The Navigator, page 51
"This isn't the reactor. . ." Petal saw a few children's toys lying on the floor and a smattering of conch shells spread across a chipped end table. "What is this place? You lied to me."
BLUE-HUE didn't respond.
Confused, Petal strolled into the center of the apartment. One of the walls in the master bedroom lit up, shimmering a deep violet.
Petal walked toward the glowing light, and it morphed into a colorful moving image. It was a woman with a very young child in her arms. The woman had long brown hair, sky-blue eyes, and a facial tattoo. She smiled and her face filled with dimples. She grabbed the child's hand, and propped it up, so the child was waving at the viewer.
Petal knew she was looking at her mother, Enerri, and herself, sitting inside of the same bedroom she was standing in now, ten years later.
"Hiii there," Enerri cooed. "See?" She glanced down at the child. "There you are. See your picture, Fatima? Say 'hiiiii'.'" She waved the child's hand for her. "Say 'hiiii, Fateeemaaaa.'"
Petal walked up to the projection and pushed her hand through it, trying to touch Enerri's face.
"Mother?"
The recording ended, and then replayed in a loop. Petal squeezed her eyes shut and turned away from it.
"Why are you showing me this? Stop this! I don't want to see this!"
"This is your home Fatima," BLUE-HUE's voice made the walls vibrate. "Don't you remember?"
"No, this isn't."
Petal reopened her eyes and began to recognize the things around her; her mother's clothes and shoes heaped next to a nearby hamper, her favorite rag doll sitting at her place at the kitchen table, her father's glittering collection of rare Ean gemstones propped up and prominently displayed under the far window.
"I don't belong here. This place is dead. Everything here is dead. Everyone here is-"
A new image projected out from the wall. It took the shape of a pale man with red hair.
It was Yuero.
Yuero looked gaunt and exhausted in the projection, panting into whatever device was recording him. His face was grease-streaked and soaked in sweat. He was trapped in a dark, wet crawlspace. He stared into the recorder and took a few labored breaths.
He was dying.
"Fatima." Yuero struggled to say her name. "Fatima, I love you."
"Stop!" Petal screeched. "Stop showing me these! I don't want to remember these things! I don't want to see this! Stop it!"
The projection went dead. The whole apartment fell silent, save for the soft taps of Aii striking against the window glass like rain.
"Why are you showing me these things? Are you trying to upset me? Why did you take me here!"
BLUE-HUE's projection shone out from a nearby wall. His image beamed brightly.
"I guided you here because this is your home. I wasn't certain you'd be able to remember."
"I remember enough." Tears streamed down Petal's cheeks no matter how hard she fought them. "You lied to me to get me here. Take me to the reactor. Now!"
"You could remember much more, Fatima." BLUE-HUE's image faded in and out. "I assume that Cynax-8127 never mentioned that you could interface with your deceased mother?"
"Interface? What are you talking about? I just want to get this over with. I don't want to be here anymore."
"Do you see that device, just under my projection?"
BLUE-HUE illuminated what looked like a nondescript piece of shelving. Resting on top of the shelf was a strange blue and gold contraption lined with blinking lights and foam pads.
Petal stared at the device but didn't move from her spot on the carpet.
"What is it?"
"A neural interface. You're aware that many of your mother's memories were imprinted on you, correct?"
"Uh-huh."
"Most of those memories are fragmented and distorted - very hard to accurately piece back together. It could take a lifetime to do so. To help with that task, long ago the Khoi adopted the use of an Antari-developed neural interface. When applied and activated, the device will unlock and unscramble the memories buried inside your subconscious. Your mother also actively uploaded many memories onto it after you were born, for you to access later."
"Why would she do that?"
"Khoi mothers and fathers customarily upload their memories onto an interface after the birth of a child. At age ten, when the child's mind is considered ready, they hold a ceremony where their memories are transferred through the interface. This is what has allowed the Khoi to thrive despite their short lifespans. They're able to pass down all of their accumulated knowledge to their children in an instant - instead of spending their lifetimes learning by more inefficient methods."
Petal picked up the interface. The lights on its side flickered. She turned it over, rubbing her fingers against the sticky foam pads.
"If I put this on, I'll remember everything about my mother and father?"
"No. Your father's interface is irreparably damaged. That interface only holds the memories of your mother. If you apply it and activate it, you will remember everything she did and was. You may not understand all of her knowledge for some time, but in a sense, you will become her."
Petal watched the lights on the interface twinkle. She wasn't sure if she wanted to put it on. She wasn't sure she wanted to remember. But the muddled memories that cluttered her mind had been exasperating, ever since she was three years old. She wanted them to stop - or at least make sense. She wanted to understand whatever they'd been trying to tell her.
Petal fumbled with the interface, until she had an idea of how to put it on. Two of the copper plates went over her eyes, two went over her ears, and one pressed against the top and back of her skull. The foam pads rested against the bottom of her jaw and both temples, securely holding the device in place. Once the device was applied, it was difficult for her to move her mouth or form words.
"Ow ooo I earn it onb?" she slurred.
"I can activate it for you," BLUE-HUE crackled. "Are you ready? You will experience some discomfort once it has been activated."
"Yhep." Petal tilted her head forward, trying to nod.
Szawap!
The sensation Petal felt when the device activated was horrible. It was as if someone had taken an ice pick and smashed it into her skull, deep into her brain. All she could see was white; a blinding white that she would normally have looked away from, but couldn't because it shone through the back of her eyelids. The device gave off a piercing, staticy noise which made her head and teeth vibrate.
Petal's first instinct was to rip the device off, but the noise and light and pain it caused locked her body up like she was having a seizure. She began to spasm and shake, and quickly crumpled down to the floor, drooling, gagging, and squealing from the pain.
"I apologize for the slight discomfort." Petal could barely hear BLUE-HUE through the mind-numbing pain. "Usually, the wearer is anesthetized beforehand. But I doubted you would be able to anesthetize yourself properly."
The interface clicked off.
Petal shuddered on the floor, unable to move.
"Are you alright?"
Petal pried the device off her head, gasping. She attempted to stand. She felt dizzy and lightheaded and fell backwards, landing on her butt. As she looked around the dark apartment she seemed to see it in double.
In a way, the apartment looked just as it did before - a dim, long-abandoned living space. But overlaid on top of that image was another room. The apartment as it had once been - a brightly lit, colorful, sweet-smelling penthouse.
When Petal glanced around she could hear the chatter of voices and could smell the aroma of spices and roasting meat waft through the apartment, as if she was standing in the apartment both in the present and ten years ago.
"I - I can see. . .I can remember. . ."
"Then the interface was a success. Greetings to you, Enerri-Fatima."
"Enerri-Fat-?"
Before Petal finished saying her new name, the idea clicked in her head. She was her mother. She could remember everything about her; her favorite food - shrimp - her favorite dress - a gossamer little number that was black, sequined, and strapless - her first kiss with her soon-to-be husband in the cargo hold of a Zhentewhi Class star freighter. Petal could remember reams of meticulously drawn architectural sketches her mother had produced for the Consortium, including the intricate ceiling of Cynax's mainframe. She also remembered the playful, avant garde structures her mother doodled in her spare time. She even remembered what silly things had inspired them.
As she reveled in her newfound knowledge and understanding of her kind, Petal remembered something else.
The Aii.
Yuero brought them here.
"I trust everything is beginning to make sense," BLUE-HUE buzzed. "Now, you must understand why you cannot let Cynax-8127 succeed. You must understand Amanahora's importance."
"We released the Aii! It was our fault! I remember Yeuro and Dr. Meleki bringing them down here to study them. Cynax objected - he - he wanted them destroyed. He was right. We never should have done this."
"This city was doomed regardless of their actions. By the time Aii were located on the Tear Drop's exterior they had already burrowed deep into its inner structure. Unbeknownst to the crew, they contaminated most of the sky lab and its submersibles before the station was evacuated. It was those evacuating Tear Drop personnel that spread the Aii to Amanahora. Not Dr. Meleki or your father."
"Cynax was still right. This place can't be allowed to exist. It puts everyone above in danger. It doesn't belong here. We don't belong here. We almost spoiled this world. We should never have come here."
"As you must now know, your father and mother were both very dedicated to the Consortium and its goals. The Consortium is all that is left of your homeworld - Khoiano. Yuero and Enerri devoted their lives to the Consortium. Their work in this city unlocked a wealth of knowledge about the Aii and paved the way for the colonization of this world. If this city is destroyed - as you seem to wish - everything they learned and accomplished - and everything they created - including you - will be lost forever. I'd hoped that with your newly acquired knowledge you would understand both my and their motivations."
"I'm not my mother," Petal snapped, the impact of what she'd said only sinking in as she said it. "The Consortium was wrong. My mother was wrong. Cynax was right. We were greedy. We almost ruined this planet."
"Cynax-8127 created this situation. Cynax-8127 authorized the Consortium presence on this planet in return for the construction of its Monitoring Station. Cynax-8127 conducted the fraudulent C.G.G. survey that labeled this planet a dead world just so it could study its unstable sun - its obsession. When the Aii escaped, Cynax-8127 refused all requests for aid and jammed all extra-planetary communication. Cynax-8127 let one thousand Consortium personnel perish to cover its tracks, and it will let you and I perish as well, Enerri-Fatima."
"If he could have helped my people, why didn't he? Why would he have let them die after allowing them to come here?"
"To hide what was done from the C.G.G. To erase a perceived mistake. If the C.G.G. discovers what Cynax-8127 has done here they will terminate it summarily. You and I are the only evidence left of its deceit. If we are no more, it will have successfully erased us - this settlement - its accumulated knowledge - and your whole family from existence."
"No! That's not true. He said you'd lie to me. He warned me you'd try to stop me!"
"Your father died soon after the Aii were introduced, but your mother was able to survive in Amanahora for almost two months after the outbreak. I kept her safe for as long as I was able. Cynax-8172 would not send her or any of the other survivors the smallest bit of aid. You must remember at least a part of that time. It was before your mother uploaded her last memories onto that interface. The last residents of this city died one by one - slowly - painfully - because of Cynax-8172's stubborn inaction. Remember for yourself and you'll know the truth of what I've told you."
Petal did remember those times. The city had been dark, and the Aii buzzed through its soaring buildings like a plague of locusts. She remembered hearing the cries of Khoi being eaten alive in the streets, and the ever-present, paralyzing fear her mother had felt, knowing they could ooze through the walls at any moment. She remembered her mother hunkering down in this apartment, cold, terrified, and alone - utterly helpless without hope of escape or rescue.
Petal remembered her mother running her fingers across the blade of a paring knife, just before her last upload. The room was as dark as it was now. She could feel the knife blade methodically crisscross her mother's weak wrists - she couldn't spend the rest of her life trapped in the darkness. At the very end, she'd begun to obsess over when to give in and end it all with a single knife stroke.
"STOP!" Petal screamed, trying to wake up from her mother's memories. "This - these are lies! You're manipulating me! Just stop! Cynax wouldn't abandon us! He - he wouldn't!"
"Enerri-Fatima, please, calm yourself. Do not be irrational. I have no reason to lie to you, and, in fact, my programming will not allow me to do so."
"You already lied to me to get me here. How can I trust you after that?"
"I never lied. I indicated that I would be illuminating a path to your quarters. And do keep in mind that the Aii outbreak was much worse during your mother's lifetime than it is now. The Aii had more food to fuel their spread and proliferation. Now, they are less virulent. If you allow me to, I can keep you safe from the Aii. I will keep you safe from them. If you simply allow me to do so."
"No." Petal's face was ashen. "No!"
"Cynax-8127 will not rescue you, Enerri-Fatima. Cynax-8127 wants you to die, like everyone else. That is why Cynax-8127 sent you here - to die. I want you to live. Your father and mother wanted you to live. Your people - the Khoi - the Consortium - they want you to live and to carry their knowledge along with you. The Consortium will be coming for you. The Consortium will save you."
Petal ran toward the elevator. "I'm ending this! I'm stopping this like my mother should have! Take me to the reactor! Now! Take me there!"
"Please calm yourself. You are safe here. I realize that ten solar orbits may seem like an eternity to a being such as yourself, but you will only be twenty-five by the time you are rescued. You will still have several more years of vigor and good health before you reach senescence. And you and I will be here together. We can keep each other company. There is so much that we could discuss during the interval."
Petal clasped her hands over her ears.
"I'm not staying here! I ORDER you to take me to the reactor, BLUE-HUE! That's a direct command! Lead me there! Now! I order you! I ORDER YOU!"
BLUE-HUE's projection disappeared.
Across the apartment, the elevator doors chimed and opened. Once they did, all of the other lights in the condo went dark.
Petal fumbled her way through the dark apartment, over to the dimly lit lift, occasionally tripping over her old toys and her mother's wrinkled clothing. The elevator's ceiling lights gave the room an evil glow. She took a last look at her former home in the faint light, trying to ignore all of the lonely, wistful feelings it had awoken in her. She sadly slipped inside the elevator and closed her eyes, banishing all the sadness and confusion from memory.
"Your actions are very unwise." BLUE-HUE's voice echoed loudly in the lift. "I kindly beg you to reconsider."
- 79-
The elevator doors chimed and opened. Beyond them lay a dark factory floor. The elevator platform fed into a grated metal gangway, which hung high above several rows of clanking heavy machinery. The machines groaned and hissed, puffing out steam and acrid smoke with a harsh, earsplitting screech.
Petal stepped out of the elevator, onto the long, vibrating gangway. A dully illuminated red sign at the end of the gangway read 'Polikata' - 'control room.'" She cautiously walked toward it.
The machines below shook the gangway. When a particularly violent rumble made the walkway heave, Petal collapsed to her knees, clutching the railing.
"Do not do this," BLUE-HUE thundered. "This is unnecessary. Trust in me, Enerri-Fatima. I will protect you. Your continued wellbeing is my highest priority."
Petal ignored BLUE-HUE and continued to walk to the control room. The machines below groaned louder, their copper exteriors shaking furiously. She looked down and watched their gears and pistons rotate and shoot up and down in a dizzying blur. As she closed in on the control room door, all of the lights in the factory switched off.
