Luanna had listened to all SYMBYTHU’s explanations and excuses for what he had done, but she didn’t feel much better about it. There was only one way she would help him…and she would discuss it with him next time they were alone.
She and Atticus had gone back to the room SYMBYTHU had first brought her to. Atticus could’ve had his own room, but it was big enough for the both of them and there was still much to catch up on. She set herself up in one corner of the room with a bed like the one she had woken up in, and Atticus grabbed another bed from a nearby room. With that done, they sat on the large white couch and began talking again.
“Atticus, I don’t know how much I trust SYMBYTHU. Yes, he did all these things and says that he did it to save humanity from itself, but he is still a creature created by that bastard Baron…there must be another purpose he is hiding. Notice how he barely said anything about his time with the Baron or how Proxima was conquered?” She let out a long sigh and sunk deeper into the couch. “Maybe it’s just me, but if someone tells us they’ve manipulated time, but then won’t go into details about their lives…I don’t trust them.”
“My instincts are, as always, to agree with you, Luanna. I was also apprehensive when hearing him talk, then I lost my wits when he said he created Phoenix…as may have been his plan. I look at us and I look at the others…I see people being controlled through love. For example, why is Ella Fleury here? She is no warrior. If we are to go to war with Earth, wouldn’t SYMBYTHU have been better off creating another warrior instead of an administrator? I see her only purpose in being to control the Imperator Thegn, who I fear is being blinded in his love for Ella. The same goes for Jaxson and Mads. They both love Mars enough to die for him once and would easily do it again. That line of thinking then brings me to us—you are an obvious choice to recreate. You are a pure warrior, with a lineage honed through centuries of hardships to be a warrior leader. You are a necessity for SYMBYTHU to have on his side. I, on the other hand, am another administrator who got lucky a few times while fighting the Izcir and am simply too stupid to give up. I fear that my creation was allowed as a controlling mechanism for you, Luanna, as Phoenix was for me.”
“If that is so, then SYMBYTHU got that right. I would gladly die for you, Atticus.” As she said this, her voice wavered, and she felt herself choking on her words. She had always thought of Atticus as family, but a thought crept into her mind that he meant more to her than that…
“And I would die for you in an instant, Luanna—without hesitation. But this is the control we must guard against. If SYMBYTHU did indeed create me and Ella to control you and Mars, we must not let it work. Promise me that you will not be controlled by my safety…I am a nothing who’s only purpose is to protect you and Phoenix. Your destiny has always been to save our place, status, and species in the universe. Promise me.”
Luanna found hard-fought tears slowly roll from her eyes. “I promise you, Atticus. But you are not a nothing. Without you, I would have died ten times over on the plains of Nebula fighting the Izcir. Without you, thousands more would have died breaching the shield walls of Nebula Proper. Without you, Astra Capella could not have been rebuilt so rapidly and effectively and Phoenix could not have gone on to become what she did. I am beginning to remember bits and pieces of what happened after SYMBYTHU’s story ended, and what I remember mostly is your importance to Proxima’s time under Abydonian and Manumit control—however long that was. Don’t you ever talk about yourself in such a way again to me Atticus…I won’t have it.”
Atticus blushed at her kind words. He was never one to accept compliments well and was out of words to say. Feelings began to rise in him towards Luanna that he had never felt before, feelings that made his stomach queasy.
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Before he could respond to Luanna, she got up and told him she was going to sleep. She kissed him on his forehead and whispered in his ear, “If you were created to control me, then SYMBYTHU couldn’t have picked anyone more important to me.” Then she walked to her bed and laid down to sleep.
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Mads was still angry with SYMBYTHU. He didn’t want to go on looking like a veritable gorilla, but he at least tried to see the upside to it. Yes, his face was covered in thick, black hair, but his frame was massive, his arms and legs incredibly powerful. He would need to adapt his tactics to accommodate these advantages.
He would simmer his anger for the moment and focus on changing his shape with the Ixard, like SYMBYTHU suggested.
He sat on the floor in the center of his room and began to meditate. His old self had practiced this regularly and it didn’t take much for his new body to adapt, since the mind was already experienced. He followed the method SYMBYTHU had written of in Prodigium when describing Atticus’, Emelyse’s, and Phoenix’s transformations and presently found himself deep within his quiddity, manifested as a bed of golden pillows in a shining black dodecahedron.
He lifted himself in amazement from the pillows, ecstatically realized he was his regular, human self again, and walked to the side of the dodecahedron. The picturesque scene that awaited him caused him to halt in wonder. Though SYMBYTHU had briefly described Emelyse’s quiddity, his words did no justice to its actual otherworldly exquisiteness. Streaks of red and silver swirled above Mads’ head with white and blue dust bespeckling the air. There was nothing below and nothing above, only darkness. The dodecahedron seemed to be floating in the middle of nothing, but as Mads put forth a brave foot, he found himself standing on glass. A purple light immediately erupted throughout the chamber, illuminating hundreds of golden paths.
He chose the largest path as his target and began walking.
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Not to be left out of his friends’ frustrations and apprehensions towards SYMBYTHU, Jax was trying to cope with his own anger. Mars had Ella, and she had him; Luanna had Atticus, and Atticus had Phoenix—or at least would shortly. Why didn’t SYMBYTHU bring back Boudika for me? He had only just discovered his long-lost sister whom the Izcir had separated him from as children, and now she was lost to him again. Was he not worthy of the one he loved being brought back to life? Had he not done enough…just as much as the others?
He found that for all of SYMBYTHU’s miraculous manipulation of genetics, the creature still hadn’t conquered Jax’s ever pervasive disease—his crippling, debilitating, insidious disease: depression. Jax found himself swirling down the dark path now, enabled and propelled by the horrible question: why?
Did SYMBYTHU think bringing Mars back was enough to satisfy Jax? Why would he think that enough? Yes, Mars was a figurative brother to Jax, but Boudika was Jax’s literal sister. SYMBYTHU could hunt down the DNA of Zavyr Paxt but not Boudika Landry?
What really happened on Proxima when the Baron conquered it?
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Mads walked along a wide, golden path, still in astonishment at his surroundings. What was more, he could feel himself exerting energy—which seemed an impossibility, for he was inside his mind.
The path led him to a platform emitting a radiant white light. He alighted the platform and paused. Before him was a monstrously large black and red sabertooth tiger. The animal didn’t move or even acknowledge Mads’ presence upon the platform, it just lay there licking its paws. Mads looked around and noticed that other bright white platforms had appeared at the ends of the other golden paths. On these platforms stood or lay enormous animals of all varieties: elephant, spinosaurus, lion, panther, gorilla, wolf, bear, long-horned bull, tiger, woolly mammoth, and dozens of others. Mads didn’t know what this meant but he was captivated. He felt himself drawn to the sabertooth tiger and unconsciously walked up to it and began petting its shoulders. The animal finally acknowledged his presence, and with this acknowledgement, Mads found himself falling into and meshing with the animal, becoming one.
He had destroyed SYMBYTHU’s forced and unnatural Hamrammir choice and found his true Hamrammir—the ancient sabertooth tiger.