“I can’t believe this,” Zelph said, the AI himself finding it hard to cope.
Q looked as each humanoid creature floated in the red glowing liquid, their eyes closed, their faces tilted towards the ground.
“What do you think we can do?” he mumbled.
“To save them?” Zelph asked.
“Forget it,” he said, unsure of why he even said anything in the first place. Maybe he really was losing it. He walked through the matrix of clones in front of him. He kept going and going, still finding row and after row appearing endlessly into his vision.
Does this thing ever end? he wondered.
“Go right,” Zelph said. “I can sense something coming from there.”
Q wasted no time and did as Zelph told him. Even though he was now heading in a new direction, the view was exactly the same; row on row of hibernating clones.
For a moment Q panicked, wondering what would happen if all the clones were activated right at this moment, but the thought was a little too wild to hold precedence over his mind.
Just as Zelph had said, the faint image of some sort of object came from the distance. Q’s legs invigorated, and he rushed to it, his muscle pumping at full force.
A massive screen was positioned on the wall before him and under it was a large console; a wide table filled with keyboards, dials, and switches. It almost looked like this was the dashboard of a warship’s main deck. That’s how fleshed out all the tech was.
“A computer,” Zelph said quietly.
“You look surprised.”
“I didn’t think that we’d find one here,” he said. “The ship’s main network doesn’t know of this computer.”
“It’s off the network?” Q raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah,” Zelph said. “No network is even remotely connected to it. The ship isn’t aware that this system exists.”
“Well, it wasn’t even aware this room existed either.”
“That’s true.”
“So,” Q said. “Can you get into it?”
“Already finished that while we were talking,” Zelph chuckled.
A hologram opened out in the air in front of Q. A menu pulled up, showing him all the files present on that computer system. He picked out the one called Stats. Another hologram popped out on the other side of his vision and showed him the file. It was titled ‘Clone batch no. 14’.
Q’s nerves shivered, in realization that there were thirteen batches of clones before this one. Were they all batches of failed clones? Or were they all clones that had been deployed into battle already?
Either scenario made Q cringe.
He scrolled down the file. It had ‘start date’ written on it, but it continued in junk code so it showed up as random symbols he couldn’t understand.
“Problem?” Q asked.
“Yeah, that file seems a bit corrupt.”
“Whoever took care of this computer didn’t do a very good job of it.”
“Well, I actually went through the files right now, and I couldn’t find anything substantial in terms of data.”
“Oh.”
“This computer seems to just be for controlling the condition of those clones. That’s about it.”
“Can you keep searching?” he asked.
“I am, but I don’t think there’s any point to it.”
“It’s fine, keep going. Between knowing something stupid and not knowing something important, I’d rather make sure I know everything I can.”
Zelph laughed. “Gotcha.”
Q stepped away from the computer and took a closer look at all the clones. He placed his hand on their glass shell, feeling the cool liquid push at it as it flowed by. He wondered how many people were in this facility. A thousand? Two thousand?
“There are five thousand here,” Zelph said. “Just checked the systems.”
Q didn’t bother reacting to that. His mind didn’t bother panicking, his body didn’t bother freezing in shock. That had already happened too many times for him to not be accustomed to it.
“I couldn’t find anything else, boss,” Zelph said.
“Expected,” Q sighed. “What do you think-”
A flash of light hit his face and his eyes immediately reflected the pure horror he felt when he turned around. The humanoids were still in their cells, but every last one was writhing in pain as bright blue electricity coursed through their body, frying their nerves.
Their screams of terror resulted in nothing but the bubbling of air, and their violent convulsions merely pushes of red liquid around them. An entire chamber was being tortured, and the only thing that made any noise was silence itself.
“Boss, new files have appeared on the computer.”
Q’s eyes turned quizzical. “Appeared?” he asked. “Like just now?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Looks like there are more secrets to this thing than I expected.”
Q, meanwhile, rushed back to the computer, wondering if he could figure out any of the controls and turn off this torture chamber.
Why is Levi doing this to his own clones? he cursed. Was he trying to break his spirit on purpose? The image of Taylor in that flawless white dress entered his mind and he made it leave just as quickly. He had no time to think of her. He didn’t want to think of her.
He knew he wouldn’t be able to handle it if he did.
“Got it!” Zelph said and displayed the file for him. A long list of codes opened up and some morphed into words as Zelph translated them from machine language.
Military Training Arc One, the file read.
Oh please no, Q froze. It can’t be that.
His eyes lowered into the content of the files. Each line described a particular fighting style, both human and alien, that would be enforced into the clones. How would they be enforced?
Shock therapy.
It was a technique of mild torture to make sure the recipient learned something or acted a certain way. Levi though, had thrown the ‘mild’ out of the park and gone on with full-fledged torture.
He was torturing them into learning every single deathly art possible.
The bubbling noises got louder, and so did the flashes of electricity that shone in Q’s eyes. Everything was getting more intense.
“Zelph, can you turn it off?” he asked, his voice weak.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said. “I’m still not aware of how this system works. It’d be very easy to trip an alarm and I don’t think either of us want that at the moment.”
Q remained silent, realizing that Zelph was right. He turned around, his eyes turning away from the clones, and sat down facing the blank screen on the wall.
“What are you doing?”
“We’re going to wait.”
“For the learning process to stop?”
“No, for Levi to come into this place.”
“Ah,” Zelph said.
The bubbling in Q’s ears faded away as the minutes passed, soon turning into mere silence. Q never looked back though, too afraid to discover something even worse going on.
“Are you okay?” Zelph asked.
“Yeah, why?”
“Well, I’ve seen everything that you have and even I, an AI, can’t really handle it all.”
Q smiled. “Maybe I just don’t acknowledge everything that happened.”
“So you’re living in an imaginary world?” Zelph asked, a childish tone to his voice.
“Boy, this conversation turned very dark in seconds,” Q laughed. His eyes looked at the dark screen. “What would you rather do?” he asked. “Accept that the ones that matter are gone? Or that the world around you is just fake?”
Zelph stayed silent for a long time. “I get it,” he finally said.
“Thank you,” he smiled.
“But isn’t everything going to feel wrecked once you’re forced to accept everything that’s going on around you?”
“Of course it will feel wrecked. It’ll feel terrible,” he said. “But by th
en every single war or battle that I have to fight would have ended. Then I’ll have all the time in the world to cry and push everything out of my mind.”
“You sound like you’re looking forward to it,” Zelph said, chuckling nervously.
Q thought of Taylor, of Chris and Kai. He thought of his dead parents, of the Kai he had met in the future.
“Maybe I am looking forward to it,” he smiled.
“You’re weird.”
“Oh please, I don’t want to hear that from you.”
“Well, you’re gonna hear that from me whether you like it or not,” Zelph laughed and Q joined in. His mind saw the irony in all this. This was the first human moment he was having in a long time, and ironically it was with an AI system.
The ship jerked harshly, and Q held onto the console to stop himself from flying through the air. “What’s going on?”
Zelph was silent for a few seconds, obviously trying to tap into the ship’s network. “Oh, we’re out of hyperspace,” he said.
“That’s convenient. Where are we now?”
“The coordinates suggest we’re close to this ship’s destination point.”
“But?”
“But, both our current location and destination can’t be found on a regular map.”
“You mean they’re both non-existent?”
“They’ve either been wiped out of the system, or they’re just empty bits of space no one bothered to chart.”
“Option number two seems unlikely.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m pretty sure people would chart anything, as long as they were the first ones to find it.”
“Wait, then couldn’t it be that this ship was just the first one to actually find this place?”
“You really think anyone could take this planned a journey to an unknown location?” he asked. “You need to be lost to actually discover someplace new.”
“Fine,” he sighed.
“Ah,” Zelph said.
“What?” Q asked, tensing up.
“Nothing significant. The Dark Knight’s stealth fighter has just caught up to us.”
“It sent you a signal?” Q was annoyed. “It could give away its presence if this ship detects that signal!”
“Don’t worry, I’ve reconfigured these systems to delete all records of any transmissions that go through me.”
Q sighed. “You’re quite handy aren’t you?” he smiled.
“More than you think,” Zelph laughed.
“Okay, so what is our ship telling us?”
“There wasn’t any message on board, but I can use it to get a better connection with Empress Andrea.”
“Fine, get her on the line. But make sure you don’t show her these clones.”
“You want to hide them from her?”
“I don’t think it’s my job to inform her on things I don’t know enough about.”
“Fine,” Zelph said. “Patching through the Empress.”
The hologram opened up, and showed the Empress sleeping peacefully on her bed.
“What?” Q asked, confused and embarrassed at once, his voice involuntarily yelling it out.
“Oops, looks like she was asleep,” Zelph said.
The Empress stirred, obviously disturbed by Q’s yelling. Her eyes opened slowly, and shot wide awake the moment she saw the hologram feed.
“Q,” she said drowsily, getting herself up from her bed. She wore exactly what she did all the time. A sleeveless gown of black that looked like darkness had been woven into it.
“Must be tough to sleep in that thing,” Zelph said.
“No one asked for your opinion,” Q mumbled.
“I didn’t know the Empress was asleep, okay? Now don’t get all annoyed over that.”
The Empress sat up and looked into the feed. “What’s going on at your end?” she yawned. “If you’ve contacted me now I guess that means you’ve gotten out of hyperspace?”
“Yeah. It happened just seconds ago.”
“How is the stealth fighter doing?” she rubbed her eyes.
“So far so good,” he said. “I don’t think anyone has found its presence yet.”
“I can attest to that,” Zelph said.
Andrea smiled. “Thank you, Zelph,” she said, as though she were praising a child.
“Wait, you can hear him?” Q asked, surprised.
“Of course she can,” he said. “I’m the one connecting the feed in the first place. I can speak to her if I want to.”
“Anyway,” the Empress interjected, moving things to topic. “Are you okay? Have you kept out of sight?”
Q nodded. “So far no one has any trace of me,” he said. “I have to say we were lucky they assumed I was in the deployed ship.”
“Yeah,” Andrea half-glared at him. “Do you have any idea how terrorized we were when we found that escape pod empty?”
“Ah, sorry about that.”
“You should thank me,” Zelph said. “If I hadn’t told them we were still aboard the warship they’d be having our funeral right now.”
“Thanks,” Q grumbled.
“Just how far behind you is the stealth fighter?” Andrea asked.
“Wait, you don’t have contact with it?” Q asked.
“We cut off all communications with it. We have to be as careful as possible to make sure the fighter wasn’t detected. Our control room should turn on comm systems in a bit, after we make sure the signals can’t be detected.”
“What else do we have on that ship?”
“Valkyrie,” she smiled.
“What?” he asked, unsure of how to react. “You sent Valkyrie back to me?”
“I told you to always keep it with you,” she sighed. “You’re the one who gave it back to me unnecessarily.”
“I gave it back because I was going to meet Levi!” he said. “What would we have done if he had gotten hold of the sword?”
“Even he knows how ridiculous it is for him to consider that sword a deadly weapon when he has the Infinity cannon in the palm of his hand.”
“We actually deactivated the cannon though,” Q said.
“What?!” the Empress half-jumped into the air, a wide smile on her face. “That’s great!”
Q heard the Empress’ door open, and a Dark Knight handed her a glass tablet that had a ton of info projecting onto it.
“Is that from the control room?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said, her face changing as she glanced through the content.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“We may have a bit of a problem on our hands,” she said.
Q’s mind focused the moment the word ‘problem’ entered his ears. “What happened?”
“Zelph, can you confirm your coordinates to me? Triple-check them if you have to.”
Just where in the world are we heading? he asked, realizing the destination was probably what was throwing Andrea off.
“How are you handling things?” the Empress looked at him. “Is everything okay? It must be hard looking at that bright white all the time.”
“Bright white?” he asked, and turned around to the dark cloning chambers in front of him.
“Yeah, the white walls around you,” she said a bit nervous.
“Boss, you asked me to not show her the clones, remember?” Zelph said.
So you actually changed my background? Q asked, unsure of whether he was impressed or annoyed with that.
“Yup,” Zelph said. “I just forgot to give you a heads up.”
Q turned to Andrea. “Sorry about that,” he grinned sheepishly. “I was stuck in a vent which was quite dark, so I keep seeing that shade even if I’m in a bright white room.”
“Oh,” the Empress said. “Is everything okay now?” she asked as she swiped through the data that was live streaming to the glass tablet.
“Yeah,” Q forced a smile. “We’re fine.”
“Coordinates have been checked,” Zelph said. “I’ve sent the file to you, your Highness.”
“Got it,” the Empress said and opened it up. Loud rock music started playing through her tablet, and both she and Q looked extremely confused.
“Ooops, wrong file,” Zelph said. “Looks like Levi has a musical interest as well.”
“You idiot,” Q sighed. He wondered why there were any music files on a ship like this. This place didn’t seem like it appreciated the human elements of life, and music was top on the list of things people made for pleasure alone.
“I sent the proper ones now,” Zelph said.
Andrea opened them up. “Thank you,” she said. “Now I just need to check something.” Her eyes drifted as they moved between the different windows on her pad. Her expression slowly changed and her eyes widened, in surprise, in wonder, and mostly, in fear.
“That doesn’t look good,” Zelph said.
Yeah, Q agreed.
She turned to them, obviously forcing a smile on her face.
“Were you able to find what you wanted?” Q asked, even though he could clearly see that she had.
“Yeah, we did,” she said. “Zelph, did you try checking the general maps?” she asked.
“Yeah, but this place was not on any of them. It’s just blank.”
“That’s expected,” she said. “Your maps are probably not as old as the Dark Knight’s maps are.”
“So where exactly are we going?” Q asked.
The Empress transferred a hologram to Q’s vision. A snow-white planet displayed in front of him, its surface smooth and pure.
“That’s where you’re going,” the Empress said, her voice turning quiet. “The White Knights’ home world, Orpheus.”
***
4-2
Orpheus, Q thought as his eyes scanned the holographic image of the planet.
He knew he should be very worried, that he should be very afraid, that terror should have seized his mind. But his mind stayed calm and collected.
He turned to the Empress. “How come the regular maps don’t have any mention of this planet?”
“Orpheus was said to have been destroyed during the Great War.”
“The Megethos attacked it?” Q asked, feeling a bit conflicted about that fact. He was finding it hard to look at the Megethos as villains ever since he went to the future world.
The Quest Saga Collection: Books 1 - 5 Page 93