes a lot of practice though,” he says, “and motivation.”
Hopefully I will never have the motivation to achieve this—nirvana. Still I say, “Well—for a death dance, it’s quite—beautiful.”
Blair pauses, then laughs. “It doesn’t cease to amaze me how fast you take to your jailers.”
“What are you talking about? I’m not their prisoner.” Not that I’ve tried to leave the compound. Not that I’d know where to begin to leave the compound. Still, I’ve been a prisoner a few times. This is nothing like any one of those times. So I frown down at him and wait for a reply.
When one isn’t forthcoming, I say, “Isn’t this where you intended for us to come, Blair?”
“It is,” he says, his brows pulled up. “I brought you as an offering to them though. Didn’t you know that? I thought it was obvious.”
An—offering? I step back from him again and my frown deepens. “An offering for what exactly?” I say.
“To get on their good graces, of course,” he says, “so that they’d let me in here. Without you, I’d be dead on the surface right now.”
Nothing he says makes any sense. Why would they accept me as some sort of offering? Why would I be remotely important to them? Why did he want to come here? When I ask him as much, he points to his right and asks me to follow. He rolls ahead of me and we walk around the grounds, turning corners I haven’t yet explored until we reach a small room and he ushers me in.
“I think this one’s good,” he says, then he has me sit on a metal chair as a screen ahead of us lights up automatically.
Blair says, “Please show us the Metrills’ birth.”
Words scroll across the screen, showing a date—“1958” as a disembodied voice speaks.
The scenes are in black and white, of a time the ancients in a place called North America gathered together. Most of the men are dressed in grey suits but at least don’t have creepy Vorkian smiles across their faces.
There are barely any women on the screen, but they’re also in suit dresses, with little boxy hats on their heads and dainty white gloves. What a bizarre uniform.
“Okay,” Blair says during a pause, “You’ve already come to learn more about the Great Omni than you ever knew before.”
The Great Omni was the perfect storm of wars and natural disasters that ended civilization as our ancestors knew it.
I remember that it happened in the year 2050, over two centuries from our current timeline. I had always thought that Apex was all that was left of the world. It was yet another one of the Prospo’s great lies to keep us under their rule, to keep us from finding the vastly different world away from Apex. To keep us from seeking the lush, alive, greenness of the north.
“The Metrills,” Blair says, “are descendants of the people who stayed behind when the Legacies led the Pioneers and fled for Apex.”
Right. Legacies like Mornie Blair and Rosemary Mason, our respective great grandmothers. Other than Strohm, Blair, Mother, and me, there are no other living descendants of the Legacies. Aren’t we a special bunch?
The screen shows a smaller group of people smiling and waving at us as the voice says, “The Selected.” Then proceeds to name all of them.
“Lower volume, please,” Blair says, and the screen complies.
“They had a standing agreement, you see,” Blair continues, “before the Legacies left. They would establish their communities on land further South.” Apex. “And they promised they’d be back. Only—”
He doesn’t have to continue, because I can guess and fill in the rest of the story. The Legacies never came back. They established their new homes, and fought a new war in Apex that had them so preoccupied, they never returned for the Metrills.
They lost that war, I think, and that’s how we ended up with Apex as it stood.
“Do you know what happened to our grandparents, Rome?” he asks.
I shake my head. I never learnt how they all died. Before I can ask him to continue, she walks up behind him, the girl I saw humming in his room. She places a hand on his shoulder and looks down at him with a soft smile.
The clenched feeling comes back in my chest—that tightness, like I’m having a difficult time breathing. My face and neck heat up.
“Training. Are you coming, Rylan?” she says.
Rylan? It occurs to me I never knew Blair’s first name until now. Did I ever think to ask what it was?
She doesn’t look in my direction, just keeps her eyes on him like he’s the only one around. It reminds me of the moment I spied on her as she hummed to him, and I feel like I’m the odd one out again.
Her voice is soft, reminding me of something, someone else, but I can’t think straight.
“It’s that time, is it?” He smiles up at her. “I’ll be right there. Give me a minute yeah?”
She nods and moves away and I watch her back. What in Odin is going on here?
“Rylan—?” I say.
“Only she calls me that,” he replies before I can continue mocking him. “You can keep calling me Blair.”
Okay, I think, sufficiently scolded. Sorens traditionally address each other by their last names. Whoever she is, though she must also be a Soren, has been given family privilege to call him by his first name. I know Blair and I are not family, but for a moment there, I thought we could be friends. Who am I kidding, though? I’m lucky if he considers me a peer or anything more than a subordinate.
He watches my face for a moment, then he tells me to follow him. “I could sit here and show you more and talk about the Legacies all day,” he mutters. “But why talk about it when you can witness it all yourself?” He continues our conversation as if we weren’t just interrupted.
His glidingbot rolls away and I follow suit, silent by his side. I mean to come back to this little room another time, to learn more about the Metrills. I’m definitely more keen to find out about a history closer to our timeline, the one the Legacies left behind.
The burning in my ears finally start to subside. What would I ask him first? Who is she, and who is she to him? Why do I even want to ask such questions? Why am I feeling like this?
“That’s Franklin,” he says, as though he read my mind. I assumed Franklin was a man when he’d first mentioned the name. Certainly not that. My reaction gives me pause but I try to keep my face still before he notices. “She’s Sanaa’s second best student. Second only to yours truly of course.” Right.
“Why is she here?” I ask before I’m able to stop myself.
“To train me back to being Sanaa’s best student, of course. She lives in Apex but travelled out here to help me.” The answer is frustratingly incomplete but I don’t push him to continue. “Legend has it that Frankie came out of the womb with a cartwheel and a flying kick at the doctor’s forehead.”
I fight my instinct to scoff at the ridiculous statement but can’t help pausing at the obvious affection in his voice.
“Anyway,” he says as he continues to glide away, “on to the Legacies. As I said, it will be good for you to witness it all yourself. See what I mean though? Would you have believed me if I told you about all this before? And about your father?”
“Yes,” I reply, though I can’t hide the doubt in my voice as he chuckles. Stil
l, I’m glad everything’s coming to light. But who is she?
Pushing aside any further thoughts of Franklin, I wonder, do I want to find out what happened to the Legacies? What does he mean by “witness it all yourself?” Will I have to sit somewhere with a Virtual Helmet on? I hope not—as light as they are, those things are not comfortable for me. They make me claustrophobic.
We walk through a large doorway, down a metal hallway I recognize, though I know it’s identical to every single other hallway in this place. Then he glides through another door and I realize we’re in his private quarters.
I haven’t been in here since I saw Franklin singing to him. I want to ask more about her, but something holds me back. It’s not any of my business who she is. And I don’t want him thinking he’s special to me in any way. His ego’s unbearable now, I can’t imagine what he’d be like if it were encouraged.
His glidingbot turns and he asks me to take a seat. I prop myself on the edge of his bed.
“Okay,” he says, “I’ve summoned your—I’ve called Doctor Brian’s holopersona.” Father? “Just wanted to tell you beforehand. I know you’re not that comfortable around him.”
“Why did you call him?” I ask. “And how?” I don’t recall seeing Blair push a button or make any movement to indicate a call was made.
“He’ll be able to pull memories from the archives,” Blair says. “It will be a faster way for you to see the Legacies’ story. You’ll see.” He gives me a wide grin.
Before I’m able to ask a second time how he called Father, the holopersona stands in front of us, his big black eyes shining under the artificial lights. I’d swear it was really Father, except I know the apparition is taller. It’s the only way to distinguish between the two.
I don’t say a word but watch him—it—suspiciously. My heart lurches when his eyes land on me but I have to remind myself it’s not really Father. The conflicting thoughts confuse me so I look away again, ready to watch whatever it is Blair wanted me to see.