by Barry Solway
Mel brushed past Anna and walked out of the training. Suddenly, she realized she was famished.
Chapter 33
Mel sat in the dining room alone, concentrating on the cold mush she scrounged up from the kitchen. Mulling over her words to Riley helped take her mind off the food. It was a testament to how hungry she was that she could even try to eat the stuff. In one sense, she had been unfair. He had been deathly ill for weeks, slowly succumbing to a painful and horrible procedure. One could even argue that he had it worse than she did. She certainly wouldn’t trade places with him. He had to watch helplessly as his friends were sent off to die, while growing weaker by the day. No, she definitely wouldn’t have traded with him.
It wasn’t some belief that she had it harder or had gone through more than the others. She struggled with it while forcing herself to swallow another bite of the gruel. It was the optimism. Riley thought, with his new abilities, that he had a chance.
And, Mel realized, the reason that bothered her so much is because she had given up. She no longer thought they would survive this place. What would it even mean to save herself, when the thing she wanted most was to be left to die in peace? Either way, she lost, and it was just a question of the least bad way to go. Having Riley there as a source of hope was too much to bear.
It wasn’t like her. She was usually the optimistic one, pushing herself on, pushing other people past what they thought they could do. Everyone had their breaking point, she guessed. And she had found hers. Emotionally, she could feel a black whirling storm buried inside of her, hiding behind the numbness. She still wasn’t ready to open up to that blackness. It felt like doing that might kill her too. She laughed at that thought. Maybe that would be the kind of death even Kathor couldn’t bring her back from.
The door opened, but she didn’t turn around. She assumed it was Anna coming to take her back to the training or Riley coming to apologize. But it ended up being the one person she did not expect.
“It is good that you are eating,” Kathor said.
The spoon froze halfway to her mouth. She didn’t turn, but lowered the spoon back to the bowl and stared straight ahead. Her hand was shaking, but she didn’t know whether it was from anger or fear. Maybe both.
“I wouldn’t bother if I thought you’d let me starve to death,” she said.
There was a coughing sound the translators indicated was a chuckle. “You keep your humor even at your darkest moment. You have great spirit, Melody.”
Involuntarily, she gasped and spun to face him. “How do you know that name?”
“Anna.”
Mel was slightly stunned. A memory of telling that to Anna on the beach came back to her, but Anna had been drunk. Mel couldn’t believe she remembered it.
“It suits you. The word ‘melody’ in my language is a beautiful word. A melody can be simple or complex. Straightforward or mysterious. I enjoy having a word in my native tongue that captures your essence instead of having to manufacture one for the translators.”
Anger slithered across Mel’s chest. No one called her Melody and Kathor didn’t have the right. But she caught herself with a sudden realization. Kathor hadn’t come just to chat. He was being unusually pleasant and casual. He had an ulterior motive, she was sure of it. Leaning back slightly, she watched Kathor with a more critical eye. His eyes, wide and expressive. A slight wrinkle in the left one. Anticipation. He was gauging her reaction.
“You know, Kathor, you’re hard to read. Sometimes the translators read your body language and sometimes they don’t. Like now.”
Kathor waved a hand. “A glitch in the system. I shall have Anna look into it. I have nothing to hide, I assure you.”
“We both know that’s not true,” Mel said dryly. “You are all about hiding, aren’t you? Does your wife even know what you do for a living?” She hadn’t meant to say that; it just came out. The reaction was swifter and yet more restrained than she would have thought. The translator immediately stopped interpreting his facial cues. A very well-timed glitch, she thought. But she had already learned to read some of his emotions and she could tell by how rigidly he held himself and how his eyes grew even wider than usual that he was angry.
“Do not make the mistake of thinking you know anything about me,” Kathor said, his voice a distinct octave lower.
“No mistakes. You have lovely children. I can’t imagine how much you miss them.” Mel wasn’t even sure what she was trying to accomplish. Partly, she was tired of always being on the defensive, always having to react to what Kathor did. But also, she was feeling reckless and wanted to hurt him, in whatever small way she could.
But Kathor’s reaction caught her off-guard. She expected him to get even angrier, maybe to lash out and strike her. There was a momentary flash of anger in his eyes, then they narrowed. On a human, it may have looked like suspicion or wariness. But she knew that with Kathor, it was a sign of affection.
“Yes,” he said softly. “I do miss them. I have not seen my daughter in years. She was barely two when I left. I fear sometimes she does not remember me and will not know me when we meet again. I would ask how you know of my family, but I can guess. Our dear Anna has been playing both sides, hasn’t she? Giving us both information on the other that we would prefer to keep secret. I shall have to discuss this with her.”
“You mean torture her?” Mel said. “Anna didn’t tell me, I was sneaking around and found out on my own.” That was partly true, even though Mel knew that Anna had been the one who set it up. Mel had a sudden idea, one that would hopefully help keep Anna in the clear. “It was actually Evan. He figured out some things about the electromagnets in the pistols. Maybe you can bring him back to life and torture him instead.”
Kathor paused for a moment, thinking this through. Mel couldn’t tell if he believed her or not, but it didn’t matter. He would likely take it out on Anna regardless. A small part of her thought that maybe Anna even deserved it, for not making more of an effort to save Evan, Nick and Jeff.
“That is what I came to talk to you about,” Kathor said.
Mel looked at him warily. “You’re bringing Evan back to life? You couldn’t even find his body.”
Kathor shook his head. “No, of course not. I came to talk about your recoveries.”
Mel crossed her arms. “Fine. What about it?”
Kathor took a step closer. “You remind me of my daughter. Her face has not set yet and she still has much expression across her face. Her mouth turns down and it looks like yours does now. Her eyes are so wide and full of emotions.”
Kathor gazed at her with intensity and a look in his eyes that Mel hadn’t seen before. The translators still weren’t interpreting the body language, but it felt to her like grief. She shifted uncomfortably on the bench and looked down. “I’m not your daughter,” she said, softer than she had intended.
“In a way, you have become so. You are very important to me. I have come to admire your strength and your intelligence. How you care for others, even strangers that you have no reason to trust. How you continue fighting when the situation would call for surrender. You have courage and compassion. What better qualities could a father ask for?”
Kathor took a step to Mel’s left and sat down on the bench next to her. She continued to look away, unwilling to meet his gaze.
“Do you know why the gauntlets exist?” he asked.
“Because you’re a bunch of sickos who like to torture each other,” Mel said. She didn’t want to admit it, but she actually found herself curious.
“Not quite. Although if that were the reason it would be familiar enough to you, wouldn’t it? I have recordings of your Internet. I have seen enough to know that we are not so different. But that is not the reason. The society I live in has had something happen that has not happened in yours yet. You are close, I think, and will likely go through the same struggle. It will be interesting to see if your species finds a better solution.
“Hundreds of years ago, our soci
ety was a near technological utopia. Far more advanced than what you find today. This ship, in fact, is a leftover from that time. It is, by far, the most advanced spacecraft in existence, outside of certain secret elements of the government, perhaps. Medicine was highly advanced, and almost any disease could be cured. Cybernetics, genetic engineering and cloning were used to enhance every race to a point where they were almost unrecognizable. Many people lived fully in virtual worlds. Artificial intelligence exploded to the point where a computer was hundreds of times more intelligent than any organic life form, and the merging of artificial constructs with biological minds was even more powerful still. For a brief time, we had everything: peace, no disease, no famine. Indeed, no work, for everything physical was done by automatons.”
Mel looked up surreptitiously as Kathor paused. He stared off into the distance, lost in thoughts of an ancient world. “What happened?”
“It is hard to say. Even the records I have recovered on this ship are not complete. It would seem that everyone had been modified to some degree or other. But there was a strain of people who were fairly normal by their racial standards. A group formed that called themselves the Sovereign. They believed that interference with the natural order robbed people of a meaningful life, leaving us slaves of virtual worlds or languishing in shallow lives of emotional squalor. I have seen videos from that time period and I can’t disagree with that assessment.
“There was a war. A war to go back in time; to ban genetic engineering, to limit cybernetics. To put people ahead of technology and restore dignity to empty lives, or so they believed. Of course, the artificial constructs would not choose to die. There was another group called the Craven. They were already working on the next stage of evolution. I do not fully understand the technology or principles involved. Perhaps it is a version of a virtual world or perhaps they tapped into a completely different plane of existence. But they created… not a world, or even a place as we know it. The Craven called it
“The Craven left and the Sovereignty was established. They rewound the clock by a thousand years, halting technological advances. Cybernetics are still permitted on a limited basis, but only if the non-organic parts are slightly worse than the original biological part. Genetic engineering is strictly prohibited. No more enhancement. Robotic automation is only permitted to the extent that it does not prevent a living person from working. They have promoted the belief that advanced technology is an abomination that degrades individual worth. Most of society has adopted this mindset. And so we sit, frozen in time, unable to better ourselves. Unable to take obvious steps that would save lives and make our worlds a better place. Much meaning is created from the idea of fighting for something. Being able to improve the world, create things that haven’t existed before. But if we were to take even one more step past where we are, we know where it would end.
“And that is why we have the gauntlets. They are technically illegal, but the Sovereignty ignores it because they know it is an outlet that some people need. You wondered why Soryda and Carun would choose to enter the games, to die? It is because, for some people, the risk of dying outweighs the weight of not living.”
Mel noted a slight tick when Kathor said ‘for some people’ and a certain weight he put on the word ‘dying.’ That meant something to him, but she wasn’t sure what. “What about this other place? This paradise or nirvana? Do people come back from there? Is it really that awesome?”
Kathor’s eyes lit up. “That is the question. The temples still exist. On every world. Anyone can go to the temples to be taken to this heavenly kingdom. It was part of the truce. The Sovereignty will not stop them. People go in and say they will come back to tell us what they find, but they never do. Not in three hundred years. The last one who returned, he said he could not describe it. That it was beauty and love and perfection. He only stayed for a week before he went back into the temple, never to return. It is a legend now. Old people sometimes take the pilgrimage. They have nothing left to lose, I suppose. I would dearly love to know what exists on the other side.”
Mel considered what he was saying. “What does any of this have to do with me? You’ve been doing genetic experiments on Riley. Healing me. Am I right to think that what you are doing on this ship is illegal?”
Kathor laughed. “Some of it is highly illegal. The experiments on humans are a gray area. Your race is not part of the Sovereignty and there are loopholes that may exclude you from consideration of the rules. That is why Riley can still play in the games. The architects do not know the extent of the human genetic capabilities and they do not have the technology to figure it out quickly. So, I can claim his abilities are normal for your species. For now, at least. Eventually they will update the rules and I will be limited, but by then I will have gotten what I seek and it will not matter.”
“What do you seek?” Mel asked.
“I seek eternity, Melody. Eternity with my wife and my children by my side. That is not too much to ask, is it?”
Mel knew Kathor was ill. Dying, if she was to believe what he told his wife. He wasn’t admitting to that, but what he said made sense. Obviously, he was looking for a cure for himself. But then there was the thing about the temples, this place called Nirvana, about other people dying. Mel suspected that Kathor was looking for much more than a cure. It suddenly clicked in her mind.
“You want to be immortal,” she blurted out. “You’re afraid to die.”
Kathor’s hand shot out and grabbed Mel by the throat as he stood, lifting her off the ground as his body shook. After a moment, he let go and she dropped to the floor. “Yes. I am afraid to die. I am afraid to leave my family and my children. I will conquer death and you, dear Melody, will help me.”
Kathor walked away, leaving Mel gasping on the floor. He stopped just short of the door and turned to face her. “I came to give you the good news. You have proven yourself and will no longer fight in the gauntlets. I won’t risk you being hurt again, not until I am ready to execute my final plans. I thought you would be relieved to know this.”
“What about my friends?”
“I still need them. Fielding a team that can qualify for the Gauntlet Prime tournament is critical to my plans. And you will still need to train. You will be on that final team, you see. But I will not have you damaged again in the meantime.”
“So that’s it? I don’t have to worry about getting injured and healed again?”
“No. I will take care of you. Work hard to increase your skills and you will not have to fight in any more gauntlets until the last. After the final game, you will go home, as I promised.”
“Why me?” Mel said, almost in tears. “I’m nothing special.”
“You are special, Melody. More special than you know.” Kathor turned and left the room.
Mel had her way out. She actually realized she had come to enjoy the training. The physical challenges, building new skills and learning about the alien worlds. Maybe the training could almost be enjoyable, knowing she didn’t have to fight in the games.
And in return, she would have to abandon her friends, both human and alien, to injury and death in the gauntlets.
Chapter 34
Mel never went back to training. She eventually found herself back in the main room sitting in front of the window, staring into blackness, without quite remembering getting there. In her conscious mind, she felt quiet and weirdly at peace. But somewhere in her unconscious, she could feel a churning, like a part of her brain was thinking about things so fast that her conscious mind would never keep up and wasn’t even trying to.
She wondered what her life would be like if none of this had happened. Something like halfway through her senior year at high school. Would she be looking at colleges? Or planning that trip through Central America she had sworn
to take since she was twelve? It had seemed dangerous and exciting at the time, a way to poke a stick at her parents, who insisted she was going to college, and a way to set out on her own and define herself. At the moment, it seemed quaint.
And now? Two of her best friends were aliens. Another, a genetic experiment. And they were going to take her place, getting hurt and possibly dying, for a reason she didn’t understand. For all that Kathor had revealed to her, she still had no idea why she was special. It must have something to do with his ability to heal her. Otherwise, he should have been able to bring back Nick and Jeff. Although, they had actually died, and she had always been lucky enough to make it back.
It was just the five of them now: her, Riley, Sharon, Jon and Anna. Incongruent thoughts swirled through her mind. Her parents. Lightly pulling the trigger on a pistol. Algebra classes. The feeling of a sharp blade pressing through skin. Those things she had held close for many years seemed distant while memories of the training and the games were clear and immediate. Like her whole life had been this ship and everything before it was a dream.
She registered the footsteps behind her and only turned slightly when Riley sat down next to her. Wrapping his arms around his legs, he stared at the floor.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey back.”
“We still friends?”
Mel pursed her lips in thought. “I suppose. I’m kind of running out and I can’t afford to lose any more.”
Riley nodded. “That’s a relief. I always wanted a friendship based on shallow desperation.”
Mel laughed, feeling strangely light. “I’ve come to believe that’s what I do best.”
“I’ve never thought you were shallow,” he said softly. He turned away awkwardly and sighed. “We are the pair, aren’t we? I’m sorry if my… excitement earlier bothered you. I take things seriously. And I finally have the chance to make a difference, instead of just being a sickly lump that has to sit and watch as all the people I know get carted off to die. You don’t understand what that felt like.”