Chapter Eight: Resonance

Weapons today are different than they used to be. 

Nuclear munitions were a popular choice around the dawn of the Domain empire, back when warfare was one-sided, committed only by Teo Nora himself and against no particular opponent but the ones who opposed his galactic conquest. Teo Nora didn't use nuclear weapons, surviving records say, but they were rather used by his forces to glass planetary surfaces when he wasn't there to do it himself. 

When Teo Nora disappeared and the Domain shattered, many factions found that fusion bombing was no longer an adequate means of warfare. Its destructive power was notable, but radioactive fallout made settling a conquered planet difficult. Some factions got creative and launched relativistic attacks on one another, launching kamikaze ships into planets traveling at several times the speed of light. This, too, was short-lived, as factions found methods of protecting their planet by creating no-warp zones around their capitals and bases of operation. Eventually, weapons as a whole lost their efficiency—planets could only be stripped of their resources once before they became useless. 

Everything changed the day the five factions of the Domain set their sights not on their opponents' planets, but on their own. This galaxy possessed innumerable people already living on it, many possessing similar Vals to the first generation of fighters from the Domain. Supernatural powers permeated every corner of the universe, and people who used them were already under control of the Domain. 

Val warfare was revolutionary. Nuclear weapons were rendered useless by people who could reduce atomic entropy around them. Why use a gun when, with the flick of a finger, you could send beams of plasma at your enemy at twice the speed, twice the range, twice the power? 

The brilliance of it was in its persistence. Resources like iron, lithium, and uranium were consumed, but you could always make more people. War in the Domain wasn't about taking planets, but the beings who lived there. The greatest act of dedication you could make to the faction you served under was raising your children to share your ideals and fight for them. Here, in Keila, an entire 37% of Keila's army were placed in the fighting force by Keila members from birth. 

Viisi had always assumed he was a part of this 37%. His parents, whom he assumed to be noble Keila devotees, made him a part of the greatest faction in the Domain from birth. That was what his leader Zero had told him for as long as he could remember. 

But a seed, a tiny, miniscule hint of doubt in Viisi's mind told him otherwise. If his parents were loyal Keila soldiers who wanted to dedicate their child's life to this faction from the moment he was born, why hadn't he met them? Viisi couldn't recall a single memory, from his entire life, of either of his parents' faces. Where were they if they were proud of their son, amazed at the countless feats he had accomplished in Keila's name? Why didn't they embrace him with joy every time he slaughtered an enemy spy? 

Viisi was so distracted by this idea that, when he came to his senses, Tria was waving a hand in front of his face. 

"Are you awake?" Tria asked. "It's your turn."

"Oh," Viisi said, and threw the playing cubes into the bowl between them. They rattled around and then holographically displayed his roll. He looked at the display for a split second then groaned, Tria making a satisfied sound and drawing a card from her deck. 

"Nora damn it," Viisi cursed, and discarded several cards from his hand. 

Tria had taught him the game of pelikor on their fifth meeting. Since Tria first substituted Zero for a training session over three months ago, Viisi had made a request for Tria to teach him again. 

Zero had scratched his chin, cleanly shaven as usual, looking at a spot somewhere above Viisi's head. Zero always did this—pondered every small decision with machine-like precision and consideration. 

"I don't see why not," Zero had replied. "If you find her self-defense lessons useful, that can only make you even more powerful in battle. I will let you train with her once every week at the most, depending of course on her and my schedules." 

Since Viisi had started his routine meetings with Tria, he had learned more self-defense, but more importantly, he felt—the word was hard to find—welcome. Conversations were directed at him, not his stance or the strength of his punches. Tria had taught him the game of pelikor, an activity Viisi quickly found even more enjoyable than training sessions. 

Now almost every training session with Tria consisted of a few minutes of training followed by sometimes hours of pelikor. They played in secret, using the isolation of Viisi's training chamber to their advantage—Zero had personalized training chambers built for all of the Big 5, each chamber built in secret, isolated locations so that no spy could learn their weaknesses or fighting techniques. 

For once, Viisi was okay with disobeying Zero's wishes. He knew how bad it would be if they were found out, but socializing with Tria and playing round after round of pelikor was something Viisi couldn't pass up. Besides, it wasn't as if he didn't train at all—he still spent some time training occasionally, learning self-defense from Tria, who he quickly realized was a master at such an art. 

He and Tria continued their game of pelikor for a while longer, Viisi trying to regain his lead. But the thoughts he had had regarding his parents lingered. Eventually, he decided to ask. 

"Tria, do you know what happened to my parents?" 

She immediately looked up, her silver pendant and long hair swinging gently. Unlike their discussions of their pelikor game or the happenings within Keila, he had asked a personal question. And it seemed to intrigue Tria. 

Her expression quickly turned serious, and she remained quiet for an alarmingly long time. 

"I don't know," she said, in a tone so quiet and filled with pity he could barely make out her answer. "But I have an idea."

"What?" Viisi asked, eager for more. 

She broke eye contact with him, silent once more. 

"They might be dead. I'm sorry." 

Viisi's heart sank. "Why? What makes you think that?" he replied, almost defensive. It was the answer he wanted to hear the least. 

"I don't know if you might believe me," Tria said, her tone soft again. "But I think you were taken from them. And they were killed for resisting." 

She was right—he didn't believe it. 

"You don't know that. Not for sure," Viisi retorted. He realized the tone of his voice, then apologized. 

"No, I don't," Tria agreed. "I don't know. But from the things I've seen here, that's what I think. I could be wrong." 

"Why do you think I was taken? Why would Keila be at fault?" Viisi asked, softer this time. He didn't want to say Zero's name, and didn't dare to even put him in the same sentence as his parents' death. It was too impossible to be true. 

Tria rolled the playing cubes. 

"Sometimes, it's worth doubting what you trust," she replied. "Or who. You never know everything, and blind trust can hide what's real from you. Leave room for doubt in everything, even if only a little bit. Even me. Especially me." 

Regret slowly filled Viisi for lashing out at her. He played his turn at pelikor. "Why would I doubt you? I trust you completely." 

Tria actually smiled. "You don't always have to," she said kindly. "Just don't doubt yourself." 

# # #

The following week, Zero walked into the training room two minutes early. Tria was nowhere to be found. 

"Where's Tria?" Viisi asked. "Usually she trains with me today." 

"Tria is on a mission," Zero replied, closing the door behind him. "She is overseeing an important resource operation on the outer edge of Keila territory. Today, you will train with me." 

Viisi hoped his disappointment didn't show. He straightened his posture and said:

"Yes, sir." 

They began training. Viisi quickly realized this would be another difficult training session—Zero was teaching him highly advanced techniques for controlling and utilizing his Val. 

Zero knew Viisi's limits to such a degree that it was as if he could read Viisi's mind. He always knew how to stretch Viisi's powers and skills to the precipice of his breaking point, relenting just before he hit his limit. Every skill he was taught was tailored to growth. Every strike Zero made against Viisi when sparring targeted a weak point that he would learn to protect. 

Zero was, without a doubt, a perfect leader. 

"I have a question," Viisi said during the mid-training break. Viisi was covered in sweat, the muscles in his arms and legs burning with exhaustion. Zero didn't verbally respond, but looked in Viisi's direction in such a way that gave him permission to speak. 

"What happened to my parents?" Viisi asked, toning the question in such a way that it could have seemed relevant to his training. 

"They're retired," Zero replied, taking a sip from his water bottle. "They retired early on a Keila-owned planet. They spent their whole lives fighting for Keila. Why do you ask?" 

Viisi let no expression show. 

"I'm just curious." 

# # #

Three weeks later, Tria returned. She walked into the training room with a meaningful pace, and from the moment Viisi saw her, he understood something was subliminally… different about her. 

"So," Tria said with a slight smile. "Ready to train?" She winked. 

Almost asking what was going on, he nodded. She was hiding it, but there was a pep in her step that had never been present before. 

"I'll get out pelikor. It's been a while, but don't worry, I haven't gotten rusty. I can still beat your ass." 

"No way. I've been thinking of some new strategies when you were gone," Viisi said, sitting down on the training room floor as she brought the game over.

She chuckled. "Really? Guess we'll see if they're any good." 

As they played, Viisi noticed that, aside from the change in mood, Tria was barely focused on the game for the entire hour they played. She seemed constantly lost in thought, distracted with something irrelevant to how many cards she drew or the number of times she won. Eventually, after a particularly slow game of pelikor with Tria hardly focused at all, she got up, put her cards down, and said: 

"I think we should train now. There's something important I want to teach you." 

Viisi looked up with confusion. 

"Now? The game's not finished yet," he pointed. 

"Trust me. It's important. I'll put pelikor away" 

Viisi watched, bewildered, as she cleaned up their unfinished game of pelikor, hid it within a vent in the wall, and approached him. 

"What am I learning?" Viisi asked. "Zero already taught me some evasive strategies while you were gone." 

"It's not self-defense," she said, and picked up two drinking glasses out of her bag, lying by the doorway. Not self-defense? Viisi was dumbfounded, but intrigued. What was he about to learn? 

"Hold this glass," Tria told him, pushing an intricate, expensive drinking glass into his hands. He quickly recognized it as the kind of the alcohol glass he was provided by Keila when going into battle with his food-based Val. 

Once Viisi took it, Tria stood in front of him with a serious look, holding a glass of her own. 

"Break this glass," she told him. 

At first, Viisi waited for further instruction. That was it? He focused his attention on the glass, ready to use his calorie-based telekinesis Val, before Tria interrupted him. 

"No telekinesis," she interjected. 

He stopped, hesitated, then reared back his arm and prepared to throw it to the floor. 

"And no throwing either. Use only your right hand. Hold the glass still, and break it while it remains in your hand. No brute strength." 

Viisi, thoroughly confused now, first tried to shatter it between his fingers. But she said no brute strength. He almost used his telekinesis again out of habit, then stopped. What in the hell did she want him to do? He looked at the glass uselessly for several more seconds, then at Tria. 

"Now watch me," Tria said, and held the glass up. 

The glass remained motionless between her index finger and thumb. Then, it began to ring as if it was struck, first inaudibly, then loudly. It rang louder and louder, a beautiful, perfect tone. The glass was now visibly vibrating. Then, all at once, it shattered into a thousand pieces. 

The explosion of glass startled Viisi, and some small pieces hit his face. 

"Drinking glasses vibrate at a specific frequency when struck. You've heard of opera singers breaking glasses with their voice, I assume? That frequency," she flicked the glass in Viisi's hand, making it ring with a beautiful tone, "the frequency at which it rings when you strike it, is the glass's resonant frequency. Vibrating an object at its resonant frequency with sufficient power will destroy it." 

Tria approached him and continued. "Drinking glasses, bridges, buildings, rockets, even people—everything breaks at its resonant frequency. That is the technique I will teach you. I will teach you how to break people at a physical level, but you cannot use it. You must promise me this. You cannot use this power on another human being until the right moment. You will understand this moment when it comes, but never, and I mean never, use it on someone until then. Do you understand me?" 

Viisi's mouth went dry. "Yes." 

"Good. This power—resonance—extends further than fighting. It is more important than you can yet comprehend." 

Viisi then felt a strange, almost indiscernible vibration within him. Before he realized what was happening, every drinking glass in the room—the one in his hand, the ones in Tria's bag—exploded in a shower of shimmering glass. 

"Because this is my power," Tria said, unfazed. "My Val. I am attuned to the resonances around me, and I can teach it to you, too."

"You've never shown me your Val. I didn't know you had one," Viisi said at last, shocked. 

"Because I'm not supposed to. I haven't used my Val in years. Zero doesn't want you to know this information—about me, about the resonance—but I will teach it to you anyway." 

They were silent. The last few particles of glass on the ground settled themselves. 

"When do we begin?" Viisi asked. 

"Later," Tria said with a smile. "After you help me pick up all this glass." 

# # #

Leaving his sector of The Ray was so easy, Flint had to pinch himself to make sure he wasn't dreaming. 

Allef was right—the guards relied so heavily on the foolproof stamps implanted in every prisoner that they didn't even check to see if someone was opening the hatch between two prison sectors. In any case but Flint's, they wouldn't have to worry. Going outside of your assigned sector would cause the tracker in your stamp to alert the Panopticon, and the blood coagulant it injected into the perpetrator would kill them. 

But not even death could stop Flint.

He walked as casually as he could down the hall, now in sector 8. It was recreational time here, too. Flint guessed that every sector's work, dining, and sleep schedule would be identical. 

Flint looked at the back of the equation sheet Allef had given him. Taped on the back was a worn, torn mugshot of Allef's sister, with text in Allef's handwriting below. It read, "Myasma." Was that her name? 

As he searched sector 8's rec room for who he assumed was Myasma, Flint became lost in a satisfied thought. The guards here didn't find him unfamiliar, and at first, Flint wondered why that was. But looking at every prisoner, their monotone prison garb and unanimously desolate expressions, Flint couldn't help but laugh. 

They were all unfamiliar to the guards. Familiar, too. They were all the same: prisoners. The individuality The Ray had taken from them served to make every prisoner equally unrecognizable, equally powerless. Flint was already used to fitting into the crowd—he hadn't had a body of his own in close to a hundred years—so being unrecognizable was easier than he could have ever imagined. 

After searching sector 8, then sector 7, Flint's panic began to set in. He had already burned thirty minutes searching, and there was only around twenty more minutes of recreational time left. He had to save enough time to get back to sector 9, and the prison wasn't exactly small. But, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a familiar face. It was a wide-faced woman with narrow eyes and a generally displeased resting face. Flint looked at the picture, then at the woman. Her time in prison had altered her hairstyle, longer than it was in the mugshot, but she was undoubtedly the right person. 

Flint approached the woman, who was waiting in line at the cafe restricted to exemplary prisoners. 

"Myasma," Flint said. The woman immediately turned her head, and her expression became yet more displeased. 

"The hell are you?" Myasma shot. 

"Allef sent me," Flint whispered before she could say another word. Her narrow eyes widened, and she stepped out of line, urging him to follow. 

Myasma led Flint to two adjacent chairs within the primary area of the rec room and sat down. 

"Sit," she said. Flint sat. The rec room in sector 6 looked almost completely identical to the one in Flint's own sector, from the positions and colors of the chairs to the arrangement of tablets on the long shelf on the wall. 

"I knew it would happen one day," Myasma said, looking at Flint with scrutinization. She looked older than Allef, her face shaped as if it was constantly deep in thought. "Finding someone like you. I'm curious—what did you have to do to get here?" 

"I had to die. Painfully," he added. 

Myasma nodded as if that was a completely normal answer, her eyes narrowing further. A guard nearby put his gaze on them, and Flint heard the faint, faraway beep of a digital stopwatch.

"Anyways. I'm Allef's older sister Myasma, as I'm sure she's already told you. We have a plan in mind to take down The Ray, and Tymin with it." 

"And Tymin with it?" Flint echoed, his eyes wide. 

"Correct. Tymin has invested a lot in The Ray. Tymin's faction leader, Hazni, is The Ray's warden. They use prisoners, especially important prisoners, as bargaining chips to make agreements or purchases from other factions. Tymin just recently got a lucky break and captured Tro, one of Keila's Big 5, after Keila lost a battle he was leading. Rumor goes that Tymin's going to buy an entire planet off of Keila in return for releasing him." 

"Keila?! But Keila's the strongest faction—why don't they just break him out?" Flint asked. 

"Because nobody escapes from The Ray. Ever. It's just a fact of the Domain. Stars are hot, factions fight, and nobody breaks out of The Ray." 

"But I broke out, didn't I?" 

"Almost—you're not out yet. I mean, if you're really immortal, you were never a prisoner here in the first place. You've already disabled your stamp and they haven't caught you yet, so what's stopping you from just leaving?" 

Flint was silent. Myasma pried further. 

"This is a genuine question. Why not leave? You don't obey the rules of any mortal. Why not die a few more times on your way out of The Ray and live the rest of eternity free?" 

"Because I have unfinished business here," Flint answered in a low tone. "And people who I don't want to leave behind." 

Myasma nodded slowly. She seemed to scrutinize everything he did, and it made Flint uncomfortable. Was this supposed to be an escape plan or an interview? 

"Good. Things are easier if you cooperate. Here's what I need you to do in order to get out of here: I need you to tell a story."

"A story?" 

"Yes. Every prisoner needs to hear it. You don't have to tell everyone individually, just enough people to hit a critical mass and let the story be told for you. Encoded in this story, subtly enough to where only other prisoners will understand, is a message. On the third resupply day from now, in roughly three months, everyone should break out of the prison by any means necessary." 

"What's a resupply day?" Flint asked. 

Myasma didn't immediately respond. "You're new here, then?" 

"Very." 

"You're at least aware that The Ray is a space station, I assume? This place has finite resources. Every month, more food, water, air, and fusion fuel is delivered here on massive barges. When that happens, The Ray goes on high alert. There's always a temporary power shortage as they refuel the nuclear fusion reactor that powers The Ray." 

"Why wait for a resupply day?" Flint asked. 

"Even if everyone were to escape from The Ray, there's no way to get out without ships. There aren't nearly enough ships in or around The Ray on any given day to move every prisoner, so the escape would have to happen on a supply day where the cargo ship can be hijacked. The third resupply day from now also happens to line up with a prisoner delivery, so the prison barge is up for grabs as well. Without enough escape ships, the entire escape would be moot—everyone would kill each other." 

"So what's the story I need to tell, then? Please don't tell me I have to make it up."

"Not so fast. There's one more thing you have to do to make this plan work."

"Of course there is." 

Myasma didn't react. "You have to destroy the Panopticon. However you see fit, you must destroy it on the day of the escape. If you don't, when every prisoner inevitably leaves their assigned sector, everyone will be injected with blood coagulant and die." 

Flint was silent for a moment, thinking about what Myasma was telling him. 

"You've given this a lot of thought," Flint said. "How long have you and Allef been in here, anyway?" 

"Over a year," Myasma answered. 

"Oh. Wow. Sorry about that."

"So will you participate in the plan? You may be immortal, but I don't have eternity to get out of here. If we miss this window, a day where a resupply day and prison barge line up, we won't have another chance for another seven months, and I can't wait that long." 

Flint frowned. "Why the rush? I mean, I'll get it done by then, no problem." He said this, then realized the magnitude of the task he was promising and silently cursed himself. "Do you have someone waiting for you outside of The Ray or something."

"In a way, yes," Myasma said. Flint suddenly realized how cold her eyes were. "I need to kill someone, and it has to be me who does the job. I won't stand for it if someone gets to him first." 

Flint nodded. "Assassination job?" 

"We've never belonged to a faction. It's a personal grudge. I need to kill the man who put Allef and I in here and killed our parents."

Flint studied the look in Myasma's face, the look of deep, visceral hungering for something that was present in her otherwise calm expression. Not food, but an idea. Revenge. He'd felt a similar thing once when his own parents had been executed, the searing passion and impatience that came with a desire to kill, to right an egregious injustice. He didn't have the heart to tell Myasma how hollow the aftermath felt. 

"You've put a lot of faith into waiting for someone like me," Flint pointed. "Especially considering the odds of finding me were slim to none. If you want to get out so bad, why wait for the impossible?"

"You're right," Myasma said. "The odds of finding you were essentially zero. Even now, the odds of this plan working are essentially zero. But they're not zero. Even in a place like The Ray, regarded galaxy-wide as impenetrable, the odds of an escape exist, however small. In a place, a galaxy like this, the stagnant becomes endless. And improbabilities become inevitabilities in an infinite world."