Memento Mori, Chapter 30
Aug. 14th, 2012 01:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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memento_mori_11 Unable to face going through the city itself just yet, and dreading the long trek around Kust through the farms up the valley, Blink had been relieved (and pleasantly surprised) when the little party of danata instead led her down to a covered jetty on the headland. Snuggled into the natural harbour where the rocks curved around, a collection of small boats bobbed on the tide.
The trip across the bay was longer and more unnerving than the one across the river, at the mercy of the teasing wind and tide. None of the boats were large enough for the fessine to actually get into without making them unstable, so again they had to resort to towing her along through the water – at least, Blink reassured herself, she wasn’t in such poor condition that she was in danger of slipping off and drowning. She clung to the side with a serious-faced determination, a weird, excited sort of anticipation simmering in her blood in spite of the way the cold water made her skin prickle.
They reached the far shore just shy of midday. Black-Tip – a particularly heavily-built straza with a jet-black abdomen – took charge of carefully mooring up on what remained of the Institute’s small jetty, on the shoreline below the building. Waves and weather had long since eroded away most of the wooden walkway, leaving only a few weed-beslimed pilings jutting up like the broken bones of a long-dead sea-monster, beached on the hostile rocks.
The algae covering the brittle rocks made them treacherous to climb; Blink picked her way over the slimy green surfaces, clinging desperately with hands and toes, digging her claws into cracks in a futile attempt to improve her grip. By the time she reached the dry rocks and tussocky grass out of reach of the tide, she’d added another dozen scratches and bruises to her welted limbs.
Duskwing chivvied around her, wings fluttering. “Are you badly injured? Can you still walk?”
Blink forced a terse smile through her aches, stretching her sore arms against the fog-damped grass and trying to catch her breath. “Just a little bumped around. Give me a moment, and I’ll be all right...” She grunted and wobbled herself to her feet, teetered dangerously for an instant, but managed to keep her balance. “Let’s go.”
The muted sunshine and overcast skies did little to diminish the visual impact of the big laboratory complex; the bright white interior glowed out even through the sections of frosted glass on the front, and the huge doors at the distant end revealed what looked like a huge empty aircraft hangar. The innocuous little warning signs hanging from the fence swung and creaked quietly in the breeze. Blink gazed up at it all – the gleaming building, the heavy security – and felt strangely small.
Black-Tip clicked to her sisters, and gestured for them to follow her past the fence. Blink watched them flutter up and over the wire, uneasily biting her lip, but she needn’t have worried; sure enough, the field remained quiescent. She had to reign in the sudden urge to put out her own hand, just to try the gate again, just to reassure herself it did all still work. It would be fairly traumatic if she went to all this effort to gain access – and safety! – only to find the field had already failed. Not to mention, there’d be no barrier to Tevak, who would need no encouragement to follow her in and destroy the place out of spite.
Don’t be silly, of course it all still works. She folded her arms and tucked her hands up into her armpits, out of reach of temptation. You don’t have to zap yourself to prove it.
It was difficult to have to stand and watch at the best of times, but seeing the little group struggling with the big glass doors made Blink fidgety; she paced on the spot, impatient, wishing she could get in and help, damp and shivery in the breeze gusting up off the water and stealing the warmth from her wet skin. The drizzle had stopped, but the overcast sky and exposed headland left her feeling several degrees colder than she had while tucked away under the vegetation in the colony garden.
They slowly worked through translating the control panel together, with Black-Tip and Duskwing acting as relay stations between Blink and the rest of the danata inside, working their way across the control panels in the hope of finding the locking mechanism. Duskwing sat delicately on the fessine’s shoulder to relay information – although the voices of the workers inside the compound carried well enough across the courtyard, they were just too far away for the translation loop to pick up. They in turn didn’t understand Blink’s words, needing the naiad to translate for them-
Blink jumped as the gate gave a sudden soft clunk, as the bolt released, and drifted back gently on its hinges.
The gate’s open.
For several long heartbeats, the fessine found she could only stare at it, unable to coax her limbs to move, as though frozen solidly into place.
It’s open. The gate is open.
She could feel her heart pounding, its soft drumbeats echoing in her ears. Surging [adrenaline] in her blood made her limbs trembly.
It can’t be open. It can’t honestly genuinely be open. I must be hallucinating.
“What is wrong?” Duskwing chased, gently, tugging at her eartip to get her attention. “It is open. Is this not what you wanted?”
Blink managed an awkward laugh. “My friends in the library have been trying to get in here for years, literally. Half a lifetime, just trying to work out how to unlock the gate. I’ve been here less than a season, and I’ve gained access.” She combed her fingers through her hair, not quite sure what to do with her shaking hands. “I can... hardly believe it’s really happening. Any second now, and I’ll wake up. Does that make sense?” She put up a hand to stroke her small friend’s bristly pelt.
Duskwing put all four of her hands down onto Blink’s fingers, reassuringly, and vibrated her wings a little. “I promise it is not a hallucination.”
Blink held out her fingers, but the memory of the security field’s savagery made her clench her hand into a fist, unwilling to test its ugly temper a second time. The instant she brushed up against the forcefield, lilac flames would erupt from nowhere and leave her out cold, at the mercy of anyone who might walk past. If Tevak was on the prowl, he would no doubt grill her friends for information, and she didn’t really want to leave herself quite so exposed if he came up here...!
“You may want to get down, Dusk. Just in case anything goes wrong,” Blink cautioned, quietly. “You don’t want to get zapped along with me.”
“I trust my sisters. They say the barrier has been shut down.” Duskwing nevertheless did as advised, jumping from her shoulder and fluttered lightly to the ground.
“True, but I don’t know how long it’ll stay down...” Blink edged closer, inch by inch, one trembling arm stretched out in front of her as far as it would go. Please, just get it over and done with. Zap me, if you’re going to...
Breath catching in her throat, she watched from the corner of her eye as the fence grew closer, and closer, and suddenly, it was behind her.
I’m in. I’m actually in. I’m past the fence!
Her knees suddenly went all wobbly and she almost fell down right there, on the smooth, perfect concrete parking area. She propped herself up on one of the decorative stone planters, waiting for the strength to return to her legs. Excited giggles bubbled in her lungs, making it hard to catch her breath.
Duskwing chirped and wiggled her wings, uneasily. “Are you well...?”
Blink found a feeble laugh for her. “Just... shocked. I never actually believed... this is just incredible.”
Black-Tip fluttered down to land nearby. “What is the problem?”
“Nothing. Thank you.” Blink had to restrain the sudden urge to envelop the little female in a hug – they didn’t seem to do hugs, and an uninvited invasion of her space might alarm her. Instead, she bowed steeply, as she’d seen them do to each other, and kept her arms around her own chest. “Thank you so much-!”
Black-Tip seemed reassured; she chirped something uninterpretable and flicked her wings politely. “You are welcome. I am glad we could assist.”
At last, Blink felt happy that her knees would support her weight once more, and warily made her way across the wide courtyard, expecting at any minute to set an alarm off and get thrown back over the fence. The curious danata followed her at a respectful distance, their wings humming softly.
The impressive windows towered away above her, like a sheer-sided cliff, somehow polished absolutely smooth by onshore winds – so much more imposing, up close, than they had looked from outside the fence. Blink put out a hand, hesitant, plucking up the courage to touch the glass, almost afraid to dirty the gleaming structure. Just to be sure I’m not hallucinating all this, still stuck in Tevak’s foul basement... She closed her eyes and let her hand drift closer; the ‘hallucination’ felt reassuringly solid, the glass cool to the touch.
The automatic door in front breathed obediently open for her, allowing a gust of air-conditioned air to waft out, bringing with it a chemical-clean disinfectant smell.
“Oh my goodness...” Blink crept hesitantly into the building. The cool flooring felt delicious against her sore feet. “Look at all this-!”
The inside was as scrupulously clean as the outside, all gleaming white walls and polished dove-grey floors, accented in chrome and glass. Everything was working away quietly and efficiently, with not even so much as a single bulb burned out in the countless lighting panels flush with the walls. The huge main hangar was empty save for a handful of exotic machines, surrounded by glowing fences and fancy signs, which Blink assumed to be demonstration models. The pot-plants had gone a little wild, down the years – one with incredible purple and green leaves had got so tall, it had begun to spread along the ceiling – but it appeared whatever was looking after the general upkeep of the place was feeding and watering those, too-
“Good day, unidentified staff member.”
Blink all but leaped out of her skin when the delicate voice spoke out of the ether. She span round on the spot, almost tripping over her own small feet, to find a giant white-coated figure standing in the centre of the room. The little group of danata clustered closer to her for protection, equally alarmed.
“I thought you said the place was empty-!” Blink whispered, hotly.
“We thought it was. I have never seen this person before,” Duskwing confirmed, taking shelter behind the fessine’s skinny leg.
Superficially, the creature resembled Tevak – just as intimidatingly tall, with a long, pointed snout and spreading, clawed toes. That was about where the similarity ended, however. Where Tevak rippled with muscle beneath scales that looked more like armour plate, this spectre was sleek and regal, with smooth silver-gold skin that seemed to have been sewn from high-quality silk. Even the claws on its long toes were dainty and well-manicured.
Blink had only seen kiravai once, and then only fleetingly, but it had been enough to instantly recognise the spectre as one of the cool, haughty aliens.
“I am afraid I do not have you on file,” the newcomer continued, in those same bland tones. She seemed completely unconcerned to see the intruders in her property. “Would you like to create a profile?”
“I-I’m sorry, I didn’t think anyone lived here,” Blink stammered, backing off and trying not to squash any unfortunate danata in the process.
“That is correct. I am a hologram,” she – it? – confirmed, inclining her long head. “I was designed to improve the user interface with Kust University Science Institute central computer.”
“You’re not real? There-... there’s no-one else here...?”
“That is correct.”
Hologram or not, it felt to Blink like the piercing blue eyes could see all the way down into the core of her being, and it was very difficult not to cringe under the imperious gaze. The questions filling her mind barely minutes before had now all dried up in her mouth – she couldn’t think of the first thing to say, any more.
“To use available facilities, you must create a profile,” the interface prompted, in the silence, leaning down a little closer. “Would you like to do so now?”
Blink didn’t need to think about it for long. If I make a profile, I may be able to get back in more easily. She swallowed hard on the fright that had rendered her almost mute, rationalising that if Institute security wanted her removed, the hologram wouldn’t be being anywhere near as accommodating. “What do I need to do?”
“I have already measured your biometrics, and constructed a basic profile.” The interface gestured towards the camera lens, watching unobtrusively from the corner. “You will provide me with small items of personal data which can be matched to the data I have already recorded.”
“Um. All right...” Blink had to fudge a little of the data the computer requested – she doubted it would believe her if she gave it her true age – but it thankfully didn’t want such precise information as a date of birth.
“Thank you. Profile created.” The kiravai woman paused, and flicked an ear, making her holographic earrings jingle appealingly. “There are three thousand, four hundred and ninety six unread system alerts since last staff logon, of which two hundred and twenty seven have been flagged as important. Would you like to check them now?”
“Err-...” Blink stared blankly up into the unblinking glassy eye of the computer surveillance system. “Could I, ah, could I check them later?” When I have time to figure out what they all MEAN.
The interface didn’t seem to mind. She tilted her long head to one side, and agreed; “Review of alerts has been postponed.”
At that, the interface went silent. It felt almost like it was waiting for Blink to say something – which Blink later realised, that was probably exactly what it was doing – but the long pause made the fessine edgy. (Just because she herself grew up in a world of talkative computer-based lifeforms didn’t mean this computer wanted idle chatter.)
“Um... computer?” She fidgeted from one foot to the other, not entirely sure how she was supposed to attract the interface’s attention.
Thankfully, her guess proved correct. “Working.”
“I’ve got a sample of blood from someone who’s immune to the-... to the virus. What should I do with it?”
“The laboratory is this way. Follow me.” The hologram glided across the floor, disconcertingly, her legs moving beneath her coat but not quite matching the speed at which she moved.
Obediently, Blink followed her, through a handful of double doors and airlocks – which the interface literally passed straight through, like a ghost – into areas that looked increasingly sterile, polished and smelling strongly of disinfectant, before finally arriving in an area Blink assumed to be some sort of clean suite.
The interface turned and blocked the doors, spreading her arms; the soft sound of security bolts firing underlaid her words. “Access is not permitted until you are wearing the appropriate attire,” she said, sternly, indicating the cupboard next to the door, full of white jackets and hairnets. “Your size is unavailable. Please select instead from the cupboard indicated.”
Most of the narrow cupboards were locked, containing well-loved, well-stained lab coats, with torn pockets laden with different scientific instruments, each embroidered on the breast with the same incomprehensible kiravai writing as was printed on the door. Blink felt a pang of sorrow at recognising that they probably all belonged to the long-dead scientists that had once worked here. The only unlocked cupboard was stuffed to bursting with an array of over-laundered coats, half of which fell off their pegs when she opened the door; she imagined that the writing above the door must mean ‘visitors’.
The coat Blink selected was many sizes too large to her – more like a dress, it draped halfway down her legs to the floor, the cuffs coming all the way down over her hands. Getting the unruly bristles of her hair contained within the hairnet also proved a struggle, and she almost fell over several times when securing the plastic booties around her feet, but eventually the interface appeared satisfied by her efforts and unlocked the doors.
Wide-eyed, Blink rustled her way across the laboratory behind her guide, reminded of her adoptive-uncle’s small lab in Skydash’s home. Long-unused machinery hummed patiently, running endless diagnostic and testing cycles to keep their components running normally.
The interface stopped alongside a massive glass-fronted machine, so big it didn’t fit on the work surface like all its fellows. “Please place the sample into the machine.” She gestured to the flashing opening with a graceful sweep of her arm.
Blink looked at the little portal into the machine. “Um.” There was a slot to place a vial of blood, and not much else. “I am the sample. Is that going to be a problem?”
Interface cocked her head, flicking an ear and making her earrings jingle unmusically. “Clarification needed.”
“The sample is my blood. I am immune. I just, I-I don’t know how to get it out of me.” Sadie could do it, but I’d have to go down to Kust to do it and there might be a big, angry, violent obstacle to my getting back here in one piece. “Can you do it?”
It was hard not to imagine a flicker of frustration on the interface’s impassive features. “The venepuncture machine has not been used in some years. Please wait while a diagnostic is run.”
Blink bit her lip, and studied the way her toes showed through the bright blue plastic of the over-shoes, in favour of looking at the kiravai woman, listening as the machine hissed its way through a self-diagnostic. For something supposed to ‘improve the user interface’, the hologram didn’t have much trouble carrying off that infamous blue-blooded kiravai disdain.
At last, the clonks and hisses stopped, and the interface seemed satisfied all was in order. She gestured with the flat of her hand to the section that had just lit up, with a small blinking white lamp. “With your non-dominant hand, please grasp the handle shown. The rest of the procedure is fully automated.”
Blink eyed the glittering hypodermics, warily, unconsciously closing her fingers into a reluctant fist. “Will it hurt?” she wondered, and immediately felt stupid for asking such a useless question – it had to take the sample somehow, and it couldn’t hurt any more than Tevak.
It wasn’t precisely the interface’s area of expertise, anyway. “I do not have a frame of reference to answer your question. Please grasp the handle as instructed. The rest of the procedure is fully automated.”
For the greater good, Bee. You need to give this sample now, because you may not get another chance. She licked her lips, uneasily, but managed to get her fingers to unclench. Don’t be such a coward. It’s only a little needle. Dash wouldn’t back out of it.
“All right.” She took a deep breath to soothe her nerves, pushed back the baggy white sleeve, revealing her spindly arm, and hesitantly wrapped her fingers around the handle illuminated by the little spotlamp.
The machine gave a low hiss of compressed air, and flicked a tourniquet around the upper part of the limb, making her jump; for an instant, Blink began to think it was never going to stop tightening, that it would continue to wind its grip tighter until her arm fell off altogether. That’s really why all the scientists left, the interface got crazy and tried to kill them all...!
At last the grip stabilised. The fessine sucked in a breath and hissed softly in pain as the needle punched through her welted skin, watching in fascination as the squat glass vial filled with purple liquid. Amazing that such deep, dark blood could hide under such pale skin. Finally the machine replaced the needle with a tight bandage, and let her take her arm back; Blink stepped back away from the machine, relieved it was over.
The interface stood next to Blink, and watched with her for effect as the machine clunked softly and separated the blood sample into several smaller aliquots, passing them over to the giant analyser. “Sample is of good quality and has been catalogued,” she acknowledged. “Would you like to begin analysis?”
“Uhm... is there some automatic facility for that?” Blink fidgeted, awkwardly. The knowledge it was just a hologram that she was talking to didn’t make the kiravai any less intimidating. “I-I’m an engineer. I don’t know anything about blood.”
“Ah.” The interface perked her head to one side. “Your profile has been updated to reflect your staff role. Automated analysis of the sample will begin shortly.”
Watching the big machine working, it was immediately apparent why they had chosen to give it a clear front. Blink pressed her fingers against it, leaning close enough that her breath steamed the glass, fascinated by all the twinkling lights and moving components inside. The little vials of her blood all headed off around the system in different directions.
The interface hovered close behind her. “Automated analysis of the sample will take approximately three [hours]. Would you like to review the system alerts now?”
Blink tore her gaze away from the whirling centrifuges and twitching pipes, and offered an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry. I don’t really know what I would be reviewing. Could I have them in writing, and I’ll work through them later?”
“This can be arranged. I will process and direct them to the terminal in your living space.”
Blink had to re-run the comment in her mind at least twice, and even then didn’t quite understand it. “Sorry, living space? Could you explain further?”
“It is the director’s opinion that it is currently unsafe to be making unnecessary journeys outside the fence unless a security escort can be provided. Therefore, all staff members are allocated accommodation while employed at the Institute.” After a pause, she added, unnecessarily; “Security personnel are currently unavailable.”
Blink realised she was standing with her mouth gaping in surprise, and coughed before managing to splutter; “I-... How do you know I’m a member of staff?”
Where a corporeal member of security staff may have begun to grow suspicious, the hologram didn’t so much as flicker, treating it as just another question. “You did not correct me upon your entry into the complex, and you created a staff profile. You have also informed me that you are an engineer.”
What irony. Sadie applied for a job here at least six times, and was declined. I never even wanted a job, and the interface has automatically assumed I already have one. Blink chuckled tiredly and wiped her face with her hand. “Do you have bathing facilities here? A-and clothing?” Dried sea salt made her skin itchy and uncomfortable, and her clothes felt stiff.
“Affirmative. You have a wet room and storage in your living space. Clothing in your size is currently being printed. The white squares will direct you where to go.” The interface bowed her head, politely, and faded out.
Blink looked down at her feet to find a series of small illuminated squares glowing up through the flooring, lighting sequentially to form a line heading out through the doors, marking out the route and the direction. After one last lingering look at the busy analyser, she turned to face the doors, and followed the marching squares away.
* * * * *
Trying to avoid thinking about the inevitable – needing to scour the beach for a body, if no traces of Blink could be found on the river’s north shore – it was a cause for reluctant celebration when the search party finally tracked down Blink’s scent, on what remained of a quay where expensive yachts had probably once been moored. Mystifyingly, they were some distance up the river compared to the Station, which ruled out the idea that the missing woman had somehow miraculously been swept across the estuary instead of out to sea.
“So she can swim, and you was just talking skred to distract us, right laima?” Zinovy challenged, flatly.
Rae stared the hart down. “She’s never swum in her life,” he clarified. “I don’t know why she’d-”
“You laima keep on yapping about how yer all natural swimmers.” Zinovy stabbed a finger at Rae’s chest, like a weapon. “Webbed feet, or some shit. Why does it matter if she ain’t never swum before?”
“You don’t know her history, so don’t think you have the least clue about what she can and can’t do ‘naturally’.” Rae backed off, flashing his teeth. “ I don’t know how she got across the river, and I don’t know how she’d have got this far upstream, unless she had help.”
“Oh, I see; it’s confession time, huh?” Zinovy bristled, ears perking confrontationally and tailtip twitching. “One of yers did spring her from prison.”
Rae’s brow creased into an exasperated glare. “Well I can’t smell anyone else here – can you? I couldn’t smell anyone else in that cess-pit you were keeping her in, either. Not to mention, why would people that care about her snatch her to safety, then dump her straight in the river to drown?”
After a few more seconds of mutual glaring, it was Zinovy that finally backed down, with a mutter of reluctant agreement. “All right.” He waved an arm, dismissive. “Get back to work.”
Rae glared at the departing back, hotly enough that it was a wonder the hart didn’t spontaneously combust, then grimaced and had to massage a cramp out of the back of his thigh. You better watch your back once all this is over, short-stuff.
Out of the corner of his eye, Rae saw Halli stop, lean down, then clamber down off the quay. Curious, he hobbled after her to the edge to find an overgrown slipway. “Found something?”
The zaar made an ambiguous noise. “I’m not sure yet.”
Rae frowned, suspiciously – even against the stirred-up mud and thick plant-growth, the deep prints and broken vegetation were starkly visible, so she’d clearly found something – but didn’t challenge her just yet.
“You seen the little pontoon in the river, over there?” Halli added, quietly. “It might make what I’m thinking about showing you more relevant.”
Rae’s frown deepened. “...all right.”
Partially hidden among the reeds growing along the abandoned quay, and not immediately obvious to an observer who wasn’t already looking for it, Rae spotted the structure Halli had indicated. A life raft? he wondered – but immediately crossed out the idea. The empty landing stage had clearly been built with very small users in mind – the finely-cut timbers made from tree branches rather than tree trunks, the ropes holding much of it together looking more like heavy duty cotton threads, and it was buoyed up on empty plastic drink bottles. Even the dainty fessine would have been too big for it to carry safely. Not to mention, the moorings didn’t look like they’d been disturbed in a long time, grown slick with tendrils of weed and green algae and well anchored among the reeds.
“What’s your point?” Rae climbed down onto the slipway, grimacing at the slimy feel of the mud creeping between his toes.
Halli indicated the scattering of delicate little two-toed footprints in the mud, almost invisible against the deeper tracks made by a crawling laima. “I saw their pontoon first, then spotted their footprints,” she whispered, so softly that Rae almost missed it. “Danata. I think they helped her.”
Rae pursed his lips, warily. “Well, it’d explain how easy they got in to find her; they’d have had no problems getting down those vents. It’d explain the lack of scent, too,” he agreed, in a voice equally quiet. “I just don’t know why they would. I mean, they’re not exactly the most sentimental of critters, right? They leave us alone, we leave them alone, and all that.”
“I never said I’d worked out all the details,” Halli pointed out. “This could all be a coincidence. This might just be where they land up normally. There’s not a whole lot of places it’s safe to come ashore, along here, whether you’re swimming or sailing – downstream it’s all overgrown and upstream there’s so much debris it’s dangerous.”
“Or they dragged her off to be a larder. She’d have been easier to catch than a hoo-dee.”
Halli cocked a withering glance at him. “Hoo-dees are smaller, and probably taste better. Not to mention, have more meat on them.”
“...point.”
“Look, if Tevak finds out, those little guys won’t last long. He’ll squash them with absolutely no effort, and then we’ll never find out if or where they took her, and why.”
“Well, we better make sure he’s well distracted while we figure it out...”
* * * * *
The Institute proved a lot bigger than Blink had first realised, following the squares around the endless corridors; the builders had chiselled way down into the headland bedrock, hollowing out millions of tonnes of rock. She first followed the trail all the way back out to the main atrium, then headed down the long winding corridors, deeper into the Institute, past offices and laboratories, a long-disused canteen, a small library and lounge, and finally into the accommodation block.
The living space the interface had allocated her was a very compact but comfortable-looking pair of rooms, a few dozen paces up the corridor from a canteen, buried deep in the hillside at the rear of the Institute on the “ground floor” – whatever that meant, in a building mainly underground. The row of clear-fronted cupboards built into the wall above the single bunk were mostly empty, apart from one at the distant end, stocked with a selection of pale blue-grey and white clothing. Built into the closest wall was a micro-kitchen containing facilities for making hot drinks, and next to it was a computer terminal, above the small desk close to the door; after leaning closer to see, the pale blue lettering revealed themselves to Blink as the promised system alerts. Another overgrown pot-plant had taken over the far corner, scrambling for the artificial light above it.
Passing through the narrow door in the far corner, Blink found the wet-room – attractively tiled in a very small pale blue mosaic, it was painfully reminiscent of the one in her shared quarters back on tiao’I. Thinking about it made her empty stomach hurt – if she’d not left home, and gone to tiao’I, she’d have never ended up here, brutalised and biological... but then, she’d have never met her friends in the library, either. And she’d never have been given this chance to do such incredible good, to cure the viruses terrorising this area of space. Maybe it wasn’t all bad.
The water activated automatically when she shed her misshapen old salt-stained clothes and stepped under the broad showerhead, making her jump and delivering a second or two of fairly intense cold, which almost persuaded her to leap right back out of the way. The water quickly warmed, though; she turned her face up into the stream, and sighed a long, slow exhale of pleasure. Clean, fresh water, that didn’t make her skin prickle with painful cold and wash hurriedly to avoid getting too chilled.
Guilt pressed down on her shoulders – here she was, luxuriating in a hot shower, and everyone else down the hill in Kust probably still thought she was dead. Goodness only knew what Tevak was up to.
As soon as I’m dressed, I’ll head back to the Library, she resolved, scrubbing away the last of the accumulated filth with the blandly functional gel-soap in the wall dispenser. Even if it’s only long enough to let them know I’m all right.
The big perfect mirror covering one wall was hard to hide from, when she emerged from the shower area. For the first time since her abduction, Blink got to study her pale features, hiding the rest of her gaunt little body behind her towel. She had to make a determined effort not to instantly flee from her reflection.
What a mess. The danata had cut the burrs out of her hair with no regard for aesthetics, leaving her hair a choppy, irregular wet mop. The bruise still livid around her right eye twinged painfully in sympathy; now no longer the livid purple of fresh laima blood, but a sickly, infected-looking yellow-brown. Still sore, but... healing, she hoped. Her waxy features looked gaunt, her eyes sunken in their sockets.
How dare he do this to me. Angry and distressed in equal measures, her brows came together into a frown that drew furrows in her skin. After claiming to want me. How dare he do this to me, then punish my friends for it.
She covered her face with her towel, and turned away from the mirror with a sigh, to find some clean clothes. When is this all going to end, world? I escaped the virus, only to run into a new nightmare that’s even worse. What will you do to me if I ever escape Tevak?
Functional and elegant, if not the most fashionable, the clothing interface had provided fit perfectly;
She puffed out her skinny chest and stood forwards on her toes, using her palms to flatten the soft grey cloth down against her tummy and flanks. Smoothing her damp hair down against her scalp, temporarily disguising the jagged cut, she almost looked... normal. Like she belonged there. A small smile graced her lips.
Down in the canteen, the interface refused to give Blink the first choice she selected from the menu, citing malnourishment when the fessine challenged her. Blink’s second choice, heavily influenced by the interface’s meddling, was a thick, protein-rich vegetable soup, floating with roughly cut chunks of some sort of green pod, and salty, crunchy little pieces of bread. Fully aware that it was in all likelihood packed with flavouring chemicals and preservatives, its nutritional value artificially elevated, she nevertheless savoured each delicious mouthful. Almost as good as something Aron cooked!
To have pudding was an entirely new experience; at the Library, the best they’d managed were fruits or pastries, with frozen desserts an impossibility, unlike the numerous selections on this menu. After dithering over a selection of equally-tempting sweets, she selected a thick, crystalline slush of partially-frozen tangy fruit, and headed out to admire the scenery while she ate.
Blink hesitated in the doorway to the main hall – the vast open space made her feel strangely small, in awkward comparison to tiao’I where she’d always been far too big for the infrastructure. She scuttled hastily across the unoccupied space and settled on the cool floor as close to the window as was comfortable, where she couldn’t see the enormity of the cavernous room behind her.
The wide courtyard outside blocked much of her view – even Kust was little more than a dark smudge on the rim of the horizon, peeking between the trees and the fine lines of the fence. Gazing up at the sky, she contented herself with watching the blue patches grow between the thinning grey clouds.
I wonder if I’ll be able to see home from here, when it gets dark enough to see the stars. She pushed the melting fruit slush around the bowl with the back of her spoon, distractedly enjoying the tingling sensation as a spoonful slowly dissolved in her mouth. I don’t even know if I could find home on a map, right now. Maybe the interface will be able to tell me. She unfolded her fingers and gazed down at the scar on her palm, the first little ember of an idea setting root in her mind. I wonder if she’ll know what this is, too?
A rustle of wings attracted her attention, and she turned to watch as Duskwing landed next to her.
“I thought you’d have gone home ages ago,” Blink commented, stroking the danata’s fuzzy head.
Duskwing’s antennae wiggled. “Black-Tip was instructed by matica to ensure you were safe. Plus, it is too late for us to safely traverse the bay, now. We will probably return to the colony tomorrow, when it is light.” She made a soft little untranslatable noise. “I do not look forwards to it. I have enjoyed your company.”
They sat together in a companionable silence for a little while, watching the mottled sky even out into a cloudless blue, accompanied only by the soft white noise of distant air conditioning units.
“What will you do now?” Duskwing wondered, at last breaking through the quiet.
Blink looked back into her bowl, which now contained little more than chilled pale orange nectar. “Same as you, probably. Stay overnight, and make my move early tomorrow.” She stirred the cold liquid around, quietly, making up her mind. “I need to go back to Kust, to let my friends know what’s happened, but it’s too late to make the trip this afternoon. It’ll be getting dark before I reach the suburbs, and I don’t want to have to try and find somewhere safe to spend the night on my own.”
“You desire to leave already?” The naiad’s antennae perked lopsidedly. “I thought it was important for you to get in?”
“Getting in here was important – the most important thing I’ve done in a very long time,” Blink agreed. “But it’ll all be for nothing if my friends can’t get in as well. I could sit in here forever, but it’d be completely worthless without someone who knows how to make my blood into a vaccine...”
In spite of her exhaustion, and in spite of knowing she was safe, and in spite of the wonderfully comfortable bed... Blink slept very poorly. There was just something strange and rather unnerving about being alone, here in the big science complex that could have housed a hundred or more members of staff, but instead was home for just her, a couple of insects, and a nosey supercomputer. She tossed and turned for most of the night, never quite managing to get all the way asleep, dozing for short periods that made it feel like she’d been wide awake all night.
In fact, she’d only just begun to properly drift off into dreamland when the interface turned the lights on in her room and roused her back to wakefulness. She groaned and covered her face with her forearm.
“You requested to be awoken at first light,” the interface reminded, her non-corporeal voice coming from the computer terminal, right by Blink’s ears. “Do you require additional rest?”
“No.” She swung her feet off the bunk and rubbed her eyes, tiredly. “I doubt I’ll get back to sleep. I may...” she punctuated it with a yawn. “...may as well get up.”
The interface paused before speaking again. “Vocal stress readings indicate you are still fatigued. Mild sedatives can be provided if needed.”
Blink chuckled, but the sound fell flat and humourless. “I may take you up on that later tonight.” Assuming I can get back in. She pinched the bridge of her nose and grunted softly, trying to massage away the tension around her eyes.
After a simple breakfast of fruit and grains, which she was too tired to really enjoy, Blink made her way back up to the ‘hangar bay’, trying to navigate her way around without needing to rely on the white squares the whole time (an exercise at which she wasn’t terribly successful.) An altogether brighter day had dawned, with a warm blue sky, and a firm breeze rippling through the grass.
Blink leaned into the big windows, pressing her fingers and brow against the cool glass. “Computer?”
She watched the reflection in the window as the interface materialised silently behind her. “Working.”
“I need to go down to Kust. How do I get back in?” Knowing she hadn’t been the one to close the big gate, Blink guessed it must have a function to close itself automatically. Didn’t want any hungry blights getting in because you forgot to close the door, after all. “Do I need to take something to unlock the gate from the outside, or will you just... recognise me, now you have my profile?”
The interface flicked an ear, making an unmusical jangle that Blink had begun to recognise as signalling a negative. “Remote sensors outside the complex failed six years and thirty four days ago. You must take your personal communicator with you.”
“...where do I get one of them from?”
The hologram gestured blandly to a cabinet mounted just inside the main door. “You may choose from any that are currently available. They are simple to use and allow you to transmit your location and commands verbally to me.”
Blink rummaged through the badly stored devices – most had been thrown back in hastily, with no sense of order, but at least they were almost all plugged in, and well-charged. She selected two; a pocket-sized one that she could give to the Library, and a smaller one with slightly reduced functionality that strapped around the wrist. She debated taking a third – well, a fessine could never be too careful, right? Not when it felt like half the galaxy was conspiring against her – but decided against it. If it came down to a footrace, she didn’t want to be weighed down by even the smallest piece of excess baggage.
Are you really willing to trust your safety to how fast you can run? Pessimism reminded. You know he’s faster than you. Faster, stronger, more stamina. It’s a long way to the Library, too. And a long way back. He’ll run you down before you even get out of the suburbs.
But I can’t shoot him!
You think he’s going to hesitate? To punch you in the face? Fracture your ribs? Snap your legs? Stuff you back in that basement until you’re too weak to resist him any more?
“Um... computer?”
“Working.”
Blink tussled with her conscience for a second or two before speaking. If she was going back to Kust, she didn’t want to be defenceless – and yet, the idea of being armed with potentially lethal force made her stomach flutter uncomfortably. “Are-... are there any weapons here I could take with me?”
“Negative. The last scientist to depart took the remaining weapons with him. None have been returned as of current time.”
“Not even something nonlethal?”
“Negative. No weapons have been returned as of current time.”
Oh well, at least that took the decision out of her hands. She wasn’t sure if she was more nauseous at her vulnerability, or with relief that she wouldn’t have to shoot him.
Then please, please don’t let him find out you’re even there, Pessimist begged. Surviving him last time was a fluke. You’ll never get away if he grabs you again.
Better take some precautions, just in case...
“Dusk? Could... could you monitor the analyser running on my blood sample?” She bit her lip, and fidgeted her feet on the spot. “I don’t know what’ll happen when I go back into town and I don’t want to lose this chance. I mean, I might never be able to get back here.” After a steadying breath, she added; “If I don’t come back, could you go and find Sadie?”
The danata sat watching from her perch on one of the terminals, and snapped her wings against her back. “Certainly. You may need to talk to the strange female, the computer has not responded to our attempts to use it before now.”
“...oh. Really?” Blink frowned. “Computer, why don’t you respond to the danata?”
The interface glided closer, and looked down at the small danata, tilting her head to one side. “My programmers did not consider these creatures to be highly sapient,” she observed. “I was not programmed to recognise them. Should this be changed?”
What a stroke of ridiculously good fortune. Maybe not the entire galaxy was against her after all. The computer might have blocked them from passing the fence, if the programmers had been slightly more observant. “Please. Could you make her a profile?”
“Working.” The hologram’s head perked the other way, her earrings jingling softly. “A visitor profile has been created.”
“Just be careful from now on,” Blink counselled her small friend, with a small smile. “You might not be able to fly through the fence any more. Getting zapped is nasty.”
“I wish you luck and safety on your travel.” Duskwing put all four small hands on top of Blink’s, and she perked her antennae forwards in a subtle danata smile. “And I hope you return soon.”
Blink smiled, awkwardly. “...me too.”
156081 ♥ 200000
The trip across the bay was longer and more unnerving than the one across the river, at the mercy of the teasing wind and tide. None of the boats were large enough for the fessine to actually get into without making them unstable, so again they had to resort to towing her along through the water – at least, Blink reassured herself, she wasn’t in such poor condition that she was in danger of slipping off and drowning. She clung to the side with a serious-faced determination, a weird, excited sort of anticipation simmering in her blood in spite of the way the cold water made her skin prickle.
They reached the far shore just shy of midday. Black-Tip – a particularly heavily-built straza with a jet-black abdomen – took charge of carefully mooring up on what remained of the Institute’s small jetty, on the shoreline below the building. Waves and weather had long since eroded away most of the wooden walkway, leaving only a few weed-beslimed pilings jutting up like the broken bones of a long-dead sea-monster, beached on the hostile rocks.
The algae covering the brittle rocks made them treacherous to climb; Blink picked her way over the slimy green surfaces, clinging desperately with hands and toes, digging her claws into cracks in a futile attempt to improve her grip. By the time she reached the dry rocks and tussocky grass out of reach of the tide, she’d added another dozen scratches and bruises to her welted limbs.
Duskwing chivvied around her, wings fluttering. “Are you badly injured? Can you still walk?”
Blink forced a terse smile through her aches, stretching her sore arms against the fog-damped grass and trying to catch her breath. “Just a little bumped around. Give me a moment, and I’ll be all right...” She grunted and wobbled herself to her feet, teetered dangerously for an instant, but managed to keep her balance. “Let’s go.”
The muted sunshine and overcast skies did little to diminish the visual impact of the big laboratory complex; the bright white interior glowed out even through the sections of frosted glass on the front, and the huge doors at the distant end revealed what looked like a huge empty aircraft hangar. The innocuous little warning signs hanging from the fence swung and creaked quietly in the breeze. Blink gazed up at it all – the gleaming building, the heavy security – and felt strangely small.
Black-Tip clicked to her sisters, and gestured for them to follow her past the fence. Blink watched them flutter up and over the wire, uneasily biting her lip, but she needn’t have worried; sure enough, the field remained quiescent. She had to reign in the sudden urge to put out her own hand, just to try the gate again, just to reassure herself it did all still work. It would be fairly traumatic if she went to all this effort to gain access – and safety! – only to find the field had already failed. Not to mention, there’d be no barrier to Tevak, who would need no encouragement to follow her in and destroy the place out of spite.
Don’t be silly, of course it all still works. She folded her arms and tucked her hands up into her armpits, out of reach of temptation. You don’t have to zap yourself to prove it.
It was difficult to have to stand and watch at the best of times, but seeing the little group struggling with the big glass doors made Blink fidgety; she paced on the spot, impatient, wishing she could get in and help, damp and shivery in the breeze gusting up off the water and stealing the warmth from her wet skin. The drizzle had stopped, but the overcast sky and exposed headland left her feeling several degrees colder than she had while tucked away under the vegetation in the colony garden.
They slowly worked through translating the control panel together, with Black-Tip and Duskwing acting as relay stations between Blink and the rest of the danata inside, working their way across the control panels in the hope of finding the locking mechanism. Duskwing sat delicately on the fessine’s shoulder to relay information – although the voices of the workers inside the compound carried well enough across the courtyard, they were just too far away for the translation loop to pick up. They in turn didn’t understand Blink’s words, needing the naiad to translate for them-
Blink jumped as the gate gave a sudden soft clunk, as the bolt released, and drifted back gently on its hinges.
The gate’s open.
For several long heartbeats, the fessine found she could only stare at it, unable to coax her limbs to move, as though frozen solidly into place.
It’s open. The gate is open.
She could feel her heart pounding, its soft drumbeats echoing in her ears. Surging [adrenaline] in her blood made her limbs trembly.
It can’t be open. It can’t honestly genuinely be open. I must be hallucinating.
“What is wrong?” Duskwing chased, gently, tugging at her eartip to get her attention. “It is open. Is this not what you wanted?”
Blink managed an awkward laugh. “My friends in the library have been trying to get in here for years, literally. Half a lifetime, just trying to work out how to unlock the gate. I’ve been here less than a season, and I’ve gained access.” She combed her fingers through her hair, not quite sure what to do with her shaking hands. “I can... hardly believe it’s really happening. Any second now, and I’ll wake up. Does that make sense?” She put up a hand to stroke her small friend’s bristly pelt.
Duskwing put all four of her hands down onto Blink’s fingers, reassuringly, and vibrated her wings a little. “I promise it is not a hallucination.”
Blink held out her fingers, but the memory of the security field’s savagery made her clench her hand into a fist, unwilling to test its ugly temper a second time. The instant she brushed up against the forcefield, lilac flames would erupt from nowhere and leave her out cold, at the mercy of anyone who might walk past. If Tevak was on the prowl, he would no doubt grill her friends for information, and she didn’t really want to leave herself quite so exposed if he came up here...!
“You may want to get down, Dusk. Just in case anything goes wrong,” Blink cautioned, quietly. “You don’t want to get zapped along with me.”
“I trust my sisters. They say the barrier has been shut down.” Duskwing nevertheless did as advised, jumping from her shoulder and fluttered lightly to the ground.
“True, but I don’t know how long it’ll stay down...” Blink edged closer, inch by inch, one trembling arm stretched out in front of her as far as it would go. Please, just get it over and done with. Zap me, if you’re going to...
Breath catching in her throat, she watched from the corner of her eye as the fence grew closer, and closer, and suddenly, it was behind her.
I’m in. I’m actually in. I’m past the fence!
Her knees suddenly went all wobbly and she almost fell down right there, on the smooth, perfect concrete parking area. She propped herself up on one of the decorative stone planters, waiting for the strength to return to her legs. Excited giggles bubbled in her lungs, making it hard to catch her breath.
Duskwing chirped and wiggled her wings, uneasily. “Are you well...?”
Blink found a feeble laugh for her. “Just... shocked. I never actually believed... this is just incredible.”
Black-Tip fluttered down to land nearby. “What is the problem?”
“Nothing. Thank you.” Blink had to restrain the sudden urge to envelop the little female in a hug – they didn’t seem to do hugs, and an uninvited invasion of her space might alarm her. Instead, she bowed steeply, as she’d seen them do to each other, and kept her arms around her own chest. “Thank you so much-!”
Black-Tip seemed reassured; she chirped something uninterpretable and flicked her wings politely. “You are welcome. I am glad we could assist.”
At last, Blink felt happy that her knees would support her weight once more, and warily made her way across the wide courtyard, expecting at any minute to set an alarm off and get thrown back over the fence. The curious danata followed her at a respectful distance, their wings humming softly.
The impressive windows towered away above her, like a sheer-sided cliff, somehow polished absolutely smooth by onshore winds – so much more imposing, up close, than they had looked from outside the fence. Blink put out a hand, hesitant, plucking up the courage to touch the glass, almost afraid to dirty the gleaming structure. Just to be sure I’m not hallucinating all this, still stuck in Tevak’s foul basement... She closed her eyes and let her hand drift closer; the ‘hallucination’ felt reassuringly solid, the glass cool to the touch.
The automatic door in front breathed obediently open for her, allowing a gust of air-conditioned air to waft out, bringing with it a chemical-clean disinfectant smell.
“Oh my goodness...” Blink crept hesitantly into the building. The cool flooring felt delicious against her sore feet. “Look at all this-!”
The inside was as scrupulously clean as the outside, all gleaming white walls and polished dove-grey floors, accented in chrome and glass. Everything was working away quietly and efficiently, with not even so much as a single bulb burned out in the countless lighting panels flush with the walls. The huge main hangar was empty save for a handful of exotic machines, surrounded by glowing fences and fancy signs, which Blink assumed to be demonstration models. The pot-plants had gone a little wild, down the years – one with incredible purple and green leaves had got so tall, it had begun to spread along the ceiling – but it appeared whatever was looking after the general upkeep of the place was feeding and watering those, too-
“Good day, unidentified staff member.”
Blink all but leaped out of her skin when the delicate voice spoke out of the ether. She span round on the spot, almost tripping over her own small feet, to find a giant white-coated figure standing in the centre of the room. The little group of danata clustered closer to her for protection, equally alarmed.
“I thought you said the place was empty-!” Blink whispered, hotly.
“We thought it was. I have never seen this person before,” Duskwing confirmed, taking shelter behind the fessine’s skinny leg.
Superficially, the creature resembled Tevak – just as intimidatingly tall, with a long, pointed snout and spreading, clawed toes. That was about where the similarity ended, however. Where Tevak rippled with muscle beneath scales that looked more like armour plate, this spectre was sleek and regal, with smooth silver-gold skin that seemed to have been sewn from high-quality silk. Even the claws on its long toes were dainty and well-manicured.
Blink had only seen kiravai once, and then only fleetingly, but it had been enough to instantly recognise the spectre as one of the cool, haughty aliens.
“I am afraid I do not have you on file,” the newcomer continued, in those same bland tones. She seemed completely unconcerned to see the intruders in her property. “Would you like to create a profile?”
“I-I’m sorry, I didn’t think anyone lived here,” Blink stammered, backing off and trying not to squash any unfortunate danata in the process.
“That is correct. I am a hologram,” she – it? – confirmed, inclining her long head. “I was designed to improve the user interface with Kust University Science Institute central computer.”
“You’re not real? There-... there’s no-one else here...?”
“That is correct.”
Hologram or not, it felt to Blink like the piercing blue eyes could see all the way down into the core of her being, and it was very difficult not to cringe under the imperious gaze. The questions filling her mind barely minutes before had now all dried up in her mouth – she couldn’t think of the first thing to say, any more.
“To use available facilities, you must create a profile,” the interface prompted, in the silence, leaning down a little closer. “Would you like to do so now?”
Blink didn’t need to think about it for long. If I make a profile, I may be able to get back in more easily. She swallowed hard on the fright that had rendered her almost mute, rationalising that if Institute security wanted her removed, the hologram wouldn’t be being anywhere near as accommodating. “What do I need to do?”
“I have already measured your biometrics, and constructed a basic profile.” The interface gestured towards the camera lens, watching unobtrusively from the corner. “You will provide me with small items of personal data which can be matched to the data I have already recorded.”
“Um. All right...” Blink had to fudge a little of the data the computer requested – she doubted it would believe her if she gave it her true age – but it thankfully didn’t want such precise information as a date of birth.
“Thank you. Profile created.” The kiravai woman paused, and flicked an ear, making her holographic earrings jingle appealingly. “There are three thousand, four hundred and ninety six unread system alerts since last staff logon, of which two hundred and twenty seven have been flagged as important. Would you like to check them now?”
“Err-...” Blink stared blankly up into the unblinking glassy eye of the computer surveillance system. “Could I, ah, could I check them later?” When I have time to figure out what they all MEAN.
The interface didn’t seem to mind. She tilted her long head to one side, and agreed; “Review of alerts has been postponed.”
At that, the interface went silent. It felt almost like it was waiting for Blink to say something – which Blink later realised, that was probably exactly what it was doing – but the long pause made the fessine edgy. (Just because she herself grew up in a world of talkative computer-based lifeforms didn’t mean this computer wanted idle chatter.)
“Um... computer?” She fidgeted from one foot to the other, not entirely sure how she was supposed to attract the interface’s attention.
Thankfully, her guess proved correct. “Working.”
“I’ve got a sample of blood from someone who’s immune to the-... to the virus. What should I do with it?”
“The laboratory is this way. Follow me.” The hologram glided across the floor, disconcertingly, her legs moving beneath her coat but not quite matching the speed at which she moved.
Obediently, Blink followed her, through a handful of double doors and airlocks – which the interface literally passed straight through, like a ghost – into areas that looked increasingly sterile, polished and smelling strongly of disinfectant, before finally arriving in an area Blink assumed to be some sort of clean suite.
The interface turned and blocked the doors, spreading her arms; the soft sound of security bolts firing underlaid her words. “Access is not permitted until you are wearing the appropriate attire,” she said, sternly, indicating the cupboard next to the door, full of white jackets and hairnets. “Your size is unavailable. Please select instead from the cupboard indicated.”
Most of the narrow cupboards were locked, containing well-loved, well-stained lab coats, with torn pockets laden with different scientific instruments, each embroidered on the breast with the same incomprehensible kiravai writing as was printed on the door. Blink felt a pang of sorrow at recognising that they probably all belonged to the long-dead scientists that had once worked here. The only unlocked cupboard was stuffed to bursting with an array of over-laundered coats, half of which fell off their pegs when she opened the door; she imagined that the writing above the door must mean ‘visitors’.
The coat Blink selected was many sizes too large to her – more like a dress, it draped halfway down her legs to the floor, the cuffs coming all the way down over her hands. Getting the unruly bristles of her hair contained within the hairnet also proved a struggle, and she almost fell over several times when securing the plastic booties around her feet, but eventually the interface appeared satisfied by her efforts and unlocked the doors.
Wide-eyed, Blink rustled her way across the laboratory behind her guide, reminded of her adoptive-uncle’s small lab in Skydash’s home. Long-unused machinery hummed patiently, running endless diagnostic and testing cycles to keep their components running normally.
The interface stopped alongside a massive glass-fronted machine, so big it didn’t fit on the work surface like all its fellows. “Please place the sample into the machine.” She gestured to the flashing opening with a graceful sweep of her arm.
Blink looked at the little portal into the machine. “Um.” There was a slot to place a vial of blood, and not much else. “I am the sample. Is that going to be a problem?”
Interface cocked her head, flicking an ear and making her earrings jingle unmusically. “Clarification needed.”
“The sample is my blood. I am immune. I just, I-I don’t know how to get it out of me.” Sadie could do it, but I’d have to go down to Kust to do it and there might be a big, angry, violent obstacle to my getting back here in one piece. “Can you do it?”
It was hard not to imagine a flicker of frustration on the interface’s impassive features. “The venepuncture machine has not been used in some years. Please wait while a diagnostic is run.”
Blink bit her lip, and studied the way her toes showed through the bright blue plastic of the over-shoes, in favour of looking at the kiravai woman, listening as the machine hissed its way through a self-diagnostic. For something supposed to ‘improve the user interface’, the hologram didn’t have much trouble carrying off that infamous blue-blooded kiravai disdain.
At last, the clonks and hisses stopped, and the interface seemed satisfied all was in order. She gestured with the flat of her hand to the section that had just lit up, with a small blinking white lamp. “With your non-dominant hand, please grasp the handle shown. The rest of the procedure is fully automated.”
Blink eyed the glittering hypodermics, warily, unconsciously closing her fingers into a reluctant fist. “Will it hurt?” she wondered, and immediately felt stupid for asking such a useless question – it had to take the sample somehow, and it couldn’t hurt any more than Tevak.
It wasn’t precisely the interface’s area of expertise, anyway. “I do not have a frame of reference to answer your question. Please grasp the handle as instructed. The rest of the procedure is fully automated.”
For the greater good, Bee. You need to give this sample now, because you may not get another chance. She licked her lips, uneasily, but managed to get her fingers to unclench. Don’t be such a coward. It’s only a little needle. Dash wouldn’t back out of it.
“All right.” She took a deep breath to soothe her nerves, pushed back the baggy white sleeve, revealing her spindly arm, and hesitantly wrapped her fingers around the handle illuminated by the little spotlamp.
The machine gave a low hiss of compressed air, and flicked a tourniquet around the upper part of the limb, making her jump; for an instant, Blink began to think it was never going to stop tightening, that it would continue to wind its grip tighter until her arm fell off altogether. That’s really why all the scientists left, the interface got crazy and tried to kill them all...!
At last the grip stabilised. The fessine sucked in a breath and hissed softly in pain as the needle punched through her welted skin, watching in fascination as the squat glass vial filled with purple liquid. Amazing that such deep, dark blood could hide under such pale skin. Finally the machine replaced the needle with a tight bandage, and let her take her arm back; Blink stepped back away from the machine, relieved it was over.
The interface stood next to Blink, and watched with her for effect as the machine clunked softly and separated the blood sample into several smaller aliquots, passing them over to the giant analyser. “Sample is of good quality and has been catalogued,” she acknowledged. “Would you like to begin analysis?”
“Uhm... is there some automatic facility for that?” Blink fidgeted, awkwardly. The knowledge it was just a hologram that she was talking to didn’t make the kiravai any less intimidating. “I-I’m an engineer. I don’t know anything about blood.”
“Ah.” The interface perked her head to one side. “Your profile has been updated to reflect your staff role. Automated analysis of the sample will begin shortly.”
Watching the big machine working, it was immediately apparent why they had chosen to give it a clear front. Blink pressed her fingers against it, leaning close enough that her breath steamed the glass, fascinated by all the twinkling lights and moving components inside. The little vials of her blood all headed off around the system in different directions.
The interface hovered close behind her. “Automated analysis of the sample will take approximately three [hours]. Would you like to review the system alerts now?”
Blink tore her gaze away from the whirling centrifuges and twitching pipes, and offered an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry. I don’t really know what I would be reviewing. Could I have them in writing, and I’ll work through them later?”
“This can be arranged. I will process and direct them to the terminal in your living space.”
Blink had to re-run the comment in her mind at least twice, and even then didn’t quite understand it. “Sorry, living space? Could you explain further?”
“It is the director’s opinion that it is currently unsafe to be making unnecessary journeys outside the fence unless a security escort can be provided. Therefore, all staff members are allocated accommodation while employed at the Institute.” After a pause, she added, unnecessarily; “Security personnel are currently unavailable.”
Blink realised she was standing with her mouth gaping in surprise, and coughed before managing to splutter; “I-... How do you know I’m a member of staff?”
Where a corporeal member of security staff may have begun to grow suspicious, the hologram didn’t so much as flicker, treating it as just another question. “You did not correct me upon your entry into the complex, and you created a staff profile. You have also informed me that you are an engineer.”
What irony. Sadie applied for a job here at least six times, and was declined. I never even wanted a job, and the interface has automatically assumed I already have one. Blink chuckled tiredly and wiped her face with her hand. “Do you have bathing facilities here? A-and clothing?” Dried sea salt made her skin itchy and uncomfortable, and her clothes felt stiff.
“Affirmative. You have a wet room and storage in your living space. Clothing in your size is currently being printed. The white squares will direct you where to go.” The interface bowed her head, politely, and faded out.
Blink looked down at her feet to find a series of small illuminated squares glowing up through the flooring, lighting sequentially to form a line heading out through the doors, marking out the route and the direction. After one last lingering look at the busy analyser, she turned to face the doors, and followed the marching squares away.
Trying to avoid thinking about the inevitable – needing to scour the beach for a body, if no traces of Blink could be found on the river’s north shore – it was a cause for reluctant celebration when the search party finally tracked down Blink’s scent, on what remained of a quay where expensive yachts had probably once been moored. Mystifyingly, they were some distance up the river compared to the Station, which ruled out the idea that the missing woman had somehow miraculously been swept across the estuary instead of out to sea.
“So she can swim, and you was just talking skred to distract us, right laima?” Zinovy challenged, flatly.
Rae stared the hart down. “She’s never swum in her life,” he clarified. “I don’t know why she’d-”
“You laima keep on yapping about how yer all natural swimmers.” Zinovy stabbed a finger at Rae’s chest, like a weapon. “Webbed feet, or some shit. Why does it matter if she ain’t never swum before?”
“You don’t know her history, so don’t think you have the least clue about what she can and can’t do ‘naturally’.” Rae backed off, flashing his teeth. “ I don’t know how she got across the river, and I don’t know how she’d have got this far upstream, unless she had help.”
“Oh, I see; it’s confession time, huh?” Zinovy bristled, ears perking confrontationally and tailtip twitching. “One of yers did spring her from prison.”
Rae’s brow creased into an exasperated glare. “Well I can’t smell anyone else here – can you? I couldn’t smell anyone else in that cess-pit you were keeping her in, either. Not to mention, why would people that care about her snatch her to safety, then dump her straight in the river to drown?”
After a few more seconds of mutual glaring, it was Zinovy that finally backed down, with a mutter of reluctant agreement. “All right.” He waved an arm, dismissive. “Get back to work.”
Rae glared at the departing back, hotly enough that it was a wonder the hart didn’t spontaneously combust, then grimaced and had to massage a cramp out of the back of his thigh. You better watch your back once all this is over, short-stuff.
Out of the corner of his eye, Rae saw Halli stop, lean down, then clamber down off the quay. Curious, he hobbled after her to the edge to find an overgrown slipway. “Found something?”
The zaar made an ambiguous noise. “I’m not sure yet.”
Rae frowned, suspiciously – even against the stirred-up mud and thick plant-growth, the deep prints and broken vegetation were starkly visible, so she’d clearly found something – but didn’t challenge her just yet.
“You seen the little pontoon in the river, over there?” Halli added, quietly. “It might make what I’m thinking about showing you more relevant.”
Rae’s frown deepened. “...all right.”
Partially hidden among the reeds growing along the abandoned quay, and not immediately obvious to an observer who wasn’t already looking for it, Rae spotted the structure Halli had indicated. A life raft? he wondered – but immediately crossed out the idea. The empty landing stage had clearly been built with very small users in mind – the finely-cut timbers made from tree branches rather than tree trunks, the ropes holding much of it together looking more like heavy duty cotton threads, and it was buoyed up on empty plastic drink bottles. Even the dainty fessine would have been too big for it to carry safely. Not to mention, the moorings didn’t look like they’d been disturbed in a long time, grown slick with tendrils of weed and green algae and well anchored among the reeds.
“What’s your point?” Rae climbed down onto the slipway, grimacing at the slimy feel of the mud creeping between his toes.
Halli indicated the scattering of delicate little two-toed footprints in the mud, almost invisible against the deeper tracks made by a crawling laima. “I saw their pontoon first, then spotted their footprints,” she whispered, so softly that Rae almost missed it. “Danata. I think they helped her.”
Rae pursed his lips, warily. “Well, it’d explain how easy they got in to find her; they’d have had no problems getting down those vents. It’d explain the lack of scent, too,” he agreed, in a voice equally quiet. “I just don’t know why they would. I mean, they’re not exactly the most sentimental of critters, right? They leave us alone, we leave them alone, and all that.”
“I never said I’d worked out all the details,” Halli pointed out. “This could all be a coincidence. This might just be where they land up normally. There’s not a whole lot of places it’s safe to come ashore, along here, whether you’re swimming or sailing – downstream it’s all overgrown and upstream there’s so much debris it’s dangerous.”
“Or they dragged her off to be a larder. She’d have been easier to catch than a hoo-dee.”
Halli cocked a withering glance at him. “Hoo-dees are smaller, and probably taste better. Not to mention, have more meat on them.”
“...point.”
“Look, if Tevak finds out, those little guys won’t last long. He’ll squash them with absolutely no effort, and then we’ll never find out if or where they took her, and why.”
“Well, we better make sure he’s well distracted while we figure it out...”
The Institute proved a lot bigger than Blink had first realised, following the squares around the endless corridors; the builders had chiselled way down into the headland bedrock, hollowing out millions of tonnes of rock. She first followed the trail all the way back out to the main atrium, then headed down the long winding corridors, deeper into the Institute, past offices and laboratories, a long-disused canteen, a small library and lounge, and finally into the accommodation block.
The living space the interface had allocated her was a very compact but comfortable-looking pair of rooms, a few dozen paces up the corridor from a canteen, buried deep in the hillside at the rear of the Institute on the “ground floor” – whatever that meant, in a building mainly underground. The row of clear-fronted cupboards built into the wall above the single bunk were mostly empty, apart from one at the distant end, stocked with a selection of pale blue-grey and white clothing. Built into the closest wall was a micro-kitchen containing facilities for making hot drinks, and next to it was a computer terminal, above the small desk close to the door; after leaning closer to see, the pale blue lettering revealed themselves to Blink as the promised system alerts. Another overgrown pot-plant had taken over the far corner, scrambling for the artificial light above it.
Passing through the narrow door in the far corner, Blink found the wet-room – attractively tiled in a very small pale blue mosaic, it was painfully reminiscent of the one in her shared quarters back on tiao’I. Thinking about it made her empty stomach hurt – if she’d not left home, and gone to tiao’I, she’d have never ended up here, brutalised and biological... but then, she’d have never met her friends in the library, either. And she’d never have been given this chance to do such incredible good, to cure the viruses terrorising this area of space. Maybe it wasn’t all bad.
The water activated automatically when she shed her misshapen old salt-stained clothes and stepped under the broad showerhead, making her jump and delivering a second or two of fairly intense cold, which almost persuaded her to leap right back out of the way. The water quickly warmed, though; she turned her face up into the stream, and sighed a long, slow exhale of pleasure. Clean, fresh water, that didn’t make her skin prickle with painful cold and wash hurriedly to avoid getting too chilled.
Guilt pressed down on her shoulders – here she was, luxuriating in a hot shower, and everyone else down the hill in Kust probably still thought she was dead. Goodness only knew what Tevak was up to.
As soon as I’m dressed, I’ll head back to the Library, she resolved, scrubbing away the last of the accumulated filth with the blandly functional gel-soap in the wall dispenser. Even if it’s only long enough to let them know I’m all right.
The big perfect mirror covering one wall was hard to hide from, when she emerged from the shower area. For the first time since her abduction, Blink got to study her pale features, hiding the rest of her gaunt little body behind her towel. She had to make a determined effort not to instantly flee from her reflection.
What a mess. The danata had cut the burrs out of her hair with no regard for aesthetics, leaving her hair a choppy, irregular wet mop. The bruise still livid around her right eye twinged painfully in sympathy; now no longer the livid purple of fresh laima blood, but a sickly, infected-looking yellow-brown. Still sore, but... healing, she hoped. Her waxy features looked gaunt, her eyes sunken in their sockets.
How dare he do this to me. Angry and distressed in equal measures, her brows came together into a frown that drew furrows in her skin. After claiming to want me. How dare he do this to me, then punish my friends for it.
She covered her face with her towel, and turned away from the mirror with a sigh, to find some clean clothes. When is this all going to end, world? I escaped the virus, only to run into a new nightmare that’s even worse. What will you do to me if I ever escape Tevak?
Functional and elegant, if not the most fashionable, the clothing interface had provided fit perfectly;
She puffed out her skinny chest and stood forwards on her toes, using her palms to flatten the soft grey cloth down against her tummy and flanks. Smoothing her damp hair down against her scalp, temporarily disguising the jagged cut, she almost looked... normal. Like she belonged there. A small smile graced her lips.
Down in the canteen, the interface refused to give Blink the first choice she selected from the menu, citing malnourishment when the fessine challenged her. Blink’s second choice, heavily influenced by the interface’s meddling, was a thick, protein-rich vegetable soup, floating with roughly cut chunks of some sort of green pod, and salty, crunchy little pieces of bread. Fully aware that it was in all likelihood packed with flavouring chemicals and preservatives, its nutritional value artificially elevated, she nevertheless savoured each delicious mouthful. Almost as good as something Aron cooked!
To have pudding was an entirely new experience; at the Library, the best they’d managed were fruits or pastries, with frozen desserts an impossibility, unlike the numerous selections on this menu. After dithering over a selection of equally-tempting sweets, she selected a thick, crystalline slush of partially-frozen tangy fruit, and headed out to admire the scenery while she ate.
Blink hesitated in the doorway to the main hall – the vast open space made her feel strangely small, in awkward comparison to tiao’I where she’d always been far too big for the infrastructure. She scuttled hastily across the unoccupied space and settled on the cool floor as close to the window as was comfortable, where she couldn’t see the enormity of the cavernous room behind her.
The wide courtyard outside blocked much of her view – even Kust was little more than a dark smudge on the rim of the horizon, peeking between the trees and the fine lines of the fence. Gazing up at the sky, she contented herself with watching the blue patches grow between the thinning grey clouds.
I wonder if I’ll be able to see home from here, when it gets dark enough to see the stars. She pushed the melting fruit slush around the bowl with the back of her spoon, distractedly enjoying the tingling sensation as a spoonful slowly dissolved in her mouth. I don’t even know if I could find home on a map, right now. Maybe the interface will be able to tell me. She unfolded her fingers and gazed down at the scar on her palm, the first little ember of an idea setting root in her mind. I wonder if she’ll know what this is, too?
A rustle of wings attracted her attention, and she turned to watch as Duskwing landed next to her.
“I thought you’d have gone home ages ago,” Blink commented, stroking the danata’s fuzzy head.
Duskwing’s antennae wiggled. “Black-Tip was instructed by matica to ensure you were safe. Plus, it is too late for us to safely traverse the bay, now. We will probably return to the colony tomorrow, when it is light.” She made a soft little untranslatable noise. “I do not look forwards to it. I have enjoyed your company.”
They sat together in a companionable silence for a little while, watching the mottled sky even out into a cloudless blue, accompanied only by the soft white noise of distant air conditioning units.
“What will you do now?” Duskwing wondered, at last breaking through the quiet.
Blink looked back into her bowl, which now contained little more than chilled pale orange nectar. “Same as you, probably. Stay overnight, and make my move early tomorrow.” She stirred the cold liquid around, quietly, making up her mind. “I need to go back to Kust, to let my friends know what’s happened, but it’s too late to make the trip this afternoon. It’ll be getting dark before I reach the suburbs, and I don’t want to have to try and find somewhere safe to spend the night on my own.”
“You desire to leave already?” The naiad’s antennae perked lopsidedly. “I thought it was important for you to get in?”
“Getting in here was important – the most important thing I’ve done in a very long time,” Blink agreed. “But it’ll all be for nothing if my friends can’t get in as well. I could sit in here forever, but it’d be completely worthless without someone who knows how to make my blood into a vaccine...”
In spite of her exhaustion, and in spite of knowing she was safe, and in spite of the wonderfully comfortable bed... Blink slept very poorly. There was just something strange and rather unnerving about being alone, here in the big science complex that could have housed a hundred or more members of staff, but instead was home for just her, a couple of insects, and a nosey supercomputer. She tossed and turned for most of the night, never quite managing to get all the way asleep, dozing for short periods that made it feel like she’d been wide awake all night.
In fact, she’d only just begun to properly drift off into dreamland when the interface turned the lights on in her room and roused her back to wakefulness. She groaned and covered her face with her forearm.
“You requested to be awoken at first light,” the interface reminded, her non-corporeal voice coming from the computer terminal, right by Blink’s ears. “Do you require additional rest?”
“No.” She swung her feet off the bunk and rubbed her eyes, tiredly. “I doubt I’ll get back to sleep. I may...” she punctuated it with a yawn. “...may as well get up.”
The interface paused before speaking again. “Vocal stress readings indicate you are still fatigued. Mild sedatives can be provided if needed.”
Blink chuckled, but the sound fell flat and humourless. “I may take you up on that later tonight.” Assuming I can get back in. She pinched the bridge of her nose and grunted softly, trying to massage away the tension around her eyes.
After a simple breakfast of fruit and grains, which she was too tired to really enjoy, Blink made her way back up to the ‘hangar bay’, trying to navigate her way around without needing to rely on the white squares the whole time (an exercise at which she wasn’t terribly successful.) An altogether brighter day had dawned, with a warm blue sky, and a firm breeze rippling through the grass.
Blink leaned into the big windows, pressing her fingers and brow against the cool glass. “Computer?”
She watched the reflection in the window as the interface materialised silently behind her. “Working.”
“I need to go down to Kust. How do I get back in?” Knowing she hadn’t been the one to close the big gate, Blink guessed it must have a function to close itself automatically. Didn’t want any hungry blights getting in because you forgot to close the door, after all. “Do I need to take something to unlock the gate from the outside, or will you just... recognise me, now you have my profile?”
The interface flicked an ear, making an unmusical jangle that Blink had begun to recognise as signalling a negative. “Remote sensors outside the complex failed six years and thirty four days ago. You must take your personal communicator with you.”
“...where do I get one of them from?”
The hologram gestured blandly to a cabinet mounted just inside the main door. “You may choose from any that are currently available. They are simple to use and allow you to transmit your location and commands verbally to me.”
Blink rummaged through the badly stored devices – most had been thrown back in hastily, with no sense of order, but at least they were almost all plugged in, and well-charged. She selected two; a pocket-sized one that she could give to the Library, and a smaller one with slightly reduced functionality that strapped around the wrist. She debated taking a third – well, a fessine could never be too careful, right? Not when it felt like half the galaxy was conspiring against her – but decided against it. If it came down to a footrace, she didn’t want to be weighed down by even the smallest piece of excess baggage.
Are you really willing to trust your safety to how fast you can run? Pessimism reminded. You know he’s faster than you. Faster, stronger, more stamina. It’s a long way to the Library, too. And a long way back. He’ll run you down before you even get out of the suburbs.
But I can’t shoot him!
You think he’s going to hesitate? To punch you in the face? Fracture your ribs? Snap your legs? Stuff you back in that basement until you’re too weak to resist him any more?
“Um... computer?”
“Working.”
Blink tussled with her conscience for a second or two before speaking. If she was going back to Kust, she didn’t want to be defenceless – and yet, the idea of being armed with potentially lethal force made her stomach flutter uncomfortably. “Are-... are there any weapons here I could take with me?”
“Negative. The last scientist to depart took the remaining weapons with him. None have been returned as of current time.”
“Not even something nonlethal?”
“Negative. No weapons have been returned as of current time.”
Oh well, at least that took the decision out of her hands. She wasn’t sure if she was more nauseous at her vulnerability, or with relief that she wouldn’t have to shoot him.
Then please, please don’t let him find out you’re even there, Pessimist begged. Surviving him last time was a fluke. You’ll never get away if he grabs you again.
Better take some precautions, just in case...
“Dusk? Could... could you monitor the analyser running on my blood sample?” She bit her lip, and fidgeted her feet on the spot. “I don’t know what’ll happen when I go back into town and I don’t want to lose this chance. I mean, I might never be able to get back here.” After a steadying breath, she added; “If I don’t come back, could you go and find Sadie?”
The danata sat watching from her perch on one of the terminals, and snapped her wings against her back. “Certainly. You may need to talk to the strange female, the computer has not responded to our attempts to use it before now.”
“...oh. Really?” Blink frowned. “Computer, why don’t you respond to the danata?”
The interface glided closer, and looked down at the small danata, tilting her head to one side. “My programmers did not consider these creatures to be highly sapient,” she observed. “I was not programmed to recognise them. Should this be changed?”
What a stroke of ridiculously good fortune. Maybe not the entire galaxy was against her after all. The computer might have blocked them from passing the fence, if the programmers had been slightly more observant. “Please. Could you make her a profile?”
“Working.” The hologram’s head perked the other way, her earrings jingling softly. “A visitor profile has been created.”
“Just be careful from now on,” Blink counselled her small friend, with a small smile. “You might not be able to fly through the fence any more. Getting zapped is nasty.”
“I wish you luck and safety on your travel.” Duskwing put all four small hands on top of Blink’s, and she perked her antennae forwards in a subtle danata smile. “And I hope you return soon.”
Blink smiled, awkwardly. “...me too.”