I lie by the forcefield exhausted and sore. After Haari left I tore through my room, I ripped apart my bed, I lay waste to a desk and chair and then I resumed my assault on the forcefield. Rage has never consumed me so entirely and I realise Ramet was right, simulation rooms can't prepare you for real life. But I had thought it was the Oneerans rage I had to contend with, not my own.
My fingers idly stroke the forcefield and I stare into the other side of the room. Bare concrete walls and floors just like my side but that is where the similarities end. The space is empty but for a chair. Windows line the upper portion of one wall. They're open, as if to taunt me, grass grows against them and obscures the view. I'm partially underground.
The door on the other side of the room, behind the forcefield opens and Haari walks in with a screen under her arm. The door clangs shut, and dull taps accompany Haari across the room. She sits on her chair and crosses her legs.
"You made quite a mess. If we replace what you have broken will you do the same again?" Haari says, as if she's speaking with a petulant child.
"It's hard to say," I croak, my voice is hoarse, my vocal cords beaten into submission by hours of screaming.
"What is it you do not like about being here?" she asks and crosses her legs.
"I'm certain you know the answer."
"I think so too... you don't like being trapped?"
"You think yourself an expert..." I sit up and stare into her eyes. "It's not being trapped..." I pause my speech and lie down.
It's not being trapped, not completely, it's not even the lack of power. It's the doing nothing and the looming prospect of being in this state for years. I need to be useful, I need to serve Haroc, the Universe, here my life is a waste.
"Can you tell me more about Energy? About Entra spirituality?"
I ignore her question. "Did you expect me?"
"I'm sorry, I don't think I understand."
"The room was made for an Entra, you did not have enough time to set this up. How did you know I would ask to come to the planet?" I sit up once more. "My clothes, they fit me, they were made for me, not a standard eight foot entra. Who told you I was coming here?"
There's a knock at the door and Haari stands to answer it. She glances to me and then disappears behind the door. That can't be a coincidence, but who could have told them. Ramet? This was her idea. Did she set me up?
No. I repel the idea. Ramet wouldn't do that. It makes no sense. None of this makes sense.
My mind spirals out of control, and I dive headfirst into a pit of extreme anxiety. Soon the Battle Cruiser will realise I'm not returning and then ... everyone will know. Haroc will know. Shame fills me. Entra on Prime, they'll laugh at me, and I'll never be able to return. My life as I know it ... it's over.
Time is disjointed here, in this concrete room. The light flicks off, the sky darkens, it's night, another day gone. I pace and pat the forcefield pointlessly checking for weak spots. I step into my bathroom and search every inch for a camera or a recording device. Nothing.
I sit on the floor and hold my head in my hands. What's Ramet doing? Is she scared like me? is she in a cell too? Or did she sell me out? Is she sat negotiating with the Oneeran Queen? It wouldn't be logical, but logic takes a backseat here.
My finger hovers over my earlobe, ready to activate the device within. I need Jaxa, I need to hear her soothing voice. The same voice that soothed me as a child when I felt the whole universe was against me, when I had so much anger, I thought I might explode.
I tap twice.
"Cantral?" a voice comes, but it isn't Jaxa, it's Fendan.
"I've messed up," I say, I don't ask where he is, or why he's on the other end of this device and not Jaxa, I can't, I'm too relieved to hear his voice. "I can't do this. Everyone was right."
"Shhh," Fendan says, his voice a whisper. "You can do this... tell me where you are?"
"I'm in a room, there's a forcefield, no weak spots, no exits ..." I talk more, I tell him everything, including my suspicions about Ramet. "Have you heard from Ramet?"
"No. Ramet has not made contact. You need to get out of that room," he sounds thoughtful, calm, he's just what I need. "How are you going to do that?"
"I don't know ... I could wait by the food hatch and try and grab someone, but there are cameras on the other side of the forcefield, they'd see—"
"No," he interrupts, "you're thinking about force. You need to play on your opponent's weakness, what do the Oneerans want?"
"To be safe from entra," my voice has a desperate edge.
"Think smaller, what do they want from you?"
I pull my knees up and hug myself tight. "They want to gain my trust, they want to change my opinion of them."
"Exactly," Fendan says, satisfied. "Give in to their desires, talk to them, listen to them. Be you and eventually they will trust you, they will let you out."
"Okay," I say, uncertain.
"You haven't messed up Cantral, I picked you for this mission for a reason. Because I know you can do it, I believe in you. Do not let thoughts of Ramet distract you, focus on you, focus on Oneera. Do not think what anyone else would do, only, what would Cantral do. Let your instincts guide you."
My head darts to the door. "There's someone here," I whisper, "I have to go." I tap my earlobe to end contact.
I slip from the bathroom, into darkness, and watch a child sized Oneeran from the other side of the forcefield. She creeps closer on timid steps, but she's hardly stealthy. Chunky gold beads adorn her dark hair and jingle with every footstep.
"Do you think the darkness shields you?" I say, and my voice startles her. "I see as well in the dark as I do the light."
"I wasn't sure," she says with indignation, and stands fidgeting with her hands before the forcefield. "Where are you?"
I step forward and a gasp slips through her lips.
"You're taller than I expected." Her yellow eyes don't move from me.
I laugh softly. "I'm the shortest solider there is. Why have they sent a child to talk with me?"
"I'm not a child! I'm twelve, very, very close to becoming an adult."
I snigger, Oneerans don't reach adulthood until nineteen years. Fendan's words are fresh in my head, gain their trust, talk to them. I'd rather not deceive a child, but I can't remain here for years.
I sit before the Oneeran, I'm more her size now. "Do you have a name ... child?" I smirk.
Her eyes widen. "My name is Zafira. I know what you're doing, but you won't intimidate me ... Lights," she says, and lights flash on, she stares into my face. "You don't look like a monster, if I knew nothing of entra, I'd say you have a kind face."
Her words stall me, once, I had thought myself kind, but I'm not certain when I stopped. Kind is not a word an entra cares to be associated with.
"But I'm entra, so we both know that is not true."
"My mother doesn't believe entra are inherently bad, or evil," Zafira's fingers dance, they flutter by her side, as if she has trouble remaining still. "She thinks they can change. She thinks we can build a better universe together."
"And what do you think?"
Zafira pauses, even her hands still and then resume ever faster. "I think, no one is born bad, but they can be taught it. Some things that you're taught are unforgettable, even if you want to forget."
"I think you're right about that."
Zafira smiles, she drags the chair across the room towards the open windows. "Really?" she says, as she climbs upon the chair. Her hand reaches out and she grabs a clump of green stalks in her fist.
"Does that surprise you?" I say and I ignore the voice that says falsely gaining the trust of a child is wrong. "Do people not usually think you're right?"
Zafira returns and sits upon the floor opposite me. The modest heap of green livens the floor with colour and a red beetle, half the size of my thumb, emerges from beneath. Zafira places her fingers before the mini beast, it climbs on hesitantly, antennae tapping her flesh. A shiver creeps up my spine as I watch its fuzzy legs scuttle across her hand and arm.
"Well, I mean," Zafira eventually says as she lifts her hand and beetle closer to her face, "I've never talked about entra to anyone other than my mother and she listens to everything I say but ..." the beetle taps her nose with its antennas and Zafira giggles, "I don't have many friends. I'm not very popular."
"Nor am I," I say.
Zafira looks from the beetle and focuses her attention on me. "Why?"
"I'm not fully entra, I'm a half breed. Other entra don't like that, I've been shunned all my life." Be yourself Fendan said, is this what he's done? Befriended people, to conquer them?
"But entra don't work with any other species, they don't see anyone as equal ... by following them you're denying your other half ... what else are you?" Zafira's voice gradually rises. "What happened to that species of people? What did the entra do to them?" The beetle's back opens, and a pair of red wings unfold. Zafira gasps as it flutters away and for a moment her eyes follow it. "You defend the Entra, you fight for them, how? How can you do that?"
Her sudden venom shocks me. The anger in her face takes me aback.
I've denied myself questions about my heritage. Once, I had been curious. Once, I asked Fendan. Only once. The memory hurts. It was the first time he hit me. I pushed my origins from my mind and focused only on being entra.
"You can't answer me because you don't know, do you?" Zafira says, a little calmer, a little smug. "You don't know why you follow entra, do you?"
"I follow entra because I believe in my Emperor! Because I believe in the Theory of Energy."
"What's the Theory of Energy?" Zafira asks, without a beat.
I block the room, I block Zafira and concentrate on a memory. A happy one, the first time I was told about Energy. Haroc's room imprints into my mind and his face as he told me. He showed me a book and I rested my head in his lap, I could have listened to him all night.
"When the universe was born, so too was Energy. For millions of years this Energy had no use but then life formed from it. At first it seemed as though Energy was an ever-replenishing waterfall as life flourished across the universe. And then people were born ..."
The Theory of Energy brings me comfort, it always has. In a universe where even entra immortality cannot protect me or anyone I care about from death this belief system eases the pain and anxiety. Dying and then being reborn doesn't sound quite so bad.
"And?" Zafira says, her eyes leave me and focus on the bug doing a circuit of the room.
I take a deep breath, be yourself Fendan said, but this ... this feels too raw, too personal.
"People take more Energy," I continue, I feel as though I'm revealing a personal story, but the Theory of Energy is not such an alien concept. "Haroc believes that people need to earn the right to live, that we must be useful. Too many civilisations have no purpose, they are lazy or too concerned with credits, they make no attempt to live in harmony with the universe and learn about it or discover more Energy."
"That would be kind of beautiful to believe in if you weren't killing so many people because of it," Zafira says. "And you're wrong about people needing to earn the right to live."
"When people die, their energy returns to the universe ready to be birthed again."
"Oh, so I guess we should be okay with all the killing then," she snaps. "Do you love anyone, are you capable of that?"
"I love someone."
"Would you be okay if they were killed?"
The bug descends from the upper atmosphere of the room and lands on Zafira once more. Its wings fold away, and she taps its back with her smallest finger. Fuzzy legs stretch and curl, the bug preens and when Zafira stops the bug continues to rub itself against her finger.
"Their energy isn't a waste, they have proven their right for existence like every Entra ... and we have to kill people, we have to free their energy, we can't make Entra anymore—" I close my mouth, I've said too much, I'm not certain I even believe that it's just what Haroc has passionately exclaimed for the past four years.
Four years since the last entra was birthed. Science has failed to provide an explanation, but Haroc hasn't. The Energy stored within the Universe has come to an end. It's in use, people and animals, they horde the Universe's life-giving Energy. They steal it from entra. Haroc says that entra require more Energy, because we serve the Universe. He says the Universe is hurting, he says we need to release the Energy stored in people if we ever want to make more entra.
"You think entra deserve Energy more than any other life?" She stands and paces. "Is this why the death toll across the universe has been higher these past few years?"
"Yes," I say, my heart ached when Haroc told me of his plans.
"And have you been able to birth more entra?"
I swallow hard and stare from Zafira, I never believed it would be so easy for my beliefs to unravel. "No," I whisper.
Zafira approaches the windows; she climbs upon the chair and on tip toes stretches her hand outside. The red beetle unfolds its wings once more and flies off towards the blue sky.
"So, you kill people," Zafira says as she turns to me, "and their Energy returns to the universe, but you still can't birth more entra." She jumps from the chair, and walks to me. "That means your Theory of Energy is incorrect, or maybe the Universe doesn't favour you as much as you believe, maybe it's unhappy with what entra have done for the past hundred and fifty years." Zafira stares at me, her yellow eyes pierce mine. "Maybe the Universe thinks it's your fault."
My head perks up. "What did you say?" I ask, as Zafira's words mingle with the words of the Detrie woman.
Zafira shuffles back. "I mean... entra, maybe the Universe thinks it's entra's fault."
I stand. "How did you know about that?" I shout.
The door slides open and Haari jogs in, she places a protective arm around Zafira and tries to guide her to the door, but Zafira won't budge.
Zafria's eyes narrow. "If anything happens to Oneera, it is your fault! Not entra, you!" she shouts.
"You knew I was coming here, didn't you?" I shout back, and Zafira edges away from my rage, and for the first time, I really see what I am. I'm the monster, not other entra, there is no distinction, it's me, it's us. The entra and me, we are one. "You had this room set up? You know about my beliefs, who told you? Was it Ramet?"
"Yes!" Zafira shouts. "She told us everything about you!"
"Zafira!" Haari snaps. "Wait for me outside."
Zafira's eyes widen and fill with water. She turns and flounces away. As the door slams shut Haari's eyes close and she inhales deeply.
"You can't trust Ramet." Am I saying this to warn them or destroy Ramet? I'm not certain. "She doesn't care about you. She'll watch your world burn; all she cares about is glory."
"But you do care about us?" her voice is full of accusation.
I'm silent. I don't know what I care about anymore.
"You seem to think you're a good person," Haari says loudly, but she's not shouting, "but you're not. You are one of the most despicable people I have ever met, the only difference is, you have a nice façade. I think you may be a lost cause. When Oneera falls, I'm afraid you will too. Because you're never leaving this room."
"No!" I scream in her face and slam my fists into the forcefield. I'll be the monster they want. I am the monster they want. "Prime will come to your planet, and fleets of Battle Cruisers will colour your sky black! A forcefield will not save you from us, it only prolongs the inevitable!"
I stand before her; my chest rises and falls rapidly. Never have I shouted like that before. Is it the forcefield that allows my control to unravel? Is it because I know I can do no physical harm, so I don't hold back? Or is it because she's a small Oneeran, and I'm two foot taller?
"You do not scare me, Cantral." Haari walks away with dignity and poise.
I stare at the mound of grass on the floor. Once, roots fed it water and nutrients, once, it strove to grow to the sky, but now the tips curl and yellow. Life has abandoned these strands of grass, life abandons everything eventually. It's the natural order. But the entra aren't natural, and maybe we don't slot into this universe in the way I once believed.