“How is he?”
“He's the same. Once we get him to a medical center he'll be fine.”
“The infirmary on the Triton is more like a small hospital, we'll get him back on his feet.”
“Thank you Jake.”
“I'm just glad I can help him.”
A silence settled on them. Jacob Valance stood separate from the quiet, diminishing crowd, staring down the tunnel as it extended into a darkness that may as well have gone on forever. He was so unsure of what to say. An uncertainty and fear filled him that was unlike anything he could recall.
Jacob's memories of her felt like his own. At the same time he could clearly recall comforting Ayan on the Triton as the life faded from her. Yet she had been reborn and she was on the other end of the communique, waiting for him to say something. How could he possibly convey his relief, his amazement, his joy to her without putting her off? Was it even right to express any of it under such dismal conditions?
“Are you okay?” she asked finally, quietly.
His mind was filled with every possible way to answer the question and for a long moment he struggled to narrow it down, to at once figure out what she was referring to specifically and what his best answer could be. “Um,” was all that came out.
“I mean, do you remember? Laura said you do but-” Ayan said in a nervous rush.
“It feels strange when I hear someone call me Valance now,” Jake blurted. He had barely started to realize it but ever since he last introduced himself to Alaka and his people by his full name, it was a feeling that he couldn't shake.
“Okaaay,” Ayan sounded a little confused, and very unsure.
“I mean I remember everything, now it's like it's all my own life, and the years where I didn't have those memories just fit into the missing time,” Jake sighed and sat down on a power cable box beside the unirail. “It's like someone turned out the lights for six years and I had to make my way in the dark, then someone started turning on switches and when I remembered you everything started coming together. When you died, I mean, when the other you died-”
“Oh my God, were you there?”
The pain of the moment, the last bright smile he'd seen on her face came back to him then and he forced what he needed to tell her out. “I pretended I was Jonas. That was the first time I felt like everything was real, like I wasn't just struggling day to day for nothing,” he hesitated before going on. “When I was with her, watching her fade away everything else disappeared. Then she was gone and I was lost all over again.”
“I'm so sorry.”
“You couldn't have done anything and I'm glad I was there. She passed away smiling,” he didn't know if he was saying the right thing, for once he didn't have time to plan his strategy, to pick and choose his words carefully. Instead he just kept talking. “Now you're just a few hours away, but for all I know you barely remember anything.”
The quiet that followed was soon broken by the sound of her quietly crying. “I remember everything. I've missed you so much,” he could hear her trying to keep herself together as she went on, sniffling first. “You know what they say about making the same decision twice? I'd do it three times, five times, over and over again for you, even if I have to start calling you Jake.”
“You might just have to, I'm used to the first name,” Jacob looked behind him to see that there were just a few people left to descend into the lower tunnel. Things were moving very quickly. “I think my turn to go down is coming up, I'll see you soon Ayan. I'll be there soon. Just-” he tried to think of the right words but nothing clear, no gentle way to say what was on his mind came. “Just don't expect me to be the same, there are years, things I've done since you knew me.. ”
“I understand. I'm not the same either, we both come with surprises.”
Any surprise she had for him couldn't compare to his history as a hunter, all the people he'd killed on Pandem but he decided there would be another time for that; “I'll see you soon,” he promised quietly.
“Okay, be careful. Tell Alaka that if he doesn't get you here in one piece I'll make him into a fur rug,” she said with a chuckle, he could hear her tears clearing up.
Jake laughed as much in mirth as in joy as he unconsciously nodded at his communication and control unit; “I'll tell him, he'll get a laugh.” He was just about to end the private communique but added; “I'll be there soon,” once more before closing the line.
Terry Ozark McPatrick and Minh-Chu Buu
The darkness of the old sealed tunnel was just what Oz wanted after the ordeal that had passed. It was like the quiet after a midnight storm. He sighed and looked around, his head piece drawn back so it was an open hood.
The concrete closest to the old transit line that once led to the space station terminal had aged badly, the cracks in the ceiling allowed moisture to drip, the big metal magnetic ties that had been pulled up so they could properly wall the tunnel up were once piled but had settled and were strewn out. Tons of metal, just left down here to rot for God only knows how long. I wonder what the crews who sealed this place would think if they knew that these old holes would save our lives. He thought to himself as he eyed the well lit double service doors further down the cavernous tunnel. They had been pried open and scouted hours ago. Where Dementia's knowledge of the old tunnels ended Alaka's began. The nafalli had been through most of the tunnels before while exterminating rim weasels and he led them straight to a forgotten maintenance access that could take them into the spaceport. The disused service hallways let out right behind a small West Keeper outpost, all that lay between them and the main lower landing platforms and hangars. The Clever Dream was waiting, and he hoped it would be ready soon.
In the division of command he had drawn the shortest straw. Ayan was to keep the lines of communication open between herself and Jake or Alaka, Jason was always busy gathering information about what the enemy was doing while he kept a line to Dementia open, and he was to try and keep in touch with everyone they left behind as he managed the refugees and rebels who had come with them.
His job was the most depressing of the lot. The last transmission from the survivors they had left behind was nothing but panic, screams and a plea for help. Dementia had kept trying to connect to the machines they'd left behind with the refugees with no success.
Both he and Jason tried to warn the refugees that the Holocaust Virus would take over completely, that it wasn't safe to keep anything controlled by an artificial intelligence near or in the camp. Yves wouldn't acknowledge their attempts at communication and if anyone heard their general broadcasts through local channels there was no indication.
When it happened less than two hours later the androids and artificial life driven service machines lashed out in a sudden flash of violence as though they were taking vengeance for being forced to switch sides. He'd seen it himself, one of the resistance fighters opened a video link just as it started, begging for help of some kind, a new patch or a means of escape.
Few things phased him, Oz was a trained soldier, he'd seen the All-Con Conflict as a member of a marine unit, gone on actual boarding actions and commanded a cloak ship in the middle of a war zone with one mission; to hunt down and destroy the enemy. The sounds of civilians and rebels alike being ruthlessly cut down at close range was beyond anything he'd experienced. When the screams started on his communicator he only looked at the video portion of the transmission for a moment before turning it off.
There was nothing they could do, the refugees and resistance fighters had surrounded themselves with the combat, security and assistance bots that Dementia had freed. They were inside the camp attending the wounded, mending broken equipment, even assisting them in their plans to fend off the West Watch.