The 17 (16 page)

Zack debated whether to pry deeper, but his curiosity won out. “Can I ask you something?”

Splifkin stared at the screen and did not answer.

“Hello? Splifkin?”

“Yes, Zack, I can see you, remember. Fine. Ask if you must.”

“Why do you work for them? How long have you worked for them?”

Splifkin stopped typing, his finger frozen over the key and his green skin melted into a bluish tint. It was a question Zack could tell pained him, and not just because of his pigment change. Zack needed to understand why he was so special and Splifkin was not.

“They brought me here … you know, it’s been so long I’ve forgotten. They put me and my kind through the trials like they do to all species they collect. I guess we didn’t pass the test. But they plucked me out of the games, asked me to do this for them and I agreed. It was better than fighting battle after battle, war after war, seeing my friends die and come back, only to die again. I’ve come to enjoy my role. I’m treated well. I live well.”

“Don’t you miss home?”

“Every day. They do a fine job recreating it, but it’s not the same.”

“What happened to your friends?”

Splifkin was done answering questions. “You have some studying to do. Go now. I have work.”

“But I have questions.”

“Go!” Splifkin bellowed, pointing toward the door. His face was taking on a reddish hue now.

“I don’t understand. I just want to understand.”

Splifkin stood, his face bright red with a tinge of purple swirled in it. He growled, showing his sharp, pointed, ivory teeth. Zack leapt to his feet and backed away slowly as Splifkin stalked around the desk and toward him. “You do as I say! You never disobey me! You understand?”

Zack backed away more quickly now until he was flush against the steel door. Splifkin continued his angry, menacing walk toward him and Zack feared for his life, even though he couldn’t believe Splifkin would actually kill him. The Ankhs certainly wouldn’t like that, Zack thought, and he must know there would be retribution. Still, his enraged eyes and boiling skin made Zack wonder and fear the worst. Just before Splifkin reached Zack, the door swung open and Zack tumbled backward, falling at Mizuki’s feet.

“Splifkin! Stop!” Mizuki commanded and Splifkin, startled, halted his approach. “He’s human. They ask a lot of questions. They’re inquisitive, but they don’t always listen. He’s a noob, remember? He doesn’t understand.”

Splifkin’s red skin slowly turned green again. He closed his mouth and swallowed harshly. “The boy has a lot to learn. Make sure that he does.”

Mizuki nodded and grabbed Zack under the armpits with her sinewy arms and pulled him to his feet. His legs wobbled from the release of tension and terror.

“I’m … I’m sorry,” Zack mumbled.

Splifkin grabbed the thick folder and shoved it into Zack’s chest. “Study this. Learn every line. Become an Omian. All is forgiven.”

Splifkin slammed the door shut and Zack let out a long exhale. He felt jittery and braced himself against the door.

Zack thought Mizuki was going to be terse with him, berate him for ignoring her warnings. But she didn’t. Zack was continually amazed by Mizuki.

“You’re an idiot,” she said, simpering. “What did I tell you? Do you even listen to a word I say?”

“I know. But you know me.”

“Yes. Unfortunately.” Mizuki playfully punched Zack on the arm.
She had such sharp knuckles.
“C’mon,
noob
. I’ll help you study.”

†††

Page after page, Zack read about the Omians with great interest and admiration.

Splifkin was correct; they were very similar to humans. They had most of the same organs—they had shed their tonsils, appendix and gallbladder generations ago—and they were mostly in the same locations. They were a bit shorter on average, fitter probably because of the abundance of leafy green vegetables on their planet, Wahe, and their disdain for eating red meat. They were a very spiritual people, polytheistic, with a belief in a heaven.

And a hell.

The group of six Omians probably believed they were in hell now.

They had a glorious culture with painters and sculptors and philosophers. He recognized one famous Omian sculpture in his research folder as one that rested in the hallway on a marble table just down the hall from his bedroom.

The Omians had brutal wars and waged some of them still, but were mostly a peaceful race. They still had their foibles, their blemishes—such as a deep divide between the wealthy and the poor—but they were working on erasing them.

Zack had a strange thought: he’d like to visit there someday. Then he realized he would soon, in a round-about way.

Zack leafed through the pictures of the six Omian captives—he had no other way to put it. There were three boys and three girls roughly the same age as Zack and they had only been there for a short time. They were still scared and timid, but a boy with stark blond hair, deep blue eyes and a gentle smile named Lucan had drawn the Ankh’s attention.

And Zack’s, too.

He was shorter than normal for his race, thin and frail, very circumspect but a surprisingly able fighter. Lucan, though, found clever ways to avoid killing his foes in the two short battles he and his group had been thrust into.

In the first, he slammed the blade of his thin sword through his felled opponent’s cloak and into the marsh, pinning her there. Lucan removed his adversary’s metal mask, and then shed his, pointing to his eyes, and then hers; at his lips and then hers; at his ears, and then hers and whispered “We are the same.”

He was run through by a sword a moment later, but as he lay there, bleeding out, he reached his hand toward the pinned girl, who reached her hand toward him. As he died, their hands were clasped.

In the second setting, Lucan emptied his gun, which contained metal pellets his people once used in a war long ago, and convinced the rest of his group to do the same. They stood, the pellets forming mounds at their feet, and waited for their enemy to attack.

Once they finally arrived, ready to spill blood, they paused at the sight of Lucan and his disarmed group.

The truce didn’t last long; Lucan was the first to be ripped apart by the fired buckshot, but he smiled and thanked their God of Forgiveness as he died.

Zack read about the others who weren’t quite as enlightened as Lucan, but not as boorish as Harness, or aloof as Cass, or melodramatic as Zill or as pensive as Brock and thought Lucan had a much easier time than he.

Mizuki sat across from Zack at a table in the dining hall and also intently pored over the pages. She smiled, too, when she read about Lucan. “He sounds a lot like you.” She peered up at Zack with a slanted smile. “They are fascinating.”

Zack had a sobering thought. “What if I fail?”

Mizuki countered quickly. “You probably will. It’s an impossible assignment. I should know.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better.”

“Would you rather I coddle you, or tell you the truth? You strike me as the kind of guy who wants the truth, so I’m giving you the truth.”

Zack grinned. She was right. He did want the truth, no matter how blunt it was. “How did you cope while living with us?”

Mizuki paused, took a deep breath and spoke. “It was difficult. Everything about your race is a riddle and a contradiction. You are so complicated. My people took the path of simplicity. We don’t have all the distractions you have with your technology. Sure, we have gadgets, but very few of them are designed for entertainment. They all serve a purpose. Your race is preoccupied with leisure. You make things more difficult than they need to be and you suffer for it.”

Mizuki rose, walked around the table and stood close to Zack, so close in fact he could smell a hint of her fragrance and feel her warm breath on the nape of his neck. She pulled up her tank top to just under her breasts to show off her flat stomach, which had several tattoos of symbols similar to the ones sketched on the walls of her room. She turned and showed him her back which was covered with an intricate design in violet and red and other colors that blended into a beautiful collage. It was quite stunning.

She turned again and pointed to a tattoo just above her navel, a beautiful swirl of amber and rose that looked similar to a yin and yang. “We get this tattoo when we reach seventeen. It means we have matured and we can make our own decisions—two paths. Most of us decide to stay with our clans to tend the fields or work in the factories to make our simple goods. Others chose to become philosophers or artists or teachers. I chose a third path. I chose to be an explorer, to seek out new ways of doing things. For that, I was shunned. As is our custom for the shunned, my given name was stripped from me. There is no tattoo for that.”

Mizuki continued. “We have a very rigid belief system. It can be good. It can be bad. But it helped me assimilate to your culture. There are many things I dislike about your kind, Zack, but one of the things I admire is your passion. You have so much passion, misplaced most of the time, but passion nonetheless.”

Zack wondered what he was passionate about and had no answer, which only depressed him. Mizuki clearly had zeal, clearly had a path she wanted to pursue. It was obvious that was why the Ankhs had tapped her.

She definitely had a Spark.

He hoped she would be able to resume her quest on her own terms one day.

Zack, for a lack of anything better to say, muttered. “I want to get a tattoo some day.”

Mizuki lowered her tank top and punched him hard on the shoulder.
Her knuckles were still razor sharp.
“You don’t strike me as a tattoo kind of guy. Tattoos are viewed quite differently in your culture.”

Zack shrugged. “Most people get them just to get them. I want mine to mean something, like yours.”

“I can give you a tattoo, just so you know. That’s one thing my people are all pretty good at.”

Mizuki sat back down and leafed through more of the dossier on the Omians. She whistled a tune Zack did not recognize. He figured it was a song from her planet and he thought it much better than anything created on Earth.

“What was the worst thing about the time you spent with us?” Zack asked.

Mizuki had a quick reply. “The food. Ugh. So gross. It made me sick every night.”

Zack read more pages, and then re-read them. He had a sinking feeling.

This is hopeless. I could never blend in with my own people, how am I going to blend in with the Omians?

“I can’t do this,” Zack said. “How am I going to do this?”

Mizuki reached her hand out and grabbed his. “Just do your best. Collect information. But keep your head down. I didn’t keep my head down, and I had to get out. I got replaced by
Fred
.” She put a disdainful emphasis on his name. “He’s a piece of work. So negative. You’d think a race that has been around as long as his would be able to relax a little.”

“You’ve seen Fred?”

Mizuki shook her head vigorously. “No. No. No. I haven’t see Fred. I haven’t seen any of them. They are very secretive when it comes to their appearance and ‘talk’ isn’t exactly the right word. It’s more like Fred talks and you listen and then Fred goes away. Jerk.”

“I talked to George. He seems compassionate and friendly, like he really cares.”

Mizuki shook her head again. “Don’t be fooled. They only want our ‘Spark,’ whatever that is.”

“You don’t trust them?”

Mizuki leaned across the table, her jaw set in a rigid frown and her eyes resolute as she whispered, “Not as far as I could throw them, and I imagine that isn’t very far. They are desperate and afraid. They are too calculating and cold for my tastes. This isn’t going to end well for any of us.”

Zack felt his heart thrum faster in his chest. He had allowed himself to be lulled by his plush surroundings and his grand purpose in this undertaking by the Ankhs. He had even been appeased by their apparent intense interest in his planet and customs. The fact that Mizuki was wary of them added to this rekindled dread.

“What do we do?” It was a simple question, but he could tell one without a simple answer.

Mizuki backed away and shuffled through the papers stacked in front of her. “Not sure. Hopefully we’ll figure something out before they find another fifteen” She made a slashing motion across her neck with her long index finger. “I have a bad feeling about what will happen when they do.”

Zack feared an even deeper cut was coming.

Part II

Chapter Two

Big Brother is Watching

“He’s not pale enough.” A man Zack had not met yet, white as one of Mizuki’s moons, said through what looked like bloodless lips. He wore a drab robe over his bulbous frame and had a mop of brown hair on his egg-shaped head. Zack thought him an odd little man, smarmy and repugnant. He even smelled foul.

“Maybe you should go down there, Eb,” Splifkin grumbled, his green face beginning to take on a slightly red hue.

Eb, who took notice of this modest change in pigment, shuffled back and re-examined Zack. He pushed a clubbed finger into Zack’s cheek. “It’ll have to do.”

Splifkin rolled his considerably large eyes and sighed. “Glad you approve, Eb. Now go. I’m tired of looking at you.”

Eb smiled, nodded and meandered his pear-shaped frame out of the room.

Splifkin turned his flinty eyes on Zack. “Are you ready?”

“I think so.”

“I don’t want to hear ‘I think so.’ I want to hear ‘I know so.’”

Zack stammered. “I … I know so.”

Splifkin sighed. “Great. You go in a few days. Now go. I’m tired of looking at you, too.”

Zack beat a hasty exit. He knew better than to linger.

Apparat shuffled toward him, a ream of paper propped precariously—and most likely uncomfortably—atop his bald head.

“I think I got it. I think I got it,” Apparat announced.

Zack was unmoved. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, Zack. I’m sure. Shall we?”

Zack followed Apparat into the room and screeched the chair legs along the linoleum floor as the odd bald man sifted through his considerable pile of papers. He took a gulp from a mug filled with a thick, pulpy purple liquid and smacked his lips as he looked at each paper with an ever-widening smile.