Goddess of the Galacticide Episode 62 - Recognition

Episode 62

Everyone could navigate in here; only Linuka Omga was blind.

Her captors dragged her along a path obvious to them. She struggled a little, more of an instinctive reaction to the manhandling than proper defiance. A part of her was glad to leave the white plane, even under the worst of circumstances.

“She didn’t change the clock rate,” said the stonemason Rooy, “I did.”

The men stopped. The taller one pulled Linuka close, and she could feel his stare on her cheek. Rooy had taken his first break from being choked by the brute to speak up. Was he trying to deflect attention away from Linuka?

“What’s that, stone boy?” asked the brutish man. “The truth?”

“Yes, it is.” Rooy nodded toward Linuka. “She’s just a new arrival. Replacement for the ones we lost. I think they messed up her upload; left her on an insane clock rate. I wanted to adjust it.”

The man squinted. “Why?”

“Because you’re kyong wekak. I wanted to have someone to talk to who seemed nice.”

Careful, Rooy, it is one thing to get their attention, but antagonizing them further is dangerous.

The brute glanced at Linuka. “Talk to, huh?” His grin was vulgar.

“He must have console access then,” said the tall man holding Linuka’s arms.

The brute grunted. “We know where you live. We’ll take both of them to his segment and then see about this console. Follow the protocols.”

These protocols probably appeared as markers for the men, as they turned Linuka in a different direction and pushed her forward, but each movement was enforced with less violence than before. Her tall handler was not exactly gentle, but more considerate. When her glance met his, the illusion of empathy dissipated. The man’s eyes fixated on her, unblinking, filled with questions. Was he biding his time to receive answers? Was she his prize, not to be damaged until he chose to?

She was walking again, but this time with a destination. Why did the men stop? They stood in someone’s office, windowless but generous, minimalistic in furniture and decor. But, unlike the eternal boring place, there was something here: a room with objects, a chair to sit down, an abstract vase to throw in frustration, a desk to cry on. Had it always been here, so close? She had settled in for a long march, but the men barely dragged her twenty paces when the room appeared. No warning, no system announcement, no transition, not even a flicker of the virtual reality. How many of these buses had she passed on her futile march through the white endlessness?

She had to know.

“System,” said Linuka.

No response, except the brute turning red.

“Shut this kaats up!”

The taller man ripped fabric off her lower robe, pushed a cloth ball into her mouth and bound the other as a strip around her head, cutting into the corners of her lips, leaving her gagging. His continued stare was scarier than his deeds.

But the system stayed silent, and knowing that after all these spins she had finally escaped the white plane was worth some of the pain.

Rooy was not faring much better; the brutish man parading him around the office in a tight chokehold.

“Clever, stone boy. Luring us here, having your instructor girlfriend access the console and get out.”

He looked at the desk.

“All they gave us were these magiis labs and waiting rooms. But you got nice furniture in here. Let’s see if it’s all real.”

The brute smashed Rooy’s forehead onto the desk surface, leaving a red mark where the stonemason’s forehead skin ripped, leaving streaks of blood running down his face.

The brute grinned. “Real enough. Now it seems your girl has forgotten the activation gesture in all that excitement. You will activate the console now. And if you do anything else after it appears—anything—these hands wrapped around your head will snap your neck, understood?”

Rooy nodded.

“Call it!”

“Wave… wave a hand over the desk surface.”

“Aaah, we were really close then. Let’s see…“

The brute needed only one arm to control the poor stonemason, waving his free hand as instructed. A projected menu selection appeared. The system console. If Rooy was an operator as Linuka had initially suspected, these men made a mistake gagging her, and not him. Unless the console had no voice input. The brute swished menu screens up and down, quick and impatient. Nreedz. The console reacted only to gestures. What was Rooy’s plan? Did he have one?

“All the upload features are inactive, stone boy. They never ran an experiment with you?”

He swiped the screen away to the side and jammed his hand on the desk.

“All you’ve got are environmental controls and baseline system stuff. Where is the access?”

He released Rooy from his hold and pushed him into the office chair. The virtual furniture simulated a creak under the load.

“I wasn’t brought here for experiments.”

“I knew you weren’t one of us. Why did they give you this cozy environment?”

The brutish man was only one or two thoughts away from concluding that Rooy was an operator. Maybe Linuka’s very first gut feeling had been right, and this Rooy got stuck here when the Uurmi leaving with Linuka’s body triggered an alarm.

“I’m not one of you,” said Rooy, “in the sense that I was a candidate for the experiments. But I am a prisoner in here, just like you, brought here against my will, just like you.”

“That’s draash nreedz.”

“I met one of those instructors once, a young woman. She seemed annoyed, did not quite know what to do with me. She unlocked this console and suggested I’d set my clock rate as low as possible.”

“Why would she do that?”

“She said… I’d be in here for quite some time. A low clock rate would make it seem shorter. More bearable.”

Why had Linuka’s setting been so high? The trap had punishment built in? Made each rotation in the lab appear like an eternity for her?

“When I discovered you guys first, we seemed to be in sync: your rate was also set to ‘storage’; I assume inactivity between experiments. When she appeared… “ He gestured toward Linuka. “I noticed that the console’s setting worked across memory segments, and I slowed hers down. That’s all I did. The glitch happened much later, after I had changed the settings.”

The brute stared at Rooy. “Why should we believe you?”

“You don’t have to, I guess. I can’t prove this. But you could check the settings for your companions. The downed ones. I didn’t change them at all. Whatever happened to them, it was not caused by this console.”

Not caused by this console. Causal connection. Some prisoners were comatose, others appeared fine after the causality bomb effect. What did the brute, his henchmen, the stonemason, and Linuka have in common?

“I checked already,” said the brute. “They’re set to ‘storage’, just like this segment. You must have disconnected them from access somehow.”

Linuka winced. She needed answers. She needed the gag out of her mouth.

As if he had heard her thoughts, the taller handler grabbed her chin and turned her face close to his.

“I know her,” he said.

The brute interrupted his accusations, eyed his man, then Linuka.

“She’d been your instructor when you arrived?”

“No. I’ve known her from before. From outside the system. I’ve seen her on video streams. The news.”

The brute tilted his head.

“She’s famous?”

“Yes, some sort of religious leader. There was this civil war in the core some orbits ago and they were looking for her. I forgot what she did, but it seemed like a major thing.”

The brute, Rooy in tow, approached Linuka.

“That true, girl?”

The tall handler’s hand caressed her cheek.

“I am sure. This is Sya Omga.”

“Sya Omga died at Dziilaa Sok, you mpets.”

“Her daughter then. This is an Omga girl.”

Goddess of the Galacticide continues on this website with new episodes each Tuesday.

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