by V. St. Clair
“I’m sure they tell themselves what they’re doing is right, and that it’s all for the greater good of humanity,” Risa rationalized, perking up slightly now that they were off the painful subject of her lost love. “After all, they won the war a hundred-and-fifty years ago, so they probably think they have the right to rule over us in any way they please.”
Ana glanced around briefly to be certain that no one could overhear them before speaking again.
“Well I think they must have keyed their Talents to wipe out any sense of human decency they used to have,” Ana insisted. “Jessamine may be making small gestures of peace, but it isn’t nearly enough.”
Risa’s voice was barely a whisper when she said, “That red-haired bitch is no different than her father or her ancestors, only smarter. Someone is eventually going to knock her, her father, and her stupid sister off of their pedestals, and I can only hope I’m around to see the glorious day that the Augenspire falls.”
On that ominous note, they finished their lunch in silence.
2
Topher Augen
~
They came under an auspice of peace,
But it was all a ruse.
Ten-billion died.
An invisible enemy, one we could not fight,
Yet you held the cure in the palm of your hands.
~
Topher Augen stared out of the thick glass window on the three-hundredth floor of the Augenspire, recalling the strange words from his dream. From this height, and without any of his Talents equipped, the city of Silveria looked like a well-constructed child’s toy, with the exception of some of the skyscrapers in the heart of downtown, which were a mere one-hundred levels below him.
As always, a strange voice haunted his dreams, and as always, he wished it was possible to sleep with his Talents equipped. As far as Topher could tell, the Talents were the only things able to reliably keep the strange thoughts from his mind. More than once, he wondered if his training as a Provo-Major had negatively impacted his brain in some way. Or perhaps he was going crazy.
At twenty-four, that would be a hard pill to swallow. His symptoms had started soon after getting his enhancers installed, almost eight years ago. Now the twin ports on either side of his temples allowing Talents to be plugged into his brain’s neural network felt like a natural part of who he was, and he couldn’t imagine living without them.
He had been plagued by strange riddles and garbled nonsense from the voice in his head ever since the enhancers were installed, but it didn’t seem to be any worse than it had been the first day.
If I am crazy, at least it isn’t getting any worse.
Perhaps if he had the enhancers removed and gave up his life as a Provo-Major, he would be free of the voice at last.
I’d rather die.
Topher would live with the interference to his sleep for the rest of his life before he did something as drastic as quitting the Provo. No one quit being a Provo-Major by choice, except to retire of old age, and Topher was far from retirement.
Without knowing why he did it, he reached for the ring of electronic keys on his belt and unplugged one from its holder, knowing without looking at it that it was the one he wanted. He inserted the smooth, flat wafer into the port on the left side of his head so it lay flat against his skin, snapping smoothly into place as the circuit with his brain was completed.
Instantly, Topher’s eyesight sharpened considerably. Suddenly he could see individual people in the Academy at the bottom of the bluff: people ate lunch in three different courtyards, a handful of Provo-Minor stood in a shaded area near the Physman building with their heads bent together in discussion, and a boy dropped his pastry on the ground near Deco-Reco and stomped his foot in frustration.
He turned his gaze upwards, zooming out slightly to admire the city itself. Sky-lanes made of clear flexi-plastic formed transparent roadways across the sky at the two-hundredth level of most buildings, built to contain aerial traffic so when two sky-vehicles crashed they didn’t plummet back down to the surface. Less than thirty-years old, the sky-level was an elegant solution to an almost insurmountable problem, and allowed for an easy way to control traffic patterns—one of many reasons Topher admired the current Viceroy so much.
Traffic looked to be picking up at sky-level right now, which wasn’t unusual for the time of day, and for a few minutes Topher watched it while letting his thoughts drift.
If only our elevators required as little maintenance as the sky-level roads, he thought ruefully. Even after the restrictions had gone in to cap all elevators at two-hundred floors, they were still a maintenance nightmare. It would probably solve a lot of problems if they lowered the cap to one-hundred floors, but Topher had been one of the ones to argue with the Viceroy about people not wanting to change elevators four times to get anywhere in a building.
“There you are,” Kristoff, another Major some twenty years Topher’s senior, approached from behind, interrupting his train of thought. “Anything interesting going on out there?”
Topher turned away from the window and acknowledged his colleague, who presently had none of his Talents equipped. This wasn’t unusual. Talents changed the routing of the neural network to improve certain abilities and aptitudes. Depending on the Talent, this could cause undesired personality or cognitive changes. Most people left their Talents out unless they had need of them, though Topher occasionally left one in during the day if he was being particularly plagued by strange thoughts from the voice in his head.
“Nothing unusual,” he replied smoothly. “What of Fox’s prisoner?” He switched topics abruptly, removing the Talent he had just equipped and returning it to his key ring. His eyesight returned to normal. “Has Fox gotten anything useful out of him yet?”
Kristoff frowned minutely and said, “I doubt it. The little punk’s Gift is useful, but way too unpredictable. Fox will break him in the end though, mark my words, and then we’ll know where Hera’s hideout is at last. She can’t hide her rebellious little group forever, especially if she stays in Silveria. The city is only so big; we’re bound to find her eventually.”
Topher arched an eyebrow gently at the certainty in his colleague’s voice, but only said, “We can hope. Perhaps I’ll visit the prisoner myself, after I’ve finished with the Vicerina this morning.”
Kristoff pursed his lips, which, coupled with his short blond hair, weathered face, and light armor made him look stern and intimidating “You’ve got yourself an enviable deal there. Were I in your position, I would use my advantage a bit more…advantageously.”
Topher frowned at the implication and began walking down the high-ceilinged hall towards the Vicerina’s quarters without responding. Kristoff followed, matching his pace easily and forcing the point.
“Nothing to say, Topher? I don’t know why you get so bent out of shape about a little joke.”
Because I know you aren’t joking, Topher thought privately.
“I don’t find it amusing,” he responded flatly.
“Everyone knows you’re a favorite around here. You should embrace it and flaunt it—hell, I would. Shellina practically drools at the sight of you—”
“The Viceroy assigned me to tutor Shellina in military history, knowing my aptitude for the field,” Topher cut him off mid-sentence.
“Yes, but I don’t imagine it hurt when Shellina nearly shouted herself hoarse demanding that the blue-eyed, black-haired heartthrob in the Provo-Major was the only one who could possibly tutor her in such a challenging subject.” Kristoff winked at him. “Though I suspect it’s her older sister you prefer—”
“You talk too much and think too little,” Topher cut him off tersely, leaving him at the threshold of the ruling family’s private quarters. There were no guards here—anyone who had access to the top floor of the Augenspire had the highest clearances allowable—but Topher paused long enough for an electronic scanner to register his facial features and to read the digital signature of his enhancer
s to confirm his identity. Technology was good enough on Elaria that an assassin could—with considerable effort—disguise themselves as a Provo-Minor and possibly even forge the clearances for some of the lower levels of the Augenspire. No one could fake the unique digital signature of each enhancer only the Provo-Major had embedded in their skulls.
No alarms were raised as he crossed the threshold from the cold, utilitarian part of the tower into the warmer, more comfortable area. He passed through a doorway and directly into an enormous sitting room, with enough couches and ottomans to seat forty—though the family rarely entertained up here. Richly furnished in whites and golds and boasting a magnificent chandelier, it looked like something out of the history books of Earth before the other worlds were colonized.
I wonder if Earth is still colonized itself, Topher thought idly as he passed through the sitting room and towards the youngest Vicerina’s study.
Unbidden, and without any warning, the strange voice broke into his thoughts.
Time runs away. Five more turns of the glass until it comes. You have forgotten your purpose. Remember, or lose everything. Five turns…
Topher jumped slightly from the unexpected intrusion, glancing around to make sure no one else saw it. He was alone in the hall.
He stopped before the threshold of the room, waiting for his racing heart to slow to normal, wondering whether he should equip a Talent to ward against any more mental attacks today.
The Pain-Block Talent was halfway to his right enhancer before he reconsidered, lowering it slowly back to its place on the Talent ring on his belt.
What the hell did it mean by five turns of the glass?
It was bad enough to have to endure random outbursts by the voice in his head throughout the day without anyone noticing something was wrong, so why did the voice also have to be so damnably cryptic?
Not for the first time, Topher wondered if one of Hera’s resistance groups was experimenting with ways to combat the Talent technology. The Talents were the biggest asset the Provo-Major had as fighters, and no resistance group had ever had any luck in stealing or replicating the technology.
Maybe they figured if they can’t steal the Talents, they can try to hack our neural networks and render them useless instead.
It seemed horribly plausible. The Augenspire’s own technologists assured them that hacking the Majors’ neural networks was impossible, but Topher personally believed anything was possible with enough intelligence and effort. Were the thoughts in his head caused by the resistance group testing their Talent-interrupting technology?
If so, they still don’t have it completely figured out, he assured himself. The voice intruding in his thoughts was no worse than it had been eight years ago, and it had never spoken to him while he had Talents equipped, so he would still be able to enter combat without fear of his thoughts being hijacked.
Time runs away. Five turns of the glass…
This time he couldn’t tell if the echoing thought was the voice repeating itself or simply his own mind turning his attention back to it. The voice often spoke obscurely and in partial sentences, and the lack of fluidity often reminded him of someone speaking a non-native language.
Whatever the true message was, it sounded ominously like a countdown of some sort. Five turns of the glass…but what kind of glass was it referring to? An hourglass?
It would be useless to only give me five hours of warning before something horrible happens.
Five days? Five weeks? Five years? It was impossible to know when to expect whatever he was supposed to be expecting. And what about the part where he had forgotten his purpose? Topher had an excellent memory and rarely forgot anything of importance.
My purpose is to serve the Viceroy as a Provo-Major, he thought stubbornly, shaking the strange thoughts away and facing the threshold to the study.
He knocked on the open door to announce his presence, his fist echoing loudly against the dark-stained wood with silver streaks in it.
In the span of a heartbeat, Shellina bounded to the door to greet him.
“Oh good, you’re here!” she beamed up at him, craning her neck a bit due to the disparity in height between them. “Come in immediately—I’m having so much trouble with my essay on Elaria’s founding and Mr. Collins is being terribly annoying over it.”
She grabbed his arm and attempted to drag him into the room, which wouldn’t do at all. He resisted the pull firmly and casually broke her grip, preceding her into the room at a more dignified pace while she looked chastened by the unspoken rebuke. It was occasionally necessary to remind the youngest Vicerina of the necessary proprieties, and Topher never hesitated to do so. With a flounce of fabric, the fifteen-year old daughter of the Viceroy heaved herself onto a sofa and carefully arranged her bright blue dress about her, folding her stockinged feet beneath her skirts on the couch. With her light hair and eyes, she looked like a princess from an ancient fairy tale, not a daughter of the military caste.
Her history professor—Mr. Collins—was standing to one side of the room near a large bookshelf. It appeared had been pacing the room before Topher’s arrival, and his cheeks were red with suppressed frustration. Topher pitied the poor scholar who had to try and teach sense to a naïve fifteen-year old who was more interested in society and gossip than in learning.
So unlike her older sister.
“Mr. Collins,” Topher nodded politely to the man in greeting.
“Major Augen,” the professor responded in kind, using the formal address for a member of the Provo-Major, all of whom adopted the last name of ‘Augen’ upon acquiring their rank.
“Shellina tells me her essay is not being well received.”
Mr. Collins frowned and said, “Perhaps you can get her to understand the nuance of our Isolation where I have failed.”
Shellina offered a whine of protest from the sofa, twirling her long, strawberry-blond hair around one finger. Neither of the men acknowledged her yet.
“I shall certainly endeavor to try,” Topher replied, holding out his hand for the half-crumpled sheet of paper Mr. Collins now offered him.
The professor wished him luck of it and promptly left them alone. Topher, ever mindful of watching eyes and wagging tongues, leaned against the wall nearest the still-open door rather than joining Shellina on the sofa as she clearly wished. His frown deepened as he scanned the essay; he understood the professor’s frustrations exactly.
“It isn’t really that bad, is it?” Shellina asked from the couch, wide-eyed and hopeful.
“You have the basic facts correct, but you are sorely lacking in nuance,” Topher admitted, refusing to shield her from the truth. It was one of the things the Viceroy claimed to like most about him, which is why he was permitted the honor of so much access to the royal family where even other members of the Provo-Major were not.
Shellina’s cheeks flushed in embarrassment and she said, “What do you mean?”
Topher pulled up a chair about ten feet away from her and sat down carefully in it. The thin, lightweight blue-and-black plating over his chest and shoulders was barely noticeable over his black military uniform most of the time, but it did require good posture even when sitting down. The heavy blue-and-black armor that was loaded with technology and made them the scourge of every battle was not practical for everyday use.
“You describe the discovery and colonization of the planet Elaria as though it was an insignificant activity—as though our founders yawned their way through the colonization of an entirely new planet.”
“But it wasn’t that big of a deal,” Shellina argued. “It wasn’t the first planet the Earthlings had discovered or settled down on…it was something like the sixth.”
“It was the eighth, and it was still a significant event,” Topher corrected her mildly, wondering if Kristoff would envy his royal access so much if he had the task of trying to help mold a flighty teenager into a worthy assistant to her father, and eventually to her older sister.
“The Earthers spread out in all directions, desperate to find new planets to colonize before their world became completely unable to sustain them anymore. It’s true other planets were discovered first, long before Elaria, but those planets required mild to significant terraforming to make them habitable, so they couldn’t move a large number of people onto them at the time; the people living on Paxis-4 were still living under cramped domes of breathable air while they scrambled to terraform the remainder of the planet, and Mars was effectively a barren wasteland after fifty years of hard effort. Imagine their desperation when they finally stumbled upon Elaria, the first planet ever discovered that was ready to move onto with no up-front work. It already had an atmosphere conducive to human life, with a fully-formed ecosystem and a full biosphere.”
“There are a lot of planets in the universe. I don’t see why it was so hard for them to find a good one.” She shrugged.
“It’s nearly impossible to find habitable planets within a good distance of a sun. You must also remember that this was about three-hundred-and-thirty years ago, when their technology would have been much worse and they were barely able to break light-speed on their ships.” He had always been fascinated by the luck the Earthers had in locating Elaria with the odds so stacked against them.
Shellina clearly missed the point, or else she was just unable to put herself in the shoes of another and imagine what an enormous discovery this had been for the people of Earth. Still, she clearly wanted to impress him, so she said, “Okay…so it was a big deal. The Earthers landed on Elaria and found it completely empty of any kind of civilization, though there were plenty of bugs and animals and plants around,” she continued. “They did find all of the elarium lying about, which eventually became the base metal for all of our most complicated technology because of its numerous helpful properties. I guess that was lucky for them,” she conceded.
Topher nodded curtly, indicating for her to continue.
“Some of the Earthers went back home to report on the discovery, and more and more colonists showed up looking for a new place to live. After about fifty years, we suddenly went into our Isolation, and we’ve been there for more than two-hundred-and fifty years since.”