Rise: Paths (Future Worlds Book 2)

by Brian Guthrie

  My confusion must have leaked on to my face, because Suyef let loose with a short laugh, the first I could recall.

  "No, I'm not that old," he said, shaking his head. "My people have been doing this for that long. I'm just the latest to be assigned to it." He looked over at me. "You think it was an accident the elders chose me to go with you?"

  "So you've been here before?"

  He nodded. "Several times, in fact. But only on training missions. This is my first time here alone, per se."

  "And you know how to read their system?" I said, pointing at his padd. "You pretended this entire time?"

  He chuckled again. "It was amusing to watch." He held up a hand to forestall me. "Don't get angry, I was under orders not to let you find out about this until absolutely necessary. The elders assumed you'd either need to be told or would find out on your own, but they said both should be delayed as long as possible."

  "Why?" I asked. "What purpose does that serve?"

  He shrugged. "We're a distrusting people when it comes to you Colberrans."

  I stared at him. "This entire time, you were just pretending to learn from me?"

  "Teaching someone else is a great way to learn something," he replied, pulling out my own padd and tossing it to me. "You clearly needed some help in learning, and that seemed the best option."

  I flipped the padd around in my hands, pondering his words. That last point couldn't be argued, as it had been helpful.

  "Still, you lied to me this whole time," I whispered, waving the padd at him.

  "Actually, there was no lying. I just never mentioned it, and it didn't come up until now."

  I glared at the Nomad, grinding my teeth slightly. "That's splitting hairs, and you know it."

  "What does it matter? So we've been sneaking up to your realm and passing ourselves off as Seekers. No, not even that," he corrected himself. "We're actually Seekers."

  "Do you each keep coming and joining their academy?"

  Suyef shook his head. "Water above, no. After the first of us managed to forge documents and plant them on the network establishing us here, we started just doing that." He waved his padd at me. "As you've found out, it's easy to do. As far as the Seekers are concerned, we've all completed the academy and advanced past the Tyro rank." He grinned at me, his eyes twinkling a bit as he hunched toward me in a conspiratorial manner. "Why would we waste our time on such inane training, anyway? It's just indoctrination and reprogramming designed to fabricate the perfect robots for their system." He shook his head and sat upright. "Besides, the lifestyle of the Nomad makes their 'training' look like games children play." He held up the padd. "The fact that we've pulled off this charade for as long as we have is proof enough of that."

  I sat quietly for a moment, pondering his words. Finally, I looked over at him.

  "What's the point?"

  He frowned at my question. "What do you mean?"

  "Why do this? Why send your people up here for this? Just to keep an eye on us?" He nodded. "So why would you personally do this?"

  He raised his eyebrows and smiled. "Now, that's a better question, indeed. But you know the answer already."

  "Your father." He nodded once. "So that part at least is true." He nodded again. "Why would they let you come here if they knew what you'd be doing?"

  He shrugged. "They believe we won't find anything. They just want us out of the way." He gave me a sharp look. "You didn't think we'd be going back anytime soon, did you?"

  I shook my head. "I hadn't thought about it. Been kind of distracted, you know," I said. "But you're changing the subject. Why would they let you come and carry on this charade? What if you decided to go digging? Wouldn't you ruin this entire thing?"

  He smiled and sighed. "I'm not stupid enough to risk this whole mission because of one simple question."

  "It's not a simple question," I interrupted him. "Murder never is."

  He glared at me. "We don't know it was murder. It could very well have been an accident."

  "You don't believe that anymore than I do."

  Silence fell over us. The wind, for once much softer that night, still whipped at our cloaks. The fire danced in the core-night, sending strange shadows shifting over everything.

  When Suyef finally responded, he asked the question I was dreading he'd ask since our training began. To be honest, I was shocked he hadn't asked it sooner.

  "So, where did you learn to Alter?"

  Chapter 11 - Particular Skills

  "So, where did you learn?" he repeated the question.

  "On your shell," I replied. "My parents aren't what you would call run-of-the-mill Colberrans. You've spent enough time here to know the typical Colberran view of Scripting."

  Suyef nodded. "Only shell in the whole shattered world that bans the practice."

  I looked over at the Nomad. "You've been to other shells?"

  "No," he said, shaking his head. "But my people have."

  I nodded. "I was about to be very jealous. My parents were heading off to another shell as we left and the curiosity about what they are seeing there keeps me awake sometimes."

  "You're changing the subject," Suyef commented, nodding at the staff. "Your little stunt almost ruined our cover. Lucky for you, they didn't see you Alter and throw that rock at me then grab your staff." He grimaced and massaged his shoulder. "Speaking of which, that hurt."

  I rubbed at my neck. "So did that." I suddenly felt sheepish and looked away. "That was kind of stupid."

  "Which part?"

  I glared at him. "What we did."

  The Nomad let out a bark of a laugh. "What you did was stupid. Attacking a Nomad without a weapon, then Altering right in front of a Seeker squad." He smirked at me. "I don't know what you call it here, but we have a saying. 'Only a fool mixes stupidity and luck.'"

  "What does that even mean?"

  He frowned. "It means only fools do things that mix the two."

  "That makes it so much clearer," I retorted, snorting slightly. "We have a similar saying here. It's in too many books. 'You're either incredibly stupid or incredibly lucky.'" I paused to think for a second to make sure that was right. "Yeah, that or the other way around, I forget.

  "It fits."

  I shrugged. "It was my only option."

  Suyef reached out a hand and gripped my shoulder. "There are always options," he said, his voice quiet and serious again. "You just finally let yourself see more."

  I stared back at him for a moment. "We've been Scripting this whole time during our practices," I stated, watching him for a reaction. "Why do you suddenly have an issue?"

  Suyef let a small smile brush his lips. "It isn't that you did it, it’s when you did it."

  "I didn't know they were there."

  He frowned at me. "You should always be able to tell someone is around if you can Alter."

  I stared at him, momentarily speechless. A thought bubbled to the surface.

  "That's how you're so good at tracking!" I exclaimed. "You've been Scripting."

  Suyef let a small smile brush his lips. "I don't need to Alter to do that."

  "But you've been doing it?"

  He didn't move or react in any way. Finally, he held up a finger.

  "I'll trade my secret for yours," he said and held out a hand for me to shake. "But you first."

  I eyed his hand, expecting a trick. He held my gaze, his hand steady. After a moment, I shrugged and shook it.

  "What secret do you want me to reveal?"

  "Where you learned Altering," he replied.

  "I told you, I learned it on your shell," I answered, gesturing toward the shell's edge. "It's one of the things the Expeditionary Force picked up soon after they took that base. That you Nomads don't view Scripting the same way Colberrans do." I eyed him for a reaction. "It's part of the reason we've kept you at arm's length diplomatically, I think. That and the whole orbits not keeping our shells in relative proximity thing."

  Suyef shrugged. "We didn't complain a
bout the arrangement."

  "Well, my mother developed a knack for it once she got to your shell and could study it without fear of Seekers," I continued. "Not being a huge fan of the school system provided to the Force, she split our time between attending that school and learning at home. It was there, during those hours studying in our quarters, that I first began studying the Code language. Didn't realize it was that, at first." I chuckled and patted at my pocket. "It was all here. You know that much. The same language we read to use the network. It's all based on the same system. The Ancient language."

  I reached into my pocket and pulled my padd out. I thumbed the edges, staring at it.

  "Of course, most Colberrans don't know that," I went on. "They think it's just the programming language that makes the system work. That makes all of these work." I held up the padd and waved it around. "Their entire world is built on a lie, and they're happy not knowing it."

  Suyef nodded. "People often are blissfully ignorant of most truth in their world," he said. "And they fight tooth and nail to stay that way."

  Not knowing what to say to that, I continued my story.

  "My mother made a point of teaching us the Code language. I didn't think anything of it at first. Simple stuff to help us use the network. I took to it right off, and once I had a good grasp of the system, my mother brought other teachers into it. People in the Force, others who had a similar view of the system as her." I held up a finger to Suyef. "Nothing bad, mind you. These were law-abiding people. They just didn't agree with the traditional Colberran belief system on education, society, and whatnot."

  Suyef nodded. "Not traditional people, then."

  "You could say that," I replied, pursing my lips and eyebrows in thought. "That word's changed meanings since our world changed. At least on Colberra. Here, 'traditional' means you adhere to the system, the government. You don't question except in school when you're learning, and even then there are rules about it." I grimaced. "Needless to say, I didn't like the schooling they offered. It was worse when we lived on the isles, all those years the Seekers were interrogating my father. Most of our studies had to happen in private there." I smiled at the Nomad. "Needless to say, we were quite happy to get away from here and be transferred back to your shell. Not only did it put some distance between us and the Seekers' meddling in my father's past, it freed our education up. After a while, my mother just gave up on the system and taught us at home. You can imagine, had she tried that here on Colberra proper, the Seekers would have had something to say about it." I shrugged. "On the isles, maybe not. The authorities tend to give the people of the isles a bit of leeway. They're mostly harmless. Just want to be left alone. Their population is very low, so I guess the system tolerates them."

  "So, why did your mother join the Force if she's so non-traditional?" Suyef asked. "Seems a bit counterintuitive."

  I shook my head. "I don't know, really. Wanderlust, maybe? People of the isles move around a lot to survive. You don't really have a place you call home there. The isles shift their orbits and the government won't always bring water to the isles that move farther out. A few have fallen out of Colberra's gravity well in the past, so the people just got used to the idea of moving to another isle if one shifted too far." I looked over at the Nomad. "Kind of like your people, from what I know of them."

  He nodded. "We don't stay in one place very long either. Only our elderly, sickly, or the very young and the caretakers of that lot stay put in what you call settlements. Even then, one must be very old, very sick, extremely young, or some combination of those."

  "Not exactly the same, but close enough," I commented, shifting on my rock. "There's no pattern to the orbits, so you live your life on the isles prepared to move at a moment's notice. You could have two cycles, you could have ten. Most are smart and choose an isle moving inward in its orbit, where they’ll have longer to stay. That doesn't always work, as an isle could shift; for the most part, it does. From what I remember, my mother's family was one of those."

  The fire caught my attention. The stuff mesmerized me at times and often gave me an urge to reach in and touch it. Remembering Suyef sitting there, I refrained.

  "So, that could be where she got the motivation to go off and join the Force. Maybe she just wanted to see something other than the isles and Colberra. She doesn't talk about it much. To be honest, it was a very short period of her life and, once she met my father, she got out of the Force as soon as she could. We didn't discuss that part of their lives." I stretched, reaching a hand over my shoulder and working at a sore spot. "Maybe she just disliked Colberra enough to be willing to do most anything to get away from it. My father has little reason to love it. Even now, both my parents are finishing up with the Force, but are still employed by them. My father is a craftsman for them. That's why they're on that other shell."

  "So, Altering?" Suyef prompted me back to the subject at hand.

  "Getting there," I muttered, hanging my head and shaking it. "My mother had a knack for the Coding language, but she wasn't alone. My father also had a skill for it. It's the reason he was accepted into the Force. And his skills are particularly important to this story." I looked at Suyef, eyebrows elevated in as questioning a look as I could affect.

  The Nomad chuckled and shook his head. "So, what skills does your father have?"

  "Glad you asked," I said, smiling. "It's not necessarily the skills he has, but rather what he does with them. Most everyone can read the Coding language if they've used any part of the network, and everyone does that. What he does is help build bridge programming language between stuff we created and the Ancient Coding language of the past."

  Suyef whistled, nodding as he did. "That is quite the skill," he stated. "And the Seekers let him do this?"

  "How do you think they've designed all their technology?" I asked, pointing at the speeder bikes. "Those things aren't Ancient design, and neither is this." I held up the padd. "No, this is craftily designed modern technology forged to make you think it was of Ancient design. People like my father helped design the coding language that allows the computers on these systems to talk to the Ancient network." I frowned as I eyed the padd. "It's far from perfect. That's why it's been so hard doing research on this thing. Still, it's effective."

  Suyef pulled his own padd out and activated it. He turned it around, peering at the device from all angles.

  "That is masterful work," he whispered. "I mean, now that you mentioned it, the minor design differences stand out." He looked up at me through the translucent display hovering above his padd. "So, is all Seeker technology of modern design like this?"

  "That's not Seeker technology," I answered, shaking my head. "The speeders are, but these are commercial devices built just to access the network. Nothing too fancy."

  "So, I'm guessing your father designs programming code for more important stuff?"

  I shook my head. "Pretty run of the mill. Control programs for water systems and matter reclamation devices. Your standard equipment present in most settlements." I held up a finger. "But there's the kicker to this story. No one notices what a man's doing when he spends his days perfecting and troubleshooting programming code for interfacing water storage devices and control sensors for matter reclamators. As long as the water gets into the holding tanks and people get their food and other material from the reclamator, no one is asking any questions about the guy making it work." I grinned at Suyef. "And no one's thinking to ask questions about why his kids aren't in the system schools and why his wife is teaching them Coding language in secret."

  "So, your mother taught you to Alter?" Suyef asked.

  I shook my head. "Nope, I stumbled on to that all by myself."

  Suyef frowned. "By accident?"

  "Yeah, and, as you can imagine, it didn't go too well," I said, shuddering at the memory.

  "What happened?"

  I shrugged. "I nearly burned down the entire settlement."

  Chapter 12 - Secrets Never Told

&
nbsp; Suyef's arched eyebrow told me all I needed to know of what he thought of that claim.

  "Well, okay, maybe not the entire settlement," I said, amending my statement. "Ancient fire suppression systems are state of the art, you know that. Still, it took them a decent time to put it out."

  "Explain," he stated.

  I shifted, that fateful day coming back into my memory. "I should explain that it was actually my third attempt that caused all the ruckus. My first two attempts ended as bad, just not in as amazing a fashion and without any proof I'd done anything. That was the problem. I could claim it was Scripting all I wanted, but if no one saw it, I was just some silly, teenage boy who was pretending, just to get attention." I shrugged. "Call it a foolish pride moment. I just wanted someone to see me do it. Not even really sure why. It was going to cause a lot of trouble. Maybe part of me just wanted someone to notice I could do it. Recognition. It's a powerful draw for a young mind," I almost whispered the last part. "Heck, not even just for the young."

  I stared off into the core-night, my words having run out for the moment. Suyef, for his part, let me sit in peace for the time being. To be honest, how to explain what had happened was difficult, and for a reason beyond my ability to understand at the time, an extreme sense of shame filled me whenever this story came up. The part most people knew was in large part a fabrication, a lie told to cover up what really happened. Now, confronted, my instinct was to lie again, to keep telling the same old story. I fully intended to; I had the words formed in my mind and even opened my mouth to speak them.

  What I said was the exact opposite.

  "There was this guy who lived on the settlement. A bit older than me. Mostly harmless." I took a deep breath. "Mostly." I looked down as the wind kicked up some dust and whipped at our fire, trying to put out the endless flame emanating from the Seeker device below it. "I won't go into detail, but you need to know this much: things were done." I looked over at the Nomad. "To me." I looked back at the fire. "By him. Repeatedly."