The Key of Astrea

by Nicholas Marson

  “I’m sorry.” Billo put her arm around Jenny.

  “I feel hollow.” Jenny’s shoulders slumped.

  “I know it may not seem like it right now, but the pain gets less each day.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I lost my mom to cancer four years ago.” Billo gave Jenny a smile, but her eyes looked vacant. “Almost everyone here has lost somebody. It has something to do with our abilities. Some gift, huh?”

  “Yeah.” Jenny wiped at her eyes with the sleeve of her uniform. She turned her attention back to the Topo and closed her biography. Then she opened the ship’s manifest and scrolled through the list of names. Jenny gasped as she recognized a name on the list. She shook her head. No, it can’t be the same girl from my high school.

  “What is it?”

  “I think I know her.” Jenny pointed at the name.

  “Adriana Thatcher? She’s one of our best recruits.”

  Jenny tapped on Adriana’s name. The portrait of a beautiful blond girl appeared. “It is her.”

  “How do you know her?”

  “I go to school with her.” Jenny clicked on “Education” and read “Wellington High School.” “What are the chances?”

  “Astronomical.” Billo retrieved her own Topo and sat down on her bed. “But after coming here, nothing seems that weird. Know what I mean?”

  “I know exactly what you mean.” Yawning, Jenny set her Topo down and stretched. “I’m exhausted. Mind if I get ready for bed?”

  “Not at all.” Billo pointed to the storage areas around her bed. “You can put your stuff into any of those cubbies.”

  Jenny pushed on a cabinet door, and a tall drawer slid out of the wall. It was a closet, complete with rod and hangers. She unpacked her burstepi, making sure to keep the Riftkey hidden as she pulled her clothes out. Then Jenny traded her Cabin uniform for a worn black T-shirt and gray cotton shorts. She noticed Billo watching her and looking at her arms. Self-conscious of her cutting scars, Jenny tucked her arms closer to her side. She dropped the emptied burstepi onto her bed along with her antipsychotic meds. Jenny lay down and slid a picture of her mom into the seam where the canopy of her bed met the upper cabinet. Finally, Jenny took her toiletries to the kitchenette and asked, “Can I use your toothpaste?”

  “Sure.” Billo waved from the bed. “It’s for both of us. Mind if I play some music?”

  “Not at all.”

  Ambient electronic music played from Billo’s Topo. “This is music from another universe; isn’t that saucy?

  “Mm-hmm.” Jenny tried to sound enthusiastic while she brushed her teeth. Everything, including this toothpaste, is from another universe. What effect does that have on my biology? Jenny brought a glass of water back to her bed and removed the caps from her meds.

  Billo sat up. “You don’t need those anymore.”

  “What?” Jenny tapped the proper dosage into her palm and cupped her hand protectively. “My meds? I’ve been taking these for years.”

  “But the siphonophores cured you.”

  “Well…I don’t know. I’ve never missed a dosage.” Jenny popped the pills into her mouth and chased them with water.

  Billo sighed. “Trust me. Those pills will do nothing but block your abilities.”

  A list of effects and side effects played across Jenny’s vision like ticker tape. “I keep hearing about abilities, but so far I’ve just had a bit of buzzing in my head.”

  “Watch.”

  In the blink of an eye, there was no trace of Jenny’s blue-haired roommate. Billo had changed into a man with light, freckled skin and a full red beard.

  Jenny crossed her arms self-consciously. “How did you do that?”

  “It’s a mind trick.” Billo’s voice was deep. “Like a form of suggestion.” In a blink, she changed back to normal. “I can make you believe that I look like anyone.” She turned into an identical twin of Jenny.

  “That’s disturbing. It’s like my doppelgänger back home.”

  Billo changed back to herself. “That’s how I was able to get into so many secure locations.”

  “You had this power back home?”

  Billo nodded. “I haven’t always had this much control, though.” She glanced at Jenny’s meds.

  Jenny pushed her pill bottles into a drawer and climbed into her bunk.

  “I used to think I was crazy. I had hallucinations, voices in my head, and some truly terrible headaches.” Billo leaned forward and showed Jenny the underside of her forearms. Tattoos covered a good deal of scarring. “They diagnosed me as a paranoid schizophrenic with Capgras syndrome.”

  “What’s Capgras syndrome?”

  Billo pushed her feet up to the ceiling of her bed.

  “I just woke up one day, and I thought people were in my bedroom. I saw people with me wherever I went, talking to me. They told me that my parents were imposters. That they had somehow been replaced, like pod people or something.” Billo walked her feet along the ceiling of her bunk. “It got worse from there. It spread to several of my close friends too.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I got desperate. I turned to drugs, both legal and illegal. I went on a drug-fueled journey of self-discovery, and by the end, I understood my inner power.” Billo shook her head. “I know it’s bad, but I got tired of feeling guilty all the time.”

  “For what?”

  “For putting unnecessary stress on my friends and family. They stuck by me, even when I didn’t trust them anymore.”

  Jenny understood how Billo felt. She, too, carried the heavy weight of guilt. After all, she had believed it was her fault that the wedding couple disappeared. She didn’t let herself have friends, and she pushed her family away. They couldn’t see Astrea. They couldn’t know what she did at the wedding. But now she knew that it was the Riftkey that had activated the Waypoint and that the wedding couple was safely back home.

  Billo dropped her feet to the floor and pulled up her shirtsleeve. Five tally marks had been tattooed onto her forearm over a row of scars. “This is how many years I’ve been clean from legal and illegal drugs.” She looked deep into Jenny’s eyes.

  Jenny looked away.

  “We’ve all been diagnosed with some type of mental illness.”

  Jenny recalled the visits to the psychiatrist and the feeling of helplessness. Was it possible that everyone here had experienced similar bizarre events? “So, we’re all among mad people?”

  “That’s right.” Billo gave Jenny her best Cheshire Cat grin. “We’re all mad here. But not crazy. Figuring out what makes you different is hard, but that’s why Cabin is so incredible. They’ll help you understand who you really are without judgment, and without the drug-fueled journey I took myself on.”

  “That would be preferable.”

  Billo pointed at Jenny’s arm. “So, what does your brand mean?”

  “My what?” Jenny looked down at her arm. I forgot that the Riftkey marked me with its symbol. “Um, it’s a family thing.” Jenny pulled her family heirloom free of her concert shirt and showed it to Billo. The circle and triangle of her amulet matched the brand on her arm.

  “That’s hard-core.”

  Jenny shrugged and stuffed the amulet back under her T-shirt.

  “You really should stop taking your meds.” Billo put her feet back onto the ceiling of her bed. “You’re not crazy, so try meditation instead. That’s how I learned to control my ability. Once I accepted who I was, my headaches and delusions stopped.” She looked over at Jenny. “So, what did the quacks diagnose you with?”

  Jenny rubbed her sweaty palms together and stared at the ceiling of her bed for several long seconds. “Bipolar disorder.”

  “Pfft. Boring.” Billo waited for Jenny to continue.

  “Then schizophrenia.”

  Billo rolled her eyes.

  When the silence became more uncomfortable than the truth, Jenny sighed. “And Cotard delusion.”

  Billo lifted an eyebrow. “That’s
a new one.”

  “I never felt quiet in my body,” Jenny said. “It felt like something was trapped under my skin, constantly buzzing, like some electrical current.”

  “That’s how I felt when I stopped taking my meds.”

  “So, you know a lot about psychology?”

  “I was a psych major in college.” Billo rested her head on her hands. “So, what is Cotard delusion?”

  Jenny felt a lump form in her throat, and she hugged her legs to her chest. After her mom had been diagnosed with leukemia, Jenny started spending more and more time by herself. She talked about wanting to die and made friends with people at school who cut themselves with razors. She tried it herself. She found that cutting brought a sense of physicality to the pain she was feeling inside.

  Still, it wasn’t until she ignored her personal hygiene for a week that she was taken to a psychiatrist. She told the doctor about her hallucinations, and Sally. She told the doctor that she was dead. That was why she felt numb; that was why she saw a ghost. The psychiatrist diagnosed her with Cotard delusion and prescribed a regimen of drugs.

  Instead of being upset with the diagnosis, Jenny felt relieved that her distress stemmed from an illness. It was like being told that it wasn’t her fault that the wedding couple had disappeared. So what if she saw Sally, and felt a strange buzzing in her head. She was just crazy. For the first time in a long time, she had felt joyful, and the drugs reaffirmed her lack of control. Each time the doctor raised the dose, it marked how much it wasn’t her fault.

  “I saw things,” Jenny said. “Things that the doctor didn’t believe.”

  “Like what?” Billo leaned in closer.

  “Like ghosts. Well, one ghost. Sometimes I saw strange colors, and felt a buzzing in my head that would give me migraines. And, I don’t know if it’s related, but people would tell me that they saw me in places I couldn’t have been, like at the store when I was actually at home. One time, when I was really depressed, I told the doctor that I was a ghost. Like I was in some sort of half existence, and maybe that’s why I saw the world the way I did.”

  “Wow, that is different.” Billo fluffed up her pillow and leaned back. “Listen, the doctors back home don’t know what they’re talking about. They can only diagnose us based on their limited understanding of the human brain.”

  “And whatever fits their description of crazy,” Jenny said.

  “Our disorders are side-effects of abilities they can’t comprehend, and the meds keep us from figuring out who we are, and what we’re capable of. I used to believe that my parents were imposters, and now my ability is to trick people into seeing what I want them to.”

  “So,” Jenny’s eyebrows knit together in thought. “What kind of ability do you think I have?”

  Billo shrugged. “I don’t know, but I’m sure Cabin will help you find out.”

  Jenny lay down in her bed and felt the tension in her muscles melt away. “I hope you’re right.”

  Billo yawned. “You ready for bed?”

  “Yeah, I’m exhausted.”

  Billo shut off the music and said, “Lights off.” The room’s white ambient light turned off, and a dim red safety light turned on.

  Jenny pressed the back of her head into the pillow and closed her eyes. The Waypoint key and her mom’s amulet weighed against her chest. She was tired, but her mind buzzed with activity. What is my ability? Jenny thought. All I can do is see Sally, and she turned out to be Astrea, my ancient ancestor who unknowingly created my universe hundreds of years ago. And what does that make me, her descendent, her heir?

  Jenny pulled Astrea’s key from around her neck and examined it in the dim red light. She thought about Lin’s short Waypoint lesson before the Risi attacked, and an idea occurred to her. If the Topo had a connection to the Web, then maybe she could find out what had happened after the raid on Acacia City. She leaned over and picked up her Topo.

  “I wouldn’t do that.” Billo rolled over.

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’ll never get any sleep. Just imagine, hundreds of years of entertainment that parallels ours. All that history. I didn’t sleep at all the first night I was here, and I promised Lin that we’d get some sleep.”

  “I just want to look up one thing.”

  “Fine, but if you show up to breakfast exhausted, tell Lin that I warned you.”

  “Deal.” Jenny opened the Web browser on her Topo and typed “Acacia City” into the search engine. She clicked on a news headline about the raid at the top of the search results. The article listed the number of wounded and the estimated damage to businesses. As Jenny read, Billo’s breathing became deep and regular. Jenny found what she was looking for. The primary target seemed to be the basement of the Department of Transportation. But it didn’t say what they were after.

  Jenny took Billo’s advice and turned the Topo off. As she looked up at the picture of her mom, her mind wandered to the last time Jenny had snuck out. It was four months ago. Her mom had been waiting up for her when she got back later that night. All she said was that she was disappointed, and she let Jenny go to bed. At the time, Jenny thought she’d gotten off easy. Yet, her mind kept replaying the hurt on her mom’s face. After a fitful sleep, Jenny woke and discovered that something had changed between them. She realized later that her mom no longer trusted her. Jenny had resolved to earn back her trust, but before she had a chance, her mom had been diagnosed with leukemia. The news had rocked Jenny’s world and sent her spiraling into a deep depression. Everything became darkness and shadow. She gave up on living, stopped grooming herself, and cut her arms. Jenny rolled over and opened the burstepi. She pulled the handle of the Riftkey free.

  Cobol, are you there? Jenny asked in her mind.

  I’m here, Jenny, Cobol responded.

  Why have you been silent for so long?

  When you put me in that bag, I went somewhere else, and I couldn’t reach your mind.

  I’m sorry, but Lin said I’m supposed to keep you hidden.

  It is better than the storm drain, but I would much rather have my body.

  I know—Jenny sighed—but I haven’t had time to look. What does a sword need with a body anyway?

  You can’t imagine what it’s like to be paralyzed for thousands of years.

  No, the few minutes when I couldn’t move after falling through the storm drain were long enough.

  Billo stirred and snorted. Afraid of revealing the Riftkey, Jenny thrust it back inside her bag and rolled over and looked at her roommate. As she lay there, listening to her beating heart, she thought about how normal it was to be sleeping in the same room with someone famous compared to being in an underwater spaceship in another universe. Then, she thought about how Billo had transformed into other people. Could Cabin help me discover an ability like that?

  19

  Anchors Aweigh

  Victus leaned back in the cockpit of the Celestial Strider and reviewed the scans Jack had sent. Images of a concrete platform and dozens of small green islands flashed across the display. These look like Selkan homes, but it’s not enough, he thought. After all, his fate was tied to the success of this mission. He focused on a brown smudge standing on a small green island and silhouetted against the blue water. As Victus increased magnification, a Selkan filled the frame. A sliver of hope slipped into his mind. This is it. He smiled. The infallible proof I need to bring the Tamarack. Time to go home.

  Possessing a body was like flexing a muscle. Most Æons could only maintain a connection for a few minutes. Keeping this connection for three days was a feat unique to Victus. As he prepared to leave Hocco’s body, an idea came to him: a way to experience something that usually ended in death. He knew it was an addiction. One that he had developed during his time as an assassin. And like most addicts, he was unable to stop himself.

  Victus floated down to the belly of the Strider and removed his spacesuit. In nothing but a thin bodysuit, he entered the airlock and locked the inner door. A co
mputer’s voice warned him that a spacesuit was required in the airlock. A rush of endorphins caused him to shiver with excitement. Victus overrode the safety, and with shaky hands, he opened the outer hatch.

  At once, the vacuum of space sucked him out of the airlock. His lungs squeezed shut, and his skin burned from the unfiltered power of the sun. Within seconds, the mucous membranes in his nose and mouth cracked and split. He looked upon the Earth with red eyes covered in frozen tears. Victus opened his mouth in a silent scream as his skin stretched out like a balloon. Through the strength of will alone, he held on to this experience, savoring the tearing of flesh and the burning in his lungs. This was the rush that Victus was addicted to. You feel the most alive when you’re this close to death. With reluctance, Victus released his bond to Hocco’s dying body.

  The agony evaporated in a rush as Victus woke alone in a small, dim room. His skin felt dry, and his mouth tasted like cardboard. He lay on a plastic bed in gray scrubs. Nearby, monitors beeped and displayed his vital signs. Victus pulled a plastic tube out of his throat and let it drop to the floor with a wet smack. He pushed himself upright with atrophied muscles.

  The door to his hospital room swung open, and two nurses in white scrubs rushed inside.

  “Sir.” The male nurse grabbed a wheelchair and rolled it to the edge of the bed.

  “Food,” Victus croaked as he pulled an intravenous infusion out of his arm.

  “Yes, sir.” The female nurse took Victus’s hand and helped him into the chair, and pushed him to the mess hall.

  Both the sickbay and the mess hall were located in the central core of the Tamarack. The core also included the bridge, living quarters, and gym. These areas had the luxury of artificial gravity, which was maintained by an Æon who could manipulate gravitons. Its hangars, weapons, and engineering sections made up the rest of the ship and were subject to zero gravity and the stress of rapid momentum change.

  Victus passed several crew members, but nobody saluted or even acknowledged him. But why would they? Victus thought. I’m not myself right now. His body was in a state of distress. Though he could possess another body longer than any other Æon, it took a massive amount of calories, causing his body to cannibalize itself to maintain the connection. Even with rapid healing granted by nano-organisms, it would be a few days before his lost muscle tissue could be restored.