“Subject 06, a member of the species Triticum aestivum, has grown to a respectable one hundred and fifty three centimetres. Among its peers, it was the fastest growing treatment at a rate of fourteen centimetres a day. It is under the Amulet treatment in which the manipulated variable is the application of an unidentified energy source. It is the only treatment to exceed one hundred and fifty centimetres as all other treatments and the dark and light control groups have fallen below the one hundred centimetre mark.”
Amalia shut off her recorder. Six carefully cultivated plots of Triticum aestivum laid before her eyes. The light control group of wild T. aestivum had grown to be the second tallest of the test groups. The dark control group had been the shortest, being stunted at a measly fifty centimetres on average. Both the first genetically modified T. aestivum and Calamity resistant variant developed by her colleagues had reached ninety four centimetres on average. The second genetically modified variant had reached an average of seventy seven centimetres. The sixth was of the most interest to her as it was treated with a variable that was still unknown to Amalia.
The variable itself laid flat on her work bench. Two days ago, she determined that the material was solid black carbon. She still was unaware of what could have made those etchings, but when she reached a proper laboratory, she’ll find out. The downwards pointing triangle with a line across is connected to earth, according to an old alchemy textbook. The yin symbol was positioned to the right of the medallion. The Roman numeral for six was at the bottom. The sign in the centre was Virgo, from astrology. There was also another symbol in the shape of a sickle. Amalia had never believed in the irrational pseudoscience known as astrology. Sometimes, her cousin would show her the daily horoscope, but she ignored him.
“If human fate was dictated by faraway planets, wouldn’t astronomers and astrophysicists be controlling us right now? But that is not true. The true meaning of human fate is what we make ourselves. No outside force controls us, only ourselves. Extracting order from the chaos known as life, that is a human striving."
That was the last thing she said to her cousin before he left for a job as a receptionist in Germany. She couldn't care less about astrology or any other unproven pseudoscience that only existed to defraud people. What was fact was the amulet had an energy source unknown to mankind. In a proper laboratory, she would have studied it. She was not, much to her chagrin. The ability to enhance plant growth was a powerful one, but what else could this small amulet hold? So far, results had shown that it granted a transformation into new clothing, it contained a digital library and various miniature storage compartments to fit any new samples inside. The only residents were several seeds of T. aestivum. Amalia was content with this system.
The alarm blared, a siren flashing red over the plastic roof of Amalia’s holding space. Long ago, she would have covered her ears, but now she was cleaning up, brushing all of the dirt from her workbench into a small metal bin. She memorised the exact positions of the plants, where each treatment group was located, and stowed away the amulet. On cue, her guard burst in, clad in all black with goggles and a mask covering their face. They always came after the second alarm. In the early days, they would have messed up her work space, haphazardly throwing away every carefully cultivated sample and rampaging through her small cot. Now, they just put everything on the floor gently and searching every tiny indent. To be fair, if Amalia had been the job of making sure no one escaped or was planning on escaping, she would have done a rigorous job of searching.
That did not mean that she liked it, nor would she deny that her hands tensed when the guard did not place the containers exactly where they were supposed to be. Her stomach was in distress and she was almost about to chew her fingernails again. Amalia tried to keep still, but the gun in the guard’s hands made her uneasy. Even after all this time, she still quivered in spite of herself. She was a woman of science, she told herself, with a rational mind. A rational mind did not quiver, it assessed the situation and planned accordingly. The surviving cultivars of T. aestivum were growing at a rate that would be acceptable for mass production and future distribution among the world’s breadbaskets. Amalia ate five meals daily, all of them equally nutritious and filled with sufficient amounts of carbohydrates, proteins, fats, and vitamins. The gun in the guard’s hands was not bad, she should not be scared. She has held a gun before, and used it. The gun was not bad. The gun was not bad, it won’t harm her.
The gun was not bad, it was the people who held the gun that gave it bad intentions.
She took a deep breath. Inhaling, exhaling. The guard was rummaging through her belongings now, underneath her mattress. There were only two rooms, and one of them was the bathroom. Amalia was thankful that at least the bathroom walls weren't as translucent as the plastic walls that made up her holding cell. Her off white cot was located next to the door, and she only had a pillow and a threadbare blanket. Her workbench was straight across the door and her plants were located on the wall left of the door. The only light source was an LED lamp that hung precariously from its little hook. She wasn’t sure if the others had the exact same arrangement or if it was completely different. She had no outside privileges ever since she was brought here, and Amalia wasn’t aware if her colleagues also did not possess outside privileges. Certainly, she heard nothing else other than the orderly marching of the guards. How long had it been? She wasn’t permitted a calendar, nor was the amulet equipped with one. If she had to guess, it was at least a week or so.
Before then, she recalled, she had been excited. More than she had ever been in her entire life, or at least that had been what she remembered. Unfortunately, she left her journal at home. When her application to join her dream initiative was accepted, Amalia jumped on her bed and yelled at the stars. As a graduate student from the University of Zurich who wanted to do more research into the field of biochemistry, she had been enamoured by the idea of working alongside fellow researchers. The chosen project was about manufacturing new cultivars of various grain crops for better Calamity resistance as well as branching into hybridization and genetic engineering. Amalia was the youngest member of the team, and it was her first major research project since becoming a graduate student. She had been mostly assigned to DNA sequencing and occasionally watching over the T. aestivum control treatments and other treatment groups. There were other crops that were being studied, such as Oryza sativa, Zea mays, Avena sativa, Hordeum vulgare, and Secale cereale. Her colleagues, who numbered twelve in total, were in charge of testing and growing the plants, building new varieties based off of experiments and cross referencing previous attempts. She got along well with them, enough to know their first names, but she preferred to keep to herself as they did.
When it appeared, she had been storing some T. aestivum samples when she had noticed a small black disk on the shelf. When she had taken it out, she had found that it fit her hand perfectly. After she had ended her work for the day, curiosity had come over her. Through trial and error, she found the phrase in order to activate the amulet and done so. The euphoria had been nothing previously known to her, as if she was reorganised and deconstructed on a cellular level. Further qualitative observations were that the act of transformation had been accompanied by the disappearance of Amalia’s lab coat and goggles and that her eyes had become a deeper shade of dark brown. She had felt the presence of the treatment groups more and had been able to distinguish between each and every stalk. After recording her observations in her notebook, she had fallen asleep.
The next morning she hadn’t been able to find it. Fifteen minutes of fruitless searching later, she had decided that the best course of action was to measure and record the rate at which the T. aestivum samples were growing. Soon after she had taken her final measurements for the day, she had been grabbed from behind and her mouth covered by a thick black glove. Amalia tried to scream but whoever had been holding her had placed a chloroform laced cloth on her mouth. Before losing consciousness, she had heard the sound of Jacques punching someone before being knocked out himself and Ada equally putting up a fight.
When she had been woken up, Amalia had been prodded by a baton into showers. She hadn’t mind the showers, intense as they were, but she’d heard Fabienne screaming in pain and Matteo yelling at their captors over how hard the water was. It had been hard to enjoy the experience after that. Afterwards she had been given two light grey uniforms with her name stitched onto them as well as one white lab coat. All had been too large for her but she knew that she wasn’t going to get a better fitted one. The guard who knocked her out blindfolded her and escorted her to her holding cell. One hundred steps later, they had undone the blindfold and locked her inside. Strangely some of her T. aestivum samples had been present, sitting on a plastic structure fed by hydroponics. Even stranger, she had finally found the amulet wedged tightly at the bottom of the sample containers. Amalia must have misplaced it by accident. Nonetheless, it had been comforting to hold. Later on, she had discovered that it had a beneficial influence on plant growth once transformation was initiated. Whoever created it must have had a higher understanding of the workings of the universe, beyond what Amalia or any other scientist was capable of. If this was mass produced,she thought, it would greatly improve agricultural yields by a yet undetermined metric.
She was not one to exaggerate, but to put it simply, it might have been the scientific discovery of the decade. If Amalia had been able to talk to anyone, she would have told her colleagues about the potential of this amulet. As of now she hasn’t had a conversation with anyone since coming here. Not even the guard spoke to her except in occasional grunts and taps on the shoulder.
Her door dinged in its peculiar low pitched sound. There was a plate of whole wheat bread, some bratwurst, and asparagus that was heating up the plastic food compartment. Amalia wasn’t allowed to retrieve her own food. Instead it was delivered presumably by her guard. She still didn’t know why she was being kept here, but they seemed to have a vested interest in keeping her alive. Were the others being fed as well? Were they alive? Why was she here? Questions circled around her head as she ate her bread. She was surprised that she wasn’t given the bare minimum to eat.
Hello? Bonjour? Ciao? Allegra?
Huh?
Can I have some of that bratwurst?
Amalia put down her bread. What was that?
Errr, a voice! In your head! You’re going crazy.
What? No, she was not. As a rational mind, she was in complete control of her mental faculties. There were no voices in her head, clearly it was her own thoughts.
Don’t be silly, Frau Wald. I’m not you, you’re not me.
How…what?
My sister can be a bit nosy. We are voices in your head, and she picked up your thoughts.
When you’ve been stuck in the back of a van for the past week or so, you would want to find someone who has an interesting mind.
“I’m sorry, but who are you?” she asked.
My name is Pollux, but you can call me Helen.
I’m Clytemnestra.
You can also call her Castor if you want.
I prefer Clytemnestra.
How was this possible?
Telepathy, mind reading, whatever you want to call it. We both can read your mind.
Amalia Wald, graduate student at the University of Zurich, majored in biochemistry with a minor in plant biology. Graduated with summa cum laude as an undergraduate. You live with some of your cousins, and oh he’s your cousin? And you have…an amulet?
Wait, an amulet? Ah, I see. The Vine Touched Servant of the Sixth House. You did feel different compared to everyone else in the building. Have you learnt the location of your Key?
What is happening? She had not ascertained the location of any key, nor had she any clue what the two voices were discussing. Vine Touched Servant? The Sixth House? How were they in her head?
You are intelligent, you can figure it out on your own.
She has no clue who we are talking about, Helen.
The Servant that I knew was smart and well-read.
We confused her.
Amalia was not confused, she was only unaware of the majority of the nomenclature used in this discussion. As a rational mind, she must not give into fear, even though she was shaking and clutching her amulet.
Your amulet can do more than you think. You aren’t limited to plant growing. Have you used your weapon yet? Oh I see that you don’t know what I am talking about.
She continued eating. The repeated invasions of her privacy were annoying.
It’s not very private. Your mind is unprotected.
Where are they?
Oh, we’re driving to Geneva. Helen left her key with an old friend. Hopefully they’re still there? Helen hasn’t talked to him in over thirty years.
I’m sure that he will be glad to see me. The conversations late at night, the parties we held on his balcony, oh those were wonderful!
When were these parties?
Most of them were in the early 2020s.
Amalia stopped eating to give a mental glare.
We all wore masks! Most of us anyway. Did I? It’s been a while. Anyways, do you know where the Sun Summoner is? Or their location?
She’s clueless.
She had finished her meal, and scrubbed the plate down vigorously in the sink.
You’re in a room? That room seems tiny. At least you had a toilet. I was travelling to France one time and forgot my pocket change, and I couldn’t use the toilet. Thankfully there were some nearby bushes…
What was wrong with these people? That must have been deeply unsanitary. She was tapping her foot on the ground and clutching the amulet tighter.
Your colleagues are alive.
Her hand was unclenched. So they are alive. Are they well?
Huh, interesting. Did you know that your colleague had a constipation problem?
Amalia knew that Jacques had…issues with his bowel movement. She had helped him find medicine that would help him in solving this problem based on research papers and various medical journals. He had been forever grateful to her, although that had never stopped his sour outlook on everything and everyone.
Yeah, that’s nice. He’s been trying to go for over an hour. Honestly, I’m here to see what happens when he passes it through. The absolute joy in the future is what keeps me going.
Amalia tried to picture him having issues again. His gut refused to respond to a high fibre diet, no matter what kind of food Amalia picked out. Why would this person be happy about that?
Gotta find something to keep you happy in these trying times. Listen, I feel bad listening to your thoughts about this situation. I’m not sure where you are exactly, and it doesn’t look like you know either. Based on your thoughts, it seems like asking for your permission first is a good idea. Do you need anything?
Logically, what Amalia needed was to discover the method by which these two were accessing her mind. There had been recent advances in neurology in the United States, whereby a machine could manipulate the brain waves of test subjects. It hadn’t been approved for human test subjects yet.
I meant do you need anything physically? Or mentally? Wait Helen, turn right…no that’s a left. Is that a truck—oh shit that is a truck! Turn left! No right! Not again…oh phew we missed that tree.
What a strange building…ah I hear Jacques now. And Ada and Fabienne and Matteo and Elias and Laura…
So they are alive, she thought as she smiled wider. “How are they?”
She cupped her mouth, her eyes darting to her door.
Ada is awake and pacing her room. Wow, that’s not a lot of space. Fabienne is brushing her teeth? Did she just wake up? Matteo is handcuffed to his bed. Apparently he kicked his guard in a very sensitive region, good for him. Laura is recording about some crop measurements…I have no clue what she is talking about. I should have taken Latin. Elias is…ummm, what happened to Elias?
Elias…was he hurt?
I can detect he’s alive, but not much else. The others are too far away.
That usually happens when they are either dreaming, in a coma, or in a vegetative state. Amalia, do you remember anything about the Sixth House?
What was the Sixth House?
Where you live, or used to live. The Sixth House is bound to the Tenth Gate, and governed by the Servant, which would be you.
They were most likely manipulating her brain waves in order to send messages. If they could hear others’ thoughts, they might have been using a new machine, one that could decode beta rhythms into audio files.
No, that is not how our powers work.
We’re breaking you out.
What? No? She'd get shot, then they might move to other people, then they might get shot because she’d tried to escape…
Relax, I’ve done this a bunch of times. All we need are some rope, maybe some explosives, a lockpick, and you. We definitely need you. You are essential.
Why can’t we ram this van into the building?
It’s probably going to break.
I’ve done it before, it didn’t break.
We borrowed it from some fruit seller, it will break.
It was at that point that Amalia decided that sleep was good. The camera above her blinked an electric blue as it always had. She pulled her blanket over her and fell asleep quickly.
Wake up, wake up, wake up! It’s a new day!
Which sister was it?
It’s me, Clytemnestra. Helen and I are twins, presumably. That’s what she told me.
The door dinged. Today’s breakfast consisted of plain oatmeal. Once she was done with her morning routine, Amalia ate it, cleaned it in the sink, and placed it back into the plastic food compartment. The thought of starting her day as planned made her stomach content and satisfied. Clearing her workbench, she took out the amulet and washed it under the sink. Drying it with a spare towel, she held it outwards at an arm’s length making sure that her body was positioned correctly. Any possible deviation could lead to an experimental error and the introduction of unknown variables.
“My only wish is to serve the cosmos and maintain order amidst the swirling chaos. It is my duty to shield the cosmos against entropy, and I understand the magnitude of what I am to do.”
The amulet burst into dark brown light, and swirled around Amalia. She felt vines entangling through her body, deconstructing it and building it anew. Once it was done, she rushed over and took measurements of the Amulet treatment group. To ensure that the amulet didn’t contaminate the results, Amalia stored the other treatment and control groups in the bathroom. It was not ideal, but to ensure a controlled environment, she did what she had to do.
They should be still growing.
What?
The aftereffect of your transformation would be hard to suppress,unless you have immense self-control or have cultivated enough in order to develop willpower. Based on your mind, I don’t think that is happening. That said, your mind also says that the others aren’t growing as fast so you might be subconsciously repressing their growth afterwards.
If she was doing that this whole time, that meant that the entire experiment and all of her quantitative observations were wasted. She couldn’t have had a subconscious bias when she started using it though, as she had not anticipated any of its effects. Amalia checked in the bathroom anyways. The T. aestivum samples had not grown at all. While she may not have had bias on the first day, subsequent days would have introduced bias as she had seen the effects of the amulet. Did that mean that all of her notes had been useless so far? She felt herself picking at her nails again.
Maybe they aren’t? Hey Helen, can you tell if Amalia’s plants are growing?
No, I can’t. Only the Servant can identify if a plant has grown because of her or naturally. Why don’t you try and sense if that is the case?
Amalia washed her hands, and picked up the amulet.
The amulet won’t do anything, it has to be you. It’s only a conduit.
She still held it in her hands. It prevented that itching feeling. She focused her concentration onto the plants, trying to detect any abnormal changes in growth rate. According to the scan, there was no interference in the natural growth in any of the treatment groups or the control groups. Therefore, the research had not been affected by any outside variables. Her stomach relaxed internally.
Interesting, although if there was anyone with a weaker aftereffect, it would be the Servant.
Cool technique with the plants, but let’s talk about escape planning. Helen and I are parked in front of this massive building. It’s a dark grey and it’s lined with an electric fence. Not too many cameras…anyways, do you know when the guards rotate in and out?
She only knew the one guard. There were two alarms that came on daily. The first came roughly one or two hours after the at nine meal, just before the noon meal. The second was just before the night meal. Amalia counted about eighteen steps from when she first heard the guard walking into her holding cell to when they opened the door. She unfortunately did not know the activities of the guards, but she had heard them soon after the noon meal and right before sleeping.
Good job at remembering. Now keep your chin up. I’m going to get some explosives.
“No!” Amalia cupped her mouth. Explosives would draw attention in any escape attempt. A subtler method must be found, something that would be unnoticeable and couldn’t be detected for a long period of time. Something like…plants. If she utilised the chlorokinetic capabilities of the amulet, she may be able to severely weaken the structure of the wall behind her.
That’s a smart plan, probably better than mine.
She mentally nodded.
That’s awfully convenient, but what works in our favour, am I right? Let me do something quickly. It’s better to have redundancies than to be unprepared, right? You thought of this just now.
Are you sure this will work?
Yes, I’m confident.
If anything happens to you, I will smash into the building with this van.
The plant that must be chosen for the job would have to be small and unnoticeable. That removed the majority of flowering plants. It would have to be a climbing plant, so she narrowed down her list. This climbing plant would have to be destructive to any wall. Running through her mental list again, she selected Parthenocissus quinquefolia. That would be suitable.
Now, she needed to make a large enough hole in order to grow P. quinquefolia and to find seeds of P. quinquefolia. Something crackled inside her left hand. Opening it revealed at least forty small black seeds of P. quinquefolia. All that was needed now is for—
Her door opened, and the guard entered. The guard stared at her, and her dark green uniform. Neither of them said a word.
The guard broke the awkward silence, their messy black hair slightly out of place in comparison to their bun. “Amalia Wald, based on your good behaviour, you have been granted certain privileges. You now have the privilege to be outside of your space, but you must be accompanied by me at all times.”
Amalia couldn’t find a good response. “Uh…uh sure? Can I…go outside now? And…can I put a coat on?” In typical circumstances, she would remove all personal protective equipment before leaving a laboratory, but this was not under typical circumstances.
The guard had no response. Amalia quickly put on a lab coat, long enough to cover the lace-like decorations and the hard boots, and stuffed the P. quinquefolia seeds inside the pockets. She took off the wispy veil as well. Better to not attract attention. Once she was done, the guard took her arm and typed in a keycode. Unfortunately, they blocked the exact sequence with their arm. Outside of her automatically closing door, she discovered that there was a second door. Cold mist began pouring out of unseen vents, filling up the entire space. After it dissipated, Amalia was yanked by the guard past the door.
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Bright light flooded into her eyes, and she reflexively covered them. Beneath her was cold stone with no trace of any plant life. The light was too bright, and she wanted to run over and turn down the intensity. The prod of a muzzle stopped her though. Slowly she adjusted her vision. The source of the blinding light was a flood light mounted high above a small plastic structure and directly facing the entrance of her prison. It was small, she thought, and she was surprised that everything fit inside it. There were guards milling about, all dressed identically in black. In some of the plastic structures, the faint outlines of various cereal crops could be seen.
At another structure next to Amalia’s cell, she found Ada being pushed out of the entrance by another guard. Ada noticed Amalia, and wrangled herself free of her guard’s grip.
Perhaps it was due to the lack of social interaction with the others, Amalia thought. Certainly, if her guard never talked to her like Amalia’s guard, her reaction made sense. Either way, Amalia tried to warn Ada—only to feel like all of her skin had caught on fire. Her body became limp as electricity coursed through it. She spotted Ada experiencing the same sensation as well.
“You have not earned the privilege to talk with others. Don’t make me do this to you.” The guard pulled her up and placed Amalia’s head on their shoulders.
The guard escorted Amalia around the base, stopping only to grab a nut bar. Amalia made a quick deposit of the seeds in her pocket near a small dent in the wall. The base itself was small, consisting of around sixteen small plastic structures, thirteen of which housed those like Amalia and Ada. Presumably, the three others were reserved for the guards. The entire building was laid out in a grid of criss crossing asphalt. Notably she sensed no plant life except for the seeds gestating in the ground. Eventually, they stopped back at her holding cell. Once the guard left her alone, Amalia shuddered. There didn’t seem to be a door or anything that could be construed as an entrance or exit.
So there are more people here than I initially thought.
Helen?
You would be correct. I’m surprised that you managed to activate your shielding ability so quickly. The Servant was a reactive person, so the way it manifested made sense.
Her what? Some part of her doubted that the twins wanted to help her escape, but she banished those thoughts. If that were true, they would have reported it to whoever was holding her long ago, unless this was a long gambit and she was taking their bait—
No, this is real. Clytemnestra wants to help you escape, and considering you have an amulet, I will help you. I don’t know the Servant as well as the Summoner, but I know that there should be a peridot on your wrist. If not, flip the covering.
Amalia flipped open the covering and found the peridot in question on her left arm.
Make sure you have plenty of room. It’s motion sensitive, and it’s large. Surprisingly extravagant for someone who claimed to be a mere humble servant of order, but I’m not a person who judges people. Firmly flick your wrist.
She did as Helen suggested—and something large materialised in front of her. Before long, she was holding a circular shield that covered the majority of her body. Peering over the edge, she found that the shield was emblazoned with the face of a woman serenely gazing. The entire shield was a dark green but lightweight. Amalia doubted it was made of carbon like the amulet.
It’s carbon, but magically enhanced carbon. I’ve held it several times, and I took Castor spinning on one of your spare shields.
It was not magic, Amalia thought. Magic only existed in fantasy stories and folk tales. The real world was not home to anything magical, much less plant magic and summoning shields out of nowhere. Barring an unprecedented leak of unknown and untested technologies in the present day, it was likely that the amulet and the shield were highly advanced technology, at a point where the distinction between technology and magic became blurred to those that were not used to it, possibly futuristic. Nonetheless, she could use this technology to her benefit.
You know that…alright, whatever keeps you cooperative. I’m not sure what else you know about. It’s clearly obvious that you don’t know anything about your partner, the Sixth House, or the Tenth Gate. You know that your amulet has a library stored inside of it, which is better than nothing. I’ve spent some time with the Servant, so I might be able to teach you some of her techniques. The fundamentals are that each amulet draws in energy from the environment…
The next few days were dedicated to training from Helen. Although Helen couldn’t help her with growing plants, especially since Amalia wasn’t sure if any further changes to the T. aestivum samples’ physiology would become noticeable, they managed to further Amalia’s understanding on how to use her shield. She was able to complete fifteen different hand and wrist motions with her shield and could easily perform most simple manoeuvres. Amalia also discovered that she could project force fields with her own hands. Helen seemed to think that she was progressing. Amalia wasn’t sure about that.
“Tell me about the Sixth House, and the Servant.”
The Sixth House is aligned with that of the sign of Virgo, and connected to the Tenth Gate, which is aligned with the sign of the Rooster. Your House was full of trees and you frequently pruned them. Apparently, you wanted to “make it orderly and presentable.” You wanted a shield from the Warrior because you saw yourself as a guardian of order. I didn’t understand at the time, and I still don’t. Outside of the plants and the force fields, you had amazingly good vision and the annoying tendency to correct everyone’s mistakes. You mentioned once that you can detect the history of an object, although that hasn’t been activated so far. Although this entire place is messing with me…
“What do you mean?” She felt comfortable speaking aloud now.
The lesser aftereffect is not only because you are weak. Neither Clytemnestra or I can read any of the guards’ minds. We can only sense your mind and the others that are held captive. Clytemnestra thought it was connected to what they were wearing or something inside the building.
That explained why she needed the guard positions and shifts. She had abandoned her project with the T. aestivum samples, but they were still useful. So far, she has been slowly improving their health and resistance to diseases, not that there were any pathogens where she was.
Slowly, she learnt that the cold mist was to sterilise all life, as what happened when she forgot to protect a small sample of T. aestivum seeds. Inside the pocket, she discovered that they withered from exposure. Amalia hadn’t gained any other privileges, but she was left alone for longer periods of time outside. The P. quinquefolia was growing nicely, seeping into little cracks that ran the length of the wall. The wall was not built of any material that Amalia was familiar with. It was pitch black and warbled slightly. Any further investigation was impeded by her guard who watched her nightly. For some reason, they had taken to staying longer in Amalia’s cell. From a rational perspective, it was unlikely that the gun would be discharged inside the holding cell. That didn’t stop Amalia from rushing over and holding her amulet tightly once they left.
One day, her guard stopped grabbing her roughly, and started only pointing in the direction that they wanted Amalia to go. It was a nice change of pace from previous interactions. Helen also told her that she was leaving for Geneva tomorrow.
Whoo, finally I can rest. It’s nice to not wear anything in bed.
Amalia gave a mental look of shock to Clytemnestra.
No, not like that! I don’t like wearing anything other than pyjamas to sleep.
We have a problem.
Has their escape attempt been discovered? Did Amalia make a mistake? Was it obvious that she was planting seeds or making them grow? Was she too obvious?
It has nothing to do with you at all. My old friend died of natural causes.
Amalia was sorry for Helen’s loss.
Humans aren’t very long-lived, even with your medicine, and he died a few weeks ago. I was at his house…I can’t believe it, he’s dead.
Why would you think he couldn’t be dead?
He could be a shapeshifter!
People can’t shapeshift! Although that would have been useful when I was at Emma's place…
At least he died happy?
He died alone. I’m banned from his house. Apparently, the woman in charge of his estate thought I was “intruding” and I told her I wasn’t sure that he was dead or not. I also needed my stuff back. For some reason, she decided to show me a picture of his dead body. When I said “I’m not leaving until I see proof” I wasn’t expecting that! Fifty seven years well lived.
Fifty seven? Amalia expected in their nineties, or at earliest their mid seventies. Her aunt was fifty seven, and she showed no signs of suddenly dying of natural causes.
Helen, people don’t die of natural causes at fifty seven. The youngest I had seen die of natural causes was at seventy four, and that was at my coworker’s father’s funeral. The reading of his will was awkward. I have never seen anyone become so feral over a piece of paper.
The last time I was on Earth, I knew many people dying in their fifties.
When was that?
The early 2020s.
Of course people were dying younger, there was a pandemic going on at that time!
And what about before that?
Bad healthcare? Back me up here Amalia, you know more about life expectancies.
If this man was living in Switzerland, then he could expect an average life expectancy close to eighty five years. He died twenty eight years prior to the average life expectancy for his gender and nationality.
See Helen? That man did not die of natural causes.
The issue was that he decided to have no children or marry anyone. He also decided to not write a will, so in the chaotic mayhem that followed his death, they held an auction to distribute his worldly possessions. That also meant the Key. I haven’t had any luck tracking down what was being sold, and who got which item. All I know is that it was a private auction, and there were international buyers. I don’t know which countries.
He obviously didn’t die of natural causes. Didn’t he have siblings or one insanely long lived grandmother?
They all predeceased him.
Did they die of natural causes?
They also died of natural causes.
I’m thinking it’s murder. Amalia, what about you?
Amalia thought it was a good time to go to sleep. As she clutched her pillow and drifted off to sleep, she could hear them arguing in her head.
It’s natural causes, that photo showed me that he was at rest, he was ready to leave.
The mortician shaped the face. No one wants to look at their loved ones and be reminded that sometimes, people can die with a face of terror…
Hello there.
Was it already morning?
It is not morning, but we don’t know what morning is. We would like to thank you for giving us life, Vine-Touched Servant.
Had someone else acquired the same technology as the twins and was now using it to contact her? Why would they have woken her up?
The twins? The ones that interfere with your mind? We are not the same, because they are only two beings. We are many. You planted us in the ground, and helped us grow.
Since when had she planted anything? The only thing she had planted recently were the P. quinquefolia seeds and—she was going crazy. Audiovisual hallucinations were a symptom of social isolation. She did have the twins in her head though? Or maybe they were figments of her subconscious that had arisen to torment her in her captivity…
You are talking to your plants, that is reality. We understand the job that was given to us, and we are working hard to weaken the wall. Would you like to see through our leaves?
She was already hallucinating plants talking to her, she thought; why wouldn’t she experience a visual hallucination caused by isolation from fellow human beings?
Inside the leaves, Amalia glimpsed a world high above the ground. The floodlights were all pointed at the entrances of the holding cells, almost as if whoever set them up wanted those that were trapped inside to be disoriented once they reached the outside. Some guards marched around, although she saw some of them entering and leaving a large structure.
Can I get closer for observation purposes? she asked the plants.
No, none of us were able to settle there. Besides, we like heights better.
Understandable, considering your biology. Am I able to hear anything?
No. We can’t hear but we can see. We want to be reunited with our siblings on the other side. It’s this wall, something is blocking us, but we are doing our best. Sleep is good for your brain, Mother.
Mother?
You grew us, so theoretically you should be Mother, although you did not contribute any genetic material.
I’m not a mother, call me Frau Wald.
Sleep, Frau Wald.
Someone dragged her roughly from her bed. Amalia groggily rubbed her eyes and grabbed her amulet out of instinct. Her guard? What were they doing here? Suddenly, they grabbed her waist and shoved her into the hallway.
“Wh-what is happening?”
“Keep quiet.”
Amalia did what the guard bid her to do. After the mist was done with cleansing and sterilising both of their bodies, the guard grabbed her arm and dragged her along, her feet barely managing to keep pace with the guard’s nimble steps. Had they been that agile before? She couldn’t remember. All of the floodlights are off, and unlike the past excursions there were no guards stalking the asphalt grid. In the span of five minutes, both the guard and Amalia were near the large structure that she saw through the leaves of P. quinquefolia. The wall was fractured, various vines and tendrils flourishing amidst the cracks and fragments of the void like barrier. The guard pointed at the ground and at Amalia’s head. She assumed that the guard wanted to keep her head down.
“Wait here.” The guard entered the large plastic building with a keycard.
Amalia stayed where she was. Sitting on the pavement brought more questions into her mind. It was unlikely that there were only guards to keep them captive here. Like her holding cell, there were most likely cameras that guarded them as well. She spotted one camera above her, choked by P. quinquefolia. All of the other cameras she had spotted were entangled or blinking blue. Had they seen her transform during her experiments? If they did, wouldn’t they have removed her and experimented on her? Actually, why was she here? Those questions swirled around her head until a click and the whoosh of an automatic door brought her attention to her guard.
“It’s safe.” The guard beckoned to her. “Follow me.”
She was going to, but she stopped in her tracks. The guard had been acting suspicious, and not like themselves. Common sense dictated fleeing, but the situation left her with no safe refuge. In a split second, she darted into the guards’ structure, away from the guard’s reach.
What she expected was all of the guards to be immediately alerted to her presence. What she found was most of the guards present slumped over on a long rectangular table, some of them crumpled up on their chairs, and four splayed in an undignified position on the floor. On another table was a row of computer screens, all glowing an electric blue. A coffee machine was situated in the corner and she smelled the aroma of freshly brewed coffee in the room.
“It’s not what you think. Listen, we need to leave quickly—”
Amalia grabbed her amulet, whispered the transformation phrase quietly, and summoned the carbon shield. The guard remained motionless.
“Oh shit—” The guard muttered.
She couldn’t comprehend what happened next. She thought the guard was readying their gun to use on her. In any case, that wouldn’t matter. Amalia hit them on the side of their head with the edge of her shield, knocking the goggles off of them. Her hyperventilation kicked in. Had she just hit a person in the head?! Why would she have done that?! Had she been reduced to violent measures? She was a scientist, one equipped with a rational mind, not a person who hit people in the head with a technologically advanced shield.
“It’s fine…my head is still ringing…should have explained myself better…or said my name.”
Amalia faced the guard clutching their head. Bright yellow eyes blinked at her.
“Nice to finally meet you in person.”
Clytemnestra?
“Yes, I’m her. It turns out that the reason we couldn’t read the guards’ minds are in these little helmets.” Clytemnestra knocked on her helmet. “I couldn’t find an exit, but there’s a backup plan.”
“I’m so sorry…” Amalia apologised.
“It’s fine, I’ve had worse.”
“How did-”
“Did you know that an innocent little girl looking for medicine to treat a scrape works extremely well? These guards may be cold to you, but they certainly weren’t to a child. I managed to persuade a sympathetic guard to allow me inside, and then I borrowed his clothes.”
What did that mean?
“Don’t worry, they’re alive. I think I left them in a storage closet.”
Did she know why everyone was here?
“Unfortunately no. There are no paper archives, and their computers just got wiped. I drugged the coffee, so don’t drink it. Thankfully, at least most of the guards liked espresso. The rest I sent a message saying that there was an urgent message at Site Alpha, but after that all of the electronics shut off.” She waved at the computers. “I don’t know what happened there to be honest, but I did find out why I couldn’t read Elias’ mind.”
Clytemnestra grabbed a hold of some pink coloured curtains and shoved it out of the way. Elias was hooked onto a ventilator and was completely still, the machines around him slowly beeping as his vitals remained stable.
“The notes here say that he has been in a coma for a week. Apparently he did try to escape, and got four bullets in the back for his trouble.”
Amalia dropped her shield, letting it clatter on the floor. She wasn’t close to Elias, but she knew that Laura was fond of him. Elias didn’t move. Why had they all been taken prisoner, and why would they…why would they—
“Here, put these headphones on. They’re industrial grade, and I found them in a drawer. Are you able to put any shields around the rest of your colleagues?”
Amalia shrugged, until she remembered the plants. If her dream was real and she could see through plants, then she could use them to protect everyone. She closed her eyes, imagining a shield around herself and Elias. Once she opened them, she was high above the facility like her dream.
We are not a dream. We are real, like you and Castor and Pollux.
How did you know those names?
We sense our siblings on the other side, and they tell us everything. Now imagine the shields that will protect your colleagues.
Amalia pictured it. Soon, she found eleven light brown coloured domes surrounding some of the structures, and far below, Clytemnestra was walking in front of the wall, and opened her mouth.
We will not be long for this world. Thank you for giving life to us, and we know what we were here for.
What do you mean—
Amalia’s mind was shoved out of the gestalt consciousness. Before she could react, the entire building was shaking. Only her and Elias remained motionless. Everything was vibrating and she heard something collide with the ceiling, until it stopped. Peeking outside the door and taking off her headphones, she found Clytemnestra sighing.
“Whoo, that was…a lot…of screaming. At least…it’s broken now.”
Sunlight shone upon Amalia’s face and outside there was grass and the dancing of birch trees in the wind. The wall was broken, shattered into a million chunks that surrounded Clytemnestra. Amalia sensed her colleagues were awake inside the shields. Outside, there was a teenager running towards them with yellow twintails dangling in the breeze.
“Castor!” The girl on the horizon shouted. She sprinted into Clytemnestra and hugged her.
Amalia looked back and forth between the two of them. They were twins…most likely fraternal. Those were the majority of twin births. Amalia blinked. The girl looked like a teenager…but they spoke like adults in her head. Sensing that her colleagues needed to exit, she let down the shields. She picked up her own shield, as all of her colleagues rushed towards her.
«C’est quoi ce bordel?» Jacques exclaimed, looking at the wall.
“Frau Wald, are you alright?” Ada asked. "What are you wearing?"
Amalia looked down at her uniform, which was unlike the light grey uniforms that her colleagues were wearing, especially considering the veined lace-like decorations between her chest and arms. The twins stopped embracing each other as the one in massive twintails pointed out a large flash of light.
“I’m...I’m wearing something from…” There was no logical or rational explanation that could properly quantify how Amalia acquired this uniform. Could she say that she possessed an amulet that had the capabilities to draw from an alternate power source? What if it converted this energy into solid tangible clothing?
Gunfire erupted on the far side. Everyone ducked while Amalia flicked her shield up. Instantly, a transparent dome formed around them and defended them against the bullets.
Can you make the shields mobile and only cover your colleagues? Because the bullets are ricocheting all over the place.
Amalia noticed Helen ducking and dodging various bullets, some of which were ricocheting off of the massive dome that Amalia erected.
“So…ummm…I have a device that can erect shields.” That was suitable for now. “Can you…can you run past the trees? The shield is impenetrable, but Elias needs help. He’s…he’s…” Amalia pointed at the building. “He’s in a coma.”
Laura gasped in shock and broke off into a run towards the building, a small protective shield rotating around her. The others decided it would be best to sprint away together with any samples that they were holding, and Matteo expressed interest in studying Amalia’s device for research purposes. As they did so, Amalia flicked up several shields to protect against incoming bullets of her own. Clytemnestra’s hair changed to be the same lemon yellow as her sister and she started whacking the guards with her gun. Eventually, they ended up together, cornered by several guards.
“Do you know how to use a gun?” she asked Clytemnestra.
“No, but today’s a good day to learn new things!” Clytemnestra placed her finger on the trigger. “The weight is interesting.”
“Yes, but be careful of the—” BANG! “Recoil.” Newton’s third law of motion at its finest.
The recoil knocked Clytemnestra backwards into a nearby wall.
One of the soldiers was clutching their right arm in pain. Amalia shrugged as she threw up another shield to block yet another barrage of bullets. Clytemnestra recovered and had two black wires impale the ground in front of them, and sneezed. The ground cracked beneath their feet as everyone made way for the cracks.
Out of the corner of her eye, Amalia spotted Laura pushing Elias on his hospital bed out of the guards’ quarters. Unfortunately, some of the guards noticed as well and gave chase.
Clytemnestra alternated between shooting them, recovering from shooting, or screaming at them, at one point using her wires to trip several guards in pursuit. Amalia placed a few shields around the two of them. However, she noted that when she was not concentrating on them, they tended to fall.
Having finally outrun their pursuers, Amalia and Clytemnestra sequestered themselves near the now demolished wall. Laura met up with them, with Elias’ prone body laid out on his bed, his vital monitors beeping wildly. Another wave of gunfire erupted, Amalia shielding all of them with a force field.
Now that she saw Clytemnestra’s face closely, the twins did look identical. Amalia chalked it up to a trick of the light.
No, that was shapeshifting. Otherwise I would have never fit into that uniform. Helen taught me while I was moaning in pain in the back of the van. She seems to have ditched the van though.
Amalia warily peeked out from her shield. Helen was backed into a corner, holding a small white pen. Instead of the van, there was a bus outside near the trees.
Amalia glanced back at the panicking Laura. Between the guards, the distance between them and the bus, and Elias, it was highly unlikely that they could escape without incurring injury.
“Should we—” Amalia pointed at Helen’s back against the wall.
“Helen’s fine, don’t worry,” was Clytemnestra’s response.
Helen held out her pen, and pointed it at the crowd. None of them seemed to be intimidated by the pen and rushed her. She sighed and pressed a button. In the span of a second, the little white pen in her hand expanded in size and segments until its tip was speared into a guard’s chest. Helen retracted it and started to use it as one would use a spear.
Both pen and twintails whirled in the air as Helen fought back the guards surrounding her. At one point, Amalia witnessed her throwing the pen into the wall with a guard hanging on. She tapped a yellow jewel on her forearm, summoning her pen back into her hand. That must be another form of advanced technology, Amalia thought, where a simple pen can be a disguise for a larger weapon.
I think that would be our cue to start sprinting. How good are you at running?
Amalia was terrible at running.
Time to refresh those skills!
Clytemnestra took off, occasionally shooting into the crowd. Amalia flicked up a few shields to protect Laura and Elias, and helped roll Elias’ bed onto the grass. Behind her she spotted Helen giving chase. Finally they arrived at the bus where Amalia helped Laura carry Elias’ bed onto the back of the bus. She wanted to say something to Laura, but a sudden lurch caused her to be thrown against the back of the bus.
“Go faster Helen!”
“I’m trying here! Do you want to take the wheel?”
“I can’t drive well!”
Amalia wanted Helen to slow down, as her body collided with the walls, the floor, and the back of the bus yet again. Clytemnestra signalled to Amalia to shield everyone. A few seconds later, the road behind them was left a pile of rubble.
Surprisingly Elias was still alive. Laura and Amalia worked by keeping the bed mostly stable and not jostling around the seatless bus.
Matteo wanted to use Clytemnestra’s gun to shoot the guards, only for Amalia to remind him that he wouldn’t aim well inside a swerving vehicle. The twins were arguing and spinning the wheel too quickly, often veering off of the road and onto the grass.
They left the guards behind and Amalia looked backwards once the bus stopped lurching. The building that she was in loomed tall over the disappearing horizon, a perfect semicircle all in pitch black. She sensed the energy of her T. aestivum samples and told them to head into the wild.
Once they slowed down to a safe and comfortable pace, Amalia started asking her colleagues questions, and them of Amalia. Based on the collected information, none of their guards spoke to them. Some of them, like Fabienne and Laura, had some of their cereal crop treatment groups from the experiment placed in their holding cells. Fabienne recalled waking up to her guard snapping off stalks from the Z. mays Calamity resistant treatment group. Jacques recounted how he had numerous issues with the guard’s treatment and once berated his guard to their face one night. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Amalia detected Clytemnestra giving Jacques a mental smirk. Matteo remembered that he once briefly heard a commotion and then the sound of gunfire. Other individual testimonies pointed towards that being the incident that sent Elias into a coma. Among everyone, there had been no mentions of why they were held captive, or in the case of Fabienne, why they were taking some of the samples.
“Frau Wald, what do you mean the cameras in your room and the facility blinked blue?” Ada asked incredulously.
“Madame Vogel, it is not just her. All of our cameras had a blue blinking light,” Jacques answered.
“That’s impossible. My brother worked at a security company, and he once brought a broken version of that exact type of security camera home. Once we fixed it, it blinked red, not blue.”
Amalia saw Helen peeking behind and focusing on the wheel once she noticed Amalia noticing her. Clytemnestra was balancing a laptop on her knees, both jumping every time Helen hit a road bump which was often. A sudden ding arose from the laptop.
“Hey Helen! I got the buyers’ list from that auction!” she shouted.
“How?” Helen shouted back.
“I don’t know! Something popped up and sent me the entire list! I can read it out to you! There's Italy, Ireland, Morocco, Costa Rica, South Korea, Poland, China, Germany, Canada, Greece, the Czech Republic, Malta, Norway, South Africa, Egypt, Brazil, England, Australia…the list is long. There’s no names listed, so I think it was anonymous.”
“Good enough. We’re going to Italy!”
“Ummm, we need to drop everyone here at the hospital, especially Elias. His condition will worsen if we keep him with us.” Amalia hoped the twins listened to reason.
“Why can’t we find a doctor in a nice back alley? They would have experience but they’re out of the way.” Clytemnestra suggested.
Laura looked like she would punch Clytemnestra in the face. Ada gave a disappointed look to her. Jacques furrowed his eyebrows at her in his perpetually annoyed way.
“An actual hospital, please.” Amalia would never have a shady doctor be in control of Elias’ life.
Clytemnestra and Helen shared a look and shrugged. “That might be a good idea.”
The bus, which she learnt was “borrowed”, travelled swiftly into Geneva. Although Amalia wanted to stay with her colleagues, her gut told her to travel with the twins.
A few hours later, she was with them as they argued over whether to go to Italy or to Ireland or any of the places on the buyers’ list. The loud and frequently ear piercing arguments unsettled her, so she found those industrial grade headphones and put them on. The peace and quiet was much better, especially since she escaped from captivity. Still, she clutched her amulet. There’s more to this situation than her and her colleagues’ kidnapping, she thought.
----------------------------------------
“How much footage was lost?”
“At least a week and a half’s worth of footage.”
“So no one fixed the problem?”
“None of us are great with technology, so no one detected it until it was too late.”
“Did the intruder steal anything?”
“Only a few minor files, but the self-destruct protocol kicked in quickly.”
“Good, what about the scientists?”
“They are recuperating at the Hôpitaux Universitaires de Genève.”
“Keep a close eye on them, and don’t kidnap them again. Which one of them is the Servant?”
“We aren’t sure. The loss of footage coincided with their length in captivity.”
“Have you secured all of their samples and test subjects?”
“Some of the scientists took them in their escape, but we have recovered a decent portion.”
“Good. Send them to Site Alpha and send the wrecking crew too. Leave no trace. We don’t want another Costa Rica.”