Nero
Nero looks out at the piers and the dark boats floating in the water. I wonder where those ships have been… or who could be watching us. He hurries to catch up with the singing Totos, while Ryder and the others faithfully follow.
There’s something about him I don’t like… I guess there isn’t much I can do, unless I say something. He plunges his hand in his pocket and grabs his bracelet. But then they’ll just make fun of me for being scared.
He glances at the ships and then into the shadows of the buildings, constantly feeling like he is being watched. Totos turns the corner of a warehouse and plunges into its shadow.
Hey!
Nero whips his head around to look behind him and then around the docks. He shakes his head and puts his hand on his chest, where his heart is thumping against his ribs. I’m definitely losing it. Suddenly he catches a glimpse of light at the side of a building, a ways up ahead, a faint violet light. What’s that? Nero quietly hurries over to the building, staying in the shadows as much as possible.
He carefully pokes his head around the corner and sees the light further away, off behind another building.
“Errrr.” Nero runs after it.
He turns the corner and again the light is further away. “What the heck!” The run turns into a sprint as he continues to chase the light but every time he turns a corner it is farther away. He speeds around another bend, but this time the light is gone. He searches the lane but is unable to find any other sign of it.
“Dang it!” The darkness of the quiet alley starts to creep in on him. He slowly turns around. Where am I?
He sprints back the way he came, hesitating at each turn, struggling to remember where to go. Dang it, dang it, dang it! All the warehouses and alleys look the same. What if I can’t find them? Where will I sleep? What if I can’t find them tomorrow? He sprints down another alley. Why do I always get separated!? “I’m so stupid!”
Finally Nero pops around the corner of a warehouse back in the vicinity of the piers. He slows down and tries to recover his breath. Okay, this looks familiar, I just need to remember exactly where I left them and maybe I can yell out to get their attention.
He walks up to the warehouse he remembered seeing Totos dip behind when he hears muffled voices from inside. Nero quickly jumps behind a pile of old wooden grates stacked to the side when the large garage door in the front of the warehouse begins to roll up with a clanking of metal. It jerks to a stop and the night suddenly seems particularly quiet.
A man dressed in black steps out from the opening. “Alright hurry it along. Get the cargo back to the ship before the Cap’n gets upset.”
Two other men and a small boy tug on a rope attached to a giant crate with wheels.
Totos! What the heck’s he doing?
The first man leads the group down the road to the water line, muffled banging and voices echo faintly through the night from the crate.
Who’s in the crate? Nero gulps. No no no… What’s gong on?
As the crate moves along the edge of the bay, Nero scuttles in the shadows of the buildings in a frantic haze of thought. He follows as the man in black leads the crate to a pier with the silhouette of a large warship docked along its length. From a distance Nero watches as the crate stops and a ramp extends from the boat, where other workers quickly pull it aboard. The ramp retracts immediately and the people disappear as if nothing had happened.
This can’t be happening! Nero jumps out of his hiding spot and runs back to the warehouse. He searches for his friends, occasionally yelling out to them and hoping above everything his suspicion is wrong. After several hours of running around, exhaustion and reality settle heavily upon him dragging him down into a deep despair. He wanders back to the picnic table where they had eaten dinner and falls into a fitful sleep.
*****
A roaring fire consumes everything and a woman screams.
*****
Nero wakes up with a cold sweat and a racing heart. Stupid dream. He blinks his eyes a couple of times and rubs them with shaking hands. The morning light is still dim and the ocean breeze carries a bite that forces him to cross his arms for warmth. Where am I? The memories of the night before stab him like a searing hot poker. He curls up into a ball and forces his eyes shut. This has to be another bad dream.
Nero opens his eyes again, this time the memories of last night are there to greet him immediately. He rolls onto his back, covering his face with his hands. What am I going to do? When he removes his hands he notices a pair of covered legs sitting at the bench. Nero freezes. Maybe they haven’t noticed me…
“And I thought you were going to sleep all day.” A woman’s voice says from above.
Who’s she talking to? He looks around carefully, expecting to see someone walking up to the table.
“You, under the table. Get up here.”
One of the feet starts to tap impatiently. Nero builds up the courage and quietly scoots himself out from under the table, slowly peeking his head over the top.
The Woman is sitting at the table with both hands faced down and two white boxes between them. She is wearing a bland combination of typical working clothes and her short brown hair just barely makes a ponytail. She gives him a thin smile. “Sit. I’m not going to bite.”
Nero cautiously sits, keeping a constant eye on her.
“Are you hungry?” She opens one of the boxes and slides it over to him, baked fish over eggs and seasoned potatoes.
Nero ignores the food. She looks familiar… “Have I met you―” He jumps out of his seat and spins to run away but just as his body starts to move forward his arm stops and he is yanked roughly back to his seat.
“Hey. I said I wasn’t going to bite,” the Woman says with a bit of a snarl while squeezing his wrist. Nero looks at her in utter terror and the Woman just as quickly drops the curl to her lip. She lets go of his wrist and a rush of blood tingles his arm like an army of ants marching over his skin. “Look I’m sorry. I’m having a rough go of things at the moment. Will you hear me out for just a moment?” She asks. “Please?” She says the word as if it is as foreign to her as breathing water.
Nero gives her a curt nod and the Woman smiles weakly.
The Woman reaches into her pocket and pulls out the fruit she took from Nero in the forest. “I just wanted to apologize for taking this. It was wrong of me.” She puts the light green fruit, with dark green and red speckles covering it, in front of Nero but he stays stationary. They look at each other awkwardly for a moment. “So why were you sleeping under the table and where are your friends?”
Nero rubs his wrist and glares at her. “Why should I tell you?”
The Woman’s face remains unchanged. “You’re right. It’s none of my business, but you’re better off on your own if they abandoned you.”
“They didn’t abandon me!”
“Easy now. Friends will only get in the way. They did you a favor.”
“I told you. They didn’t ditch me, they were taken―” Nero bites his tongue.
The Woman raises an eyebrow. “Taken? What happened? Were they taken by the police?” Nero shakes his head. “Alright then who?”
Nero looks down. “I don’t know… I think they were taken to some huge boat in a crate.”
“That’s bad. I hope they weren’t particularly important too you.”
Nero looks at her sharply. “Yeah they’re important to me! They’re the only family I got.”
She opens her mouth to say something but then closes it and her callousness falls away. “Look, if I had to guess they were taken by traffickers and will probably be sold as slaves on another continent.”
“What!? Slaves are illegal. I got to go to the police or tell someone!”
The Woman grabs his hand. “Hold up kid. If there’s money in something, then it’ll always exist and slavery can be quite a lucrative business, especially when you’re selling a bunch of kids that no one cares about.” Nero’s mouth drops and she rolls her eyes. “Don’t take it personally, it’s just reality. Do you know anyone in Blue Horin?” Nero shakes his head. “And I’m guessing you’re running away?”
“Kinda.”
“Well then there’s no one here to miss you if you get taken. It doesn’t give you a lot of push with the city when most of the officials will turn a blind eye. These guys provide certain legal ‘services’ and business at a reasonable price by not-so-legal methods. So as long as the city isn’t endangered, the officials would rather not know how they do business.”
“What am I going to do?!” Nero bites his lip but is unable to contain a broken dam of tears from gushing out.
“Okay cut it out, tears never solve any problems. You’re so damn pitiful it makes me want to drown myself… sorry, maybe that was inappropriate.” She waits with a slightly disgusted face for Nero to respond. “Can you show me where the boat is? Maybe we can figure out something that might help your friends.”
“What?”
“Don’t tell me you’re deaf.”
“No. But you’re going to help?” Nero looks at her with bloodshot eyes.
“That’s what I said.”
“Why?”
Her face turns hard. “Maybe I feel bad for how pathetic you are. Does it matter?” Nero shakes his head. “That’s what I thought, now grab the breakfast and show me which boat.”
*****
Nero and the Woman duck behind a building, peeking out from the edge at the huge battleship with several large turrets on its top and a green alligator like creature painted on its hull. The creature’s legs are just visible at the water line and at the front, the creature is snarling with a mouth ready to chomp. It has red eyes and only the top portion of its head is visible above water, showing gleaming white teeth.
The woman pats Nero on the back. “Yep, just what I thought. If your friends are on the boat, they’re screwed.”
Nero looks at her in shock. “What?”
“Definitely taken as slaves. We need to collect some info if we want to even consider doing something about it because for all we know, the boat could leave within the hour.”
“Couldn’t we just ask someone on board?”
“That’s a battleship if you didn’t notice and they don’t shoot hugs and kisses. They’d kill you and not think twice of it and they’d cut off their own leg before they gave us any info… trust me it’s not something you’re going to be up for. We need a different angle.”
They watch in silence for a while as the crew carries out various tasks on the main deck. A lone man dressed in casual clothes walks along the path coming from the market area.
Nero points. “Hey that’s one of the soldiers we ran into just outside the city. I think his name’s Walter.”
The woman scowls. “That scumbag, I’ve encountered him a few times, he’s a total prick; what I wouldn’t do to see him strung up. I bet he’s the one that tipped off the traffickers about you.”
“Why would he do that?”
“I told you, money. People will do anything for money these days and it’s especially easy to come by if you’re willing make some moral sacrifices. It wouldn’t take a genius to figure out a bunch of kids coming from the forest aren’t from the city.”
They watch as a guard escorts Walter into the ship. Fifteen minutes later he is shoved down the ramp where he walks hastily away.
She taps Nero’s shoulder. “Alright kid, meet me back at the table I found you at and eat some breakfast.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to extract some information,” she says with a curt smile. “What’s your name anyways?”
“Nero.”
“Nero? That’s not your real name is it?”
Nero looks down. “No, I gave it to myself, I like the story.”
“Well you have a lot to live up to with a name like that. I’ll see you at the table and don’t go wondering off, I had enough trouble tracking you down the first time.”
“What’s your name?” Nero asks hesitantly.
The Woman stares at him for a long moment without blinking. “I committed autonomicide. I am no one.” She turns quickly and strides down the path after Walter.
What the heck does that mean? Nero waits several minutes before he leaves his spot and walks back to the table. He picks through the box of breakfast while cautiously looking up at anyone walking near his table. Maybe she won’t come back…
When he finishes eating, he worries about his friends for thirty minutes until he catches a glimpse of her. He lets out a sigh of relief but instantly feels the stress of her presence weigh down on him.
The woman reaches the table with a smug smile on her face. “I didn’t think I could find so much pleasure in helping someone else,” she says partially to herself.
“Did he tell you anything?”
“Everything. As though his life depended on it.” She sits down and pulls one of the breakfast boxes over. “It turns out he IS the coprophagist that got your friends in trouble.” She takes a couple bites of her breakfast. “How did they fall for that rat trap anyway? What did they do, just walk into a crate? At least you had brains enough to avoid it.”
Nero fiddles with the lid of his box. “Well… I got distracted. By the time I found my way back, they were in a crate.”
She shakes her head. “Your friends deserve what they got and if it was up to me, we’d leave them. It’s survival of the fittest in this world and the weak don’t deserve to make it.”
Nero’s mouth drops open. “But...”
She puts her hand in front of his face. “Don’t even start. I’ll still help, I’m just saying, if they’re stupid enough to get caught in a crate then surely being a slave is about the best they can do.” Nero’s mouth continues to hang open, which she ignores. “I had a real heart to heart with our friend Walter. He told me they’re planning to leave the bay tomorrow morning and he even felt so bad for what he did, he gave me all his money.” She smiles at Nero but he remains catatonic. “So, being as we have some cash and time, I think this is about the best scenario for rescuing your friends we could ask for. So what’s your plan?”
“What?”
She raises an eyebrow. “I just have to say one of my pet peeves is when people complain about something and then don’t do anything about it and here you are, complaining about your friends and you don’t even have a plan to rescue them.” Nero’s mouth opens and closes like a fish sucking for air. “Okay I guess I was hoping for too much being as your name is Nero. I’ll try not to dwell on it.” She crushes a potato under her fork. “You must have some sort of skills if you and your friends managed to pass through the forest successfully. Can you fight?”
Nero shakes his head weakly. “The others did most of the wrestling, I usually just watched.”
“Wrestling! Did you have any sort of training or have you just wasted your life so far?”
“I’m just a kid,” Nero says with eyes swelling.
The Woman opens her mouth but then closes it and takes a deep breath. “Okay, that’s alright, we can still manage. Sorry, I don’t have a good sense of what a normal childhood would be like.” She squashes another potato with her fork and licks off the results. “You’re a bit scrawny anyways so fighting doesn’t seem like it’d be your strong suit. How about Aether? Have you taken an entity or an essence?”
“A what?”
“An essence…” her eyes look about the area and she takes another bite of food. “Essence is the stuff that connects our world with Aether and it’s what makes using Aether possible. Humans can absorb them, which lets them use Aether… do you have any idea what I’m talking about? It’s like a floating blob of mist.” Nero’s eyes light up and the woman smiles but just as quickly, Nero’s shoulders drop and his excitement fades away. “Marks’s blade you’re dramatic. What’s wrong?”
“Well… Me and my friends found some canisters with stuff in them in the Old Industrial district of New Lur. My friends absorbed them. I tried, but it didn’t work…”
“How so?”
“I touched it and wanted to absorb it, but it kinda just faded away or something. I don’t remember I passed out. I keep seeing more of those things and I try to get them, but I can’t.”
“More essence? Was there a dead person near by?”
Nero shakes his head. “No, but Korbin absorbed something from a dead bug in the forest… The ones I see are just by themselves.”
“Where do you see them?”
“That’s actually the reason I got separated from my friends when they got captured. I thought I saw one.”
“Here!? Are you kidding? There’s no way you’d see an essence just floating around a city. Maybe you just saw some reflecting light but I doubt you saw an essence. You said you found the others in canisters?”
Nero continues to play with the food container. “Yeah, we think a Catalyst member stole them from the Erohsians. That’s why they’re chasing us…” Nero trails off and looks at the Woman uneasily.
“The Erohsians are after you?” She smiles and slaps the table. “So I should give you kids more credit. That’s something to be proud of… as long as they don’t catch you.” The Woman pauses for a moment. “So you and your friends dimwittedly decided to escape through the forest? Who’s idea was that?”
“Ryder’s. He thought that the Erohsians were just making the danger up.”
“Well they’re not. You all may be the first to pass through the forest and survive in 50 years and you’re probably the first kids to ever try… So how did you find the fruit? Was that with the canisters?”
Should I mention the big creature or is she going to think I’m lying like Korbin? Nero looks at his hands playing with a fork. “I found a few next to a big tree.”
“A few? What happened to the others?”
Nero hesitates. “I ate one when I found them and another a little later… but I don’t see what’s the big deal, I think they taste really good.” He pulls out the last fruit and starts to pull away the tough peel. “Have you tried it before? My friends all think it’s disgusting.” Nero hands the Woman half. “Here, try it.” He starts on his. The Woman watches Nero but doesn’t eat hers. Nero finishes his half and looks at her; a tingling spreads out from his stomach through his body. “You don’t like it either?” The Woman looks at Nero with slightly squinted eyes and leans forward. Did I do something wrong? “What’s the matter?”
The Woman shrugs and sets the fruit in front of Nero. “Apparently nothing. I was just waiting to see if you were going to die,” she says casually.
“What!?”
“The fruit you just ate is from a Katashne’n Tree, it’s a very expensive delicacy.”
“Is it poisonous? Why didn’t you stop me?”
“I didn’t stop you because you said that you already ate one. Naturally I didn’t believe you so if you died, it’d be suitable punishment for lying to me.” She smiles. “But you didn’t, so good job for being honest.”
Nero looks at her in horror. “How do you know I’m not going to die?!”
“Because if you were, you’d already be dead or screaming. The Katashne’n trees have a stupid amount of Aether in them and they’re only found in areas with a high background level of Aether, such as the Ferin Forest. If you couldn’t have handled it, the Aether released from eating the fruit would have burnt a hole right through you. Which as you can imagine would be quite painful. Does your stomach hurt?”
Nero puts a hand on his stomach and looks at her, worried. “Well now that you mention it…”
She waves her hand at him. “Oh shut up, you’re fine.”
“If it is so dangerous, why’s it considered a delicacy?”
“Because finding a tree is almost impossible, which makes it rare, expensive, and if the sudden jolt of Aether doesn’t kill you, it can make the oldest person feel like they’re young again. Occasionally someone is lucky and stumbles upon a tree but for whatever reason it’s near impossible to find it a second time. It’s like it can only be found if it wants to. Not to make a big deal out of it but you probably just ate 50,000 Anterren worth, so I hope it was tasty.”
The color drains from Nero’s face. “Could we have used it to trade for my friends?”
“Probably not. Though the traffickers wouldn’t expect anyone to mess with them, they aren’t stupid enough to deal illegally in the city, especially if it could be a set up by another group. No, they’ll just deny it the entire time then try to steal it from you when you’re not looking.”
“So why didn’t I die then?”
“That’s a good question. I’ve never heard of someone that can eat a Katashne’n fruit like you so you must have an impressive Aethersotto.”
“What’s that?”
“Aethersotto is a measure of how well you interact with Aether and also affects how you perceive the world. Hmm. Maybe you’re a Natural.”
“What’s a Natural?”
“A Natural is a rare human born with Aether, who can’t absorb essence. I didn’t think they had such a high Aethersotto but I’ve never met one, so who am I to say? Their true potential doesn’t show until they come of age, though you should still have enough ability to do what needs to be done to save your friends. Have you ever used Aether?”
Nero shakes his head. “I don’t think so but I’ve always thought I could tell when my friends are doing something they shouldn’t.”
“That’s not how it works. You’re referring to being scared, which you’ll have to get over if we’re going to work together.” She takes the remaining half of fruit and squeezes one drop onto a piece of fish from her breakfast and eats it. A shiver runs through her body and she sighs. “I don’t know how you do it,” she says as she hands him the fruit. “If you enjoyed it you might as well finish the rest before we start the tests. It’s going to go bad soon anyway.”
“Tests?”
“Well we have to see if you’re worth a damn and figure out what you can do. So eat up.” Nero hesitantly begins to eat the rest. “Aether allows for the manipulation of energy. It acts like another extension of your body and requires an input just like anything else. Nothing is free in this world and it sure isn’t easy, so get that straight in your head right now.” The Woman reaches over the table and picks up a piece of rind from the fruit. “Are you ready to try? How do you feel?”
Nero nods and swallows the last bit. A strong tingling sensation runs up his spine and over his scalp, energizing his muscles. Vehement hostility causes his body to shudder and curl his lip. What’s going on? He lets himself breath for a moment and his body relaxes.
“This is a few steps above where I’d start if I had the choice, but I don’t have the time or the tools to hold your hand, so we’re going to start here. I want you to try to knock the peel off my hand.”
Nero reaches over and pokes it off.
“No! Not like that.” She grabs the peel from the table. “What does that prove?”
“I’m just doing what you say! You don’t need to yell at me.”
The Woman looks at him curiously for a moment and then takes a breath. “Yes you’re right. You accomplished what I asked as quickly as possible, I shouldn’t complain.” She holds her hand up to Nero. “I want you to use Aether this time.”
Nero focuses on the peel and tries to knock it off with a ferocious glare. Come on peely, move! Nothing happens and his frustration grows. “How exactly am I supposed to do that?”
The Woman lets her hand fall to the table. “All objects, living or inert, rocks, water, people… are made of energy, and by sensing this connection between energy and matter, we can manipulate the object. In order for you to interact with the peel you need impose your essence on the world.”
“My essence?”
“Yes your essence,” the woman says. “Assuming you can use Aether, your essence is what does it. Can you feel it?”
Nero thinks about the tightness to his full stomach and the hardness of his seat. “I don’t know. What’s it supposed to feel like?”
“It’s like a sixth sense… I’m not sure how to describe it; it’s just there. Like how would you explain smell?” She thinks for a moment. “Probably like eating with your nose, but through air. Hmmm. In that case… you could describe it like another body you probe the world with using Aether. Like little feelers. Does that make sense?”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“It’s like another part of your body you can move just as you’d want to move your arm. It’s throughout your body… but it’s different. You must’ve felt something like it.”
“I haven’t… are you sure you know what you’re talking about? Maybe I can’t use Aether.”
“That’s not an option. You’ll be next to worthless to me if so. So figure this out! You need to feel it. I can’t do everything for you.”
His frustration snaps. “Yeah but you can at least help. Figure out a better way to explain it and maybe I will!” Whoa. Where’d that come from?
“Wow. You have some fight in you after all. I like it but if you use that tone with me again I’m going to cut out your tongue and feed it to the fish. Understand?”
Is she serious? Nero uses his fear to beat down the hostility raging within him until it is a gentle simmer in the back of his mind and nods to her.
She smiles with an evil glint to here eye. “Good. Now give me your hands. I have an idea.”
“What are you going to do?” He asks.
“I’m going to use Aether on you and see if I can tickle your essence a bit.”
“Are you sure it’s safe?”
The Woman reaches out both hands. “Almost entirely.”
Nero reluctantly takes her hands. He feels a slight tingling in her skin and looks up.
“Can you feel that?” The Woman asks.
“I can feel it tingling in my hands.”
The Woman’s gaze intensifies and the tingling crawls up his arms into his body. A sudden chill begins to grip him, numbing his fingertips and creating goose bumps over his arms. He looks up at the Woman in alarm and she lets go. The tingling withdraws immediately, dragging through his body from his core to his hands. Just as it disappears completely something rebounds inside of him and oscillates for just a moment before fading away, something with substance but not of his body. He pokes at it with his thoughts and he feels something respond.
“I think I can feel it!” Nero says.
“That’s more like it,” she says with a genuine sliver of a smile.
“What did you do? It was freezing.”
“I can use Aether that controls the flow of energy, so I was pulling heat from you, though it wasn’t nearly as easy as I expected. You definitely have a high Aethersotto which should make you interesting to work with,” she says. “Now let’s get this job started. So you felt your essence, that’s the first step, now we need to get you to exercise it. In order to move something, you need to probe the world with your essence and build a mental picture of the object your interested in. This helps to solidify a connection. When you feel like you have a firm grasp on an object, you can exert your essence on it through Aether and move it. Just keep in mind the limitations of moving something is only due to your ability to focus your essence as Aether is unhindered by distance and our normal perceptions of the world.” She picks up the peel and rolls it over in her hand. “Now typically when you want to interact with something, it probably has little to no Aether in it, but because Aether will react better with Aether, interacting with something like this peel, will be easier, especially because the Katashne’n tree reacts well with all types of Aether. Does that make sense?”
Nero looks at her blankly. “Umm…”
“Okay moving forward.” She hands him the peel. “Tell me what you feel from the peel.”
“Strange. Like I just licked a battery. Same as when you used Aether on me.”
“Yes good. The peel poorly contains Aether now that it’s been opened, so you’re feeling the Aether spilling off. Now try to use your essence and feel for the presence of the peel.”
Nero closes his eyes and pushes on his essence and feels it respond in his leg. No not there… He pushes it again and this time he feels it in his other leg.
“Some times it helps to focus if you slow your breathing and let everything else go. Try to relax with each breath,” the Woman says.
Nero collects himself and takes a few breaths, again pushing the strange hostility inside of him to the back of his mind. He notices an odd tension about this newfound essence of his. What’s this about? It is a tension that runs through his whole body, a tension resisting something, some external pull. He examines the tension and then with a breath, lets it go. A whole new world of light explodes into his mind’s eye. The table, the path, and buildings off in the distance and most of the people in the area are etched with a white light. He looks around and the Woman in front of him is a bright mass of swirling red light. Her features are all but impossible to determine and only the general shape of her body is apparent. Wow. He looks down at the white table and then at his hand, which is strangely, exactly how he would see it if his eyes were open. The peel on his hand emits a gentle pulsing violet light. A pulling feeling of his body in every direction suddenly catches his attention. He looks at his hand again and it starts to dissolve. All the light from the world begins to crash in on him, slowly at first but quickly it turns into an avalanche as the pulling sensation grows. He tenses his body and fights the pull, creating the same tension he had felt earlier. The cascade of the world immediately stops, retracting back to normal and fading away, leaving his mind once again void of light.
“What the heck are you doing?” The Woman asks.
Nero opens his eyes and to his relief everything is normal. He is on his back and the Woman is standing over him.
“Will you stop messing around?” She asks as she pulls him up and seats him back at the table. “What happened?”
“I don’t know, I was relaxing and then suddenly I saw all this light, then it started crashing in on me.”
“Hmmm, maybe you should try to breath a little more. You were probably just holding your breath.”
I don’t think I was… What the heck happened?
“Now try again, we don’t have all day.” She picks the peel off the ground and puts it on his hand.
I don’t want to repeat that… He closes his eyes once again but this time he lets himself maintain the tension in his body. He pushes with his essence and feels it respond in his hand, bumping against the peel. Cool. He continues to probe the peel, building a mental picture as though he was feeling the shape of a rock in the dark with his fingers. The peel in his mind begins to feel tangible and he pushes directly against it, causing it to jump off his hand.
He opens his eyes and the Woman is smiling at him. “Good job. That’s it. I wasn’t expecting you to make it jump.” She picks up the peel and sets it at the end of the table. “Okay now knock it off the table.”
Nero closes his eyes and pushes out with his essence, extending it to his surroundings. His essence crawls over the table, feeling the cracks along its length, but as it reaches out further it becomes harder for him to control and maintain. His essence snags on the peel and he struggles to hone in on it. It is easy to separate from the table but it takes him some time before he can fully grasp it and when he does, he forces it away, causing the peel to jump off the table.
“Excellent,” the Woman says. “You’re catching on quick.” She picks up the peel and holds it in her hand. “Now knock it of my hand.”
Nero pushes out his essence and struggles to distinguish the Aether from the Woman and the Aether from the peel. He probes the peel from every direction and worms his way between the Woman’s hand, which he then probes in detail as well. Slowly he is able to discern the difference. When he does, the separation of the two is quick and he is able to knock the peel of her hand.
“And I was really dreading this whole thing, but now that you seem semi-capable you might just have a chance of not getting taken as a slave with the rest…” She says with a smile. “Just remember forces balance, so anything you push or pull on with your essence will effect your body just as if you were pushing or pulling with your arms. If you practice you could hold yourself up with your essence.” The Woman collects all of their trash and stands up from the table. “We just might be able to pull this off… Now follow me.”
Nero hops up. “What are we doing now?”
“I’m going to teach you something else, so pay attention. What do you think is more powerful than any amount of Aether in the world?”
“Umm… Havityns—”
“No, the brain! Do you have a good brain?”
Nero shrugs. “It seems to work… I think.”
“Confidence helps too… Anyways, what I’m trying to say is if you use your brain, you don’t have to work so hard to accomplish something, which gives you the chance to outwit anyone and any situation.”
She leads them down a side alley and jiggles the locked handle of a door. “If we wanted to get into this door, how do you think we would do that?”
“Use a key?”
“Well yes, Master of the Obvious, but if we didn’t have a key, we would either have to bust the door down or pick the lock; busting the door down takes a lot of work so let’s avoid that for now. If we wanted to use Aether to pick the lock, we would have to manipulate the tumblers in the lock just like someone with a pick set, which takes a good amount of skill. But what do we know about a door?” She pauses for a fraction of a second. “When we turn the handle it retracts a latch that lets the door open, but when we close the door the latch gets pushed in. Do you get what I’m trying to say?”
“To open the door, all we need to do is push the latch in?”
“Yes! And since we can do that easily with Aether it’s possible to open the door without a great effort. Unfortunately most people know about this trick so it isn’t terribly useful, but a good example on how to use your brain nonetheless. Let’s give it a try.” She focuses on the door and after a moment turns the handle, swinging the door open. “I had to pick this lock, since it specifically locks the latch in place, but we can still practice execution even if it’s unlocked.”
“How do you know all of this? About Aether and stuff. I thought you were just a hobo,” Nero says.
The Woman’s eyebrows rise as she looks at Nero. “I had another life at one point. A life I’m not going to share with you, but what I will say is it required a large array of unconventional skills.”
“If you know so much then why can’t you just teach me to pick the lock?”
“The fine skill to manipulate several different objects simultaneously is a bit out of our time budget; it makes sorting a pile of rice by size in the middle of a burning building look easy.” She reaches over to the latch on the door and pushes it in. “Now that the door is unlocked the latch moves. I want you to try to push the latch in using Aether. We’ll keep the door open to see how you’re doing. Close your eyes if it helps”
He closes his eyes and pushes his essence into the world, feeling the edge of the door. The latch is apparent but it doesn’t feel as substantial as the Aether in the peel. No matter how hard he tires to form a connection with it and push, the latch remains unmoved. After a long while he opens his eyes and looks at the woman. “I can’t do it. It’s not the same as the peel.”
“You can’t?” She asks venomously. “You give up after only a few tries and because it’s hard? You poor thing, you must have had such an easy life growing up. Well wake up!” She pokes him in the chest. “LIFE-IS-HARD, Nero, and the only way you’ll get anything out of it is if you take it. Your friend’s freedom depends on you and you alone. I’d rather throw myself off a cliff than play mommy with you, so if you want to save them then figure it out, but let me warn you, if I ever hear you say ‘I can’t’ again, you’ll regret it dearly.” She looks down at Nero who has eyes brimming with tears. “Do you want to save your friends?”
Yes. He nods.
“Good. Now remember, it’s all the same. It’s all energy. It’s just different. Figure it out.”
Nero wipes the tears from his eyes and sets his jaw. A furry swirls inside of him. Stupid woman, I’ll show her. I CAN save my friends. He jabs aggressively at the latch with his essence but to no success.
“Stop and breath. Don’t let your anger for me control you. Collect your emotions, accept them, and then let them go or you’ll never save anyone.”
My friends… Nero breaths and lets his anger go and struggles to bring his thoughts back to the task. He pushes out his essence once again and feels the latch. It is still insubstantial. It sure doesn’t feel the same… but if it’s different… He pushes against it gently and with constant pressure. A hint of a different substance shimmers at his touch. He bears down on this new feeling and it grows more solid. It is just different! He fully grasps the latch and pushes it in.
“Good!” The woman’s voice scares Nero. “You keep pulling through! Now again.”
She has him push the latch in several more times until she closes the door. “Now let’s see if you can push the latch in while it’s closed. It’s the same thing, you’ll just have to sort through more material. Remember the only resistance your essence feels is that which you make, so if you ignore the door frame, it’s no different than what you were just doing.”
Again Nero struggles for a long time to reach the latch. Every time he tries to ignore the frame, the latch disappears as well but when he focuses on the latch, the frame becomes distracting. Frustration begins to build with the sweat on his forehead. I will not give up! Finally he separates the frame and the latch enough that he pushes the latch in.
Nero jumps up with his arms. “I did it!”
The Woman looks at him and then at the door. “Did what?”
“I pushed the latch in… I think.”
“Did you now? But what was our intended goal?”
Nero looks at the door. “To open it?”
“Hmmmm.”
“Okay.” Nero puts his hand on the doorknob and tries to push the latch in once more but it turns out to be exceedingly difficult to keep his concentration on the latch while pulling the door open. After he eventually manages to open the door without turning the doorknob, the Woman has him do it again and again while she tries to distract him.
Nero’s stomach growls after opening the door with the Woman tickling his ear using a stick. He tries to muffle the persistent growl with his hands but to no avail.
The Woman looks at him surprised. “Wow. Didn’t we just eat a couple of hours ago?”
Nero fiddles with his feet. “I’m sorry, we can keep practicing.”
“No, you’ve done well,” she says while awkwardly patting him on the back. “You’ve earned something to eat and it’ll be a good time to go over our plan.”
*****
Nero and the Woman sit at the edge of a walkway with their feet hanging over the water, eating banana bread.
Nero kicks his legs nervously. His strength and the comforting tingle that ran over his scalp earlier are gone but so is the uncomfortable hostility he could barely control. Was that always in me? He looks out at the water. I wish Thea was here. He looks up at the woman. “So shouldn't we hurry up and try to rescue my friends?”
“No. We'll wait for tonight. This is their last night in port, so the crew will try to get out and have some fun while they have the chance. They should be a touch more relaxed.”
“Okay... so how are we going to do this?”
The Woman turns to him and looks straight in his eyes. “I'm going to sell you as a slave.”
Nero chokes on some bread. “What!? I thought you were going to help!” She's going to sell me like the others!
“Stop fussing. Do you have a better plan for getting inside?”
“Uhhh...”
“Precisely. Someone needs to free your friends and this seems like the easiest way. We'll pretend you’re really sick, which will give you just the advantage you need. Your friends will probably be locked up tight, but if they don't think you're a risk and potentially contagious, they'll put you in an easier spot to escape.”
Nero starts to feel his pulse rise. “Couldn't we just sneak in together?”
“Uh no. You wouldn't be able to keep up with me and who would create the diversion for the escape? Certainly not you by yourself.” She pauses. “We’re only doing this because you want to. So let me know if it’s too much.”
Nero looks down at the water, and pushes away the panic. “Okay, so you sell me as a slave. Then what?”
“Well you'll have to escape and free your friends,” she says calmly.
Nero's panic starts to rise again. “How am I supposed to do that?!”
She sighs. “That's why I’ve been trying to teach you to use your brain. You'll have to figure it out on the fly. I'll make you a little poisonous blow dart so you can kill anyone that gets in your way.”
“Kill!?”
“You’re a piece of work aren't you?” The Woman throws her hands in the air. “Fine, we can make it a non-lethal dart if it'll make you feel better, but it'll take longer to kick in. They're your friends, so if you’re willing to take the risk...”
Nero smiles and nods his head. “I'd like that better.”
She shrugs. “Whatever suits you. So once you have your friends, stay put until you get my signal, I’ll give you an hour from when we separate.” She pulls a small digital watch out of her pocket. “Put his on, the sailors shouldn’t care about it when they take you.”
“What's the signal?”
“Not sure yet... use your brain on the fly right? Anyways I'll be sure to make it super clear so you won’t miss it. Once you hear the signal, get to the main deck of the ship and head to the side opposite the pier. There’ll be a rope ladder with a small boat at the bottom. If they pursue you, they’re probably going to be pretty upset, so don’t get caught. Get to shore as fast as you can and run like crazy to the Market. There should be enough people there that they’ll give up, and if not, I hope a least one person will intervene. We’ll set up a hotel room you all can use after.”
“This seems like a crazy plan.”
She smiles. “Exciting right?” She hops up. “Once you’re free, you’re on your own; I’m not playing babysitter…” She pulls him up by the arm with little effort. “Alright, let's make you a tranquilizer dart.”
She leads him through the Market collecting various items: a souvenir blowgun that is about as long as Nero’s forearm and is dyed black with notches carved into it, some paper and a few other supplies for the Woman’s custom darts, a few pieces of leather, some strips of cloth, a couple apples, and finally a few items for the knock-out potion. Once the Woman is satisfied with the items, she rents a room in a hotel, where Nero watches as she fashions several darts out of a porous woody plant material and carves a grove along their sides to help collect the sleeping potion. She makes Nero a small leather strap for his wrist to hold the darts in, and finally mixes up the potion.
She puts two apples on the table in their room and grabs the dart gun. “I’m going to take care of a few things. It will be a while, so in the meantime practice with this.” She puts a dart in and fires at the apple, which sinks deep into the center. “Real easy.” She tosses the blowgun to him and walks out.
As soon as the door closes he loads the blowgun and fires. The dart ricochets of a lamp and sticks into the wall. He let’s out a deep breath. Maybe she won’t come back…