SAR ASCENDANT / Book 1: Incursion of the INDEN

Chapters 18 to 20

Chapter 18

The bunker is just that: it reminds me of the basement refuge that was home during the PoliClass street wars. Metallic beds and closets for food and supplies, steel counters, concrete. No outside light coming in. All is artificial. Just like everything else. 

Jax stretches out on a bunk, is quickly asleep, softly snoring.

Willow looks from Hazel to me. She's opening doors, checking supplies. I see packaged food, meds. Willow approaches me, whispers, "I don't know what to think. About anything. I don't know what to think about her." He hikes his thumb towards Hazel. "She's keeping things close. Not one to share, is she?"

"She can hear you. Believe me, nothing you say escapes her."

Willow considers, says, "My parents weren't afraid to speak their minds. It cost them. I'm at the point they were, I think. I don't care anymore. Nothing will ever be the same."

"You don't have to share all that with me."

"I like you," he says.

"Yeah? Really?"

Pursed lips. Bead of sweat on his forehead. He smiles awkwardly. "I have feelings."

Reminds me of a scavenger, staking his ground. "You have some good qualities, Willow. But what you told me about your family, that's not necessary. I don't need to know that. I would like you to keep it to yourself. Besides, you tried to cut me open with a knife. Remember?"

"You don't feel the same," he whispers pitiably.

"Keep focused." I turn away from him, join Hazel where she's still opening doors.

"He's reaching out to you," she says. "He doesn't know you. Doesn't know the right way."

I feel annoyed beyond belief. Annoyed at the orange sky, at Hazel, at Willow, at the fucking melding. Even a little annoyed at Jax, able to fall asleep as if everything will just be different in the morning. I am used to getting up, feeding him, getting him to school, walking to the BotMart, mentally slapping Guro-man's hands away, losing myself in Bot parts, analyzing, repairing, building. Those memories are all covered by a layer of mind mud.

"Let's talk," says Hazel. She points to the end of the bunker, some fifty feet away. There's a table surrounded by chairs.

I shrug, follow her, sit across the table. She reaches out for my hands and I let her. My sometimes touchstone. There's so little that's familiar, even in the course of a day. A so-called normal day. But Hazel, she is always there. Even when she's not. She finds me. Not by words, or even actions. Her energy finds me. It's earth, water, air, fire. It's a silencing of thought, a warm cover for the chills of worry.

"I felt my mother," I say, "when we left your lab. When we used your tech."

She nods. She knows. Says, unnecessarily, "Secession."

"Right. Secession. What the hell is it? What does it mean?"

"It's hard to explain to a non-physicist."

"Try me."

Silver pupils slowly rotate, like EnerOrbs calibrating. A focusing of thought. The opening of the vault. Suddenly, Hazel's HoloTats are dancing in front of her chin. A stream of light, a movement of story. I see colours, swirls of yellow, of red, mixing, a galaxy of motion finding a center point, a black hole of possibility. Around the blackness, the red and yellow become orange, and it spreads outward.

"The orange cannot exist without blue, its opposite," Hazel explains. "This is what we sense, the other side of potential. Humans used to know this, to practice it. We could travel through potential, because what we experience through our senses is just one side of things. We are light. We have always been light, the particle and the wave. I have told you this. We can change our beliefs. We can change our reality, our place in time."