Kayla’s loneliness

 14 February 2011

Kayla felt the transformation operating in Naques and felt the same pain she had gone through herself in those moments when she wondered if it was worthwhile to lead further the resistance. She remembered her foster sister, Tanita who had become a droid and whom she had had to kill to preserve the revolt. In those days the fight was so poorly organized and Advantors did not yet know the technique to make Carmelion and her sister had not been trained for that. The Anodox had been successful in transforming her and nothing had survived of her humangrity. How things would have been different if her sister had not been caught!  All of this happened because of that accursed Turkheim. To think that her sister had believed him and had allowed him to convince her that he was really in love with her! After the inevitable Anodox Kayla had had no choice but to kill her when she came back to the camp. It was not just that she had ambushed Kayla, but mostly it was because she had betrayed the whole cause of the Adventors by leading Turkheim’s troops to the heart of the resistance. How many of her other sisters, victims of the Anodox, had been sacrificed that day. She felt her throat tighten as she thought that she would had to do the same with Naques had no part of her soul remained in her. She gently placed a finger on Naques’ tears and the cold of the metal surprised her. It was both fascinating and revolting to think that part of a soul of an Adventor was trapped in this perfect machine so perfect that held only what was a resemblance of Naques.

“Naques” she said softly. “Don’t cry. I believe you and know you do not want to hurt us. You just have to understand them. Many of them have lost sisters, and even milk sisters when we were attacked by droids ”

“I know,” replied Naques wiping away the tears with the back of her hand. “It’s just so hard to accept. Only yesterday I was one of you and now I see that all of them are afraid of me. All I did was serve the cause and … “sobs choked her and she could not continue her sentence. The beads of metal fell with a sharp noise and rolled in all directions before flattening out into a shining pond. Naques was now furiously wiping her cheeks, angry to see that the scattering of the metallic beads had caused such an uproar in the ranks of the Adventors who looked at her as if she were a monster.

“I am not afraid of you,” starts Kayla before stopping dead in her tracks. While wiping energetically her cheeks, Naques had spread the metal balls and some of them, having taken the appearance and visibly the texture of scrap metal, had grazed Naques’ cheeks and revealed an iridescent other cheek that gleamed under her diaphanous skin. The view of that cheek was, like for her tears, both fascinating and revolting.

“What’s wrong with you? What are you looking at? Yelled Naques turning to face Kayla. She looked possessed and her eyes had taken on the metallic sheen of the unshed tears. She saw her own image in Kayla’s eyes and the vision of her face peeled off but so smooth underneath froze her on the spot. “I am monstrous” she whispered. So that’s what she had become. A machine! A perfect killing machine. She looked away and felt the anger rising in her like the tide of oil she had so often seen on the beach of the two moons.

“Go to Narqow!” She hissed between her teeth and her voice came out like screeching metal. “All of you, go to Narqow! I hope he whisks you away, you and the Turkheimites. I do not need you, I do not need anyone! She turned towards Kayla and this latter felt all her hatred and all her suffering but could not console her. She had been unable to embrace any of her Adventor sisters after Tanita’s death. “And you first” continued Naques. “You’re just a selfish Adventor! If you had stayed to help her, Tanita would not be dead today. She was kind and gentle and knew how to comfort us. With Tanita leading us we would have had a chance against the Turkheimites. Perhaps we would have even had a chance to live in peace with them. I wish so much that it had been you to undergo the Anodox and not her. She only wanted peace, but you were jealous of her and let her die.”

“Naques! ” said Kayla. “You know that’s not true.” She held out her hand to Naques who shook it off with a jerk of her hand

One of the Adventors could not help letting out a nervous laugh. It was such a grotesque sight to see Naques cry like that with her human cheek torn and the other cheek so perfect, smooth and metallic underneath. The worst was seeing the metallic marbles fall from her eyes rolling in all directions and to hear her voice that was so strange. Naques, furious, raised her head and glared at the Adventor but this did not deter the Adventor. In fact it had the opposite effect of what she wanted and the Adventor resumed shrilly her nervous laugh. Naques looked at her with renewed hatred before fleeing, breaking through the ranks of the Adventors as she ran.

“Naques! ” yelled Kayla. “Come back please!” but Naques was already very far and did not even cast a glance behind. Kayla felt like an orphan. Naques and her had once been so close but everything had changed now. Nothing would ever be like before she thought. But this was no time for self-pity, there were more serious matters and she would need all her energy to face them. She felt more than she heard the murmur of the Adventors’ thoughts. Some obviously wondered if she had really needed to leave Tanita in the hands of Turkheim or if she had done that to get rid of her. Everyone knew Kayla’s fiery character and many had watched with a certain reserve the competitive spirit that seemed to animate the two milk sisters. Yet to be milk sisters was such a rare thing that they should have looked upon each other as a precious gift. Very few Adventors were still capable of undergoing the process and the number of those who could complete the process and at the same time give the milk was even lower.

“I had no choice,” said Kayla in the minds of those Adventors that she felt hostile towards her. “I had no choice! ‘”She repeated aloud. “If I had stayed with Tanita, we would have both been caught and we would be dead by now. There would have been nobody left to lead the revolt because we were the only two chosen ones, the last of the clan of Keelites. She felt one after another the minds accepting her explanations and calming down but one or two were still resisting.

“You’re just a bunch of ungrateful Adventors! ” cried Shawna interposing herself between Kayla and the row of Adventures. “Without Kayla you’d all be dead or slaves to the Turkheimites until they would have had enough of you.”

Kayla raised a hand to stop her and while reassuring her mentally, she made her understand that this was not the time to weaken the ranks of the Adventors with other fights. “You can go home,” she said in a neutral voice. “That’s all for today. There will be no other meeting and I do not think the Turkheimites will attack today. They probably think we do not know about the Anodox and that Naques will betray us by leading them up to this new shelter.”

“She certainly will do that now even if she did not want to before” rang a voice in the crowd.

“Who said that? ” yelped Kayla

“I did” answered a nasal voice and she recognized the young Adventor who had doubted Naques good faith in the beginning

“Naques will never betray us” said Kayla in a calm voice. The effect of her voice as well as the waves she was transmitting overcame the last resistance and the ranks of the Adventors dispersed in the Casates.

“Are you sure you’re okay? “Shawna asked with a worried look. She knew how much it had cost Kayla to kill her own milk sister.

“I’m fine Shawna, thank you! ” said Kayla in a soft voice. “You can join your Casate. Sleep well. We will see each other tomorrow.”

Shawna nodded and within seconds Kayla found herself alone in the deserted square in the middle of the Casates. She felt an overwhelming sadness and her heart was caught in a vice-like grip. She felt her heart beating in her knotted throat and recognized the familiar feeling of nausea that rose to her lips. She felt so alone after Tanita’s death of and only Naques had been there to cheer her and play a thousand games with her. All others feared Kayla more than they loved her and Naques was the only one who was not afraid to stand up to her and treat her like a normal Adventor. What would the Adventors do if they found out she had started the process like before instead fabricating it like all the others were doing now. Nobody was using the old process considered too unreliable and none of the Adventors wanted to take the risk of the Xbiosite not succeeding. They all knew that the Xbiosite was only reliable if they used the fabricating process and not when performing the process the way it was done in the past.

What folly! she thought. How was she going to be able to justify her choice? How to cope with Shawna’s look? To undergo the process and what’s more by using one of the captive Turkheimites and not a relic of the ancestors. Kayla knew that if she wr wrong, nobody in the ranks of the Adventors would forgive her audacity. Not even Shawna. She raised her hand to her mouth to stifle the sobs that rose in her throat. A wave of weariness washed over her as well and she thought of Naques who had felt the same sadness only a few moments before although for different reasons. She felt so alone and needed so much to be able to confide in someone. She would have liked so much for Tanita to be there to hug and comfort her. Tanita had always been able to comfort everyone she thought and her eyes welled with tears again. She felt completely alone in the world and the tears flowed unrestrained down her cheeks.

Read here the first part: Naques’ tears

14 February 2011

She slipped quietly out of the room now plunged into a deep and dark slumber. She had not the faintest idea of what she had become. She remembered only the slimy roughness of the tentacles that had gripped her and the electrolytes that raced like shining lights behind her eyelids. When the Ostrother was finally diffused in her veins, she heard a dull voice say in a metallic inflection “Anodox level 10 reached. The human broth was extracted and the droid only retains the human resemblance of before. ”

When the survivors came to deliver her from her misery, she felt no transport of delight, just like a click somewhere in the depths of her frozen body like a muffled thud coming from her soul. Did droids have souls? She felt herself carefully thinking about her agitated resistance during the questioning but felt nothing and saw no traces of what she expected to see on her body covered, only a few minutes ago, by tubular protrusions inserted deep into her flesh. She thought back to the mad race followed by her arrest and the long hours spent in the Shabbyshank with the other Adventors awaiting trial. She had not breathed out any name but had heard many others talk on the Judgment field. All of them, one after the other, delivered loudly and clearly the names of the seniors to safeguard their innocence.

She had watched them crumble with a mixture of pity and disgust thinking of when the seeds would reach her and would be planted in her. There was no possible escape as they penetrated through the nostrils, ears, eyes and even through the pores. It was hard to resist the sowing of the seeds of truth, but she was well trained by her battalion and would not give in. Drop by drop, she had distilled out of her extremities the Carmelion that resulted from the mixture of her blood and the seed, but this resistance proved fatal. Nobody had ever resisted the field trial and the result of her struggle, unbeknownst to her, had been collected in a cup. Turkheim had plunged a finger into the drink and had tasted the dense liquid of her insubordination. He felt the beat of a sudden bolt of thunder. The intense substrate of revolt had scourged through him like a thousand bolts of lightning and he felt its raw power. She had not only survived the treatment but had even turned into an intoxicating mixture of rebellion that could be fatal for him. He could not allow that to be known and he decided that his only chance to control this Adventor was the Anodox operation. It was usually reserved for Adventors convicted of high treason but he decided that the court did not need to know the details. He would state in his report that she could not use her innocence because her name was among those who created the rebellion and she was therefore guilty of high treason. In front of the Court of the Outdated, she tried in vain to invoke her innocence but the council of Luels was formal and the sentence without escape: transformation by Anodox.

“Liar, you ugly liar,” she yelled to Turkheim who looked at her tauntingly. These were the last words she uttered as Adventor before the lid closed on her and the tubes crept into her flesh.

She pulled herself together and returned to the present. The survivors were fast but she found herself overtaking them absolutely not weakened by her long inertia. Kayla looked at her with narrowed eyes. She had never run so fast before and should have normally been further slowed down by her ordeal. Kayla would have to subject her to the humangrity test if she wanted to be able to count on her in the revolution. Naques who did not feel Kayla’s mood change continued to run in the open. Outside EtherLite servers diffused a cold light and stroboscopic lasers alternated between musical pauses. A young group of Turkheimites were dancing a mad Paradedance between the stroboscopic flashes and the musical notes. Nobody paid any attention to them and they continued their mad dash to the shuttle waiting for them outside the space station.

Once inside, the shuttle took off without further delay and Kayla gave a mute command to seize Naques who indifferently allowed herself to be seized. Then followed a questioning but not identical to one she had been subjected to with the Turkheimites. Kayla crept into her mind to question her and did not need to sow the truth seeds that would have not served anyway as Naques was immune to their effect. Naques reassured her that she did not need to lie, this was her clan and she answered all Kayla’s questions, including when she asked her about the Anodox. Kayla looked at her in amazement because she did not expect a droid to be on their side. She gently took her arm and exclaimed, “They have greatly improved their technique. You’re really well machined and have kept all your human resemblance. Naques, the name that you were given for the silkiness of your skin, you still deserve it although your interior is metallic. It is funny how your voice has not changed and has taken no metallic inflection”. The other Adventors began to fidget at these words spoken aloud instead of in Naques’ mind. One of them came yelling that they needed to get rid of Naques as soon as possible otherwise they would all be in danger. Followed a rapid dialogue between her and Kayla and she returned to the ranks of her peers, purple but without uttering any further threats.

Kayla turned to other Adventors and said in a loud voice “I take custody of Naques and declare having gone through her mind. She has not embraced the cause of the Turkheimites and remains Adventor in her soul. She has undergone the Anodox but her soul remained intact.”

-“The droids have no soul!” yelled a voice in the crowd and protests resumed.

Naques felt again that curious click and thought about her own interrogations a few minutes before she was freed. How to convince them? She looked at them, her sisters turned strangers and felt that snap again and a strange feeling at the level of her eyes. The Adventors were watching her with an expression between pity and revulsion. Raising her hand to her eyes, she felt the metallic marbles fall on her fingers. She was weeping tears of metal. The droids did therefore have a soul, she thought remembering the countless droids she had had to destroy, her sisters transformed by their Anodox. A feeling of great weariness overwhelmed her. The revolt, the Adventors, Kayla, nothing seemed to matter anymore.

Read here the second part: Kayla’s loneliness