Chapter 2: A Difficult Decision

Research Log, Year 17, Month 1, Day 4 (Day 5,823)

“When this started I was looking for a way to save diordna lives, something to replace soldiers on the front line. It was my life's work to stop others from feeling the pain I felt when I heard my parents died. But things have changed. Raising Mada became my life, not the research, not the proofs, not the possibility of sending him to die in my place. I’ve considered publishing these logs without revealing Mada to the world. Considered keeping him a secret forever to protect him. I thought I’d brand them as science fiction to avoid suspicion.

“But he deserves better than to be fiction. He deserves to be treated as our equal, not sent to die as a tool of war.”

Three months ago

"This is suicide," Treblig said as he handed the orders back to Nagemai, his eyes pink with surprise and anger.

Nagemai, The White General, took the orders and quickly read them again. White General was a title that some thought was passed down by previous White Generals, but in truth she’d been the only one to ever hold it. Nearly a thousand years, and still she survived.

She'd been on her fair share of suicide missions in that amount of time.

She was a short nawo, and wore a crisp white uniform that inspired the title. Although she was Redaeli whe was of mixed heritage, commonly called a half-skin, and so had blended copper and iron skin. This gave her a much more complex swirling skin pattern of iron gray and orange woven in and through the copper and teal common to other Redaeli.

”What will you do?”

Nagemai looked up at Treblig where he stood across from her map table in the command tent. He was Nagemai’s second and a good friend. His copper skin swirled with teal was only exposed at his face because of the wooden armor her wore, and she could just make out part of a black painted pattern on his head beneath the helm. They were on the front lines, so most didn’t bother with things like painting their heads. Treblig liked the ritual of it to help him focus in the mornings. Nagemai was always on the front lines so she'd had plenty of time to learn Treblig's quirks and rituals.

These orders would put them far beyond the front lines.

“This won't be our first suicide mission,” Nagemai said, nodding solemnly. The Redael was getting desperate in her attempts to get Nagemai killed. “We’ll just have to survive like every time before.”

"This is far more dangerous than the last one," Treblig said. She gave him a flat stare in response and he sighed. “I’m guessing you’re already developing a plan of attack?”

“Of course,” Nagemai said, and it was true. She was already considering the logistics of moving beyond enemy lines to strike a city deep in Drolite territory.

But more importantly, she was making plans to check on something set in motion nearly twenty years before. They were supposed to attack the Drolite city Rebmevon, a city that was home to a scientist named Ekivia. Her spy network had kept a close eye on her for a long time, since before she stopped working as an inventor. Nagemai had a deep interest in her final project, and these orders presented a unique opportunity to check on things set in motion long ago.

Nagemai was looking forward to finally meeting Ekivia in person.

**********

Ekivia came up the stairs from the cellar beneath her house, carrying a large water skin in one hand, filled from the well in the cellar, and a woven basket filled with what would become their lunch in the other hand. Mostly fruit and vegetables, with a portion of bird meat for Mada, and a large ferrum pod for her. She’d eat plant and animal products, she even liked them, but they weren’t the most nutritious foods for a diordna. They’d give a burst of energy, energy diordna needed, but the real substance of her diet was the pod. Roughly ball shaped, the metal spheres grew like melons on farms all over the continent. Their outside was very similar to her skin color when it grew, but when it was ripe the entire outside skin was orange with oxidation. That’s when you knew the inside would be soft, wet with oils drawn from the ground into the pods as they grew. Of course, they were supposed to eat the skin as well as the juicy insides, but there was plenty of metal inside the pod, making a network of pockets to hold the oil, so she didn’t always choose to eat the skins. She liked the taste of the whole thing, skin and center alike, but the outside could be tough and unpleasant to chew on.

Ekivia left the cellar stairwell and looked at the woven wood covering over the entrance, hesitating briefly before deciding to send Mada back to close it rather than put down one of her burdens to do it herself. The cellar was a good addition to her home, added shortly after… shortly before Mada’s birth. The cool dry space kept his food fresh and helped preserve her ferrum pods by keeping the humidity more stable, and on average lower, than above ground.

She walked from the side of the house where the cellar entrance was, around to the back door of her home, and pushed it open with her foot. The door opened into the kitchen and dining room, and she found Mada sitting at the table, hunched forward, arms folded to prop him up so he could read the book that lay open before him. He looked at the thing like one might a feast, eyes hungry, consuming every word on the page before turning to the next.

He’d grown better than Ekivia could have hoped, considering the rocky start to his life. He was roughly her height, a little under two meters tall, with pale skin, short white hair, and pink eyes. An albino, though unlike some other albino animals his eyesight seemed to be fine.

“Could you go close the cellar for me?” Ekivia asked him as he read.

“Sure,” he said, not looking up from his reading.

She turned and walked to the kitchen space, placing her burdens on the counter which, like her bookshelves, were grown as part of the house. Stooping, she retrieved some wood from the space beneath the counter and tossed it into the lower chamber of the brick oven. It wasn’t a large unit, with just enough space for one or two pieces of a split log at a time in the heating chamber, and as much space above in the cooking chamber, but it was plenty big for the two of them.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Taking some kindling, she arranged a trail of it from the logs she’d put in earlier out to the entrance of the fire chamber, which had a small shelf of brick where she could start the fire. She stood and retrieved the pouch with blast powder in it, noticing that Mada was still at the table reading.

“You going to close the cellar or have you already done it?” Ekivia asked.

“Already did it,” Mada said.

She hadn’t even heard him leave or return, but as she thought that she noticed his gloves, wide-brimmed hat, and mask on the table next to him, his coat in a heap on the floor beside the door instead of on the hook where it had been before. With his complexion, he needed to be covered when he went out in the sun, and the outfit also would keep his features obscured if someone caught a glimpse of him outside. That gave him a little freedom to move as he pleased, though if he was seen the outfit might look strange to others. They planned and practiced swapping places so she could claim it was her they saw and that she liked to keep the sun off, and Mada had a bird on his shoulder at all times that he could send back to warn Ekivia that they needed to switch.

Thank Dytie they hadn’t yet had to test that lie on anyone.

Ekivia turned back to the oven and struck the blast pounder with a rock, sending sparks across the kindling and into the fire chamber. It ignited the smaller material, and she watched it, tossing in some slightly larger twigs and pieces of bark. Once the fire caught on the largest pieces of wood, the smell of smoke filling her nose, she placed the small brick covering over the chamber entrance, forcing the smoke to escape through the chimney out the back of the house instead of allowing it to come into the kitchen.

Standing, Ekivia grabbed the obsidian knife from the counter beside the oven and pulled two clay plates from the shelf above the counter. “Mada, come help me out with the food.”

She heard a grunt from behind her, and then his footsteps as he approached and stepped up beside her, book in hand. She smiled and grabbed the other knife, this one a sharpened shell knife, with a handle made of bone, and held it out toward her son. It wasn’t as strong as the obsidian one, but it was sharp and would cut almost anything.

He continued to read even as he glanced over and took the knife. “Sorry, I’m just about done with this chapter.”

“That’s alright,” Ekivia said, beginning to cut the ferrum pod into bite-sized sections. “Did you do your combat exercises this morning?”

“I did,” Mada said even as he continued to read. “Though I don’t know why you make me do them. I’ll probably never be drafted.”

“True,” Ekivia said, and Mada finally put his book down and started sawing an apple in half with his knife. “But I want you ready if you are. Once I’m sent to the war you’ll have to take care of yourself. I’ll do what I can to prepare for that day, but…”

Ekivia took a deep breath. She honestly didn’t know how to handle that situation. She planned on revealing Mada before that happened, showing the world that he was a true Animal Intelligence, forge him a place in this world so he could live a normal life. Well, as normal a life as an AI could. To do that she’d need help, and the day of her draft was approaching in just a few years.

Ekivia held her hand to the side, feeling the heat coming from the oven, then she scooped some ash from a container under the counter and coated the bottom of the cooking chamber with it before unwrapping the meat and tossing it in to cook. It was a large piece, a little bigger than her fist. She’d eat maybe a third of it and leave the rest for Mada.

“You know, I’ve been thinking a lot about what we should do about me,” Mada said. “When you leave I mean. As an animal, I’m more likely to be seen as a tool to most diordna. I know you have another five or six years before you’re drafted, but…”

He paused and Ekivia felt her heart sink. She knew what he was going to say. It was something she’d been thinking too. Something she’d been avoiding for several years already, but she didn’t want to be the one to say it. The thought darkened her eyes with black sorrow

“I think we need to bring someone else in,” Mada said quietly, and she could hear a slight tremble in his voice as he said it. She’d instilled a fear of other diordna in him, one that would be hard to overcome. She’d simply been clear and transparent about how she expected the world to be and about what had happened with his… siblings. She did it so he’d understand and stay safe, but now that they needed to take steps to expose him to the world she worried that she’d done too good a job.

Ekivia nodded, and the only sound between them for a moment was that of the fire cracking, the bird sizzling, and their knives clicking as they cut.

Finally, she spoke. “I think you’re right. And if you think you’re ready then… we should do it.”

“Do you think I’m ready?” Mada asked, looking closely at her expression.

She met his eyes. “I think you’ve been ready for a while now. You are what I wanted you to be. Though it’ll take time for others to see it, you are as much a diordna as I am.”

Mada smiled. “Thank you. If you think I’m ready then I’m ready. You are the expert.”

She sighed and they continued their work in silence for a moment longer.

“So…” Mada began. “Any ideas who you might bring in? Iakedrom maybe?”

Ekivia laughed. “He’d never agree to that. I know we’re kind of friends now, but his main purpose in coming here is to be sure I don’t break the law and make something new without my license. Besides, he’s not an expert on this kind of thing.”

“Then who do you think is the right choice?” Mada asked.

“I’ve told you about Nevets?” Ekivia asked. “I visit him sometimes when I go pick up supplies. We’ve been friends for a long time.”

“Yeah. I remember.”

“He was the one I wanted to assess you and the others before they were… taken. He was the best in the business back then, and still is from what I hear, though he’d never say so himself.”

“Alright then,” Mada said, obviously nervous about meeting someone who’d never even been to the house. “When will I meet him?”

“As soon as possible,” Ekivia said. “As you said, time is only getting shorter. I’ll call him after we eat.”

Mada nodded, popping a piece of the apple into his mouth, and they continued preparing their meal. After a short time, he told her about the book he was reading, a piece of speculative fiction about a third diordna nation coming from another place and invading their continent. It sounded interesting but Ekivia couldn’t focus on what he was saying all through their meal. She was too preoccupied with what they were about to start.

When they were done, Mada went for a walk in the woods, bringing his book with him. She’d bought it for him less than a week before and he was already nearly finished with it. While he did that she went to her office and made a call, not to Nevets but to someone she hadn’t spoken to since the day she almost lost everything. She didn’t know if anything would come of this call, but Egeil had helped them before, maybe their mysterious benefactor would do so again. The conversation was brief, and her old assistant didn’t know if Egeil would be able to do anything, but she agreed to try and contact the diordna.

Then she took out the parrot where she recorded her research on Mada and made what she expected to be her final log. From that point on, day 5,823, any additions would be made by Nevets.

That done she looked at the intricate bioluminescent vine pattern in the wall that told her the time of day to be sure Nevets would be done with his lecture, then picked up her calling bird again and contacted her friend.