*
After an hour of walking, they reached the next sub-station. Above the entrance was a sign saying, “AUXILIARY POWER MANAGEMENT AND BACK-UP GENERATOR”. Inside, the group found a large, circular room, roughly twenty feet high and fifty feet across. In the centre of the room, a large generator was humming, while numerous cords and wires criss-crossed the floor. Along the opposite wall, a row of monitors had been set up, allowing personnel to directly manage power use and distribution. As the generator was currently not in use, the majority of the monitors were blank.
“Kingston, do you think Guardian could attack us here?” asked Barsch, as he eyed the quiet mound of machinery in the centre of the room.
Kingston also had his eyes on the machine. “I'm not one-hundred percent sure, but I don't think so. Unlike the water treatment plant, which can be easily repaired, sabotaging the generator would be too dangerous for Guardian. If he overloads the mainframe, it could start a chain-reaction, and blow this Station sky-high. I think that he will refrain from doing anything that has a chance of endangering the people in cryostasis. But then again, he did seem pretty desperate to get rid of us, so that might cloud his judgement…”
With nothing else to do but press forward, the group left the quietude of the generator room. The corridor leading off from the room was wider than the one they had come from, allowing them to walk two-abreast. As they walked, Barsch slowly sidled over to Kingston, while Alza and Maloch scouted ahead.
“Um, Kingston?” was his hesitant query.
“Yes m'boy?” was the soft-spoken answer.
“How do I say this... um... Kingston, what do you dream about?” Ever since the incident with Spectre, Barsch had had dreams on his mind. He already knew that Alza shared his ability to wander the dreamscape, but the contents of Kingston’s dreams were a mystery to him.
The old man stumbled, the question taking him by complete surprise. After regaining his balance, he replied, “I dream about many things m'boy, why do you ask?”
“Well, are there any dreams that seem, I don’t know... special? Anything that repeats itself?”
“Special, eh? Hmm... I guess you could say that there is something like that. Most of my dreams, well, the one's I can remember anyway, are about my time in the war.”
“Sorry, I didn't mean...”
“It's okay. The war was a very long time ago, especially for me. And it wasn't all bad. Sure, there are a lot of painful memories, but there are some happy ones too. I was able to see many things, and travel to many places, that I otherwise would never have known. What about you Barsch? What do you dream about?”
It was Barsch's turn to stumble. “What do I dream about? Um, well, sometimes it's about my life before the Great Sleep, and occasionally I dream about the glade where you found me... and sometimes I dream about...”
At that moment, Barsch knew that he could not tell Kingston the truth. He could not tell him about the void filled with dreams, or of meeting Alza in his dreams, or of the man with crimson eyes. Instead, he said, “My mother, and my father, you know... how they're doing and stuff...”
Barsch had expected the old hermit to ignore his faltering words, but Kingston looked up sharply when Barsch mentioned his parents. For an instant, a mixture of surprise and... what looked like guilt flashed across the old man's face. The next instant, it was gone, replaced by his usual kindly demeanour.
“I see. When you dream about them, what do they say?”
Barsch had not expected any questions about his dreams, so he had to think quickly. “Um... they say… just things like: I'm worried about you, and I hope you are safe. That kind of thing...”
“I think it is my turn to apologize, for making you speak about such things.”
“No! No, it's okay... I know that my dad is safe, and that I'll see him when he wakes up. And my mom... well, I never really knew her. She died giving birth to me, so... I don't even know what she looks like. I don't know if she was a happy person, what kind of hobbies she had. I know nothing about her, so it doesn't feel as though she was ever... real...”
Kingston stopped and, placing a hand on Barsch's shoulder, said, “Barsch m'boy, I'm sure that she was a wonderful woman, who loved you very much. I'm sure that she cherished every moment of being with you, even at the end. And I know, that someday, you will see her again, and she will be everything you imagined.” Tears had welled up in the old hermit's eyes as he spoke, causing Barsch to look away in embarrassment. It was strange, to have Kingston speak this way about his mother, but in a way, it was comforting.
After thanking Kingston for his kind words, they began walking again, soon catching up to Maloch and Alza, who were waiting for them at the next sub-station. The sign above the entrance read, “COLD STORAGE”. Beside the airtight door was a small screen, which gave the temperature inside the room, “-10 °C / 14 °F”.
Cautiously, they entered the room. It was another large room, filled with floor-to-ceiling shelves and labelled boxes. Ice coated the walls, which were adorned with multiple vents pumping out freezing-cold air. Barsch watched as his breath materialized in a hazy cloud in front of his face. The last time he had been so cold was when they had been in the ç'aether forest, which brought back unwelcome recollections. Stuffing his hands -which had already begun to turn blue- inside his greatcoat pockets, he followed after the others. Kingston had already made it to the other side of the room, and had double-checked it for any traps.
Once he was confident that Guardian would not surprise them, he called everyone together. “We never know when we are going to get a chance like this again, so we should stock up on supplies here. Once we are in the caverns, we might have to survive off our supplies for quite a while. Everyone understand?” Barsch and Maloch nodded, while Alza gave her usual apathetic stare. “Okay then, let's spread out and look for things to take.”
Following Kingston's suggestion, they split up and began searching through the shelves. Alza took the furthest corner of the room, as was expected. Unexpectedly, Spectre followed her.
Alza began to search the shelves, while Spectre lazily wallowed above her head. The strange creature had turned a bright shade of purple, and had swelled to the size of a closed fist. Sometimes it would drift too close, which would warrant a gentle -yet firm- push from Alza. Whenever this would happen, Spectre would turn bright pink and float away, only to return a few minutes later.
After the third time this happened, Alza gave up on finding supplies, and instead turned to the playful spirit and said, “Now look, what exactly do you want? Ion sent you to help us, right? So help.”
In response, Spectre turned and began to drift towards the back of the room. At first, Alza thought that it was just sulking, but, when it turned back and returned to her, she understood. Leaving her things by the shelves, Alza followed the luminescent ball of living plasma towards the end of the row.
As they reached the wall, a familiar voice called out, “Hello daughter of science, it has been a while.” From the ice covered wall, a figure began to emerge. The frost beaded together, shifting and crackling, as the form became clearer. From the icy form, features appeared, starting with a set of sparkling, sapphire eyes, which were soon framed by long, dark brown locks. Her cloak appeared next, an eldritch garment of abyssal blue, wrapped in bands of breaking wave white and glacial aquamarine. Moments later, where there had once been a rather uninteresting stretch of ice-covered wall, there now stood a rather beautiful young woman.
“Ion.” There was nothing else that could have been said.
“You have been busy since we last met. Is what we ask of you really so much? Travel west, stop the madman, save humanity... really now, it's not that complicated.”
From what she knew of normal emotions, Alza recognized Ion's tone as playful, however, Alza knew that beneath her teasing façade, she was worried. Her eyes betrayed her, telling Alza that the Avatar's were not entirely sure they had chosen correctly. It would be a lie to say that the thou
ght had not crossed Alza's mind, the thought that maybe they could not stop the madman, whoever he was.
In Alza's view, anyone powerful enough to threaten the entire human race would normally be nigh-impossible to stop, without a great deal more people and resources. It was almost a joke, asking her, Barsch, a hermit and a re-mech to save the world.
“But, that's not my problem, is it? Once I have what I want... a past... I will be done with them, and they will be free to do whatever they want. I do not have any love for this dying world, but nor do I have any particular hate for it. Whether humanity survives or perishes, it is of no concern to me. I will live on, and find my own path.”
Out loud, Alza said, “The task may have been simple, but the complications are not. With that man... Raigan? Slowing us down, and with nature itself sending us obstacles, this journey has become harder.
Ion stepped forward, a pondering look upon her delicate face. She reminded Alza a bit too much of Amber, which was unnerving in more than one way.
“I see. Well, I can't promise that your journey will be easier from now on, but I don't think you have to worry about that man for now. He will not interfere directly again, otherwise he… will be punished... However, he is not the man you should be worried about.”
For an instant, an image of Barsch flashed across her mind, causing Alza to step back in surprise. Ion said nothing about her sudden, erratic movement, and continued, “The man with crimson eyes is who I am referring to. Ah, judging by the look on your face, you've met him? Not directly I'm sure, but he has his ways of getting to you. His realm is not just the physical, but the mental as well. If given the chance, he will enter your mind and hollow you out from the inside. If he gets to you, you will be nothing more than a lifeless husk, devoid of thought or emotion.”
The image that sprang to her mind this time was of the young man with crimson eyes, who had attacked her in the desert. His appearances since then had always been in her nightmares -barring his assault in the ç'aether forest- and had always left her feeling drained and uneasy. Even though she did not know his name, he had created an unwelcome reputation for himself.
“The man with crimson eyes, who is he?”
“A servant of the madman, and a powerful enemy whom you must be wary of. He is dangerous, perhaps more so that the madman, and he is not to be trusted. If you encounter him, run. If he chases you, run faster. He is not an opponent you can beat on your own. But, most importantly, he is not to be allowed to come in contact with Barsch. If, by some unimaginable stroke of bad luck, they do meet, you must do everything in your power to protect him.”
It was the first time Ion had been so forthcoming with information, and Alza was determined not to let it go to waste. “Why can't they meet? Why is Barsch so important? And who is the madman? If you don't tell me, I won't be able to protect anyone, let alone Barsch.”
However, Ion, her warning delivered, had already begun to fade from sight. As she disappeared, she gave one more piece of advice. “Without Barsch, you will never find your true self. Without you, Barsch will never succeed. The two of you are linked, by bonds far stronger than either of you realise. Remember this, daughter of science!”
And then she was gone, as if she had never existed. No trace was left of their meeting, aside from a strange outline left in the frost covering the wall. From Alza's perspective, it looked like a ball of fire inside a snowflake. Within seconds, a new coating of ice had erased the last remnant of Ion's presence. Alza stood there, ignoring the cold, thinking about Ion's warning. “All I care about is finding out who I am, and if I have to stay with Barsch to do so, then so be it. But, the moment I have what I want, I'll teach these Avatars a thing or two about controlling people.”
Her strange encounter over, Alza returned to the shelves. By the time she returned, it was already time to leave, so she gathered up what she had found and took it to the exit. Judging by Barsch and Kingston's tired expressions, finding supplies had not gone well. As the others talked about how hard it was to find anything of use in a cold storage room, Alza made up her mind. She would keep what Ion had said to herself. If she told Kingston or Barsch, they would undoubtedly want to stay away from the crimson eyed man, and away from the only lead she had.
After everything had been packed and repacked, they left the uneventful -for everyone but Alza- room and headed onwards.
Awakening Page 178