Anais Eternal

by Paige Graffunder

  She hovered in the darkness, letting the silence wrap her for a moment, finding her peace, and then she continued her task. She floated down into a great cavern cut into the ocean floor, a winding spiral of stone. As she entered into the space where she kept her memories, she dropped through the water back into the air, as though the ocean of her thoughts was only a test to get to the things she knew. She floated past shelves full of knowledge, things remembered, and experienced. She let her fingers brush against them as she passed, occasionally smiling at them as she wound her way down into the bottom of the cavern. She stood in front of a massive and ornately carved door. As always, she marveled at its glory before she pushed onward the door swinging open into the dimly lit library of her most precious knowledge. She stepped into the vast room and began to trail her fingers along the archival shelves. After a moment of wandering, she found the section she was looking for. Vaguely she was aware that her body was screaming. She got to the shelf labeled neatly in her mother's elegant scrawl, "Anais/Manuhiri." She pulled a wheeled library cart from the ether and began stacking the boxes full of this dangerous knowledge and even more dangerous memories onto it. She knew this was what they were after, and she had to put it where they would never be able to get it.

  When it was full, she pushed the cart further along. Had this existed in the physical world, even with her Fae strength, it would have been difficult to manage, but here, inside her mind, it was light as a feather. She drew close to a steamer-style traveling trunk littered with stickers and stamps from countries that didn't exist anymore. She had seen a trunk like this one when she was a youngling. One of the other adults in her pod had been fond of Human antiquities and explained to her that Humans used to travel with their belongings in such trunks. She knelt before it and began to hum quietly to herself as she lifted a hand to the ornately decorated lock fastened over the lid. Her fingers spun the dials as she hummed, the lock popped open.

  Inside was a cavernous space, half-full already of the files containing all her memories of her pod-family, and the time before. She began to stack the boxes from the cart into the trunk neatly, not lingering over the memories, but not hurrying either. When the cart was empty, she began again. On her sixth trip of the day, she was pulling the last of the boxes onto the cart and was just about to start making her way back to the trunk, when something changed.

  The door which had been silent when it opened for her creaked loudly, the hinges groaning and screeching as if in protest to being forced ajar. A searchlight clicked on and began roving the shelves. She was aware that her body was babbling information. She snapped her head up. Something had changed. There shouldn't be a searchlight here. A searchlight meant someone had breached her mind. The air around her had become warm and was working its way up to uncomfortable. She pushed harder and faster at the cart and made it to the trunk breathless. She fumbled with the lock, messing up the dials twice before getting it to snap open. She began the feverish task of hauling the boxes inside, looking backwards as the light roved the shelves. She dumped the last box inside unceremoniously, the cardboard carton splitting and papers spilling all over the floor. She was about to climb in and lock it up behind her when she remembered. She had left the label on the shelf. She wouldn't be able to tell them anything about it, but she could give them a name, and that was far too much.

  She sprinted back to the shelf and ripped the label from it, painfully aware of how close the searchlight was getting. As she started back towards the trunk, she stopped dead and slapped her forehead. How could she have been so stupid to forget something so crucial! She tore through the spaces between the shelves searching for what she needed. The searchlight seemed to chase her through the stacks as her weakened and pained body shouted out information from each shelf the light struck. She was sweating heavily now; the noncorporeal self that existed inside her head was becoming slower. The emptiness that previously soothed her had become oppressive and close. She fought her way onward. Thankfully, there had not been too long of an acquaintance, there shouldn't be much on the shelf…

  She rounded the corner to the shelf she needed and lunged forward, snatching the large box and the label from the shelf just as the spotlight began to sweep over it. Now, burdened with the box, her lungs burned as she ran. Ragged breaths tore from her chest as she grappled with the large box. The spotlight pursued her, chasing her down, unburdened and agile. She forced her burning limbs to keep up the breakneck pace. She let out an anguished sob of relief as she saw the trunk come into view. She threw the box inside and leaped in after it, grabbing the lid as she careened into the boxes, spilling their contents over herself. She slammed the lid down over herself as she landed, using the last of her magic to secure the lock again.

  The light from the searchlight poured in through the seams on the lid. clawed fingers began worming their way into the seams. Tatiana screamed and skittered back in the darkness. The box marked with Etachs' name was split open from the ungentle way it had been handled and the contents were strewn about the floor. Tatiana looked at the mess of her memories despairingly as the prying Himlani hands tried to breach the box. After what seemed an eternity, they stopped. Tatiana sank to the floor clutching the two labels she had taken and sobbed. She was trapped now. They could get into her brain now. If she left, they would have her. All that she now was, existed within this box, along with all her memories of the sister she had shared a mother with as well as the sibling she had shed blood for. She was trapped, never to be released again.

  ◆◆◆

  The next few days were a blur of things I barely understood and, to be frank, the healing of so many had taxed me greatly. I slept for most of it and was only vaguely aware that we moved several times. Etachs and Tarq rigged a sort of stretcher for me to be carried on. Later, Etachs told me that it was not the healing that convinced some of the others to stay as much as it was that I had nearly destroyed myself to do it. That act of sacrifice convinced them my purpose was to help, not extract revenge for what their race had done to my planet. By the time I was fully recovered, we had set up a small base of operations just outside of scouting range of the Himlani. I was amazed at the work that had been done. Etachs was a natural leader, and Tarq and Cylvre had become invaluable with their knowledge of Himlani tech and implants. The others were quick to help and as I climbed out of the hollow they turned into sleeping quarters, my breath caught in my throat.

  They had pilfered solar panels from the rubble of the defect facility and were using them to power the terminals. It looked like they had gone back and taken a lot of material. As I slept, they constructed a fully functional command center. I stood blinking in the afternoon sun and stared. Etachs, who had been peering over a Himlani’s shoulder that I recognized but did not know the name of, looked over and caught my eye. They said something else to the Himlani, whose clawed hands were working on a terminal in front of some small tower structure they had constructed and walked over to me. They embraced me warmly and spoke quietly. "Are you alright?"

  "I— I think so," I stammered, still looking around me in awe. "How long have I been out?"

  "Uh, about two days, give or take a handful of hours." I felt my eyes widen.

  "You did all this in two days?" I exclaimed; the shock evident in my voice.

  "Well, not just me, but yes, we did this in two days." Etachs gestured to the bustling group of Himlani behind them. "We're just about done too. We just need you for the last little bit."

  "Need me?"

  "I am the only one of us who has any knowledge of the Human language, and I am not very good at it" Etachs said sheepishly.

  "In fairness, Etachs, unless they were caught in the wild, neither do most of the Humans in there."

  "We considered that, but I don't think any of them will trust a Himlani voice. We can upload the meaning of the words into the message. Because the docility implants are attached to the brain stem, as long as it isn't a complex concept."

  I mulled this over. "How do y
ou know all this, before you just had a basic idea..." I trailed off.

  "Hydea was apprenticing at the farms before they were identified as defective," Etachs said.

  "Hydea?" I asked.

  "Right, I guess I should introduce you to everyone. There are eight of us Beasties running around." I smiled at Etachs' use of Tatiana's original nickname for them and followed as they led me through the camp. As they did so, I touched my magic. Its answer was willing, restored once more to full strength. I coaxed it out and into a bubble around us. I wasn't sure what the security was like, but I wanted to make sure we were as safe as I could make us while here.

  Etachs turned to look at me. "Did you just do something? It's quieter now." I nodded.

  "I used my magic to shield us." Etachs started to protest, but I cut them off. "The act of making us invisible takes much less energy than regrowing 24 limbs." They closed their mouth and nodded. As we approached the working Himlani, they looked up. They stopped what they were doing and grouped together to greet us. Many lowered themselves nearly all the way to the floor on their inverted knees, keeping their backs straight and eyes lowered. I looked at Etachs who was staring in open-mouthed amazement at them. I raised a questioning eyebrow at them, and they answered in a breathless whisper.

  "It is a gesture of deep respect, usually reserved for when you meet the one you were made from." I blinked in surprise.

  "I did not make them..." I said, trailing off as Etachs touched my arm.

  "You did not cast them into the tank, no, but you made them anew." They gestured to the limbs and scales of those before us, almost all of them glittering and bronze in the places I had healed them. Sporting new fingers, and toes, and legs, and arms, and scales that had long been too damaged to repair or missing entirely. I blinked at them again and touched the place over my chest where my heart was, bowing from the middle, my hair sweeping over my face.

  "I am sorry I was so absent..." I said as I rose back to a standing position. The Himlani returned to their normal standing positions but said nothing. "Thank you for helping me," I gestured to Etachs and corrected myself. "Us, I mean. I am sorry that I did not catch all of your names..." I trailed off as the one directly in front of me bowed their head low and took my hand.

  "I am Gryst," they said. Their scales were a pale green, bordering on yellow. It was not a color I had ever seen before on a Himlani. Their hair too was not the jet-black curtain that I had grown accustomed to. It was flecked with silver, the way I would expect of an aging Human's hair.

  "It is my honor, Gryst," I said and squeezed their hand, before releasing it. Gryst lowered their body to the floor again in that deferential way.

  "The honor is mine," they said before releasing my hand and stepping back. The next was up before I could breathe. They also took my hand in their own, bronze where my magic had touched it. They looked up at me through one silver eye and one bronze one.

  "I am Hydea," they said.

  "Well met, Hydea, I have heard of you," I said. The bow was repeated, and so it went for all of them. I was introduced and greeted by each one individually. Though I had not communed with them through my magic, it whispered to me all the same. I learned their names. Hydea had silver scales to match their eyes and the mottled bronze, in the places where their own race had taken away and I had restored them, which made them look wild and exotic.

  On the other hand, Twyla and Kai were as alike in appearance as they were different in personalities. Etachs told me that the golden pair were the result of a split tank and had never known life outside of the defect camp. The fact that they had survived long enough to mature showed me their strength and dedication to life and each other. Twyla did not speak, but Kai talked enough for both of them. Over the next few days, I learned that there were very few puzzles Twyla couldn't solve, and for the ones that proved too much for them, Kai was skilled enough in chemical explosives to ensure that nothing stood in their way for long. They had to be held separately at the defect camp to keep them complacent. Always having the torture of the other held above them.

  Casys was pure white with pink eyes and hair so pale it was nearly translucent. Etachs said that they were a genetic anomaly from the early testing with the Human genome and they were completely devoid of pigment-generating cells. The Himlani had no name for it. I had seen a few Humans with the same condition and let them both know that it was called albinism and, while uncommon, was not particularly rare, impacting about one in every 20,000. Although the places that I healed Casys did not transform to bronze, they still could not fully camouflage.

  Ozwa was again different, being much smaller than the rest. I asked Etachs if they were a child and they shook their head, explaining that in a small percentage of their tanklings, some things did not take in the tanks as they should have. In Ozwa’s case, their body did not take the growth hormones, so they stood at only half height to the rest. They were the one I had spent the most time healing. They had been missing both legs, most of one arm and all of the other, and both ears. It yanked at my heartstrings to watch them learn to walk again after so long without limbs.

  I spent the next couple of days getting to know each of them and working through the plan. What they had all come up with together, the progress they had made was truly remarkable. They set up all the tech stuff I didn't understand, and all that was left to do now was to figure out what the message should be. Like Etachs had said, we could convey basic ideas, but not complex ones. So, we decided on a simple message to one out of every five Humans. We would run the message on repeat for 24 hours and then shift to the next group. That way we could get to every Human inside, without it being obvious that they were all distracted at once. Additionally, after every complete set, we would change the message.

  It would take time, and time that I was not sure Tati had, but this was our best chance at getting her back. Even with all our help, and with how well we had done at the defect camp, we couldn’t afford to be overconfident. That facility had been staffed by mostly young Himlani, without much experience, and scientists. The facility where they housed Fae prisoners was a fortress that made the detention facility look like a shack we blew down with a simple huff and puff. Our only chance was to overrun them, distract them, and in the process, free the Humans that survived from their slavery.

  I was still uneasy about the loss of Human life that would very likely occur, but Etachs told me no one wins a war without bloodshed. The answer didn't feel right, but I had no other way to get my sister back, so for now, until we could think of something else, this was the plan.

  A Fire Like a Rage

  The messages had been coming for about three weeks. Almost no one in the compartment was jacking themselves into the drugs at night to give them their dreamless sleep. After the messages told them about names, it told them about voices, then language, and souls. They whispered the words they knew to each other at night. They gave each other names. They talked about what was outside the walls. They began to notice a change in the way they felt during the day when they were left in the holding rooms. They had things injected, and they had things extracted. Some grew larger, only to be taken and returned the next day newly depleted with the puckered red of newly sutured wounds painted across their abdomen.

  None of them understood fully, but they were beginning to grasp they were being exploited and commodified in a way that beings with names and hearts and souls should not be. From this knowledge grew discomfort, and then anger, and eventually rage. Soon the whispered conversations were not about names, and what lies beyond, but about revenge and revolution. As the anger burned within them, directionless as they did not know how to execute its murderous intent, they seethed. And then one night there was a commotion, and after the commotion there was silence, and after the silence, there was her.

  ◆◆◆

  The plan worked exactly as we had imagined it. Each night we packed up and moved closer, protected by my magic. Until we were set up on the roof, invisible to all,
broadcasting directly into the minds of those below. We had taught them rudimentary language so that they had words for what they were feeling. All the ones below had been born and bred in this facility, so they had no taste for the outside world, but there were several facilities nearby that had Humans who had lived free. From our station on the roof, we had access to over 25 facilities. We expanded our array and bounced it off others to reach them all. And now, after an agonizingly long period of weeks, today was the day. In the faint light of pre-dawn, I glamoured the Himlani to appear as Fae. Since we had directed the rage of Humanity at the Himlani, I didn't think it was a good idea for my new comrades to appear to the Humans as themselves. We could only have direct access to eight facilities of the nine here, as Tarq was set to continue running our messages, relaying instructions, and Kai and Twyla would not be separated. I wore a Himlani sensor net against my scalp and, while I had initially rejected the idea of implants, through long talks with Cylvre, I had come around to the benefits. I allowed them to place an implant in my wrist so that I wouldn't have to carry around severed limbs.

  The group of glamoured Himlani stood around me and I made eye contact with them all, letting my gaze linger on each of them. While we had been traveling and setting up, Etachs and I did our best to train them with weapons. We also had some Rounders that we had salvaged and modified. Some of them carried these while others carried staves and bows with quivers of arrows. Cylvre carried a staff and a Rounder.I knelt down and spread the roughly drawn map Etachs made of the area. The Himlani hunkered down around me as I went over the plan again.

  "This is not going to be easy and it is possible that some of us will die, maybe even all of us. If anyone wants to back out now, that is OK, I understand, and there will be no objection or judgment from me or anyone else."