Dark Space: Avilon (9 page)
Read Dark Space: Avilon Online
Authors: Jasper T. Scott
Tags: #Children's Books, #Literature & Fiction, #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Alien Invasion, #Cyberpunk, #First Contact, #Galactic Empire, #Military, #Space Fleet, #Space Opera, #Children's eBooks, #Metaphysical & Visionary, #Science Fiction
“What’s the first stop?” Ceyla asked the Peacekeeper who was sitting down beside her.
He turned to her with glowing yellow eyes. “You will see,” was all he said.
The shuttle rose off the ground, giving an aerial view of the countryside around the top of Destiny Tower. There were dozens of mansions like the one they’d awoken in, gently rolling fields of grass and majestic trees filled the gaps between them. The nearest mansion was about a kilometer away. There Atton saw another transport like theirs, a bright speck hovering in for a landing. A small group of white-robed people waited on the landing pad below.
“Looks like we’re not the only ones going on a tour,” Atton said, pointing to the second transport.
“Are they refugees, too?” Ceyla asked.
This time Atton read the Peacekeeper’s name from the glowing blue text that appeared above his head—
Templar Delon Tarn (Acolyte).
“They are Avilonian children,” Delon replied.
Ceyla nodded. “Master Rovik mentioned something about that last night. Do all of your children have to go through The Choosing?”
“Yes.”
“When did you go through yours?”
“At the same time as everyone else. Age eight.”
“
Eight?
How can you possibly be expected to choose where you will live for the rest of your life when you’re eight years old?”
“For most children The Choosing is just a formality. It is a chance to learn how the other half—or third—lives.”
“But some children choose to go to the Null Zone.”
“Yes. Some do.”
“Do their families have to follow them?”
“No.”
Ceyla gaped at the Peacekeeper. “What? You send them into the Null zone alone?”
“No one sends them. Those who choose to go, go freely. There are institutions to look after them.”
“That’s barbaric!”
“Barbarism is the product of free will. If we weren’t free to choose, we wouldn’t be responsible for our actions. Even children are accountable.”
“But you can’t expect
kids
to make the right choices when they’re still so young!”
Atton chimed in, “Why make people choose at all?”
The Peacekeeper fixed Atton with his yellow-eyed gaze. “Would you like to live in paradise with a body that ages, sickens, and dies? You would eventually die and be forced to resurrect anyway.”
Atton shook his head. “It should at least be an option to live in Etheria with the body you were born with.”
Ceyla scowled. “How do you know you’re not going to kill all of those kids when they transfer to their perfected bodies?”
Delon’s yellow eyes narrowed. “Are you suggesting that what we are is more than physical matter?”
“I’d say it was more than a suggestion,” Ceyla put in. She was an Etherian—the old kind—which meant that she believed in Etheria as a place that existed on some other plane of existence with a good god named Etherus who was the creator of the universe and ruler of Etheria. “Omnius’s Lifelink implants are just a technological version of the immortal soul, and Omnius is a human-made version of Etherus,” she said.
The Peacekeeper’s lip twitched. “Your religion was founded on rumors of life on Avilon. There is no life after this one, so I suggest you accept Omnius’s offer to preserve the one you have. You don’t need to die, Miss Corbin.”
Ceyla replied through gritted teeth, “The Etherian religion pre-dates Omnius and his so-called paradise.”
“Really?” Delon cocked his head. “Show me the proof of that, and I will shout it from the highest rooftops. I will personally lead a rebellion to overthrow Omnius and stop The Choosing once and for all.”
“Aren’t you afraid Omnius will hear you?” Atton asked through a smirk.
“I would never
actually
lead a rebellion against Him, because you can’t prove that Omnius has been lying to us. We are not atheists by choice; we are atheists because no one, not even Omnius, can find proof of a life that exists beyond this one. One of the reasons for The Choosing is to weed out those who are susceptible to creationistic thinking. They would seek to undermine our entire way of life.” Delon shook his head. “Those people will never tolerate the idea that this is all there is, and we will never tolerate their insistence that it isn’t, so we live apart, with the religious fools living in shadows and governed by chaos, while the enlightened live in the light, governed by the truth.”
Ceyla shook her head furiously, blond hair flaring over her shoulders, her blue eyes wild and flashing. “You are the fool,” she whispered.
The Peacekeeper smirked and looked away, ending the conversation. Atton looked away, too. The Peacekeeper’s arguments troubled him in a way he couldn’t explain. He wasn’t religious. He wasn’t an atheist either. So what did it matter?
And yet, it did matter.
In the distance, the horizon appeared as a misty white line of tall buildings, shimmering in the morning sun. The seemingly endless countryside around the palace where they’d spent the night came to an abrupt end. Atton recalled the night sky, with all its shining stars, and he wondered about that. If the city lay all around them, the light from it had to be filtered out somehow or they wouldn’t see the stars. No doubt the same something hid the skyscrapers from view when they were standing on the ground.
Smoke and mirrors,
Atton thought. It was tough to tell how much of what they saw on Avilon was simulated and how much of it was real.
The shuttle was still rising, now hovering at least 500 meters off the ground, but
ground
was a deceptive concept, since the rooftops below them, which formed the ground level of Celesta, were themselves a full kilometer above the real surface of the planet.
The shuttle spun in a slow circle to give them all a 360-degree view of their surroundings. Buildings rose up everywhere in the distance. Bright green parks adorned the rooftops of the low-rise buildings, and shimmering cascades of water skipped from one level of the city to another. In the very hazy distance, Atton could see a mid-level series of bridges or elevated streets criss-crossing between the highest buildings. Above and below those streets, faint, blurry black lines of air traffic etched the sky.
It looked so peaceful, so orderly and neat—a sharp contrast from the night before when the Sythians had turned it all into a raging inferno.
After the shuttle had made a full rotation, it suddenly leapt forward, but none of them felt the tug of movement. Countryside raced by beneath their feet. It ran to an abrupt end with a blue river of light that ran around the top of Destiny Tower—the shield that separated Celesta from Etheria. It was hexagonally segmented and semi-transparent, revealing the city of Etheria below. Then came the jagged rise and fall of low-rise towers and neatly organized parks. Narrow footpaths ran along the rooftops, and Atton spotted a train, running on elevated tracks. There were no streets on the ground for cars, but plenty of landing pads where they could hover down in front of the buildings.
Atton turned back to the Peacekeeper. “Why do you have transports on Avilon if you could just teleport from one place to another?”
“Because teleporting, as you call it, is expensive. Quantum jump drives are cheaper for long, interstellar distances, but for planetary travel we only make quantum jumps when time is of the essence.”
“That makes sense . . .” Atton said, quietly relieved that he wouldn’t have to go through the disorienting process of
jumping
every time he wanted to go somewhere. “Where are we going?”
“You will see,” Delon replied, repeating the short answer he’d given a few minutes ago.
Atton frowned, and Ceyla whispered to him, “What’s with all the mystery?”
He shook his head. “Another part of Omnius’s shock and awe program.”
“Well, I’m running out of awe. He’s already laying it on a bit thick,” she replied.
Atton knew what she was talking about. The reunion with their loved ones in the clouds was a good example. Why reunite them in the sky, and use technological wizardry to make them all think they were somehow floating above the clouds? He had a feeling Omnius was using technology to inspire reverence.
Omnius grando est,
he thought, recalling the words of praise he’d heard last night. Back then he hadn’t known what they’d meant, but he’d managed to guess—
Great is Omnius.
Maybe by the end of the week he’d be chanting that, too.
Chapter 8
B
retton took off the helmet and sat back in his chair, slowly blinking in the sterile white light of Dag’s operating room. Dag had grown tired of standing at his control console and he was now slumping on a stool, wide-eyed with shock. Despite warning Farah to keep the engine running and keep a lookout for trouble, he’d told her to join him inside Dag’s shop right after the initial revelation that the man they’d rescued was a Sythian agent. She was seated in a chair next to his, now yanking off her helmet, too.
“I wasn’t expectin’ that,” Dag said simply.
“You think the Etherians know about this?” Farah asked.
“If they do, they’ve been awful quiet,” Bretton said. Etherians were allowed to visit their loved ones in the Null Zone, but Nulls were not allowed to visit them in Etheria. That one-way flow of traffic brought with it the occasional news from the Uppers, but it was far from an official source, and Omnius didn’t allow his people to share everything they knew. Perhaps this was one of the things they were keeping to themselves?
Farah busied herself with peeling a few sweaty blond locks of hair off her forehead. They’d had their heads inside those helmets for hours while Dag took them on a guided tour of Commander Lenon Donali’s treacherous mind.
It wasn’t Donali’s fault that he was a traitor; he’d been made into a Sythian agent against his will, but now that Bretton knew the whole story, he couldn’t help feeling like Donali’s capture had been a stroke of fate.
“So we’re all Sythians,” Farah said.
“Not exactly. They’re still millions of years down the evolutionary chain from us. That makes them alien enough,” Bretton said.
“But they used to be humans,” Farah replied.
Bretton nodded.
“I’m more surprised that there have been
two
Great Wars,” Farah said. “One in this galaxy, and one in theirs. History repeated itself even after we should have known better.”
“Maybe we forgot.”
“Omnius is right to make us choose,” Dag mused. “Immortals and mortals can’t live together without slaughterin’ each other over their beliefs.”
“Do you think Omnius knows all this?” Farah asked.
“If someone out there with a working Lifelink knows about it, then so does he,” Bretton replied.
“So why is this the first we’re hearing about it?”
“Simple, Omnius lied,” Bretton said.
Dag shook his head. “Lyin’ ain’t the same as omission. When you know everythin’ there is to know, ain’t possible to share it all.”
Bretton smiled thinly. “We’re not talking about demystifying quantum indeterminacy to predict the future. We’re talking about the origins of our race. Omnius doesn’t share everything he knows because if he did, he wouldn’t have the upper hand anymore.”
Dag shrugged. “What’s it matter if he hid that from us?”
Bretton gave an incredulous snort. “If he’s hiding where we came from, maybe that’s not all he’s hiding. We need something to open peoples’ eyes, to make them see what Omnius really is, and why they should shut him down. This could be it.”
“Even if you get it right, they’ll never all see that at once,” Dag replied. “And I’m not sure we
can
shut him down. You’re wastin’ your life with bitterness, Bret, and it’s goin’ to get you killed.”
“Just because it’s personal doesn’t mean I’m wrong. You can hide down here and pretend we’re not oppressed because Omnius more or less keeps his nose out of our affairs, but we’re stuck. Children are the future, and we aren’t having any. When was the last time anyone down here got a breeding license? Never. They’re too expensive.”
“Lots of unlisted Nulls get illegally fertilized and have kids without a breeding license,” Farah said. “They can afford to feed and clothe their kids, but that’s it. No money for education or health care. That’s why the government makes us pay
before
we have any children. I’m no fan of Omnius, but we can’t blame him for all of our problems.”
Dag nodded along with Farah’s arguments. “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, you should listen to your partner, Bret. She’s a smart one, and she’ll keep you out of trouble.”
Bretton ignored him. “So why don’t you go back?” he asked Farah. “You don’t need an education in Etheria. Omnius just downloads whatever you need to know, straight to your Lifelink.”
She shook her head and looked away. “I’d get bored. A little chaos is what makes life interesting.”
Bretton made no secret of why he’d come down here after Omnius had resurrected him, but Farah’s reasons were less clear. He suspected an unusual fondness and concern for her uncle was at fault, but maybe she really had just gotten bored.
“From what I hear the Etherians ain’t havin’ any children either. They’re buyin’ their breedin’ licenses years in advance.”
“And from what
I
hear Omnius is already working on that. He’s busy preparing a whole new world just so that his
children
can have children of their own. New Avilon they’re calling it. How much do you want to bet they won’t be selling any tickets to Nulls when it’s done?”
Dag frowned. “Where did you hear that?”
“Information is the only weapon we have, and the Resistance is far from defenseless. Believe me, fifty levels above our heads, the Etherians are all lining up to buy their breeding licenses for the price of a loaf of bread. Just because they can’t use them yet doesn’t mean they won’t. As for us? Forget about it. Not in this lifetime, and we only get one.”
Dag’s lip twitched and he looked away. “Well, I never liked kids, anyway. Can’t afford no wife neither.”
Farah placed a hand on Bretton’s arm. “We need to de-link this guy and go. I electrified the car, but I don’t think that will stop determined thieves.”
Bretton nodded absently. “Dag, we could use someone like you. You believe in an after life, but you’re keeping it all for yourself. Why don’t you share the good news?”
“Not my business what others believe or don’t. I got my life, they got theirs.”
“All right, then do it because Omnius has to be stopped before he decides to turn us all into drones.”
“Aren’t
you
a drone?” Dag asked simply.
Drone
was one of the Nulls’ pejoratives for immortal Avilonians. It was their way of saying that something about Ascendants, with their perfect bodies and their carefully-controlled behavior wasn’t entirely human. Bretton hadn’t been given a choice about becoming a
drone
. He’d died in the war and Omnius had resurrected him here to find his pregnant wife waiting for him in paradise. Now she was in Etheria and he was down here. She’d long since stopped making conjugal visits, or any other kind of visits for that matter. He didn’t blame her after everything that had happened.
Bretton gave a bitter smirk. “So take it from someone who knows. The only difference between me and an Omni is that I’m programmed with a personality and Omnies aren’t.”
“Bret, drop it. Dag’s comfy. He’s got his shop. He doesn’t need to waste his life chasing conspiracy theories.”
Dag gave a tight smile and nodded once. “At least someone understands me. If I were a younger man, you’d be in trouble—pretty girl like you, charmer like me, we’d be liquid dymium.”
“If you were a younger man, I’d punch that dirty grin off your face.”
Dag turned to Bret. “Ain’t she somethin’?”
“She’s somethin’ alright,” Bretton replied. He nodded to the Sythian agent, still lying unconscious on Dag’s table. “Copy his link data to a holo card and de-link him.”
Dag turned to him, his glowing orange eyes narrowed to slits. “Backups cost extra.”
“We can’t afford to lose this information, Dag.”
“So pay for it.”
“I’ll get the Resistance to pay me and then I’ll pay you later, how’s that?”
Dag seemed to consider that. “Fine, but after this we’re even. Your favor’s been called. You come back here, you better be willing to pay full price.”
Bretton nodded. “Sure thing.”
* * *
“How long before we get to wherever it is we’re going?” Atton asked.
“Not long,” Peacekeeper Delon Tarn replied, leaning forward in his seat, as if even he were in suspense.
The city raced by beneath their feet. The gray, green, and blue blur of buildings, parks, and shields grew larger and more distinct, seeming to race by faster and faster as they descended.
They came to within a few hundred feet of the rooftops, and suddenly the variegated blur underfoot became a solid color—a sea of blue shields. Just one building dominated the horizon, floating in that sea.
The tower was like Omnius’s Zenith Tower in that it rose more than a kilometer above the Celestial Wall, but it was not a delicate-looking tower of light and architectural beauty, it was a gleaming black fortress of bristling armor and weapons.
The
Sightseer
raced onward, seemingly on a collision course with the massive structure. The morning sun disappeared behind the tower’s bulk, and the building became limned in a bold red light, as if dipped in blood.
In the distance, a tiny blue-white square of light appeared. They raced toward it until it became the gaping maw of a hangar.
The
Sightseer
plunged inside and came to a sudden stop just before they would have slammed into the far wall. At the top of the wall was a bank of viewports, tinted a glossy black, and lit from within. The hangar’s control tower. Dark shadows roved within.
A giant door slid aside below the control tower, and the
Sightseer
slipped into an empty berth.
Peacekeeper Delon Tarn unbuckled his flight restraints and stood up. He turned to them with a smile. “Welcome to Tree of Life 1177,” he said.
“Tree of what?” Ceyla asked, sounding like she was about to burst out laughing. The brittle edge in her voice made Atton think otherwise.
“Tree of Life,” Delon repeated.
“What is it?” Atton asked, unbuckling and rising to his feet with the other refugees.
The Peacekeeper didn’t answer Atton’s question, but once everyone had disembarked and was standing on the deck beside the shuttle, Master Rovik explained.
“This is where you will all be re-born if at the end of this week you choose life. In just a moment we will be taken on a tour of the tower’s main facilities.”
Master Rovik turned to a pair of broad doors behind him. They slid open, parting down the middle to admit a group of soldiers wearing strange, silvery armor, and round helmets with circular, glowing red visors. Their footsteps echoed in unison with a loud, metallic clanking. As they drew near, Atton saw that the soldiers’ limbs were too thin to be human. Their glowing red visors were optics, and the rounded helmets were heads. These were the bots they’d seen guarding the mansion the night before
.
“Here, Omnius doesn’t even permit his chosen ones to come and go as they please. The entire facility is run by drones, to prevent accidental contamination of the clone labs or data centers.” Galan turned to them with a smile, his blue eyes glowing bright in the relatively dim light of the hangar.
The drones
came to a halt before the assembled group of refugees, and their clanking footsteps stopped with one final echo. The drones’ ball-shaped heads rolled this way and that, red cyclopean optics scanning the group. Then the drones fanned out, surrounding them. Even the Peacekeepers were surrounded, but as soon as Master Rovik started forward, their drone escort began walking, too, forcing the refugees in the center to keep pace.
As they drew near to the broad doors where the drones had come from, Atton noticed that the corridor beyond was transparent. It crossed out over a vast field of hexagonally-shaped lights. Here and there drones could be seen walking across the field.
The group reached the corridor and exclamations filled the air as everyone noticed what that field of lights was. Inside of each hexagonally-shaped cell was a drifting mop of human hair.
Atton flinched. His skin began to crawl, and he shivered.
This was a clone lab.