It took all of his presence of mind to keep a straight face. The surprise of such an unexpected find conflicted with his amusement of the professor’s mediocre singing voice. An undercurrent of worry surged when he realized the professor might not be completely sane anymore. What had they done to him for the past several days?
I can’t say he’s completely insane, Jase admitted. He’s still a Kimboso fan. That’s gotta count for something.
He contemplated calling out to him, but what could he do? Security would be on him in an instant. The room was 3705. He committed that to memory for later. He needed to start finding answers to his questions. There had to be a database nearby. He hoped Unik had access to it.
He continued down the hallway, crossing a number of intersections. At the far end, he noticed a door that looked out-of-place. As he got closer, he saw that it was welded to the floor, walls, and ceiling. What made the door unsettling was the tumultuous energy emanating from beyond it. It was much more localized than the general sense of disorder he had sensed since arriving here.
He kept an even pace, despite the growing apprehension. Several impulses shouted at him, telling him to back away, but he held fast in his curiosity. The database could wait. He crossed the final intersection and walked the last section of the hallway. The welding job was sloppy, as if done in a hurry. The door had a traditional key lock in place of a wristpad lock. He searched his utility belt and found a case with a small ring of keys. The second key he tried unlocked the door. He cracked the door open. The light leaking in illuminated another door not two meters from the one he was opening.
He narrowed his eyes, confused. What kind of logistic design is this?
He noticed the wristpad lock on the second door. It was dead. He stepped through the first threshold and grabbed the second door’s handle. He pushed down. It was unlocked. The localized mass of negative energy was clearer now, as if he perceived it with higher resolution. It was mostly fear, dread, and despair, with a background of anger. Something about it seemed familiar, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.
He pushed the door open centimeter by centimeter. Something glinted in the darkness within. Cold air brushed his face. He wiped his sweaty palms on his shirt. Whatever resided in here, it was alive.
As the door swung open, light from the hallway fanned out on the floor. There wasn’t nearly enough to see clearly. Jase used the flashlight function on the wristpad.
What he saw made him gasp.
The creature was displayed in a tank full of water facing the doorway. Its silvery-gray skin shined in the artificial light. The two fins hung limp below its body. The top half of the dorsal fin was missing, the wound rugged and uneven. Its muzzle had an underbite, and the mouth was curved into a gentle smile. One eye was open. The other was closed. A strap wrapped around its head, securing a tube to the top. The tube ran out of the top of the tank, snaked along the floor, and disappeared through a hole in the wall.
Jase’s vision blurred with tears. Lumen…
He closed both doors and locked the outer door. He wandered cautiously to the left side of the tank. The dark eye tracked him lazily. The fear was palpable, almost as if it were reaching out to him, trying to convince him it was his own. He kept it within his sights, unwilling to let it infiltrate his mind. The tendrils searched for a blind spot in his awareness, but Jase had removed most of them over the years.
The side-on view gave him a better look at the spiraling carvings in the Waterling’s skin. There was no particular pattern to their locations, none that he could find. The skin was darkened and wrinkled wherever a spiral lay, almost like a branding. One looked fresher than the others. They all contained dots, dashes, slashes, and swirls between the lines.
He put a hand on the side of the tank. Condensation formed on the glass around it, partially obscuring the unblinking eye. In response, Lumen emitted a low-frequency clicking sound, similar to a metal bead bouncing on a table.
Jase exhaled the breath he was holding. “I wish I knew what you were saying.”
A voice spoke from his immediate right. “Lightstone.”
Jase jerked away from the tank and backed away, instinctively taking a defensive stance. Blood pounded in his ears. His limbs buzzed with adrenaline. Unik stood next to the tank, uniform, wristpad, and all. In that moment, Jase also realized that he was no longer projecting his disguise. He refocused and felt the illusion take effect again.
He stared at Unik for several long moments. How did he get here so quickly? And how had he followed Jase?
Then Jase saw the hallway light penetrating through Unik’s body. It was an illusion. He gazed at Lumen, pointing at the projection. “That’s yours?”
Unik raised an arm and pointed stiffly at Lumen. “Me.”
The voice and accent Unik used was certainly not Jase’s. The utility belt’s keys had worked. Lumen must have heard Unik’s real voice at some point. Jase stuttered as his gaze bounced between Lumen and Urik. “You know how to speak Ered?”
“Lightstone,” Urid repeated, expressionless in face and voice. The illusion was almost robotic. He wasn’t even looking at Jase directly, just in his general direction.
“Lightstone,” Jase muttered.
“Aetherite,” Unik said a little louder.
Jase dug in his pocket for Lumen’s crystal. It was easy to identify, as it was the largest he carried. His palm glowed red as he held it in his fingertips. He could still sense the remnants of the memory. It felt like a puzzle piece, where Lumen was the entire picture.
“Give,” Unik commanded at the sight of the crystal.
“Why?”
“Death… no-light.”
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Jase looked around the room. “You need the lights on?”
“No mean,” Unik said robotically. He pointed at the crystal in Jase’s hand. “High-light.” He pointed at Lumen. “Low-light. Soon… no-light.”
Jase approached the tank again. He raised the crystal in front of Lumen’s eye. The wide black iris seemed to dilate slightly. “Your Heartstone is running low.”
“Yes… how know?” Unik’s voice raised awkwardly to inflect the question.
Jase took several seconds to ponder Lumen’s statement. Somehow, he had learned bits and pieces of Ered, as well as how to imply questions. He knew well from Lumen’s memory how dangerous Waterlings could be, but now he knew why the Crimson Vein was keeping him alive. They knew he had human-level intelligence.
He pointed at the crystal in his hand. “Your memory. I saw it.”
“Give,” Unik insisted beside him. Lumen’s jaws began to open slowly, revealing hundreds of tiny, sharp teeth.
“How?”
“Water.”
The tank had no top, so Jase reached up and dropped the crystal in the water. At the same moment, Lumen contorted his head to get his bottom jaw under the crystal as it fell through the water. It bounced off his teeth. He closed his jaws just in time to catch it from falling to the floor of the tank. Jase watched with intense interest as Lumen handled the crystal with his narrow tongue and clamped down completely.
The Waterling was silent while he bobbed his head up and down periodically. He seemed to be doing something internally. After a minute, he opened his mouth and a crystal tumbled to the tank floor. It had almost no charge left.
Jase sensed Lumen’s fear lessen in intensity. “My name’s Jase, by the way. I already know you are Lumen.”
“Yes,” Unik said. “Now… hungry.”
Jase put his hands on his hips. “I can’t do much right now, bud. You saw me earlier. I’m not supposed to be here. I am a spy.” He had no idea how much Lumen would understand, but he had to try.
“Sedative… off,” Lumen replied through Unik.
Jase raised his eyebrows. “Sedative?”
“In air… keeps… tired.”
He eyed the tube strapped to the top of Lumen’s head. It ran down the other side of the tank, so he went to the other side. He ran his hand along the top. It was just plastic. He could easily cut it with an Aetheric blade. He looked at Lumen’s closed eye. This creature was under the influence of a sedative, and yet it could cast a somewhat realistic projection and hold a conversation. That certainly exceeded Jase’s own capabilities. What would happen when Lumen was fully awake? He wanted to set him free, but could he be trusted? He couldn’t deduce Lumen’s psychology from one memory. He needed to know more.
“Sorry, but I don’t think now is the right time. I need to find a way out.” He walked around to Lumen’s open eye and pointed at the door. “Are you the reason why they installed another door?”
Unik had disappeared when Jase walked around the tank. His voice seemed to come straight from the glass wall of the tank. “Weak lock… easy no-lock.”
He held up his wristpad. “You mean the locks meant for these?”
The eye looked at the device for a few moments, then back to Jase. “Weak mind… easy off.”
Jase looked at the wristpad and was astonished to find the device rebooting. He chuckled nervously. “You’re a troublemaker, aren’t you? Is that why there is no technology in here? Do the cameras work?”
“Watchers off.”
“What can you do with wristpads?”
“When keepers… group-talk close… think me stupid… but wristpad… extra eyes-ears… help learn… your language.”
A chill crept down Jase’s spine. “You used wristpads to learn Ered?”
“Language… is fractal… my skill.”
Jase recalled the experience of Lumen’s memory. There was a vague recollection of something to do with fractals, but he couldn’t recall the specifics. The memory was too incomprehensible at those parts, like he was trying to read a foreign language with foreign characters.
He saw Lumen with a new kind of reverence. Fear played around the edges of his awareness again, insisting that Lumen was too dangerous. He could hack digital locks and wristpads with his mind while half asleep, and on top of that, learn a completely new language. This creature was far above human-level intelligence.
All the more reason to help him escape. If the Crimson Vein somehow got control of him, no mind was terrible enough to imagine the horrors unleashed onto the world.
“Keepers try… other devices… on me… stop… troublemaking.”
Jase frowned, looking at the spirals engraved on Lumen’s side. “That’s terrible.”
“I disable…” Lumen continued. “Before activate.”
“Oh?” Jase tilted his head, gesturing to the newest engraving. “They didn’t give you that one?”
“Before room-put… I ward myself… filter sedative… else dead now.”
“Right, wards,” Jase remembered out loud. He gazed at the tank. It sat on top of a metal rolling table. If he flipped the brake latches on the wheels, he might be able to put it out of here. He tapped his wristpad. “Any chance you could use this to find a way out? They had to get you in here somehow.”
Several moments passed before Lumen responded. “Your mind… smooth.”
Jase scrunched his face in mock offense. “Did you just call me stupid?”
“Hard to grab… few patterns.”
“You can read minds,” he guessed. Perhaps that was why Lumen’s energy seemed so fickle. He was actively trying to find a way into Jase’s mind but was struggling. He also implied from his earlier comments that wristpads and wristpad locks had minds that could be read and manipulated. That lined up with what Domrik had said a few days ago.
Jase sensed Lumen’s fear steadily increase as he spoke. “Keeper’s minds… easy fear… you… ignore fear?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
Lumen’s body twisted and contorted in slow motion. He made the clicking noise again. His energy bordered on panic. “Impossible.”
Jase took a step back. He didn’t want Lumen to make any rash decisions. “Why?”
“All minds… bend… to fear.”
“Not necessarily.”
“Impossible… else wards… useless.”
He stayed silent, pondering how to explain to Lumen the basic principles of how the human mind worked. How different could a Waterling mind be? Even more perplexing was how Lumen could demonstrate these genius mental abilities while drugged, and yet know so little about the dynamics of emotion. Did he think Jase was breaking some kind of law of physics? He implied as much. Jase had never been under the influence of a ward, so it was difficult to imagine why Lumen thought what he did.
He was about to reassure Lumen when he heard the sound of the door outside unlocking. He stiffened in panic and made himself invisible. The inner door burst open and soldiers in power armor flooded through. A dozen of them spread out inside the room, aiming their Aetheric rifles in various directions. They all kept their distance from the tank.
A final soldier entered, this one female. Her commanding voice boomed through the speakers. “We know you’re here. Make this easy on yourself and surrender. We have much to discuss.”
Three of them stood in front of the exit shoulder-to-shoulder while she spoke. He was trapped. He morphed his cloaking illusion to allow only Lumen to hear him. “Lumen! Can you deactivate their armor?”
“Armor… not active,” he responded. Jase hoped he’d muted himself to everyone else. Jase looked at the squad of soldiers. They neither responded to Lumen’s speech nor showed signs of sabotage.
The female soldier yawned and pulled a grenade-looking object off the side of her armor. She pressed a button and it started hissing a white gas into the room. “I don’t have time for this. See you in the morning after I’ve had my coffee.”
Jase whirled to face the back wall. How thick was it? Was there a room on the other side? No time to think. He inhaled and held his breath, swerving around the soldiers. He extended his illusion to the wall, then summoned a long Aetheric blade and stabbed into the metal.
Heartbeat after heartbeat passed as he watched the wall heat up. It wouldn’t be fast enough. He had made a half-meter-long gash in the wall when a strong hand gripped his shoulder and tossed him backward. A strong scent of chemicals invaded his nostrils as he landed on his back and had the wind knocked out of him. His limbs grew twice as heavy. His vision tunneled as he got one last look at Lumen. The last thing he experience before fading to blackness was an ominous clicking noise.