by Dave Walsh
“Are you sure that it’s safe in here?” She looked around the room nervously.
“I’m quite certain. Otherwise, I’m sure I would have been executed and made an example of a long time ago. At least labeled a traitor.”
“Traitor?” She furrowed her brow, prying her eyes away from the window to look back at him. “What do you mean?”
“Kara, there’s something I haven’t been telling you.” He cleared his throat before taking another sip of tea. “Jonah left a message for Katrijn for when he died. He entrusted this message only to me and the day Jonah passed away I played it for her. She let me stay to listen to it, which Jonah had assumed she’d do anyway, but I saw the message. Ever since then I’ve been in contact with Katrijn in secret.”
“So you have spoken to her?” Kara stared down at her hands in her lap, nodding absently while O’Neil felt the weight of that secret leave him finally. He got up to comfort her but she held her hand out and shook her head. “No, I’m fine really, but you’ve spoken with Katrijn? How is she?”
“Last I heard she was fine,” he said. “But this was before that ship was attacked. I haven’t heard anything since.”
“Oh.” She sat back and took a deep breath. “But wait, do you know why she left?”
“It was for her own safety, you have to believe it.”
“Her own safety?”
“This is where it gets complicated.” He pulled his desk chair back and sat down in it, wheeling himself toward the couch to face the empress. “We are pretty certain that Cronus was the one who murdered your husband, or at least was involved in the plot to kill him because Jonah left everything to Katrijn.”
“What?”
“He framed Katrijn—like we suspected he’d do knowing that his father left everything to her—and drove her away.” O’Neil let the silence hang in the air between them, noticing Kara fidgeting on the couch. “I’ve been helping her stay a step ahead of the Republic, which I guess seems to be my lot in life, in a way.”
“What do you mean?”
“I helped Jonah when he was exiled down here and now I’ve helped your daughter,” he explained. “That’s my place in history, at least. I’m okay with it.”
“I’m sorry.” She straightened her back up, immediately looking more regal. “I’m just taking this all in. I had always assumed that Cronus had something to do with his father’s death and never believed that Katrijn had anything to do with it, but…I don’t know.”
“It’s been painful for me to serve under such a monster and to watch all of this,” he motioned with his hand around the room, “just turn into a nightmare. We had a vision of a new beginning for humanity, but instead, it is just like someone hit the reset button and started the whole cycle over again. It makes me wonder if things really can be changed, if we can be saved from ourselves.”
“I don’t even know,” she said. “How can we fix this?”
“That’s what I’ve been working on.” He swallowed hard. “The first thing we gotta do, though, is find out what happened to Katrijn. If any of this is going to change, we need her.”
003. The Plot
Alva
Trallex strode in, looking as confident and strong as ever. From what Alva could tell, not much had changed about Trallex since he first negotiated with her father and Ingen back on Andlios. There was a chance that his insides had been swapped out for newer models, but outwardly he looked almost exactly the same as he was pictured back then. He wore his cape and hood over his simple, elegant mask. The mask had a gold-laced respirator valve near the mouth and a mirrored lens covering his eyes. From what Alva knew (and had seen when wearing one of their masks), there were readouts and information constantly streaming in their viewfinders and they were also able to get a clear picture of their surroundings.
She was exhausted after her workout; they had finally found the perfect settings for her right arm and she was able to fight just like she was able to when she was younger without the holdups and occasional lag like she had been encountering since she woke up to find herself part machine. Alva was always jealous of their masks, asking a few times for one of her own to feel more at home among the Cydonians, but Trallex had insisted that she remain “pure”—or at least as pure as she could under the circumstances. There were already enough augmentations inside her own body for her to start questioning her humanity, so what would the harm be in seeing the universe as they did? That was the argument she had been making to Trallex for months now, only for him to brush it off each time.
“You are finally syncing with your implants,” he hissed, Alva noting a hint of pleasure in his voice. “Good.”
“Yeah,” she nodded, wiping off her brow with a towel while she strode back into her quarters, tossing her pulseaxe onto the couch. “It’s taken so long, but everything finally seems…right? If I could see like you do, though, that might be different…”
“Excellent.” He stood, unmoving, in the center of the room. “It took many cycles to find the right balance of implants for you to remain visibly unremarkable.”
“You really know how to charm a girl.” She wrapped the towel around the back of her neck. “Most would say I turned out just fine.”
He stood there, not making a single noise.
“Oh, come on,” she said. “You guys have no sense of humor.”
“Be that as it may,” he said. “We should begin your training as soon as possible now that you are comfortable.”
“Begin?” She looked over at him, puzzled. She had spent the last few cycles since she was awakened in that tube being operated on and training to ensure that everything worked properly. “I’ve finally got the hang of all of these…things…and you say that I haven’t even started my training yet?”
“Princess Alva,” he hissed calmly, his hands folded behind his back. Trallex began to sit, a chair quickly gliding across the floor and neatly tucking itself underneath him right at the moment he made contact. It was a neat illusion that had always amazed Alva, but she found herself exhausted and confused, not amused by his parlor tricks. “We have a lot to prepare for if you are to bring order to Andlios.”
“Everyone keeps talking about what I’m supposed to be doing,” she said, tossing her wet towel at him, only for it to stop short, dangling in the air before it fell to the ground. “Great move, I never get sick of that one,” she rolled her eyes. “But look, no one can tell me exactly how I’m supposed to bring this balance back to anything. I was dead, you brought me back and I’m thankful, but I’m not sure what you want from me.”
“Your destiny, Alva,” he spat out matter-of-factly.
“My destiny?” She shook her head, letting out a laugh while she stepped back toward her shower. Since Cydonians existed inside of their self-sustaining and self-cleaning encounter suits, the shower was specifically installed for her inside what she could only assume was a place that housed Cydonians. Alva carefully stripped away her tank top and shorts, tossing them aside before stepping under the special, ionized shower they had developed for her. “It sounds like you want me to just make things easier for the Cydonians is all.”
“You yourself are more Cydonian than you’d like to admit.” He sat, his right leg draped over his left and his hands neatly folded in his lap, waiting for her to be done cleaning herself. Alva knew that he had no interest in her body, nor did any Cydonian really care about carnal desires. She still had a hard time understanding it, but it made her life easier not having to worry about gawking or privacy.
“I guess I am,” she yelled out from under the shower, the water a welcomed distraction after a hard day of training with her implants.
“You know you don’t have to yell,” he quickly interjected.
“I know, your suits can isolate and amplify whatever you want it to, but I feel better this way.” She stepped out from the shower with a towel wrapped around her body, mostly out of habit not humility. “But it’s hard to break such habits. My hearing might be enhanced as
well, but I still have years of experience as a human girl, you know.”
“Which is what we’ve tried to preserve in you,” he explained. “You have all of the best improvements we have available to us, all while still retaining an outwardly human form. They’ve looked down upon us for generations, see our ways as cruel or against nature. You are the ultimate Cydonian…”
“I’m not a Cydonian,” she interrupted him, doing her best to ignore the chill that ran down her spine. “I’m a Krigan Warrior. I lived as one and I died like one.”
“That is correct. You died as one. You were reborn as a Cydonian, modified to be able to carry out what needs to be done and to make your destiny a reality.”
“‘What needs to be done?’” She pulled a Krigan jerkin over her head, tugging her wet hair out from under it and letting it fall over the back. “That is some pretty ominous Trallex-speak if you don’t mind me saying.”
“You’ve known your destiny since we rebirthed you, Alva,” Trallex stated, choosing his words carefully. “We’ve treated you like one of our own.”
“But, see,” she said, “there’s always one thing I’ve asked and I’ve asked you this almost daily since I’ve been here, and I’ve never gotten a straight answer to it: did my father ask you to bring me back?”
“You’ve seen the video,” he said. Alva detecting just a glimmer of anger in his voice. Cydonians were not the most emotional of people, but at times little glimmers of emotion would break through their iron veneers. Their respirators hid most of their inflection, but whatever came through gave them away to those who knew what to look for. She had been around him long enough to be able to detect these minor aberrations.
“Yes,” she said pulling her wet braid back and giving it a few tugs to tighten it up. She was due for a full wash of her hair, but with Trallex there talking about destiny, she didn’t dare waste his time. “But it was never conclusive. He never directly said that he wanted you to bring me back. In fact, I’ve seen my own funeral, I’ve seen my own casket lit ablaze on the river. Not many people have had to endure that while watching their father—a strong, proud man—in tears.” Alva realized that she was shouting and caught herself. “No Krigan should have to bear that burden.”
“You are much, much more than a Krigan now, Princess Alva. You are the bridge between our cultures, you are the perfection of humanity and Cydonian. To put it plainly, you are you. No one else is like you.”
“Everyone I love is gone, Trallex.” Alva felt empty on the inside at speaking it out loud. She was more machine than human at this point, but she still felt heartache just the same. “What does Andlios need with me, anyway? What do you?”
“I will answer that in time.” He was attempting to soothe her, which usually just upset her more. “For now, I’m here to help train you.”
“Trallex, leader of the Cydonians is here to train me, Alva of the Krigans?” She jutted her tongue into her bottom lip.
“You know the tenets of leadership are simply to appease the others, that the Cydonians are able to either operate independently or to work as a collective.” He stood up from the chair, outstretching his hand before closing it into a fist. “How we operate is beyond the understanding of most humans, who have never been a part of a collective before.”
“I’m mostly like you now.” She pointed at her right arm, which was bulkier than her left and without flesh, simply metallic, lined with red LED indicators and a console on her forearm. “I’m not a part of the collective, I’m just me.”
“That is where you are wrong.” He reached out for her arm, stopping short to wait for her permission. She pulled away at first, then apprehensively held her arm out and nodded. “Good, now let me enter a few things here and…” He reached into his cape behind his back, producing a small box, no bigger than a thumbnail. “You’ll need to wear these to see as we do.”
“Okay.” She took the tiny box out of his hand, sliding it open to see two tiny flat discs. “What are they? Data crystals?”
“No.” He shook his head, pointing at her eyes. “They are a form of lens; place them in your eyes and we’ll begin configuring them.”
“You are kidding, right?” Alva stared down at them long and hard before shrugging and placing her finger around the outside of one and holding it up to her eye. The light caught it and a brilliant array of colors danced in front of her face. She tilted her head back and felt the cold disc touch her eyeball before she let go, blinking quickly and feeling the strange sensation of the thin disc bonding with her eye. The other eye was just as easy, but it left her feeling strange. “So now what?”
“Just give it a second and—”
“Oh my gods!” she exclaimed, noticing a scroll of text on her right eye, the name “Trallex” neatly hovering over Trallex’s figure in front of her and a full readout of the conditions of the room, time of day, temperature and air pressure. “I can’t believe this.”
“Give it time to bond to your systems.” He was being very careful. “Eventually it will become second nature and anything you can imagine will be displayed before you. Most of us have our displays on our respirator shields, but this is new, this is something we’ve been developing for many years now. You are the first to be given a pair. They will require some maintenance, but not as much as you would imagine.”
“This is amazing,” she muttered to herself, turning around and noting her surroundings, seeing things differently. It was a matter of simply thinking something before her readout adjusted and found any answers she might need. She was able to find both of her birthdates, even her weight and projected strength. “You’ve always had this?”
Trallex simply nodded, hands clenched behind his back. “This is how true Cydonians experience existence.”
“How do you handle it?” She was looking around the room in pure awe, information scrawling through her displays at a fever pace. She almost didn’t know how to handle all of it. It felt like too much for her to process. “There’s just so much going on, so much information.”
“You learn to process it all with time.” He had spent more time with her in her quarters than he usually did, which meant that this wouldn’t be the only gift that day. “But like I said before, today is about beginning your training.”
“Okay,” she nodded, swallowing and trying to ignore the scroll of information that told her Trallex’s body temperature, height and biography. “I hope that means harnessing this insanity.”
“That is just what it takes to be a Cydonian, Alva,” he was trying to sound reassuring, but the respirators made all Cydonians sound monotone and flat when they wanted to actually convey emotions. “What I mean is utilizing your abilities, controlling the ebb and flow of the world around you.”
“You mean like you moving that chair with your mind?” she asked.
“Not with my mind, no.” He shook his head. “Although that is what we want the normals to believe, the truth is much more complicated. I’m here to teach you how to harness these abilities.”
“Wait, harness them?” She looked up at him, confused. She had mentally prepared herself for another long round of modification surgeries, for another augmentation that would make her that much closer to being mostly machine. “You mean I don’t need another mod?”
“The disrupters have already been installed,” he explained. “Now it is just a matter of teaching you to use them. It is just a matter of teaching you the secret that has kept Cydonians feared and respected for many cycles. Today I teach you the theory, tomorrow you will do it for yourself.”
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “There is no other way.”
004. The Dark Side of Cyngen
Jace
There hadn’t been a whole lot of discussion between Kat and Jace throughout the last leg of the journey. Jace had adjusted to keeping to himself for so long that he almost didn’t know how to handle dealing with another person occupying space that he never had to share previously. L
ingering memories of his past life kept rushing back to Jace, of sharing his home with his wife, Ro, and he had to remind himself that Kat was a stranger who he had just met and who felt most comfortable with a gun pointed at him. Needless to say, he made sure to remind himself to keep his distance. Thankfully, she had kept mostly to herself as well, so those moments of confusion were fleeting, although still painful.
The planet was within visual range when he finally sent a quick message down to the planet. Usually, procedure entailed going through official channels, but due to the nature of his operation, things were different on every planet and at each individual port. Luckily enough, Cyngen had very little in the way of Republic presence that there was usually little chance of hitting any snags when heading down to the planet. His panel lit up and he peered down to see a set of coordinates.
Cymages weren’t huge on names and didn’t really break up their civilizations by cities or anything like that. Cyngen was Cyngen. That meant that the entire planet was technically Cyngen and that no specific portion of it was differentiated from the other by anything other than numbers. There were no cities, there were no states, it was all just Cyngen. That meant deciphering coordinates for each location, which the Cymages saw as efficient, but Jace figured it was just another way for them to set themselves apart from the rest of humanity. Jace understood that everyone was part of one big, happy family at this point, but it still bothered him with just how different the Cymages handled things; different, but still human. It was human in a way that was obscure and difficult to understand, but still human. These people were merged with machines, but they still had some humanity left in them.
“Kat,” he called onto the comm.
“What’s up?”
“We’re about to enter atmo, you might want to buckle yourself in.” He began punching in the coordinates and preparing the ship to break out of orbit and into the atmosphere.