by KT Belt
Rauon spoke in a calm and direct manner, and Carmen got the impression that he was trying not to think about what he was talking about. For her part, she couldn’t help a disgusted frown.
“That attack would have killed any normal being,” he said. “But the test readings indicated no stress response. It was like the Clairvoyant was hit by no more than a stiff breeze. I’ve seen test animals with deactivated pain receptors give a stronger reaction to physical damage. The tau beast never really had a chance. The Clairvoyant set it on fire pyrokinetically,” he said.
“But that wasn’t all. After the tau beast was dead, the boy gave a stare,” Rauon continued, talking more to himself at this point. “He was drenched in blood, his eyeball hung loose, and he just stood there and silently watched the creature madly flail about. Then he looked at the camera. He shouldn’t have known it was there, but his working eye seemed to just bore into you. I remember it almost made me leave the room the first time I watched it. Now I shut off the video before it gets to that part.”
“Why?” Carmen asked.
Rauon turned to look at her. “I’m not sure you can fully understand,” he said. “It requires some understanding of our history, which I doubt you are a student of.” Carmen shrugged and shook her head, which prompted him to give the sorten equivalent of a nod. “Our past—our distant past—was a violent one. It approached nothing of your terran history, but a certain degree of brutality is still brutality.” He stopped talking for a moment as the elevator doors opened and the group started walking down the corridor. “Our ancient ancestors believed in a spirit both good and evil, as you would understand it. It lived in every being, and its domain was both knowledge and destruction.”
“What do you mean?” Carmen asked.
“I think knowledge is the wrong word. Terranese is an imprecise language,” Rauon said. “Perhaps it is more accurate to say self-knowledge.”
She couldn’t help a bemused frown. “Now I really don’t understand.”
“One is not granted without the other,” the head technician said matter-of-factly. “Our forebearers were wise enough to see that the more we learned about ourselves—the more we learned of our fears, what could hurt us, and what we were vulnerable to—the more destructive we could be to others and them to us. First, we learned that if we were crushed, we would die, and there were clubs. Then we learned that if we were cut, we would bleed, and edged weapons were spawned. After that were poisonous gasses, explosives, and other best forgotten monsters,” he said, looking at her as they walked.
“I have always wanted to work with Clairvoyants,” Rauon continued. “Terrans didn’t even know their own potential before our two species met.” Carmen raised an eyebrow, noting the very polite way he phrased the first contact between terrans and sortens.
Rauon didn’t speak for a long time after that. It was like he was lost in thought. The sorten looked into the distance, and his breathing even slowed. The few seconds seemed like a lifetime. A gentle cough on her part snapped him back to the present.
“I just worried what we were teaching you about yourselves,” he added. “What we may be unleashing by furthering our research.”
Carmen considered everything he had said. “That spirit sounds a little like the Dark.”
“I’ve never really thought of it that way,” Rauon said. “Yet, I can see your meaning.”
“What happened to the boy?” she asked softly.
“He died not long after he killed the tau beast,” he answered. “The video didn’t say, but I imagine his body was studied. In fact, full research of your kind was taken shortly after that video was made.”
She nodded and then thought of Phaethon again…and herself. But her thoughts were cut short when Inertia spoke.
“Do you think we are here to destroy you?” he asked Rauon.
“Excuse me?” the sorten muttered.
“Do you think we are here to destroy you?” Inertia asked again.
Rauon grew visibly uncomfortable again. Every sorten here was experienced enough with Clairvoyants to know they hated repeating themselves. Inertia looked at Rauon intently but merely out of curiosity. The head technician relaxed upon reading his features.
“I don’t know why you are here,” he said simply.
“We’re not working for free,” Carmen pointed out.
“True,” Rauon admitted. “It is certainly less…alarming to be around you since you are voluntarily in our service.” He paused for a few seconds. “Though I must say that wasn’t the case with Charon. Anyway, I’m sure the precise reason you chose to help us instead of taking another contract will reveal itself in due time. I don’t think it matters, though,” he said as he stopped to look at both of them. “Every encounter with a Clairvoyant is akin to staring into the unknown. We should not fear, even if we are terrified. I’ll say especially if we’re terrified. It is an exciting test.” Rauon took a deep breath. “Caelus used to always say that…long ago,” he added after a short pause.
Carmen nodded, and with that, the conversation appeared to be effectively over. The group continued on. She reflected on what Gungnir had said about wolves in the forest and giving pause. Her biggest day to day worry for the past few years had been nothing more than making enough money to get by while paying Michael’s medical bills. She looked all around her, thinking of the planetoid they were presently encased inside. She knew sortens and others studied Clairvoyants. She was even distantly aware of the lengths they went to. But the reality of her life and the sheer dread of what she was capable of causing were laughably nowhere near each other. Would the sortens be so worried if they knew how difficult it was for her to hold down a gym membership?
Rauon stopped in place and opened one of the hidden doors on the wall of the corridor. “This is it. Can you please step inside?”
Carmen glanced into the room before she made any other move. She wasn’t completely surprised by what she saw. In fact, she was such a finely tuned weapon by this point in her life that she didn’t even notice her heart rate quicken, her breath shorten, or her hands ball into fists. The walls of the room were padded with heat resistant material. It was perfectly square and a little larger than what she was used to at the facility.
Rauon prompted them into the fight room and then followed them inside. Carmen glanced at one of the several blood stains on the ground and wondered why the sortens didn’t bother cleaning it up like her previous captors had. Then she turned to look at the wall behind her. High on it, near the ceiling, was a large observation booth with a commanding view of the entire room. Caelus stood in its center, intently staring down at them as he stood on his hind legs. She had been well aware that she was observed, recorded, and catalogued back at the facility, and she had no doubt that she was being studied now. How obvious the sortens were about it, however, took her aback.
“I will come to collect you when the test is complete,” Rauon said.
Carmen watched him leave. She then looked at Inertia before her gaze finally rested on a door at the other end of the room. In just a brief moment, four Clairvoyant Constructs emerged. They all looked the same with jet-black hair and a mechanical directness about their movement. She took a few steps away from Inertia to have room to move if she needed to. The purpose of this test was quite clear.
“Defend yourself only,” Caelus said through the room’s speaker system. “Do not attack back. This is a nonlethal test. But they will kill you if they are able.”
Carmen sighed. She already wasn’t looking forward to it. “Why do we have to fight?” she muttered under her breath.
“Did you say something, Psyche? If so, I want to hear it,” Caelus said.
She hadn’t thought he’d be able to hear her, but the microphones in here were apparently stronger than she expected. Even so, she wasn’t in the mood to be shy.
“I said why do we have to fight? Why is it always fighting?” she replied, staring at her opponents who stood by at the other end of the room.
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br /> “Do you not want to fight?” the sorten asked.
The observation booth was behind her, so Carmen couldn’t see him, but his words were soaked with the inquisitive mind of a scientist pulling wings off a fly. Her response would be noted somewhere for further study. She wasn’t exactly sure how to respond, causing her eyes to glance Inertia’s direction.
Caelus spoke again. “Well, let me answer your question then—”
“Fighting involves the whole self,” Inertia said, cutting him off mid-speech. “There is no other task or endeavor that stresses the consciousness and the Dark so completely, maybe other than being in love. The Dark can’t be hidden in battle; it is always called upon. I’m sure they have preliminary readings on our bioelectric fields cross-referenced with our genetic makeups. By now, I’m sure they’ve made projections based on those readings with whatever computer model they’ve developed. This test is meant to verify the accuracy of the computer model so they can make more powerful Clairvoyant Constructs. They don’t want us to kill these Constructs because I’m sure they are expensive to produce.”
Carmen turned her head slowly to stare at him for a moment. “Oh…” she muttered.
It was a few seconds before Caelus finally spoke. “So, the weak one does have a brain after all. Most unexpected among the Clairvoyant beasts. As I asked yesterday, what else is there?”
Inertia half turned to face him. “More than you want to admit,” he said. “You will never succeed. You don’t know the correct questions to ask. The final secret can’t be uncovered through science. You know this and you’re still lost. Everyone else, though, hasn’t realized the obvious yet. That surprises you.”
There was a long silence. Carmen looked back at Inertia and Caelus as they stared at each other. She only somewhat understood what they were talking about, and she certainly couldn’t see how it was relevant, especially now. With that in mind, she glanced at the Clairvoyant Constructs, just in case they made a move.
“Bring him here,” the sorten said.
The door burst open, and the guards that had accompanied them immediately entered. Carmen watched the scene, completely frozen in place. She had no idea what to do. Were they attacking Inertia? Was this a good thing? The indecision bounced around in her skull till he gave her a reassuring nod.
“What do I do?” she asked him telepathically.
“Exactly what you are doing,” he said back. “Be yourself and follow my lead.”
Carmen considered the advice and all the travails it had so far caused. “That’s not exactly easy.”
He had already begun to leave with the guards, though. She had never really realized till this moment how comforting it was to not be completely alone. Now her face fell further and further with each step he took.
“I know,” he replied as he glanced at her over his shoulder. With that, he left the room.
Carmen turned to face her remaining company and rolled her eyes.
The sortens moved quickly, but Inertia noted everything—every inch of this place, every light, every twist and turn they made, the added haste from the command of their leader, everything. In short order, he was shepherded into an elevator and then they were walking down a new corridor. A few steps later, he was inside a midsized room. Caelus stared at him from the other end of it, but Inertia paid him no notice. Dozens of sorten technicians were busy behind computers, analyzing every possible detail of his partner and her opposition. He was well aware that Caelus was almost madly eager to talk to him, as always by means that couldn’t be obviously discerned, but that was not why he was here.
He walked intentionally slowly toward Caelus. Mugal was also near, like a steadfastly loyal dog ready to defend his master. For now, though, the security director was quiet and observing. Inertia didn’t even waste his time glancing at him. His attention was on the computers. He was less interested in what they were reading and instead keenly curious as to how they worked. As discretely as he could, Inertia took in every detail of their operation. Unfortunately, it was a system he’d never personally used before, and when he looked at Caelus, it was with a frown. This would take longer than he’d thought.
He walked right past Caelus, stopping to look down into the room he had just vacated. Edge was thankfully okay. If anything, it looked like she hadn’t even moved. She had to know he was here, watching her. She never turned to look, though, so it wasn’t a guess he could confirm. He allowed a second or two of silent consideration. Thus far, his plan was strategy at its most raw and basic. They weren’t at the point, yet, where they could do anything other than react to what was happening to them. As if on cue, Edge’s head turned slightly toward him, and even he wondered, So, what now?
Inertia turned around from the imperceptible prompt Clairvoyants lived by. Caelus towered over him. The terran looked up at the sorten, who stared back with fiery intelligence in his eyes.
“There was a building I used to walk past every day,” Caelus began. “It was part of a complex built more than a hundred of your years ago. All of its kin were impressive in their physical height, but the one I passed every day was the most well known. I can’t really describe it for you now. It had elegance in proportion and other subtleties that can only be appreciated when seen in person,” Caelus said. Then he closed his eyes, and Inertia just watched and waited. “Even people familiar with it would stop and appreciate the masterwork in its construction before they went on their way. I would often spend entire days just studying every detail.
“And I couldn’t understand it,” he continued after a brief pause. “That building was functionally the same as the rest around it. They had the same general shape and ultimate purpose. Yet this one was elevated above them all. It deserved to be elevated, but I could never explain how it was what it was, nor did its creator ever say why he built it the way he did. For years I walked past that building, marveling at every inch of its genius. I even took it upon myself to master as much of the science of architecture as anyone could possibly teach themselves.
“Most of this facility was designed by me personally. I fully understand the discipline’s principles and am painfully aware of its limitations. I can describe the minutest detail of any edifice with perfect mathematical precision. Nevertheless…” His voice trailed off and his face grew blank as his thoughts retreated in on themselves. “Nevertheless, that building guarded its secrets well.” Caelus looked down at Inertia after a deep breath. “You say I will never succeed,” he said simply.
Inertia didn’t answer right away. He looked behind the sorten to the dozens upon dozens of computer technicians working diligently in the background.
“Never,” he finally said.
“What makes you so certain?”
“You’re asking for too much—”
“Explain,” Caelus interrupted.
“Every terran can become a Clairvoyant,” Inertia said. “Everyone. The only reason Clairvoyants are special is because of how many people choose not to become one.”
“It may not be special to some to be able to melt a solid block of metal with just a thought,” Mugal snorted.
Inertia glanced at him before he turned his attention back to Caelus. “I must ask. How many buildings did you see every day on your way to work that you took no note of whatsoever? How many buildings in your life inspired you in the same way as that one?” He paused for a moment, and the scientist waited. “Of all those buildings, there was only one you could say was truly exceptional, and you cannot explain why, it just is. My partner is exceptional. She cannot be recreated out of science.”
“What are you saying?” Mugal asked hurriedly.
“Put simply,” Inertia began, glancing at him and then back at Caelus, “your copies are almost a match to an average Clairvoyant. They will not, however, progress much further. Natural talent and the forces that nurture it can only be observed. It can’t be mapped, distilled, and packaged. What makes Edg—Psyche—what she is is unique to her and her alone. Even if she had a
twin, they would not be capable of the same and certainly not in the same way. No two dishes of food taste exactly the same, even with the same ingredients and prepared the same way.”
The sorten stood completely still for a long while. He stared at Inertia, but it wasn’t with disbelief or a critical eye. “I have mapped every possible attribute of your kind down to your last molecule,” Caelus said. “My models have accurately predicted every vagary of your primitive psyches—”
“Yet you will not succeed,” Inertia said.
“I will admit there have been a great many pains, but even you admit our copies approach the strength of the average Clairvoyant. To say never?” Caelus questioned.
Inertia smiled.
“Why do you smile?” the security director asked with obvious anger bleeding into his voice.
“If only you could see and understand the depths of your ignorance,” the Clairvoyant answered simply. “Unleash the beast then, if you don’t believe me,” he said, turning around to look down at Edge. “Expect her to injure one of your copies in only a few moves.”
“How do you know what she will do?” Caelus asked.
“Knowing a thing is not the same as cataloging a thing,” he remarked.
The two sortens fell silent, unable to do anything but watch him. Mugal eventually looked to his master, who nodded.
“Begin,” the security director barked to the army of computer technicians behind them.
“Edge, I need your help,” Inertia spoke to her telepathically.
He could almost feel her mind actively studying every move the Clairvoyant Constructs made as they slowly surrounded her.
“How exactly does that work?” she asked him.
“I need you to injure one of them when they attack you.”
She paused for a moment. “I thought they said not to fight back?”
“I’m aware,” he replied. “But it will help my credibility.”
Carmen gave a slight nod. A nanosecond later, it began.
The speed and savagery of the contest was evident from the first twitch of a muscle. The four Clairvoyant Constructs attacked in well-timed unison. Carmen feigned a counterattack, but none of her opposition took the bait. She was quite certain they knew she wasn’t supposed to attack them.