Log 1 Matter | Antimatter (16 page)

He laid it on the blanket and sat
cross-legged near the water; he poured some water into a dark
earthen cup and offered it to her.

Ara took it and drank, the cool, sweet taste
pleasing. “I like this!”

“It’s water from the stream, and a fruit
called ‘Ogola’.”

She nodded wisely and sat in front of him.
They sat quietly listening as the birds began to call to each other
again, and rustles in the dense foliage told her beasts were roving
around once more.

She looked at the box. “What’s in there?”

“Quadrazaads.” His eyes suddenly locked on to
hers and they became very alert. “They are Chaos Seeds. Would you
like to see them?

“Yes, please.” She was proud of her
politeness.

He knelt before the box, and she joined him.
As he opened it, Ara saw four large, egg like sacs evenly placed in
the box. Each lay on a nest of something brown … feathers!
Trickster waved his hand over them and they all pulsed different
colors. One reacted more.

“That one likes you.” She giggled at his
expression.

“It is “Sulture” and is older. The magma
inside the little chamber can be released and flow as lava to form
whatever I want.”

“Can you show me?”

“Not yet. They are too small.” He eased back
slightly. “Your turn, Ara. Wave your hand over them.”

Excitement filled her and she tried not to
jump around. One, because she was nine now, and two, she might
spill water-juice over them. Trickster took her cup and moved to
the side so she could kneel. As she moved her hand over them, only
one pulsed and she was disappointed, secretly hoping they would all
pulse to show Trickster she was very important being a Pure-Gen.
But she wasn’t important here it seemed. Ara sucked in her lips and
looked at Trickster to see if he was disappointed too.

But he met her eyes and nodded. “That’s the
“Strike”.”

“The Strike?” she looked back. “Is it more
important than the”—it would be rude to say “Sulture” so she said—
“others?”

“They are all important. All four.”

Neither his tone nor the expression on his
face was chastising her so Ara nodded. “Oh.” She raised her hand to
touch it and quickly snatched her hand away.

“You may touch it.”

Ara leaned over and carefully touched the
sac, which felt leathery but soft, it was warm. Inside she could
see sparks and flickers of energy. “Energy?”

“Pure energy.” He pointed to the first one.
“That is Strike. The next—”

“Sulture.”

He nodded. “The next is “Stagger”, and then
there is the “Sturm”.”

Ara studied them all, pointing as she went.
“If that’s magma, and mine … I mean that one is energy, what’s
Stagger and Sturm?”

“Stagger is fire and ice, and Sturm is wind,
thunder, lightning and rain.”

“Hmmmm.” Ara blinked, trying to fight sleep
now.

“Lay down and sleep now, Ara Katron.”

He placed the long, wooden lid over the
Quadrazaads.

“I like the box too.” She tried to stifle a
yawn.

“I made it.” Trickster sat up and pointed to
the blanket.

She looked behind her to avoid the tomahawk
and lay down looking up through the thick canopy of green. The
skies were greenish blue and it was so hot! As she dozed Ara heard
a pleasant voice singing her to sleep.

Homestead

The next morning Mum complained.

“Ara Katron, where have you been?” Pen was
moving around her room picking up the quilt that she’d shoved off
her hot skin in the night.

“Jungle.” She said sleepily, rubbing the grit
out of her eyes and sitting up, staring down at her dirty feet. She
bent her leg up seeing the remains of the bug on the ball and heel
of her foot. “Sorry, Mum. I’ll clean it up.”

“Yes you will, young lady. I don’t want you
running around the farm at night. Honestly!”

The quilt was dumped on her bed and Mum
thumped out to start yelling at Marc next.

“You are older, Marc! I shouldn’t have to be
waking you too…”

Ara fell back onto her pillow and smiled.

Marc sighed hearing Mum yell. Jamie hadn’t
detected him follow Ara but he was sure Trickster had. They had
agreed not to change their behavior in regards to Ara’s dreams so
as not to worry her. Marc thought Mum and Dad found it too easy to
act the maggoty parents. He wanted to ask Aven why he could follow
Ara’s dreams but he didn’t want to start up another argument. There
really wasn’t anyone else to ask either that he trusted. And those
Quadrazaads! Amazing. Over the years, he’d been linking with Ara’s
mind, but there was more than that. He always knew, no, he always
felt when Ara connected to Maya. Why would he feel that connection?
But when the Strike had reacted to her, Marc felt a surge of energy
through him too. Was it because he was an Aether Being? But
Trickster called them Chaos Seeds. Was Chaos like Aether energy and
matter? He didn’t think so and decided to try to do some research
on Chaos.

A couple of years later, Marc went upstairs from the
garage and poked his head inside Mum and Dad’s tidy office. They
weren’t there but he entered, closed the door, walked over to the
comms, and tapped Jamie’s private number. It took a moment and then
a voice behind him said, “Well, shit. She knows.”

Marc grinned and ended the call. Ara had come
back from a visit to Caleb’s knowing that her guard and Marc were
spying on her mind and dreams. “What was the trigger?”

“Don’t you know?” Jamie walked over to the
closest chair and sat down. He raised a leg and rested his ankle on
his knee.

Marc tried to look at something other than
Jamie. The long bench with stacks of contracts, tablets, and family
pictures along the wall behind Jamie was a good start. “Comments
made from family members, things she and Caleb talked about.”

Jamie rubbed his head. “She’s too smart for
her own good.”

Marc sat down in the chair opposite the one
Jamie was in and mimicked his body language. “What do we do?”

“Nothing. You might ask Aven why Maya is
sending Ara logs about the matter levels but I see by your
expression you don’t like that idea.”

It was bad enough that Ara felt pressure
about being a Pure-Gen Mobile Unit, especially when she’d been
fabricated over nine hundred years after the last Pure-Gen, and now
her link to matter levels rising in Iota? Poor kid. Marc squashed
the suspicion that Aven might be nasty enough to send those logs so
that Ara did fret. “She’ll be watching for us in her mind now.”

“Us?”

“Damn!” Marc was too embarrassed to meet
Jamie’s amused look. He tapped at the desk on his right, pretending
to flick something off. “You know?”

“Believe it or not, technology seems to work
better when monitoring and tracking Ara.”

“That’s odd.” Marc recovered a little. “Feel
like sharing?”

It was Jamie’s turn to turn red. “I only seem
to mess up with you.”

They both fell silent now.

Marc turned his mind back to the real worry.
“She’s connected somehow to the genocide cycle.”

Jamie gave a slight nod. “Either someone is
forcing matter levels to rise to trigger genocide or they are doing
it for other reasons and matter rising is a side effect that they
accept and will deal with later. Welcome to the mission, by the
way.”

Marc’s jaw dropped with the realization that
his role was about to expand and then he was disappointed. “You
didn’t fuck up then?”

Jamie leaned forward with a thoughtful
expression on his rugged face. The dark eyes locked on to his. “I
didn’t. But I wasn’t supposed to inform you until next week.”

“Ah.” Marc leaned forward while his heart
pounded. “Thank you for telling me.”

When Jamie leaned back, he sighed loudly. “We
can’t do this, Marc.” He spread out his strong fingers. “I can’t do
this for the very reason you thought I’d fucked up. And then
there’s your legal Aryan age. Because, if I let myself have
feelings for you, I will have to leave the mission.”

Marc nodded and said quietly, “Ara needs you
more than I do. I’m glad the air is clear between us.”

“Me too.” Jamie stood. “Now, pack your bags.
We have to go to Perza Space Station and fill you in.”

Excitement filled Marc. Once he had settled
on Saratoga, he’d been worried he’d be forgotten, especially since
he couldn’t do much with the Three Empires and Grands issue. He was
an operative but had been shunted to family care rather than the
protective detail. He had tried not to let it get to him, but Jamie
had picked up on his discontent.

Jamie smiled. “You are welcome. You need to
work on guarding your thoughts more.”

“I’m out of practice.”

They both knew the real reason why but Marc
knew Jamie had made the right choice in regards to a relationship
between them. They had a mission to run and it was easier to focus
without getting involved.

“So, what’s the first order of business?”

“Getting bags packed.”

Marc opened the door. “Right.”

***

Upon Marc’s return from being sworn in, he
attended Tricia’s Virgo. The ritual was kept in the traditional
style held by Pure-Gens. Tricia thought it might help Ara
understand more of her heritage. It distressed him more than he
could bear. It made him realize how much he loved her. And then
Ara’s reaction to the whole ritual and witty comments had eased his
heart and mind. But then Tricia’s Virgo partner, Ike, made horrific
statements to Ara that crushed her gentle heart at the reception
and, as if that wasn’t bad enough, Ike had followed Ara and Ersen
into town to sexually assault her.

Ersen had taken care of the Avatara male and
all Ara could seem to talk about was how brave Ersen was, and not
about how bad Ike had been. She had also been more worried about
Tricia than herself and said, “It’s okay, Marc. I wasn’t in any
real danger.” She was too blasé about her safety and knowledge that
her guards would save her. And that left him and Jamie to discuss
measures to try to raise her self-awareness.

As he headed to his room, he heard Ara
yelling at someone downstairs. Then he heard Dad yell back. Soon,
he saw Ashley, Henry and Ara stomp up the stairs. Dad was behind
them, shooing them up.

“Ara?” Marc asked.

“Huh?” She had a dazed look to her face.
Marc’s light connection to her implant shocked him. She received a
CU log.

CARDINAL Unit 9 (CU) Cycle and
Logs

Reporting on MONITOR Mobile
Unit

1117317627853872

MONITOR returning to date 0.99%
feasible data

COLLATE data

COMPARE data

End check

And now Maya was fogging her brain. That was
odd and again he worried that it was Aven. How many times had the
fogging happened? Ara, at times, seemed younger than her eleven
years of age while at other times she seemed much older. He had to
tell Jamie.

“…clothes shopping, you three need new—”

“Do I have to?” They all whined at the same
time, breaking into giggles while looking at each other.

But Terance’s dark eyes narrowed. “Yes.
You’ve got five minutes, now go.”

“What about fish, chip, and movie night?”
Henry asked.

“We’re still having our special family night
when we get home. Four minutes.”

Ten-year-old Ashley, nine-year-old Henry, and
Ara stomped to their rooms. Ara flashed Marc a large smile before
disappearing into her room. Ashley and Henry ran past him and
whispered to each other about how they might be able to go to the
beach too. Dad rolled his eyes and headed back down the stairs.

Ashley bolted back to Ara’s room. “Wear your
bathers.” He ran past Marc again.

Marc stepped quickly up to Ara’s door. “Are
you okay?”

Her arms were bruised badly. “I’m okay. Good
trip?”

“It was okay.”

“Good.”

It was one of those “Ara” conversations where
if she didn’t want to talk, most gave up, while other times you
couldn’t shut her up. Since Ara dug through her drawers and
grumbled about something, he left her to it.

Saratoga City

Tarus returned from visiting the agitated
Chaos Entity. Nyx’s Safeguard was far too effective and he had to
go deeper into the labyrinth this visit. The agitation had been
triggered by Ara who had been attacked by a male. He had to come
and see her to make sure she was alright. He strolled behind and
watched eleven-year-old Ara chatting with her siblings in the city.
Her hair was in a ponytail and swinging from side to side. Her
brothers, Henry and Ashley, hung on her every word and when they
could, they managed to get a word in.

He was loyal to the Chaos Brethren, and the
fight for the New Empire. But he was protective of the Vanguard
too. There might not be any rules to this unconventional war as
outlined in the Dictates of the Righteous but Tarus wanted to
ensure that, on the path to fighting for their New Empire, they
maintained some semblance of honor. The problem was Cobra and Viper
were corrupting already, and the more time they spent inside the
Lacuna the worse they became. Tarus worried for them. He also hated
the changes in the radiation and inherent malevolence of the system
in Iota, which ate away at them like rot in a piece of fruit. He
didn’t want to live in an empire built on shameful acts and
misconduct.

Ara’s laughter brought him out of his reverie
and the family ducked into a large apartment store heading to the
clothes department. He tagged along, and rifled through some
shirts, listening as Ara helped Ashley and Henry pick out clothes
while hiding from her mum who was trying to get her to try on some
dresses.