oraclerelic

Place: AETHER

Time: THERE IS NO TIME

There was nothing but silence. Cool, soothing silence. It laid across Ophelia like a heavy silk fabric, so complicated in its intensity that it alone could have been contemplated for years—for eons.

Pushing the enthralling fabric aside with what felt to be fingers covered in a numbing, confining glove, the girl moved. Slowly, ponderously.

She was not alone.

Place: Imperodyne Arcology Lab Level 75

Time: 10:35 hrs

Ophelia wandered the empty corridor, trailed behind by one of the two men who had been assigned to watch over her. She could hear his mind, a buzz of static somewhere in the distance. His thoughts were focused and direct, much different than many of the other people in this warren of bulkheads and steel-grate floors.

She gazed around her, pulled by innate curiosity, following the flitting and glimmering images that danced in the air around her, joyously unaware of the world around her. Even as her own curiosity pulled her forward, she noticed vaguely losing first one guard and then another.

Even as she closely followed a sprite-like, glowing creature from floor panel to floor panel, she began noticing other things—dark things, small at first but growing larger.

Place: Imperodyne Arcology Lab Level 75

Time: 10:22 hrs

Franks sat in the chair across from the tiny form, still draped in her white garments, and regarded her carefully.

The child’s movements were not like any other child. She had no jitteriness, no fidgets, no uncomfortable shifting in her seat.

Place: Imperodyne Arcology Lab Level 65

Time: 0745 hrs

Wynn leaned back and regarded the child with a slow, luxuriant smile.

The Girl regarded her back with a quiet, unassuming patience. She did not blink for a long moment and did not flinch under the Director’s gaze.

It amused Wynn.

Place: Imperodyne Arcology Lab Level 65

Time: 0735 hrs

The door opened slowly, and Imarla03 turned eyes to flick over the walls, the floor, absorbing everything. She’d seen these things, of course—but only in images.

Carpet, paintings, sculpture. Dr. Wynn’s office was a celebration of ancient Asian art. Eventually, though, as it was whenever Dr. Wynn was in a room, the attention of the girl turned to the tall, slender woman.

She was so different from the other females The Girl had known, and yet bore a striking resemblance to the image of Mother.

Place: Imperodyne Arcology Lab Level 74

Time: 0716 hrs

Small feet crossed the threshold, and the girl blinked into the dimness, her eyes widening and her whole body growing stiff, her steps slowing and then stopping. Her head turned this way and that, and she craned her neck to look down the corridor, obviously registering the enhanced reality projections the implant gave the girl.

She was seeing what no mere human eye could see. Daniels was elated.

 .

Place: Imperodyne Arcology Lab Level 74

Time: 0715 hrs

Silence.

Daniels couldn’t believe how quiet this whole damn level of the Labs was—dark and quiet as a tomb. Motion-sensitive lights, low and red in safety strips along the floor clicked on as her feet crossed the threshold from the tiny living quarters that Imarla03 had been in since her rounds of surgery began, at age 2.

She knew the importance of the work, but still, somewhere deep within, Nanotech Neurobiologist Alice Daniels was disgusted with the work. She remembered the day she’d been recruited for the “Dreadchild” project—whose official title was “Project Legion” as clearly as the day she graduated.

Eight years of lifesaving work, isolating and maintaining the child’s atmosphere. Eight years working with the AI called Mother to build an interface for the child that was as human in dialogue and development as possible without the interference and chaos of the human mind. Eight years of carefully screening every contact the child had with any outside stimuli.

Eight long years since the day Imperodyne’s head of Neurobiology had pulled her into that softly lit office…

Place: Imperodyne Arcology Lab Level 74

Time: 0701 hrs

There was a soft chiming noise and the girl looked up from the tablet she’d been reading from, brows creased with curiosity. The edges of where one of the smooth, white bulkhead plates met the rest rose with a quiet click, and then a hiss as it retreated into the wall before sliding away, revealing a blackness beyond that was beyond anything the girl had ever before seen.

Place: Imperodyne Arcology Lab Level 74

Time: 0522 hrs

Soft light filtered through the light panels on the walls. Carefully chosen to mimic direct sunlight, it began as a pastel blue, blooming into a soft pink and fading slowly but surely to a warm orange. By the time the light was beginning to transition to a particularly pleasant hue of lemon yellow, the small frame on the one narrow bed  in the pristine white room was already scanning the ceiling, glass-green eyes slipping over its featureless surface as her brain swam from the muffled state of sleep.

Sleeping cycle complete.

Begin maintenance cycle.

Preface:

Stories of uncommon bravery, of victory of brains over brawn have long been Man’s coping mechanism in a social world with little or no true justice.

This story is one such tale, one of triumph of perseverance over pain, of good over evil, of free will over apathy.

It starts, as many stories do, with a Princess. 
 

*There is static, loud and violent, fading to a whisper before a young, feminine voice speaks.*

Can you hear me?

*More static*