AN: Many thanks to all my reviewers of the last chapters. Your input is very much appreciated. Particularly the concrit. Did I mention, I like getting concrit?
The first person thing is kinda new for me, but I think I'm dealing with it okay. If it gets too confusing, feel free to let me know.
This is the last part of the prologue and it's a longer chapter.
Prologue Three: A Challenging Perspective.
Are you listening?
'Yes. You know I am.'
There's a long silence in which he just… sits there, staring at the rock. Well, there isn't much else in particular to look at in here.
Frightened?'You want me to be frightened.' The boy bites his lip and lets his subconscious do the talking. He's not, actually, all that certain what he's saying. Only that it means something to them. It. Whatever.
No, not frightened, the voices whisper, tickling the lobes of his ears. The walls glisten, like lichen, even though there should be no light for it to reflect off. Aware. Awake. Alive.
'I'm not in any danger, here.'
No, not here. Not really. Out there, though, there is much danger. We shall teach you. We shall teach you to avoid them. Are you listening?
'Yes…' he says, even though he knows he doesn't really have to say anything out loud, it's still… comforting, to do so. 'You know who I am…'
Have always known. We. Or I. It. There is no difference. The important thing is you.
They're not really speaking either, exactly. But that's what his brain is converting it to. There are no words, just a group of mental processes. He understands what they're telling him. What should be words take the form of images, blurring shapes and snaps of electricity in his mind. He can't read them or sense their true feelings and intentions, no matter how he probes their collective unconscious. It's kind of like trying to stab gelatine. He even gets the muggy feeling of stickiness around his mind when he tries it… if that metaphor even worked. It probably didn't.
'Then… then maybe you can tell me why I'm here. Why they keep… sending me.'
They did not send you here for that.
'Then why did they send me here?'
They did not send you. You came of your own accord. If you had not wanted it, they could not have made you. You would have blown them up. ripped them apart.
'But… no, I wouldn't…'
It would not be of your choosing. They wanted to know you could do it. Sent you further than you've ever been before. Far enough. You've never been as deep as this, have you?
'Um… no.' The boy grips the grimy dirt of the cavern floor beneath his fingers. He's suddenly aware of how claustrophobic it is in here, with nothing but stone walls all around him, green light –now where did that come from?– shining through the walls. It's like a stone prison far –maybe even miles– below the earth. No way in, no way out. Unless you know how.
And he knows how. He's been waiting for this for a long time now. Ever since the first time he learned to "Earthbreach".
The Minister of SIM Labs had called him Breacher. Her little Challenge. Number Three. Curiosity. Her Something Special. Lots of things, really, but never by his real name. He doesn't think she liked him that much, despite all the nicknames she gives him. He's pretty sure you don't call someone you like a thing.
He doesn't… he doesn't know who or what he is at all, really. But something tells him that the presence, filling the darkness all around him, does. He's not just a thing.
You know you are not, the voices say to him. Remember. Hear You will know, soon. You will understand.
'Teach me?' he voices it as question.
You will be taught.
The boy reaches out, touching the wall, feeling glowing green veins transverse across his skin and seep into the stone, like liquid light. It's as if a string of memories that he can't quite recall –ancient ones– are being drawn up from inside of him, seeping through the earth and dirt and the cracks in the stone.
His real name is Aaron, but the people –if they are people– to whom he's talking now don't necessarily know that. Or if they do, they don't see it as being particularly important. Aaron can't think of anything to call them. They're rising in too great a number and they feel beyond naming, anyway. Something transcendent. Not that Aaron knows what transcendent beings feel like. The closest he's ever come to being in contact with someone like that was the being that lived in the room opposite his. And it's usually better to stay away from him.
You will be taught. You have found us, now. You must return again. We shall guard you, and we shall be here, as we have always been. Here for you and others like you.
'Others… like me?'
They exist. You must find them. You must be together at the ends of the earth.
'…The Master won't like that,' Aaron mumbled. 'Lone survivors, singular destinies.'
What does the Master know?
Aaron thinks about it for the moment. Thinks about the Lessons in Omnipotence he had with the other "children" in the Great Hall in SIM Labs. The Curioso History Exams. The books and texts and lessons. 'He knows… pretty much everything.'
If what he felt from them before could be translated as speech, then the glowing light that races through the walls around him a few seconds later must be a kind of laughter. Or maybe just scorn. For a second, the shimmering green light changes to bubbling violet.
Everything. Everything. Nothing.
Aaron starts to nod, then stops himself. He was never quite sure wheat to think, when they start talking about the Master that way. As far as Aaron is aware, the Master is everything. To the voices (or whatever they are), however, you'd think he was nothing more than a Sea Rat.
Less than that, actually. Sea Rats got recognition down here. They'd actually had a discussion or two about that. Him and the voices. Funny thing to talk about, but then, he's never been this deep before. He figures the deeper you go, the more important knowledge you can acquire. He was only near the earth's surface when they talked about the sea rats.
It's strange, but he thinks that's how it works.
Does he know this? Us?'…No…'
That is why the Master sends you. Because the master doesn't know. The master can't find out. He sends you. You know, boy.
'…Yes… I'm… I think I'm starting to.
The Master is not a master. The Master is nothing. We. I. It is greater.
'But… how do you know?' Aaron felt his forehead wrinkle with concentration, the silver fragments of metal on his forehead slightly cutting into his skin. 'The Master makes everything… he could even have made you.'
No. The light bleeds red and Aaron knows instantly that he's said the wrong thing. Too late, though. he can't take it back. He just sits there, listening to the voices muttering and arguing. Feeling the cold air, rushing up and down his spine with every beat of his heart. Eventually, though, the cold vanishes, and the red light fades back into green.
We shall show you your Master's work.
Aaron blinks, and watches as the strands of light throughout the wall begin to crawl together, like creeping vines or slithering snakes, joining as one in the centre of the wall. In this centre, it glows white hot, and Aaron begins to see an image, projected onto the wall behind him.
It's a city… a skyline. Probably. He's only been outside once or twice, actually, and they'd told him they weren't in a City then, just a little village "out in the middle of nowhere", so he can only guess at what cities look like from books and online pictures. Still, he thinks it's a city. An ugly one, too.
The sky is burning red and black. It looks as if the light of the sky is bleeding over the hillsides, filling everything with thick, red shadows. Unnatural. Unclean. The image pans downwards to show him a street strewn with litter, drains flooded with brown water that looks nothing like the stuff in the Lab Tanks and a man huddled in the doorway of a shop.
This is how things are, in the cities. You have never seen a city? Not like this?
'No…' Aaron whispers.
Well then… it looks this way.
The images in Aaron's mind change suddenly, flickering in and out, without warning, like a changing commercial on a television set, and now Aaron sees…
Aaron doesn't want to see, the second the image begins to flash across his eyes, he turns his head away but the image seems to follow him. The image of a man being thrown to the ground by men in ugly masks and costumes. The man is trying to fly away but the men and women beating him keep gripping on, flying after him and dragging him down, their eyes blazing red and green. He can't fly against their weight. Strange, deep, blue light bursts from the beaten man's eyes and eventually dies away as the beating stops and he lies still against the pavement. It hurts to watch. Aaron doesn't want to watch. He doesn't want to see it.
A man. Killed for simply being, child. This is how your master wishes things to be.
The image changes a third time, to a scene filled with wind, rain and a young boy, standing on top of an old building. He must be as high up in the air as Aaron is deep under the ground.
Aaron looks back, this time, watching, horror-struck, as the boy falls down and down from the top of the building. He hears him hit the earth with a sickening crack and then… twitch. Aaron shudders and swallows the bile in his throat and yet…
Yet he can't stop looking at the boy's broken body. He doesn't understand. Why did he just…
'Stop it!'
The moment he speaks, the picture begins to fade away.
We. I. It is sorry you had to witness this. You understand, though? Death. Change. Mistakes. Pain. Your Master's will. You never did believe in your lessons, did you?
Aaron nods, slowly. He understands…
He's not all that sure he wants to, but he does.
'Is… is that what it's like? Is that…'
It is what your Master causes. It is what he has yet to bring. Do not trust the Master, child.
Aaron shudders on the inside. The voices feel it, and a strand of green light reaches out to touch his face. He doesn't… he doesn't know why they showed him that. All his life, the Master has been all, and even though he questioned it, he'd sure as hell never have the nerve to blaspheme.
But then, he supposes the Master can't hear them, all the way down here.
And it's kind of nice… to get away from them for a while. To go deep under the ground where all that exists are the voices and his own thoughts. It's… comfortable. Much less foggy than it tends to be, above ground. Sometimes, when he's down here, he feels as if he never wants to go back. Except they always make him, in the end. either the voices or the Scientists.
Go. Leave. The voices say.
'What?' Aaron starts when he realises he doesn't have any of the answers he was sent here for, then trembles when he realises how little that really matters. What does matter is how afraid he is. He doesn't want to… he doesn't want to go back to the surface. 'I…I can't…
No choice. Trouble. You are needed.
'N-needed for what?' Aaron reaches out, gripping the stone wall with his fingertips, feeling the light probes dancing in his mind and struggling to cling onto them.
Leave, they order again. The pathways in his mind spark and ache, like the beginning of a migraine, only a thousand times worse. He's forced to curl up in pain before he can think of a reply. Danger. Get out. Then it feels kind of like he's being kicked. The world around him turns darker than it ever was in the cave and he feels grit and sand scrambling against his cheeks as he's forced back to the surface of the earth.
And then his ears are filled with noise. Voices and footsteps and the screaming of a siren and the crackling of electricity from torn, broken machinery. He can feel the grip of thick, metal gloves around his hands, feel the prick of needles and wires snaking into his skin. All of it very familiar. But he never remembered it being so bright before. Maybe it's that way because he just came out from under the ground…
He's back in the labs.
…He's back in the labs, and it looks like something happened while he was gone.
'What the hell…? Bryony! Do something!'
'I don't—I can't… what the—'
'We're losing primary binary functions over here. Thawe, tell me you're getting somewhere!'
'The system is shutting down.'
'…Shit. Not again.'
'Who the hell let him out of his room?'
'Who has control of that sector?'
'Somebody open the damn casket, will you? Before the test subject tries to rip himself out and bleeds to death.'
'Leaks to death, more like.' That voice… does not belong to a scientist, but it's familiar, nonetheless. Aaron tries to open his eyes and look, but it doesn't seem to be working. Every time he cracks his eyes open even a little bit, they're filled with a blazing white light that burns right through him. Be keeps them squeezed tightly shut, to avoid being blinded.
'This is not the time, boy, what the hell are you doing in here?'
'Well, I…'
'Damn, you know what? I don't care what you call it, just get the damn kid unplugged before he disintegrates! He's got thirty-five Tracing Rods burrowing into him, for Master's sakes!'
'He came out too early, that's your problem. Something pushed him out.' The voice again. Aaron feels a smile prickling. He knows who it is. He knows why he's so close to the truth.
'What the hell were we reading there? Those weren't the usual…'
There are yet more voices, growing louder and louder all around him. He's starting to wish they'd shut up. Or at least, have the courtesy to call him by his name…
Remember.
He hates this.
Remember everything.
He. Hates. It.
Warm, plastic-gloved hands reach out to grip his arms, tugging cords and wires out of his skin. The room changes from burning white to grey and blue. Walls painted the same colour as the sky is supposed to be.
'Get. Off. Me!' he screams, the second they touch him
'Easy, little one. Just relax. It's alright. You're safe now, back in the Courts.'
Safe now, back in the Courts, is a total contradiction in terms, but he doesn't say anything as the cables come free. He really needs to move. Needles draw back, sealing his skin shut behind them without leaving a trace of blood and the clasps loosen their grip. He staggers forwards, his bones all but breaking. The tone of her voice is anything but relaxing. She doesn't respond to the touch as he grabs hold of her to keep from falling further, but he doesn't care. He clings to her anyway. He feels like he has to, or else he won't be able to hold onto the ground beneath his feet. He's still in shock. He went too deep and came up too fast and now he can't stand up properly as a result. It's happened before once or twice, though never from so deep. She –the woman holding him upright– called it—
'Earth Bends. See? You just have a little case of them. You surfaced too quickly.'
No kidding he wants to say, but still can't bring himself to talk. Maybe he just doesn't want to.
'I know, I know, let it take. The Master protected you, just as I promised he would. No harm done.' She waits a few moments. The world around him continues to get louder, but she's clutching him tightly in what he soon figures is supposed to be a hug. What did you see?' she asks him, bluntly. He opens his mouth to speak… then shuts it again. They don't…
Don't let them lie to you any longer. No more lies. No more sins. No more Master.
They don't, actually, deserve to know this time, do they? He understands that now. New synapses are sparking in his mind, telling him the difference between good and bad. Something he never really… understood before now.
'Hey. Number Three. Tell me, what did you see? We need to know so we can tell the Master.'
'N-no…'
'What?' she frowns at him. Brown eyes narrow behind black framed glasses.
'I… s-said… n-no. No.' he repeats it, trying to make his voice sound clearer. His words feel like they're tumbling into each other.
'…You know that answer isn't acceptable.'
He doesn't respond. He forces himself to let go of her and push her away and the second he does he starts falling to the ground, trembling. She grabs him again, clutches just that little bit tighter, nails digging into him. 'Being a little challenge again, aren't you? Tell me, Number Three. Tell me what they said.'
He screws his eyes tightly shut and pretends to be out of it.
'Um… Ms. Thawe? Are you done here? Only um… that guy owes me a Sideball Match right now.'
'Damn it…' the woman holding him mutters. She lets go and Aaron feels someone else take hold of him. He hears somebody mutter a muted "Hi there" in his mind and knows, somehow, that whoever it is they're grinning madly. It makes him want to grin too, but he doesn't, for sake of the façade. But all the same: "Hi, Two" Aaron thinks back.
Two sniggers as Two lifts him up, helping Aaron pretend he's not really conscious. "Little faker."
"Hypocrite."
"Stupid breach boy, they'll get answers out of you yet, you know."
"I don't care. Not yet, Two. Got some things to say to you, though."
There's a soft, mental sigh. "Well, alright then. I'll take you back to your room, shall I? Since you're currently incapacitated."
Aaron has to struggle not to smile. Well, he's not sure he could walk even if he wasn't faking this. "If you don't mind."
"Ha!"'Gods,' Ms. Thawe mutters. 'Just take him to the decompression chamber and be done, will you? He won't tell us anything. Call it shock. He'll be more communicative later, won't you, little challenge?'
And still, Aaron doesn't answer her. He keeps his eyes shut as Two carries him out of the room Aaron keeps thinking about the picture the voices showed him underground. Particularly, for some reason, the one of the boy falling from a great height.
He won't ever answer them ever again. Ever. Ever. EVER.