The Simmering Seas

by Frank Kennedy

  Four figures emerged. All Hokki. All dressed to the nines. One he knew. Another he recognized from the IntraNex. Behind them, a pair of men with long guns opened fire on whatever pursued them, but they were cut down. The surviving pair grabbed each other’s hand and raced in Ryllen’s direction.

  Horror. Devastation. Hopelessness.

  He couldn’t hear their pleas for help, but he felt their fear.

  Shadows passed through the double doors and took aim at the final two survivors. They fired.

  Ya-Li Taron shook violently as two bloody holes cut open his chest. He fell, taking down Kara Syung with him. She wore a yellow floral dress and a crown of petite white flowers.

  She said nothing and did not try to stand, but Ryllen saw the desperation in her eyes. She didn’t understand why he just stood there. Neither did he.

  The shadows were closing. He didn’t recognize their uniforms. They were like nothing he ever saw on Hokkaido. And they fired.

  Laser blasts skipped over Kara and made a beat for Ryllen.

  His feet unglued. Falling to his side to avoid the hits, he unleashed both his weapons. He missed wide. The shadows advanced.

  He begged Kara for forgiveness, though she couldn’t hear him.

  The shadows paused when close enough to annihilate Kara at point blank. One shadow turned its attention to Ryllen and unleashed a furious volley of laser blasts.

  Ryllen did not fear the incoming death, but the notion of returning to the abyss paralyzed his response.

  All was fire.

  And then, momentary blindness.

  In the darkness, he remembered the Splinter’s song. The second sphere emerging in front of the rifter. The fireball. And a simple command from the Splinter that Ryllen followed as he fell to his death: Now it begins. Keep me close.

  He blinked.

  Ryllen was back on the bridge of the Queen Mab. Ham and Lan were staring at each other in abject shock then faced Ryllen.

  “A singularity?” Ham asked. “Are you sure, RJ? This changes everything. Are you sure?”

  He stammered for a response. The blindness, the vision. It couldn’t have lasted more than the blink of an eye.

  Kara.

  “Yes,” he mumbled. “Yes. A singularity. But it’s just beginning. It’s …” He stared at the crew. “I know what’s going to happen. I know where it’s all going to end. I’m already there.”

  “RJ, you’re making no sense,” Ham said, the others concurring through suspicious eyes and low whispers. “You’re already where?”

  “I have to save her, Ham. If I don’t, everything will go wrong.” And then, like echoes from someone else’s life, words arrived which Ryllen did not understand.

  “They’re going to burn it all.”

  38

  N O ONE TOLD KARA SHE WAS A PRISONER in her own home, but they didn’t have to. Every guard, strategically positioned throughout the estate, maintained a stoic presence, answering her questions with non-answers and deferring to the Honorable Mr. and Mrs. Syung. They walked the estate parameters like a defensive barrier – against escape. They denied access to her parents’ and brother’s private suites, office, and study. Even the kitchen staff was shielded. She asked Luyn for access to her sister-in-law’s private plate and hand-comm. Luyn rejected her with a curt smile.

  She laid into Jo-Ta Pai, who maintained his stocky, monolithic presence outside her suite.

  “You’re as useful as always,” she said, stalking the guard. “Tell me your honest opinion, Jo-Ta – assuming you have one. What do you think of a twenty-three-year-old woman who is an executive for the largest corporation on Hokkaido being grounded and denied access to her personal tech, as if she were a Year Three student?”

  “My opinions are not worth your time, Honored Miss Syung.”

  “Ah. So, you’re going to stick with honorifics, even when you clearly have no respect for me whatsoever.”

  His shoulders stiffened. Jo-Ta did not make eye contact.

  “I am duty-bound to your honorable parents. My contract provides for no other loyalties.”

  “Not even to the woman you’ve been paid to protect?”

  He did not appear moved. “I’m sorry. And no, I can’t say where your personal technology was taken.”

  “Thank you, Jo-Ta. If trouble comes, I’ll be sure not to run in your direction. Do you mind if I visit my personal assistant?”

  “The doors are not locked, Honored Miss Syung.”

  “Except the ones I’m not allowed to enter. Yes?”

  The guard withdrew into silence. Kara knew he couldn’t be bought. Jo-Ta had to be in it for more than the money.

  She flung open Chi-Qua’s door and caught her best friend naked, about to change into a fresh staff uniform. Chi-Qua didn’t flinch, as if she was waiting around for the moment. Eight years ago, the sight would have thrilled Kara. Many times, they experimented with each other, acting on feelings they thought might deepen the more they touched and kissed. Sometime near Kara’s sixteenth birthday, they lost the taste for it.

  “You might have knocked,” Chi-Qua said.

  “And you might not have betrayed me.”

  “I explained it, Kara. I only told them enough to fulfill the agreement. I never compromised you.”

  “You compromised everything, you selfish coit.”

  Chi-Qua laughed. “Selfish? Me? You drag me into your crusade and put me and my family’s rehab at risk, but I’m the coit. You align yourselves with terrorists against your own family, but I’m the coit.”

  “Yes, Chi. I did those things because I happen to believe in something bigger than my family or yours.”

  “Kara Syung. Savior of Hokkaido. How’s that plan working out?”

  “Hard to say. I’ve been disconnected.” She glanced one more time at Chi-Qua’s slender beauty and turned toward the window. “Put something on. Now.”

  “Is that an order?”

  “An act of decency.”

  “Well, this is my bedroom, but I don’t want to offend.”

  As Chi-Qua dressed, Kara studied the east gardens. A steady diet of guards – all with weapons hidden – moved about in a prescribed pattern. She closed her eyes and took a moment to reflect.

  Storming into Chi’s bedroom was not a smart move. Set the wrong tone. She needed to dig out in a hurry.

  “I assume they’ve embargoed your personal tech as well?”

  “Last night. Right after they brought you back to the estate.”

  “But they didn’t find everything, did they?”

  She pivoted. Chi-Qua was dressed in a fresh red-and-white bodysuit. A glint in Chi-Qua’s eyes was the only clue.

  “They claimed all my registered devices,” the aide said.

  “Did they tell you why?”

  “No, but your Honorable Mother said it was temporary.”

  “Until I’m married?”

  “My understanding. Yes.”

  “I’m a prisoner until then. What did she promise you?”

  “That she wouldn’t break our deal.”

  “That’s a threat, not a promise. Your betrayal should have been worth at least a year off the Baek rehab.”

  Chi-Qua waved her back, opened a night table drawer, and grabbed a cylindrical green pipe. She double tapped the end and pulled a long drag of poltash she claimed to dislike.

  “What can I say, Kara? Your mother has all the leverage. It’s something you forgot a long time ago.”

  “No, Chi. Never forgot. It’s why I was so careful these past three years. My one mistake was trusting you.”

  “Trust? Now there’s an interesting concept. My honorable parents have had to live in shame while trusting in the good faith of the very family that ruined theirs. And me? I scamper behind in your shadow, cleaning up after your messes, because no one gave me a choice to do otherwise. And because I thought your word carried more weight than Perr and Li-Ann Syung.”

  “What? My word is …”

  “Empty, Kara. T
he other night you made me a promise. You said you’d arrange for me to meet with Father. But you became consumed in your crusade … again. Your word is empty, Kara.”

  Chi-Qua was right on one score: The secret rendezvous did take a tumble down the list of priorities. But she was wrong on another.

  “I’m sorry, Chi. It was meant to be a surprise. I finished the arrangements before I headed to Mangum. I was going to take you to luncheon today. A quiet place I know in the Taillon District. Discreet. They have a private room upstairs. I cleared it for two hours, before your father’s shift. Both are coming, Chi. Your mother was hard to convince, but it’s been too long. I always thought the terms of separation were outrageous.”

  Chi-Qua’s indignant sneer diminished.

  “You’re sincere?”

  “Of course. Look, I realize how obsessive I can be, but I never lost sight of how Syung-Low treated your family. I had to do something for you while I still could. After I marry Ya-Li, I’ll be inside the Taron cage. This was going to be my present to you …” Kara stifled a chuckle. “… for all your loyalty.”

  Chi-Qua backed away and bowed her head.

  “And now I won’t be there. Will I?”

  “Not unless our circumstances change.”

  “It’s been two years, Kara.”

  “Might be another two, Chi.”

  “I didn’t betray you.”

  “Yes, you did. But maybe it doesn’t have to matter. Where is the unregistered device?” Chi swung about, panic in her eyes. “I’ve always suspected, Chi, but I assumed it was for off-book talks with your family. Now I’m not so sure. My most dear and honorable parents wanted you to have a way to speak to them without an audience. Yes?”

  Chi-Qua didn’t have to confirm. Her darkened eyes did the trick.

  “I’m not sure it can be redirected without their knowledge.”

  “Is it a modified hand-comm?”

  “Yes.”

  “I know how to redirect. You forget, Chi. I’m an engineer.”

  “If they find out, I’ll lose everything. And Kara, I do think they’ll kill you. I don’t know what’s going on, but I think they’re willing to sacrifice anyone to make it happen.”

  “Yes. They are. Chi, they plan to destroy the Kye-Do rings with singularity weapons.”

  Chi dropped the pipe. “Say that again.”

  “Three days, she said. That’s all the time they’ll need to ‘save the planet.’ But there’s more to it. Much more. They’re insane. Chi, I have to know what our allies found on Mangum Island. Or if they’re even alive. What you said earlier was right. I aligned with terrorists against my own family because my family are probably the biggest terrorists on this planet. Lang saw what was coming, and he set me on this path. And now my last hope might be that unregistered hand-comm you keep hidden in here.”

  Chi nodded toward the open drawer of the night table.

  “Pull it out,” she said. “All the way.”

  Kara gave herself a reason to hope.

  39

  T HE QUEEN MAB SURFACED ABOVE THE QUESSI Shoals at dawn, its long-range comm tower rising out of its fin. The forward access hatch opened, and three members of the boat’s crew emerged.

  Ryllen never saw the ocean quite this way before. Still, placid, unemotional. In the dim light, it seemed as if nature was waiting for a reason to awaken. The Kye-Do rings crossed the sky at their zenith, like a bejeweled necklace around the planet.

  “It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen,” he told Mei Durin, who trailed behind carrying the last several yards of a bow line meant for Ryllen. “Living forever has it perks, I suppose.”

  “Your idea is cudfrucking walloo,” she said.

  He loved it when she slipped into Umkau slang.

  “Expect something else from a psychopath?”

  “We should sink it and go home.”

  He lifted his arms. “Easy way out, Mei. Time to know the truth, and I got less to lose than anybody. Tie me.”

  She wrapped the line around his torso, just above his waist, and finished with invincible knots.

  “You’re an asshole, RJ. From day one.”

  “Love you, too.”

  “Look. If this thing drags you under, might be you don’t come back this time. What if you’re all out of …?”

  “Regenerations? Maybe. I’m not loving the white.” He twisted a braid. “If I make it back to Pinchon, I’m doubling down on a hefty dip of Sheeno. Comes in twenty-three colors now.”

  Mei pivoted to Ham, who cradled a metallic strongbox.

  “You’re actually going to let him do this shit?”

  “RJ’s right. We have to know the truth before we return to Pinchon, assuming it’s even safe to do so. He’s forged a connection to the cube.”

  She laughed with disdain. “He had a vision, Ham. I tried mahali once. I had visions, too. What of it?”

  “Yes. It’s possible the cube is a type of drug. Those vacant sods on Mangum certainly seemed lost without it. But if there’s more … if what RJ told us about his vision is precognitive, then we must go deeper. They called it the Splinter. We need to know why.”

  Ryllen’s story of what he thought to be the future – an attack on the wedding of Kara Syung and Ya-Li Taron – generated mixed responses. Ham was not sold on the idea at first. Time travel – forward or backward – was impossible, he insisted. The history of Chancellor science and generations of experiments proved as much. Yet what they saw and heard on Mangum Island couldn’t be denied.

  “It felt like the future,” Ryllen told the crew of his nightmarish vision. “But it also felt like something that already happened. I don’t think this is about time as we understand it.”

  “What do you mean?” Lan asked.

  “I think it’s trying to talk to me. It started on the rifter. Maybe these things I see are … like its language. But my brain … I’m still learning how to translate.”

  “Farfetched,” Ham said, “but not impossible.”

  “It delivered you to us,” Lan added. “It must know what you are.”

  After much debate, Ham and Lan reached agreement. Surface the sub at Quessi Shoals as originally planned. Provide Ryllen an opportunity to commune with the cube. Down below, contact Lan’s people through back channels and determine the lay of the land. The margin for error was small. The longer the Queen Mab remained surfaced, the greater potential for it to be sighted. If the danger was as grave as they suspected, reaching a friendly shore would be a dicey proposition at best.

  “Time for the show,” Ryllen said, pointing to the strongbox. “If it gets hairy, you two better make for the hole.”

  Ham unlocked the box and flipped up the lid. The pink glow was muted. Upon close inspection, Ryllen saw the pure geometry within the Splinter. A singularity at the center. Ryllen felt its tug, like another source of gravity drawing him closer. Eight laser spikes radiated from the singularity, intersecting the corners. Somehow, the design made more sense now than when he found it inside the sphere. This time, he realized the glass protecting the singularity was an inch thick.

  I know what this is.

  Yet the words to define it eluded him.

  Ryllen scooped up the cube and stepped away from Mei and Ham. He turned toward the bow and considered his options. He had a good ten meters available and intended to take them all. The Splinter wanted to be alone with him.

  He didn’t look back as he walked within a meter of the bow’s edge.

  “Good enough,” he whispered to the cube. “Tell me your secrets.”

  The Splinter’s response brought shivers down Ryllen’s spine.

  “NO.”

  The word tore through him like an earthquake. It was many voices at once. His adoptive mother, Muna-Lin Jee, who once claimed to adore the young Ryllen before disowning him. His first Hokki friend, Heemo Tau, who embraced Ryllen as a First Year and paid the price thereafter. An immo who fell to her knees in a culvert south of Zozo and begged for her life b
efore Ryllen blew her brains out. And Kai Durin, realizing too late his team was being ambushed at Ronin Swallows. Other voices followed, but they formed an incoherent symphony.

  Ryllen noticed changes inside the cube. As his fingers massaged the glass, certain radial spikes enlarged, glowed brighter, and even changed color. He laid the tip of a pinkie against the glass and drew imaginary circles. Pulsations increased, and pink became ocean blue before transforming into shades of yellow then back again to the baseline pink.

  “OK, good. It’s not words you want. It’s touch.”

  He held the Splinter at eye level, just as he was doing onboard the rifter before the lullaby began. Before the sun came out and another sphere approached.

  The memory of his most recent death grew more vivid. A silhouette in the open doorway. A fireball released from the sphere’s rotating rings. Then the Splinter spoke as Ryllen fell to his death: Now it begins. Keep me close.

  “You’re protecting me. Why?”

  No answer came, as he predicted, so Ryllen launched into a new routine with his fingers. He played the cube like a musical instrument, crafting a language through the interplay of his digits and hoping the intelligence inside appreciated his efforts.

  And finally, success.

  “SHOW.”

  One word arrived in a hundred voices, and the spikes penetrated the cube’s shield. They punctured the sea and the clouds, extending far beyond Ryllen’s vision.

  The cube demanded he let go.

  Ryllen no longer felt the sub beneath his feet. The cube played its dreamy lullaby as the spikes segmented space in every direction. The world appeared to terraform before his eyes, each of eight partitions opening a window into a different ecosystem.

  Deserts. Waterfalls. Glaciers. Volcanoes. Towers. Ships. Farmland. Wasteland.

  Other worlds. He thought. Not Hokkaido. Which colonies?

  The cube’s lullaby darkened into an ominous refrain which chilled his blood. Ryllen realized his error and tried to correct.

  Not colonies. Same names, but not the colonies.

  The music settled into a sweet melody, washing over Ryllen like a warm blanket. Only then did he look down and see what was happening to his body.