Two weeks later
The funeral for Gabriel had been a sombre affair and not one Stephen could handle alone. Serena stayed by his side through the entire ceremony. Margaux had arrived from District Eight, already aware of her husband’s demise. She’d been strangely pragmatic about the whole thing.
‘I felt it before I got here,’ she’d said when he spoke to her privately in his Council Chambers.
‘I’m so sorry, Margaux. It’s my fault. I wasn’t paying attention.’
Margaux had grabbed his head and pressed her forehead to his. ‘Nobody is to blame, Stephen. Gabriel would have died for what you and Serena fought to protect: our freedom. Before Gabriel left, he told me he might not return. We said our goodbyes.’
A normally erratic Margaux had occasional bouts of lucidity. This was one of them, and it had surprised Stephen to find her so calm in her lucid state.
‘Don’t feel sorry for me, Stephen. Gabriel and I had many years together. He will forever be in my heart.’
‘I wish I knew what to do, Margaux. This is all too much.’
Margaux had released him. ‘You’ll know when the time is right.’
She had followed with a series of nonsensical mumbles that told Stephen her lucid moment was over. She had crumpled to the floor and flipped between staring up at the ceiling and wailing. Her cries had brought a distressed Serena to the door.
‘Is she okay?’
Stephen had looked down at the elder from District Eight. ‘I don’t think so. Help her.’
Serena had nodded and closed her eyes. Stephen had felt the room spin as her influence bore down on him, then passed through him. Margaux’s wails had reduced to intermittent sobs. She had looked up at Serena, who had given Stephen a worried look.
‘I think she should stay here.’
That had been two weeks ago and Margaux was still in District Three, sometimes lucid, but mostly out of it. Maybe it was better that way.
A week ago, Bill had returned to the district to report that Simon had been given a hero’s burial on the surface. The Conditioned had been rounded up and placed in a secure location that only three others knew about. Stephen was one. Alongside the detainees, which included Marcus Murphy, the bodies of the Elite rested in cryogenic chambers.
‘Best nobody knows where they are,’ said Bill to Stephen as they discussed matters in the Council Chambers.
‘Do you think you can separate the Elite consciousness from the Conditioned hosts?’
‘Maybe. But I wouldn’t know where to start.’
‘Anton could help.’
Bill shook his head. ‘Only you can know their location. It’s safer. No, we need to find those doctors.’
‘And Harvey Buchanan?’
‘I’ll use him as a last resort, but he won’t budge until I give him his clinics.’
‘Maybe you should do it. It’s the lesser of the two evils.’
Bill folded his arms and stared at the ground. ‘I’ll think about it. I want to see if I can locate the doctors first.’ He looked at Stephen. ‘They’re not even showing up on the Wave. Julie has Ben Watson all over it, but it’s as if they’ve found another way to communicate.’
‘That or they’re all dead.’
Bill shook his head. ‘Unlikely. We could be looking at a similar situation to what happened with the skilled workers on Earth. Robinson, Olsen and Hayes were forced to go underground, off the grid.’
‘They might be worth talking to, Bill,’ said Stephen.
‘Maybe. But let’s see if we can locate those damn doctors first.’
☼
That evening, as Stephen wandered the tunnels of District Three, he was reminded of the events that had taken place. Not just recent ones, but since the discovery of their human origins. He wondered if the Indigenes or the humans would ever find peace.
As he walked on, the noise of the other Indigenes dissipated to be replaced by a rare silence. He took advantage of the quiet lull and drew in a deep, calming breath.
The last couple of weeks had left him feeling drained. He’d barely had time to stop, and he hadn’t used the Nexus to heal. In that moment of peace, he felt the extent of his body’s weakness and mind’s fragmentation. The Nexus would piece him back together again so he could face the next chapter in this fight.
Stephen arrived at a different tranquillity cave to the one where they’d lost Simon and Gabriel. He still couldn’t bring himself to visit it, even though a now-resident Margaux used it every day. According to Clement, the representatives there had put temporary leadership in place while Margaux was away. But Stephen sensed that Margaux as leader would be too erratic to command the same respect as Gabriel.
He jumped into a unit and connected to the Nexus. Inside, the power of the Nexus washed over him like warm water. Nothing gave him this level of comfort. Not even Serena. He couldn’t imagine life without the Nexus.
Others who used the Nexus gathered as bright energies in a tight ball, at the centre of the curved wall. He avoided them and went straight to the wall, knowing a direct hit of the Nexus’ power would be tough to absorb. But he needed a stronger hit than the gentle energy the gathered energies offered.
Stephen stuck his energy to the wall. The Nexus stung him at first, but the resistance let up enough for him to feel its healing power. It made him feel stronger, although he knew his mind would need more than one session to sort out. Also his envisioning skill, which had not returned, even after Anton had dismantled the machine inside the environ. With the radiation gone, his ability should have returned. Maybe the Nexus could help with that.
When the healing power of the Nexus weakened, he knew it was time to leave. He could only gain so much from each session.
Except for a strange pulsating sensation, the Nexus had suffered no ill effects from Tanya’s invasion. The sensation was probably due to the Nexus reclaiming its former balance; Tanya’s energy would have introduced her mutated DNA into the realm. But the organic being seemed to handle it just fine.
Stephen disconnected and climbed out of the unit. He was surprised to find Margaux waiting for him.
‘Is Serena with you?’
Margaux shook her head. She appeared to be lucid.
His loss of envisioning skill bothered him. ‘There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.’
Margaux smiled. ‘Your reader ability.’
‘I lost it when the GS humans built the machine inside the environ. Simon said it was because of the radiation. But the machine is no longer active and it still hasn’t returned.’
Margaux pressed her hands to the sides of his head and closed her eyes. ‘You still have it. Your mind fights against it because there’s something it doesn’t want you to see.’
Stephen frowned. ‘What?’
‘Like what will happen next.’ She removed her hands and nodded towards a unit. ‘Did you feel something in there?’
‘Nothing unusual. Have you been in?’
Margaux nodded. ‘Every day, but not for long. I don’t like how it feels. It’s different to ours in District Eight, you know.’
‘That’s because Serena commanded it to use the space more effectively. We got rid of the chasm and the wall now surrounds the energies.’
‘No, not that. It gives off the oddest feeling.’ Margaux walked away. At the exit, she turned round. ‘You need to see what your mind is blocking. Stop fighting it and it will come to you.’
She left a confused Stephen alone to ponder her advice. He wasn’t fighting anything. He wanted his skill back.
He left the cave shortly after Margaux and walked around for a while. Stephen’s restless mind refused to quiet down. He considered going hunting, if for no other reason than to use it as a distraction. Maybe Margaux was right and he was the problem, not his skill. Maybe he’d weighed his mind down with so much responsibility he’d forgotten how to access the ability that had manifested eight years ago after he returned from Earth.
Perhaps if he concentrated on the skill it would come to him. The neurosensor had helped before. It might help now.
He found it in Anton’s empty lab and stuck it to the side of his head. With it on, he concentrated on the visions that the neurosensor had helped to unlock before.
Then he saw it, a glimpse into a near future without a timestamp. A new threat from the rogue groups. An attempt to break apart peace and return things to the way they were, pre-treaty.
But something else caught his attention, a new threat that he’d been too distracted to notice.
Chaos, unrest. Not just in his district, but in others. A deep sense of loss accompanied the threat that he could not yet see or quantify. But one thing was clear: It came from the place where he’d just been.
The Nexus was altering.
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