by K Alexis
The truth hit Mea hard, and she felt a surge of anger burst through her body. Her heart raced.
"Ah, there be them yellows," Elia said. "Ya Navigators be as predictable as the wind."
Mea grabbed the set of shelves next to her and swung it. Her grip ripped through the timber as if it was paper.
Elia raised her hand and caught the shelving. It thudded to a halt. All the imaginations, square plastic cases with a glowing sphere of energy hovering in the middle, fell to the ground. "Gonna be picking them up all night," Elia commented with a shrug.
Mea thrust a punch at the captain's chest. The air around her knuckles glowed as her attack shattered the sound barrier. However, despite the speed and ferocity of Mea's blow, she did not hit the captain. Her fist landed against Elia's partially withdrawn cutlass and caused a mighty twang.
Before Mea could strike again, Elia kicked her. Mea could not say where or how, but she felt its impact square in her ribs all the same. The force of the attack sent her straight into the door. She doubled over and tried to catch her breath.
After Mea had stopped gasping for air, she lifted her head slightly, and glared at Elia. The captain was pushing the shelves back into their original position.
"I been kind to yar troop," Elia said. "Overlooked Agra taking what ain't been his. Shut me eyes when the fool ya love bedded three of me best lieutenants cause she been bored for a second. Even played the clown when Lara been selling goods without permission. I done all them things cause ya'd found a family, and now ya be trying to smother its gentility in its sleep."
Mea held her chest as she stood. "I didn't ask for your help."
"Ha," Elia laughed, bending down and picking up the imaginations. "Ya should've. Been trying to give it away, but seems ya only understand fists and blood." She pivoted away from Mea, walked over to her desk and dropped the movies on it. "Which one ya be missing?" Elia asked, opening a cupboard above her.
Mea winced. She could feel a bruise forming. It had been a long time since someone had been able to do that. "Missing?"
"Which Hemi ngèr ya be missing?"
"The last one, The Lascivious Consecration."
Elia swiveled and threw a book at Mea. She caught it. Even though the front was worn and the colors faded, the title was clear and bold. Mea swallowed as she held what she had dreamed of possessing every night for years. How long had she searched for clues to the series' whereabouts in the Navigator archives before coming to Earth? How long had Elia had them sitting in her cupboard, hidden?
"Ya ain't me daughter even if ya be acting plenty like her," the captain said. "Be hard to tell the difference sometimes. Never be finding the right words when we been talking either." Elia ran a finger down one of her scars. "It ain't me business what ya be deciding on, but Stehlan and ya be like family. We all got this pain bottled deep in us and can't be getting it out, but can't be going on living with it neither." She clicked her tongue. "Ya probably thinking ya can be guessing the ending to them novels. What be happening to Hemi and all them rotters. Well, maybe ya be right or maybe ya be wrong. The funny thing be ya won't be knowing till the last page, not the first."
Mea understood the message, but she did not know how to respond because she had already made up her mind. All Elia had inadvertently managed to achieve was to hasten Steh's demise. There were no more reasons for Mea to keep Steh alive now that she had the final Hemi ngèr novel. It was almost as if the unfathomable tides of the universe were urging her toward the assassination.
"Well, go on, get," Elia said. "That book ain't going to be reading itself. And nothing ever be learned from cleaning up after the emotional bottle pops."
Mea mumbled a "thank you" to hide her emotions and went to leave.
"Me door be open any day," Elia added. "Better yelling out them furies than be acting on them."
Tues, 21 Oct 65 P.C.T., 4:05am: Junko [Channel 37A4R]
By being better. Better fighter. Better lover. ~(˘▾˘~)
10:35am: Azra [P. Watcher 18034568X]
Sure. You still need help? We're heading to Ras Al Khaimah on the Nucia. Apparently, there are two missing Navigators on Earth.
Eleven: The Healer
STEH AWOKE AND breathed in the stuffiness of his and Agra's cabin. There was no mildew, but a dense comfort-adjusting enchantment hovered throughout the room. It clung tightly to the walls and the furniture. It was one of the many reasons those who dabbled in the arts of sorcery avoided Nucia. Three weeks on the airship for casters, despite how safe the flight was from bandit attacks, usually became a harrowing decent into magical claustrophobia. It would have affected Steh too, if the volatility of his synthetic celestial magic had not been causing him to stress and panic every waking moment.
He shook his head to try and remove the grogginess before putting his glasses on. There was no bump in the underside of the top bunk, a sign that Agra was out. Steh sat up and caught his reflection in the mirror. His eyes were cinnamon-brown, and he had grown a reasonable amount of stubble, not a short-boxed beard, over the past two days—both good signs for a person with his condition. In contrast to these, he could feel the pulse of the universe reverberate under his skin. It came in gentle waves that lapped against his frame. He hoped the sensation would fade soon, before he needed to cast any spells stronger than a stage-magician’s gullibility charm.
In the narrow gap between the cupboards, basin and bunk, he stretched to ease the aches and pains coursing throughout his body from the overuse of his abilities. If this was how he felt at twenty-nine, thirteen years after the Punch had artificially infused him with magic, he did not wish to imagine how his forty-year-old body would hold up under the continuing strain of having to manipulate celestial magic to survive.
He turned the tap on and splashed some water on his face, washed his underarms, and changed his shirt. Despite the comfortable room temperature, he slid his coat on to conceal the faint glow of sliver emanating from the scar on his back. Steh went to pull the door's handle, but then stopped. He patted himself down and pulled out two metal cards from his pockets. Sliding his fingers over them, he checked each one thoroughly to make sure neither had been damaged in the earlier fight—noting every scratch and dent on them. After he was satisfied they were in working condition, he put them back in his coat and opened the door.
As he left his cabin, a well-dressed man and his son strode past him and toward the toilets. "I told you that three bottles of Poppity Hop were too much," the parent said sternly to the child. The boy had a number of colorful stains on his clothes. "Now you're going to have no dinner jacket for the evening concert," the man continued. "Can you imagine the sheer indignity we'll have to suffer because we'll be the only patrons listening to Mozart in simple shirts and ties?" They disappeared down the stairs.
Steh was almost tempted to see the remainder of mess they had made, but he resisted. Half the day had already gone by, and he had some errands to complete before he could settle down in the lounge and try to solve the consumption problem with skirt infinity-pockets.
It was easy enough to create a pocket of holding this many years after the Cataclysm, but placing them on well-used clothes provided a unique challenge as their wearer often left a hand or finger in the slit by accident—and were promptly sucked into the pocket. Steh had to figure out how to teach the limited sentience in the infinite-holding area how to determine the intentions of its owner. And if Steh succeeded in solving this dilemma, then he had to stop the storage-vessel from using all the information and experiences it assimilated to become sentient. Once a pocket of holding crossed the singularity threshold, it inevitably murdered its wearer so it could be free. Despite the immense riches beckoning to the inventor who could overcome these obstacles, no-one had succeeded—and not from lack of trying.
Even with him deep in thought about the limitations and dangers of Tath’s request, Steh found himself in the front of his teammate's cabin. He knocked twice on the door.
"Do I need to be more na
ked?" Tath called out.
"No."
The entrance opened, revealing Tath in a pastel-pink crop-top and baggy pajama bottoms. "I set all that up and no witty one-two?" she asked. "Where's Ag when you need him?"
"I'm not sure," Steh replied. He could see Mea lying on her belly on the top bunk. Her nose was pressed deep into a book he did not recognize.
"Well, get your ass in here." Tath half-limped, half-plodded to the bed and sat down. She put her left leg on the foldout desk. "How long do you think I've got, Doc? A few months, a year?"
Steh walked over to her elevated leg and ran his hands up and down it. Without too much effort, he analyzed its magical aura to determine how far along the healing process was. It getting there, but slowly. Kekeriwai's field treatment, although vastly better than anything Steh could have performed, had not been perfect. Steh took some comfort in the fact their enemy had a weakness, no matter how minor it was. "I'm afraid it's terminal," he said. "You'll have to write a will and leave everything to me."
"Mea, will you cry at my funeral?" Tath asked.
"No," she replied. Steh could hear her turning a page.
Tath shrugged. "To think I lend her my toothbrush some nights."
Steh let the comment go and closed his eyes. He tried to picture the notes of Tath’s body in his mind. As he moved his hands over her, slower this time, he listened to the melody. Nothing seemed significantly out of tune, even the knife enchantment in her wrist appeared to have mended. Only one part warbled a little longer than the rest. From what he remembered about healing casting, this meant Tath's body would be able to naturally deal with the injury or poison by itself. He could make it mend faster by adjusting the note, but he could also give her a permanent disability if he made a mistake. As it was a delicate adjustment, he chose to do nothing.
"You're going to be fine," he said. "I think."
"Very comforting," Tath replied. "I liked your first diagnosis better."
"Just don't … exert yourself." He cleared his throat, hoping Tath understood the subtext of his statement. "Your body will do the rest."
Mea tapped the metal bar between the bunks. "What if she wants to?"
The question caught Steh off guard. He had never known Mea to openly care about Tath's extracurricular activities. "Hmm," he said, glancing at Tath. She scratched her collarbone indifferently. "I'm not a medical expert," he answered.
"Guess," Mea pressed.
"The knife enchantment has healed and, as for the leg, Kekeriwai set it in a stasis and rewound the tissue. The body needs to reintegrate the recreated marrow and blood vessels. That could take some time. I don't believe you could undo the spell through overuse, but you could probably slow or reverse part of the process by putting too much stress on non-accepted cellular growth."
Mea rolled over and went back to her book. "So she'll need a cane for longer if she does."
"Probably," Steh confirmed.
"That was a quality impersonation for a non-doc," Tath said, putting her leg on the floor. She winced slightly as it touched the carpet. "It was a little stiff last night. How long will that take to go?"
"Once again, I'm not a medical expert."
"So, use a cane and vanilla thrusting only?"
"Yes, if you feel the urge."
Tath grabbed him, her strength easily overpowering his light frame. "Oh, I feel it, Steh. I feel it igniting my fucking bones."
"Excellent, I'll let Agra know." As soon as the words left his mouth, he felt Mea's gaze bear down on him and follow him all the way out of the cabin.
* * *
STEH FOUND AGRA on the lower deck in the imagination bank next to the bar. A three-foot beer glass sat near his friend's hologram projector. It was half empty. Agra patted a square stool. "Come join me for Wombat Wars 13," he said.
"Tath is healing well," Steh replied.
"Good. Great." Agra kept staring at the holographic video of animals saying things intensely to each other. Steh could not hear their dialogue as Agra had a pair of headphones in, a device banned in every Grinner tract because it allowed their users to undertake an activity without the public at large being able to monitor them.
Steh sat on the stool. "Is the lunch service finished?"
"Huh? Yeah, it is." Agra took his headphones out and paused the imagination. "It's probably three or something."
"Did you ask Mea what Elia wanted?" Steh queried. "We don't want to get on her bad side."
Agra scratched his forehead. "I'm a thief, not a spy. I'm a dancer, not a singer."
"That's a strange answer to a simple question."
"It's a movie quote," Agra replied, juggling his headphones. "And no, I didn't."
Steh scanned the room to see if anyone else could overhear their conversation. There was only one other person there: a bored woman watching an overly aggressive power fantasy featuring muscular men fighting an alien in a jungle. She had long, shaggy, multi-colored hair that constantly flowed from pink to purple to blue as if it was a living waterfall. She was throwing popcorn into her mouth, and her headphones were turned up high enough Steh could make out snippets of the soundtrack. She looked as interested in them as a teenager usually did when they were being lectured at by their teacher.
"Looks like you have a companion," he said.
Agra leaned right and glanced over at the woman. "Yeah, she's been here as long as I have. I bet she's a Corsair."
Steh flinched. "You shouldn't accuse someone of that in United Country airspace."
"Relax, we're on the Nucia. It's as neutral as it gets. And anyway, they're not all bad."
Steh did not take the bait and kept silent about the five times their quests had taken them to Corsair communes—the dreaded places Agra had gotten his car fantasies from. They had almost been murdered for Agra's imagination collection in each instance. "If you say so," Steh said. "Also, Tath'd like you to know she has urges. If you're hoping to kindle something more in your relationship."
Agra chuckled and waved Steh away. "I'm sure she does, but I don't think that message was for me." He started to put his headphones back in. "Come and get me if she's screaming my name in a yellow dress."
* * *
STEH SAT IN the corner of the zeppelin's relaxation lounge at a sturdy, titanium table. The top had been layered with a beech-grained carpet that complemented the slightly cream paneling around the room. The chair, despite its fragile-looking aluminum frame, felt secure, and it did not rock awkwardly when he shifted his weight.
Steh's blueprints and schematics mocked him. His seemingly endless notations calculated how long a detection-and-analysis system would take to gain sentience under different conditions. At best, he had been able to delay its unavoidable self-awareness by fifteen years, placing the skirt-owner in their forties if they purchased a new garment in their late twenties. This hypothetical timeframe rested on some questionable assumptions such as the item not being passed around, sold second-hand or given away as a present. Steh, reluctantly, had to admit none of these conditions would be adhered in real-life, no matter how well-illustrated his instruction manual was. Nor did it solve the fundamental problem: completely stopping a Class 2 Intellect from assimilating enough data to develop into a Class 5.
Also, his invention would break three hundred and forty-five rules of the Enchantment Code, two capital United Country soul-laws and countless other spiritual norms. He was not even certain that carrying his plans around was legal.
A large man, perhaps in his fifties, sat down at the table opposite him. "You in the fashion business?" he asked, a glass of rum in his hand and the smell of it emanating from his breath.
"Reluctantly," Steh agreed.
"You shouldn't be ashamed about it, people got needs. People like you meet them. It doesn’t matter if they want twirls or horns or …" The man spun the diagrams around and winced. "This yours?" He pointed to the scrawled calculations across the designs. Steh silently cursed himself for being as lax with United Country laws as Agra h
ad been earlier. "Maybe?" he said.
The man massaged his double chin and cleared his throat. He grunted and reached into his suit jacket's pocket. After a while, he placed a N-Comm on the table. It was silver, the color of a harmony encourager's. "You're going to have to get off with me at the next stop. If they aren't yours, then you can be on your way, but if they are …" He spat on the blueprints.
"Writing is where you draw the line?" Steh asked. "Not the creation of fabricated life?"
"I don't make the rules, boy, just enforce them. Now, let's not ruin anyone else's night with a tantrum. You pack that diagram up without fight, and I might even buy you a snack before we land."
Steh felt his back itch as he began forming a spell in his mind. "Your optimism is quite unwise," he said
"Stehlan Ehrans? Is that you over there?" The woman Steh had seen earlier in the imagination bank was pointing at him, and hopping, almost running, toward the two of them. She had used his real name, the one he had gone by before his kidnapping and subsequent torture. He found himself frozen, unable to say anything.
"Oh my god, there you are." As she arrived at the table, Steh noticed her quickly scan the encourager's card. She was not much taller than the sitting harmonizer, an indication that she was probably about four foot eleven. "And you must be Clarke from logistics monitoring," she said to the Grinner.
The man stood up, eclipsing her. "Yes," he said. "Do we know each other?"
"Only in passing. I was an aide for Zander for a few years. But then I wanted to pursue other interests." She touched Steh’s hand.
"Zander?" Clarke pursed his lips. "That’s not a very good lie, ma’am. Zander is—"
"The inner soul. I know. I know, honey." The woman reached up and patted Clarke on his chest. "I handled your file. Weren't you in a relationship with … Salansa? When we promoted you to a coordination helper, I remember you having to lodge a partner agreement promising that she wouldn't be overburdened with additional domestic chores. What happened there? I lost track of the file."