She swung open the hatch to the new station. Large metal pipes filled with heavy cable bundles as thick as Tani’s wrist ran in every direction from here: into the city, away from the city, north, south, east and west. Some initial settlers in the Underground had welded metal panels to the piping, creating various levels of flooring up the sides of the room, spiraling upward. Every vertical fifteen meters, there was enough support to create a full level of flooring that filled the circular room. They had three stories of this makeshift flooring to work with.
Tani had the patients’ beds set up on the first floor. She disliked having to walk by them and offer smiles and waves to them as she passed through, but it made the most sense to have them here. The next floor up was where they would perform the operations. She had Vin customize the place, laying down a layer of recycled flooring in the center of the circular platform. He had surrounded that with some metal framing and sound proofing, covered on the inside with plastic sheeting that was easily changeable after each operation. In fact, sheeting covered the whole room, which they could drag out and rinse down after each operation before leaving it in the steam room for the heat to build and cleanse any remaining germs. The disinfectant they could easily get was not the best for the work they were doing, but the steam room at least reached pasteurization temperatures. The bedding had to be tossed out completely. Plastic sheeting was relatively easy to find, but not enough to replace everything in the room every time.
Tani had the room tested thoroughly before they moved. Delilah had gone in, closed the door, and screamed. She was not a loud person, so Tani did not fully trust the silence that was all she heard from outside the room. Instead, Tani had sent Vin in next, who could be heard from across a loud bar before he even raised his voice. She still heard nothing. Even upon retreating downstairs while Vin was still yelling at the top of his lungs, she still heard nothing and was satisfied that there were no sound leaks towards where the patients would be. The soundproofing material he had bought for them was good.
As she came up the metal staircase after her shopping trip, she saw Vin was about done with the lighting installation. The room was well lit, and they would be ready to resume testing operations the next day. She ascended further onto the third large platform. They had used the metal framing here and thrown up some thick tarps as separators. Delilah was living here now. They had a third room for another surgeon that Tani was still trying to get onto the project. Across the platform from their three sleeping pods, they erected three more pods to allow family or loved ones of patients to stay nearby on surgery days. Tani was averse to this, just like she was averse to walking through the patients’ hall just to get to her room. However, Vin had constructed their quarters and the micro-hotels in such a way that Tani could slip from the last stair straight into her room, reducing her chances of being engaged.
She heard chatter from the different rooms as she walked up. The volunteers had taken up residence in one pod, temporarily, to set up a table and a place to hang out and eat while they worked.
Tani slipped into her own pod. There was no break or pause in the conversation, so she was sure she had gone unnoticed. She slung the new cot out from under her arm and eagerly opened up the strings, pulling the material out of its bag. It was soft and stretchy, but also firm. The white fabric was not silk, but some synthetic replication produced by the Nagata. A thin layer of black graphene mesh covered the bottom of the cot, woven into the white fabric on the single side, it provided all the support. She quickly lashed the ends to the metal framing of her pod and slid into the cot. It curved around her body like a cocoon. She smiled, pulled out her LightTab and hunted on the SatNet for new rumors that might lead to information about Ayna Shae’s visit.
The pictures were stunning. Beautiful. Sure, there was a lot of gore. Blood and body parts. But Tani had no problem looking past those parts. What interested her were the crystal formations. One picture in particular, focused on a rotting brain and broken skull, caught her attention.
This is it.
The crystals had woven themselves into the decayed skull. The most interesting part was that you could see where the bone had also grown into the crystal. Posthumously. The implications of what she could do with a crystal that reanimated dead organics were vast, but she wandered how much more effective it would be on living tissue. Combined with her current research veins, she was certain she could create a more solid compound to aid the acceptance of the implantations she was making for Terrans.
She needed to get a hold of this crystal. There was just one problem: the Prin Guard had quarantined the entire field. She needed to talk to Vin.
She bounced off her cot, running her hand across the plush top as she stood and left the small room. Poking her head into the makeshift lunch room, she caught Vin’s eye and nodded her head to indicate she needed to speak with him. He said something to the two men near him and grabbed a plum out of the bowl that sat on the table.
Leading him to the surgery room for privacy, Tani made sure the door was spun closed all the way.
“Vin—Have you seen the field of red crystals? I really need to get some of it.”
Vin halted with the plum positioned between his teeth and balked. He snapped his mouth closed and juice sprayed from the fruit. He spoke in a warning tone, “No one here will touch it. No one will risk trying to get past the guards just to face taking samples from that… stuff.”
He doesn’t need to understand what I am doing. He just needs to help.
“Would anyone be able to sneak me past the guard? I can take the samples. In fact, I’d prefer to.”
Vin thought this over for a long moment. “Maybe,” he admitted.
He took a deep breath, and Tani waited.
Maybe he does need to understand.
“This seems like a bit much, Tani. I know you well enough to know you likely have a good reason for wanting this, but what about everyone else? The patients? Their families? If they find out you are sampling and using that stuff from the Blight field, many of them will want out of their arrangements with you. Everything we’ve built here will unravel.”
Tani nodded. It was a fair argument, and she valued what she had built. I can go so much farther, though.
“Let’s make sure no one finds out, then.”
Vin sighed. “I’ll talk to one of the Ceafield guys. They’d be your best chance.”
Tani smiled, her excitement floating out of her and taking over her face. She could feel it beaming out of her. Vin’s discomfort at working with the crystals vanished into a warm smile and a sideways glance as he left her alone in her pod again, the way she liked it.
15
Ayna
Ayna wondered if her heightened anxiety was because of a lack of sleep the previous night or simply the nature of the problem in front of her. Finding herself staring at the small sample she had on her desk at home and neglecting duties, she worried about what this mysterious red substance was. Now that Doctor Hunt had something for her from the field samples, she eagerly charged through the double doors of the University Labs. Not waiting for the automatic doors to open, she pushed her way past them and went searching for Hunt.
She found Doctor Hunt in the back room of the labs. It was one of only three labs that had full biometric lockdown, keeping the sample under tight control. She stepped up to the eye port as she placed her hand on the scanner. The mechanisms in the door whirred as the server processed her identity and approved her for entry. She could hear the metal bars in the door sliding back before it swung open just an inch, allowing her to push it open the rest of the way. As soon as she let go of the door after stepping in, she heard the hydraulics kick in and push it closed behind her and it clanged the metal bars back into place, locking her inside.
A sterilization chamber took up half the room, beyond the thick glass was Dr. Hunt, staring into a large machine. Ayna had no idea what the machine did, but it was easy to see that the series of glass sample containers laid out nex
t to it were all filled with the blood red samples from the field. Ayna walked to the dividing glass wall and knocked. Dr. Hunt looked up and smiled before reaching across the table of samples and hitting a button.
His voice crackled into Ayna’s half of the room, “I’ll be done and out in just a minute.”
“No problem.” Ayna responded, wondering if the button provided two-way communication or just one. She watched as he slid the sample out of the machine and placed it next to the other samples. She noted the one he was working on had some liquid in it, in addition to the crystals. He stood and entered the sterilization chamber, removing the suit he was wearing and placing it in a bin that whirred and sucked the suit off to some other location for further sanitation. He emerged from the chamber in just a basic shirt and jeans.
“Glad you could come so quickly. Look.” He waved at her to direct her attention to the large screen on the wall next to the door she came in through. He started tapping on the LightTab below it until the display lit up with a series of images. “This is a reconstruction of the cell structure of the crystals that are in the Blight Field.”
“Blight Field?”
He shrugged, “One of the interns named it. It stuck.” He waved his finger over the lines and symbols, “It’s a typical crystalline structure, think of a diamond and you’ll be on the right track. What is interesting is that it is made up of a series of different minerals. I expected to see some aluminum oxide because of the coloring, however, there was not. It is carbon based—but made predominantly of unknown minerals.” He turned to Ayna, “We have classified even minerals and elements that the Illara brought with them during the Sundering. This is not any of that... I don’t want to sound alarmist, as there is always a chance that we simply lost the knowledge of this element with all the other lost data. But, based on our current knowledge, I would say that this is not from our world at all—it is foreign.”
Ayna leaned back against the glass wall behind her, “What about the fluid?”
“Same thing. It’s structured differently, but similarly it’s carbon and unknown elements suspended in plasma.”
“What does it do? Any idea where it could have come from? Does it react to anything?”
Hunt shook his head, “I haven’t been able to get it to behave in any strange manner, using purely physical means. Even pressurizing the fluid, it didn’t crystallize as expected.” He lowered his voice, even though no one was around to overhear him, “We have only seen a few other elements respond abnormally like that... Even though it is definitely not one of them, I suspect it is like the Illara Source elements. Our best bet would likely be to try Source-casting on it to learn more, however, I can’t figure out how to do it in a controlled way. I mean—well, you know the stories. Do you think anyone would do it while we observe it?”
Ayna considered some trainers at the Academy, and a few ambitious names popped into her mind. For most of them, ambition wasn’t synonymous with stupid, however, there were a few who she could ask. “I can inquire. Why do you think it’s a source element?”
“You saw the photos. A lot of the growth it did was bidirectional. Even after limbs were severed, it grew onto them, mimicking what used to be there, implying it somehow figured out what the body part used to be. It also stimulated the dead flesh and bone enough to cause it to regrow slightly after cell death. There is absolutely nothing from a scientific standpoint that explains that. So—Source.”
Ayna nodded, “Okay, I’ll see what I can do. Write up something to explain the experiment, the risks as you see them and what you can do to control it and send it over to me.”
Hunt beamed, “Thanks. I’ll get it over to you tonight.”
Ayna turned and headed out of the labs. The picture of the crystal structure gave way to the pictures of the Blight Field in her mind. She thought through each picture and what Hunt had said. Feeling the need to check in on Shara after their argument, Ayna scrapped her plans to return to the States House. She could work from her home office today.
She took the long path from the University to the Shae home at the foot of the States House hill. The clouds were forming up for an afternoon storm and she breathed in the smell of summer fading into fall as she entered the treelined pathway. As she came out of the trees to the path to her home, she saw a few members of the Prin Guard standing at the entrance to the home and waved. They bowed their heads towards her as she approached.
“How have things been?”
“She poked her head out of the door a little after we got here then went back inside.” Said a young soldier with dark skin and bright blue eyes, giving away his Inari lineage.
“Do you have men out back?”
He nodded, “Two out back, and one more below her window.”
“Thank you. If you don’t mind staying, I will be here, but working.”
The soldier nodded, “The General cleared us through the day for this duty. But, General Boral wants to speak to you this evening to discuss more long-term arrangements.”
Ayna nodded and stepped past the two boys, opening the large wooden door and slipping into the cool foyer of her home. She held her breath as she closed the door behind her, listening for movement through the house that would end in another argument with Shara if she realized that her mother was home. She stood with her back to the door for a moment. The house was quiet. She almost thought that Shara may have snuck out despite the guards and thought about calling out to her.
I’ll check her LightTab’s location first.
She removed her shoes to minimize any noise she made, then headed to the library where she kept her desk. Leaning into the library door, it opened, and she stepped into the room only for her to stop in the doorway, a wave of shock, anger and nausea overtaking her.
Shara stood at her desk, her back to Ayna. She seemed unaware of her mother in the doorway. She was focused on one thing: the Blight crystal sample that had been on Ayna’s desk. It was no longer in its glass container, but floating in the air, above and in front of Shara. She held a hand out, swirling her fingers, which moved the crystal in the air above her hand. She made a pinching motion in the air with her other hand and pulled back away from the crystal. A burst of red fluid popped out of the crystal and a sound like a hum filled the room. As Shara pulled back further, the fluid came further out and the hum morphed into a high-pitched noise that sounded like a scream. Shara relaxed her hand, and the liquid fell, creating a loop as the end reached back toward the crystal. The scream dimmed, but did not go away as the crystal continued to push fluid through the loop. Shara made the pinching motion again and pulled another strand of fluid out, resulting in another hum and scream. The sound rose, then fell as she let it go, and the crystal formed another loop of fluid around it. She repeated the motion until the crystal was at the center of a giant ball of thin, floating red streams.
Ayna could see the flow of the liquid through each loop as the light from the window behind the desk came through. The storm outside finally broke, and the room darkened. She lost sight of the moving fluid, and the sound changed from a symphony of quiet screams to a murmur. It sounded like talking, rather than screaming, but so much of it overlapping that no words were understandable.
Shara turned, her brow furrowed as she walked to the window, staring at the floating crystal as she slid the curtains shut, blocking out more light. The voices grew louder. She continued staring at the element, not noticing her mother as she walked to the two other windows on the western wall and shut their curtains, darkening the room further. The voices grew louder still.
Ayna leaned back against the doorframe, grabbing onto it with both hands behind her back as she watched. She felt her legs trembling.
Without looking, Shara waved a hand to shut the office’s wooden door and block the light out from the doorway.
Ayna jumped into the room.
Shara jerked her head up and yelped. The crystal dropped from where it had floated, trapped in her source hold. The loops collaps
ed back into the stone as it fell from the air. As it hit the rug, the last few strands of blood-like fluid pierced through the Persian rug and wooden floorboards, slicing a small section of the rug apart. The stone in the center hit the carpet and skid a few feet towards Ayna like an unremarkable red gem.
“Mother!”
Ayna said nothing, but looked at the Blight crystal laying on her carpet. The voices that had come from the gem had vanished. Even though it laid there, inert, she felt as though it was alive and watching.
“Get out.” Ayna said, still unable to take her eyes from the red crystal. Shara made no move to leave, also staring at the jewel. Ayna felt her trembling hands curl into a fist and her face burned with heat, “Get the fuck out!”
Shara rushed past her, and Ayna heard the girl’s feet stomping up the stairs as she closed the doors to her office, sitting with her back to them and staring at the Blight crystal on her floor. She burst into tears. Was there no way to keep her daughter safe?
16
Hafi
Hafi had been summoned. Both he and Ayna knew that the conversation about a permanent solution to the Shara predicament would really end up being an argument about her joining the army. They had been having some form of the dispute periodically for the past decade—ever since a team of Xenai assassins had nearly killed Shara. A half dozen of Hafi’s men died protecting her, and he had barely gotten out alive. In fact, Shara had helped him with that. Shara was reserved and almost mournful for weeks, convinced that maybe not all Xenai were bad. She saw herself as a killer at six years old. She was still strangely innocent and kind, even if she was a more powerful weapon than the gats, snipers and bomb cannons that lined the walls of Prin—all courtesy of the Nagata.
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