Milani hesitated. She was obviously still nervous after Rayker’s warnings, though she couldn’t have any idea how strong Christie really was. But teenage curiosity won the girl’s internal argument, and she moved forward and tilted her ear.
Christie cupped her hand. “If you get me a photo of this mountain,” she whispered, “I will tell Madam Divine what she wants to know. But you mustn’t tell her why you want it. That’s the secret, okay?”
Milani withdrew, and nodded smugly. “Too easy. You’ll see.”
She left the cell, and the concept of time once again dissipated into the air. Absent anything better to do, Christie carefully observed her cell. It seemed to be constructed from nothing more sophisticated than dull steel, interrupted only by an air vent in the ceiling, and a drain in the floor. The walls were seamless and blank, especially so in the spot above her head which she avoided looking at directly.
Reconnaissance concluded, Christie moved to the next item on her checklist. Why, after such harrowing torture, had her mind fallen immediately back into its coldly detached routine? Was it the training she had received from Valkyrie? They had damn near inflicted the same punishment on her body and mind, then demanded she get up and go to work without a second thought. On the other hand, most of her peers insisted on explaining that the boot camp curriculum that rooted out more than ninety percent of the girls who signed up for it, was not a training course. It was a selection course; it chose the few who could respond to that kind of punishment and keep going.
Did that mean she had been born to persevere in the face of adversity? Had the organization somehow managed to assemble a population of genetically superior beings who could right all wrongs and lead humanity to a brighter future? Christie chuckled at that thought. Half of the women she had met in her time there ranged from arrogant egomaniacs to probable psychopaths, shy and reclusive book worms to autistic geniuses. When they weren’t throwing themselves recklessly into death defying stunts, they were giggling at jokes a twelve-year-old would find immature, or embracing alcoholism. They approached the immense and overwhelming problems of the universe with the apparent belief that if they smashed their heads against it hard enough, reality would give in. And, to Christies’ constant disbelief, they were sometimes proven right.
Were they thus a special breed of human? And if that were true, then why had the Helvetic League, whose foundational philosophy extolled the necessity of creating such specimens, failed to embrace them? Why did it appear that the harder one searched for such people, the more easily they slipped away, to reform themselves somewhere else, even more nebulous, untamed, and irreverent? Christie’s childhood education protested the affrontery of that particular genre of brilliance, that made a mockery of any effort at capture or study.
In fact, only one thing seemed to unite them. Theirs was a commonsense brand of morality that Christie struggled to define. Even Thandi, dedicated Christian though she was, found it easy to partake in a compromise groupthink nurtured by free spirits. They somehow just knew, and once they had decided on what they knew, they went into action, relentlessly and unstoppably.
And what if Rayker had been right? Had they once formed an army that eradicated a civilization of godlike beings? Had they, men and women, attempted to evolve their own race, and sought to destroy weaker competitors? Christie had confirmed in her first year what lay behind the organization’s strict criteria for women. The only thing that scared them was the idea that they might reproduce. Many of the older Valkyrie had confessed to hearing stories from the ancient past, that both genders had served alongside each other and that it had led to disaster.
Therefore, one had ejected the other, then apparently sentenced themselves to an eternity of thankless toil. Was it chastisement for past sins? Did their insistence on avoiding the rest of humanity reflect traumatic guilt? Was Christie herself wrapped up in a culture that she neither understood, nor trusted?
Her jaw clenched and her cheeks colored. All the educated guesswork in the world couldn’t change one simple fact. Christie was happy to die for the women she knew. All of them, with no exceptions. It would not surprise her to learn that they would do the same for her—as Rose had. And up until the point of death, she would release whatever monstrosity lay hidden inside her against any enemy that threatened them.
Rose had done that; a nineteen-year-old girl with little training, a broken leg, and unlimited conviction. She hadn’t even stopped to question her decision. It was even a little frightening, the existence of such a force of human nature. It respected no ideology or empire, and would certainly, given due cause, sweep away such dead leaves from beneath the tree of narcissism.
Christie’s veins pumped the same energy, like tendrils from a magma chamber. Its source was neither mystical, nor complex. She had two friends out on the surface of Caldera, and one in her heart, and she would rather be tortured to death than let them down.
Byoran came to see her and wore a deeply concerned expression.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
“I am well, I thank you,” Christie said. “It is so agreeable to entertain company in my chambers.” She smiled, though her voice lacked its usual strength.
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“Are you healthy?”
“I suppose so; as near as one could say.”
Byoran lightly banged the wall with his fist. “I convinced her to put a stop to your… your—”
“Torture,” Christie said helpfully.
“Yes. We were obviously not going to get anything, and she settled for a slower approach. Honestly, I think she just wanted to play with you, see how you held together. She likes that kind of thing.”
“No doubt we all must tolerate the whim of our hostess.”
Byoran half smiled. “This is the real you, isn’t it? Instead of the stuck-up Earther you sold to me, now you’ve been through hell, and you’re acting like this is all a joke.”
Christie crossed her arms and looked away. “Was there a reason you wanted to speak to me?”
“I told her I would check your mental faculties. But the reality is that I want answers, and I think you have them. I don’t care about whoever you work for—I just want to know what the hell is going here. What is this planet? What is Rayker?”
Rayker, not Divine? Christie struggled to sort through her recent memories. Had she told him the woman’s real name earlier? Was he supposed to know already? As hard as she tried, she couldn’t recollect their brief interactions.
“I’d suggest you ask her—she’s probably better informed than I am.”
Byoran shook his head. “Oh sure, I’ll just start questioning things and she can put a bullet through my skull.”
“I’m sorry, Byoran,” Christie snapped, as her frayed nerves ignited a rush of anger, “but I didn’t put you in this position. You signed on with the devil and now you have to face the consequences.”
He didn’t react—only watched her in silence. Eventually, he nodded. “I’m sorry for what I did,” he said. “There may be a lot of bad decisions that led me here. Either way, I’m swinging between burning the place down and just making a run for it. A little understanding would help me figure it out.”
Christie rubbed her eyes. “She’s told you nothing at all?”
“Only that there are a bunch of other sites just like it around the planet. All the scientists guessed that it’s alien, but she won’t discuss it. Only that our mission is to protect the place for the League so that it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.”
“Colonist hands, I take it?”
Byoran nodded.
“And what about me?”
He shrugged. “I don’t get the impression she really cares about you or your people. We’re in the middle of nowhere, and the place is locked down tight.” His expression turned grim. “She just… likes her playthings.”
A lie had drifted past, just below the surface. Christie could sense it, though couldn’t define anything concrete. Using Byoran as her former victim turned sympathetic confidante seemed like an obvious play for Rayker. Christie’s head throbbed as she tried to make the connections. Was she just becoming paranoid? Had her job turned her into a heartless scam artist who saw nothing but marks and scores?
Either way, unless she wanted to spend her time sat in the dark twiddling her thumbs, it wasn’t like she had much choice.
“Very well,” Christie said. “It is alien. As far as I know, they’re all extinct. The bases on Caldera house a lot of technology which Rayker wants to use for who knows what purpose. She certainly doesn’t care about the League. When I talked to her, she mentioned something about her boss. A powerful, but secretive entity, apparently.”
“An alien?”
“She described him as a servant. Though I’m not sure how far I’m supposed to take her at her word.”
Byoran quietly shook his head. “I need to get to the bottom of this. Is there anything you feel you can tell me that might be helpful?”
Christie sighed gently. She couldn’t reasonably hope to keep all her cards to herself. “These beings— the Jotnar, we call them—built a war machine that you can’t imagine. Just about everything we’ve discovered from them has been designed for maximum destructive potential. I promise you that I have no idea what this particular complex is for, but I can’t imagine it’s anything good.”
“Okay then. Do you think you can walk?”
“Oh… well, yes, I suppose so. Am I being allowed out?”
Byoran reached out a hand. “Right now, our best bet is for you to convince her that she’s starting to wear down your commitment. Not through pain, but through doubt. If I show you around, maybe you’ll see something that give you a new perspective.”
Christie eyed him cautiously, then took his hand and let him pull her upright.
Dark, concrete lined corridors crisscrossed away from the cells in a featureless grid pattern. Irritating, stuffy air hummed through the sparsely placed vents, while automatic lights flicked on and off as Byoran guided them up several levels. Christie felt like she was being followed by her own personal spotlight, and the tactically juvenile, but nevertheless aware, part of her mind cringed at the implications for any assaulters. Then she chided herself for her foolishness. They would obviously figure out how to deal with that problem, when they came.
Byoran soon led her to more polished passageways, and the noise of activity soon began to bounce across the walls. Even so, they hardly saw anyone, except for the odd guard hauling boxes.
“What happened to all the scientists?” Christie asked.
“Rayker won’t let them out of the upper levels,” Byoran said. “She seems to be anxious about the big machine; doesn’t understand it and won’t let anyone near it until she’s figured it out. Only the security team has access for now, and Milani, for some reason.”
Christie shook her head. Her enemy was certainly more complex than she understood, and it wouldn’t do to make any assumptions. She identified her irrational desire to humanize the woman, and suppressed it. It would have been comforting to believe that Rayker had experienced past trauma, and was able to sympathize with another victim. Unfortunately, a more astute assumption was that she recognized a vulnerable, easily manipulated target who could become a reliable servant amidst the crowd of strangers she now had to work with.
But another lie had nearly slipped passed that Christie had barely noticed. Why did Rayker trust the VennZech enforcers with such sensitive information? Byoran was giving too much away too easily. Of course, the alternative explanation was that Christie really had lost her mind. After her ordeal, she had become paranoid, or delusional, or both.
“Does she like men of action, do you think?” she asked, to fill the nerve-wracking silence.
Byoran shrugged. “Maybe. She seems more at ease when she talks to us.” His lips formed a thin smile. “But on the other hand, everything she does seems to carry the risk of danger. Small wonder she likes to be surrounded by guns.”
Christie’s brow furrowed. “Danger? Down here?”
“You’ll see.”