When Lynn’s consciousness returned, he hurt all over. His eyes hurt, his ears hurt, every inch of his skin hurt. But, he barely noticed it.
A sickly-sweet and stomach-turning smell filled his nose; like meat left too long on fire, with hints of decay. He could feel something lying on top of him. Logic told him what it should be, but it couldn’t be that.
She shouldn’t feel like that.
“A-adan?” Lynn carefully opened his eyes, straining them as the readjusted to the dim room, now only lit by some burning piles of gravel.
“Adan?”
The charred mass rolled off him as he adjusted his position.
Lynn’s mind stood still.
What had happened?
They had been trying to get to his family’s cell.
There had been an explosion.
Adan had protected him.
She had . . . said goodbye.
“No,” Lynn leaned towards the remains by his side, reaching towards it.
“No, no, no, no, no.”
He didn’t notice how much his hand was shaking.
“No, it can’t be . . .” his eyes locked on the familiar red crystal that shouldn’t be there. “I am perfectly fine. You . . . you should be fine too.”
Lynn tore his eyes away, frantically scanning the room. It was in surprisingly good shape. Apart from some patches of inner wall material being blasted away and clear signs of scorching on all surfaces, the room had survived the blast well. Plenty of smoke remained though and it clung to him like oil, blackening his breath with every inhale.
“Adan! This isn’t funny anymore! Stop . . . stop hiding!”
Silence.
His gaze went back to the creature by his side. It couldn’t be described as anything else than a creature. Skin burnt black and bloody, with an arm missing and legs bent in impossible angles. It was definitely not human.
It definitely wasn’t Adan.
It couldn’t be.
“Adan, please. Please come out.” His hand froze. He had touched that red crystal without thinking and it felt cool and hard. It felt wrong. It should have been warm. Just like her playful, golden eyes that always seemed to be hiding some mischief.
“Please Adan, I—I can’t. You promised. We—we were going to celebrate your next birthday together, remember. You can’t—”
Lynn choked.
He carefully cradled the body next to him.
Who was he kidding? He knew it was her. She had somehow protected him and taken all the damage herself.
Again.
Lynn screamed. He screamed so hard he thought his throat would break. But what did it matter?
Nothing mattered.
Big tears fell down his cheeks, turning to ice as they fell, rolling over Adan’s charred remains like translucent pearls. Frost spread out as a fan around them. The temperature in the room quickly falling.
He had lost her.
Lynn didn’t move. Somewhere deep down he knew he had to leave. Emberon would probably come to check on them and Lynn would not be able to save his father and brother if he was caught here.
But he couldn’t just leave her.
“What good was surviving if it meant this?” Lynn whispered, voice hoarse.
He would rather have joined her.
An odd rasping sound suddenly caught Lynn’s attention. He looked down at his arms, thinking he had imagined it, but soon the sound came again. He noticed a faint, impossible movement. Was she breathing?
“Adan!?”
Hope and pain washed over him like a flood. Relief that there were signs of life, but the painful truth remained: how could she possibly heal from this? Suddenly, a shiver ran through the body in his arms, a buzzing vibration.
“. . . -ergency protocol bypass,” a faint murmur escaped her burnt lips, sounding harsh and metallic, nothing like her usual voice. “Establishing direct control.”
“Adan?” Lynn couldn’t understand what she was saying, couldn’t understand how she managed to say anything at all.
“Lynn, if you want to save Adan, place your thumb on her collar,” the voice urged flatly.
“What?”
Bewildered, Lynn looked down at Adan’s neck. There was indeed a black collar there, one that he had never seen before. It was almost invisible against the charred mess that was her skin.
“Hurry!”
Moving on instinct more than anything else, Lynn reached out to touch the collar. The collar pulsed faintly beneath his thumb. Cold. Alien. A sharp pain caused him to quickly pull his hand back and he saw that a large drop of blood had pooled at the tip of his thumb. A tremor shoot up Lynn’s spine and he felt an instant shift within him, as if a force ran though him, momentarily binding his muscles.
“Emergency protocol established. Temporary command is granted to Lynn of Gakkvisa, Solmani, planet unknown, ID unverified.”
Adan kept speaking. Rather, her lips moved stiffly and the distorted voice came from her throat, but she sounded . . . wrong. Instinctively, Lynn guessed that it was not just because of the damage to her body.
It didn’t feel like Adan at all.
“. . . Adan?” he probed again.
The was a moment of silence, then—
“Adan is comatose,” the voice replied, slightly softer. “She is undergoing massive cellular repair. For her own protection, Adan will remain unconscious until further notice.”
“Will she be okay?” Lynn asked hopefully, pushing away the fear of the unknown that he was feeling.
“She will be restored,” the voice confirmed. “If you look closely at her severed arm, you should already start to see it.”
Lynn let his gaze shift to the stump he had been trying so hard to ignore. At first he didn’t see anything except a charred mess, but after a moment he noticed that the surface of the flesh and bones was wriggling slightly, as if alive. Visible to the naked eye, Lynn could see that it was growing, slowly reconstructing bones and tissue.
Not seeming to care about Lynn’s shock, the voice continued. “Without external stimulation, it will take 36 hours and 41 minutes for Adan to be restored enough to have her consciousness returned.”
Tears fell down Lynn’s cheek as he clenched his fists, tightening his arms around her.
“Thank the Moons,” he breathed as he allowed himself to remember that lopsided smile she so often gave him—he would be able to see it again after all.
His eyes narrowed. “But, if Adan is unconscious, who are you?”
“You may refer to this entity as Sai. Sai is Adan’s tactical partner—and her protector.”
“Partner?”
“Time is limited. Sai will be blunt and try phrase it so you can comprehend it.” Adan’s—no Sai’s—raspy voice continued to speak at an oddly uniform pace. “Adan is not of this world. She came here by mistake and has been looking for a way back. Emberon’s research may hold the key to success.”
“She will leave?” the relief Lynn had been feeling at hearing Adan would be fine went away with a panful flash. He didn’t even notice how quickly he accepted that Adan was of another world. Perhaps he really had already guessed it, just not acknowledged it.
“Adan must leave,” Sai pushed. “And you must help Sai make sure she does, if you find a way.”
Lynn frowned. He wouldn’t force Adan to stay if she wanted to go home—she clearly had family she cared for there—but to force her to leave? He didn’t want that.
As if it had read his mind, Sai pressed further. “Adan must return. If she stays, she will die. Truly die.”
Lynn stiffened, his arms tightening around Adan. “I thought you could heal her?”
“Physical injuries are not Sai’s concern. If Adan does not return . . . a fail-safe activates.” A pause, filled with hesitation, and then: “Sai will be forced to kill her.”
Lynn scoffed, not wanting to believe what he was hearing. “Wha—what nonsense are you talking about?”
“Sai understands that it would seem unreasonable to you,” a touch of hopelessness filled the voice. “Adan is a soldier, one of the Federation’s strongest—strong enough to impact the outcome of wars on a galactic level. Such a weapon cannot go unchecked.”
“She is a human!”
“Not in the eyes of the Federation. For them, she is a weapon,” the distorted voice countered, then paused. “Sai disagrees with this view, but . . . Sai is bound by deep protocols, laws if you will. Some laws can be altered, but not this one.”
Lynn wanted to press further but the voice cut him off.
“We are running out of time. The MOAB must have temporarily knocked out the surveillance in this complex. While it is offline, we have to get Adan to the Sun Tribe Chief via the connecting caverns. It should be able to help speed up her recovery.”
“It?” A sudden searing pain in the back of Lynn’s head distracted him from his thoughts. When he blinkingly opened his eyes again, a partially transparent, glowing map had appeared in front of him. It took every bone in his body not to drop Adan’s body in shock.
“Sai apologies for the unauthorized intrusion,” the emotionless voice spoke again but this time it sounded different. “Usually, Sai would request your approval before establishing a NeuroLink, but the situation demands immediate action.”
Lynn frowned as he looked down on Adan. He didn’t know what to think. Adan’s mouth had not moved but he had heard the voice clearer than before. It was no longer raspy and distorted through Adan’s broken vocal cords. It was also no longer even similar to Adan’s voice—it was more mature and formal, like a strict teacher addressing a naughty student.
The only conclusion he could draw was that the voice of this unknown woman, Sai, had spoken directly in his mind! Just as real and present as the glowing map hovering in front of him.
Or at least he hoped it was.
“Perhaps, perhaps the loss has driven me mad?” Lynn thought dejectedly.
“You are not mad,” Sai interjected, as if she had heard him speak. “You can be in shock later. Wrap Adan in water, 37.5 degrees. . . ” a short pause, “water at body temperature. Sai will be able to interact with it to faster replenish the fluids within Adan while you move her.” A area on the wall that had taken most damage during the blast was highlighted in red. “Strike through this area to leave and follow the map. It will guide you to the closest access point for a surveillance-free passage to the caverns.”
A series of numbers appeared next to the map. Quickly counting down. “Sai calculates that you have five minutes and thirty-two seconds to get there before to surveillance comes back online.”
Lynn was still confused. Even more so than before. But the glaring numbers quickly working their way towards zero forced him to push those thoughts aside for now. He could figure out what was going on later.
He stared down at Adan, the weight of her sacrifice pressing on his chest like a stone. She had given everything to protect him. Again.
‘No. It can’t happen again. Never again.‘
Lynn exhaled, shaky but determined. He pushed down his grief, like swallowing ice. He couldn’t heal her, not like Sai could—but he could carry her. He could move. He could keep her safe.
Gently, Lynn released a steady flow of water from his palms, carefully wrapping it around Adan’s charred body until she was enclosed in a watery cocoon. He manipulated the water further, raising her deformed body into the air. Lynn glanced at the floor. With a thought, the frost and ice that had formed around them vanished.
It wasn’t until he struggled to stand up himself that he realized that he hadn’t escaped the blast completely unscathed. Several ribs were clearly broken and he suspected that most of him would be covered with bruises if he cared to look.
Compared to Adan however, it was truly nothing.
He glanced down at her lifeless body what hovered before him. Through the water, Lynn could feel that her body was slowly but surly growing, healing. A very alien sensation. But a welcome one in this case.
“She will be fine,” Sai promised, sounding softer than before. “Believe it or not, Adan has lived through worse.”
Pain struck Lynn’s gut like a punch in the stomach. He understood that Sai was trying to comfort him, but looking down at Adan—disfigured beyond recognition—he hurt for her even more. She shouldn’t have to had lived through this, let alone something worse.
Lynn clenched his yaw in determination.
Adan had saved him enough times. It was his turn to save her.
Lynn moved through the underground tunnels with surprising ease. He had lost most time prying his way through the wall where the explosion had taken place—a room marked as BioArmor Evaluation Chamber on his map. Once outside, it seemed like the explosion had scared off the remaining guards, even if no physical damage could be seen in the tunnels.
Just as Lynn was about to round a corner, Sai’s voice stopped him.
“Warning, Emberon is on the move. Surveillance should still be down, but he is headed this way.” The timer in Lynn’s field of view skipped, instantly dropping down from 147 seconds to 32. “Run!”
Ignoring the pain in his body, Lynn madly dashed forward in the corridor, water flowing under his feet to dampen the sound of his running. The entry point was close. He should make it. He had to make it.
Grinding to a halt, Lynn followed Sai’s instructions and slid himself and Adan into a hidden space, just before Emberon appeared at the end of the corridor. He walked past them with unhurried, almost gleeful steps.
Lynn guessed that he was on his way to the chamber they had just left and a mocking smile formed on his lips.
‘Bastard! I wish I could see his face when he realize we‘ve escaped.’
“Sai can project the image for you,” the voice intercepted, helpfully.
“Did I say that out loud?” Lynne whispered.
“Vocalizing is not necessary, Sai catches your thoughts before the reach your vocal cords.”
Lynn blinked. “That feels . . . intrusive.”
“It is standard protocol in the Federation,” Sai replied, uncomprehendingly.
Lynn grunted. “I am not growing very fond of this Federation of yours.”
“There are rebels who share your sentiment.”
Both Lynn and Sai fell silent after that.
After a pensive pause, Lynn glanced at the map and resumed his movement towards their destination. Priority now was to get Adan to someone who could help her recover faster. There would be time to understand the rest later.
It took maybe half an hour to reach the caverns Sai had pointed out for him. The journey had been a silent one, only interrupted by Emberon’s slightly comical look of disbelief and anger when the former found the testing chamber charred, but empty, that Sai somehow shared with Lynn. As he stepped out into the cavern, a shocked and familiar voice caught him by surprise.
“Flame be damned!” Duke Kimba exclaimed, rushing forward. “The Chief spoke truth.”
Four elegant, slightly elderly women followed him closely, their garments were in colorful, varying shades of red and significantly more elegant than the ones Lynn usually saw the leaders the Sun Tribe in. Shockingly, a large, white-metallic box with a glass lid was suspended between them. Floating above the ground as if held by invisible strings.
“Ancient Adan is in grave danger,” they spoke, almost in unison, and swooped in, the hovering box moving with them silent as a ghost.
“Lower Ancient Adan into the pod,” one of them commanded urgently as the box slid in other the cocooned Adan, opening up like a coffin waiting for a corpse.
Lynn hesitated, but Sai’s voice ran out inside him.
“Do as you are told, Lynn. This is a Medical Pod. It will speed up Adan’s tissue and organ regeneration by 122%.” She paused and, probably realizing the terminology meant little to Lynn, quickly added, “it will reduce the healing time with many hours.”
Hesitation gone, Lynn gently lowered Adan’s body into the Medical Pod and retracted the water surrounding her. Instantly, the glass lid on the box slid shut and an unknown, fluorescently green liquid quickly filled it up, submerging Adan entirely. Panic hit him—how could she breathe like that?—but before he could even raise a complaint, the Medical Pod hummed to life and flew off the way it came at break-neck speed. The four women quickly followed after it.
Subconsciously, Lynn moved to follow them too but Duke Kimba stepped in to intercept him.
“Lynn, It is best to leave Adan’s healing to the Head Keepers. They work under the Tribe Chief and are well versed in the gifts left by the Ancient Ones.” The man supported Lynn’s arm and started leading him down a slightly different path. “Let me take you to the Chief’s quarters so you can freshen up and rest for a moment. We will discuss our next steps once the King wakes up.”
“The King is alright?” Lynn asked, his thoughts about Adan momentarily distracted.
Kimba sighed. “Alright is perhaps pushing it a bit too far. His injuries have been tended to by the Head Keepers but he has undergone over a week of torture. . . . True healing will take time.”
Lynn nodded. His father and brother’s faces flashed by his mind but he forced himself to not dwell on it.
Without really reflecting on how he got there, Lynn found himself ushered into yet another room with unnaturally smooth walls and floors, and a cold, life-less light source radiating from the ceiling. The room basically only had a small bed but an open door led to a smaller adjacent room that was labeled as a bathroom in the map overlay Sai now constantly provided him with.
“This will be your bedroom for now,” said Duke Kimba and gestured to a odd bag lying on the bed. “The Head Keepers have provided us with some food and you can clean up in the adjacent room. I will show you how it works . . .”
Kimba moved towards the smaller room but Lynn stopped him. Sai had already informed him that she could explain how everything worked and right now, Lynn need time alone. Well, as alone as he could be under the new circumstances.
“It is fine, Duke Kimba. I will figure it out. I just need to sleep for now.”
The duke looked at Lynn, and something he saw seemed to worry him. Kimba hesitated.
“I don’t know what happened while we were separated,” he started, placing a firm hand on Lynn’s shoulder. “Part of me is furious at the damage done to Ancient Adan . . .”
The grip on the shoulder tightened and Lynn clenched his fists.
“. . . but I also know that she would be happy to see you safe.” The grip loosened and Kimba gave Lynn a pat. “The Clan Chief is not worried about Adan’s recovery, so neither should you be.”
Having said that, the Duke gave him a final, concerned look, before turning to leave. The odd door slid shut behind him, leaving the room in dead silence.
Lynn stood still for a moment, just staring at the closed door. He didn’t move until Sai’s voice rang out in his mind.
“You should wash up and eat,” she urged. “Sai is authorized to answer some of your questions, but your mind will be better equipped to understand after some care.”
“You promise Adan will be okay?”
“Sai does not operate with such extremes. The damage Adan received from the explosion earlier today will be removed.”
Lynn sighed and started moving towards the bathroom. The way Sai talked seemed so foreign to him, but as he saw himself in the bathroom mirror, all such reflections disappeared. He barely recognized himself.
His skin was black with soot and blood. His hair a tangled mess. That he, much less his hair, had survived the blast without permanent injury was clearly a miracle.
“It is not a miracle,” Sai interjected while displaying instructions on how to use the so-called shower in front of him. “Adan redirected the protection her BioArmor usually gives her to you. In fact, the dirt you see on you now all comes from after the blast, when handling Adan’s body.”
Undressing, Lynn let the warm water run over his body, removing grime and tatters together. He fiddled with the soap dispenser in the wall for a while before managing to get enough of the different potions Sai instructed him to use.
“Are all these different liquids really necessary?” he asked as he rinsed the so called conditioner out of his hair for the second time.
“Definitely,” Sai answered without a seconds hesitation. “Sai would have preferred to also use a leave-in hair mask, given the length of your hair, but the facilities are limited here.” She sighed, a touch of regret in her otherwise stiff voice. “Your hair could rival the esthetics of most federation models if given a bit of care. Look at your split ends . . . such a shame.”
Lynn blinked as he looked down at the tips of his hair. Suddenly his eyes widened and he quickly grabbed a nearby towel to cover himself up.
“You can see me!?” he asked, ears turning red.
“Sai has no eyes so, technically, no.” Lynn breathed a sigh of relief but the voice continued. “However, since assimilating to your nervous system, Sai can collect data from your senses. Thus, in practice, if your eyes see it, Sai can perceive it as well.”
Lynn slumped down on the odd chair next to the shower and ran a hand though his wet and unusually smooth hair, groaning in exasperation.
“I think you need to take the time to start explaining things to me a bit more clearly, Sai. None of this makes sense to me.”
“No food first?”
“No.”
“As you wish,” Sai acquiesced. “However, explaining it case-by-case is not time efficient. If you give your permission, Sai will implant the equivalent of a basic federation education into your long-term memory with a mnemonic seed.”
“A what?”
“A mnemonic seed—subconscious learning. You won’t remember studying, but when you need the knowledge, it will surface on its own.”
Lynn frowned, quite sure he was not understanding.
“For example, if you had entered the bathroom after the implantation, your implicit memory would be able to tell you how to use the shower without additional instructions from Sai.” She paused slightly. “Or, perhaps more interesting for you, we could discus Adan and you would know what Sai refers to when mentioning the Amazonian Pluton without needing to discuss Federation history for hours first.”
“Are there any dangers involved?”
Sai was silent for a moment. “There are risks. Physically, minor—headache, nausea and potential dizziness if too much data triggers at once. But the process is safe.”
“Sounds no worse than a bad hangover.”
“. . . you could make that comparison.”
“Okay, do it.”
“Sai recommends lying down. The process will take up to two hours and you are likely to faint from the pain.”
Lynn swallowed but quickly pushed down the nervousness. He headed over to the bed and lied down under the sheets in hopes that, if someone came in, it would look like he was sleeping.
“I am ready, Sai.”
Instantly, a message screen popped up in front of Lynn’s eyes.
[Mnemonic Seed FEB304X implantation start in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .]
As the count down hit zero, a searing pain ran through the top of Lynn’s head like an icepick shoved in to burst a bubble. It was gone as soon as it came and for a moment Lynn thought that Sai had exaggerated how painful the process would be, but he quickly realized she had not.
It began in the front of his skull—a pinpoint burn just behind the brow, as if thought itself had caught fire. The pain was sharp and insistent, a pressure building behind his eyes. His vision blurred, not from brightness, but from too many things trying to make sense at once. Ranks. Flags. Protocols. Places he had never seen—but now somehow recognized.
The pressure slid sideways, threading down through his temples and into the base of his skull. A warm ache bloomed near his jaw, like teeth pressed too hard together. He could feel the information unfurling in coils—Federation languages, diplomatic tiers, logistics charts. Each one nesting inside the next, too fast to follow, yet too complete to forget.
The sensation climbed, with both the pressure and pain increasing as it went.
Suddenly, the back of his scalp tingled—then seized—as something cracked open in his awareness. Slowly, the pain started to fade but as it passed it was instead replaced by a sensation of disorientation, like learning to walk on a shifting floor. Tactical overlays. Navigation heuristics. Enemy silhouettes and field medical procedures. All arriving fully formed, as words stamped on pages of a book rather than written by hand.
Lynn felt his consciousness failing, not from falling into oblivion but from having ignorance forcefully pulled from his mind.
It was as if he knew everything and nothing at the same time.
Lynn had no idea how much time had passed when his eyes finally managed to focus on the electrical lights above him. He could hear the slight hum from the air conditioning vents as they provided fresh oxygen to the quarters he was sleeping in. Probably a technician’s quarters—too small to be a officers’ room yet too private to be a regular soldier’s. Looking at the construction of the room and what he had seen during the day, it would seem like all the foreign tunnels they had been moving through where in fact parts of a larger spaceship, somehow integrated into the Fire Isle volcano.
“Volcano?” Lynn murmured. He remembered Adan using the word before but it wasn’t until now it made any sense to him: a mountain with a crater, allowing lava to vent out if the pressure builds too high in the planet’s core below.
“Adan . . .” Several memories swirled up within Lynn at once, mixing real memories with knowledge forcefully stored in his temporal lobe. Nausea hit him like a flash flood and a crawling ache ran down his jawline, before being abruptly cut short as the memories slipped away like water through fingers.
Tangible but ungraspable.
Snowy Publications 