by Tim Kaiver
"Emmit?" Sara cut in.
"Please," he said aloud. "My head hurts. Talk, or don't. I'm busy."
"...Okay. I'm just sensing a lot of unease in your brainwaves."
Emmit saw his chance. "Can you help?" As he looked up at her, he made Sprinkles, Hopper Brinoway, and Cullen his only three thoughts, and braced. "Don't interrupt my three connections, but coax the matter around them so that I can concentrate on my job."
Sara's insertion felt like two arms trying to stuff inside a thin sleeve. He adjusted until her force made its way in. Emmit held tight to the three connections, catching and pinching back a couple of Sara’s subtle attempts to link to them too. I said no. These are mine.
Skill learned: Stealth pathing.
+5 XP
40/180 to Level 4.
Sprinkles ascended the stairwell to their floor and would arrive in ten or so seconds. Can you open the hatch? I was thinking—
"I'll take care of him."
No.
Sara paused. From the corner of his eyes he caught her gaze, but didn't meet it.
He can go in the generator room, since all the beds and chairs will be taken. If you can just open the hatch for him, please.
"Is there something wrong?"
The tendrils he'd felt testing his three connections now probed the light touches on the connection holding and wrapping around Sprinkles, searching for weaknesses or falsities. He concentrated on the smooth brown of mud on Sprinkles's fur, where the black stuck out in hardened barbs.
The hatch hissed as it slid open.
A woman shrieked. His wolverine growled.
He looked over as Sprinkles sank his teeth into Sara's neck. No! Sprinkles, stop! The grip muffled most of her cry, while shock stifled his. His charm on his wolverine was gone. He tried to re-establish it, but a wall blocked him. Wet flesh ripped as Sara choked. Even if he could use his charm bonus, no one could survive that. Her kicking, flailing limbs had already lost their fight.
Willo!
She and Scanis darted inside, Willo glaring a silent threat at Emmit as a spray of blood hit her face, and they ducked inside the generator room.
"Emmit, what's happening?" Cullen asked.
I let her die…. Emmit continued trying to charm Sprinkles, now afraid that he'd turn on them.
"No," Willo said. "Consider that your and your father's payback. His pet's gone."
"Emmit!" Cullen landed with a thud and a grunt behind him, then ran for Sara, who lay in a pool of her blood outside the open hatch.
Sprinkles looked up. No. That wasn't Sprinkles anymore. The wolverine looked at Cullen, maw still clenched around Sara's throat. Her eyes fluttered but failed to find Cullen. The wolverine snapped a bone, then released Sara and bared its blood-dripping fangs at Cullen, who seemed only armed with a knife.
"Sara!" his dad called out.
The wolverine snarled and turned toward the sound.
Red laser beams scorched lethal, melting holes through his wolverine. Sprinkles howled as he recoiled and fell off Sara. Emmit's eyes went wide in shock. The smell of charred flesh and fur filled his nostrils with further evidence of the horror before him. He couldn't move or think. Sprinkles sank to the floor. The sight of his motionless body sent a chill through Emmit. Sara's stillness made his stomach churn. She, who had worried about letting Emmit die on her watch, had instead died on his. He watched as Cullen examined her wounds. This was Emmit's fault. The pain she'd suffered when the Osuna took her brother would live on in him. Revenge would fuel the strength he brought to the fight.
Cullen's dark stare turned on Emmit. "Why did your wolverine do this?"
Emmit's first thought was to out Willo.
"Your compliance keeps my rejects at bay," Willo 'pathed. "Keep us hidden, and I'll let you leave with your lives. Tell them about us and I'll strand you here until they arrive."
"I'm sorry," Emmit said, defeated. "I wasn't as strong as I needed to be. Willo sent him."
Adi glanced back from looking down the passageway, terror in his eyes.
Torek appeared in the hatchway, levitor rifle ready as he scanned the ship's interior. Ocia, his mom, his dad, then Jolnes, stood around Sara's body, but stopped only for a moment before stepping over the blood on the floor to enter the ship and shut the hatch behind them. Sara's and Sprinkles’s bodies remained outside. Memories came to mind of prisoners he'd seen left to rot in the sands outside the quarry. She did not deserve that fate.
An annoying sound blared from his father's wrist. He checked his watch and silenced the alarm. "The engines are overheating. Cullen, we have to go. Ehli will help you concentrate on Vijil."
Cullen nodded, and started for the cockpit. "Tor."
Torek hustled after him, leaving his dad with Adi and Emmit. Emmit pushed away thoughts of the generator room where Willo and Scanis hid.
"Son?" his mom 'pathed. "What're you hiding?"
He forced his thoughts to his last memory of Sara's dead stare and mauled throat. I'm sorry, he told her, trying to deflect his mom's probe. He pushed her out. "Everyone, leave me alone."
His dad's hand clutched his shoulder. "You have the best connection with Adi and his father, but if you need, we can try fitting your mother into that role."
Emmit's pulse thumped in his chest as the rejects reached their floor. "The rejects are here. No time. Just leave me to it and tell Mom to stay out of my head."
His dad squeezed his shoulder and patted his head. "Okay." He walked to his mom as she watched Emmit, sadness and worry lining her face. His dad put an arm around her waist—the intimacy surprised Emmit—and led her and Jolnes to the hatch on the other side of the passageway. "We'll be ready as soon as you are."
They made up? Emmit didn't know what to think of that.
"Emmit, let's go!" Cullen shouted from the cockpit.
Emmit shook off thoughts of his parents, straightened in his seat, and tapped the button to turn both neuronet poles back on. The purple light sent his and Adi's minds back into Hopper Brinoway's cockpit.
36
Adi's father bolted upright and leaned forward. "Adi! Is everyone all right?"
"No."
Emmit read Cullen's thoughts as his wristcom synced his neuronet with the pullspace program. He shared the conversation he'd had with his father about a multi-bubble and Cullen telling his people as soon as they arrived so that there wasn't an immediate firefight.
"Nothing like spitting against the odds. Okay. You keep locked on me and Adi's father, and I'll do my part."
Emmit pulled on Adi's father's memories, and the grief over his last words with his son being spoken in anger instead of love. He'll forgive you. I think he already has, Emmit told him. Their connection strengthened in a feeling of appreciation.
"You ready, Hopper?" Cullen asked.
Emmit heard it in Brinoway's head first. The pilot nodded. "I am."
"Okay. Don't make me regret this alliance. Your son in return for my home. No tricks."
"None planned."
Emmit felt the words resonate within the captain. He hoped Cullen's father wanted him with the same desperation.
The nearby rejects pushed at Emmit's thoughts like a dust storm, threatening to disrupt his concentration. He took out a chunk of fireburst almost bigger than his mouth, and stuffed it in.
"Mouthguards in," Cullen said. "Twenty, nine..."
Emmit and Adi took theirs from the pockets in their seats. Emmit forced some of the fireburst down his throat to make room for his mouthguard. As Cullen's countdown reached "Ten," he focused a channel into Cullen's chosen memory of Viji:
Cullen was a boy not much younger than Emmit, standing with his father on an apartment balcony overlooking Vijil City. The orange glow of the setting sun reflected off the dark glass of the skyscrapers. Rivers of flying cars soared in stripes, weaving colors along charted airways between buildings and into the veins of the city. His dad held him in a side hug, and took a drink of coffee. Cullen looked through the gaps between
the streams of flying cars to the ones riding the streets twenty stories below. "Someday I hope you can share this view with your son," his father said. "You have more adventure ahead of you than I can tell, and I have to trust the Father of the Ancients that He'll give you back. But as you go, please never forget that I let you go with great trepidation."
The ship shook, and a deep chill filled Emmit's blood, seizing him in the strength of the Mericure Bubble that could pull the depths of space and kiss them together in the blessing of passage.
"Until you have a child," Cullen's dad continued, "you will never understand what it means to love a life that is part you and wholly free. It takes risks in ways that can't always be foreseen. It will keep you up at nights in fits of worry and prayer. This is the world and universe I'm charged with training you for, and in its complexity there is the overwhelming sense of being unprepared for the task."
Cullen lost himself in the wonder of seeing the memory with a clarity unlike ever before. The Cipher's quest was overwhelming and complex, but he'd followed it here, and might be on the verge of completion.
The bubble's tingle fizzed through Emmit's body. Sensing that it had reached the peak of its power, he used Telescope with the level-up boost. His charm locked instantly into Hopper Brinoway admiring his son.
A jolt of power surged through Emmit's body, casting a blinding light over the smile Adi's father shared with his son. The universe inhaled, and in its breath the floor left them, but the bubble held them up.
"Now!" Cullen shouted.
A second surge bolted through Emmit, forcing his spine straight. His teeth clenched into the give of the gel mouthguard.
The surge coursed long enough to itch his toes, making them numb as his eyes burned and his scalp fired off at every follicle. He saw two views at once: Adi's father remembering his son at age five, lowering into the space he made in his lap as he readied to share captures of his favorite holo pictures before bedtime; in the other, Cullen standing before his father in the white garb of the pre-exile.
"But if you can't be prepared," Cullen asked his father, "how do you know that I'll make it back? What if I don't?"
"I can't..." his father started. The sight of a soldier dressed in ceremonial reds, with more medals than he'd ever seen on one man, contrasted with the strength breaking in his eyes as a tear loosed onto his cheek. "But I refuse that fear. You will make it back, and when you do, your mother and I will greet you with great joy. We will praise Shephka for hearing and answering our prayers."
The power filling the surge bled away, and Emmit's sight returned to the ship and the strength of the present.
"Ha!" Cullen shouted.
The captain's joy filled Emmit with too much excitement to stay seated. He spat out his mouthguard and helped Adi out of his seat. "We made it!"
*Mission to escape Saemera with ultras and Ancients' texts – Complete.*
*Mission to escape the Reject Jungle Dungeon – Complete.*
*Mission to connect mini-bubble to trip to Vijil – Complete.*
+60 XP to group.
At full-access Cipher, group will be granted the character attribution: "Dungeon Master +1" to increase chance of victory in dungeon quests and quality of loot.
Cullen gained a level! Now Level 4 Bounty Hunter. 40/175 to next level.
Level-up bonus: boost to first use of future class skill.
Emmit read Cullen dismissing the notification despite his curiosity about what future class and the skill it referred to. "Hopper Brinoway, connect me to airsync and enhance to full range," he commanded.
Emmit called up the team stats:
Group Summary: Ehli Level 3 Ultra. 165/180; Emmit Level 3 Ultra. 100/180.
"Did we make it?" Adi asked. "Where's dad?"
Emmit waved him off. "Shush."
"Son," he heard through Cullen's earpiece, followed by the sobs of a humbled and grateful father.
Emmit's chest shook with the emotion Cullen felt.
"Is Mom there too?" Cullen blurted.
"Yes." His father's voice trembled. "Yes, she is. Praise the One. Praise the One."
Cullen's eyes burned with tears as he let his head sink into his hands. Emmit sensed the forgiveness and love between Cullen and his parents.
+10 XP to Cullen – relationship growth with parents.
A hatch hissed open behind Emmit, along with a sense of trouble and urgency. His smile fell as he turned to see Willo and Scanis flee through the exterior hatch of the Solvent.
"Willo and Scanis have escaped!" Emmit shouted.
As Emmit reached out to connect with them, the passengers of the Eon were whipped into a frenzy, anger and visions of torture driving them. Their thoughts clouded his search for Willo and Scanis. It wasn't long before he sensed the passengers of the Eon spilling out onto the streets of Vijil, enraged, driven by Willo’s power.
Cullen had landed them in the middle of the street he and his father had overlooked fifteen years ago. Outside, the ground shook from the cars as Willo sent them crashing.
"Emmit, are you okay?" his dad asked from the hatch, his eyes fearful. His experiment had escaped, and the city was vast.
The weight of guilt fell out in a splash of failure and grief. "I'm sorry. I didn't know how to stop her."
His dad looked confused. Hurt. Emmit shared the threats Willo had piled on him. "I don't know how, but I'll stop her, Dad. I won't let her get away. I won't let you down. I—"
His dad pressed him cheek to cheek in a hug that let Emmit relax completely. He tried squeezing out all his anger and regret. His dad withstood every ounce of it and had strength for more. "We'll do this together. Don't blame yourself. Just rest. I'm so glad you're alive."
His mom's soft touch made it a three-fold embrace.
+5 XP to Ehli and Emmit – relationship growth.
Hurried footsteps pounded as Captain Re relayed street names and numbers to his father. The death toll rose with each concussion of smoke and fire. Emmit heard the desperation and fear in Cullen's voice as his commands slowed, then silenced.
***
What should have been a joyous homecoming had morphed into the fear that once again he wasn't where he should be, that this had been a mistake.
"I'm sorry, Dad," Cullen said, his chest aching with guilt. He closed his eyes to shut out the view as another of the Vijil Guard was turned around by the rejects to fire on his own. He rested his throbbing head in his hands while Torek continued calling in troops and paramedics. His dad had always framed conflict and destiny together. For so long, all he could picture had been returning home, and now that he had—two booms echoing from outside forced his eyes to the screen. A four-story wing of the Justice Building imploded. Beyond the throbbing in his head was a paralyzing anxiety that he was on the precipice between failure and glory and had no idea how to achieve the latter.
The only thing that might right this course would be for him to complete his quest to unlock the Cipher. As his desire to share what he'd seen so far grew, the block that had prevented him from speaking of it faded away. He believed the Cipher could reverse the course of the tragedy playing out before him. "It brought us, Dad."
Cullen stood, muted his mic and tapped Torek's shoulder. "This battle is between the telepaths. Let's go check on ours."
"Yeah, we're not doing 'em any good in here," Torek said, rising to meet Cullen on the way out of the cockpit.
His dad mumbled something urgent to someone else. Then, to Cullen, "What did?"
Cullen unmuted his mic. "The Cipher."
His dad mumbled another short command, then came back, with a lighter tone, "Why do you say that?"
"I see it."
The somber look on Schaefer's face halted Cullen before he reached Adi and the Orsons.
"What's wrong?" Cullen asked.
"It's Willo."
"I know. She and Scanis have turned every VG we've sent to stop her."
Schaefer held up the case with the serum. "She said she'll stop if
we hand this over."
A boy a few years younger than Emmit appeared in the outer hatch. He reached out with an open palm. His cheek and eye twitched. "N-n-now."
"Let me do it." Ehli took the boxes and walked down the passageway to the open hatch. Her speed made Cullen wonder if she planned to knock the kid out with it, but he held his ground and waited, hand outstretched. Ehli slowed right at the end, and bent over to meet the boy eye to eye. "If I were you, Willo, I'd drink it all. You'll need it for when I see you next."
The kid took the boxes.
*Mission to retrieve the boxes – Activated.*
Ehli rose, turned and punched a button on the bulkhead that closed the hatch between herself and the kid as he ran away.
"Are you able to pull home?" his dad asked.
Cullen counted the three within the last day and feared the space sickness involved in a fourth so soon. The distance was short enough that they had enough fenarum. "Better sick then dead."
"The mob has calmed. Emergency services are on their way. Pull to the ranch."
Cullen headed back to the cockpit.
"Then you can tell me more of what you've seen," his dad continued.
Cullen's stride felt lighter than usual. Not only might he see his parents soon, but he felt a bond in being able to share the Cipher's quest with them. They could pursue this life together.
Cullen sank into his chair and restarted the pullspace process in a flurry of efficiency. The engine hummed. The bubble sync hologram appeared before him as he took in the memory of home. The spheres enfolded and multiplied. Pullspace, and the power of the Cipher, took him home. He smiled as the tendrils of electricity energized his veins and snapped him into place. Opening his eyes, he looked out the cockpit window and saw the three-story home he'd taken for granted all his life—until this moment.