by Peter Telep
“We don’t have time.”
“Believe me, you do.”
“Didn’t my father tell you? If he doesn’t turn into a mask, they’ll kill him.”
She glances away and her voice cracks. “I know all about it, Doc.”
“Then tell me how to stop this.”
“We’ll talk.”
Keane rushes up to us. He’s walking kind of funny as he asks, “Hi, Doc’s Grandmother. Name’s Keane. So is there a restroom?”
She smiles. “Quite a few.” She works the panel on the next set of doors, which rumble open. The chamber ahead has a ceiling about thirty feet high and covered in rectangular black panels that twinkle like stars.
“It’s weird up there,” I say. “Almost like we’re outside.”
“It’s a construction material used by the First Ones. It holds well against the pressure down here.”
“Uh, yeah, hello, restroom?” Keane asks again, shifting his weight between legs.
“Take that first hall on the left, and the bathroom will be on your right,” my grandmother says.
Keane races off, with the girls trailing behind him, saying they need to go, too.
My grandmother guides the rest of us into the chamber.
“So you’re the only one here?” I ask.
“We had nearly a hundred on our team, but after the withering, most of them left to find their families. A few came back, and they lived here with me and my husband until Solomon’s army finally got in.”
“You mean…”
She nods grimly. “He killed them all—including your grandfather.”
I pant with anger and talk through my teeth: “I hate him so much right now… I can’t even begin to tell you.”
“I know, Doc. I’ve been there, but his day will come.”
She leads us into the first hallway. A normal-looking metal door built into the wall appears on the right, and we enter a cafeteria about the size of the one at my high school, with long tables, banks of cabinets, and heavy doors and work tables at the far end.
“The kitchen’s in the back. And don’t worry. I have enough here for over five hundred years. That’s no exaggeration, so please, help yourselves.”
“It’s not drugged, is it?” I ask her.
She frowns, so I tell her about my birthday party and my father’s little surprise “gift.”
“Doc, get something to eat.”
“Okay.” I turn to Hedera, who’s standing near the grren. “Can you make sure they get something, too?”
“Sure. But what about you? I mean are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, I don’t believe you.” She winces sympathetically and heads off.
From the corner of my eye, I spot my father chatting once again with Joshua. I turn back to my grandmother and ask, “What’s that about?”
“The future. Now go. Eat.”
“I’ll get my friends.” I hustle back into the corridor and meet up with Keane and the girls outside.
I glance back at the cafeteria door. “She has food.”
“Awesome, I’m starving,” Keane says.
They all rush past me.
“Guys, wait.”
They stop, their expressions asking what?
“I guess…” I can’t talk. I’m not sure what’s happening. My heart’s racing.
Damn, I’m breaking down like an idiot right in front of them. I swat off the tears.
“Dude, what’s wrong?” Keane asks.
“That’s a stupid question,” Meeka snaps.
“Doc, it’s okay,” Steffanie says. “We get it.”
I nod. “It’s just too much, you know?”
“Yeah,” she says. “This pain is worse.”
Meeka pulls me into her arms, and Steffanie puts her hands on my shoulders.
“He lies to me about everything,” I say. “Then I find out he’s turning into a mask, and then, oh, yeah, here’s your grandmother, the one I said was dead. And then I find out Solomon killed a grandfather I never knew… so they dump all of this on me… and at the same time, I can’t stop thinking about Julie and Tommy and Grace and everyone else who got taken. And now Blink’s gone.”
“Doc, what’s your job?” comes a familiar and unexpected voice from behind us.
This persona, or more accurately, immortal, is dressed in dusty nomad’s clothes. His gray hair sticks out like bed head, and his scraggly beard looks covered in more dust. A large tumor grows near his left temple. His name is Corrales Centennial Trusand, and he’s Keane’s father.
Corrales raises his voice and scowls. “I ask again, Doc, what’s your job today?”
Keane looks at me: well?
I sigh. “Sir, my job is to survive.”
“And how do we do that?”
“By never losing hope.”
The old immortal smiles. “That’s right. Now stop feeling sorry for yourself and get on with your life.”
As Corrales vanishes, I nod to Keane. “Thanks.”
He shrugs. “Thought you could use that. And also, just so you know, I don’t care if I get back to Earth or not.”
“Because of Hedera?” Steffanie asks.
“No,” he says defensively. “Because of you. Because of all you guys. I do miss Earth, but Meeka was right. Friends are more important than anything.”
Meeka smiles and gets choked up.
I slip out of her arms. “Keane, are you serious? I didn’t want to ruin everything for you.”
“Hey, man, your life is so messed up,” he answers. “I have to help you, and not just because you’re my friend. When you were showing us the ship and everything? I didn’t feel like I was watching. I felt like I was you. It was that weird connection thing again.”
“It’s not weird,” comes a voice from behind us.
We turn to face my grandmother. “Keane, have you ever had your blood tested?”
“I think they did it at the Palladium, but I’m not sure.”
“What about the rest of you?” my grandmother asks.
“Maybe,” I answer. “Probably.”
Meeka and Steffanie just look at each other.
“Sorry, but I couldn’t help overhearing. You need to come inside, and then we can talk about this and everything else.”
“How can you be calm?” I ask. “We’re almost out of time.”
She grins weakly and clutches my shoulders. “I’m calm because you’re finally here.”
“I’ll tell you one thing: you’re not sending us back to Earth. That’s not happening.”
“When you talk like that, you sound like—”
“My father?” I ask.
“I was going to say me.” Now she grabs my hands. “Docherty, I know exactly how you feel. Your father can’t tell you the truth because he’s spent his whole life protecting you. It’s his way, and believe me, it’s for the best right now.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Listen to me. His life has been more complicated than you can possibly imagine, but I want you to know that he loves you. What’s he done, what he’s doing, it’s all for you. It’s for all of us.”
“That’s all I keep hearing, but it doesn’t mean anything because you won’t tell me what’s going on.”
She lowers her head. She might be crying.
“Are you okay?”
“It’s just… I wish there was another way.” She lifts her head and composes herself. “Okay, enough of that. Come on. Time to eat.”
“Tell me why you’re upset.”
“It’s just an emotional time.” She tugs on her necklace.
“Uh, yeah, for me, too. And what about that pendant?”
She holds it up. “This was my mother’s. She discovered the truth long before I did.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
Meeka refuses to give a blood sample to my grandmother. She says she can’t handle it right now (the sight of blood and everything, which seems like a lame excuse coming from a rumm). My grandmothe
r tries to convince her that it’s important. Her blood sample can provide information about her cells, and we can treat any potential problems from simple things like vitamin deficiencies to some forms of cancer because Brandalynn is equipped with a state-of-the-art medical lab. Meeka finally gives in, but there’s something strange going on between her and Steffanie.
After that, we eat some yesetti, a plant that tastes like macaroni and cheese, and some rokkah, a root that I swear tastes just like lemon pepper wings. Keane’s going off on how the yesetti’s making his stomach feel strange, not that it’s drugged, but that his stomach’s forgotten how to digest Floran food. I consider asking the girls about the blood samples but decide to let it go for now.
With our bellies full, we stand with the others inside another cave about the size of Julie’s backyard. The ceiling rises about as high as the screen room over her pool.
A clear tube like the ones back on Galleon stands in the center. The tube’s filled with a light green liquid, and inside floats a wreath that my grandmother explains came from the body of a real First One.
The wreath’s pink, about the size of a pool float, and covered in thick, white veins, some of which extend into a bundle of hairy vines running up to the top.
“The First Ones didn’t leave behind much, but this is the grand prize,” my grandmother explains. “We found the tank and the wreath just as you see them. The wreath’s connected to a quantum computer beneath our feet. It projects its persona directly into the code and connects with it.”
“So it’s part flesh and part machine,” I say.
“An organic artificial intelligence,” my grandmother says, making it sound more sophisticated. “We’ve accessed some historical records and data on building the engine. However, just like a human brain, the system blocks painful memories or things that caused the First One extreme stress. Those records become fragmentary, and many of those are associated with the Masks of Galleon.”
“Do we know what the First Ones look like?” I ask.
“We’ve never seen this wreath’s persona, and we get a sense from their records that they find self-imagery rude and offensive. They also never refer to themselves by a specific name. This was all very surprising to us, considering we’re a species that’s all about imagery and identity and projecting our personas.”
“So they hate selfies,” Keane says.
My grandmother looks at him. “Selfies?”
The girls tell Keane to shut up.
And my grandmother continues, “So, given the size of this wreath, and the architecture of this place and the other lab, we think the First Ones might be humanoid, obviously larger than us, but not so different. Of course, we have no other evidence to support that. And they could change their personas to resemble whatever they wanted.”
This time Keane raises his hand and waits for my grandmother to nod at him. “I just need to know one thing. Can we use this computer to kick some ass?”
My grandmother looks over our shoulders, toward the back of the group, as Joshua comes forward and says, “I was here earlier today for just a few minutes, and we were able to answer that question. I’m told they never had a sage connect with this A.I. They’ve only spoken to it through the computer interface, and communication has been pretty limited.”
My grandmother nods. “Joshua was able to link directly to the A.I., and we were able to get deep into the records. We worked together and came up with a plan.”
“That’s right,” Joshua says. “We’ve discovered a way to transform the Armadis and stop the masks forever.”
“Sign me up,” Keane says.
“Docherty’s father and I will take care of everything, and soon we’ll be free.”
I’m so excited I can barely talk. “So my father doesn’t have to become a mask?”
Joshua tightens his lips and looks to my grandmother.
“All of you listen to me, and don’t interrupt until I’m finished.” My grandmother fires a warning look at me, since I’m already opening my mouth. “All right, so I hope you can appreciate the irony here—because the same technology that almost destroyed Flora is going to save it.”
She snatches up a device shaped like a notebook and taps on the screen. The air above the screen gets blurry, like heat coming off a barbecue, as three dimensional images of Galleon float within the haze.
We see the ship from various angles, some with cutaways, others represented through wireframe drawings of the overlapping wreaths with the giant mask in the center.
She points to one image: “The Armadis gathers here inside the central mask while the masks themselves are spread throughout the wreaths. A thermonuclear explosion here inside the mask, along with at least one more along this central wreath, should create a terminal event.”
“That’s your plan?” I ask. “Just blow it up?”
“Energy is neither created nor destroyed. But it can be changed. So we’ll change it.”
“The First Ones destroyed Galleon,” I remind her. “But obviously that didn’t work.”
“Only because some escaped from the planet. This time they won’t. They can’t. Right now the Armadis cannot allow any of its members to jump away, otherwise they could lose control of the personas creating their ship. Only the masks can leave. And that’s why they’re taking more people.”
“Just to make the ship bigger?” I ask.
“Yes, they draw power from the ship, but what they really want are more lords and ladies so that eventually they, too, can come and go as they please. At that point, we’re not sure if anything could stop them.”
“What do they want?” I ask.
“At least for now they want control of our seed worlds, and then they’ll continue to spread, using our worlds to replenish their ranks as their prisoners die onboard. This, they believe, is their destiny.”
“We met this desper who told us about an uprooting…”
“That’s right. Many Florans have dismissed this as just legend or some fiction of the Monkshood, but it’s clear to us now that the Galleons attacked the seed worlds before. They came here to Flora in ancient times and abducted people.”
“Did the First Ones stop them?”
“They might’ve, but we’re not sure.”
“If they did, then why aren’t they helping now?”
“Another good question…”
I stare at the ship. “So you think this is the only way?”
She frowns. “As Galleon grows, the masks become more powerful, and their attacks become faster and more frequent. We won’t have time to jump into our personas and connect. They’ll capture us before we can react.”
I’m about to say something when she holds up her finger and adds, “So… your father will become a mask, and Joshua—who we’ve learned the Galleons want very badly for their Armadis—will become a lord. Apparently sages among their ranks make abducting the most resistant people and other life forms even easier.”
“No,” I gasp.
“They’ll return to the ship, and when they do, they’ll be carrying entangled particles.”
Keane and the girls look at me, confused.
But I know exactly what she’s talking about, so I share how those particles can be separated but behave the same way. If one particle gets wet, the other one, a half a world away, also gets wet. They’re connected over huge distances with a little help from the First Ones’ technology. I wouldn’t know about any of this if it weren’t for Hollis, and I can almost feel his immortal nodding inside me now.
My grandmother looks impressed. “You’re absolutely right, Doc. So here’s how it’ll work: the home set of particles stays here, since we already have a thermonuclear device powerful enough for the job. This platform and lab was once under military jurisdiction, and a failsafe was put in place so it wouldn’t fall into the wrong hands.”
“So you’ll blow up the lab,” I say. “In order to get the same reaction up on the ship.”
“Correct.”
“But what about all the stuff here? The wreath and the computer and the engine? All the records? And what about Flora? What will the bomb do?”
“We’re deep enough underground so the explosion will be contained. And as you’ve just said, the away sets of particles will be with your father and Joshua. When I detonate the bomb here, equal reactions occur on the ship, although the explosion there won’t be contained. I can save some of the artifacts here, but not everything.”
“But there’s no way to save Joshua or my father—because they are the bombs, and only they can get in close enough to do the job.”
A hush falls over the group, and then a few of Joshua’s people begin shaking their heads and saying, “No, Joshua. We won’t let you do this. There has to be another way.”
“So how do we rescue everyone still up there?” I ask. “All the people who got captured?”
My grandmother won’t look at me.
I cross the room and get in her face. “Are you kidding me? There’s no rescue plan?”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
If I join Solomon, he’ll cure Grace’s cancer. He’ll have Tommy and Grace spared from the experiments to put a wreath in their bodies, and at least everyone else still trapped aboard the ship won’t die.
Because that’s right… there is no rescue plan.
Suddenly joining the bad guys doesn’t seem so bad anymore—because my father’s plan sucks.
Big time.
Before we left Earth, I told him he’d never be like Solomon. I was positive of that.
But he said I was wrong. He wouldn’t tell me why. And now the truth has finally come out.
He’s about to become Solomon: a mask and a murderer, because if he thinks he can justify killing Julie, Tommy, Grace, and everyone else for the “greater good,” then he’s really lost his mind.
And I’ll hate him forever.
I ask my grandmother for some time alone with my friends. That’s fine, since Joshua wants to say goodbye to his caravan.
My father’s persona is nowhere to be found, and that’s good, because at this point I’d go off on him like never before.
We gather in a small conference room adjacent to the main lab. I plop up on the table and face the others.