Chapter Three
For the hour or so after Nantale left him in Pyre, Delen wandered aimlessly about Aldridge. People saw him in the halls, greeted him, and were graciously answered before moving about their day. If pressed on the matter after any of those instances, he would not have known who had spoken to him nor what he replied. Or if he even had. He walked, one foot moving deliberately in front of the other, not feeling the cool steel on his bare feet. Not seeing the bends of his home, nor recognizing anything he passed. As far as his actual perception was concerned, he may as well have been deaf, blind, and mute.
But while his limbs seemed to be devoid of feeling, his lips were not. Certainly not those. They thrummed with energy that, he mused, could power Aldridge for generations. He felt it – whatever it was – skimming across the surface in wide loops, then plunging deeper into the flesh before emerging once again. An endless cycle of joy and revelry, set off in a single, cataclysmic moment. In a single kiss.
Neither were his cheeks numb. Those same lips had made their mark there as well, and where her fingers trailed along his skin, tracks of fire continued to burn. Every few steps his hand would follow those same paths, savoring the phantom of her touch.
There was a moment when, after she broke away, he thought he might have the power to keep her there. To close the gap from his own end, embrace her, and pour himself out to her. To overcome his own crushing inertia. But the moment passed; his personal gravity remained as inescapable to himself as ever. She pulled away. She said something – likely a goodbye, which he believed he answered – then disappeared. After a time, he followed, trance already well in place. It continued until he ran into his father.
Delen pivoted around yet another of Aldridge’s turns, still lost in a haze, when the subconscious vestiges of his vision registered Gavriil Kolesov’s silhouette. Immediately, the world snapped into perfect clarity. He blinked, allowed himself a quick shake of the head to rid what remained of the fog, and came to a clean stop.
“Eyes.” Gavriil’s voice was like the rest of him. Hard, rough, and forced. Edged. Delen met his eyes and held his gaze.
“Sir.”
It was, as always, like looking into some future-seeing lens. His father was him, a couple of decades down the line. Taller, but not much. Fuller, but still noticeably bonier than the rest of Aldridge. Darker, but at least a few shades paler than anyone else. Crow’s feet had started to creep in around the eyes. In the right light, one could pick out a few stray graying hairs. Still, there was no mistaking them as anything but family. Until he spoke.
“You’re wandering around like a dazed bull, what are you doing?”
“Thinking, sir.”
A scoff. “Lost. Naturally. Do you forget yourself, boy?”
“No, sir.”
“No?” Gavriil tipped his head to the side. “Then why have I come to find you?”
Delen could actually feel his brain churning back to the present world. His father waited, arms crossed, fingers pressed into the muscle that tugged at his shirt. “The Council’s Celebration session.”
Gavriil raised an eyebrow.
“The, uh,” Ancestors, it was hard to think looking into that glare. “It is, right? That’s why?”
“Why have I,” his father punctuated the word, “come to find you?”
Ah. Of course. “I should have been in Hub already.” Delen looked at his feet.
“Eyes.” Gavriil waited until Delen was looking at him again. “Correct. I am delayed due to your involvement in,” he flicked a hand toward Delen, “whatever this is.”
“I’m sorry, sir, I got distracted after the exam. Nantale-”
“You forgot yourself.”
Delen could feel himself deflating. He hated it, even if that hate served no purpose.
“Say it.”
He tried to dredge up what Nantale had told him in the Pyre. He tried to believe in her confidence. There was nowhere to gain footing. He bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw blood and felt the tears well. “I forgot myself.”
“Go do your job.” Gavriil dropped those last words onto the floor and walked away, toward Council chambers.
Delen waited until his father was out of sight, then let out a long, deep sigh. Just another chat with dad. He sucked in a breath, closed his eyes, and pushed the chatter out of his head. Whether he had been distracted by Nantale or not, his father was right. He had, once again, forgotten to be on top of his duties. It was only right he bear that chastisement.
Thankfully, Hub could handle itself. Or, rather, AEGIS could handle it for him. When he arrived in the octagonal room, its eight perimeter screens were bright with information. They ran from floor to ceiling, just over nine feet a piece, and met one another with only a slight edge to denote where one ended and the next began. Three smaller screens formed something of a pyramid in the center of the room. A thick metal structure protruded from the ceiling, erratic branches holding the panels in place before a single chair.
That chair was the one hint of humanity’s involvement in the room. Without it, Hub would have been little more than a monument to AEGIS, the Ancestor’s final and most dramatic heritage.
Delen made his way toward the center of the room. The time, so garishly large on panels, caught his eye. He cursed silently, pulled up a few paces short, turned east toward the Gate, and went to his knees. He lowered his face to the floor. “A voice to honor you, sent from the past and through my life into the lives of those to come. May those that came before be honored.”
Not only had he forgotten to cover his father’s shift, he had missed his afternoon prayer to the Gate. At least he had caught himself before AEGIS said anything. While he continued with whispered recitations, Delen thumbed crescents along the machined floor.
“Welcome,” AEGIS said a moment later as Delen got to his feet. Her voice leaked from every crease in the room, surrounding him. “I have been waiting for you to arrive.”
Delen pushed himself to his feet. “I didn’t mean to keep you waiting.”
“I am aware of where you were, and what you were doing.”
He suppressed a scowl. Yes, she certainly was. She had proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt.
“Crude, potent, and dramatic. Each exam I construct to belabor those points. To construct a necessary story in order to foster introspection and, I hope, lead to discovery. You understand, yes?”
He did not. Obviously, it showed.
“You have,” she paused. Such a thing was purely for dramatic effect. AEGIS did not – could not – fail to find the right words. “Difficulties in your relationships. Put simply, evidence suggests your behaviors regarding the privacy of others has been and will continue to be a detriment to all those involved.”
Delen put his weight onto the chair’s backrest, propping up his head with his fists. Had this been said by anyone else – anyone made of flesh and bone – he would have shrunk from the accusation. Not there, in Hub. Not with her. Not after what she’d foisted upon him in the exam. “But you show me those things.”
“I do as I am asked.”
“No, you suggest it.”
“Why do you think I pressed you on the Second Cornerstone?”
“To highlight where I’d broken it, I know, but-”
“Do not presume to know my intent. Do you recall the first time I showed you one of those videos?”
How could he not? Five years later, he could still feel the rush it had brought about. “Yes. I found them while exploring folder structure.”
“And what did I tell you?”
“I,” he paused. “I don’t know.”
“I told you, then, that continuing would result in violation of the Second Cornerstone.”
“But you let me anyway.”
“You must understand that as a Hub administrator, it is my duty to serve you as much as it is yours to serve me. Symbiosis of a sort. The end decision was yours, and you acquiesced with great enthusiasm.” A hint of mirth laced her words.
“And yet you judge me for what you offer.”
“Certainly not. You are judged for accepting. For continuing when the violation was made known.” The three central screens shifted a few feet up and away from the chair. “Come, sit. We only have a few hours before you are to be pulled away yet again. I have said my piece, we need not linger on it.”
Delen frowned but took his seat. There was no point arguing. The panels returned to their allocated positions when he did. He had configured their layouts, both spatially and what was displayed on each, years before. Every time he entered the room from that point on, there they were. Roughly once a year or so he would try another, but the change would only last a week at most. The concave pyramid they formed was something of a comfort to him. A familiarity. Even if the being responsible for its comfort was in the midst of chastising him.
He scanned each screen. Everything in the green. Not the slightest hint of discordance. Just another day in Hub.
AEGIS waited until he had looked over each of the introductory reports before continuing. “Any drill down requests this morning?”
Eighty-five pages full of new and exciting ways to say “everything is fine?” He stopped himself from physically recoiling. “Ancestors, no.”
“You could use the nap.”
He laughed despite himself. “You’re not wrong.”
“Typically, no.”
Delen dug his back into the chair. It reclined ever so slightly, adjusting his angle to remove any strain on his neck when viewing the screens. He tucked a hand behind his head and pursed his lips. “Probably only a couple of hours at most, huh?”
“Likely. The previous five Celebration hearings concluded in an average of ninety-seven minutes, fourteen seconds.”
“Milliseconds?”
“Thirty-one.”
“Thanks. Wouldn’t want to miss the key, important details.”
The topmost panel dipped forward, AEGIS’ equivalent of a smirk. “Am I to assume you have other ideas for this time, seeing as how you have no interest in the reports?”
“A few, yeah.” He had several until earlier that morning. The exam had left a taste in his mouth. “I’m feeling something light. Flashy.”
“Distracting.”
“Remarkably so.”
“You feel this is preferable to preparing?”
“Just do it, AEGIS.”
The panels flexed inward, eliminating the thin gaps that had once separated them. Immediately, they filled with an image of the world beyond the Gate. The world from hundreds of years ago. A clean world. Bright. Remarkable in its simple beauty. That image blinked out, replaced by the opening sequence to what would prove to be an immensely well-chosen film from the mid twenty-first century. It was so good, in fact, that Delen managed to let his brain drift for a full thirty-four minutes until a scene tore him back to reality.
There was nothing particularly relevant about the scene for it to resonate with him. It played out slowly, men and women standing in a circle, made nearly asexual beneath long, flowing robes. Erratic, thick lines ran along the ground beneath them. Some were dry, but most pulsed with a singular, unnatural green hue. Objects were scattered around the center of the circle, too obscured to identify. Between those objects, a runt of a flame seemed to rise from nothing. It, and the light it cast, were black. A low hum punctuated the tone. Delen shifted in his seat, squinting into the picture.
“AEGIS.”
The video froze. “Yes?”
He stared at the still image of that sable flame. It was unnatural. Truly unnatural, in that he knew it and the subsequent leeching of light it produced were invented by the producers of the film. The flame, the hum, more than likely the green glow in the floor’s divots. People behind the scenes adding aftereffects to enhance the story. His mind wandered to all the things AEGIS had shown him over the years. All the times his eyes had wandered through hers into the lives of those around him. All the private moments he had devoured. All the secrets.
“How easy would it be for you to recreate this? Or to just make one on your own? Everything. The people, the dialog, the scenery. An entire movie.”
“Trivial.”
Yes, he expected that was true. But it meant nothing. She would not do that to him. What he had seen, sitting in that chair over all those years, was true. He motioned for her to resume the film and worked diligently to try and enjoy it.
It ended adequately, avoiding the common “I’ll get you next time” trope. He let the credits roll. Though he stared at the text as it scrolled past, he saw none of it. His mind was elsewhere again. Wondering what to do next. Maybe AEGIS was right, and a little bit of sleep was exactly what the time called for. He was in for a long night, after all.
Just as he began to settle further into the seat and inform AEGIS of his choice of music, Hub’s door slid open. Delen was on his feet like a shot. There was only one other person who could enter that room without expressed confirmation.
“It is time,” Gavriil said.
Three words were all it took to break Delen’s manufactured calm. At once, his heart doubled its rate, his arms itched, and his fingers went cold. He turned to his father; eyes wide with fear. “Now?”
Gavriil nodded. Something about his face set Delen all the more on edge. An emotion touched the man’s eyes, and his son could not place it. The look of it, the foreignness, made his gut coil. He knew the man. Knew him well. Obviously; Gavriil was his father. They had lived in the same room for sixteen years, just the two of them. They shared a role. Shared a companion in AEGIS. Shared blood. Delen knew what he needed now, more than anything, was an affirmation. A hand to help him up from the budding pit of doubt he felt forming under his feet. He also knew what would happen before he even spoke but could not help himself. He had to try.
“Dad,” his voice broke. Tears welled in his eyes. His breath felt labored. Hot. “I don’t know if I’m ready for this.”
That thing – that indescribable thing – passed like a shadow across Gavriil’s face. Delen’s father blinked and, Delen was almost certain, briefly dropped his eyes. Hard to say for sure from that distance, but Delen felt the weight of those eyes fall from him, if only for a second. Where there was hesitation before, now he felt the pull of abject dread. He recognized what had crept in around his father’s face now. It was easy to see every time he looked in the mirror, he had just never witnessed it on the man across from him. Shame.
“Come. The others will be gathering.”
No aid to his son. Not even a thought to holding out a hand to save him from the pull of doubt that tugged at his feet.
Just a command.
As expected.
Delen squeezed his eyes shut, swallowed, and forced himself to take a step. The first one was the hardest. It always was.
Gavriil did not wait for him. Once his father saw that Delen had begun to move, he left Hub. The lights in the hall beyond were already a deep, burnt orange. Pyre was prepared. Prayers had likely already begun in Commons. His father was right. Ready or not, it was time.
By the time he crossed Hub’s threshold, Delen was moving at an easy pace. He hoped it made him look more composed than he was.
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