Rippler!
The realization hit him almost as hard as he hit the deflector shield positioned firmly in front of his foe. Kelerin felt himself launched by his own inertia and amplified by the deflector Waves of the Rippler, up and over, somersaulting wildly through the air. Years of training honed to instinct told him to tuck and roll, hopefully minimizing any damage for when he would inevitably meet with the far wall of the Cube. He felt hard smooth glass at his back and then heard the unmistakable sound of shattering as he smashed through the panel wall into the access pathway beyond. The last thing he felt was the sensation of sliding for several meters down the corridor before skidding to a halt.
Glass was everywhere and Kelerin had to take a moment, mentally running through a status check of his body, feeling out for any damage he might have incurred. Touching his arms and legs as he sat up, it appeared the damage sustained was only superficial cuts and bruises. His breathing was steady and in the back of his mind he was able to take a small measure of comfort in knowing that his recovery time was next to zero.
On the other hand, he’d just abandoned everything he believed in; his self-control, his training, and much of his pride escaping through the new entrance he fashioned in the Cube wall with his own backside.
Teacher Bram, stone faced and prepared for the worst, came running over to him from the access path. Dunner, mouth agape, converged on Kelerin from the other side through the shattered panel.
“Are you alright, son?” asked Bram, genuine concern filling his voice.
“I’m fine,” assured Kelerin as he looked around from his seated position, taking stock of his handiwork.
“Kel…You just flew through the wall,” was all Dunner could think of to say. He seemed to be in more shock than Kelerin was himself.
“Thanks for the update, Dunner. I appreciate it.”
“Thank you for proving my point, Kelerin,” came the voice of Valix from back inside the Cube. “Like I said, Crazy. Seeya later tonight, psycho.”
They all heard the panel door slide open inside the Cube and then close again. Laughter trailed behind and slowly faded, leaving nothing but the scene of destruction as a final insult.
Dunner was staring back at where the laughter had come from with the universal look of wistful vengeance on his face, a look shared by every person who’d ever crossed paths with a bully at one point in their life or another. “Kel, you better be throwing that pompous piece of trash through a wall of his own tonight.”
Bram now spoke up, his tone more sober than Dunner’s. “I’m sorry but I am going to have to report this, son.” Extending an arm to help Kelerin up, he continued, “I’ll try to downplay it as much as I can. You’re the best WateRen fighter I’ve ever coached and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t looking forward to you putting Arnis’ glamour boy in his place.” Then, after giving the area another once over, he added, “Not sure what good downplaying it will do, though.”
Kelerin didn’t take Bram’s hand. He was only half listening to him and to Dunner. There was something distracting him. A nagging thought that refused to go away. It was Dunner who finally dragged Kelerin’s attention back to the here and now. “You sure you’re alright, Kel?”
Glancing up from his seated position with a puzzled expression, Kelerin asked, “Who warned me to look out?”
Chapter 4: Search
The Prophecy, Caras 1
Analel half ran, half walked down the pale white corridor, straining to protect her pace from the merciless attack of her own excitement. The result was a start and stop stutter-like progression that did little to help her pass from one point to another without attracting unwanted attention.
At the same time, while her stride may have been painfully restrained, her heart was beyond any kind of control whatsoever, racing freely inside her chest and having her believing there was no way her fellow Prophets were not aware of it pounding away inside there.
And yet, a part of her didn’t care whether her Mothers and Sisters noticed her odd behavior or not, because Analel hadn’t been this excited in years. Not since she was a fifth year Child at the Prophecy managing to generate her very first Wave Thought to turn on her Reader for the first time. But she was just a kid back then. This was different. This was so very different and she had to take advantage of the opportunity now, before tonight, before it was too late.
Rounding a corner, Analel came into view of the meditation chambers just down the next stretch of corridor. She breathed a sigh of relief and quickened her pace, forgetting somewhat her restraint and running the last few steps of what was shaping up to be the longest short walk of her young adult life.
When she reached the entrance to one chamber in particular, she forced herself to calm down and stood before the Wave Reader above the panel door. Her stillness was deliberate, more action than inaction. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and concentrated.
In that brief moment, if one happened to look at her standing there in meditative silence, they would have seen the overhead lights in the corridor reflecting off a thin layer of perspiration coating her flushed cheeks and brow, amplifying a natural glow of the animated vitality she always tended to be exuding, and they would have thought her beautiful.
The Reader read her Wave Thought and the panel began to slide open. Analel crossed the threshold before it had fully retracted into its sleeve. Standing inside the entranceway, she stared blankly at an empty chamber. Bare, white, windowless walls rose up from a matted floor as devoid of any items as the ceiling it eternally faced off against. Quinn was nowhere to be found. With an audible sigh of frustration, Analel blew a wisp of hair out of her large brown eyes, spun on her heels and left the same way she’d entered.
Outside, she collided with another young Prophet heading in the opposite direction. Jumping back, she let out an audible shriek while the Prophet she walked into remained perfectly calm. “Oh, Arah! You startled me,” exclaimed Analel, the words escaping her as part of an exhale.
“Where are you headed in such a hurry, Analel? You seem awfully worked up. Is everything alright?” Arah’s questions were always tinged with a mother’s concern, although Arah was no Mother Prophet, at least not yet. Like Analel, she was a Child Prophet no older than 19. This was to be both her and Analel’s last year as Child Prophets along with the rest of the Children their age. A subtle undercurrent of tension always existed between Final Year Children as they waited to discover who among them would be selected for induction into Motherhood first.
Ideally, Prophets were supposed to shun the shallow cravings of status and recognition, but the Prophecy knew full well that Children were expected to behave like, well, children, Prophet or not. And so, it quietly condoned the unspoken competition with the hope that vanity would eventually serve as a driving force toward achievement.
Analel and Arah seemed to be on everyone’s short list of those most likely to achieve Motherhood first from their year. If one were to press the question and force a choice between the two, most would probably have to choose Arah over Analel.
“I’m so sorry, Arah. I didn’t mean to run into you like that. I was just looking for Quinn. Have you seen her by any chance?”
Arah’s sky blue eyes searched up and to the right while considering the question, as if the answer were scrawled somewhere along the edges of the ceiling. “Now that you mention it, I do believe I saw her, up in the North Wing.”
Finally, thought Analel. Getting somewhere. “Did she seem like she was heading this way?” Analel could hear the curt inflection in her tone. It wasn’t her intention. She didn’t want to come off sounding curt, especially not in front of the always sanguine Arah, but she couldn’t help it. She felt curt. It was just so frustrating for her to have such an extraordinary experience, with all the potential that comes along with it to set off a chain of unknown and unpredictable events - possibly directly affecting her very future - and to feel like she couldn’t do anything about it yet because her most trusted friend
was nowhere to be found.
Typical.
“Quinn might have been heading this way,” answered Arah, “but if she’s not in her Meditation Chamber perhaps she detoured. Did you try the dining hall?”
“No, I didn’t. Thanks, Arah.” Analel turned and started to head off.
“Peace and purpose,” she heard Arah call out after her. It was the standard greeting/farewell offered by all Prophets to one another, but the tone in which Arah had said it seemed to pose the question, Aren’t you forgetting something?
Arah enjoyed playing the part of den Mother to all her Prophet Sisters, pointing out shortcomings in everything from meditative technique to proper Prophecy etiquette. Whether she did so out of a genuine concern for her fellow Sisters or whether it was to satisfy some self righteous drive to feel virtuous, was a matter of ongoing debate between Analel and Quinn. Quinn believed it to be the latter while Analel would have preferred to give Arah the benefit of the doubt. Presently, Arah wasn’t making her case very easy to defend.
“Peace and Purpose,” returned Analel, noting ironically how the peace part was ringing a little hollow at the moment.
*****
Darting off northward, Analel mulled over her predicament. Everything seemed so different all of a sudden. The last couple of minutes were a blur of action dictated by adrenalin. A part of her even began to doubt what she had seen. Maybe the whole incident was just a trick of the mind. A self sustaining, meditative experience having no grounding in actual events. She wasn’t sure of anything at this point. All she knew for certain was that she had to speak with Quinn.
Drawing close to the central hub of the Prophecy complex, the corridor she was navigating merged with several others and opened up into a large central way station at the end of the North Wing. Mother Prophets were making their way back and forth in quiet contemplation as they went about their business. Child Prophets were more animated, walking together in groups, whispering and laughing about this or that.
All Prophets wore plain gray cloaks, the bottoms of which whooshed along the floor and gave off the impression that they didn’t quite walk as much as hover along when they moved. Mother Prophets kept their hoods pulled low over their heads, hiding their faces and creating their own private little Meditation Chambers. Child Prophets only wore their hoods down while engaged in actual meditation. Otherwise, their hoods were drawn back revealing the youthful faces of young girls, still very socially dependant, always walking together in pairs or small groups and gossiping about as they did so.
Such behavior was encouraged by the Prophecy. There wasn’t much else to do within its walls and that was the case by design. The materialistically uneventful life of a Prophet had a way of luring her into introspective contemplation. The strong sense of social need, however, developed from the Prophet’s youthful years of close-knit relationships with her peers, eventually led the Child to express those thoughts outward, imagining what it would be like to connect to the world beyond. The power of this imagining would in turn lead to what’s called projected Wave Thought, thus Prophecy achieved.
After experiencing Prophesy the feeling of connectivity and oneness with Creation was so sublime, it was easy for a Prophet to live a life content and full of purpose, despite, or even perhaps because of her asceticism. On such a cognitive plain, merely developing the breadth and quality of one’s relationship with the universe becomes paramount.
Analel had long since achieved such a state. She was even close to Motherhood. For the longest time the desire to experience anything the outside world could offer in a physical manner was the farthest thing from her mind. But that was before this morning. Now, everything had changed.
Loitering under the archway separating the corridor from the mass merger point before her, Analel stared blankly at the human traffic around her while mulling over her options. To continue on would take her back toward the living quarters. All Prophet living quarters were stark places. Minimalist designs intended for living purposes only, but not for living life.
“You want life?” the Grand Mother would often ask her Children, “Expand your horizons and connect with the universe around you. Life is in relationships, not in clothing, furniture or other corporeal possessions.”
But Quinn would not be found in her quarters. She wouldn’t have gone west toward the dining area, either, as Arah had suggested. Blowing off a meditation session for an early meal was not Quinn’s style. Contrary to the impression many of the other Prophet Children had of her, Quinn took her meditation training very seriously. She just did it on her own terms, which gave Analel an idea of where she might be. Her expression changing from thoughtful to decisive, she headed east toward the Greenhouse.
*****
Moving quickly now along the rank and file of Prophet Children and the occasional Prophet Mother, Analel watched with a sense of detached wonder as those around her busied about their lives, oblivious to what she had just experienced and what she was certain would be a monumental development in how Prophets understood Prophecy and their relationship to it.
Everything is different. I’m different. Can’t you see it?
She progressed further down the eastern corridor and the flow of people began to peter out as more and more Prophets turned off onto various bisecting pathways until only a few remained on the main thoroughfare leading to the Bridge.
Connecting the eastern point of the Prophecy complex with the Greenhouse, the Bridge stood as a cylindrical tunnel of approximately fifty meters in diameter encapsulating a catwalk suspended at its center and wide enough for ten Prophets to stand together shoulder to shoulder. All along its path, crystalline glass-paneled walls offered a 360 degree view of Caras 1’s silvery lunar surface below, as well as the black-blanketed, star streaked sky above.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” a contemplative Prophet looking out into the great abyss remarked as Analel passed by.
“I’ve seen it,” replied Analel. The Prophet was a bit taken aback by this flippant response and Analel had only managed a few steps before guilt stopped her in her tracks. Curt, she thought, silently chastising herself for her continued lack of tact. I have to stop acting like this.
Apologizing had occurred to her but it would have invariably entailed a long winded explanation that would probably come off sounding completely nonsensical. Resigning herself to trying to do better the next time around, she cut her losses and continued along the Bridge till she came upon the entrance separating the controlled climate of the Greenhouse from that of the rest of the complex. Closing her eyes for a moment to concentrate, the panel doors slid open and she quickly made her way through.
All the while, the formerly awe inspired Prophet still on the Bridge had ceased her contemplation of the universe to ponder the peculiar behavior of her parting Sister, sounding a clear and resounding defeat for wonder of the cosmos at the hands of the human condition.
*****
Quinn sometimes preferred the Greenhouse for her meditative journeys, and having exhausted all other options, Analel felt good about the likelihood of finding her there now. However, looking out at the vast expanse of vegetative growth blocking her view of anything beyond a few meters into the brush, the obvious question became, where exactly?
A massive domed biosphere containing no less than five separate habitats within its belly, the Greenhouse was a marvel in and of itself. Like the umbilical cord-Bridge connecting it to the main complex, the Greenhouse was surrounded by crystalline glass paneling, its walls rising high into the lunar sky, their exact height concealed by the thick foliage of the forest it hosted. Its architects had placed it at the easternmost point of the complex affording a direct line of sight to the Osmosian sun where refracted solar rays pouring through the panels performed nothing short of botanical magic within.
Trees climbed high into the air and disappeared behind twisting vines and lush foliage. Flowers and plants from countless species, with colors representing the full palliate of the chromatic sp
ectrum, painted a picture that would have left any artist feeling inspired, and possibly inadequate, all at the same time. At the moment, though, Analel only saw these things as enemies to be afforded no clemency, fighting her way through the brush with the single-mindedness of a possessed warrior on an honor-bound quest.
But she wasn’t completely aimless in her efforts. Half a century ago corporations led early extraplanetary excavations on Caras 1 hoping to find virgin deposits of Ipsidian. Instead, what they discovered was a subterranean river running close to the lunar surface. The discovery ushered in the fringe idea of off-world colonization - taken seriously by few Academics at the time - directly into vogue. With newfound Academic support Parliament eventually authorized funds for the first experimental efforts in this regard, the Greenhouse being the tangible result.
However, the quixotic theoreticians failed to inform Parliament of the real costs involved in attempting to colonize a non-atmospheric celestial body. When a clearer picture began to emerge as to what those costs actually were, the project was scrapped and the Greenhouse fell into disarray. Only after a considerable lobbying effort on the part of the Grand Mother was it eventually reallocated to become the foundation stone of a recently commissioned, Caras 1 Prophecy complex.
Years later the Greenhouse still stood as the closest structure to this underground river. In fact, there was one area in particular, near its south-eastern edge, where excess flow from the river breached the lunar surface for a stretch creating a small brook running for several hundred meters before sinking back into the ground. Just about at the brook’s midpoint a section of forest hosted a grouping of trees slightly more spaced apart than usual, and if one looked carefully they could see patches of night sky and a smattering of stars peeking through the canopy roof. Directly underneath, a boulder-sized piece of lunar rock jutted out from the ground and afforded a relatively comfortable place to sit. It was almost as if the Greenhouse wanted Prophets to come to that exact spot and ponder the universe in its quiet company.
Wave Mandate Page 4