by Loren Walker
The pain and the nausea were rising. Voss kept pushing the malleable brain threads, tying them together to form the thoughts he wanted, the confession that Joran wanted him to extract.
And finally, she was stammering, her words a tearful exhale: “The stairwell. Third floor platform. I think there’s a secret door.”
Zarek smiled. “Good girl.”
CaLarca ran out of the room, her feet pounding down the corridor.
"I didn't mean to kill Tehmi, I swear," Kuri was whimpering, as Shantou patted his arm. "I just wanted the truth about what we're doing here. But she kept fighting me..."
"It's not your fault," Voss said. "It's Joran's. Come with me."
He headed for the stairwell, Kuri and Shantou squawking behind him.
On the third-floor platform, Voss ran his hands over the rock wall, and there it was: a door. All this time, and Voss had never noticed. He muttered curses as the door swung inwardly, and Voss walked into darkness. He felt the edge of the knife, the one Joran told him to carry on his person, against the outside of his thigh. Voss unsheathed it, one damp palm gripping the knife, the other outstretched to feel his way through the tunnel. He could hear Kuri and Shantou behind, their voices faint, but following.
Voss broke into a run at the first crack in the dark, and burst into the sunlight, gasping at the dry wind, the brightness painful against his eyes.
Joran was standing in the middle of the canyon floor, fifty feet down rubble and rocks.
Voss couldn't stop his body from stumbling down the rocks to him, skidding and scraping his leg. Black spots swam in front of his eyes, as Joran's figure, then his face grew clearer.
Joran's arms were behind his back, and he made no motion to move.
Voss's heart was exploding out of his chest. His arm was lifting, the knife's point reflected in the sun.
"Voss, no!" came Shantou's screech.
Joran's face was calm as Voss plunged the knife forward.
Voss heard a pop. Red spilled over Joran's shirt, and Voss's arms.
Joran jerked his body to the ground, and Voss was left standing.
Footsteps behind him, and the sound of horrified breath. Kuri and Shantou came into his peripheral view, streaked with red dust, staring at Joran's body on the canyon floor.
More sounds: voices from above.
Voss swiveled and craned his head to look. One hundred feet up, there were faces, terrified faces of adults and children, clustered together, watching the scene on the floor.
“They’ve seen us,” Shantou whispered. “They’ll call patrol.”
“You hold them,” Kuri hissed to her. “I’ll wipe their minds.”
Voss sensed Shantou and Kuri running away to the rocky escarpment, climbing up the rocks. But Voss couldn’t see what was going on; there were too many tears in his eyes.
The sounds of screaming above grew loud, shatteringly loud.
A body fell on the rocks, landing with a crack and a splat.
There was a flash of green by the secret door, up the incline: CaLarca, on her hands and knees, heaving for breath.
Once again, his vision grew dark, and Voss couldn’t stop himself from walking up the rubble, from putting a hand on her head, to tell her: “Run, Cyrah.”
He watched as CaLarca ran down the rocky incline and into the desert. He wondered when she might stop. He tried not to look at the woman's body strewn across the rocks, so few feet away, and tried to tune out the screams and pleas from above.
Then one by one, the voices went quiet.
Voss squinted in the sun, shielding his eyes to look up. Shantou and Kuri appeared over the edge of the canyon. Their hands were bloody, and their faces were masks of determination, and Voss could hear their thoughts: We did it. We did it. We saved the group.
Then the thoughts grew shaky, and high-pitched. No. No. It's not possible.
Voss turned, and saw Joran rising to his feet.
Voss dropped the knife. He hadn't killed him, after all? But the blood, the pop, it was real, the pressure was real. Wasn't it?
Joran caught Voss's eyes, and pulled his shirt open. A plastic packet of burst blood was strapped against his chest. The blade had sliced it open. That was the pop he heard. Not skin. Plastic.
It took a long time to reach the top of the canyon. Voss pushed forward, the heat of the sun bearing down, Joran's shadow behind him.
And the bodies came into view: sprawled across the sand, hands turned up and lifeless, their skin ashy and blue. Two adults, a man and a woman. Voss checked their pulse, trying not to recoil at how they were already growing cold.
And next to the bodies: four small children, three boys and one girl, claw marks on their skin, tears on their cheeks, breathing in little shudders. Alive. All with black hair, ranging in age from perhaps five to ten. Cousins, maybe, or siblings? Was this a family they had decimated?
Voss watched as Kuri drew his arm around Shantou and whispered something inaudible. But the red-haired girl just stared at Joran with a horrified expression.
"A test," Joran told her. "To see what you would do. You didn't stop Voss from killing me."
"I'm sorry, Joran," Kuri stammered out. "We didn't know - we would have -"
Joran waved his hand with irritation. Then he gestured at the bodies, his eyebrow raised.
"They won't remember what happened," Kuri assured him.
"They won't remember," Shantou repeated, as if in a dream.
Voss battled the urge to scream, or run away. But he couldn't leave, could he? He was a part of all of this scandal. Joran had them all by the throat. They had each other by the throat. The only choice was to stick together or make a vow to remain separate forever. And he sensed that Joran wasn't looking for that to happen.
"What do we do now?" Kuri asked.
There was a long pause.
"I need you two to get Tehmi," Joran finally said. "Bring her to the canyon floor."
Kuri and Shantou hesitated. Then they ran hand-in-hand, scrambling back down the rocky incline.
When they were out of range, Voss turned on Joran, barely able to contain his rage. "Why didn't you tell me? Why did you make me stab you? How could you -?"
Then Joran's arms were around him. The fake blood seeped into Voss's shirt, as cold as Joran's lips, now kissing him on the forehead. "I'm sorry. But I've always planned to officially die and disappear after this experiment. I can do so much more if I leave the Asanto name behind. It's too well known, and too easy to blackmail. Of course, I've been storing rana in several secret accounts, under assumed names, for years now. ."
Voss could hardly comprehend what Joran was talking about. He couldn't stop looking at the corpses on the ground, and the little bodies that shook every few seconds. Joran saw nothing unusual about this? About any of this? What kind of man was he?
"I wonder if you have the same idea as me," Joran said, noting how Voss stared at the fallen family. "Wouldn't it be fascinating to study the long-term impact on these children? To see how they have changed after this experience? If they have been triggered in any way? Changed for the better, even? Perhaps the key to unlocking the potential in the average citizen is just to carve the path..."
Down on the canyon floor, Voss heard the sound of rustling. When he peered over the edge, he saw Kuri and Shantou struggling with a body-shaped bundle, wrapped in a white blanket.
"Are the others in there?" Joran called down.
"No. Ganasan, Yann and Marette are gone," Kuri hollered up to them. "They took the baby, I think." A sob caught in his throat, before he straightened, and laid the bundle carefully in the sand. Shantou looked over the body, like a red shadow.
"Gather some wood," Joran commanded. "When we burn the body, it will draw patrol to the location."
Kuri looked like he was going to vomit, even one hundred feet away. Shantou had no visible reaction, but started to sweep up twigs and branches, scattered across the canyon.
"Why would you - " Voss sputtered.
&nb
sp; Joran gestured at his chest. "This packet was full of my own blood. When patrol are called to investigate the fire, and find the body burned, the blood will be entered as evidence that I was also killed, and my body moved."
Then Joran bent down to the bodies of the two parents. For a moment, Voss thought that perhaps he was going to close their eyelids.
Then he saw Joran's hands rustling at the man's belt, and he withdrew a silver flask. Voss caught the faint stink of alcohol.
"Use this," Joran called down to Kuri, the flask glimmering in the sun as he tossed it. "It'll burn quicker.
V.
CaLarca withdrew from the memory. It was even worse than she remembered.
And Voss. She should strangle him where he sat.
Voss was staring at his hands. He had a bracelet on, she noticed, with dark round stones, the same from the vision. And familiar, somehow. The stones held some kind of meaning in her brain, but she couldn’t place it. Had she seen it before?
“Even when he was free of his name, his wife, and his reputation, even with the successes he saw in Kings, Joran grew obsessed with those children who lived," Voss said, standing up. "He's stayed close to them all this time. Changed his name, his background, infiltrated their ranks. Even took their last name as his own."
"Who? Who is he now?"
Voss smiled thinly. "He’s been known as 'Bianco Sava' for some time now."
Bianco Sava. She knew that name. Was that Theron Sava's handler? Wasn't he burned in some alleyway? That was really Joran?
"He wanted to understand the long-term effects of NINE manipulation on the brain," Voss muttered, his voice thick with shame. "I'm sorry to say that it took me a long time to work up the courage to leave him, and all of it behind. Twenty-five years. I have no excuse."
CaLarca couldn’t think of what to say.
"He's been recruiting. Travelling the continent on Sava business for the past fifteen years," Voss continued. "But he was the one who put the idea in Keller Sava's head to hunt down the originals. I don't know what his endgame is; he never told me all the details, but I fear it's a showdown of some kind. It could be all-out war on Osha."
CaLarca was silent for a long time. Then she spoke: "The second N of the NINE acronym. Nyx. You can do it."
"I let it go, just a little bit, with you. You saw black spots in front of your eyes. You couldn't control the direction of your blade. If I wanted to, I could have killed you by your own hand. Made it look like an accident. Trust me when I say I hated every second of using it, and I still feel like I'm going to be sick."
Something clicked in CaLarca's head. "That was why that woman went over the cliff."
"Yes."
"That's how you made me run away, when you put your hand on my head. I wouldn't have moved, I didn't dare to move, but then I couldn't stop."
"Yes."
"And that's how I ended up at the bottom of that pit," CaLarca concluded. "There was no evidence that I'd been pushed. It was like I just walked over the edge, of my own free will."
"It's very possible. I was not a part of that. But it sounds like something Kuri and Shantou would do, out of desperation. Or by Joran's command."
"On Toomba," CaLarca said. "When we were in the mountains, and Kuri showed up in disguise, he was asking for access to the Asanto inheritance, through Sydel's blood and recognition. Why would he do that, if Joran is still alive?"
"Because he's not alive," Voss said. "He gave up the Asanto name twenty-five years ago. But before he officially died, his family established a trust for any offspring. It's still valid. So he sent Kuri to try and access it, through Sydel."
"Does he even care that it's his daughter?"
Voss gave her a look that was a mixture of pity and disbelief.
"Why didn't you stop him?" CaLarca accused. "You just ran away, and let him loose on everyone?"
Voss held up his wrist. CaLarca glared at the beads, the exposed string between them. "What of it?" she snapped at him.
"The beads," Voss explained. "I didn't know, until he went to your farm."
"What are you talking about?" CaLarca demanded, her voice pitching higher.
"They are weapons." Voss gazed at the beads, letting out a long sigh. "When he activates it, granules multiply with heat and spread in miniscule jumps, giving the appearance of a slow, smoldering burn. I thought they were just a gift, but he took a bead when he needed to make something disappear. It's what he left at your farm, I believe. I'm sorry about that."
The bead that Phaira had tossed at her, and CaLarca had thrown back in frustration, she remembered. A clue all along, and she had dismissed it.
"I know that I can't take back what's happened," Voss continued, "but -"
"You can do something now," CaLarca interrupted. "Teach me to use Nyx."
Voss shook his head.
"Don't refuse me, Voss!"
"I won't," Voss said. "That was just a demonstration, to warn you about the power that you're up against."
"Liar!"
"Kuri and Shantou are dead because of his experimentations and control," Voss shot back. "They were twisted beyond recognition, and then the genetic and cybernetic manipulation - they were screaming inside."
"They weren't strong enough," CaLarca said. "I am, and you know it. I heard your thoughts. You thought I should be included in that original training group."
"That's not the solution!"
"It's better than holing myself away in some old border checkpoint, too afraid to show my face," CaLarca snapped. "It's better than hiding in Midland and mind-wiping Sydel again and again, like Yann did. Had I known Joran was alive, and causing all this destruction, I would have done something, I would have come out of hiding."
"If I show you, and he finds out, he'll use you as a weapon, like he did them," Voss pleaded. "You don't know how powerful Joran is."
"So what if he does?" CaLarca countered. "If I offer myself as a test subject in exchange for Ganasan and Bennet, then he can do as he likes. At least they'll be safe."
Voss was staring at her. CaLarca scowled at him. "Joran was always fascinated with me, right? He was the one who brought me into this mess. I can entice him to make the trade. I know I can."
Voss was silent. CaLarca lifted her chin. "Where is he?"
"I don't know if he's there now," Voss said, his voice shaking. "But your family is being held in Galee; it's a deserted factory, on the border of South and Midland. We've - he's had a few bases of operation over the years. It's guarded heavily, though."
"You got away," she pointed out.
"No one stopped me." There was disappointment in his voice. It made CaLarca want to smack him.
"Fine," CaLarca said instead, as her mind turned with ideas. She glanced at the narrow window up high on the wall. The wind was dying down, the storm was passing. "I need to make a call first. Stay here and don't move, don't talk to anyone. You're going to show me how to activate Nyx."
* * *
Outside, CaLarca made her way to the Arazura. The ship was crusted over with sand, the blue-gray metal only visible in parts. Renzo would be devastated to see all the little scratches on the paneling, she bemoaned. Using her sleeve, she brushed some areas clean, searching for the entry latch to bring down the stairs.
CaLarca.
CaLarca froze at the voice in her head.
Sydel. It couldn't be. She was hundreds of kilometers away.
It's possible. You're faint, but I can hear you.
"Sydel." she said the girl's name out loud.
You betrayed us.
"It was not personal," CaLarca said, trying to keep her voice even. "If I could have, I would have never incapacitated you."
You hurt the people I care for.
Here, a rush of guilt. Had she gone too far in rendering them unconscious? Was Renzo all right?
They thought you to be their friend. As did I.
"Are you coming for me?" she challenged.
There was no answer.
"I have no regrets, Sydel," CaLarca kept talking, her words growing tighter. "Everything I've done, it's been for my family. You wouldn't understand -"
And she closed her mouth, immediately regretting her words. Sydel never knew her family. Yann had manipulated her memory since Sydel became a teenager, removing almost seven years of her life, forcing her to rebuild herself, her abilities, her strengths again and again, to render her less powerful. Her mother was dead, and her father was a monster.
I won't forget this. None of us ever will.
The Eko connection broke, and CaLarca was left in silence.
Perhaps Joran's theory was valid. Maybe people like Sydel, like CaLarca, like any NINE, maybe they needed to be controlled for their own good. Because they would inevitable hurt.
Then Voss appeared next to her, looking the Arazura up and down. "Extraordinary. Where did you get this?"
"I told you to stay," she growled at him.
"I've been underground enough," he told her. "The ship?"
"I borrowed it," CaLarca said, doing her best to keep her voice steady. "It's not to keep." She banged on the side of the Arazura, so more sheaths of sand fell to the ground. There was the handle. She jerked it open, and more sand poured out, caught in the frame. She coughed and waved her hand to clear it away.
"Who do you need to speak to?" Voss asked, peering up the stairs into the cabin.
CaLarca grimaced. "Someone who can make this rescue a success."
VI.
Back inside the Arazura cockpit, CaLarca stared at the console for several minutes, mustering up the nerve to input the connection code. She couldn't tremble or lose her temper. She had no idea what reaction she might witness, but she felt certain it was the only way to save her family.
Finally, she punched in the cc, and pulled on one of her braids to center her thoughts as it rang and rang.
The screen unzipped, and there he was: Theron Sava, in a suit, leaning back in a chair like a lord. He looked meaner, and older, in the week since she had spoken to him last. Had it really only been a week?