Chapter 24 #2
It was a utilitarian room, full of compartments. Another circular platform sat a few meters away, like the one he stood upon. Above him, an identical piece of earth slid into place, sealing the room from the elements.
The platform stopped, and a decontamination process started. Since part of his essence was already within the system, Iax stopped it with a thought, and opened the cylinder to step off the platform. Silence greeted him.
He extended his mind outward, searching for life, but came up empty. He was alone.
He advanced toward the central door and opened it with a command of his mind. The technology in this place was flawed, low on power, and every mechanism needed encouragement from his essence to complete its given function.
A long corridor extended in two directions. He glanced left, then strode to the right, following a lingering heat signature. He passed by many lab spaces equipped for different tasks.
His feet slowed when one door remained ajar, something blocking it. He analyzed the scene and realized it was a hand—a detached hand. He stopped in front of the door and looked inside. It was another lab, this one filled with equipment covered in dried blood. Streaks of it coated the floor.
Leaving the severed hand behind, he kept walking until he reached the last lab at the end of the corridor. He opened the door with his mind and stepped inside.
This lab was bigger and contained dismembered body parts—most unrecognizable. He stepped over a piece of a leg, then a piece of… something else, and stopped in front of the main terminal. Leaning forward, he took off his gloves and pressed his palms flat against its surface.
The panel brightened as he infused his essence inside, a smaller amount than if he had not been repairing Knox’s ship.
He accessed key systems, memory banks, and project details.
Files upon files opened up to his mind, a chronological map of all the research and experiments the people in this hidden bunker studied and analyzed, everything centering on creating viable life on this planet—an unsanctioned counterpart to Wynn’s purpose here.
One word kept repeating within the data: Strata.
A distant memory tickled the back of his mind.
It originated with a person who had traveled to Sector Ten and coalesced with his kind.
But the idea did not fully form, and Iax could not access others’ knowledge to confirm the memory.
But The Four would be very interested to learn what was happening here.
These people were taking creation into their own hands in a much more drastic way than Wynn’s work.
Another name surfaced, one he recognized from his perusal of Wynn’s systems: Dr. Foster Kish.
He was the one she thought of with tears in her eyes, the one who had died before Iax arrived.
A slithering sensation trickled through his chest, one he set aside in order to probe deeper into the data banks.
The Four would not be the only ones interested in this information.
Wynn would also want to know of her colleague’s involvement.
Iax sank his essence deeper into the programming, recording details in his mind to revisit later, when a sound caught his attention.
He recalled his essence into himself, then turned, alert.
A double-wide door led off into another large space.
He strode toward it, signaling for the door to open. Once wide enough, he stepped through.
Cages stacked three high lined the narrow room, most of them empty. A few had prone forms lying inside, animals like the others he had conversed with, all dead.
Except for the one lying outside a cage at the far end.
Her weak life force pulsed in a slowing rhythm.
Iax advanced toward her, between the stacked cages.
The animal blinked at him, her eyes glassy as he stopped and crouched.
She jerked her head, and her eyes glinted.
After digesting the data banks of this place, he was no longer surprised by their shared trait.
Deep pain racked her body, both physical and from the loss of her mate, the one locked in the cage in front of her.
He took off his glove and reached to touch her jaw. What happened here?
The animal responded with images and surges of emotions—impressions steeped in pain, and horror, and blood.
He could not fix the past, nor help the other animal, but he could help heal her.
Focusing, he sent his essence inside her, but she protested. Confused, he halted the process and waited. Images bombarded his mind. She did not want to live without her mate, and she would not leave her mate’s corpse behind to escape this place.
Iax’s mind turned to Wynn. He would not leave her either. Everything inside him told him to hurry, to find her, and to keep her from harm. This ran parallel to the animal’s emotions, though primitive.
But he had a word for it now. Mate.
Such a unique concept compared to what he had known since arriving in Sector Ten. Most of his kind did not burden themselves with monogamous relationships, though some did, like two of The Four.
But the animal was in agony. He could not leave her this way. Instead of healing her broken and battered body, with permission he sent his essence to her heart and stopped it.
Those glassy eyes clouded, the light inside them going out a moment later.
A waste. These creatures did not deserve the pain they had been born into. They did not deserve to be treated as commodities instead of living things.
Iax recalled his essence into himself. With her body cooling, it was a similar experience to retracting his essence from a terminal. Once the process was complete, he pulled his glove back on and stood.
That hot emotion resurged inside him. He took in his surroundings with a more discerning glance than he had upon arriving now that he had seen it through the animal’s eyes.
All the warnings The Four had given him before his journey came to the forefront of his mind.
Humans carried the capacity to do much harm.
They were selfish in their search for power and pleasure. They hurt others for their own gain.
Nothing Iax had seen so far disputed that.
Except Wynn. She was the only deserving one, and he would not leave her to her fate.
A venomous sensation boiled in the pit of his stomach and continued to grow the longer he stared at the dead animals. Iax spun on his heel and returned the way he had come. The ship he had left above needed more of his essence to finish repairs, to be space-worthy once more.
Sawyer Knox should not have touched Wynn without her permission.