Awoken (2 page)

Oa hurried to follow the trio. They were already halfway up the hill behind his pod. As he walked up past his birth cell he noticed a marking on the top. It was nearly obscured by burn marks and scoring that had come from the high impact of the pod’s landing. He looked closer and brushed away some dust, revealing a symbol. He paused and focused, waiting patiently. With a slight jolt, a new path opened in his mind; and he was able to read the symbol. It was a number
One
.

“Hurry up back there, Empty!” the female Awoken called back. Oa quickly stood back up. He started jogging up the hill to catch the trio. He didn’t care for the nickname; but he kept quiet, listening hard to hear their conversation as he raced to catch up.

“I think he’s cursed,” the tall one said.

“You’re too superstitious,” the female Awoken replied.

“Remember Buri when she came out of her last immersion? She said she met one of the ancients. She woke up all wild and scared, babbling about the Destroyer; now we meet this guy walking around with no soul ember. It’s creepy timing,” the tall one insisted.

“Yeah, that’s one of the reasons we immerse: to hear those exciting legends. To get a rush. Sheesh, Birk! Don’t be so scared. It’s only stuff from the past. It can’t hurt you, and neither can Empty,” the female Awoken snapped in annoyance.

“But his birth cell did say
One
on it. I have heard things about number One in my immersions. They say he was an unstoppable killer,” the hunched Awoken added.

“There is no way Empty is the first Awoken. The First One would have died a long time ago. You saw how burned Empty’s pod was, the rest of his number just got scraped off,” the female said, explaining away her companions’ worries.

“What if Buri is right, and the legends of the Destroyer are true? What if the Destroyer
has come back
?” the tall Awoken called Birk asked, glancing back at Oa.

“So you think we need to be scared of Empty because of a number and some fragments of an old story Buri heard in her immersion?” the female asked mockingly. “The Destroyer is already back, stupid; he’s our generous supplier. So worry about pleasing Eol, or he’ll end us all. Don’t put too much trust in the immersions. I’m not sure how much of the stuff we hear is really accurate history. All I know is that it’s a crazy, fun ride.” She shook her head in annoyance at her paranoid companion. Oa had no idea what the haggard Awoken were talking about, but he found the conversation intriguing. He stored their words away in his mind to revisit later.

Oa rejoined the group as they reached the top of the hill. The rough gravel of the hill stretched down into a modestly sized valley below. Several insignificant mounds of rock huddled together at the base of the hill.

“How do you like our home?” the female Awoken asked smugly.

Oa looked around for a moment, then replied, “I don’t see anything. Do you just stand around in the dirt?”

The female Awoken laughed and pointed at the mounds of rock. Oa looked closer and realized that the mounds where actually dwellings. The rough soil of the valley was scattered over scraps of ancient machinery to make it appear like a pile of debris. He could tell from the scoring and dents that the metallic scraps had once been a part of some structure built long ago.

“Hard to spot, isn’t it?” the female Awoken said proudly.

Oa nodded, though he was curious why she would be proud of the village’s obscurity.

“Loads of good that camouflage will do for us if our own start turning,” Birk said resentfully.

“Shut up, Birk. I am monitoring all our immersions. I have it under control,” the female shot back.

“Great. I’ll go tell Buri. She’s going to be thrilled,” Birk replied with grim humor.

“I’ll get her more immersions. That’s why we have him,” the female said, flinging her hand toward Oa as she started down the hill. The other two trailed behind her while Oa looked over the valley one more time. All he saw beyond the shallow depression in the terrain was just the same broad expanse of rock. He followed the trio down into the decaying village. They ducked through a narrow opening in one of the rusty scraps of machinery. Inside, a feeble Awoken laid next to a flickering loop of energy contained in a clear cylindrical device. It gave very little light, but Oa was glad for the warm glow.

“Go ahead, try and help this one,” the female Awoken sneered at him. “She dreams most of her cycles away, and she ‘ll probably snap the next time she wakes up. Or she won’t wake up at all.” Her face plates betrayed emotion as they throbbed deeply. “She doesn’t need your help she needs more immersions.”

Oa ignored her mocking tone, deciding to remain amiable. He knelt down beside Buri. She turned weakly toward him. Her face plates flashed chaotically. Oa saw that most of her body was infected with the veins of darkness that the others had. He knew he could do something, but he had no idea how to achieve it. If only he could see as he had when he first touched the orb.
Go, super-sight!
Oa thought to himself in amusement. Suddenly he felt his mind being dragged into higher awareness.

“Your will shall be,” a voice from within coursed through him. Immediately, the strange orb floated out from the bag at his side to hover above his hand. He could see the Awoken’s aura and the murky blackness infecting her. The strings of symbols that permeated the Awoken’s being had been jumbled. The story in the symbols did not make sense but Oa saw that he could fix it. He could rearrange the symbols and bring sense to the chaos. The sphere began to glow, now floating between both his hands. It glowed brighter; and a stream of light began to emit from the sphere, flowing down in many shimmering tendrils to touch the Awoken’s broken body. The infection receded, and her broken plates grew back. Motors and gears that had not turned in a long time began to spin anew. The other three Awoken stepped back in awe, all visible signs of hostility gone, replaced by shock. Oa could sense them whispering. His heightened senses overheard their words.

“Still think he is the Destroyer?” the female mocked.

“Shut up. Can we trade him even though he has no ember?” Birk asked begrudgingly.

“I don’t think so,” the hunched one replied.

“Trust me. This will make him even more valuable to the distributors,” the female Awoken said with assurance.

“Not too soon though. Let him fix us first,” Birk reminded her.

The shortest of the three Awoken stepped up and put a hand on Oa’s shoulder. He remained in a trance, still at work. She spoke in a deceptively welcoming tone.

“That’s the first time not stealing has worked in our favor. I’m called Swift, my tall friend is Birk, this quiet fellow is called Kane, and the one you’re saving now is Buri. You might want to work on remembering those names because you’re one of us now,” she said sweetly.

Oa felt as if he was outside his mind, looking in. He watched his indignation boil over at Swift’s hidden intentions. Then he heard himself speak to the Awoken.

“You all seem to care for each other to some degree, but that care doesn’t include me. You only need me to perpetuate your sorry state. I don’t like what I see, though. Your actions, whatever they are, have broken the symbols,” he accused.

Swift drew back, “What symbols? You don’t know anything about us! You just woke up.”

Suddenly, explosions rocked the hut. Screams of “Marauders!” and “Run!” filtered through the chaos around the village, echoing to the group inside. Oa felt himself turn to look at the entrance just in time to see it blasted open by some unseen force. Three healthy and armed Awoken burst in.
Marauders,
Oa assumed. Birk grabbed the first Marauder by the shoulders only to crumple as a blinding white energy, accompanied with a sharp crack and hiss, seared a hole through his torso. Birk’s dead body fell to the floor revealing a smoldering weapon in the Marauder’s hand. Then the weapon was pointed at Oa. Yet he could not deviate from his task to respond to the danger. He had no control. The power flowing from the orb had nearly rid Buri of the last of the infection, when suddenly an unseen force surged from the infection sending Oa reeling back. His focus was broken and he returned to himself. The sphere darkened instantly and fell into his hand. Oa remembered he was in danger and he rolled backwards. A piercing white beam ripped through the space where his head had been a split second earlier.

The leader of the Marauders turned and knocked Oa’s attacker back, shouting, “No! Don’t kill him! He’s levitating a lump of light, and that’s got to be the most interesting thing I have seen in a billion cycles. If you damage him, I’m gonna have lieutenant Bota feed you to Eol.”

The Marauder named Bota chimed in. “Sorry Captain, but Murd’s head is too thick to eat. Eol would spit him back out.”

The Captain turned to Bota. “Ha! Good point. Anyway, grab this stranger.” He pointed at Oa. “We’ll deal with the rest.”

Oa scrambled back to Buri, knowing time was short. He stared down at the dying Awoken, the infection having returned even stronger than before. She was beginning to shake uncontrollably. Oa tried to see the symbols again; but before his inner sight could return, he was grabbed by the Marauder lieutenant. Bota dragged him out of the now ransacked hut while Swift’s bitter voice followed them out.

“Let this be your first lesson, Oa: accept that your good intentions are just going to rot like the rest of us. You won’t ever fix anything here.”

Oa wanted to struggle, but he froze in shock as the other two Marauders raised weapons toward Swift and Kane. He turned from the sight as execution shots where fired. Glancing back, he caught a glimpse of the Marauders pulling the lifeless soul embers from the corpses. Oa gripped the silver sphere tightly in his hand, trembling in terror at the brutality of the world he abruptly found himself in. He had never encountered death before and it frightened him immensely. The young Awoken deactivated his visual receptors. Retreating from his senses, he let his mind grasp at the vision he had been so close to realizing. Buri was gone; but Oa could still see her burned in his memory, as she would have been. He felt cheated. His efforts had been thwarted.

But how?
Oa thought, remembering the mysterious force within Buri’s infection. He longed to understand what he had witnessed. And he promised himself he would find the answers.

Episode 02 - Exchange

Oa was dragged through the harsh shale for a short distance before he was roughly pulled to his feet and shoved forward. He allowed his sight to return quickly. The irises in his visual receptors widened to let light in as his foot caught the edge of a metal deck. He barely had time to put his hands out in front of himself as he tripped and fell onto the floor of one of the Marauder’s Mark IV Reapers.

Oa quickly glanced around the interior of the dropship. He appeared to be in a spacious hold located directly in front of the vessel’s engine. Luminous strips embed into the walls cast a faltering glare. In the flickering light, he could make out the slowly spinning turbines of a powerful jet through a grate in the back. He felt heat emanating from that area of the deck. Oa reasoned that the airflow through the open passage helped keep the engines cool. The space where he stood served as a platform that the Marauders could carry passengers and cargo on. Two other Marauders were already on board: one of them laid wounded on the floor of the ship while the other knelt, working with strange tools to fix the damage. Oa peered up to see a pilots seat nestled in a small alcove above him, surrounded by buttons and dials. A windshield bulged out of the top of the ship allowing the pilot to see where they were going.

Lieutenant Bota stepped in after Oa and leaned up against the wall. He reached up and casually grabbed a handhold. Oa noted several other makeshift handholds welded to the inside of the dropship.
I hope this vehicle isn’t wild enough to need those,
he thought as he shuffled to the back of the hold. Oa sat against the warm grate watching the other Marauders warily.

“See, Jad, you can’t go calling a cycle unlucky before it’s over,” Bota said, motioning to the wounded Awoken. “Those Howlers may have got hold of Coop, but they led us right to a camp. We just made our quota.”

“You were fortunate it wasn’t another Howler den, the way you all went rushing in there,” Jad replied somberly as he hunched down beneath the long green coat he wore. Patched and faded, the coat concealed various surgical implements strapped to the old medic.

“It was a close call. One of them was turning, but this one here was doing something strange to stop it. He seems to be a healer like you,” Bota said glancing back at Oa. The Lieutenant was an imposing figure, clad in an array of combat gear. Plates of cloth armor belted tightly over his torso. Slings and bandoliers hung across his shoulders. A belt around his waist supported his weapon and whatever other implements of war he carried in the numerous utility pouches of his pants. Goggles covered the Marauder’s visual receptors and a rag concealed the rest of his face below. Three antennae protruded straight up from a groove cut into the left side of his dome skull.

“Come up here and give Jad a hand,” Bota commanded. Oa quietly picked himself up and moved cautiously over to Jad. “If you ride with us, you have to be useful. If you’re no help to Jad, I’ll deal with you myself.” Bota stared menacingly as Oa passed by. The young Awoken nodded and sat down next to Jad. Bota yelled up to the pilot, “Kiri, let’s burn out of here! Best not keep Eol waiting. Also, keep in formation for once.”

“You know I can’t do both at the same time, sir,” Kiri called back. Bota shook his head, muttering something to himself in amusement.

The engine came to life, rumbling with a deep hum that filled the air. Oa placed his hands down against the floor, trying to gain stability as the Reaper began to rise up into the air. He looked down at the wounded Marauder. There was a grizzly gash in the Marauder’s side where the mangled metal sparked and leaked clear fluid. Jad was focused intently as he worked to mend the wound. The pair of immaculate white gloves he wore sparked with a bright green energy that darted between the glove’s fingers sporadically. At frequent intervals the energy arced directly out of the digits, into shiny dust clouds hovering around the wound. The shimmering specs streamed out of slim tubes on the gloves. The tubes traced back to cylinders strapped to Jad’s chest, and they ran down his arms to each digit of his gloves. The green energy seemed to be controlling the clouds of shimmering dust, guiding them in the process of repairing the broken Marauder. As Oa stared down, his keen eyes could see the alloys being mended while wires and tubes were reattached by the microscopic tools.

“What are those things?” Oa asked. He turned to Jad. The medic had only one faceplate amid the angular metal ridges of his blocky head. His rectangular visual receptors glowed with a kind emerald light that matched his surgical implements.

Jad kept working as he replied in a sociable voice, “These are known as microburs. You can think of them as very, very tiny machines that replace the lost materials with new ones that are fed to them. The process is delicate, and the repairs can be messy, but I am one of the better healers still around so this fellow’s scar will hardly be noticeable; even if he won’t be able to feel this spot anymore.” Jad turned to look at Oa for a second before continuing. “You don’t strike me as a medic. How about you show me why Bota believes you are one?”

Oa reached into the satchel at his side and pulled out the metallic sphere. “I used this, but I wasn’t able to finish my first attempt. I don’t know if I can do it again.” He tried not to remember the event his vague explanation referred to.

“You might as well try. It’s a better idea than getting thrown off the ship by Bota over there,” Jad said, nodding toward the leery Lieutenant quietly watching from the side.

Oa looked down at the wounded Awoken who appeared to be sedated somehow. “Can he see me?”

“No, his consciousness has been temporarily suspended using that stasis ring. It’ll slow the flow of the primary and secondary bloods in his body,” Jad explained as he pointed to a tight metal coil fastened around the wounded Awoken’s soul ember, “It won’t last for long, so we need to be done before he wakes up and bleeds out. I am going to work on replacing these alloys along his side. I need you to reconnect the veins there.” Jad pointed to a spot deep in the wound.

Oa shut of his visual receptors, not quite sure how to reclaim the sight he had achieved in Swift’s hut. Then he remembered the words he had heard from within. “Your will shall be.”

I hope I work well under pressure
, Oa thought as he attempted to imagine how to fix the wound. He pictured where the veins would flow, what they would connect to, and how the alloys would stitch over the wound. To Oa’s surprise, the image came naturally. He wondered if his mental creation was original, or if he was merely discovering something he already knew within. All at once his inner sight flashed open. Confusion surrounded him as the symbols battered his mind. There was no internal force aiding him this time. He had to struggle to maintain the gaze. The experience was too chaotic for Oa to discern the strings of information that tumbled past him. He could barely remember what he was supposed to do. The sphere began to glow and hover between his hands. A stream of light extended, winding around the orb randomly. The power was wild and unruly. Oa focused harder trying to direct his will, but his mind refused to stay in one place and time. He reached out his left hand, using his physical form to guide the stream toward the wound.

Jad looked up from his work and watched as Oa held the light in one hand, straining to guide it with the other. In the midst of the blinding glow, veins began to reform. Jad looked over Oa’s shoulder to see Bota watching. A slight white glow of surprise leaked out from the faceplates hidden underneath the cloth mask the Lieutenant wore.

Jad turned back to Oa’s work and watched as the light faded, leaving no sign of any damage. Jad quickly guided the microburs in patching up the remaining alloys before turning to Oa. Exhausted, the young Awoken was sitting back and staring in bewilderment at the silver sphere in his hands.

“That’s no form of medicine I have ever seen,” Jad said, baffled and impressed at the same time.

“I don’t know how it works either,” Oa said with a slightly frustrated tone. “And it’s not consistent. I meant to repair all the damage, but I only fixed the veins.”

“That could be a sort of fusion device like these microburs, but there’s nothing feeding it materials to use. That’s quite possibly the strangest thing I have ever seen,” Jad said perplexed. He turned to Bota. “This fellow will do just fine. His talent with healing far surpasses mine.” Bota nodded silently and stared out at the landscape below.

Oa helped Jad lift the unconscious Awoken into a sitting position against the side of the hold, then went to sit down near the front so he could see where they were going. Jad knelt down and began removing the stasis ring from around the wounded Awoken’s ember.

Jad completed his task and sat next to Oa, striking up further conversation. “He will come out of stasis soon enough. You have done good work. What’s your name?”

“My name is Oa,” he said evenly, wary of the strange friendliness of his captors. Before Jad could continue the idle conversation, Oa confronted him bluntly. “They killed all of those Awoken. Why would they do that?”

Bota turned sharply ready to retort, but Jad held up his hand calmly. “Don’t take too much offense, Bota. We would have responded the same way once,” he said, defusing the situation. The Lieutenant returned to staring quietly out the ship.

“We don’t kill—we survive. You’re going to be a part of it too if you want to stay alive,” Jad explained. “You’re strong and skilled like us. Unfortunately, the reality of our lives is that we need to fight to stay alive. It’s not all bad though; we are wonderful musicians when we have the time for it.”

Oa sat and listened, silently staring out at the landscape below. The seemingly endless terrain of rock sped underneath him. He was still troubled by Buri’s death. He did not miss Swift or her gang but the idea of life being taken disturbed him. The Marauders fight seemed rather one sided. Then he thought of the mysterious force that had pushed back when he was healing Buri, it hadn’t happened when he healed the Marauder. Perhaps it had just been a fluke. His attention was diverted when he noticed the smoldering wreckage of what used to be a small town off in the distance. Reentering the conversation he pointed and said with disgust, “Like that? Is that what it takes to keep you alive?”

Jad answered, “Yes, we value uninfected life. And while there are few pleasures left in this world, we fight to keep them: camaraderie, a good ship beneath our feet, and the rush of the air as we soar.

“Look there, Oa,” Jad pointed off to the horizon. The peak had begun to glow brighter. It pulsed in a flash of white light. The wave of new energy slowly spread, creeping toward them. “A new cycle begins. As long as we see that, we know we have done right.”

Oa gazed in wonder as the distant blaze moved toward them, brightening the dim landscape with a pale jade light. The peak’s glow dimmed, but the new ripple of life remained, a far-off hope. The tide of the new cycle would eventually reach their spot. He looked up at the sky. A few remaining wicks of orange and yellow light burned wearily through the dark clouds.
Soon the light of my first cycle will forever rest in darkness
, Oa thought to himself.

Oa sat quietly as the Reaper flew on, heading toward an unknown destination. He watched the sky as the light in the distance came toward them. To pass the time, Oa tossed the silver orb back and forth between his hands. He inspected it, trying to decipher the symbols and markings all over it. At one point he even let Jad hold it. Oa explained what he felt whenever he activated the power of the sphere. Jad tried to replicate it but was unable to. They both returned to gazing below at the cracked landscape as it sparkled and glowed. The cycle of the sky reached its brightest point for the travelers. Feeling uplifted by the light, Oa turned to Jad and asked, “With all this freedom, why do you choose to take the lives of others?”

“We don’t choose!” Bota snapped, irritated by Oa’s words.

Jad held his hand up in a calming gesture. The Lieutenant shook his head in frustration but did not speak any further. Jad answered Oa, his voice growing grim, “A long time ago before I awoke, there used to be governments and order. That’s all gone. Now there is one law that we must answer to, and that law’s name is Eol. Recently his grip has tightened. He actually sets foot on our land now. It’s not just his soldiers we have to worry about anymore.”

“You will understand soon enough,” Bota added, rejoining the conversation. “Eol has an appetite for soul embers. If he is not fed, he eats away at the edge lands in search for them. I won’t let Eol devour my home, or my crew! So I feed Sleeper and Howler embers to him, to keep the peace.”

“Then you serve rather than fight, to keep your lives,” Oa reasoned as he began to understand.

Bota stared evenly at him. “Either way, Awoken are going to die. We have the strength to decide who it is. Did you see those Sleepers back there? They wallow in Eol’s grip already. Once you fixed them, they would have ripped your ember from you and sold it to Eol’s distributors. They do anything to barter for just one more Void immersion. There is no reasoning with their addiction. They are worthless beings destined to become Howlers. It’s them or us; that’s the way Eol keeps it.”

“Oa, you must be young—” Jad mused, “too young to have made hard choices yet, but you will one of these cycles. You will discover a great desire to keep yourself and the ones you love safe. Allow us to be your friends, and you can care for us the same way you tried to care for those miserable Sleepers. This time your good intentions won’t be misplaced.”

Oa wanted to protest, but he could not. Words wouldn’t come to him to explain to these Marauders any other way they should live. He still did not know enough. Oa disliked the situation but remained silent.

Jad could sense the young Awoken’s inner conflict. He put a hand on Oa’s shoulder for a moment before speaking. “We used to be more like you Oa, but times change. We didn’t always need to kill to survive. Eol has made that our reality now.”

Oa nodded and decided to change the subject. He had many questions, and Jad seemed smart enough to answer a few of them. “The Awoken you killed back there talked of the Destroyer. Were they referring to Eol?”