Chaos Theory (35 page)

“
It’s the transference of energy from one form into another,”
Blue said. “Someone wise once told me the scientific definitions
are fancy names for something natural. It happens all the time
around us.” He tapped his foot. “I could do it. Do it on a minor
scale when I use my psychokinetic abilities. Couldn’t she on a
larger magnitude?”

Lara’s mouth fell open. “You were spawned from Omicron stock
and selected as best. You are genetically superior. She is
Human.”

“
And stubborn as a rock,” Blue added.

“
What does that have to do with
anything
?”

Blue sort of smiled. “She knew it was possible. She’d never
stop trying.”

“
We don’t know she is a full Human for certain,” Kenshin said,
holding out a placating hand to Lara who had turned an unattractive
shade of red that clashed with her hair. “Creighton has confessed
her origins to be unknown, and Max says she displayed the same
implicit muscle memory skill as Blue.”

“
I’m lost,” Christabella mumbled, feeling dumb as brick in the
present company. “Etheric body?”

She had been lucky to be with Max when the invasion happened.
Had she been with her usual crowd, Christabella knew she’d more
than likely be wandering around barefoot with an alien baby in her
stomach.

Or dead.

She almost wished for the simplicity of pregnancy because
listening to the braincases was hurting her head.

“
Her aura,” Igor said in quiet awe. “Her second self. Her
spirit. Her–”

“
Soul,” Christabella interrupted sweetly. She touched his arm.
“I got it.”

Lara glared at Igor. “You’re not seriously considering this as
feasible? You’re trying to convince me she transformed black sand
crystals into a living, breathing replica of herself?”

“
Then sporadically astral projected her soul into it,” Blue
added. “Correct.”

“
Seriously?” Max finally caught up. Blue believed Kali had
created a clone of herself out of sand? The Virgin forgive him, he
was inclined to side with Lara on this one, but then he thought
about Kali, his best friend since the cradle. He thought of the way
her mind worked, and how she would make the impossible possible
because she was just that bolshie. “You know, that actually sounds
like something she would do. It explains why this replica Kali
didn’t have the muscle memory. Kal didn’t understand how that
worked, so she wouldn’t have been able to duplicate it.”

“
Kali was made of sand,” Christabella muttered, totally
confused. Her head turned from one face to another. “Stuff from the
beach?”

They all looked at her, blinked then looked away.

Igor was enchanted when she went pink with embarrassment and
ducked her head, rubbing her nose to cover her
bafflement.

“
I agree. It is logical,” Blue continued, gathering more
confidence in what he knew in his heart was fact. “Kali knows I’m
highly attuned to psi-gamma energy. Especially hers after
we….”

Max’s brow lifted. “You what?”

Blue eyes snapped to and from Creighton. He said nothing, not
wanting to rile the older man.

Kali and Blue’s minds and souls had merged during their kiss.
Was that why the Novae took her? Would she have been safe if he
hadn’t alerted them to her?

“
She hoped I would find her breadcrumb,” Blue said finally, his
cheeks hot thinking about that kiss. “Feel the real her reaching
out, and know she needed help. I failed. The replica said she felt
like she had to find someone. I thought she was talking about her
parents.”

“
This changes nothing.” Lara was uncompromising. “We’ll
strengthen our mental shields and block her out.”

Blue’s head dropped like the weight of the idea was too
much.

“
You evil bitch.” Max got in her face. “She’s found a way to
reach us. You want us turn our backs?”

“
Someone has to be the voice of reason. If the Creator gets his
hands on you Humans it’ll be bad.” Lara’s entire body shook with
rage and fear as she stood her ground. “They will chop us Hybrids
into pieces to see why we rebelled. They’ll rape our minds, and I’d
rather die than suffer that.”

“
I vote to find her,” Igor said. He shoved himself between Max
and Lara to prevent a physical fight. “The Novan we fought at the
encampment was surprised to see this replica too. Its consciousness
was different, disconnected from the Hive.” Igor shook his head. “I
didn’t understand how it could do that or why it would. Surely you
noticed it practically let us go.”

Max spluttered, “Let us go? Were you at the same rescue as
me?”

“
We were at a distance where escape was probable for Kali
before we ran into any real trouble. All was dealt with easily
enough.”

“
He tried to kill her,” Max argued.

“
It tried to send the replica back into its original form.”
Igor was confident in his analysis of the situation. “The question
we should be asking is why it cared if she was the real Kali, or
not, and why it became important she escape if it was likely the
replica would survive. It is not logical.”

Kenshin took one of Lara’s hands in his and patted it in
comfort. “There is no easy decision to be made here. Blue is our
leader for a reason. To doubt him now negates everything we are.
Omicron, what do we do?”

These Hybrids had come to him because they believed in his
ability to keep them safe. He had set them aside to find Kali, then
pushed them into helping him save her family. He could no longer
ask them to keep putting themselves at risk for someone he had
already failed to save once, no matter how deeply it tore him
apart.

Blue opened his mouth to give the logical answer his people
needed to hear, but his eyes strayed to his wrist. On it, the faded
leather strap Kali had tied onto him as they sat together under the
stars.

Howl sniffed at the braid and whined, staring at Blue
imploringly. The FetchMe loved his mistress and had known she
needed him. Howl had been loyal, and was dragged out of the habitat
he’d lived with Kali growling. Even he couldn’t protect
her.

Could anybody have kept her safe?

Maybe if Zeke’s team had been successful in its mission they
would have gone on to successfully save Kali and her
family.

It was then a snag caught in the fabric of his mind. He
explored the stray train of thought, and the snag gouged a gigantic
hole in his perfect reasoning. It hit Blue hard, tearing apart his
sangfroid as the breath whooshed from his lungs in shock. His
fingers curled under into fists.

He opened a ComLink with the bridge. “Zeke?” There was
silence. “Valiant?”

“
Sir?” Zeke’s worried voice came over the line.

“
You said you were on a mission to disable Sparks that entered
Earth’s atmosphere.”

Zeke worked out what Blue was talking about in a pause that
felt like forever. “Sparks, Sir?”

Blue thumbed his forehead in agitation. “Novan spaceships. You
told me that you were one third of a task force. Did you mean there
were three people or three teams?”

“
Teams.”

There was where he had gone wrong. He had made an assumption.
Zeke had meant three separate teams not three individuals in one
team. “Why? You were only to attack two ships, correct? What was
the extra team’s purpose?”

“
That’s a negative. We were on mission to destroy three
vessels. Three teams for three ships.”

“
Incorrect,” Lara, Igor and Kenshin said
simultaneously.

“
There were two consigns brought to earth,” Igor clarified,
clearing his throat. “Not three. One was sent to Quadrant1 for the
Hybrid Omicron use to assist in securing the area and the other was
sent to Quadrant6.”

“
How can you be sure?” Max demanded.

“
All Hybrids know this,” Kenshin answered. “It is just there,
like how we all know each other. In reconditioning, we were told
where to be and what to do.”

“
Two ships landed,” Lara affirmed. “Your commanding
intelligence was incorrect.”

“
No,” Zeke said slowly. “Ten ships were picked up on radar in
our solar system. There was a huge uproar at the base when two of
the ten left space and three entered Earth’s atmosphere. One ship
either appeared from nowhere or they tricked us. Three ships
definitely breached the Kármán line. We think a smaller ship
detached from one of the larger.”

The Kármán line was the marker that defined the altitude
Earth’s atmosphere became outer space. This boundary was well
monitored making the chances Zeke’s superiors were wrong
slim.

Blue could not consolidate what Zeke held to be truth and what
the Novae had told him to be true.

That he had not detected this inconsistency before was
infuriating.

“
Did all three land?”

“
Ah, no Sir.” Zeke sounded surprised. “It was suspected the
invisible ship didn’t touch down planet side. We had a visual on
two, and an approximate area on the third before it went
stealth.”

“
This was directly related to why you were ordered to extract
the three HiCaste families from Quadrant2 before the air strike was
launched, aša?”

“
Aša vahišta,” Zeke responded reverently. How Blue knew of his
faith Zeke did not know. Had he seen his prayer beads? He was
beginning to see there was little the Hybrid did not know or could
not work out. Blue had asked for the unquestionable truth – aša. He
called upon Zeke to honour an ancient concept, one of cardinal
importance, above any pledge to the Alliance he may have given.
Zeke could do nothing but give him the best truth – aša vahišta.
“Affirmative, Sir. Mission control was going to blow the entire
area and hope the blast caught the third.”

Some of the puzzle slotted into place. Blue smiled
victoriously. “Where are we now?”

“
Flying over what’s left of Quadrant5. It seems there was an
explosion of some kind down there. It was a blue collar quad.” He
choked up. “A lot of grunt factories.”

“
Turn around and go back to Quadrant2. I’m coming to the
bridge.”

There was a long silence. “Sir, the Crimzon–”

“
It was already fading when we took off. The blast was
contained to Quadrant1. Turn around.”

“
Yes, Sir. Adjusting course. Erm, want to let us in on what’s
happening?”

“
We’re rescuing Kali,” Blue replied, and strode out the
room.

PART FIVE:
ZETA

You are a
little soul carrying around a corpse.

Epictetus

29.

She felt the death as if it was her own. Kali thrashed, and
screamed inside her head, wanting out of the forsaken void. She had
been trapped for days, and days, crying inside, swearing vengeance,
and pleading with any deity she’d ever heard of to set her free or
to kill her. Death or life; anything but this numbing limbo she’d
been forced into.

When she had been dragged into the darkness, she had been
prepared for a painful death. Maybe it would eat her brain or rape
her then kill her. These things she had been prepared for, had
waited for, but they had never come.

Instead, she was stripped naked. Holes were punched into her
skin and tubes forced into her body. She was stuffed into a pod and
left there to squirm. It repeatedly delved into her mind, turned
her inside out, then told her not to fight because it had to know
if she and the others were worth the risk.

As far as Kali was concerned, it could go throw itself into a
black hole and implode there.

She couldn’t remember when she’d realised when it invaded her
mind that she could hijack the connection. Kali had been pissed
when she accidentally tumbled into its consciousness, and saw a
fraction of the wondrous things it knew.

She had done the only thing she could.

Kali learned.

She used the knowledge she stole to form a plan. A crazy but
utterly brilliant plan to send herself to Earth and search for her
parents, Max, Blue, anybody who could help her.

Astral projection was infuriatingly convoluted. Kali struggled
to push her soul outside her body when it had nowhere to go. She
didn’t know where her parents were, and had no idea where Blue
lived. She didn’t she know how to find him without a TalkMe, and
she could only maintain the ghostly form for
nanoseconds.

A long search as an insubstantial whisper on the wind just
wasn’t going to cut it.

It had attacked her mind again, and she sought a solution to
her problem.

Armed with a plan, Kali spent hours formulating a thought.
Each detail had to be meticulously premeditated and crafted with
painstaking attention to detail so that the moment she set it into
motion it didn’t end in horrific failure. The startling conclusion
of her work was herself, come alive, in the flesh. More startling
was that she hadn’t made an empty shell. What she created
was
herself
. Her
creation took on a mind and resisted her astral projection, making
Kali have to fight to be seen and heard.