The Undeniable Labyrinth - 16

It was as if her consciousness was a switch: off, then on. Silence, senselessness, then all around her: ticks, low beeps, hums, a musty smell – smooth fabric loose and tight – warmth. Althea's eyes fluttered open. She struggled to focus.

Could this be home? The ceiling above showed a multitude of cracks, spun around in a jagged crazy web. To the left and right she could see chairs, cabinets, low-grade tech: in degrees of age, disrepair. There was a door, and a window. No light came through the window. The solitary lamp past the end of the bed produced a dim, sickly glow. Was she in a hospital bed? On a lost world?!

She did feel whole, and that was far more than she deserved, expected – could move her fingers, wiggle her toes – could see, hear, feel and smell! She was alive, thankfully, but it had been so, so stupid of her. She had ignored all the danger signs, should be dead.

Yet she'd been saved… but, by whom? And from what?

Her breath caught in her throat.

She wasn't wearing her memsuit, just something light under the patchwork blankets. Disturbed, she sat up in the bed – suffered a powerful wave of dizziness, shooting pain in her arms, legs, chest – fell back down. Her head felt like it was made of heavy stone.

"Dorian," she tried to call. Her voice was harsh, a whisper, didn't sound like her at all. She scanned left and right again. Nothing of hers was visible. Were her belongings even here? Had they left it all? Had they left him?!

Dorian hadn't woken her. His voice wasn't in her head. She ran through the checklist ofNANcontrol. No flicker of trinary response echoed in her mind.

Head trauma! Maybe even brain damage; her skull ached enough for that. Althea stared up at the cracks, despondent, horrified.

What had happened to her? Had they done something to her? She remembered… She remembered…

She remembered the visualization chamber. In her port…

You've chosen a destination.

His voice came through the acoustic materials of the chamber walls, the floor, the ceiling – all around her. She liked it that way. He knew her.

Her heart raced again.

"Elysium," she admitted – confided. "Yes."

Only this wasn't Elysium. It was… was…

"I'm ready," she remembered telling him, mustering up as much confidence as she could.

Silence.

"What else can I do?" she had protested. "I can't go back and change what the Macro did to them… What I did… I can't give up. I need what's out there."

I'm sorry.

She felt the again, the again the pain of his reply – of theNANinduced memories – sharp and real.

"For what?" she'd asked as gently as she could.

What I could not prevent on Hadhalho.

The attack, while she was enraptured, mind absorbed in the Macro's codestream. Pain and terror had brought her back from the swells of oneness to red and steel, to stare down at bloody metal: between her knees and outstretched hands – a straight shiny shaft sticking out of her – through her – penetrating the hard earth. She remembered the shock, the remorse – then later – the terrible dread. Had she come back from the codestream, because she wanted to? Or had she escaped it only because of the pain of Seddo's attack?

She'd shaken her head.

"There was nothing you could have done."

I know.

"Please… don't worry," she'd told him, as brightly as she could. "The next will be better. I'm sure of it."

This wasn't better, she decided. There was more… were more… fragments, reflections. She lay back, trying to recall. Reflections…

A reflection in the wall stopped her. The smooth, seamless surface of her memsuit hugged her NAN-toned frame. Her face, her skin was still the proper shade, between the milky tchokoa of her mother and her father's ebony.

The reflections in the portal, the shifting mirrors splintered, reformed. The music of it rang in her ears – the harmony and disharmony of all the wind chimes in the universe, in and out of tune – wondrous and maddening.

Eight steps had taken her to the border of the fractured whirlpool, to be surrounded, enveloped, then pulled away…

He head was beginning to ache harder, and she felt herself gasping for breath. She needed to remember…

Falling out of the portal, freezing cold… Broken controls… Tons of ice showering down–

Was Dorian destroyed? Did they bring him back? Had they tried to disassemble his casing?

What was she going to do without him?! She needed Dorian, needed him more than ever, more than anything. She gripped the fabric of the sheets; trying to steady herself, find strength, physical control.

It's simple. Focused thought and desire could send commands to her nanometric networks. Risky – oh yes – but what other choice did she have? You have to get out of this bed. You have to find him. They must have brought him too!

She heard a sound – different from the background noise, a steady rhythm, the tapping of footsteps. Someone was coming, someone who would have answers. She forced herself to close her eyes, relax, appear unconscious, unthreatening. She would get answers, one way or another.

The sound of steps came closer, still muffled by the closed door. Then she heard the clicking, rattling of a latch; the door slid open.

A man entered, muttering to himself.

"…what's your problem Trae, think you're a dirty Panaki now?" It was a sarcastic, mocking tone. The voice was unmistakable – definitely from her recent, broken memories, weird hallucinations. His voice became clearer as he approached her.

Her sense of smell was working, perfectly. He certainly didn't smell very clean.

"Straighten your rooms up, clear out the halls. She is Legionary. So are we. Oneness, she hasn't shown one sign of waking up."

Oh, I'm was very much awake now. Althea opened her eyes a crack, his shadow, his vague form, his position was clear enough for her to act on. He moved to the side of the bed, leaned over her. She closed her eyes, kept her breathing light.

"Well, there you are," he said, voice changed, now comforting. She felt his touch, light, on her wrist, on her forehead, pushing away strands of hair from her face. She couldn't suppress a discomfited twitch. "Think you'll be waking up any time soon?"

His touch left her brow. Althea visualized the trajectory of his wrist.

Now!