Of Oracles and Sirens- Sample Chapter

[The Oracine Order reminds the reader that this information is historical in nature, compiled from a rough draft of the final version of the Approved Histories of Humanity. Information contained in this record may contain inaccuracies that have since been corrected.]

Avery had been thrilled to have the excuse to spend more time with Renata. She was funny and smart, a great friend. And devastatingly beautiful when she was scheming things, which was pretty much all the time lately. He’d been reluctant to part ways with her this morning, but he still had a job to do, and she was more than capable of handling herself.

      The time apart from her was already proving to be a good idea though. He hadn’t caught up with his friends on Roraima ring in a while, and talking with Henri and Lola was refreshing. Avery had been friends with both of them before they started dating, and talking with them gave him a chance to examine how he felt about Renata.

      Avery and Henri were in one of the utility tunnels that ran below the commons. The space was tall enough for them to stand without banging their heads, and it hummed and clanged with the sound of machinery. The heat exchanger in front of them had been in service for a good ten years and was due for an upgrade; Henri had promised Avery to let him tag along. The new module they had assembled earlier in the day sat off to the side, ready for installation. These systems were vital to the ship’s functions, so this job was great experience for Avery.

      “Why haven’t you asked her out yet anyway?” Henri said as they removed an access panel from the heat exchanger.

      Avery laughed and shook his head. “I, uh, I don’t know if she feels that way about me, you know? Wouldn’t want to mess up the friendship.” He finished undoing the bolts with his magnetic ratchet and stowed them in a pocket on his jumpsuit.

      Henri gave him a bemused look. “You’re kidding, right? Are you not seeing the way she looks at you? Does she not find all kinds of excuses to spend time with you?”

      Avery felt his face growing warm. “Nah, I mean, we’re just working on this side project, right? She’s amazing at micro-electronics. Pretty sure I’ve learned more from her the last week than I have in some of your classes! Uh, no offense.”

      Henri rolled his eyes as he and Avery moved the panel to the opposite side of the utility tunnel. “Yeah, man, you need to ask her out. She’s into you, trust me.”

      “Really? You think so?” He ran a hand through his hair as his mind considered the possibility.

      “You both might as well be wearing flashing neon signs declaring your affections. Somehow, you both are either completely missing them or straight up ignoring them…” Henri shook his head as they loosened bolts on the heat exchange module.

      After a few minutes, they heaved the old module out and set it off to the side. Henri turned to grab the new module, but before Avery could move to help him, an alarm blared, red lights strobing in time with the noise.

#                                 #                                 #

Returning to Arc 5’s workshop, Ren spent the rest of the afternoon lining up parts she would need to fabricate tomorrow morning. In between placing material orders, she checked her spy cam feeds and went over what she was going to say to Avery. The last several days of spy cam footage had been monotonous, nothing out of the ordinary coming into view. Ren caught sight of James on one of the videos, escorting Jared somewhere. Jared was prone on a floating stretcher-like device, limply lifting one of his legs every now and then to communicate with James. He gave Ren the creeps, as he seemed to strike fear or loathing in his fellow Pod for some reason. Ren switched the camera over to the electric field view and watched the subtle waves of energy emitted from Jared’s pad.

Suddenly, a shrill alarm blared inside the workshop, making Ren bolt upright. It sounded three times, and then a voice announced, “An emergency drill is now commencing, Fire in Arc 5 galley. Please report to your stations.” The alarm sounded three more times, and the message repeated.

Renata looked around as she stood. Sven was already at the door and waving for everyone else to file out, his fine blond hair covering one blue eye as he leaned through the door frame.

Kevin threw his arms up in exasperation. “Gah, I was almost done with that!”

Ren walked out into the commons with Kevin following behind her. As she looked back at the workshop, she noticed a sticker next to the open door; it was a simple red circle, about the size of a fist. She felt the hair stand up on the back of her neck, her pulse quickening.

Outside was organized chaos in action. People walking toward the site of the drill kept to one side of the walkways, and those reporting to their hab units kept to the other side. People joined and left the line seemingly at random, some returning to their habs and activating the safety doors, others stopping at a safety equipment locker and pulling out oxygen masks and fire suppressors. As Ren took everything in, she didn’t spot any Pod waiting nearby and she relaxed somewhat.

She walked across the commons and joined the flow heading toward the “fire,” waving over her shoulder at Kevin, who began heading to his hab. As she arrived outside of the galley, Takeshi Mukai, or Mukai-san to his students like Ren, was standing on a table outside shouting questions, directing traffic, and ensuring everyone understood their role. Chief Bavin stood nearby, one hand to his ear, listening intently. He caught Ren’s eye and gave her a nod. She walked over to Ms. Sagan, who had her younger crowd of students gathering into a line.

“Alright, children. Show me how fast you can count off!” Ms. Sagan said with a smile.

The children began counting, the last child in line exclaiming “Aaaand fourteen!” with an enthusiastic jump. Ms. Sagan beamed at him and, noticing Ren approaching, nodded to her.

“Hiro, let’s try not to jump during an emergency. Something goes wrong and the rings stop spinning, I’ll have to grab your ankle to stop you from floating off,” Ren said with a wink and a smile at the young boy.

Hiro grinned sheepishly and said, “Oh, yeah, woops!”

“Good reminder, Renata, thank you. Okay, everyone hold hands. Let’s head to the classroom!” Ms. Sagan took Zoe’s hand, who was at the front of the line, and walked toward the classroom. Ren took Hiro’s hand at the end of the line and followed. She gave a wave to Mukai-san as they left and shouted, “Mukai-san, sixteen to the classroom!”

He pointed in acknowledgment and turned to repeat the message to Chief Bavin.

#                                 #                                 #

Henri cursed loudly but moved toward the exit. Avery followed, his heart leaping into his throat. Normally, he and Ren would be at their shop in Arc 5 checking parts inventory for the next day’s spy cam builds right now. The timing of the drill made his skin crawl, but he forced those thoughts down. They’d been careful, and there hadn’t been any stickers marking his or Ren’s hab so far. This was probably a normal drill.

As he followed Henri into the commons, they moved to the nearest rally point, walking through a nearby junction. One of the operations chiefs in the arc on the other side was handing out burn kits and shouting instructions. “The drill is for a galley fire on Asgard, Arc 5. Their medical bay has been overwhelmed and we should expect wounded to start showing up here. Triage those that arrive and keep them stable till the medics can take over.”

Avery’s pulse returned to something close to normal, but then immediately spiked as he saw a group of Pod moving into view under the curve of the ring. There were four of them making a perimeter around a fifth, who was lying prone on a gurney. A line of children was approaching the group as they made for their emergency rally point.

Avery tapped Henri’s shoulder. “Hey, Henri, what are those Pod doing? Why are they here in the middle of a drill?”

Henri frowned and followed Avery’s gesture. After a moment, he shrugged. “They’ve been paranoid for a month now. Who knows?” His eyes narrowed though, as the children were ushered past the Pod on the gurney, one at a time. “What the fuck…?”

By now, most people were at their posts for the drill and the crowd had died down, giving them a clear view to the Pod and the children filing past, a nervous caretaker looking on. A few medics had also stopped to watch. An electric flash emanated from the Pod as the third child in line walked by. He stopped, looking around with wide eyes.

Avery walked toward the group without realizing it. “Hey! Hey, what’s going on here? What are you doing?” This was stupid, some small part of his mind screamed. He was supposed to be lying low, gathering information. But the rest of his mind roared with rage. Why wasn’t anyone else doing anything? Couldn’t they see what was happening?

The two Pod closest to Avery turned, and one put a pad up to its translator box. The second flanked him slowly. “The adolescent Homo sapiens will immediately return to his designated emergency drill duty station—”

“No, hey! Leave that kid alone. What are you doing?”

A third Pod had moved up next to the child. A woman wearing a black jumpsuit that Avery didn’t recognize was talking with the caretaker, throwing nervous glances at Avery as he approached.

A sudden motion to Avery’s left made him flinch. He spun that direction, dropping into a fighting stance, just in time to see one of the Pod moving in with alarming speed. As he turned to face it, it stopped short, scrambling on its six legs to try to get behind him and reaching out one of its legs toward his head.

Avery ducked, lashed a forearm at the chalk-white appendage, reached his hand around it, and gripped hard. The skin was rough and dry, and didn’t give nearly as much as he had hoped it would. He heard someone shout as the Pod used its rear legs to launch itself at him, toppling him to the ground in a blur of motion.

As Avery hit the ground, he saw the pearly white nubs of one of its pads brush past his face. It connected with the side of his head. A blue-white flash followed. And then darkness.

#                                 #                                 #

As they walked, Ren tapped her lens and quietly asked SAMI, “Is it just our arc for this drill?”

“Whole ship, lots of activity right now,” SAMI said, sounding distracted.

Ren frowned briefly before suppressing it, glancing at the rest of the kids. “Everything all right?”

“It’s probably nothing… Avery hasn’t checked into his post yet,” SAMI said.

“Ooookay…keep me posted.” Ren had a sinking feeling in her stomach.

“I’ll have to wait till the drill is over to scan the security feeds. I’ll draw too much attention if I reroute traffic right now. Don’t worry. Maybe he got re-tasked for something.”

Ren nodded and tried to tell herself that SAMI was right. Nothing to worry about. Sure. Great.

She pushed those thoughts aside and focused on quizzing the kids on the emergency routes with Ms. Sagan. Time seemed to stretch, as Ren kept a brave smile and chatted with the children but had to fight to push down a growing feeling of dread in between activities.

Finally, the drill ended, and everyone headed back to their habs or the galley for dinner. Ren said her goodbyes as quickly as she could, leaving a confused Ms. Sagan in the classroom. It took an immense power of will for her not to sprint to her hab. After the longest two minutes of her life, Ren reached the hab with robin’s-egg-blue siding and green windowsills and door; home, at last.

She dropped her bag on the sofa in the living room, flew down the hallway, and then nearly parkoured off the wall and leaped through her door.

Ren fell into her chair and brought up the physical console that she had demanded her father add for her. The monitor sprang to life, and she brought up the security camera feeds, simultaneously tapping her lens. “SAMI, did you find him?”

SAMI’s voice was small and apologetic. “I did, but I can’t see where he went when the drill began. Someone on the crew locked the footage down. I could get in but…it’d be impossible to do without them tracing it back to me eventually. C0Y0T3 has his doors shut tight right now, not responding to my requests.”

As she spoke, the security camera feed on Ren’s console cycled through images: Avery exiting a maintenance tunnel on Roraima ring, walking through the commons. The frame froze as he entered a junction. “That’s the last image I have of him. He never reported to his post for the drill. His family is demanding to talk to the crew.”

Ren suddenly remembered her spy cameras. “SAMI, what about our cameras?”

“With the amount of Pod in the area, we can’t risk transmitting. We’ll have to download it directly. The limit in the ship’s cameras does narrow down the area he went missing though. I believe it happened shortly after the junction. Which is where our camera was aimed. Getting to it anytime soon may prove challenging.”

“Someone had to have seen something though! How are there no reports?!” As soon as she had asked the question, she knew the answer.

SAMI voiced it for her anyway. “The Pod are blocking any communications from people who were in the area. And…undoubtedly wiped their memories.”

The security feed switched to two views looking toward the section of Arc 3 on Roraima ring where Avery disappeared. In the large central doorway for the junction, three Pod stood guard. No one was approaching or leaving. On the opposite site, in the commons, a crowd of people could be seen sitting on the ground, more Pod standing between them and the rest of the commons.

Ren laced her fingers behind her neck, puffed up her cheeks and blew the air out, and then buried her face in her hands, her eyes beginning to burn with tears. “Uuugh, okay. Okay, okay, okay. So make a note of anyone that lives in that area, anyone that leaves. We’ll have to go and ask them in person what happened. Maybe the Pod will miss someone and they’ll still have their memories.”

“Of course. It may be a while. I’ll let you know when I have something.” SAMI shut the console down for Ren, and it slid with a whisper back into the desk.

Ren threw herself onto her bed, grabbed her pillow and buried her face into it, and screamed with everything she had. Her face was soon wet with warm tears, soaking the pillow. She came up for air and then buried her face and screamed again. SAMI dimmed the lights in the room, and Ren pulled her blankets up, sobbing into her pillow until she had no energy left to cry, and fell asleep.