by Ben Johnston
Chapter 48
Wearing a hood and heavy eye makeup, Anniya handed a sigil-engraved card through an opening in a window. On the other side, sitting behind a desk, a woman with an impressive head of tall, red hair took the card then placed it over a square block. Anniya’s eyes fixed on the block as the hairdo placed the card over it. The block glowed green.
The woman sitting behind the desk handed Anniya her card back through the window. “Here you go, Mrs. Hawkins. Enjoy your trip.”
Anniya turned and walked through a corridor that led out into the huge, open, and crowded area of Administra’s main starport. She made her way through the bustle of passengers towards her gate then took a seat. As she sat, she watched as an enormous, multi-floor, starship liner, dozens of gigantic crystal engines glaring, it’s main structure shiny with gleaming metal and glassy materials, landed.
A huge walkway extended from the huge ship, and Anniya watched as, like sand flowing from an hourglass, a throng of thousands of incoming School students began to leave the glass starliner to walk down the broad walkway.
Anniya stared at the stream of new scholars for a long time. A group of the young people, about her age, walked by where she sat. They chattered excitedly to each other about the School as they bustled by. Eventually the avalanche of students and passengers stemmed and Anniya was left alone again. There was just the impersonal, anonymous sounds of passengers and shouted announcements echoing through the big spaceport.
Anniya glanced up. The sign for her gate shined to life. She leaned forward in her seat and gazed at her gate. Passengers had begun to form a huge crowd by the wide entry ramp to her starliner.
Anniya abruptly stood, turned, and walked away in the opposite direction. She walked away from the crowding entry ramp. She proceeded back out the gate from which she had come in, exiting the spaceport.
Outside the spaceport, she waited at the platform promenade to take a platform by herself, alone. She rode the platform through the shining city and the crisp night air, leaving the lights of the city behind. The platform rushed through the clear air of the moonless night, the stars shining sharp above, the milky arm of the galaxy cutting across the sky.
Anniya stepped off her platform at an empty station in a forest. Her deeply shadowed eyes darted around the dark place, glancing at a line of abandoned booths. She turned towards the dark trees and started to walk away when a grid of light appeared on her body.
Before she could react, the grid of light became a net of red metal, binding her legs together and pressing her arms against her sides. At that same moment, a disc of sheer shadow, pure ink black against the starry night sky, appeared above her before dropping quickly down to pass over her.
A few crickets chirped and a light wind passed through the trees under the cold stars at the dark and abandoned platform station.
Anniya was gone.
Chapter 49
She could see only blurrily through the slippery paperlike sheet that she seemed to be enveloped in. There was a constant roar punctuated by loud tapping and spattering sounds, and she could feel little impacts on the sheet that she was wrapped in. All was dark, there appeared only curves of light, blurred and washed out by the sheet.
A red metal netting held her arms against her sides and her legs together, immobilizing her. She struggled, but the netting was strong. Then she looked down and smiled. “I know this netting material!”
In a blood red flash, the netting vanished and she was free of it, but still wrapped in the slippery paper.
She heard voices above the roaring and spattering. “The Golden Girl just disintegrated her restraining net!”
The sound of running footsteps approached her. Another voice sounded, distant at first, then growing in volume. “Hey you! Golden girl! Listen to me. Don’t break the plastic! It’ll kill you! You won’t be able to breathe out here, and the...”
Hands grabbed Anniya’s upper arms through the plastic. She twisted, falling hard to the slippery ground before throwing her glimmering fist upwards at a shadow. Her fist tore through the plastic wrapping as she connected with the jaw of someone. Her punch caused the person’s breather device to fly up over their eyes as their head snapped back. She looked around as air rushed-out around her to see a strange landscape of large shadows lined in silver.
All the buildings that had been around her, the shuttle platform, were all still there, but instead of shrinking in perspective as they went off into the background, they just faded away into shadow. The distant, faded trees, buildings all appeared full-sized, as though she were standing right next to them, all stacked on top of one another, but those that would be distant were faded, their silvery outlines dimmer and dimmer as they were farther away. She turned and looking down saw a single point of bright buttercup light somewhere in the distance.
She stared mesmerized by the strange objects and perspective, then her eyes focused on a little drop of pitch black liquid falling through the air. It touched her skin. With a sudden, violent scream, she fell to the ground.
There was what appeared to be a black rain falling everywhere, and whenever a drop touched Anniya’s skin, there was a hissing sound and a black flash as the drop vanished. She was convulsing on the ground next to the Vectan she had just knocked down, both of them making gasping sounds.
Two figures appeared to grow from the feet of the black silvery shadows around them, both figures appearing small when far away and actually becoming larger as they rapidly drew close to Anniya, properly obeying the laws of perspective. They were wearing rain slickers and dressed in suits of the same clearish material that Anniya had been wrapped in. One of them held an actual light, shining it down on her. Both were wearing breather masks.
The one with the light began to shout. “Here she is! Oh shattered shards, she broke her fracted plastic cover! Get a mask! Get a mask on her! She can’t breathe! After you get the mask on her, we gotta quickly cover her back up before the sliprain drains her fracted life away!” He glanced at the other figure on the ground next to Anniya. “Bring two masks, maybe.”
Several more figures appeared, each of them growing in size as they came closer with incredible speed, running out of the black rain and the overlapping silver-lined shadows. Two of them knelt quickly to hold Anniya steady as she thrashed about, gasping for air. Another one quickly placed a breather mask onto her, one more then threw another wrapping of plastic over her.
Anniya continued to twist, her eyes wide, screaming under the mask, her breath pouring out of the breather, fogging-up the plastic by her mouth as they secured this second plastic wrapping around her with some straps.
The sliprain beat on the plastic as if trying to get in, the drops of the black substance drawn towards Anniya somehow. Nearby raindrops of the strange liquid-like stuff curved their trajectories by some attractive force, the nearest drops even curving upwards to spatter onto the plastic wrapping around her.
A stretcher was laid down and Anniya, wrapped, restrained, and struggling, was placed onto it and strapped down. Two of the slick-raincoated figures then lifted the stretcher and began to walk with her. The black sliprain rolled off them like normal rain.
As they walked at a seemingly normal pace, the silvery shadows flew by in a blur, growing brighter and dimmer, and the black rain hissed by them loudly, almost horizontally, hitting them head on, battering the plastic wrapping around Anniya.
A grouping of figures, small in the distance, dwarfed by shadows and outlines, approached with violent speed, as if the group were falling out of the sky, except horizontally. Suddenly they stopped. One, a tall, blonde man wearing a plastic bubble helmet, stepped forward and looked down at Anniya in her plastic wrapping as she struggled against the makeshift restraints on the stretcher.
He looked up at the two holding the stretcher. “You let the sliprain touch her.”
One of the black rain-slickered figures standing behind the stretcher held up his hands. “She broke out herself, Colonel. She disinte
grated the restraining web! Then she knocked the captain to the ground!”
The colonel, Alexander Glatchez, looked at another figure, shook his head, then turned to address the group. “On three, everybody out of slip!”
Alexander counted to three and the group of Vectan soldiers and Anniya wrapped in plastic tied to her stretcher were all suddenly standing in a quiet grassy field under a starry night. The tops of the great Towers stood against the sky, glittering with thousands of points of their own light from their open offices. There was no black rain, no silver-lined shadows to be seen. Not too far in the distance, off across the gentle field, the lights of some houses shone warmly. Dark and silent, a spacecraft was sitting in the field beside them, it’s rear ramp hinging open.
They all walked up the ramp into the dark craft which then rose into the sky silently with only faint purple light. As silent as a comet, the Vectan ship accelerated as it drew further from the ground. As the clouds flew by and began to shrink behind them, several bright dots appeared on the horizon. The bright dots converged. Union ships, interceptors, bright engine light blazing.
The Vectan craft’s dim purple lights went out, and then it wasn’t there.
The Union ships glinted past the last location that they had seen the Vectan craft, but could find no trace of their target.
Inside the Vectan spaceship, wrapped in thick plastic on a table, Anniya was still writhing when her restraints flashed then fell apart like dry dirt. The guards standing around the table watched with mild interest as she tore open her plastic wrapping, rolled off the table, then fell to the deck of the Vectan shuttle. One of the Vectan soldiers pointed his weapon at her twitching, curled-up form. Another soldier scratched his nose.
Although her body shook involuntarily, Anniya’s eyes managed to fix on a large device in the back of the shuttle's cabin. The device in the back of the ship was a bulky object that appeared to be made of black glass. A pulsing shadow ebbed and flowed out from the device, like the growing and shrinking shadow of a pendulum swinging towards and then away from a candle.
Body shaking, eyes silvery and swimming with shadows, Anniya glanced around the cabin of the shuttle. “I’ve been in one of these shuttles before!” She stared back at the device in the back of the shuttle then gave a shaky laugh. “That shadow device. It’s the interactor unit. Black stars! That shadowlight, or sliplight, whatever you call it, is...” Her eyelids dropped down over her strange eyes, then her head fell.
The one vectan withdrew his weapon, then motioned to two of the others. “You, and you. Pick her up and put her back on the table. The rest of you, get your things.” He glanced at the big device in the back of the cabin, its light and shadows pulsing. “I think the ship’s already back in the Vectan galaxies.” He turned and looked over the pilot’s head. “We’ll be getting out of this fracted witch-space soon.”
Out the front window of their shuttlecraft, there were no stars or galaxies. Nothing was flying by. Instead they seemed to be flying through a set of overlapping curving shadows, all lined in silver. The bent shadows shifted and waved around like blades of tall grass.
Then, suddenly, the shifting silvery shadows were gone. Revealed was a view crammed with countless stars. Directly ahead of them a small, blindingly white sun shined down onto a black planet.
Their shuttlecraft shot down to the dark, rocky surface.
In a cell cut directly out from black rock, two guards laid Anniya down onto a cold hard surface, a low stone shelf. They exited the cell and phased in bars to cover the entrance before activating a shimmering field in front of the bars.
Anniya lay still on the low stone shelf, her back facing the bars and the guards. The stone wall was close to her face. Slowly, her silvery-black eyes opened.
Chapter 50
Tom emerged from the quiet forest to find Anniya’s treehouse overgrown and abandoned. He gave a sigh, staring straight up the massive woven trunks then glanced down to the ground to find a broken wooden plank beneath his boots. His eyes rose from the shattered board to fix on the vines that hung directly in front of him.
Drawing in a deep breath of the fresh, forest air, Tom grasped a vine, and began, with some effort, to climb. Straining and grunting amidst the distant chirps of birds and the sound of the wind in the trees, he managed to struggle up the vines to the top where, sweating and breathing heavily, he dropped off the vine to fall onto the wood floor of the unfinished treehouse.
He rolled to a stop laying on his back, his arms sprawled out, and watched through the upper branches as a dark cloud passed over the sun. The air grew cool and misty raindrops began to speckle his upturned face. Lifting his head, looking down his body, Tom saw Spirit sitting between his boots. The shiny fox stared at Tom.
“The rain doesn’t seem to bother you.” Tom sat up on his elbows and leaned forward to squint at the lightfox. “The drops go right through you, or something.”
Spirit blinked his glowing eyes.
Sprawling out his arms with a sigh, Tom sank back down onto his back to stare straight up through the growing rain at the dark clouds. “Anniya’s missing. This morning marked one week since she charged Tower thirteen.” The young scholar rolled his head, studying the abandoned and overgrown, half-built/half-grown treehouse around him. “She’s obviously not here either.”
Spirit sat staring at Tom laying on his back getting soaked by the rain.
Tom gave a single laugh. “If Anniya were here, you would tell her where she was.”
Drawing in a quick breath, Tom flipped over and pushed himself up. He then turned and crouched to gaze at the galaxies of light in Spirit’s opalescent sapphire eyes. “How do you talk to Anniya, Shiny Guy?”
Tom blinked and Spirit was suddenly sitting on his shoulder. “She addresses questions directly to me, Tom.”
“Woah!” Tom, startled by the lightfox on his shoulder, fell over sideways. He spun around to find the little fox sitting comfortably on the ground.
Tom jumped to his feet. “You talk!”
With wide eyes, the dripping scholar reached out his arms to the lightfox. “Spirit! Tell me where Anniya is!”
The little fox stared at Tom.
Tom slapped his hand over his face. “Am I supposed to say ‘please’?” He dropped his hand off his face. Spirit was no longer there. “Where did you go?”
“I went nowhere, Tom.” Spirit was sitting again on Tom’s shoulder.
Again, Tom yelped. “Woah!” He tripped, and fell, again. The lightfox sat there on the ground, again.
Tom scratched his head. “Wait. What did you just say?” With a snap of his fingers his eyes went bright. He leaned down to Spirit’s eye level. “Spirit. Where is Anniya?”
The shiny fox sat up straight. “Anniya is on planet Traz in the Vectan empire at system six seven six, one zero one, zero one three in galaxy three seven four, seven two nine, four four three, two nine two, Tom.”
Tom shot up off the rain-wet floor. “Why in the ruin is she in Vectus!?” He clutched his thick, soaking hair with both hands.
Spirit stared up at Tom. “Because she is a prisoner.” The shiny fox dropped his gaze, his coppery eyelids half shut.
Tom sprang to his feet, leapt on a vine and slid down the slippery, natural rope to slam into the soppy ground at high-velocity with a howl before collapsing, writhing in the mud. Clutching his ankle
Moaning, Tom rolled over to see Spirit sitting shiny and spotlessly clean on the surface of the mud puddle. The lightfox made no reflection. “Spirit. Go tell Doctor Cernon!”
Spirit stared at him.
Rolling his eyes, Tom groaned through gritted teeth. “Seriously, fox? You’re going to make me ask?”
Spirit stared at him.
Tom spit out a sigh. “Fine. Spirit, can you tell Doctor Cernon where Anniya is?”
Spirit shook his head. “No, Tom. I can not tell Doctor Cernon where Anniya is.”
The young, muddy scholar struggled to his soggy feet then began slowly lim
ping away. “Can you do anything except answer questions?”
Spirit was sitting on Tom’s shoulder as Tom hobbled through the forest. “Yes. I can do other things.”
The rain grew suddenly heavy. Stumbling, Tom cried out as he slipped down a muddy incline. After struggling back to his feet, Tom found the lightfox sitting spotless and apparently undisturbed on his shoulder. “Tell me then, what else can you do besides sit on shoulders and answer questions?”
Spirit turned his attention away from Tom, gazing upwards with apparent interest at the dense rain clouds. “Many things, Tom.”
Tom blew a small amount of air out of his rain-speckled nose. “I guess giving straight answers isn’t one of those things.”
Chapter 51
“You were supposed to cover her before pulling her in!”
Someone was yelling.
“She’s a fracted lightmaker!”
The voice echoed coldly.
Anniya opened her eyes. She was staring at black stone. The voice came back, louder than before.
“For us regular humans, dimmy, the only problem is that we just can’t breathe. But to lightmakers, it’s different. Why do you think Colonel Glatchez wears that plastic suit and that plastic bubble over his head. The sliprain physically harms them. Contact with that fracted black rain on that fracted black plane has killed every single lightmaker. Even a single drop. And it doesn’t kill them nicely either.”
Her back facing the bars, Anniya lay motionless on a hard black stone bench, her nose nearly touching the cold, black wall of her cell, her eyes wide open and swimming with silver shadows. The voice came again from the bars at her back. “It’s a ruinous miracle the Golden Girl isn’t already dead. Keep an eye on her. We’re lighting up a line to Imperia and should be ready to leave before sunset. If she lives that long.”