Driver’s training.
Law Enforcement.
He thought about how dangerous the Null Zone was and about how corrupt the Enforcers supposedly were, taking bribes from crime lords just to stay alive. He’d had enough of dealing with organized crime while trying to make a living as a trader in Dark Space.
“I’ll take the driver’s program.”
“A good choice. Now select a job.”
Another list appeared before his eyes, this time jobs with descriptions and salaries.
Air taxi driver.
Air bus driver.
Air truck driver.
Courier.
...
Taxi driver made the same per hour as any of the others, but the hours were flexible, meaning he could work when he wanted and as long he wanted, making some extra money in the process. He focused on the first option for a second and the rest of the list disappeared. Being a taxi driver didn’t sound so bad. At least he’d more or less get to be his own boss.
“That is what I would have chosen for you,” Omnius said. “It will take some time for you to get your own car, but there are a number of different companies you can work for, and we already know that you have the natural ability for the job.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Please close your eyes. This will only take a moment.”
Ethan deliberately disobeyed that command, trying to keep his eyes open, but after just a few seconds he found he was unable to resist. His vision grew blurry, and his eyes drifted shut. . . .
When he opened them again, he found himself lying down on a gurney. From the way it rattled and shook, he realized he was in the back of a moving vehicle. A medic was attending him on one side.
“What happened? Where am I?” he croaked. His heart began to pound. His head throbbed painfully with every beat.
Ethan remembered choosing a driver’s training program and then choosing to become a taxi driver . . . but that was it. When had he left the room with the glossy black chair? How had he wound up lying in the back of a . . . an ambulance. He swallowed thickly and began checking himself with his hands.
“Don’t move, please,” the medic said.
Ethan rocked his head from side to side. With that movement he felt a painful stabbing sensation go through his neck, but it quickly faded. He winced and something pulled tight on his forehead. He reached up and found a thick bandage there. Horrified, he began to pull on it. The pounding in his head intensified, and he felt something warm trickle down beside his ear.
“I said don’t move!”
“What happened?” Ethan demanded, trying to sit up. Strong hands forced him back down.
“You were in an accident,” the medic replied.
An assistant appeared on the other side of him with a syringe.
“Alara? Where’s my wife?”
“She didn’t make it,” the assistant said. “Her injuries were too severe. She . . . chose to go to Etheria.”
“You idiot, are you trying to send him into shock?” the medic said.
“Alara died?” Ethan rocked his head back and forth again, feeling nauseated. He broke out in a cold sweat.
“He deserves to know. He might want to follow her.”
A life signs monitor that Ethan hadn’t noticed before began to squeal with an alarm.
“He’s going into shock!”
Ethan’s field of vision narrowed, and soon he was looking down a long, dark tunnel. Alara appeared at the end of that tunnel, beckoning to him, her expression joyous. “Ethan! I miss you! Come with me.”
His extremities lost all feeling and a pleasant numbness began creeping through his body. Voices screamed and yelled around him unintelligibly as if he were underwater; he felt an incredible pressure on his chest, but at least his heart had stopped its painful thudding. He was peripherally aware of the medic injecting him with something, but he barely felt the prick of the needle. He reached out for Alara, trying to touch her beautiful face . . .
Suddenly his heart began pounding painfully again, and his eyes flew open. Alara disappeared, and something like fire surged through his veins. Now he was someplace else, staring up at a bright light. That light was coming from a medic’s flashlight, checking for pupil dilation.
“He’s awake,” someone said.
“Good. Get him off the gurney. We’ve got others waiting.”
“Yes, sir. Up you get!” Ethan felt someone trying to lift him, but his limbs were heavy and limp. “Come on! He’s not responding, sir.”
“How much sedative did you give him?”
“Twenty cc’s . . .”
“No wonder! I said twelve, not twenty!”
“I—”
“Get out of the way.”
Someone slapped his face, and Ethan scowled sleepily.
“Wake up!”
Then came a sharp prick, and again fire went shooting through his veins. He sat up suddenly, blinking and squinting against the bright lights in the room.
“Alara!” he yelled, and leapt off the gurney.
“Well, that got him up.”
Ethan whirled toward the speaker and found a medic standing next to him with an empty syringe. “You!” he grabbed the man by his lab coat and shook him until his teeth rattled. “Where is my wife?”
“I’m right here, Ethan . . .” A sleepy voice said.
Ethan whirled around again. He saw his wife lying on the other side of the room, on another gurney. She lay under a fuzzy blue blanket, her stomach bulging noticeably beneath the sheets. He walked up to her, almost afraid to ask. “I . . .” He frowned, trying to understand what was going on. “What just happened?”
Alara turned to him with a smile. “We became Nulls. They just finished de-linking us and syncing us one last time. You were having some kind of nightmare . . . . You called out my name a few times.”
A dream. It was just a dream. “There was an accident. You . . .”
Alara’s brow grew lined. “I died.”
Ethan felt a jolt go through him. “How did you know that?”
“Because I had the same dream, Ethan.”
* * *
Atton sat down in one of the glossy black chairs. His chair faced more than a dozen others like it, arranged in a circle on the floor of the domed chamber. The ceiling glowed a bright gold overhead. Others came and took their seats.
“Hello, my children!” a deep, resonant voice boomed.
“Hello, Omnius,” a few of them replied.
“Here you will choose what you will become in Etheria. I have narrowed the options for you all to just a few, based on your personalities, natural abilities, and the opportunities available to you. The training programs I’ve chosen are all equally good choices. Some of you already know what you want to do, and you will be either pleased to find that I agree with your choices, or surprised to find that your desired profession is not on the list. In the latter case, trust me when I say I know you even better than you think you know yourself.”
A humming noise began to rise in the room, and Atton noticed glossy black domes dropping down from the ceiling all around him. There was one for each chair. Atton looked up, watching as his descended. It hit the deck with a boom, and there was a moment of utter darkness. Then a holographic display flickered to life, bathing the inside of his capsule in a dim blue-white light. Atton saw a table with pictures and text descriptions of training programs. Just three had been selected for him—
*Business Administration.
Law.
Political Science.
Atton’s brow furrowed. None of those training programs came with a commission. Atton shook his head. “Omnius? Why can’t I join the Peacekeepers?”
“I’ve determined that you would be better suited to a civilian career.”
“The entire reason I became an Etherian was to join the Peacekeepers!”
“Are you saying you doubt my wisdom, Atton?”
“No, I’m saying that I can’t sit
behind a desk and watch while others fight. The Sythians took everything from me, and I won’t rest until they’re defeated.”
“So you’re motivated by revenge.”
“Justice.”
“It would be justice if you were impartial, but you’re not.”
“Fine, revenge. What does it matter?”
“It matters, because revenge is not the Etherian way. You will not get far here if you let revenge motivate your actions.”
Atton thought about Ceyla and everything he was leaving behind for this. With the thought of her, a painful lump formed in his throat, followed by a dull ache in his chest. Steeling himself for further rebuke, he shook his head. “Either you let me be a Peacekeeper or I’m going to the Null Zone.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way, Atton.”
The table of career options faded and was quickly replaced by another one. This time all the options fell under the heading, Avilonian Peacekeepers.
*Pilot’s Training.
Assault Training.
Command Training.
Crime Prevention.
The top option had a star next to it, marking it as Omnius’s choice for him. It was his choice, too, so that made things easier.
“I’ll take pilot’s training.”
“Very well. This will take just a moment . . .” The table faded, plunging the inside of the capsule into darkness once more.
Atton felt his eyelids growing heavier and heavier . . . after just a few moments he couldn’t resist. He shut his eyes.
What seemed like just a split second later, he opened his eyes, but now he was somewhere else, lying in a bright room, surrounded by beeping machines with blinking lights and holographic displays. A medic appeared wearing a glossy white jumpsuit with the Avilonian crest emblazoned in black on his shoulders. A shiny, gold crescent insignia marked his right breast. The man’s name and rank appeared on Atton’s ARC display, hovering above his head in a bright blue font—Templar Tyron.
Atton tried to sit up.
“Easy there, Pilot,” the medic said, helping him to sit.
“Where am I?” he tried to say. What came out instead was something like “Wharr awwm ayy?”
“You’re on board the Dauntless. Strategian Heston’s ship.”
“Hoff Heston?” Atton asked, forcing his tongue to cooperate.
“The same.”
Atton jumped off the gurney and almost fell on his rear. His knees buckled and wobbled under him, as though his legs didn’t remember how to hold his weight.
“Careful. Your muscle memory is still impaired. Transfer is hard on the mind.”
Atton shook his head. “Yeah . . .” Muscle Memory? Transfer? “You mean I’ve already . . .”
“That’s what you signed on for, isn’t it? New life, new body, and a chance to give the Sythians a taste of their own medicine.”
Atton blinked. He’d expected some kind of warning—a memory of the procedure at least. Something. Instead, he’d closed his eyes in his old body and opened them in his new one, with no idea how much time had passed in between.
“You want to see yourself? There’s a mirror over there.”
Atton turned to look where the medic was pointing. On one side of the room lay a wall of mirrors. He caught a distant view of himself and curiosity drove him onward.
While he was still a dozen feet away, his footsteps slowed. The reflection there wasn’t his. It couldn’t be. He was too tall, his skin too perfect, his hair too full. He also had a width and strength to his frame that he wasn’t used to. He’d been just over average height and build before, but now he was on the large side—not fat, though it was hard to tell beneath the baggy blue patient’s gown.
“You can ditch the gown,” the medic said.
Atton untied the strings and let it fall around his ankles.
He did a double take when he saw himself naked in the mirrors. He’d always been in decent shape, but now he looked like he spent his life in the fitness center. Out of nowhere he had beefy, well-defined arms, legs, and chest. Abdominal muscles rippled across his midsection. His ribs were visible, but only because there were thick ridges of muscle covering them.
“Holy frek.”
“Language, Pilot. I don’t want to have to report you on your first day out.”
“Sorry. I’m just . . . is it my imagination or am I taller than I used to be?”
“Avilonian ideal is around six two. Everything is designed for that height for men. Five seven for women.”
Atton nodded, poking his stomach and finding it rock hard to the touch. Below the waist there’d been some improvements, too, but he didn’t feel like asking the medic about that.
“Now what?”
“You need to report to the operations center. The Strategian is waiting there to brief the new officers before we jump to Dark Space.”
Atton spent another moment staring at himself before bending down to pick up his gown.
“You can leave it there. I have a uniform waiting for you in the closet.”
“Okay, where . . .” With a swish the mirrors swiveled open in sections, revealing a long wall of hanging uniforms and equipment. The radiant armor he’d seen Peacekeepers wearing wasn’t there, instead there was a rack of dark blue fabric uniforms. He selected one, pulling it down and holding it up in front of himself to measure it. The uniform was huge, even for his new, over-sized body.
“Seems too big.”
“The fabric adapts to you.”
“Huh,” he nodded, still studying the uniform.
It was a glossy, midnight blue, and the Avilonian crest glowed bright white on the upper sleeves.
“Hurry up, Pilot Ortane. Don’t keep the Strategian waiting.”
“Yes, sir.”
A timer appeared on his augmented reality display. It was counting down from fifty minutes. Below it read: Time to Jump. He didn’t even know what unit he was attached to, let alone what his role would be in the coming battle. Atton hurried to put on the jumpsuit. It peeled open along a seam at the back and slid on effortlessly. No sooner had he pulled his arms through the baggy sleeves than the fabric began to contract, hugging itself to his skin. He flinched as it pulled tight over his body. Atton tried plucking at it with his fingers, but it refused to detach from his skin.
“How do I get out of it?”
“It’s bio-active. It will sense when you want to get undressed.”
“Sense? Like read my mind?”
“More like your body language.” The medic came up to him and slapped a shiny silver crescent on his right breast. His rank insignia.
As Atton focused on it, glowing blue text materialized before his eyes. Rank—O-2, Pilot.
“Hurry along. We don’t have much time for processing. Follow the arrow at the top of your ARC display.”
At that, a green arrow appeared, pointing to the room’s only exit. Atton turned to the medic and offered a quick salute. His hand made it only halfway there before he realized that he was supposed to do something else.
“We don’t salute each other here, Pilot. We raise one hand to Omnius. Like this—”
Atton watched as the man’s arm shot out straight, raised at an angle from his body, palm flat and held up to the sky. “Hail, Omnius!” he said, his voice too loud for the small room.
Atton nodded and mimicked the gesture. His own Hail Omnius was noticeably quieter.
He hurried from the room, following the green arrow. The door swished open for him and he passed out into a long, white corridor with glowing green trim lines. He noticed that the arrow turned whenever he turned his head, always pointing in the same direction regardless of which way he was facing. Below it read a textual cue—Op. Center.
Atton’s eyes began to burn as he ran. The overhead lights were too bright, but he supposed his new eyes were just as unused to seeing light as his muscles were to movement. He walked briskly, not running, but his legs were threatening to buckle, and he had to concentrate not to trip over
his own feet.
Atton passed more medics and orderlies along the way. A few stopped and hailed Omnius as he ran by. He nodded back. He didn’t have time for that.
The corridor ended in a large, empty waiting area. A quick look at the jump timer revealed it was down to 45 minutes. Feeling surer of his own feet, he sprinted toward the double doors along the far wall. They swished open and he found himself in another crystal white corridor with glowing green trim. This corridor was much broader than the one in the med center—made for more foot traffic, he supposed. Thankfully out here the light was a softer gold as opposed to the bright, sterile white of the med center.
One corridor ran into the next, branching and winding, and he ran past countless officers, dressed just like him—except their uniforms glowed all different colors along the seams. He raised his arms and was surprised to notice the same glowing trim had sprung to life on his uniform. He wondered if it was really glowing, or some type of ARC overlay. His trim lines were glowing white. That of the officers he passed varied—the majority were green, but some glowed white like his, while others were blue, or red, sky blue, or gold.
He wondered about that and the answer came to him as if he’d always known it—the colors corresponded to the destination of each officer, and each color represented one of the ship’s six crew decks. White, Atton’s color, represented the Command Deck. Green was the med bay.
The arrow he was following made a sudden right turn, and he turned with it. The corridor broadened into a semi-circular room with gleaming, semi-transparent tubes lining the far wall from floor to ceiling. Each of them was half open and pulsing with racing bands of light. There were six of them in all, three going up, and three going down.
Atton knew without having to wonder this time that the tubes were used to travel between decks. They read people’s ARCs and Lifelinks to determine where they were going and took them there as quickly and efficiently as possible. No waiting for lift tubes.
Atton ran for the nearest of the three tubes marked with up arrows. He jumped inside and immediately he felt an invisible force field catch him and begin accelerating him up to a blinding speed. He looked down, noticing the long drop below his feet. He estimated there were at least twenty decks below. Looking up, there appeared to be roughly a dozen more.
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