Chapter 4 #2
There were furnishings in the room, even if they were rather strange, made from what seemed to be driftwood.
Chairs surrounded a table, and there were other small pools in the room, though they all appeared to be empty of anything except seawater.
I felt a strange sense of peace and acceptance, which was puzzling.
This was all strange to me, but my mind wasn’t fighting it, and I had no fear of this unknown place at all.
“You are safe,” a voice said from behind me, before a man moved into my sight.
He was of medium height, with reddish hair that hung down to his shoulders and wide green eyes that were full of something that almost looked like sympathy.
But the curious thing was that he slithered on an eel-like tail, although it was entirely made of metal and plastic, not flesh. As if sensing my surprise, he smiled.
“I am Cormie,” he said, and again I was surprised as I felt a ping against my CPU, then an identification packet was broadcast to me, the greeting that constructs and mechanicals used with one another.
Cormie, Construct for Ocean Research, Mechanically Enhanced. This, then, was the construct from the USAE ship Explorer, ORV-232. The construct Michael Gail had died attempting to rescue six years ago.
Apparently, they hadn’t needed much rescue if they were here and functional.
But I was still having a hard time wrapping my mind around everything that had happened. Questions swirled in my head faster than I could verbalize.
“Where? How?” I asked, gesturing to the room, to them, to myself. “Why?”
“Where are you? How are you here? How am I here? How are you still alive? Why aren’t you panicking?
” they asked, smiling slightly. “I was sent to explain. Archon thought you would be more comfortable with me since I’m ‘one of your own kind,’ as I think he put it.
Something about the familiar being less threatening than the new and strange. ”
To be honest, whoever this Archon was, he was correct.
Cormie’s survival, though a surprise, wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility in the way almost everything else about this was.
It was reassuring to know my captors (hosts?
rescuers?) hadn’t killed Cormie for knowing of their existence. Maybe I’d survive as well.
“Where you are: in a sub-ocean habitat located in caves beneath the Blake Plateau Reef. How you are here: Kaius brought you in when you locked up your brain and, incidentally, your CPU, though I’m not sure how you managed to do that,” Cormie replied.
“As to why you aren’t panicking, the people down here have many abilities, one of which is to broadcast on various super and sub-sonic frequencies.
Think of it as being rather like how dolphins and whales communicate with each other.
They can send more than information. They can transmit emotions as well.
You aren’t freaking out for the same reason I didn’t freak out when they rescued me and brought me here.
They are keeping you calm by broadcasting calmness.
It’s something they often use to help sea-creatures in distress to keep them from harming themselves further while attempting rescue, or to comfort them while dying.
The remaining two answers I think are obvious.
They saved me, and I’m here because of that. ”
I mulled that over, and if I could trust my own analytic ability, it made sense.
I concentrated for a moment, and I realized I could feel the gentle emanations, almost the same way you would sense white noise being generated by a machine to drown out other sounds.
They were somehow masking my panic with a sense of peace, and while I should have been alarmed by anyone manipulating my feelings in such a way, I wasn’t. It was an interesting feeling.
“Okay.” I accepted what Cormie said; it was logical enough. “Then who are these people? Kaius and Archon? Are there more?” I didn’t ask them why I’d had an image of Kaius days before I’d seen him. Some questions I doubted Cormie would have answers for. I wasn’t even sure there was an answer.
“Why don’t they tell you, if you’re comfortable with that?”
I hesitated, but really, what other option was there?
I’d get better information from the horse’s (sea person’s?) mouth than a third party.
And really, if they’d saved Cormie and gone to such an effort to rescue me, they were likely people of goodwill.
Though maybe that was the emotions being broadcast to me or my own hope speaking.
It was hard to be sure, but my options were limited at this point.
“All right,” I replied. Cormie nodded, and then they moved to open the door to the room.
Almost at once, a young man stepped in, as though he’d been leaning against the door and just waiting for it to open.
He was the same man I’d seen in my dream, the one I’d spotted in the cave before I’d panicked.
I wasn’t frightened now. Instead, I felt a sense of something close to wonder.
I couldn’t believe he was actually real, not some figment of my oxygen-starved brain.
His eyes were wide, and there was a look of hope on his face.
He must be Kaius, who had apparently been talking to me telepathically.
Behind him, an older man entered more sedately. He was slightly taller than Kaius, but with the same tanned skin, dark eyes, and long, black hair. They were both dressed in simple tunics made of some soft material I couldn’t identify, and they were barefoot.
“I am Archon, and I greet you in the name of the Gaian people,” the older man said.
His voice was deep and resonant, and while he looked to be in perhaps his mid-thirties, there was also a sense of age about him that I could almost feel in some strange way.
“Cormie tells us your name is Corbin. We’re sorry for the trauma you suffered in discovering us. ”
Archon threw a look at Kaius, who flushed beneath his tan, and then he continued.
“We weren’t planning on making ourselves known to you, but circumstances rather forced us to intervene to save your life.
We are protectors, and we preserve life whenever possible.
You should know Cormie helped with that.
They said you needed a… what was the word? ”
“Reboot,” Cormie supplied, giving a huff of amusement.
“Reboot,” Archon acknowledged, as though the word were strange to him. “I hope you will forgive my son for what happened to you. Drowning can be very traumatic. Trust me, I know that better than most.”
“I see.” I didn’t see much, really, but his words seemed sincere, and it made sense.
If I’d locked up my CPU, it definitely would need to be reset, and only one of my handlers, like Dr. Gail, or another construct would be able to do it.
The CPU helped with managing the biomechanical parts of my body, like my gills, which I needed to breathe underwater.
I could understand on reflection how I’d nearly killed myself in my panic.
“It’s my fault!” Kaius burst out, looking remorseful. “I’m so sorry. I was broadcasting a low-level mix of fear and anxiety to make you go back to your ship, but my own feelings leaked out. It apparently overwhelmed you.”
That gave me pause, and I thought back to what I’d experienced in the cave.
Yes, there had been fear, but with it had come a deep pain and sadness.
I could, with the masking peace I was experiencing, look at it almost clinically.
“Seeing me made you sad? You were upset and hurt by it? Is it because you thought I was Michael Gail and I wasn’t? ”
Kaius lowered his gaze, and I saw Archon sigh. Somehow there were things hidden here that were far more complex that me simply having stumbled upon a strange subocean habitat.
“There are things we can tell you. Things that might be difficult to hear,” Archon said, resting his hand on Kaius’s shoulder. “But I have to ask one very important question.”
I was puzzled by his response. “What is that?”
Archon looked at me steadily, while Kaius raised his eyes, gazing at me with something that seemed a combination of hope and fear.
“Are you certain you really want to know?”
Archon’s question took me completely by surprise.
Did I want to know? Of course I wanted to know!
There were things I needed to know for my own sanity.
How did these people end up living in a cave system that no one knew about?
How did they survive down here in what looked like almost primitive surroundings?
I needed to know how they managed, how they communicated, why they were here.
Why one of them had been in my dreams long before we’d met.
Didn’t I?
I paused for a moment, looking beyond the words he’d said at what Archon might be implying.
I replayed the words again and again, searching for what hidden meaning they might actually convey.
And it struck me that he seemed to think that some of what they could tell me might be upsetting to me personally, though I wasn’t entirely sure how.
I was designed for research and exploration.
The truth, or at least the discovery of it, you might say, was my job.
But again I knew there were specific undercurrents to the question — maybe it was even coming through to me in the calming vibrations being sent my way.
“Are you saying I might not want to know? Or are there consequences for me knowing?”
Kaius started to say something, but then he stopped himself and glanced back over his shoulder at his father.
Archon glanced at his son, and I saw his fingers tighten on Kaius’s shoulder, as though he was sending support.
Given that they were telepaths, they might even be having an entire conversation I wasn’t a part of.