76°00'08.2"S 53°43'31.2"E - Nuevo Trujillo, Spanish Antarctic Colonies
21.05.2024 15:00, UTC+03:00
I could see Prince Marcelo looking right at the camera when its point of view changed and focused on the Queen.
Every sound and chant around me was muted. My head started spinning. I did not understand. I clicked on the earpiece again, hoping I would hear an explanation from my Prince, something that would make this make sense. The trip from London, his cryptic messages, and now him showing off happy in Santiago, were all conflicting images. The only answer I got was static.
Light shone through the TV and everyone in the room cheered. The Queen was chanting as she raised her hands and exhibited her famous unrivaled domain powers. The legendary sun of the Trastamara Domain in live broadcast.
“Tra-sta-ma-ra! Tra-sta-ma-ra!” Everyone in the canteen of the T-HQ cheered. From the windows, we had a nice view of the center of Nuevo Trujillo and I could bet every TV in every room of every building was tuned to this broadcast, much like all the TVs in the room I was in.
“I bear the light of our foremother, and I shall cast it onto you,” the Queen said. My eyes would not leave the Prince, however, and all I wondered was if I were to believe my eyes, and that person was Marcelo, who was the one speaking through our private channel? Who was the one that joined our trip to London and then vanished?
Or maybe the imposter was the one showing next to the Queen right now? And the real Marcelo was in terrible trouble. He had warned me not to trust anything they would say, after all.
As the light from the Santiago Tower burned brighter and everyone stood up to pay respects to Our Queen, I saw the Prince momentarily turning around. It was but a momentary twitch, a look over his shoulder, nothing anyone would notice unless looking right at him. I was.
And then the TV and the lights in the building went dark, leaving only the natural light entering from the windows. A noise emanating from the back of my head almost pierced my ears.
-skrt-zzz-skrt-
“Oy!” I heard Ricardo complain. I wasn’t feeling pain but the sound coming out of the back of my head – where I assumed my clearance chip was – was most definitely uncomfortable.
Every T-Agent on the floor visibly ached or complained, as all electric devices chittered.
I clicked on my earpiece and commanded: “Interference Protocol! Initiate, now!”.
“Comms are down,” Miguel said next to me, in visible discomfort. I turned to him and saw something unusual in his eyes: he was expecting me to give an order. I and Ricardo were probably the highest-ranked in there, but Ricardo was almost screaming from pain.
“Interference Protocol, now!” I yelled around me, trying to bring everyone’s attention to the situation.
In the best-case scenario, this was a town-wide black-out. Worst-case scenario, someone was targeting the HQ machines, and we needed to be ready to react.
Nobody listened to me, as everyone was panicking with the sound of their chips.
“Ela, you can do this,” Miguel said.
“I can do what…” I stopped one breath short of finishing that sentence. He was suggesting that I use my Soothsaying. I grimaced at the idea. I hated that thing, and I hated the perceived worth this was adding to me. It was a Curse, and I should be enough to command without it.
“Fine.” I swallowed my pride.
“You have nothing to fear,” I said as calmly as someone would say ‘good morning’ first thing stepping into a bakery. I did not even need to yell it; it was enough that I speak it. My voice reverberated through me and space, in a way that I found unnervingly familiar. It was not reaching for ears but for minds. Nobody should be able to hear me over the commotion, but everyone did. The agents and the employees of the canteen all stood calmly and turned to me.
“Let’s start the Interference Protocol now,” I said monotonously. Everyone nodded.
“See, your Curse can also be awesome,” Miguel said, smirking. I wanted to rub that smile off his face.
“T-4 Miguel, go double-check what is happening with IT and get out of my face,” I told him, knowingly giving him the task that would postpone my interactions with him as much as possible.
“There is no need,” Gitana said. I turned to her. She was manically drawing over a napkin with a pencil, what I can only assume was a map. “This is a total blackout.”
“Which districts are affected?” Ricardo asked.
“This is a total blackout. All the colonies are out. There is no electricity anywhere in the Spanish Colonies. N.T., Santiago, San Cristobal. You name it.” Gitana kept drawing as she talked.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
“What?”
Suddenly, the natural lighting of the room went dimmer and dimmer, as everything went darker than usual. Everyone under the influence of my soothsaying did not react, but everyone at my table including me turned toward the windows.
“What the fuck,” Miguel said as the whole room eventually went dark.
There was no sunlight coming from the windows. I quickly ran to the glass western wall of the canteen. The sky was dark and full of stars – and the sun was nowhere to be seen. It was a primal feeling. Seeing the stars where the sun should be.
“Total blackout,” Gitana said, and I felt the hair at the nape of my neck rise. This was not a blackout; the summer sun had vanished.
“We have to run to command,” I said and Ricardo, Miguel, and I started running. “Gitana!”
I yelled at her, but she was too preoccupied with her drawing. Whatever her Insight was showing her, she had to finish the drawing, taking more and more napkins on the table to finish whatever she had started. She only briefly looked at me and said “Total blackout” once more.
When I reached Azura’s office of command, Ricardo was already briefing her.
“Assessment?” She asked me as soon as I entered the door.
“A Curse. A new domain. Something pushing Trastamara’s Sun away,” I said, “Chances are another Breach could happen.”
The screens in the office were all disconnected from power. Even the most independent electric appliances, like battery fluorescent security lights flickered on and off, providing inconsistent lighting in the room.
T-2 Azura looked at the three of us. If she was scared, she hid it all too well. She was knocking her right-hand knuckles rhythmically on her desk until she finally spoke.
“Everyone out of the HQ. Prepare for evacuation, until I give the order to execute it. Bring the Ice Rovers to the front. One reserved for T-2s, then prioritize those below twenty years old. Elena, you stay here.”
Ricardo and Miguel exited the room immediately and I was left alone with my chief for the second time the same day. She lingered a moment too long before she made a move and pulled out a phone from her desk’s drawer. It was analog, like a phone from the 1980s, with a spinning wheel and a huge mouthpiece.
“This is a direct line to Santiago Towers. There is someone that wants to speak with you,” she said.
I rushed to the desk to grab the phone. Azura raised her right hand, stopping me, her left hand still on the phone’s handle.
“Elena! Remember your duty to the Royal family, but also remember your duty to yourself,” she said. I nodded emphatically before she handed me the phone.
Before I could ask what that meant, she bowed slightly and left the room.
“Thank you T-2 Azura.” I said and I hesitated. I was not sure why I was thanking her, but there was a sense of Deja Vu in the interaction. A part of me was dreading this phone call, while another was titillating my excitement: a call from the Santiago Towers could only mean one thing.
I lifted the phone.
“Hello?”
“Elena. It is me, Marcelo. This will be hard for you to believe, but I need your help. Only you can help us right now.”
I could not believe I heard his voice for the second time after I thought he had vanished. After I thought I lost him on the Transantarctic Rail.
“Marcelo! What happened? What is happening with the sky? Where are you?”
“I am now okay,” he said with an eerie calm, “but I need your help for this to work. I need you to cooperate, okay?”
“Yes, yes Marcelo. Whatever you tell me, I can help.”
“Right now, nothing electric works. This means people are dying in hospitals, vehicles crashing, and chaos. I wish I didn’t have to explain all this and ask this of you, but I have no choice.”
“Marcelo, I do not understand.”
“Please, Ela. Find something sharp. A knife, a fork, something.”
“I have a Swiss pocketknife. Always with me,” I said and I searched in my left pocket. It was there.
“Good. You have a chip at the back of your neck, connected with your spine’s neurons. You have to carve the skin on top of it out.”
“What?”
“Ela you have to trust me. I will explain everything. I wish it didn’t have to be like that, but we are talking at a scale that this is the only way I know how to deal with it.”
My hands were shaking. How was I supposed to do this? I left the phone on the desk and raised my left hand looking for the bump on my neck.
“Did you find it?” He asked through the phone calmly. I could barely hear him as I had left it there.
“Yes,” I yelled at the phone hoping he could hear.
“Just scratch the skin off. All we need is that it is just a bit visible.”
My voice wavered.
“I don’t understand Marcelo, I can’t do that. The chip is inside.”
“Just do it.”
I could not disappoint Marcelo. A command from the Royal family. From the Prince himself. If only it made any sense. I used my left hand to remember where the spot was, while my right hand grabbed the knife and raised it close to my neck.
“Do it Elena, do it for us,” his voice echoed from the phone. How could he ask me something like that and sound so sweet?
I dug in and I did not allow myself to cry. I did not want him to hear me. I stabbed and scraped. And I stabbed again. I could feel hot blood running down my back from the wound I was opening.
“Good Elena you are getting closer! Feel it, do you feel it?”
“Yes!” I whimpered as I touched the chip through my bloodied left hand.
“Now please, I know it will sound crazy, but listen to me carefully, and we can sort all of this out.”