The Texas Renegade Returns

February


Friday, February 1

Frabjous

This morning was routine. Though my lessons with Zan are getting a bit more complex, it's still repeating a set of movements over and over again.

But Zan didn't deliver me back to my room afterwards. Instead we went to lunch in a smallish canteen. It seems to be a Setari-specific place, though I think the kitchen handles more than just this one room.

It's funny how your aspirations change after being locked in a room for – how long has it been? – nearly a month since Nenna was hurt. It makes small things like eating in a very plain canteen so exciting. Being able to pick from a couple of options for my meal instead of having food delivered by a pinksuit under guard made me feel almost human again. The illusion of choice.

Of course anything, even sitting in a room reliving kindergarten, is better than starving and alone. Annoying as this place can be, I'm still glad to have been rescued.

The other Setari in the room weren't anyone I particularly recognised, though I guess they'd all been there for the demonstrate-what-the-stray-can-do session. They pretended not to look at me, and didn't bother us. It's hard to know what they'd think of me – a walking instant power-up that they've been told to stay away from.

After lunch, I was expecting more 'martial arts' practice, but instead we went down to a different changing room and Zan sent me into one of the shower rooms and told me to braid my hair up and strip and get into the shower. And when I did, wondering what was going on, black goop sprayed out of the walls at me and that was enough to make me jump back and want out. And then it started wriggling. I sometimes forget that these people use nanotechnology. I ended up with a light swimsuit, sturdier than those I'm used to, and going all the way to the knees and elbows. Thinner than the Setari uniform, but I'm starting to understand how Zan gets changed so quickly.

After I'd recovered from my minor heart attack, we went into the next room and it was this HUGE pool. A big square, maybe forty by forty metres, but incredibly deep, with this underwater obstacle course, all tunnels and circles and things. I couldn't even see the bottom.

"This is something I need practice in, as well," Zan said, watching my disbelieving expression. "The requirement for water manoeuvres only came in two years ago, when some of the nearest spaces became flooded. The medics recommended this to increase your overall fitness, and it will prepare you in case they do decide to use you in the Ena."

"Not that good at holding breath," I said, extremely dubiously. I figured I could make the top couple of tunnels and tubes, and that would be it.

"There's breathers for the deep work. First will be surface swimming. Are you taught swimming at all on your world?"

I gave her a funny look, then dived in and swam across the pool and back. I was a little more out of breath than I expected when I reached her, due to my various medical dramas. But I love swimming. I'm not Ian Thorpe, but water sports are one of the things I've always been reasonably good at.

"If ever go my world," I told her, treading water. "Teach you how to surf."

I'm a better swimmer than Zan is. And they don't use the freestyle stroke, just breaststroke, so she asked me to teach her. And we're doing swimming practice every afternoon until further notice. Today was a great day.

Saturday, February 2

Ructions

Zan is now teaching me how to fall. Or how to throw myself on padded mats without too much bruising or unnecessary giggling. I find it hard to take seriously, and no matter what else I think or feel about Zan, I have to admire her patience. I think that it's causing her a lot of trouble to babysit me, too, unless the Setari are just plain nasty to each other out of habit.


The nastiness came out during this afternoon's swimming session. Zan's picking up freestyle quickly (Australian crawl, really, but everyone I know calls it freestyle), but it'll take her a bit to really get into it, so we were having a race with breaststroke. I'm okay with short races, but if I try and do more than a couple of laps I run out of pep.

But I can beat her in a short dash, and was terribly pleased about it. Problem was, so were the people watching us. Three Setari, two guys and a girl, and one of the guys was standing right on the edge of the pool where we touched. Gave me quite a fright, looking up and finding all this blacksuited leg and chest. I pushed back from the edge, just as Zan reached it, but they were more interested in her than me anyway.

I don't know if Zan had managed to figure out they were there before she looked up, but from what I could see of her face, she didn't act surprised.

"Truly, Namara, I'm starting to feel embarrassed for you," said the guy. He had an amazing voice, really beautiful, and so wasted on such a putz. "Bad enough your squad's been pulled off rotation so you can demonstrate infant-level combat skills, but now you're actually being outdone by a stray."

Zan reminds me of a drowned kitten when she's wet. Her hair sleeks down and makes her eyes look really big. The guy was so tall, and Zan being down in the water must have felt at a real disadvantage. But all she did was move to one side, haul herself easily out, and go pick up one of the towels.

"Can I help you with something, Kajal?" she asked, once she'd dried her face.

"Not swimming, obviously." The guy was irritated that he'd not managed to get a reaction out of Zan, but made out he wasn't bothered, laughing. "Lenton's chances are looking better each day."

The Setari girl standing behind him touched his arm. "It's an unfortunate situation," she said, in a much more reasonable tone. "Twelfth Squad may have lost out on this rotation altogether, and Lenton does need to be taught to keep his temper. Worse still, I doubt the stray will be assigned to Twelfth Squad, if they do use it in the Ena. It's very unfair on you."

I was glad I'd kept moving away, was at least ten metres from the edge. Not only was the girl enjoying a few sly digs at Zan while pretending to be nice, but she'd called me it! I'm not totally incapable of understanding the nuances of spoken Taren. Stupid idiots were acting like I was a performing animal, not a person.

It occurred to me then that I no longer had the function which displays all the names of people over their heads. A full month after Sa Lents showed me how to use it, and I'd forgotten all about it since the accident. I don't see what they achieved by making it so I couldn't use it, but it was probably related to me losing almost all the other 'public' functions. I was able to call up the recorded memory of the Setari briefing, though, and work out that the Kajal guy was captain of the Fifth Squad, and the girl was captain of the Seventh. The other guy was also from the Seventh Squad. What they were trying to achieve with all the dick waving I couldn't guess.

At least they left after that, though another person showed up as Zan was turning back toward me. I was too far away to hear what she said, since her voice was soft, but Zan smiled at her, and then shrugged. So she's not totally without friends. I practiced swimming underwater for a couple of minutes, till Zan told me that was enough for the day. It's going to take a while to get used to people being able to talk in my head when I'm upside-down in a swimming pool.

I didn't bug her with questions while she escorted me back, didn't really feel equal to it. Was even glad to be back in my room so I could get in the shower and cry myself sick.

I do almost all my crying in the shower. I'm still not sure how much they monitor me while I'm in my room, and I'm really hoping that I get at least a little privacy. The shower lets me pretend I'm hiding the bad days. This was worse than usual. It's going to be my birthday soon, and Mum had promised to organise a family and friends party at our house, and then Nick, Alyssa and I had permission to go out to actual nightclubs afterwards, so long as we stayed together and friends who hadn't turned eighteen yet didn't come with us. Nick was coming along to 'protect' us, which I of course thought was a fantastic idea for all the wrong reasons. Alyssa and I put so much effort into setting that up, all for nothing.

I will never be Cass here. Even if I was still staying with the Lents, I would always be this 'stray' first and foremost and above everything else. I have this label and there's no way to take it off. Even if I adapt to the stupid language and the nanites, all the things I spent years learning, all the stories and people which shaped me aren't here. No-one's read the novels I've read. No-one likes the music I like. No-one on this planet will be able to score people on the Orlando Bloom-meter, the way Alyssa and I used to do with all the cute guys. The only thing which speaks English is this damn diary, which I guess is why I still keep it.

I'm so homesick I could scream.

Sunday, February 3

A wan shadow

No training today. Zan took one look at me this morning and sent me straight for medical exams. I had to work very hard to convince them that the swimming wasn't the problem, and I look really exhausted and drained just because I couldn't get to sleep. Leaving out the bit about crying half the night and giving myself the hugest headache in the process. At least this let me know that they mustn't be monitoring me too closely in my room.

But I ended up spending almost all the day in the medical section, prodded and poked and sitting in machines while they got distracted trying to figure out how my enhancement abilities work. They've decided that the number of abilities an individual Setari has might increase the strain on my system when I enhance them. Which is why Zan is training me, since she has only the one. The experiment enhancing three from First Squad at once messed up so badly because between them those three had seventeen talents. Maze has eight all on his own, and apparently there's a couple of Setari who have even more.

I took the opportunity to have another argument with Ista Tremmar about why my interface had been cut back so much, and why I couldn't at least have the access I'd had before or straightforward things like being able to see names and so forth, but she just gave me a lecture about qualifying for privileges. It didn't work to point out that standard access was hardly a privilege, and how stupid it is to run tests which are timed for someone who has been learning their silly language since they were babies. Of course, my inability to speak that silly language with any fluidity made my arguments less than comprehensible.

Ista Tremmar is very strict and by-the-book about a lot of things, but she did say she would review the speed of the tests. But she also told me the simplest thing would be for me to improve my language skills. Bleh.

Monday, February 4

Forward/Backward

Even though I slept quite well last night, swimming practice has been postponed for a few days, which meant Zan delivered me back to my box to sit around again. On the up side, a few more of my interface functions were abruptly restored in the middle of stepping practice. No entertainment, but the minor environmental things like the names over people's heads. Still, dull day, especially since interface classes are trying to teach me subtraction now. I wish I could pick and choose what the lessons are.

Kanza

That was an infinitely better afternoon than I was expecting. I'd only been back in my box a little while when there was a text popup in my head which is the equivalent of someone outside my room, knocking. Rare consideration, let me tell you, for a visitor to not just open the door.


It was Lohn and Mara, come to kidnap me for lunch. While this was probably their own version of 'not overlooking the psychological aspects', I had a huge amount of trouble not bubbling over with glee and going completely hyper. Not only did I get to spend some time with the nicest people on this stupid island, but they even planned on taking me outside KOTIS grounds.

The island that the Setari use as a base is called Konna, and is about 20% military facilities and 80% supporting city. The city's called Konna, too, and was here before KOTIS was established. It was really nice to get out to see atriums and shops, and people not wearing uniforms, and there were plants and advertising and snatches of music and scents of cooking food and everything that the Setari base is not. They even do fake skies, and internal parks and while it can't entirely escape Huge Shopping Mall Syndrome, it was such a nice change.

We went to an 'outdoor' plaza, with cafés (no coffee or hot chocolate!) arranged around a plant-filled square where kids were running about and someone was busking. Actually busking. Being stuck with the Setari had me convinced that this was such a totally controlled society, though my time with Nenna should have taught me otherwise. I'm guessing there's little chance that they'll let me live out here.

The place we went to eat was called "Mimm" and Lohn sat me in the corner of a big booth and then he and Mara sat either side of me with a careful gap so that we didn't touch. They bracketed me as we travelled through the city too, making sure people didn't bump me. I thought that pretty funny, since it's the Setari touching me which is the problem. Most ordinary people wouldn't have nearly enough talent to hurt me. The food was near enough to fondue as to make no difference (though I've no idea what they make the cheese from, and really would prefer not to find out), which seemed hugely out of place on an alien planet, but very yummy! The rest of First Squad showed up just as it was arriving, and I was sorry to see that Maze's hand was covered in a blue square of bandage tape, and that Zee was walking with a limp.

Maze gave my shirt a quick frown – I'd forgotten about my mascot altogether – and then asked me lots of questions about Earth food and I ended up spending the entire lunch talking. About fondue and then Nordic countries and skiing, a thing they don't do here at all, and then we swapped different sports that there's no equivalent to on either world. Taren sports are mostly indoors, unsurprisingly, except for some kind of air races. There's so many Earth sports that don't fit well here. Golf and skiing and riding just for starters.

They'd booked a Kanza court for after lunch. Kanza is a very strange game like hockey crossed with mini-golf crossed with Pac-man, except the pucks hover and skim and ricochet madly over the surface of three intersecting recessed circles. The court was in the centre of a grassy amphitheatre where people were eating picnic lunches and watching the games. You play in teams of three and you stand on the edge and hit your pucks all out at once and try and not go in any of the holes until you've passed over all the little floating balls of light. If you keep your puck in play you get bonus pucks. It's tremendously fast-paced and silly and Maze is idiotically good at it so I was glad to be on his and Lohn's team. Zee sat out because of her leg, and Mara, Alay and Ketzaren were the opposing team and Ketzaren turned out to be really dry and funny and made this hilarious commentary and Lohn really played up to her. I nearly fell into the rink a couple of times from laughing.

After our final round, while Mara's team was playing, Maze and Lohn went off to get everyone something to drink. I was really tired from all the laughing, and sat with Zee watching the growing audience cheering Mara and Alay playing a duo game when I noticed a couple of people I recognised. The Third Squad captain's twirly hair makes her pretty hard to miss, even when she's not in the black uniform. She was standing up the top of the small amphitheatre with another girl, staring down with a really fixed lack of expression. I wasn't surprised that it was Maze she was watching – half the audience was panting over him or Lohn and most of the rest were drooling over either Mara or Zee. Really, there's hardly any of the Setari who aren't above average in looks. It must be a job requirement.

I made sure to not be looking at the Third Squad captain by the time Lohn and Maze got back with the drinks, but I wondered if I'd earned myself an enemy because Maze handed me a drink and sat beside me and smiled and said I had to concede that this was better than a long walk occasionally hitting little balls, which is how I'd described golf. It's hard not to enjoy it when someone so gorgeous and nice pays me attention. But even though it's only six or seven years' difference, all the people I know on Earth who are in their mid-twenties are teachers, so I do feel out of place around First Squad. I'm fairly sure Maze doesn't mean anything, is just being kind and thoughtful. And there's a sense that underneath it all, he's unhappy. I keep feeling sorry for him.

When I was delivered back to my box, I was on enough of a high to not let the Fourth Squad captain's 'psychological aspects' drown out my thanks. I think they all enjoyed themselves too and were genuinely curious about Earth, so it wasn't like the excursion was a total pity party. And then I napped for what was left of the day and woke up in the middle of the night and really I have the weirdest life right now.

Tuesday, February 5

A very busy day

I had an early appointment with Sa Lents. And I knew about it beforehand! I had a further boost of my interface functions, and found I have an appointment calendar. I can look forward and see what they've scheduled for me for the rest of the year. I literally do have appointments an entire Taren year ahead. Almost all medical examinations. I don't know if the increase in function is down to Zan, or Maze, or even the conversation I had with Ista Tremmar, but it's a relief to almost be a person again.

The appointments with Sa Lents are always uncomfortable. I ask about Nenna, and he assures me she's improving. She only wrote to me a couple of times, and then didn't reply to the last email I sent and I tell myself that she's probably in a lot of pain and not exactly in a chatty mood. It's hard to imagine Nenna not being chatty though, and whatever else happens, I've changed Nenna forever and I think about that all the time when I'm talking to her father.

I tried to hide it by pressing him comparing dates on Earth to the things that are supposed to have happened on Muina, and he conceded that it sounds like Earth is very atypical. I think Earth is beginning to make him really uncomfortable. It's one thing for him to document another 'lost world' which fits the known pattern, and something altogether more difficult to try and fit a 'pre-dispersal settlement' into the mix. Especially when I gave him my theory for Muinans originally being Earthlings.

Tarens clearly resemble both Asian and Caucasian people – or what you'd get if Asian and Caucasian people had babies for a few thousand years. Some people with pink skin and 'round eyes'. Some people with skin in golden shades and epicanthic folds on their eyes. And pink-skinned people with epicanthic folds, golden-skinned people with round eyes, or blue eyes, or darker skin, and every combination you can think of. I tried explaining to Sa Lents that he looks Japanese or Korean, but gave up the attempt because my language skills just aren't up to it, and he was smiling politely and not believing me at all. I'm not sure Tarens even have the concept of race as we do on Earth. Sa Lents acted as if I was explaining that red haired people were a distinct species from blonde haired people.


I don't know. If the Muinans really come from Earth, why isn't Earth full of psychic people? Or why doesn't Earth have stories of cultures ruled by psychics? The Egyptians had their god-kings, true, but they weren't like those on Stargate. Hm – must watch Tarens carefully in case their eyes flash mysteriously.

After Sa Lents, it was my regular session with Zan. If possible, she was even more formal and correct than ever, and not at all communicative. I thought about trying some personal questions afterwards, while we were eating lunch in the canteen, but there were a fair few Setari there and though I never saw anyone actually looking at us, I felt very centre of attention, so I played obedient student and asked what few questions I could think of about the training she was giving me. I don't know whether to feel sorry for Zan or not. For all I know she's done something to deserve people being nasty to her. But I don't see any reason to give them any ammunition.

Next up was the big test chamber, this time with Zan, all of First Squad, and an in-the-flesh bluesuit, a man named Sur Gidds Selkie. Bluesuits definitely seem to be the military people in charge. 'Sur' is his rank. Squad captains are "See". Lots of ranks and titles start with an 'S' sound but with just the faintest 'z' overtone to it. Now that I can display names (title option on) again, I see I've been spelling them wrong. Not an 's' or 'z', so much as 'ts'. 'Tsa', 'Tsur' and 'Tsee'.

Tsur Selkie was a slender, quite short guy who could probably do a great Clint Eastwood imitation if he had any idea who that was. All the wrong colouring and everything, but a totally 'chipped from flint' attitude. And I think he's the one making most of the decisions about me. First Squad were really correct around him, though not nearly as formal as Zan, who scaled new heights of expressionlessness. He didn't speak directly to me at all.

This was the first serious testing of the effects of my enhancement since my health break. They started out with Zan, and I had the distinct impression that there was something about Tsur Selkie personally observing which meant they expected to get more information from watching her again. Once Zan had picked blocks up and moved them around for a while, they swapped to Maze doing the same thing. Then they very warily had Zan and Maze touching me at the same time, and using Telekinesis at the same time. I didn't feel anything, as usual, but Tsur Selkie seemed to find something significant in it all, because he nodded and said:

"The best analogy is an amplifying container. A limited number of talents fit into the container without any particular effect. Too many, and the container is torn. The different 'sizes' of the talents also appears to be relevant. Until further notice, multiple contact is forbidden absolutely. Surion, your squad will move on to testing the effects of enhancement upon each individual talent available to First. A controlled test within the Ena of that category of skills will be arranged. Namara, Twelfth Squad will cover First Squad's previously scheduled assignments for this rotation. Briefings have been transferred to your mission file."

They all saluted, hand to chest. I just watched. Military equipment doesn't salute. After he had left, closely followed by Zan, everyone relaxed and Zee surprised me by hugging me and saying: "Now I don't have to be so anxious about accidentally killing you."

I was glad for once that I was so bad at talking, since my immediate reaction was a sarcastic one about irreplaceable equipment, and First Squad don't deserve that kind of attitude from me. I was really relieved I'd been assigned to work with them, rather than Twelfth Squad. Zan I think I like, or would if she'd let me, but that Lenton guy isn't exactly high on my list of desirable people to be around.

It was a long afternoon. No disasters, but between them they had a lot of talents and they examined them all carefully, finding occasional strange distortions, and drawing two tentative conclusions. If they try to use a talent on me when I'm enhancing them it will be distorted in some way, though they can use their talents on me so long as they're not enhanced by me. And the same if they try to use an Illusion talent while I'm enhancing them. They think that my supposed ability to make illusions somehow interferes with any projections they try while they're enhanced. I've yet to be able to produce anything like an illusion and though Alay tried to talk me through different methods people use, I still didn't get anywhere.

Although they were cheerful and upbeat, First stayed relatively formal and correct and I took my cue from the way they were using their surnames and was careful to remember that they were on duty and were probably recording everything to put in reports, or being watched by who knows how many people.

But when Zee, who had to go to medical to have her leg checked, was escorting me back to my box I took a chance to ask a few questions.

"Twelfth Squad, what mean do First assignment? Pick which Ionoth kill?"

"We're assigned particular sections of the Ena to patrol, and clear them of potential threats before they have a chance to find a way into real space. Twelfth Squad will be clearing the sections we would have been working."

Something about the way she said it made me ask: "That not good thing?"

She grimaced. "Twelfth is the newest of the squads, and have little practical experience in the more complex situations you can encounter in the Ena. Our assignment will be an extreme test for them."

Hard to say whether Zan would be pleased about that or not. "Why rest Setari so different First Squad?"

"Different?" Zee asked, but I'd bet she knew what I meant.

"Too serious. Competitive. Less...human."

She thought about it a long time before answering. "The senior Setari started the program later and early on lived with our families, attending KOTIS like it was a school. When we began to show positive results, the program was intensified, the talented living onsite and allowed few visits with their families. The younger Setari started earlier and were pushed harder and further and so are stronger than us. And we will need that strength. But they were given little chance to be children, and like us they're burdened by the magnitude of the task. Without the Setari program, Tare would be a world of street battles and lurking death." She opened the door to my box, and gave me an unhappy shrug. "The younger Setari, don't misunderstand them. They are weapons. But they are not so different from you."

I thought about this for a long time after Zee left. Mainly about how much harder and further they'd be willing to push me. But also about growing up knowing you stood between your family and monsters.

Wednesday, February 6

Outfitting

All my morning appointments with Zan have changed to morning appointments with Mara. For me last week revolved entirely around seeing Zan, and now for all I know I'll never work with her again, and I really can't see her showing up unexpectedly and taking me to eat fondue. The problem fidgeted around my head half the morning, and eventually I composed a little thank you note, doing my best to make it grammatically correct and everything – though I think that made it worse – and emailed it to her. She treated me as an assignment, but she never called me 'it'. And I really enjoyed looking at her apartment, which is something she didn't have to show me and something I bet she's pretty private about.

Mara is far more of a taskmaster with my dodging training. I suppose they've decided I'm healthy enough to step it up a little. She started with stretches and steps and all that stuff, but then she brought out a basket of balls and said I had to dodge them and threw them at me, one after another, harder and faster each time. Not at all martial arts-like, but effective at making me want to dodge.


And also very glad to stop, which we did when Lohn showed up to take us to lunch. I get the distinct impression that Lohn and Mara are a couple, for all they don't hang all over each other. Hell, for all I know they could be married. Even in the same canteen, it's very different eating lunch with Lohn and Mara – particularly Lohn. He talks non-stop and makes big gestures with his hands, sprawls back taking up two chairs, and chats with every person who passes by. He's the anti-Zan. All the Setari he talks to unbends to him at least a little. One of the people from Second Squad, a woman named Jeh Omai, joined us. Second Squad is the other 'senior' Setari squad, and Jeh is calm and relaxed and treats Lohn as if he's an overlarge but endearing great dane puppy.

With me she was straightforwardly curious, and asked me quite a few questions about what it was like to live on Muina. She's actually the first person to ask me anything about that since Nenna's friends, so I told her about trying to make a blanket, and that one of the first things I did when I briefly had the wide-ranging interface access was to look up how to make soap (basically oil and ashes, which I don't see how it can turn into soap, but whatever). Mara said that very few of the Setari had even been to Muina, that it was considered so dangerous that even the squads who were cleared for an investigative mission there weren't allowed to stay for more than a few hours, and that I was amazingly lucky to have survived. Lohn said First Squad had won itself a good luck charm, and I told him that Devlin actually meant 'unlucky'. I think he thought I was joking.

After lunch, Mara took me off to teach me about clothes. We went down to what I think must be a commissary, and I was given a light, stretchy black harness – a triangle at the back with two straps you slip your arms into and another which went around my ribs and joined like toffee when I held the ends together. Mara had me strip to my underwear in a cubicle and put on the harness and then 'assume the position' – the thinking about doing a star jump pose for spray-on swimsuits. This time I ended up in a Setari uniform.

There's a mirrored wall in the cubicles, and I spent a long time staring at myself. Barely recognisable as the girl who walked home from her exams and missed her path. My skin had tanned on Muina, since I was outside so much, but that's faded a lot and other than a few acne scars and tiny freckles it's looking pretty good. I seem to have developed a jaw line, which wearing a tight throat-hugging collar certainly emphasised, but my figure isn't nearly up to Setari standards. I look like a gawky crow. My hair has gone blonder than I expected, with only the lower layers brown – again that's from being out in the sun so much – and it's grown a couple of inches. I've been wearing it in a loose braid most of the time to keep it out of the way. I haven't suddenly become beautiful or anything – my mouth is still too wide and I've always thought my nose a bit too long – but I was looking better than I expected and not really me at all.

I feel like the longer I'm here, the less chance I'll have of going back, and that putting on this uniform somehow made it nearly impossible. Like I've visited Faerie and stupidly eaten the food.

Mara asked if I'd fallen asleep, so I came out, and something about the way she looked at me made me feel I was right about the Faerie food. No-one's ever asked me to join KOTIS or offered any kind of choice at all. They did rescue me from Muina before I was eaten, though. And they're fighting against monsters and I can help with that, in possibly the most passive way imaginable, but still apparently I might be useful. Just because I've never said yes, or been given the chance to say no, doesn't mean I haven't agreed to anything.

Enhancing the Setari is a better option than washing dishes, which is where I'd probably have ended up as just another stray. They're more interested in finding Earth now, as well, and while I'm not keen on many of the possibilities of being useful to the Setari, I'm trying to focus on the day-to-day and not what the rest of my life is likely to be.

Suits made of nanoliquid are beyond weird to wear. The harness is a specific control mechanism for the nanites which doesn't rely on the wearer's personal interface, and lets the Setari do all sorts of fun stuff with their suits. Make them thicker, give themselves kneepads, make the gloves cover the whole hand or go away altogether. Make pockets. You could probably even stick yourself to another Setari. Mara taught me how to manipulate mine and then told me to play for a while. Tomorrow we're going to go into the Ena to test out how my amplification works there, and to try a couple of talents which don't work in actual space. We're not going to be fighting Ionoth or anything, but it's still all a bit daunting.

Thursday, February 7

Glimpse

The excursion into the Ena was scheduled for the morning, so no dodging practice. Mara collected me, made sure I brought my uniform harness, and took me to the nearest "nano-changing room". I think the Setari must have these in their own apartments, rather than having to leave their clothes in little lockers about the place.

I didn't like walking through the facility in uniform, and almost wished they'd given me my own colour or something, for all that it would make me stand out more. But I'm willing to bet that the black nanosuit is something that these people earn, not just parade about in. I was glad I'd made the effort to do my hair really neatly in a French braid, but I still felt vaguely like I was going to be arrested for the equivalent of impersonating a police officer. And for a moment there it felt like Maze and Lohn and Zee didn't even recognise me. Lohn at least murmured "All grown up," before getting serious and professional. Going into the Ena is the most formal I've ever seen First Squad when a bluesuit isn't around. Because, even though we were going to the safest bit they could find, the Ena is dangerous.

The blast doors emphasised that point. KOTIS was built on this island because it's a very 'torn' space and there are lots of places where it's easy to get from actual space to the Ena, and vice versa. Wherever they find one of these torn spots on Tare, they build a metal box around it, with doors that only the nastiest of monsters could hope to claw their way through.

While we were waiting for clearance, Maze set up a group channel or 'space' in the interface for the squad, started a mission log which would record everything we did, and then talked me through what was going to happen.

"We have three objectives today. To test your enhancement on the talents which are only effective in the Ena. To see if there's any variation with the talents we've already tested due to the different environment. And to orient you in the Ena, since you stepped directly from your world to Muina, and you were sedated when you were transported from Muina to Tare. The Ena is a very disorienting place, visually overwhelming in places, and at the same time it intensifies the senses. Tell us immediately if you start experiencing any kind of sickness or distress.

"Annan and Gainer will accompany you at all times while we are in the Ena. Don't move anywhere without them. If we encounter any situation which requires moving quickly, they will move you. Do not run. Above all, do not enter any of the gates without clearance. Do you understand all that?"

"Yes," I said, in such a small voice I sounded about five.

Maze crinkled the corner of his eyes encouragingly at me before going on. "We are unlikely to encounter Ionoth in this section, but it always remains a possibility. Depending on the type, we may choose to deal with it. You'll be kept well out of the way if that's the case. Anything serious, and we'll return you to actual space before approaching it."


By this time the big door had opened, and we moved into the spacious metal box. I couldn't see any sign of visible tears in the world, but then I hadn't when I walked from Earth to Muina either. The interface obligingly drew a triangle of light in the air in front of us, showing where we should walk. Maze and Mara went first and then me with Zee and Alay on either side of me. I was finding all the surnames confusing, so it's good that I'd been given back name display and could see Zee Annan and Alay Gainer floating over their heads.

I didn't feel any sense of resistance walking through the triangle, but I certainly felt the cold. That was something they hadn't mentioned, that the Ena is perhaps 10 or 15 degrees Celsius. And the weird thing was, we were still in the metal containment box, and the door was closed, but most of the walls were missing – or, not missing. If you've ever seen a drawing someone's made, where they start with the line art and then colour it in, we were in a version of the box where the line art was there, but only half of it was coloured in. Kind of.

Anyway, it meant we could walk out of the box through one of the 'uncoloured' sections of wall. I felt like I was walking into a half-complete animation for Setari: the CGI Movie. We were where we'd been before, but with all the people and lots of the 'textures' missing. This was the part of the Ena they call near-space, and it was truly weird.

It did make me feel more alive. I don't know if it was the cold, or a sense that the gravity was lighter there, or just...mystic spooky stuff, but I felt hyper-alert and awake. Maybe the air there has adrenaline in it. Everyone was waiting to see how I reacted, so I smiled and shrugged and Maze nodded and started off.

It took me a while to recognise the gates for what they were, scattered through the construction zone of a world. Some glinted and some were dark. It was only when we rounded the corner into a patch where there was nothing above us but a dark sketch of a sky and...thousands of them. It was like someone had taken an ocean's worth of mirror and shattered it and flung the pieces to spin in every direction, but every piece reflected not what was before it but some other place. Other space.

We didn't walk far, stopping at a jagged rift about the size of a car: all brilliant green intensity. Through it was grass, and rolling hills, and a pale blue sky paling to white. Huge tumbled stones, like blocks for an ancient grey castle. Most of this was intact, coloured in, but the edges of the space were fading out into mist.

"Try not to touch any edges stepping through. Gates can be fragile, and tearing them attracts Iono–"

Maze stepped through as he spoke, lifting his feet carefully, and I noticed that passing through not only cut off the sound, but that 'no connection' had appeared in the group channel display where Maze should be. When I stepped through myself there was a soap-bubble sensation, and the air changed again, bringing an over-emphasised sense of grassiness. There were a lot fewer of the pieces of broken mirror here, which might be why they chose it.

"Spaces what exactly?" I asked, realising how limited the horizon was. This wasn't what I'd pictured at all.

"One day perhaps we'll have a definitive answer on that," Zee said, while Maze and Mara had a scan-the-area-for-enemies moment. "For now, my favourite definition of it is that they're the sloughed-off memories of living worlds, crystallised and decaying fragments of the past tumbling and interconnecting."

I suppose if someone had taken a billion jigsaws and mixed all the pieces together and then had them connect up randomly so you could move from piece to piece you'd get the same effect, but Zee's explanation was much more poetic.

"Ionoth memories inhabitants of worlds?" I asked, and saw I'd managed to surprise them.

"That's one of the possibilities," Lohn said. "Maybe part of Muina's histories survived on your world after all."

"We lots entertaining fantasy," I said. No-one seems to believe me when I say Earth wasn't settled by Muinans.

"Looks clear," Maze said, coming back to us. "Let's get started."

The testing was much the same as all the testing we've been doing, with me contributing a lot of standing about. I wish I could at least figure out how to make these illusions. Still, it was entertaining watching Maze throw the stone blocks at one another, creating fantastic explosions of rock and dust. Most of the skills First Squad hadn't already tried seemed to work, and they were pleased about one which involved the gates, but I was more than glad when they decided it was time to head back.

And then, as we were walking back to the gate we'd entered by, there was a small gate, twice the size of my head. And through it, something so familiar my heart almost stopped. I certainly stopped, and my internal recording shows me how quickly Zee and Alay reacted, shifting around in my peripheral vision, flanking me. At the time, all I could see was It.

"That's what your world looks like?" Maze asked, eventually.

I shrugged, feeling so betrayed I wanted to scream. "Some parts. Australia lots red dirt. Sky – that quality light – I forgotten how big sky is. That right sort tree." Then I scrubbed at my face and added in English: "Crying over a fricking gum tree. How pathetic can I get?"

I made myself stop. Made myself say something that would get them moving. Made myself hold it in, at least until we were back on Tare and I could say I was tired and wanted a shower. None of First Squad were under any illusion about how I was feeling, but they had sense enough to know they couldn't fix it, and were kind enough to leave me with a short stop at medical and then to my room.

I thought it was real. Just for that second, before I saw the fraying edges, I thought that was Earth. I can still feel the way my stomach twisted, the way every part of me leapt through stillness into roaring joy, and then crashed.

All the feelings I've been trying to hold back, all my struggles to resign myself to being this stray, this person out of place and never really belonging, they've risen up to drown me. And tomorrow's my birthday. For a brief second I thought I had a chance, that I could go home and be there for my birthday and I just don't know if I can stand this awful pit that's opened up in me after that moment of belief.

I want to go home.

Monday, February 11

Happy Birthday

I was sitting on my bed when I woke up. MY bed. My bed, my room, my world.

Just, not quite.

Somehow I'd ended up in Earth's near-space. The cold tipped me off immediately, even before I saw the great big sections of wall lacking any substance. I was horribly chilled, cold with a deep ache in my bones, like I'd been sitting outside in Winter. Sydney's Winters aren't exactly sub-zero, but you don't feel happy about life if you sit out in them wearing a pair of underpants and a thigh-length t-shirt.

But, oh gods, cold was the last thing I cared about right then. I had no idea how I'd managed it, but somehow I'd ended up THIS far away from exactly where I wanted to be. I jumped up, and staggered a bit since I was very stiff, like I'd been there a while, then pulled open the door. Touching and moving things in near-space was like being underwater. I could lift objects, but things which should be light needed more push, and things I expected to be heavy were buoyed up unexpectedly.

At first I was just looking. All those trivial domestic things which were familiar and right and how things should be done, instead of the way they're done on Tare. Which were MINE. I started recording it, a thing which is becoming more automatic with me. Storing memories to re-examine later.

A lot was missing. The walls and furniture, the bigger and more permanent objects, were solid enough, but most smaller objects were a haze where I could almost make out the outline of what should be there, but it was more a smudge than any kind of substance. The bookshelves were full of the impression of books, blocky and colourful, but there were only one or two shelves – the shelves where Mum keeps her favourites – where I could make out titles or pick anything up.


The back garden was unexpectedly real. Mum likes having a garden, but she doesn't spend a lot of time on it, and goes for a cottage garden look: masses of plants and no neat borders or parts which need to be constantly weeded. The plants, the leaves, flowers, were all there. It even had some of the scent, though everything was flattened by a tinny greyness. No blue sky, but a washed out watercolour slate.

I'd gone outside to look for gates. I'd been able to see the gate we'd used in Tare's near-space, so I figured my best bet was to look through all the nearby gates until I found one which led to planet instead of Ena and then see whether I was able to get through it.

No gates. None visible, anyway. I went out to the street and walked down it, looking for any sign, the bitumen very gritty beneath my bare feet but oddly warmer than most everything else. I knew that Muina and Tare were in an area that is considered 'shattered', which is why they have so much trouble with Ionoth, but it seemed Earth's near-space was signally lacking ways in and out of it.

I don't know why I wasn't more scared. I think the cold had blunted my common sense. I knew on a mental level that, rather than being right where I wanted, I was in serious shit. If ever a world 'memory' would have monsters, it would be Earth's. Monsters wearing the faces of people, monsters which did the most awful things to each other, and that didn't even count current and past non-human predators, let alone the creatures we liked to make up. For all that Australia's one of the safest places you could possibly live, plenty of bad things have happened there. And I was also cold and hungry and could die of that as readily as being eaten.

But I was numb to thoughts of danger, and just returned to the outline of my home and sat down on the back patio steps. I couldn't work out how I'd gotten there, but was sure it wasn't a dream. The most I could think of doing was to try and find something tangible enough to keep me warm, and then to wander around randomly hoping I could find a gate.

The spaces seem to be quiet places, and the only noise I'd heard had been something like wind or static, distant but ever-present. I don't think I heard anything else at all, but I felt a sudden tingle all through me and a sense of something passing. I jerked upright, realising I'd nearly fallen asleep, and stared over my shoulder at the familiar boards of the patio and the sliding door into the kitchen.

Shadows. The patio table and chairs, sketchily half there, and shadows. Just the faintest hint of shapes, of people, which seemed to get fainter or darker as I moved my head. It didn't occur to me for a moment that they might be Ionoth. Filled with hope, I stood and began casting about, walking back and forth until I found the best spot to see them, standing right in the frame of the sliding door, facing outwards. I knew Dad straight away – he's tall and he tends to stoop. Mum was sitting down. The short shadow had to be Jules. Just there, right in front of me.

I knew shouting was pointless – I'd already seen that sound didn't carry across. Reaching out with my fingers and trying to tear a hole did nothing. It was all just air, with no edges I could catch. But with just an odd thickness which reminded me of the gates First Squad had taken me through. I concentrated on that, on the idea of resistance, of there being something between my world and me, something that if I could only touch, I could push against. I didn't reach out again, but leaned, feeling that thickness against my cheek, watching and willing those shadows to take on form, to let me see them properly.

It became amazingly difficult really quick, like pushing against a rubber wall that resisted after only a little stretching, but with each millimetre came more details. The aunts were there, and Nick. It was overcast, but not raining. Everyone had come over for lunch on my birthday, even my Dad and Nick. Nick had bruises all down one side of his face. Mum had Mimmit, our calico cat, on her lap, and she looked so worn and tired and unlike herself and I knew that was all because of me and pushed harder and harder.

Mimmit suddenly arched and spat and scrambled off Mum's lap. And then Aunt Bet dropped her glass and Mum stared after Mimmit, then in the direction Mimmit had been hissing, and then she looked like she'd been stabbed.

Thank all the gods for sign language. I've never been particularly good at it, but what I can't remember I can spell. And I had no problems managing: "Not dead."

Jules reacted first, leaning forward and trying to touch my arm. He said something, while Mum squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again. Dad tried to grab my shoulder, but other than a little tingling I couldn't feel him at all. I tried pushing against the wall, but I didn't seem to be able to go any further, and was feeling really exhausted just staying as far as I'd managed. But at least I could finally tell them what happened.

"Walk through wormhole," I signed. "Other planet."

That made Mum look totally incredulous and everyone started talking and trying to sign back at once. Aunt Sue grabbed her bag and pulled out her mobile phone, pointing it at me. I looked at Nick and signed: "What happen face?"

"Dad," he signed, which was enough of an explanation. When Nick's Dad gets really drunk, he stops recognising people, and thinks he's being attacked. Nick can usually manage him, but it's not his first black eye. Yet he won't leave.

Nick gave me that grin which has always been one of my favourite things in the world, where bad stuff has been happening, but he's decided to sit back and make the most of the good. "WTF?" he added, pointing at me.

Explaining all of what had happened to me seemed so enormous. I tried.

"Walk home. Next, other planet forest. Walk days. Ruins. Empty. Then rescue psychic space ninjas." I shrugged at their expressions as I spelled, but it was the best explanation I had for the Setari. "Many world, monsters. Astral plane? They fight monsters. Found me, took me their planet. Tare. People me, strays. Gates – wormholes – everywhere. Monsters, people, walk through. Earth hardly any gates." I pushed at the air in front of me helplessly. "Looking for gate."

Mum's expression had slowly changed while she watched me sign. She'd decided she wasn't hallucinating, and being her took the story at face value.

"Monsters there with you?" she signed back.

"Not know. Not know how here."

"Why lab rat?"

I was beginning to regret my mascot: I wouldn't have told Mum that. All I could do was shrug. "Too many medical exams. But nanotech computer in head! Download language. Do school in bed."

Mum's expression – everyone's – changed in a way which made me look quickly over my shoulder, and saved me from being scared out of my skin by the Fourth Squad captain. He's even better than Zan at being all business, never surprised or impressed by anything. After glancing past me at my world and my family he just removed some black straps from his arm and held them out to me. My uniform harness.

I only just managed to say "Thank you," because I was being very surprised that the Setari had found me when I couldn't even guess how I'd gotten here.

"Space ninja?" Mum signed, as I slipped on the harness. I nodded and she looked him up and down a moment, then added: "Friend or enemy?"

Hopefully I didn't look too doubtful when I looked back. But luckily the Fourth Squad captain was drawing off a pad of solidified nanoliquid which had been attached to his suit, and not looking at my expression.

"There are no tears that I can see in this world's wall," he said. "If you succeed in breaking through here, Ionoth will flood to this point."


I flinched, because I hadn't thought about that at all. "Say I put you danger," I signed, and watched as Mum frowned and Dad looked suspicious. Then the Fourth Squad captain pressed the pad of nanoliquid to the centre of the harness where it crossed my back and the suit flowed over me, bringing immediate warmth. I hadn't realised how cold I'd been.

"Venom!" Jules signed, his face lit up. He loves the Spiderman movies.

I smiled at him, but then said: "Can find gate?"

"There are none in this area, possibly no tears at all into your world. There may be natural gates, but they are immensely rare."

This wasn't exactly 'no', but I doubted I could force him to do anything, even if he could find a natural gate. "What realistic chances Tare find way get me home?"

He was looking behind us now, that attentive survey familiar from my day with First Squad: searching for Ionoth. "Before today's excursion, I would have said none. Especially having seen how far from the centre of the fractures this is. But if you can reproduce whatever you did to track your world, quite obviously reaching this planet's near-space is possible."

The near-space, yes. But even if I could travel here at will, I couldn't get further, and there was absolutely no way I was going to be the first person to tear a hole in Earth's protection against monsters.

They must have seen it in my face, when I turned back. Dad said something, looking upset, and Mum's hands closed on the arms of her chair.

"Have to go back. Don't know ever find gate not hurt Earth. Chance low." It was getting really hard not to cry. "Miss you so much."

"Can I come?" Jules signed enthusiastically, and then gaped as the Fourth Squad captain turned – quite casually – and skewered some thing leaping at us from the outline of the lounge room door. It looked like a spider made of rusty nails and old tyre rubber, which really isn't what I expected Ionoth to look like, and as he held it up so he could get a better look at it I saw that he'd made a blade of nanoliquid grow out of the arm of his suit. I'd seen something like that in the movies I'd watched with Nenna, and it's not that different from Terminator 2, so I wasn't particularly surprised. The Ionoth spider was shock enough.

My Dad's face had changed when I looked back. He'd wanted to argue, but now he wanted me to get to safety as soon as I could, no matter where safety was. "Happy Birthday," he signed slowly. "Hugs."

"Love you," I signed back, then looked over at Nick and made an X with my arms to give him a hug too.

He copied me, and added: "Be happy."

"You too," I signed back carefully. "Tell Alyssa, sorry miss party. Miss her."

Nick grinned. "Will do."

I smiled at my aunts, then looked at my Mum.

"Live well," she signed.

It was exactly the sort of thing Mum would say. I nodded, thought for a moment then signed: "Thank you for being my Mum. Love you always."

That made us both cry and I tried to smile and then stepped back, wiping at my face as my family faded to shadows. I wanted to stay, to say more, to ask questions about a thousand things, but I wasn't silly or selfish enough. If one Ionoth had come to attack us, more would.

I turned to the Fourth Squad captain, who had gotten rid of the spider and who I really doubted wanted to stand around while I played happy families, but was at least managing not to look impatient. "Sorry," I said. "Ready now."

He just handed me a small flask and a wrapped food bar, and said: "Follow close."

It was almost ten minutes' walk to the gate, and I wondered how I'd managed to travel it while asleep, and how he had followed me. We met another of the spider things as we twisted a long path through the outlines of my neighbourhood, but it gave him as little trouble as the first one. Eating and drinking had succeeded in making me feel hungry and exhausted, but I did find a small amount of pleasure in being able to make myself a pocket to put the flask and empty wrapper in.

The gate was in someone's back yard, in what would be a swimming pool if the water had remembered to be there. I could see red earth through it, blue sky, a scatter of huge rocks. It wasn't a clean tear: the edges were surrounded by tiny fragments, thousands of glinting glimpses of red and blue. And at the bottom of the pool were a half-dozen of the spiders and a fraying shadow with claws. Dead. It was hard to follow down to stand among the bodies.

"Gates, particularly the ones you tore wider, are the most dangerous points in the spaces, because the threat on the far side cannot be clearly gauged. If this side is clear, I will go through and you will wait without moving until I signal you to come through. Do not come through without my signal unless you are in immediate danger of attack on this side. Should we need to run, above all things stay close to me, no matter where I run. Do you understand?"

"I tore gate?" I asked, staring down at all the monsters he'd had to kill, just at this one spot.

"You don't remember?" He looked at me, perhaps gauging whether I was lying. His eyes never seemed to show surprise; never annoyed or angry or really interested. "You tore a new rift in Tare's wall, and either struck or widened thirteen gates between here and there."

I stared. "Hole in medical facility?" I could feel my face heat, but rather than go into it further just said: "I wake here."

He'd gone back to scanning the area, then studied the gate for a very fixed and intent moment before stepping through it. Even though I'd been wandering about Earth's near-space by myself, the instant the Fourth Squad captain was on the far side of the gate I felt horribly vulnerable. A half-dozen examples of why I was vulnerable were scattered around my feet, and the edge of the pool was at eye-level so I could have a nice close look at anything scuttling up. That really destroyed any sense of pleasure I could gain from my last few moments in Earth's near-space.

Fortunately he signalled almost immediately, and I stepped out onto a red, flat plain where the sky was the biggest thing ever and there was plenty of distance between me and anything. The space was the memory of heat, and a ribbon in the sky that seemed to twist and shift, but was way too far away to be scary.

In all that space, I could only see two other gates. One was very distant, a glimmering on the horizon, and the other up a slope of rock that was no harder to climb than a flight of stairs.

"The next space is very populated," the Fourth Squad captain said as we approached the top of the rock slope. "They are tola type, not dangerous unless you remain among them, but both gates are thick with them and if enough gather it could be difficult to pass them. They are attracted to sound, so walk quietly and only communicate through the interface. Don't stop at the following gate; we're going to walk straight through."

Tola meant 'thin'. I stared through the gate at what looked to me like vertically striped shadows and couldn't see anything at all that looked like monsters. I remembered in time not to walk through the first gate until he signalled, but he did so almost immediately anyway. It felt like I stumbled into cold cobweb. The space was, I think, a shadow of a forest, so faded that there wasn't really even trees there, just darker stripes. The Fourth Squad captain moved forward, holding one arm before his face and I followed as best I could, though it was a little like when I'd been trying to push my way out of Earth's near-space, just that the resistance didn't get any harder. And it was damn dark. The gate we were heading for wasn't even visible to me, and I immediately lost sight of him. The only reason I didn't freak out completely was because my interface knew where he was and I realised if I turned on names I could follow him far more easily. So I followed a floating 'Kaoren Ruuel' sign through the forest of creepiness, and almost felt like laughing.


[Taren spelling continues to confuse – Maze pronounced 'Ruuel' as 'Rue-el'.]

The next space was totally black, so I was lucky it had already occurred to me to track him using the interface. Zan had said the Fourth Squad captain's talents were Sight-based, which explained how he was able to walk so confidently into pitch dark. I think the space was some sort of cave or tunnel. The ground was fortunately smooth, though, and it was short. The next gate was only ten or fifteen metres away, and I saw silvery grey water and stopped while he passed through.

But again he signalled straight away and I walked out onto a beach at night. That was a strange one – beautiful and eerie, all silver and black, but no moon in the sky to explain where the light was coming from. There was a single line of footprints along the beach, with sand kicked up behind them to show how fast he'd been going. The Fourth Squad captain's, and yet none for me.

"Why not full squad?" I asked, since asking him if I'd been levitating would have been pointless.

"Groups attract Ionoth. Fighting our way through would have been too great a delay."

So he'd come alone through thirteen spaces to find me. I'd seen enough of how First Squad behaved going to a space they'd considered safe to know how dangerous that had to be.

"Thank you," I said. "Save my life."

This he didn't even respond to, which made me feel just wonderful. But of course he hadn't come to save Cass, but to retrieve a potentially valuable weapon. He was taking me back to the place where I was 'the amplifying stray' and something they were willing to risk a squad captain's life to retrieve. I hadn't realised how valuable I was to them.

The next gate opened out onto a city of skyscrapers covered in vines. I could tell by the way the Fourth Squad captain turned his head once he was through that there were Ionoth in there, and I wasn't surprised when he went off to one side and didn't immediately come back. It would be my fault if he was killed.

The question of what would happen if I kept doing this occupied me for the incredibly long time it took my only protection to return, and I was just switching over to what I would do if he didn't come back when he reappeared. He didn't look injured though, or even out of breath when he signalled me to come through, but he said: "Move quickly through here," and strode off at double pace.

That place smelled of death. I don't know how else to describe it. Old blood and rotting plants and the stink of decay and wrongness. Death. I couldn't see what it was which had kept the Fourth Squad captain so long, but I didn't particularly want to, and scurried after him. Whatever world that space belonged to must be a truly horrible place.

There were at least a dozen visible gates there – every space we went into seemed to have more. Every time we came close to a gate, my heart lifted, then fell when we moved past. My need to get out of the smell of it was incredible. And when the Fourth Squad captain finally did stop, at a gate showing only some carved grey stone and a bit of stair, he turned and looked carefully around us and I realised I was going to have stay there alone while he cleared the next space. I had to bite my lip not to say pointless things, and when he stepped into the next world, looked around, then moved away, I nearly ignored what he'd said and went after him.

I think it was the idea of the Fourth Squad captain giving me a lecture on doing what I was told which kept me there. But I felt really sick about it, and stared in every direction, convinced that things were moving toward me. The gate was in the middle of a street, and the leaves overhanging the windows above fluttered and shifted all the time. And I could hear a noise, a scratching, coming closer. I was trying to decide what constituted 'immediate danger of attack' when the Fourth Squad captain reappeared and came back through to my side of the gate.

"We're going to run," he said. "Straight up the stair to the apex and straight through the gate. Go."

Devil and Deep Blue Sea time. I was so freaked out by the smell and sounds of the skyscraper place that I didn't hesitate. The next space was cold and full of a stifled echo, a distant roar. I looked down, and the angle of the stairs was way too sharp to make that a good idea, though what was at the bottom of it certainly helped in getting me moving in the other direction. The grey stone was a stepped pyramid, huge, rising out of an ocean of black...something. It reminded me horribly of the nanoliquid our suits were made of, writhing tendrils of it reaching upward. And all over the sides of the pyramid were shadows of people on spikes, speared through their backs like butterflies, and with tendrils of black reaching toward us from out of their chests.

I am not good at running up flights of stairs. Especially not crumbling stone steps with chunks of recently severed black stuff on them. I can replay the eternal frantic minute it took us to get out of that space, can see the Fourth Squad captain overtake me and cut clear a path, but I don't actually remember too much of it, just this white panic. If the gates didn't have that soap-bubble resistance, I think I would have kept on running, though my chest felt like it was going to explode. As it was, it was enough to break my momentum, and I went down on my hands and knees, gasping.

The Fourth Squad captain walked a little way ahead while I recovered, looking annoyingly unaffected by sprinting up nearly-vertical stairs. Breathing a little deeper. I stared back over my shoulder and shuddered and said: "Cthulhu lives." And could probably chase us through the gate, since Ionoth theoretically could move from space to space. The idea was enough to get me to my feet and looking around.

We were on a branch, wide and soft with moss and lichen, and so far up that if there was any ground in this space it was lost in the gloom below. I became very glad I hadn't kept running. The Fourth Squad captain had walked down to where another branch crossed over the top of the first, and was making handholds in it using another blade made out of nanoliquid. When he climbed up, I followed, though I was starting to feel very rubbery-legged and ill. I'd managed to count through the worlds we had crossed – red desert, tola forest, tunnel, beach, skyscrapers, pyramid, tree – which made six more until we reached Tare's near-space. In retrospect I'm glad the Fourth Squad captain didn't show any sign of caring about my opinions, because I really wanted to stop and hug my knees and rock back and forth for a while, and it was only that he seemed to expect me not to that kept me walking.

Thankfully the next gate was one he immediately gestured me through, and I grew a little more hopeful about getting back without being eaten. That space was a huge one, impossibly tall, with all these white platforms crisscrossing a black chasm and climbing up into stars. There were tons of gates, the most I'd seen in any of the spaces, but I was glad that the Fourth Squad captain seemed to be heading for one on the same level as us, since I wasn't keen on more climbing.

Head jerking upward, he stopped so abruptly that I almost ran into his back. Given it was the first time I'd seen him act at all surprised by anything, I stared too, of course, but all I saw were some distant washes of colour, something like what I'd expect the Aurora Borealis to look like. And there was a faint, vaguely familiar noise which I thought might be whale song. The Fourth Squad captain found it far more interesting than anything else we'd encountered, and was standing stock-still, staring.

Then he said, "Augment me," and held a hand back.

He'd been very careful all along not to touch me, and alone in the middle of the spaces was not a good place to test my effect on whatever talent set he had. At the same time, I doubted he ever gave an order without a reason, so I took his hand without stupidly saying: "Are you sure?" But with great misgivings.


And he fell to his knees. Totally not what you want your sole rescuer to be doing, especially since he was standing near the front edge of one of the platforms at the time, and yanked my arm half out of its socket in the process. And just stayed there, staring upwards.

With his eyes opened wide, he didn't look like he was in pain, more like he was having some sort of religious experience. I thought it was damn stupid timing, but I'd been wanting some knee-hugging time, so I sat on the platform's edge and waited. And waited.

Eventually I lay back and watched the distant light show, and tried to get the suit's fingers on my free hand to turn into knives, which wasn't very successful. I could make them go out to spiky points, but they were soft, rubbery spiky points, just like the rest of the suit. Mara hadn't shown me how to make weapons.

The noises grew a little louder, and I realised that they were the noises I'd heard on Muina, except not nearly so close. The 'massive' that they'd come racing to investigate, and found me instead. And these Ddura were supposed to be some tool or weapon to use in fixing the problem tearing all the spaces apart, so I guess I understood why the Fourth Squad captain was so interested in that one, but if he had stayed like that much longer I would have given in to creeping weariness and passed out, and wouldn't even have been able to shout a warning if something came along to eat us. Fortunately the Ddura faded away, and the Fourth Squad captain closed his eyes and took a long shuddering breath. I wasn't sure he'd even blinked for all of the time he'd looked at it.

"Beginning think your brain melt," I said, and he looked down at me so blankly I knew he'd completely forgotten I was there.

"Not yet," was all he said, and climbed a little stiffly to his feet, keeping hold of my hand so I couldn't stay lying down. "We're going up."

I can't tell you how unenthusiastic that made me. The Ddura had been a long long way away. I'm not sure what the Fourth Squad captain would have done if I'd kicked up a fuss – carried me up, maybe. He hadn't let go of my hand, and started walking without waiting to see what my response was, so I trailed along behind him wondering when the day would end.

But we only went up about three staircases worth of platforms, and stopped before a tall but narrow rift to a white place splashed with washes of colour, with a tall white tower in the middle, big and solid with very familiar arch-shaped doors. The Fourth Squad captain indulged in another staring session, but didn't try to go through the gate, just stood studying everything he could see.

Since the building had some similarities to those on Muina I immediately guessed it was either a space belonging to Muina or one of these extremely dangerous supports that the Muinans had built in the Ena which had caused everything to fracture. The Fourth Squad captain was being intense enough about it to make me think it was something that important, and since the supports were supposed to be incredibly dangerous I'm glad he didn't decide to go any closer.

After he was done looking he held out his free hand, which glowed faintly, and made the gate glow faintly in return. And made him go interestingly pale and squish my hand a bit.

There were five gates between the platform space and Tare's near-space. He did the same thing at every single one of them after we'd passed through, and if there'd been the slightest need for running or killing Ionoth we would have been screwed because whatever making the gates glow was about, it took as much out of him as running up those stairs had me. By the time we'd reached a familiar-looking metal box, I was beginning to wonder if I'd have to carry him, which wasn't going to happen since he's six foot two at least. As soon as we stepped through the last gate into the proper world he let go of me, leaned his back against a wall, and closed his eyes, looking so grey I thought he was going to faint.

The shielding door opened almost immediately, after the briefest time for scans. I was swooped on by greensuits and greysuits, while Fourth Squad and a couple of other Setari rushed my rescuer. One of them, obviously a friend since he called him by his first name, said, "Ends, Kaoren, how far did you have to go? I've never seen you like this."

"Never mind that." The Fourth Squad captain was recovering, and had straightened up. "Get Third mobilised. I stumbled across one of the Pillars out there, and even with the stray's enhancement I don't have the strength to truly lock every gate for five spaces."

He could have announced the sky was falling, the way everyone jumped and stared. Me, I was glad I was so tired, because I knew I was headed straight for endless medical tests and I planned to sleep through them. Which I did, except for blearily answering a few questions about no I really don't know how I almost got to Earth. The room I'm in now is even more of a box than before, with scanners constantly pointed at me because they're trying to work out what I did and whether they can stop me from doing it again. They gave me my diary after a day, and it's taken me forever to write this all down, but that's okay because my interface has been shut off almost completely while they run tests and there's nothing else to do.

Lab Rat again. Stray, always. It really hurt to hear that.

But I guess I'll cope. It makes so much difference that Mum and Dad know I'm not dead. That I got to say goodbye. I don't know if I will ever be treated as a person here, but I can follow Nick's lead and look on the bright side of things until I can make them better. I'm not starving. Nothing has eaten me. And somehow, in a way I don't understand, I have the ability to go to Earth. I don't want to kill myself doing it, and I won't ever risk drawing Ionoth there, but now I have a goal beyond being a useful stray. If I can gain control, perhaps I can figure out a way to find a natural gate, and be able to go back to my real life, to being Cass again.

As birthdays go, it could have been worse.

Tuesday, February 12

Psych 101

Maze came to see me after lunch, to talk me through what they'd concluded from all the tests. He didn't tell me anything I hadn't figured out already: that I must have some ability to find Earth through the spaces, and then travel there, bashing open gates on the way. While asleep. It's nothing like any ability they've encountered before, and since they work out your abilities by looking for known 'patterns' in the brain, they've now decided they really don't have any idea what I can do and they don't know how to test me. They think they've probably got it wrong about the Illusion casting, too.

Mainly they're worried I'll keep tearing holes where they don't want them, and vanishing.

Maze asked if there was anything he could do for me, which isn't the sort of thing you ask someone who's been locked in a room for days on end with nothing to do except wait for the next medical exam. There's obviously tons of things they could do, but the question is what they were doing. Poor Maze must have wondered why I looked so angry, but because it was Maze I managed to not shriek and rant.

"Thing I need is be less homesick," I said. "Is why that happen, guess. Didn't go bed think 'leave tonight'. Not scared, upset. Just homesick. But is different now, plus. Family know where am, make big difference. Plus, would choose not go unless find way not tear hole Earth's shield, bring monsters. Not acceptable. Is found way stop me leaving?"

"In truth, we don't know. You're still here, but that may be because you haven't tried to leave. We don't know if the extra containment on this room is having any effect on you, but it does help some of the more sensitive Setari, who need dampening on their quarters to sleep properly."


"Bigger box soon?" I asked, hopefully.

"Keeping you in high security intensive care indefinitely isn't very practical." Maze gave me what I think of as his 'captain look'. "And stop calling it a box."

"Is box long as door lock. What think I do? Go day trip Unara?" My voice had gone flat and hard, and I sighed and shook my head. "Getting tired silly psychology games. Put Cass in box nothing to do. Cass happy do anything, try hard training. Take Cass outside lunch, happy Cass try harder. Cass leave to Earth. Put Cass in smaller box, take away toys."

"You think that's why we took you to lunch?"

"No." I was embarrassed about being nasty. "First Squad just nice people. But bet Maze report state Stray's mental health."

His mouth squinched a little, so I knew I was right.

"First Squad, Setari, they useful weapons. Lots rules. Choose be Setari because protect home. I here, not my planet, but owe life. Since can't go home yet, willing help. Right thing do. Accept rules. But. Kept in box, annoying. Have interface cut back, stupid. If testing, need reproduce circumstance. Different circumstance nullify test. Someone petty? Or punishment? All achieve is grumpy Cass. Then Maze sent talk me."

"Do we seem that manipulative?" He looked really sad.

I shrugged. "Don't know sure. Could just be big stupid machine forget Cass person. Or is idea make very obedient? Don't know. Tolerate it, just annoyed." And I didn't want to push them to worse treatment, the possibilities of which I'd had more than enough time to dwell on. I'd had this horrible nightmare where I'd dreamt there was a scar on my stomach, and found out they'd harvested my ovaries and were trying to breed more amplifiers. And since that really was a logical approach, I'd been freaked out half the day about it, caught between desperately attempting to leave again and telling myself not to over-react. Which was probably why I said any of this stuff to Maze. "Sorry. Not Maze's fault. What happen big tower?"

I think I'd really depressed him, but he brightened up at the change of subject.

"That was truly spectacular luck. The Ionoth are symptoms, while the Pillars are the disease. Ever since we've been able to travel among the spaces we've been searching for them, and that's intensified a great deal over the past five years with specialist Setari squads. Only twice before have we managed to get anywhere near one, and both times the shifting of the gates meant we barely viewed them before they were cut off. To capture information on a Ddura and a Pillar both is the most progress we've ever made. We're about to lose the path to this one, despite everything we can do to lock the gates, but have been able to deploy a number of drones in the space, and they went ahead yesterday afternoon and sent Third in to make a preliminary approach, which went without a hitch. Best of all, they think the gate we're losing is a rotational, and the rest relatively stable, so we should be able to return regularly and unpick its mysteries."

"What happen if just explode it?"

"Good question. We've no idea. But it could be catastrophic, so we're not going to rush anything." He smiled, a less sad smile this time. "Now if you could be convinced to become homesick for the Pillars, wouldn't that be an interesting development?"

"No thanks."

He left then, with a little wave and no words of reassurance. I didn't miss that he hadn't denied any of my little paranoid theories, but I was also sorry I'd made him feel bad.

-

And it's an hour or so later and my access rights have returned. Back to the way they were when I was living with the Lents. And because I appreciate the gesture I'll keep pushing through kindergarten, and will make sure I work before I play. Maze really is a nice guy.

When the bell rings, drool

It's a very odd thing to be able to record all your conversations so easily. I wonder if I'll run out of 'hard drive' to store them on. But I love that I can replay my conversation with my family, which was about the only thing that made up for having barely any interface rights for so long. Even going back to having a full interface – with all the news and television and entertainments I didn't even know existed – I replay pieces of my 'birthday party' over and over again. I can see all the nuances I didn't catch the first time, can look at their faces, look at the garden Mum loves. The Aunts are watching Mum, looking relieved. Dad bites his lip. Jules is just loving the whole thing, thinking it all so cool. Mum is...Mum.

I'm exasperated, though, about other parts of that day I keep replaying. Maybe it's because he saved my life, or because I spent a good two hours holding his hand. I keep telling myself not to and then watching my log of the Fourth Squad captain gazing off at the stars. A stupid thing to do: he didn't make a positive impression personality-wise, not to mention calling me a stray right in front of me. Kaoren Ruuel. Not the usual type I daydream about, but I seem to be far more excited about him in retrospect than I was when I was clutching his hand.

Other than not having enough willpower, it's been an eventful day. Mara came after breakfast, dressed in casual clothes instead of her uniform. We collected my belongings and she took me to my new box. Which wasn't a box at all.

"This is the latest expansion of the Setari living quarters, intended for Thirteenth and Fourteenth Squad," she said, as we walked down a short, empty corridor. She stopped at the end, triggering the door. "The rest of us are on the floors below. Until the new squads are qualified, you'll be the only person here."

It was a whole apartment, the same layout as Zan's, except no decorations displayed in the public space and incredibly neutral coverings on the whitestone furniture. Mara smiled at the expression on my face and said: "The doors will open to you. I'll take you on a tour of some of the areas you're permitted to go, and then into the city, if there's anything you'd like to buy. Outside KOTIS is completely off limits to you without an escort and clearance."

"What change their minds?"

"Maze suggested your intelligence be re-evaluated. Before you decided to stop being obliging and cooperative."

They thought I was stupid. I chewed on that one for the rest of the day, but otherwise let myself enjoy the change. There was more to the KOTIS facility than I'd expected, including some actual leisure areas populated by large amounts of people my age and younger, making me realise just how many Setari they're trying to train. But the exciting thing for me was going shopping. I'm not exactly a mall devotee, but when you've had everything supplied to you for weeks, simply buying a dressing gown or choosing your very own bedspread becomes a big event. Fortunately my displaced person allowance had been accruing.

Mara was really tolerant, and answered my endless, scrambled questions as if she had nothing else she'd like to do. We had lunch together and, just as I had back when she was showing me around KOTIS, I kept noticing people recognising her. A member of First Squad. Even if people outside KOTIS can't record her image, in the facility's support city there were a lot of people who knew who she was, or were from KOTIS taking a break. It put the Kanza game in a different light. I knew but hadn't really thought through how very much all the Setari are faceless celebrities on this world, the people everyone wants to know. And I get to spend all this time with them, and can't let myself buy into it.

I'd told Maze that I thought First Squad were nice to me because they were nice people. But I am just as much an assignment to them as I was to Zan; they simply approach the task differently. Every time I start thinking about how nice they are and how much I like them, I hear: "Don't forget the psychological aspects," and remember that I'm part of their job. Helping them feels like the right thing to do, but it's not necessarily the right thing for me.


I really miss Alyssa, miss having someone I trusted absolutely, and I wish I knew whether Nick has told her everything that happened, and if she believed him. Mum's not silly enough to announce to the world that her daughter is off on another planet, no matter whether they succeeded in videoing me. I'd give it a week before Jules posts that phone video on YouTube, though.

I thanked Mara carefully when she delivered me back to my brand spanking-new apartment, putting a lot of effort into pronunciation. I might be an assignment to First Squad, but I appreciate that they don't rub that in.

Mara told me where and when to meet tomorrow, since we had a lot of training to catch up on, and then left me alone. With a door I can open. It's a test of sorts, I guess. From practically no freedom to quite a lot, to see how I'll react. I went out straight away and up to the roof, where it was evening, and blowing an absolute gale – not raining, but super windy. Fortunately, I'd taken my brand new jacket with me, and found a corner to tuck myself in to think, and read through the instructions Mara had shown me on how to change the public spaces in my rooms. Simply loving that I was able to walk up there on my own, and I could go back when I wanted to.

I don't trust them not to take this away from me again. So far they've chopped and changed their approach to me several times, and could easily decide it's better to keep me in a box. In its way this is just another bit of positive reinforcement training. But I'm happy enough to keep being cooperative in return for an unlocked door.

I'm missing home a lot today. But I really really hope I don't wake up tomorrow and find that I've gone tearing off through the spaces again. I need a better understanding of just what the spaces are, what natural gates are, before I even begin to think of experimenting. There's an entire world of information which I've just been given access to, and I need to go do more kindergarten so I can hope to understand some of it.

They thought I was stupid.