9
On the slow walk back, to our home in the city, Jordan pointed out more houses that had taken on the appearance of homes from Earth, mixed in between were the flat, white structures of Heart and the earthy, textured homes of Rathe. It was a convergence of four worlds, each unique, but blending so sublimely with one another as though they belonged together; one planet, one life.
Once inside, he pulled me into his painting room, where the ocean now moved in gentle waves. The slightest of clouds breezed across the paling blue sky and the sun had begun to reflect in wave-formed patches across the water’s surface. The reflections, however, were incomplete, and at times were at odds with the sky as though they didn’t quite belong.
“It’s a work in progress,” he explained.
“It’s beautiful,” I murmured, which it was, even with the partial reflection. Its tranquility was what my overstimulated mind needed to break free of the tense afternoon. Mason’s final revelation about Sater, had topped it all off. Sater was able to exist in both dimensions at the same time. Safe in his, analyzing any information that his duplicated-self experienced as he traveled to other places when the need arose. Sater, Mason informed me, was not completely human. He was in fact, part AI. He ran and protected the planet Rathe.
I could not even begin to imagine Sater’s existence - not completely human and existing in multiple places at once. And I pushed all thought of it away.
Jordan nudged me into the soft couch. Then laying me across his lap, he wrapped his warm arms around me. I stared out at the slow movement of his artwork, captivated by the gentle wash of the waves, and I let myself drift into sleep.
At some point, he had picked me up and taken me to bed. And when I awoke, I was still wrapped within his warm embrace, his face inches from mine. The recurring dream had invaded my sleep, but it was already leaving me. All thought of it, replaced by him.
I breathed him in, watching him sleep. I didn’t want to move. I didn’t want to wake him.
But his smile told me he was already there.
“Good morning,” he whispered, cleaving his eyelids open. His sleep filled eyes still managed to captivate me, holding me in place. Until he blinked, releasing me, and I moved my head to snuggle into his neck.
“You look tired,” I told him.
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“Why not?” I asked, looking back up at him.
“I…” he began with a frown, and then sighed. “Too much going through my mind.”
After yesterday’s visit with Mason, I wasn’t surprised, and wanted to ask him what it was that he saw in the memory table, that had stunned him into near silence.
“Training today,” he mumbled, as though sensing my question and changing the subject.
“Absolutely,” I agreed. And I decided if he wasn’t ready to discuss it, then I wouldn’t push him. Whatever it was, it seemed to have had a profound effect upon him.
“When did you get so enthusiastic?” he asked.
“Lena needs me to hurt her, remember?” I grumbled against his skin.
I felt his body vibrate with laughter as he responded, “And I wish you every success.”
∞
From the moment we entered the training dome, Lena stared at me in expectation. But I’d decided against a verbal confrontation. Her ward-simulation may have taken things too far, but it had allowed me to see and understand my weakness. Just knowing how afraid of the ward I was, was not enough. Experiencing that fear, had renewed my need to learn. And I understood that Lena’s lessons, while harsh and somewhat disturbing, were necessary.
All through training though, I tried not to think about what was coming, the task that I’d set for myself. Instead, I kept my focus solely upon warming up, and I fought the simulation with a vigorous determination to deliver - and receive - as much pain as was necessary, to keep my mind from wandering.
However, once the moment came to fight Lena, I couldn’t look her in the eye, which went against everything she’d taught me. I was supposed to maintain eye contact to determine her moves, and to show my courage and conviction, according to their ways.
But I also needed to take this in stages. I knew how to fight… well, somewhat anyway… but deliberately hurting her just for the sake of practice, was something I was going to have to build up to one step at a time. I was sure that if I looked her square in the face, my courage would dissolve, and I was already pushing down every ounce of weakness that wanted to rise up and take over.
Still, I was determined to learn. After seeing the real ward in his isolated, blue void, and hearing that torturing me had become his life’s purpose, that was all the motivation I needed. If he ever got out, if he ever came near me again, I would be ready.
“Ready?” she asked with a smile, as though reading my thoughts.
I wasn’t too sure what I was going to do. I didn’t really have a game plan. But it would have to be quick before she weakened me with the pain I knew, she was ready to inflict.
I was prepared for her fists to come at me, as they always did, and with my arms before me, I nodded. And I realized in that second, that she already knew what I was going to do, I could feel it. She was waiting for it. And she was going to let me do it.
The moment after I blocked her slow, and deliberately weak attack, I jumped and turned, sweeping both of my feet toward her and to the side. I landed one foot upon one of hers, holding her leg in place as the other slammed against her calf just below the knee, forcing it to bend the wrong way. The move was similar to what I’d used on the ward. But… it seemed to work.
Lena barely made a sound when the noise of her bones crunching in a way bones shouldn’t, reached my ears. She sucked back her breath, and then exhaled it away.
And that was all.
She was even still standing.
“Good job,” she said, without a hint of strain in her voice. “I didn’t think you would.”
“Lena,” I could barely speak. My stomach was already turning, and my hands fluttered toward her. “I’m s-sorry.”
She glared at me in annoyance, and I knew that was the wrong thing to say to her. Thank you, would have been more appropriate. But those words were more out of place, than the fact that I’d managed to accomplish such a disconcerting act of aggression against her.
I tried to wrap one of her arms around my shoulder, to help her to the medic room, but she brushed me off.
“You can’t walk there by yourself. Your leg is…” but I couldn’t finish my sentence. When I looked down, I saw bone poking through her warrior suit, and a small puddle of red had begun to accumulate around her foot. The sight was more than I could take. I’d done that. I’d hurt her. And I could feel the blood draining from my face. I grabbed her hand and forced her arm around my shoulder, and then closed my eyes, trying not to let the black spots become a dark void. And we hobbled from the room, one shaky step at a time.
We didn’t get far however, before I realized that there was pain in one of my own feet, the one I’d used upon her leg. The spike that traveled through my foot and up my leg had begun as not much more than a dull throb, but with each step the throb turned into a sharp pressure. And the more I thought about the pain, and felt it as we walked, I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d broken something myself.
Once I was sure I wasn’t going to pass out, I opened my eyes again, but I didn’t look down. If I saw what was wrong with me, there was a chance I would turn the pain into something worse than what it had a right to be. I would just let Haize fix it.
“Better now?” she asked me, through a barely audible grunt of discomfort. I hoped her suit was diminishing some of what she was feeling, as it was designed to. I almost certainly would have passed out after the simulated ward’s attack, if not for the suit’s technology.
And yet, here she was, broken leg and still managing to stay upright. I internally gaped at her fortitude and wondered how bad it would have to be before her pain would register for others to bear witness to. She was the toughest person, I was sure, I would ever meet. The strongest of the warriors, the most undefeated. She was the force I wished to live up to.
“Lena,” Dax groaned as we entered the room. He ran to her other side, to take her from me, and helped her onto a table. The look she gave him, indicated she was both annoyed and amused by his offer to assist her.
Jordan beamed at me. “You did it,” he said, as he assisted me to a table, where I waited my turn to be healed.
Haize set about her screens, correcting the damage to Lena’s leg. Dax only glared at me, as though he wanted to tear my heart out.
“Pain for pain,” I murmured in his direction, and then clamped my mouth shut, remembering where I’d heard the expression. It was what the ward had said to me, his reason for hurting me, because I’d hurt him first.
“She cheated,” Lena said, then winced and sucked back her breath as Haize righted her leg.
“What?” Jordan and I called in unison.
“How?” I asked, confused. She couldn’t have meant because she’d let me hurt her. For why would she let me in the first place, if she was only going to accuse me of cheating afterward. “What are you talking about?”
“You couldn’t look me in the eye,” she said, through a brief flicker of pain.
The guilt once more began to well up within me. I couldn’t help but feel as though my hurting her - a real person, not just a simulation - had violated something sacred.
“How else did you expect me to accomplish that,” I argued, and flicked my hand toward her. I could feel the emotion building within me and I swallowed hard to keep it all down. “You’re my best friend, I can’t just go around breaking you for no good reason!”
I had no idea where that came from. I don’t believe that thought had ever crossed my mind before.
She gasped and cocked her head to the side. No doubt as surprised as I was by my revelation. It was however, the truth. I’d never even come close to having a best friend before. Growing up, I was a loner. I had my brother, but I’d felt no need for other friends; those encounters were always awkward and mostly silent.
Lena was the one person, girl-person, that I ever felt like I’d connected with, in an honest way. My friendship for Rebecca was similar, but it was more protective, as though she was my little sister, despite her being three hundred years older than me.
Lena smiled. And for a moment I expected a sarcastic retort from her, but I was relieved when it didn’t come.
“You’re forgiven,” she responded, still smiling. And it was genuine. It felt good to see that emotion on her face.
I could only nod.
“This one time only,” she added, her smile gone. She then turned back to Haize.
Once Haize was finished with her, I asked about Aleric as she healed my foot.
“He’s not back yet,” she said firmly, as though she was done with the topic. But I wasn’t.
“Back from where?”
“North of the city,” she said, glancing up at Jordan. “There’s a new settlement that the Central Unit detected, and Mason asked if we would check on them.”
“Who are they?”
“Most likely from Threa. Now that the wall is down, he was sure that… there would be those… wanting to explore their options.”
“Is he alone? Should he be back by now? What if he’s hurt?” I couldn’t stop the questions, one after another, they just flowed from me as though they had a mind of their own.
“He’s not alone. He’s not hurt, and he’ll be back when he’s ready.” It wasn’t so much her words, but the softness with which she spoke them that told me to let it go. And even though her answers were devoid of substance, she told me more than I needed. She missed him, and she was worried to the point where she didn’t want to, or couldn’t, talk about it.
I looked up at her ready to ask if she was done healing me, but instead I found her once more, staring at Jordan. Her eyes were narrowed as though she was studying him. I turned my attention his way, trying to determine what she may have seen in him, but to me he only looked tired, and still somewhat confused. And I wondered if there was a whole lot more that she was able to ascertain.
Unsure if I should be worried or not, I turned back to Lena, as she stretched her healed leg, and flexed the muscle, before slipping off the table.
But she was studying her healer as she said, “Thanks, Haize,” in an offhand way, as though it was a practiced response.
And as I looked at them, one then the other, I couldn’t help but feel that there was something going on. Not wanting to make a big deal out of it, or create a childish scene, I decided to deal with this quietly, alone with Jordan.
“I think we’re done for the day, don’t you?” Lena asked, turning my way.
“Same time tomorrow?” My question was for her, but my gaze landed upon Dax. His brief snarl told me he did not like me hurting his soulmate. But we were even on that score.
∞
“I have a question for you?” I asked Jordan, as we made our slow way back to our Tira-Mi home. I didn’t want to ask it, particularly after the confusion I’d felt in him while we were with Haize. I wasn’t sure what was going through him, but I didn’t want to push him to tell me, I knew he would when he could. And my question may even be a much-needed distraction. I was sure he would only laugh. But after everything else I’d experienced since coming to this place, the very idea was not even that absurd.
“What is it?” Tiredness resounded throughout his words, and my question began to feel as though it was more of an intrusion than a distraction.
But I asked him anyway. “Can you and Haize read each other’s minds?”
He laughed, but it was strained.
I stopped and pulled him back, forcing him to look at me.
“Can you?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at him. I had hoped his answer would be an immediate, and resounding no.
His eyes only briefly left mine as the cords in his neck tensed then released. He turned back to me before responding, “No.”
I wanted to argue, but he cut me off.
“I can’t read her mind.”
Only half an answer.
“But she can read yours,” I finished for him.
“Yes.”
“How long have you known?”
“I… almost from the moment I met her.”
“And you didn’t tell me. Why?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, and then sighed before continuing. “I wanted to and almost did on numerous occasions, but Haize insisted I say nothing. She thought you had enough to deal with and she figured this could wait. It wasn’t important enough to argue about, and so I let her keep this from you. I agreed not to say anything.”
“You agreed with her?” I tried to keep my tone neutral, but the strain was apparent in both my voice and my heart.
“You were pulled here from another dimension. That by itself is enough to drive a person mad, as you’ve witnessed. You died… twice,” he choked out the words. “And you have a ward with your name etched into his knife. Do you really need any more?”
“You forgot to mention everything I’d gone through on Earth, and then believing my soulmate was dead.” I had to stop myself, I didn’t want the memories to begin. “I think I survived all of that remarkably well,” I finished, however that was overstating it. Just a little. But at least my sanity was still intact.
And I really wasn’t sure why this was upsetting me. It wasn’t that big of a deal. Perhaps, because I hadn’t expected the conversation to go this way. In the back of my mind however, there whispered insidious notions, details underlying the information he’d just revealed that I hadn’t yet thought of. And I knew from the tension rising within me, that I could feel this turning into something close to betrayal, or perhaps it was more of a sense of unworthiness to ever be completely a part of their world. I felt yet again, on the outside of everyone. On Earth, it was my doing. But here, it was theirs.
His warmth wound around me, his soul searched for mine to join him, but I kept it closely bound within me. I didn’t want to be touched that way. Not yet.
“So,” I began. “You believe that Rebecca should be informed of everything, but not me? Am I that weak?”
“No. And you shouldn’t compare what you have gone through with what Rebecca went through. Two completely different lives. Completely different circumstances. And besides, you are also keeping information from her.”
“But this is us. You and me. We shouldn’t have secrets.”
“I know. We shouldn’t,” he said, stroking my cheek. “But if I need to withhold something, even for a little while, simply to keep you safe, or sane, I will.”
Several emotions ran through me at once. Anger, annoyance, frustration, disappointment, and I recognized them all. Years of therapy on Earth had taught me to recognize my emotions and seek out the source. In this case the source was obvious - me. I was turning this into a bigger deal than it had a right to be. And I breathed, attempting to release it all.
But it was resignation that stayed with me, whether I wanted to feel that way or not. I understood where he was coming from, for I also, would do whatever I had to, to keep him safe.
And he was right, I had done this very thing to Rebecca, withheld information from her, for her own good. Accepting his explanation though, didn’t suppress my need to argue about it. But not out of anger, more so out of that sense of disillusionment that I felt with my place in this world, and in his.
“So, she can read your mind, but how do you know what she is thinking?”
“Well, she reads my thoughts, and then she sends to me her thoughts in response, or whenever she just needs to say something.”
“So basically, she’s having a conversation with herself in your head.”
He laughed unexpectedly. “That’s one way of putting it,” he said, and I couldn’t help the smile that began to form on my face.
But his laugher faded all too soon. He was too focused on me, and on my frame of mind. I needed to change that, somehow. I needed his laughter; that sound of him filling me. He was my remedy, always able to pull me out of any sinking mood I managed to get myself stuck into.
And as the sound of him retreated from me, my questions renewed their need to be heard. The insidious whispering in the back of my head, had touched upon an idea that I didn’t want to confront, or give voice to. But once the fears had formed into words, they all but demanded validation.
“If she can read your mind,” I began. “Invade your thoughts… she can read mine as well, can’t she?”
He only nodded.
“And you didn’t think I had a right to know?”
“Of course, you did.”
“And when were you planning to tell me? If I hadn’t asked, you wouldn’t have said anything.”
As my words left me, I felt the call of his soul as he reached for mine in response. His warmth was all around me. Resisting him was almost torment.
“Lydia, please,” he whispered, and placed his hands on either side of my face. “Don’t close yourself off to me.”
I felt his soul pleading with me, and through that sense of him, there was more that dragged at my heart than my own sense of betrayal. He was in pain, and I was no doubt the cause. And once again, I felt certain that two people shouldn’t feel so much of one another. His heartache, became mine. It filled me. I couldn’t continue to push him away.
I turned my face into his hands, acceding to his touch, and released my soul to join with his. He pulled me close to his chest, and as relief swept through us both, I inhaled all that was him.
We made our way to our hilltop home, and after a light meal, we retreated to our garden bench to enjoy the tranquil afternoon light. Though when the first shades of sunset colored the sky, I returned to our conversation. A million questions had run through my mind, but at the same time, a million others had found their answers.
“Can she read just us, or everyone?”
“She can read everyone’s mind, if they let her.”
His response only raised yet another question, but first I needed to follow my initial course, of which I was sure I knew the answers to, I just needed his confirmation.
“Can Aleric?”
“Yes.”
“Lena?”
“Yes.”
“Mason?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that explains a lot.”
“All of the Rathe, all of the Heart, Mason and, so far as I know, a few others from Threa. But only when they need to.”
“Or when it amuses them,” I couldn’t stop that comment from leaving me.
The more I let this information sink in, a growing sense of humiliation began to take over. Every thought I’d ever had since coming to Threa, could have been heard by everyone, almost. And that need to scream out my frustration began to rise, the same way it had in those first few weeks, when I’d learned that everyone in the Colony had heard and felt everything that had gone through my head when I was back on Earth.
But at the same time, I realized that they could all hear each other’s thoughts. And not a single person had reproached me for any wayward thought I may have had. I couldn’t help but wonder how many wayward thoughts they each had to live with, or if instead, they were accomplished at controlling everything that ran through their own minds.
I concluded that it was a strange way to live, knowing that nothing was private, not even the space within one’s own head.
But before I could comment or question further, another thought arose within me, pushing all others aside.
“They… the insertion… the Guardian, did it extract that quality from them? Can the wards read minds now too?”
“No,” he said. “They never could. But this was one of the reasons why the Guardian kept bringing them. There were some higher brain functions that it couldn’t replicate in its wards. And those from Heart and Rathe that were inserted, suppressed that ability. The Guardian, as far as we know, didn’t discover all they could do.”
As his words sank in, I felt the muscles in my head unclench, and I closed my eyes for just a moment, grateful that a headache was not on its way. My thoughts however, wandered back to the events within the Colony, and landed upon Grid, Hammond and Rebecca. I knew none of them could read minds, I’m sure Grid at least, would have mentioned it at some point.
“Why is it that you can’t?” I asked him.
“I don’t know. I’ve never even wondered about it.”
“What about Dax?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t think he can, at least that I know of.”
“And… regarding Haize, and no doubt the others,” I began slowly, and almost didn’t continue with my question. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know more. I came to this world, almost a year ago, and this new information about the people around me, would not have much of an impact upon my life, except for perhaps, my awareness of what they could do. “What did you mean when you said, if they let her… read their mind?” I asked anyway.
“It’s a choice they make. To read, to listen, to be read. Castor and Aleric had developed a serum to dull those particular senses. But who knows, maybe if we live long enough we’ll develop their talents.”
“Or maybe Castor has a serum for that.”
His laughter cut through the stillness of the growing evening, filling the garden with a welcome happiness. It coursed through my soul, vibrated under my skin and reversed the unhappy mood I’d been settling into. I loved that I could make him laugh. I loved what the sound of his voice could do to me. And I loved the way his eyes lifted mine to his and held me to him, as his laughter settled within us both. It was in these moments that I felt the most connected to him, that I could hear his soul speak to mine. And in that moment, I didn’t care if he had a thousand secrets. I had all eternity to unravel them.