The Sentient

by Nadia Afifi

  “You’re sure you weren’t followed?”

  “Hadrian, I checked twice before we crossed the fence,” Lee said. “And Amira’s new Eye has a sensory tracker. There was nobody on the street.”

  “Your new Eye,” Hadrian said in a cheerier tone. “Coming in handy, eh?”

  It was already midnight. Drunken shouts echoed along the ship’s hallways. When Amira and Lee returned, visibly shaken and hair damp with sweat, the children followed them to the makeshift headquarters of the gym, where Hadrian locked the door to their smaller group.

  D’Arcy bit her lip tensely during Amira’s retelling of the events on the Satyr Road.

  “What I don’t understand, though, is why those Cosmics went after Elder Young,” Amira said. “The same ones who tried to take me from the police. I thought the Cosmics were working together with the compound. Unless something changed.”

  Hadrian smiled knowingly at Amira. “Got any fancy theories on why that is, love?”

  Amira frowned, leaning back against the wall. She had the same question.

  “There are several possibilities,” she said. “Maybe Parrish went rogue and tried to take Elder Young against the instructions of the Cosmics. I doubt that, though, since someone pretty high up sent those mercenaries to the police station. More likely, the Cosmics are now going after the Trinity. Maybe something caused the Trinity and the Cosmics to fall out, and they’re now fighting each other. I was surprised the compound would work with people who they see as heretics. I remember how much they hated and distrusted anyone from the cities.”

  “A falling out between compound and Cosmic might work in our favor,” Hadrian said. “But it’s time to dig into what happened, whether they got our friendly neighborhood Elder or not.”

  An hour passed. Lee resumed his research at his computer, joined by Hadrian. Amira gratefully accepted a cup of tea from D’Arcy. With the Soma closed after the attack and the ever-present risk of being followed, D’Arcy had remained on the ship. After finding the kitchen, she had brought some civilization to their debauched surroundings in the form of herbal tea and square-cut sandwiches.

  Lee suddenly stood up and motioned for them to join him.

  “These are the security cams from the South Satyr station,” he said, pointing to the monitor. “Look, there we are.”

  The grainy figures of Amira and Lee barreled across the screen, running into the open train door.

  A minute later, the two men followed. Amira felt a rush of satisfaction reliving the moment again, when they crashed head-first into the closing door.

  “Here,” Lee said. He zoomed in on Reznik and the second man, on his knees with his mouth open in a furious wail. “I got their faces. Reznik’s not in the system, but the second one might be.”

  “See if he has any arrest records,” Amira said. “Or if he’s been on police tracking.”

  “You think my boy’s an amateur?” Hadrian said. “While you were talking, Lee’s hacked my own NASH account with the password I just changed, to keep him on his toes, and combed half of the files in Westport—”

  “Not Westport,” Lee said quietly. “NASH. Look at this.”

  The man appeared on the screen again, his scowl enhanced by a fresh black eye. Two men stood at either side of him, walking him through a security checkpoint.

  “This happened minutes ago,” Lee said. “That’s him, entering the Carthage station. Only him, see? Looks like the Elder won the fight at Maxine’s place, but this one got picked up later. Already in space hours after arrest – they must have shuttled him right from the Galileo building.”

  Hadrian let out a low whistle.

  “Parrish’s station,” Amira whispered.

  “The one where they use ‘volunteer’ convicts for the station’s experiments in exchange for a reduced sentence?” D’Arcy asked.

  “That’s the short of it, love,” Hadrian said. “A clever set up Parrish wangled there. Researching the effects of space on the human body is a hard sell for most, but worth the risk if you’re a lifer in some corp-run prison. And a great place to take folk you want to question – or disappear.”

  “So the Cosmics found him,” Amira finished the thought. “And brought him up to the Carthage as a prisoner. But he might know where Rozene is!”

  Amira turned to Hadrian.

  “I need to go up to the Carthage station,” she said.

  Silence followed. Hadrian threw his head back and laughed and, upon seeing Amira’s serious, stony expression, laughed even harder.

  “It’s the only lead we have,” Amira said. “If I can get this Trinity man and read him, it’s our best chance of finding out where Rozene is. He was guarding Elder Young, so he must be important enough to know. And the Carthage is a place to disappear people – Rozene might even be there, under Parrish’s control.”

  Lee began rattling off the reasons it would be impossible. Everyone got to NASH one of two ways: through shuttles privately owned owned by companies at Aldwych, or on tourist shuttles at the Parallel, both of which had layer upon layer of stringent security. The Parallel ran facial recognition scans in addition to retinal ones, so her Eye would only get her so far. The Carthage, a glorified prison colony masquerading as a research station, had even more security hurdles to clear.

  Amira nodded as Lee spoke, but had made her decision. She would go into space. It was the only logical option at this stage, and it was what she would do.

  “It’s a place for prisoners,” Amira said. “And you’re an ISP agent.”

  “You’re thinking that I take you there in cuffs,” Hadrian said shrewdly. “Now that it’s open to NASH again.”

  “That might work,” Amira said, thinking aloud. “Until Westport PD figures out who I am and come for me. Parrish wants Elder Young, right? That’s who I am, according to my Eye. Bring me to Parrish, and he’ll gladly welcome you into the Carthage.”

  Hadrian exchanged a glance with Lee, who nodded with fierce approval. Rozene’s face appeared on a nearby monitor, a generic, smiling stock photo from the Soma, which revealed none of her past sadness or the suffering to come.

  “It’s crazy enough, it just might work,” Hadrian noted. “Hell, even I think it’s crazy.”

  The decision made and the plan set, Amira left for the ship’s sleeping quarters. D’Arcy retreated to her own room, afraid to leave the ship in case she lured the Cosmics to their hiding place.

  Settled in her cabin, Amira used her new Eye to contact Dr. Mercer. She was seeking out reassurance and sound advice, but instead she found her mentor packing for a swift evacuation of his mountain home.

  “I received a tip off that the Aldwych Council is coming for me,” he said hurriedly while Henry zoomed in and out of the frame of Amira’s lens, carrying piles of clothes. “Well, not the Council directly, but they’ll send some hired goons to ask about our conversations. I’ve already talked to that damn detective, rude little weasel that he is, and I suspect he’ll be back with more questions as well. We need to be quick, my dear. They’re probably tracing my calls. Who is William Young, anyway? I almost didn’t accept the call.”

  “Never mind,” Amira said. “It’s a long story and I don’t want to waste your time. Dr. Mercer, do you know what the Cosmics actually believe and why they would help the Trinity?”

  “No, Henry, leave everything in the kitchen. We just need clothes and anything computerized!” Dr. Mercer barked over his shoulder before turning back to Amira. “The Cosmics…well, I got in touch with some old contacts since our last conversation, people who have been members in the past. Have you done any research on them yet?”

  “A little on the Stream,” Amira replied. “They believe that consciousness drives reality and not the other way around. And that there is a collective consciousness, like the Conscious Plane.”

  “Yes, they are in agreement with the compounds on
that front. They call it the Conscious Plane as well. If every living, conscious entity on this planet were to expire tomorrow, would there still be rocks, land, sea, the moon orbiting around us? The Cosmics would say no, that the material world and our conscious interpretation of that world are interdependent. And there is compelling evidence to support that, starting with the Double Slit experiment and early quantum theory. They believe that this interdependency can be observed in the Conscious Plane.”

  “So they believe it’s proven and observable?” After years of dismissing compound teachings as fantasy, Amira paused at this revelation. Perhaps instead of pure fiction, the compounds had woven their own threads into something truthful and useful.

  “Yes. Dark energy may be an output or measurable component of this binding level of reality. Our consciousness is, of course, driven by the complex neural mapping of our brains, but the age-old question is whether consciousness exists without the brain or extends beyond a living entity. There is evidence that there is a wider consciousness beyond our own perceptions, a shared sentience. There has been some success in detecting it – monks who have spent a lifetime in deep meditation, near-death experiences, certain hallucinogens and drugs. Your former home with its Chimyra – basically an enhanced hallucinogen, developed in a lab by an enterprising Elder. More than just an ‘out-of-body experience’, it is a connection to a wider entity that transcends our own bodies and even our own reality. The Cosmics aspire to be among the sentient who can access this Conscious Plane, to exist at a level beyond ourselves. Are you all right, Amira? You look pale.”

  Amira nodded, exhaling slowly to steady herself. After her years on the New Covenant and subsequent life as a neuroscience student, the theories regarding consciousness were not alien to her, but the way Dr. Mercer described the Conscious Plane – she knew it must be real. She’d experienced it at the Gathering, the day she ran up the hill with that young boy, and more recently, the moment she found Singh near death. The faith she had rejected, the core tenets of the compounds, carried a kernel of potential truth.

  “So back to the Trinity,” Amira said. “Aside from both believing in the Conscious Plane, any idea why the Cosmics would partner with the Trinity? Have you heard of a drug called Tiresia?”

  Through the grainy video, Dr. Mercer’s pixelated face underwent several transformations – surprise, concern and realization in rapid succession.

  “I wonder,” he said. “I haven’t heard the name, but my colleague mentioned a Cosmic experiment, after the Drought Wars, to test a new drug. A group of Cosmic scientists who wanted to take what the compounds had done with Chimyra to another level. Instead of just hallucinating and glimpsing a shared consciousness, they wanted to actually allow individuals to merge into a single consciousness, even if temporarily.”

  “Shared thoughts?” Amira asked, transfixed. The Elders had always preached the importance of the group over the individual and exalted the idea of losing oneself to the Conscious Plane, which bound all living things. It made sense that such as experiment would interest the compounds.

  “More than shared thoughts, Amira,” Dr. Mercer said, glancing nervously over his shoulder. “Shared action. Ten people, twenty, a hundred – all acting in unison. Of course, this is just a story. But the rumor is that Victor Zhang hosted experiments in his own vacation home, along with other Cosmics who supported the idea, and that he had some communications with compound Elders along the way.”

  Amira dropped her cup of tea. The Eye connection flickered as she collected herself. Her heart sank in her stomach, like the cup landing on the floor with a dull thud. Henry appeared in the lens and leaned into Dr. Mercer’s ear.

  “Amira, I must go,” he said. “There are lights moving up the pathway, so we need to get out. We spoke before about my new home. I won’t say where, in case we are being listened to, but you and your friends will find a way to reach me if needed. Be safe!”

  The screen went static. Amira stared at it, massaging her temples.

  An experiment that removed free will. An army of adherents, acting as one. A terrifying weapon in the wrong hands – and both the Cosmics and the Elders had demonstrated how they might use such a weapon.

  Could Tiresia be that weapon? An invention of Victor Zhang’s, one the Cosmics and the Trinity had decided to steal together, an alliance with a shared purpose? If so, Rozene may have been more expendable than they realized. A public ploy to mask the true goal of the Soma attack – finding Tiresia.

  The boat swayed gently, rocking her exhausted body. Amira thought about Valerie Singh and whether she was at peace. She thought of Rozene – whether she was alive still, frightened, suffering, and bereft of hope. Amira closed her eyes and recited a message to Rozene in her mind, a vain attempt to reach out to her through the Conscious Plane.

  Stay strong. I will find you.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Parallel to Orbit

  The harbor at Sullivan’s Wharf was achingly cold in the early morning hours before the sun peered over the eastern mountains. Chilling winds followed the Pacific currents to shore, leaving the taste of salt in the air. Amira blew into her numb fists for warmth as she paced along the wharf’s northern fence, through which row after row of cargo containers sat, loaded with supplies and equipment destined for space.

  An elderly stevedore with a green hat emerged from behind a container, hands in his pockets. He glanced casually around him before nodding curtly in Amira’s direction, her cue to scale the surrounding fence. She gripped the mesh wall, cold air biting at her fingers. She pulled herself up as quickly as possible, aware that another stevedore in the surveillance room had, only briefly, disabled the camera along the north side. He would later blame a technical glitch.

  Mr. Pham, D’Arcy’s father, had a team that trusted him. For that reason, they helped Amira without asking questions.

  Because she was a fugitive, Amira’s options to enter the Carthage were limited. When passing security checkpoints, the new Eye marked her as an elderly man with a tall frame and pale eyes. The Parallel’s security would immediately catch that discrepancy, and a simple facial recognition scan would unmask her as a wanted woman. Since Amira could not enter the mid-ocean facility as a civilian, D’Arcy concluded, she would have to enter as cargo. Something that Mr. Pham could facilitate. From there, her fate lay in Hadrian’s hands.

  Moving quickly, Amira followed the stevedore to a brown container the size of a school bus, a windowless structure shaped like a rectangle with each corner severed. D’Arcy and Mr. Pham waited with an older, stocky man who she marked as the head wharfman. He carried himself with an unmistakable air of authority. She shook his hand.

  “We’ll load you in this one,” he said. “It’ll be pressurized on the way up, so you won’t need any oxygen and your head won’t explode. It’s carrying some bacteria for research, so it’s more regulated inside. Also got some boxes of food for the food court up there – curry and fries and whatnot.”

  “So I won’t starve, at least,” she replied jokingly, but the man did not return the smile.

  “It’ll still be rough on the way up,” he said. “It’s not meant for moving people and you isn’t trained for space travel is what I’m guessing, so I can’t guarantee you won’t pass out.”

  “I know the risks,” Amira said. That seemed to satisfy him. He tipped his hat and walked back toward the wharf’s office buildings.

  D’Arcy helped her climb into the container’s opening. They faced each other. The first traces of sunlight illuminated D’Arcy’s tired face.

  “I’m sorry to bring your family into this,” Amira said. “To have your dad take this risk.”

  D’Arcy shook her head.

  “You’re our family too, Amira,” she said. “My dad didn’t hesitate when I told him we were in trouble and needed to get you up there. Just be careful.”

  A whistle blew in the distance. Lo
ading had begun.

  They clasped hands briefly. Amira’s pulse hammered in her ears. As D’Arcy retreated to the detached stevedore’s office, Amira cast a final glance at the looming Westport skyline. Her city.

  Amira sank back into the container as the door closed and her surroundings vanished into darkness. Through the thick walls came distant sounds of machinery at work, cranes and pulleys moving cargo into the Bullet train that left for the Parallel. Illuminate, she thought, and a faint light shone out of her Eye, revealing the tight quarters of her temporary home. There was little room for her to maneuver. She pressed her back against high rows of boxes and assorted cartons surrounding her, with labels such as ‘fragile’ and ‘handle with care: contains food products’. She imagined the boxes cascading on top of her during the ascent and quickly pushed the thought aside. She traced the scars on her palms, feeling the ridges rise and fall along her fingers, breathing deeply.

  The box reminded her of the routine punishments she endured in the New Covenant. At first, Amira would scream in panic when she heard the turn of a lock or bolt. After a time, however, she learned to embrace the calm and let her mind wander and guide her where she pleased – through the walls of her prison and up over the domed houses, past the compound walls into the mountains and beyond. The Elders undoubtedly intended it as punishment, but Amira came to think of it as a kind of freedom. In the stillness, her mind could roam and its boundaries were limitless.

  A sudden jolt shook Amira from her sedated state, followed by the sensation of the container’s floor leaving the ground. Amira’s heart skipped at the first tilt of the floor, and she extended shaking arms for balance. The stevedores had loaded her onto the shuttle.

  The Pacific Parallel sat on a string of islands in the Pacific Ocean, near the equator. It served as the base for the Western Hemisphere’s space elevator, which took both passengers and cargo to the North American Space Harbor. Elite passengers traveled in private shuttles up to NASH in technology-centered cities such as Zurich, Singapore and Westport, but most tourists and casual visitors went through pods in the space elevator. Satellites traveled into low Earth orbit in a similar fashion, propelled upward by the elevator’s powerful cables.