“Now, pull Zin’s cord!” Jai yelled to Borda, her voice trailing off as she and Kevin pulled their cords. And, with one quick pull, Borda and Zin were flying up, high above. Zin felt his stomach lurch; he nearly passed out. Moments later, he hit the ground with a massive thud. Immediately, he turned to Borda. “Who the hell are you?” He stared Borda up and down.
“No time. Run!” Borda commanded. Borda picked himself off of the ground, a flat terrain, with nothing but dirt. Shots were firing in the distance. Instinctively, Zin crouched down. He barely had enough time to look over his shoulder. Borda grabbed hold of Zin’s arm, pulling Zin forward. “Run! Now!” Zin could hardly move, his legs uneasy, atrophied.
Borda seized Zin’s arm and wrapped it around his shoulder, as Jai and Kevin caught up. The four of them ran, as fast as they could, but Zin’s movements were uneven. He collapsed, stumbling over his feet, pulling Borda down along with him. Jai yanked Borda up, and pushed him aside. Borda spun around. “And, just what do you expect to do?” Borda asked.
“Just shut up!” Jai said. She didn’t have time for his goading. Hands to Zin’s legs, she silenced her mind and felt it, her brown eyes turning to a fierce green. She pushed her energy into Zin’s limbs, willing them to move as fast as they could. Zin felt his legs shake under her grasp; he stared at Jai, thunderstruck, feeling a strange sensation of déjà vu.
“Run, Zin!” she yelled. “Now!”
She was already hoisting him up, and they were off. This time, Zin kept pace with the rest of them, running as fast as he could toward the horizon. Jai led them where the border seemed to be. She could sense its energy, humming in the distance. A massive jeep, a souped up War Eagle, came flying out at them.
“Holy shit!” said Kevin. “Can this get any worse?” Two men, dressed in the same black garb as the Reapers Jai had seen before. They were leaning outside the doors, assault rifles in hand. Kevin swallowed hard, finding it hard to believe that this was his first encounter with a gun, any gun, and bullets were flying all around him. Kevin ran as fast as he could, narrowly escaping the onslaught. The jeep was closing in on them. Borda reached for a gun in his waistband, shot, and hit the man in the passenger seat. His head flew back against the headrest, flopping to the side.
“Nice!” Jai said, still running. Borda winked, but the driver was still in pursuit, setting the jeep to target mode. Course locked, the jeep drove straight toward the border. Jai could still see it now, a few hundred feet away. The border was beginning to open, to make way for their arrival. Immediately, Jai sensed the driver’s thoughts. This was the moment he was waiting for, for the border to open, so a missile could reach inside the Sentientscape. The driver walked to the back of the jeep, where the missile was propped. He took aim, poised to shoot. But, shots were firing at him, too. Jai snapped her head, back toward the border. Sean was shooting. He hit the driver, then the jeep’s tires. The Reapers were dead.
Still, Jai didn’t stop running. They rushed as fast as they could until they reached the gate. Sean, Mach, Diana, Avena, they were all standing, waiting earnestly for their arrival. Soon, Jai was touching her head lightly to theirs, and she felt the warmth of Sean’s arms wrapped around her. “Welcome home,” he said, his ebullient eyes meeting hers. She smiled until, suddenly, her face went blank. A bolt of electricity rushed through her temples. And, in an instant, his green eyes were gone. Everything was gone. Only a blinding blackness, and the strange, weightless sensation of her body, crashing to the ground.
Chapter 44
2121
“Sean, over here!” Jai could hear it. It was Kevin’s voice calling Sean over. Sean carried Jai to the medic’s area, where they lay her on a bed.
“You two, stay with her.” It was Borda. “Where’s her identification? And yours? I’ll handle it.”
“Here,” Kevin said, handing Borda all three of their I.D.s. The guards checked everyone’s identification, then let Kevin and Sean accompany Jai to a temporary, private room.
Immediately, Sean pressed Kevin for answers. “What the hell happened?” he asked. He’d seen Zin, fully revived. He was standing in line, speaking with the guards. “Kevin?” Sean pressed.
Kevin eyed Sean, urging him to keep quiet so he could activate his computer links and scan Jai’s vitals. “Jai siphoned and mind-synced with Zin.”
“What, when?!” Sean had seen the jet go down and everyone parachute out. How could there be any time to siphon, to sync? He blinked. “So my eyes weren’t deceiving me, then? Zin was running, after all? When did they siphon? When did they sync?”
“Jai did it in free-fall, after we all jumped out.” Kevin could see the anger rise with Sean’s shoulders, and gave Sean an admonishing look of his own. “Jai did it, Sean. She saved Zin. Bottom line, she saved all of us. We wouldn’t have made it if she hadn’t forced Zin to wake up. There’s no way we could’ve carried Zin comatose. With him awake, we barely escaped.”
Sean raised his voice. “So, I’m supposed to be happy that Jai and Zin have traded places?” Sean looked down at Jai, frantic for any sign that she might stir. What will I do, if she never wakes up? He shuddered at the thought. Sean wanted reassurance. “Her vitals are fine? Will she wake up soon?”
Kevin’s silence wasn’t reassuring. Jai could feel him, attaching the MRI-OIS sensors to her head. Moments later, she heard Kevin’s voice, somber and dark.
“What the hell is that?” Sean’s voice was frantic.
Kevin had displayed the scan, zooming in, then out, of each frame. “I don’t know,” Jai heard Kevin say. “Jai’s siphoning pattern, that black Mandelbrot’s still there. But, it’s not just energy anymore. The Mandelbrot’s taken hold.” He commanded the computer cuffs to measure and analyze the Mandelbrot’s structure at multiple points, then pointed to the numbers on the screen. “This is different from before. This has structure, real weight. And, look at how it’s spiraled. It’s grown again.” Kevin zoomed out.
Deep, in the soft tissue inside of Jai’s skull, was a black conical structure, like the shell of a murex snail, winding its way through the cracks and crevices of her mind. Hundreds of spines reached out, obsidian spikes that had burrowed deep inside of her. A rainbow of electricity erupted as each synapse made contact, linking the obsidian shell with the neurons throughout her brain.
“This is amazing,” Kevin said. He collapsed back, sitting on Jai’s bed. “You know, I used to say sentients were like murex snails because our enhanced genome gave our species unparalleled protection, like an exterior shell with over a hundred spines to keep us safe, but, inside, we were just as soft as a human. We had to eat. We had to siphon energy to survive. I used to say that, as a metaphor.
"But, never in a million years would I imagine this: a sentient with a physical shell, with protective armor, literally, on the inside. A sentient who can not only siphon, but sync minds, and use her siphon to bore her mind into another person’s psyche. If normal sentients are like murex snails, then Jai is a like a Venus comb murex, the Queen of all murex, capable of feeding on others, in an unparalleled way. The MRI-OIS proves it’s true. And, I’ve felt it before, when she synced with my mind. I lost all control over my body and nearly all of my thoughts. Her eyes went black, just like the obsidian shell that’s grown here, inside of her brain. Her siphon’s like an obsidian blade. It cuts through the psyche.
"I never thought a siphon could manifest as a solid structure, in any sentient’s brain. But, Jai's siphon has. She's not only the Eldest; she's the only sentient with a physical siphon…the most lethal of them all, a Venus siphon.”
Sean sat, wringing his hands. “Do you think it’s like a cancer?” His voice was shaking.
“Honestly, I don’t know,” Kevin said. “I know you’re afraid, Sean. I am too. But, we shouldn’t jump to conclusions.”
“But, she’s passed out.” Sean was frantic. “And, you’ve seen her in the past, she’s been in so much pain!”
“Yes,” Kevin said, thoughtfully. “I know. It’
s serious, that’s certain. But, we can’t assume the shell’s malignant.” Sean shook his head, fearing the worst. “We have to keep an open mind,” Kevin emphasized, and placed a hand on Sean’s shoulder. “Who knows? This may be natural, for her. Each time she’s experienced less pain, while gaining more control over her new talents. Jai is obviously unique, the true Eldest, the most powerful of our kind.” Kevin’s voice grew quiet, hushed. “You have to wonder, is this the next developmental stage for the entire sentient species? Or, is this something else, something unique to Jai? Perhaps one day, we’ll know.”
Jai felt the truth in her being, deep within her body. Though they thought she’d passed out, she was more aware than she'd ever been before. She could not move, could not see, but without needing to, she knew what they’d seen on the MRI-OIS. She could sense the obsidian shell humming away in her brain. And, she could hear, with pinpoint precision everything they were saying.
And, somehow, she understood. The shell was an armor, armor only she could wear, on the inside. She could sense it, even as they had transported her into that room. As each spine, each obsidian spike, drove deeper into her brain, she could feel her senses grow. She could hear every thought, sense every being, in the vicinity. It was overwhelmingly powerful.
And, the more she had listened, the more fearful she had become. As they had transported her inside, down the vast Sentientscape halls, she could sense the guards along the towers. The guards along the fence. The guards standing at every checkpoint and entryway, walking inside and along the perimeter. Their thoughts clamored deep in Jai’s mind. Check everyone's identification. Weed out every human. Separate the humans from the sentients. Family or not, humans go to “Checkpoint 4,” the checkpoint that was, in actuality, a long tunnel, where the humans would discover — far too late — that they weren’t being welcomed inside. No, they were being shown the exit, returned to the cold, cruel world they had hoped to leave behind. The world Jai and her family had rushed to escape. The world from which humans had no respite. For humans were not welcome in the Sentientscape.
And, just like that, Jai knew: the Sentientscape was not a mere moniker for the new home that the sentients had built. It was a home, named for those welcomed within it, to the exclusion of those who were not like them. Immediately, Jai understood its meaning. Mach would be separated from his parents, from his human mother Elizabeth and his sentient father James; for James would never leave his wife, and Mach would never leave Diana or their unborn baby. Just as Jai never would have left her mother, had Joy been alive to see that day.
Jai pictured her mom, running alongside the children, women, and men in the street. How close was Mom to becoming like them? Innocent and struggling to survive, humans were being left, helpless to rise above the violence that surrounded them, the destruction and hatred that had overtaken the nation. What of those innocents? Where could they turn? Where could they go? How could humans defend themselves, when my sentient family could barely escape?
Jai could feel the sorrow welling deep within her body, as an electric bolt ran down her spine. The obsidian shell was reaching out, like an enlarged hand, grasping, growing, taking hold of her mind. What good will this armor do, when it might only protect me? She wanted to scream, to cry out, but her body lay heavy and hard, motionless on the bed.
❖
Like a stone from a pond,
falling in a deep black sea,
Jai was far away from her home,
afraid of what her new home might be,
divided by a border,
the next Chapter of our nation’s history.
❖
Obsidian: Birth to Venus (The Obsidian Chronicles Book 1) Page 30