“What? The doctor’s didn’t say you had any drugs in your system.”
“Some of the liquid dribbled down my arm. But I’ve never seen anything like it. A yellow, viscous fluid, with darker orange blobs floating inside. It doesn’t even sound like anything I saw from my days working for Central Authority. It could be a new drug, I suppose. Something modified to target memories that deal with a certain trigger, like a name or face.”
“A serum that can find all the memories you have about her and erase them, but nothing else? That’s beyond any technology I’ve heard of.” Kalil paused. “If that’s the case, why do you still remember some things about her, like the way she looks?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I didn’t get a full dose.” Torrak’s brow furrowed. He didn’t like not knowing exactly what had happened. The more he thought about it, the more he wanted to see Daith. Perhaps she would have answers, if she was all right. “Could you find out where she lives?”
Kalil brought up the address. Torrak memorized it. How could he have forgotten? He’d been to Daith’s house many times, visiting her and her sister, Valendra.
“Thanks, man. You’re the best.” Torrak started to leave.
“Hold on,” Kalil called out. “You’re going now?”
“Of course I’m going now. Why?”
“Um—maybe because you got out of the hospital a few standard hours ago after being incapacitated for three weeks and now you’re happily skipping out the door to find some girl you think might have been kidnapped by thugs who tried to erase any memory you had of her—and left you for dead.”
Torrak took a step back into the room. “You want me to wait? She still could be missing or hurt or dead. I can’t sit—her house is just—if she’s home then everything—”
“Slow down.”
Torrak inhaled, held it, then released it. His brain analyzed things so quickly that sometimes his mouth couldn’t keep up. “Her house is just past campus. I have to see if she’s home. If she isn’t there, I’m going to file a report right away. But I can’t do that until I know if she’s all right or not. Okay?”
“Whatever. I hope you know what you’re doing.”
Torrak waited for a moment in the doorway. “Kalil?”
“What?”
“Thanks for your help.”
Kalil rolled his eyes. “If you throw a fit the next time, I’ll send you to the hospital myself.”
Daith drew her knees into her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. The floor of the engineering room was ridged and cold, but she barely felt it. Her gaze rested on the unique engine—two massive violet-orange silari trees wrapped up by long, metal tubes. The tubes slurped up the trees’ sap, silari gel, from a deep pool at the lowest point of the floor, which fueled the ship. The liquid glowed a rusty orange and rippled in an indiscernible pattern, quivering from the motions of the ship.
Entranced by the trees, her eyes followed the curves of their trunks, the whorls in their bark. Part of her believed that somehow, being the only living things on board besides the crew, they could give her inspiration. Void of family or friends, Daith found it difficult to feel connected to anything. She hoped the beautiful trees might reveal their secret—why they kept living while surrounded by metal hollowness.
But the trees remained silent, their sap milked into the pool below them, glistening in the amber glow of the light’s reflection. They offered her nothing.
“Back again?”
Daith turned her head toward the voice. “Am I in the way?”
A short, albino man squatted next to her—his white hair cropped, his grey eyes inquisitive. A black smear marred his cheek, residue from his dirty hands. His blue jumpsuit sported matching dirt and grease marks.
“Of course not,” the chief engineer said. “I told you you’re always welcome here.” He hesitated. “Anything I can do for you?”
Daith shook her head and dug her chin into her knees. The man stood to leave.
“Byot?” she asked.
“Yes?”
“The silari sap fuels the engines, correct?”
“Yup.”
“If one of the trees died, would the other supply enough?”
Byot shifted his gaze to the massive silari. “One would have enough, if it survived. Unfortunately, if one died, the other would as well. Their roots are interconnected. We have an extra pair in suspended storage, just in case.”
“The other one would die,” she stated.
Byot nodded.
Daith thought of Dru. Only four days since he’d been killed and her whole life had changed. She never imagined such a strong connection could happen with someone in such a short period of time. Something powerful and meaningful had been lost and she didn’t know how to move forward without him. Just like the silari trees. Bonded to another until one of them was gone, ripped away suddenly by death.
Daith tightened her jaw. “That’s not fair, to be connected to something mortal, having your life be dependent on another’s.”
Byot’s raised an eyebrow and he looked back down at Daith. “I suppose. But they don’t know that.”
Anger rumbled in her stomach as she stared at the massive trees, their purple-orange trunks tall and lean, bark carved into intricate swirling patterns. Her chest ached. These trees didn’t have a choice. She didn’t have a choice. How could she have known how easily it was to talk to him? How safe she would feel? And now nothing remained except a longing for someone that no longer existed.
She stood abruptly, stormed up the black ramp, and out of engineering. “It’s not fair,” she muttered.
*
Torrak slowed to a walk. He approached Daith’s house. The cream-colored dome looked similar to Torrak’s rented student housing, but the bright green paneled windows and half-worked garden beds gave the place an “owned” feel. He stopped halfway up the path to the door when he saw his reflection in the door’s glass.
He looked awful.
And creepy.
They’d washed him at the hospital, but his blistered burns made him look half melted, his normally caramel-colored skin had a yellowish tint, his cheeks gaunt from dehydration. I should have tried to vidlink her.
Before he could decide whether he should leave, a woman peeked out from the front door.
“Can I help you?”
Torrak stammered at her beauty. “H-hey, Valendra.”
Valendra blinked repeatedly, puzzled at the scarred man in front of her. “Torrak?”
He nodded.
She flipped her long, honey-streaked hair over her shoulder—her pale brown eyes wide with alarm. “You look awful! What happened to you?” She held open the door and motioned for him to come forward.
He walked inside the main room and took a seat on their squashy, smoke-colored couch. Pale blue curtains swayed in the breeze through the windows, casting shadows across the modest furniture. The bare, dark grey walls stirred up a flash of a memory in Torrak, that Daith and Valendra had never really settled in, like they wanted to be sure they could leave in a moment’s notice. “I’m here to see Daith. Is she home?”
“Daith?”
“Yeah. Is she around?”
Valendra sank slowly into a puffy, grey armchair across from him, her forehead creased. “Who are you talking about?”
“Uh…your sister?”
Valendra half-smiled. “Very funny.”
Torrak frowned. “I’m not trying to be funny. I’m actually worried about her. Have you seen her lately?”
“Torrak, I don’t have a sister.”
“What are you talking about? Of course you do. Daith. Your younger sister. Brown hair, green eyes.”
Valendra shook her head with a giggle. “You know I don’t have a sister. I live here by myself. What’s this all about?”
Torrak stared, dumbfounded. Bits and pieces of memories flickered in his mind. “That’s impossible. She lives here. I’ve been here when she’s been here. There are pictures of her on the…” T
orrak trailed off as his gaze turned toward the mantel. He stood abruptly and walked over to it. There were indeed pictures—Valendra and her friends, a younger picture of Valendra and a beautiful woman with intense green eyes, a photo of Valendra with her previous pet—but none of Daith.
“I don’t understand,” he said, turning to face her. “Your sister, Daith. She attends the Academy with me. We’re best friends. She’s invited me over to have dinner here countless times.”
Valendra blushed. “I know you’ve been here for dinner, but it’s only been the two of us.”
Torrak sat back down. “This doesn’t make any sense.”
Valendra sat next to him on the couch, eyeing his injuries. “Torrak, what happened to you? Did you get into some kind of accident?”
With shaking hands, Torrak ran his fingers through his hair. “Yes…sort of. I came from the hospital.”
“Why were you in the hospital?” Her words lilted in soft and soothing tones. She placed her hand on his. Warm and pale, her skin stood out against his darker pigments.
“There was an accident—it involved your sister. This may sound insane, but I think someone kidnapped her.”
“But I don’t have a sister!” She snatched her hand away and stood. Her fingers snapped repeatedly toward the pictures on the mantle, their surfaces reflecting the lights. “See? I’m an only child. Me, my mom, and….and…” She trailed off, her eyes staring past the picture into nothingness.
“Valendra?”
The young woman traced the picture of her younger self with the older, similar-looking woman. The two figures stood to the left of the picture—the right side possessed an empty gap. Big enough for another child.
“Torrak?” she whispered.
He stood and touched her elbow. She jumped at the contact, her eyes cloudy with tears. “Torrak, I don’t understand what’s going on. And…I received a vidlink message, about two weeks ago….” She shook her head, her honey-blonde hair dancing. “It was strange. It came from Central Authority.”
“What did it say?”
Valendra grasped the picture with her slim fingers as if to gain comfort from its image. “They asked me to call them about a Missing Citizens report I’d filed. I had no idea what they were talking about. When I contacted them the next morning, the officer told me she didn’t remember leaving me a message. There wasn’t any record of the missing citizens file I’d reported. She assumed someone activated my vidlink connection by mistake. She apologized. I haven’t thought about it since.”
“So they said you filed a report about someone missing, but you don’t remember doing that. Then when you returned the call, they said they didn’t have anything on file. And now I’m here with fuzzy memories about a sister you can’t remember being kidnapped.”
Torrak’s mind burst into a fury of thoughts. He began with Valendra’s first comment, about her receiving a vidlink message. He pictured it in his mind, Valendra opening the file, the look of confusion on her face. His mind added other pictures: the missing report, the yellow liquid dribbling off his arm, the apologetic officer. Torrak held the thoughts in his head like pictures on a flat surface. He connected them to each other and then forced himself to fill in the blanks with other pictures of what happened between those moments.
If his memories had been erased about Daith, and Valendra couldn’t remember Daith, perhaps she’d had her memories erased as well. And if Valendra reported Daith missing, they must have erased her memories after the kidnapping. As well as the officer’s, since there was a call about a report, but then the next day the file was gone.
Sparks popped inside Torrak’s mind as the pieces clicked into place. But a hole remained—something vital he couldn’t grasp. Someone must be orchestrating the use of a memory modification drug and be able to infiltrate Central Authority. But who had that sort of power?
“Valendra, is there anyone you know who would want to kidnap your sister?”
Her jaw muscles tightened. “I told you I don’t have—”
“Sorry,” Torrak said, waving his hands defensively. “How about you then? Or harm you in any way?”
Valendra sunk into the chair, her eyes back on the picture. “Um, no. I don’t think so,” she replied. “All I can think of is—but there’s no way that’s possible.”
“Please. Anything might help.”
Her words came slowly. “I can’t believe I’m telling you this, but...” She drew in a shuddering breath. “Tocc is not my real name. My real surname is Jaxx. Jacin Jaxx was my father.”
Torrak’s breath caught in his throat. He couldn’t believe it. Jacin Jaxx? The man who’d helped save dozens of worlds with the telepathic, empathic, and telekinetic abilities seen above and beyond anyone in their known galaxy, whose army had mercilessly killed anyone who opposed him. If he was Valendra’s father, Jacin Jaxx must be Daith’s father, too.
And Daith had never told him.
“About ten standard years ago, two years before my father’s death,” Valendra went on, “my mother sent me to live on Debbing. She told me my father had become unstable and I needed to stay away from him for a while. She planned to meet me after she took care of some financial business, but she never showed.” Valendra’s lower lip quivered.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”
Valendra continued. “I lived on my own for almost a year with the money my mother left me. But then, someone attacked me. I don’t know if they wanted to hold me hostage or take me to my father or what, but I never got a chance to find out.” Valendra shook her head again, her eyes blinking furiously.
“It’s so hard to picture what really happened,” she continued. “They entered the room and shot some sort of gas. I couldn’t see anything. I heard their weapons discharge and I dropped to the floor. I remember I bit through my lip when I hit the ground. Someone grabbed me and then...” Valendra closed her eyes.
“Then what happened?” Torrak asked gently.
“I screamed and everything went black and silent. When the lights came back on, three men with weapons lay face up on the floor, their eyes glazed. I could see three more bodies in the hallway, all with the same expressions.” She shuddered.
“They were dead?”
“No. They just lay there, staring ahead, not blinking. Completely immobile. But I didn’t do it. I didn’t do anything.” Valendra’s words came in between shallow breaths.
“It’s okay. Whatever happened, it’s over.”
She placed the picture back on the mantle, her hands shaking. “Torrak, you don’t understand. I remember being really scared for them. Like I knew something had happened to them. Something terrible, that needed to be kept secret. But I can’t remember what.”
Commander Xiven’s internal ship’s communication monitor pinged. He reached across his immaculate desk to turn on the com.
“Yes, Chief Engineer Byot? What is it?”
“Commander, it’s about Daith.”
Trey’s cheek muscle twitched. “What about her?”
“She came to the engineering section again.”
“And?”
“She asked about the trees. Then she got really angry and left. I don’t think she noticed, but she melted her handprints into the engineering floor.”
“Thank you, Chief. Keep me posted.” Trey ended the call. Daith’s power existed, so close to the surface, but she couldn’t control it. He needed to refocus her somehow—keep her grounded, but still unstable.
Trey laughed at the paradox.
If only his brother hadn’t been so foolish, Dru would still be here, guiding Daith, building their connection. His death would have been so much more terrible for her—her revenge on the Controllers that much swifter. But Dru turned against Trey earlier than he’d thought. And Trey had been forced to kill him sooner than expected.
Perhaps someone else on board could help with Daith. Trey had to maintain the image of her leader, guide her with specifically planned information about the Controllers. Byot se
emed to have a foothold, but Byot would be too busy dealing with engineering. He couldn’t be spared to babysit.
Trey tapped his fingers on his desk. He hated this place, this ship. He’d been stuck on it for years, surrounded by an inept crew, with too many varying possibilities. This vessel had become a part of his existence as he watched the downfall of his idol, saw everything he’d worked for vanish at the hands of jealous, ignorant fools.
He couldn’t wait to be free, to live his life in the shadows—finally in control. Everyone believed to having and using power meant standing in the spotlight, but Trey knew better. He’d seen what happened to those who led the charge. Either their egos got them killed or they became targets to be hunted. However, the general commanding the troops from off the field controlled the situation and the soldiers.
For Trey to do that he needed to get off this ship and onto the sidelines. But keeping Daith on the edge of rage and insanity, without her falling into the abyss, was proving harder than he thought.
And then it came to him. The perfect individual to help Daith become more stable, all the while fueling her anger toward the Controllers.
*
“Creepy. You had a bunch of unconscious men lying all around you, but you don’t know how they got that way?” Torrak contemplated the facts. If Daith had been wiped from Valendra’s memory, perhaps she’d been there during the attack. “What happened then?”
Valendra rubbed her forehead. “I moved to another city and was hunted down again, but this time a second group came to fight the first one. While they were occupied with each other, I escaped. After that happened, I got a job on a vacation vessel under a fake name and made my way here to Fior. I’ve been here ever since with my new last name, Tocc. But that’s the only trouble I’ve ever had with the Aleet Army. Besides, they disbanded eight years ago after my father’s death. There’s no one left.”
Valendra’s words whirled inside his head, building ideas, possibilities. He jumped around through the thoughts, forcing them to connect. The army had tracked her and Daith down a second time. But why? To use as bargaining chips against Jacin? Or were they after something else? Something Valendra wasn’t supposed to remember.
Eomix Galaxy Books: Identity (Book 2 of 2) Page 2