Halo 02: Illusion of Paradox
Garufo watched his fellow sorcerers file into the spacious meeting room, shuffling over the stone floor to seat themselves around a circular table. As was custom in the capitol the four head sorcerers were given absolute freedom to move about as they pleased and to assemble without moderation from government officials, something that Garufo knew well not to take for granted. As an apprentice microphones and blurry LCD cameras always monitored his interactions with other students outside of formal classes. Ironically, the students were given lessons and descriptions of propaganda and totalitarianism, but always with distant Mystic Moon governments as the examples.
"Feed the populace with facts until they feel stuffed, until they feel satisfied, and they will not question the knowledge they are given, thinking it their own logic. They will not see the fault right under their noses," Foruma had told him when he was first initiated into the higher ranks of the Sorcerers. That was the day a few years ago that a young prodigy no less than twenty-five years Garufo's junior quit the organization and went off to be an independent. At first Garufo thought it was the kid's loss and his lucky break, but more and more he began to wonder if that, as well, was a paradoxical analysis.
"The indoctrination is so complete and subtle," Garufo had replied. "Stroke the pride of that which the students value the most, and validate that about which they are most insecure. Make them feel that they are enlightened."
"It feels dirty, doesn't it?" Foruma had stared into Garufo's eyes the entire time. "Yes, it is manipulation, but in the end it will help us to achieve our new world. Emperor Dornkirk's new world. Sacrifices must be made."
Garufo was beginning to wonder if it was going to be worth it in the long run.
Garufo realized that Foruma was talking. He looked up from his thoughts and returned to the present. The old man had his fingers interlocked and resting over his lips, narrowing his eyes across the table. The blue flame on the wall guttered dangerously low.
"The attack on Fanelia is scheduled to commence this evening. You have all been sent the information on the specifics." Foruma removed his glasses and cleared off the lenses with the hem of his robe. "We are all in understanding about its significance?"
The Sorcerers mumbled agreement. Foruma replaced his glasses over his eyes.
"Paruchi, read your report."
The youngest of the Sorcerers, to say that he appeared to be in his thirties, glanced down at the paper in front of him. "At approximately o-four-hundred hours fourteen minutes today a concentrated particle beam from the Mystic Moon made contact with Gaea around the Valley of the Dragons in the Fanelia area. This is in addition to the one that made contact in the same area at approximately twenty-one hundred hours yesterday."
"You're not serious," Kuaru muttered.
"The data is unmistakable. Several lower-level sorcerers and apprentices on other outposts reported the very same data."
So, there is something happening on the Mystic Moon this evening. Garufo looked at Paruchi. This might be something good.
"This is all the information we have?"
Paruchi nodded to Foruma. "We are planning upon initiating a thorough search of the area. The Vione is already in the vicinity."
"Absolutely not," Kuaru hissed. "We are not getting that kid involved in this."
"I do not relish the thought of involving Folken any more than you do, Kurau, but he would have noticed such a phenomenon had it occurred right under his nose." Foruma stared levelly at Kuaru over his folded hands. "We would lose his trust not to involve him."
"To hell with his trust. We don't need that kid."
"We are perfectly capable of handling this operation without him," Paruchi added. "I am tired of crawling to him for help whenever—"
"We never crawl to anybody for help, much less a traitor to our organization." Foruma moved his gaze to Paruchi. Paruchi faltered slightly. "I do not deny that Folken has his uses. Nor do I deny that he is difficult to manipulate. His trust is worthy of keeping at the moment."
"Well, Emperor Dornkirk is doing a good job of manipulating the kid at the moment."
"I said difficult, not impossible."
"Let's get a search organized immediately." Kuaru looked around the table. Reading a Sorcerer's facial expressions was like reading a rock, but they were all well versed in the art. "We must beat that kid to the source of information this time. Besides, he's busy organizing the attack anyway. He won't have time to check anything until tomorrow."
Gentlemen, please. Garufo looked around the table. You might as well just paste signs to your foreheads that say 'I'm insecure and threatened by a barely post-adolescent kid with serious psychological problems.'
"I am in favor of searching for information. We can take a convoy to the two sites and be there in a few hours."
Foruma nodded to Garufo. "Action, not arguing. Words do nothing, gentlemen. The sun is rising. We will split into two groups and collect any data that can be taken from the sites. Are we in agreement?"
The Sorcerers nodded. Foruma pushed his glasses up his nose and stood.
"Good. Let us arrange for convoys."
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"Where the fuck am I? Ow, this is heavy…"
Johnny shrugged off his backpack and sat down on a rock beside the path. His earphones were dangling around his neck, currently silent. The fortress was much further away than it had looked at first analysis. For a straight-line path it was not as far, but there was a deep valley surrounding the landmass that added a great deal more walking distance.
A hang-glider would have come in handy.
Johnny sighed. The sun had begun to rise not long ago, and already the dew was thawing from the surrounding shrubbery. The sky was vivid, glowing yellow on the horizon, fading to blue. That must be east, assuming that this is in fact Earth or a planet with the same direction of spin. The sun seems to be the same distance from the planet. It's not freezing or blazing or anything. Shit. This is confusing. Where the hell is Nailbunny?
Johnny looked around. Forest behind him, forest on the other side of the road, still a hell of a way to go to the fortress thing on the landrise. He sighed.
"Maybe there's a quicker route if I double back."
Johnny looked back up the road. There was a smudge of a dust cloud rising on the curve of the road.
"Huh? Somebody coming?"
Johnny tilted his head toward the cloud. After a few minutes he could make out the sound of horses' hooves and somebody singing a solo, wavering song in a foreign language. At least he knew there were people on the cart.
"It'll do…"
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Hitomi sunk lower into her windbreaker and half-listened to Ruhm's song. He had been singing for several straight hours now. She was beginning to wonder if beast-men had incredible stamina for talking and singing that humans could never possess—not only for that, but for walking as well. The several escort beast-men walking alongside the cart had not stopped for break or water the entire night.
Night… It reminded her of a point of confusion. Hitomi looked at the clock on her pocket bell. The clock read 00:04 hours, but the sun was just rising. It had been dark when she left earth and dark when she crashed onto Gaea, but there were obvious differences in time zones. Unless midnight here meant sunrise or something. It would not surprise her in the least bit. This place was weird.
She was wondering how to ask if this place had twenty-four hour days or seven days in a week when Ruhm stopped singing. Van sat up from where he had been slumping in the hay, brooding about something Hitomi did not bother to question.
"What? Something wrong?"
Ruhm moved the stalk between his lips with his tongue thoughtfully. "There's somebody waiting on the side of the road."
"Huh?" Van pushed his upper body over the wagon side and looked up the road. Hitomi sat up and brushed the straw out of her hair.
"What is it, Van?"
Hitomi looked around Van's shoulder. There was indeed a person standing a few hundred meters up the dirt road, waving energetically. He appeared to have a backpack.
"One of your friends?"
"Never seen him before…" Van looked at Ruhm. "One of your friends?"
Ruhm shook his head. "He looks like a lost traveler. Let's give him a ride to the city, at least. We can further clear up his business here once we've all had a little food to put in our bellies. My stomach is protesting neglect."
Mine too… Hitomi folded her arms on the edge of the wagon wall and rested her head on the cradle as the wagon started to move again, rocking, making her chin knock against her arms rhythmically. It felt oddly pleasant.
I hope these people at least eat normal food. I'm not in the mood to be adventuresome with foods right now. I just want a bed and a bath…and some good food. She blew a piece of straw away that was threatening to go up her nose. Maybe they have good stews. They seem European to me…
"Whoa," Ruhm commanded. The wagon jolted to a stop. Hitomi bumped her nose against her arm.
"Hello there," Ruhm said. "What is your business here?"
Hitomi looked up, rubbing her nose. The boy standing on the side of the path was deathly pale, skinny as a toothpick, and grinning manically. Good god. He makes Van look well fed.
The boy and Ruhm started a conversation. Hitomi rested her cheek against her arms, watching the boy. The first thing that came to mind was that he looked utterly psychotic, although she could not pinpoint why. He had two oddly styled antennae of hair that stuck out with what Hitomi assumed was a liberal amount of gel and what looked like a bad shave across the rest of his scalp that was beginning to grow back. His clothes were black. He was wearing a pair of knee-high leather combat boots that had enough buckles on them to supply a uniform shop for a day. His eyes were so dark that she was sure that he was wearing eyeliner and mascara.
It must be that gothic thing… Hitomi continued to watch the boy talk, concentrating on his face. The boy looked devious, for one thing. She wouldn't trust him any further than she could pick up the entire cart and throw it.
The boy was telling a story with generous hand motions, staring straight at Ruhm the entire time. Hitomi noticed that in one hand he was holding disc-shaped object connected to his ears by a black chord.
She blinked. That was a CD player.
"H-Hey!" Hitomi sat up. "Are you from Earth?"
"Huh?" said Van.
The boy stopped talking to Ruhm and looked at Hitomi. He arched his eyebrow to the point that the same eye bugged out to single Hitomi for scrutiny. Hitomi swallowed.
"Yeah…" The boy turned his entire body around and placed his chin in his hand. He furrowed his eyebrows. "So you're from Earth as well, and you're stuck in this hellhole of a medieval fantasyland as well, are you?"
"Yeah!"
"Wait a minute." Van looked at Hitomi. "'Earth'?"
"It's the Mystic Moon," she said quickly. She turned back to the boy. "I'm Kanzaki Hitomi."
"Well…" The boy bowed. "I am Johnny C. Seeing as we are from the same planet and are compatriots in this strange world and all, you may call me 'Nny'."
"Hi…"
"So…" Johnny looked back at Ruhm. He narrows his eyes when he smiles, Hitomi thought. As if he's trying to balance out that show of kindness with deviation. It's sort of sad…
Ruhm nodded to the back of the cart. "Get in, lad. We'll get you fed and washed up."
Johnny bowed once again. "Thank you."
Hitomi sighed and looked down her nose at the ground. She saw the top of Johnny's head move past, oddly like an insect sensing its path with its antennae. Like a praying mantis… She buried her head in her arms. I have a bad feeling about this…
The cart dipped with slight added weight and then righted itself. Hitomi heard footsteps across the swept planks and then felt weight settle itself to her right on the hay. There was a whiplash and the cart lurched into a roll again.
Ruhm started a new song.
"So…"
Hitomi looked up. Johnny was looking at her. "Where exactly on Earth are you from?"
"Kamakura, Japan."
"Hmm. Well, I'm from America. Your English is perfect."
Hitomi blinked. "What do you mean?"
"Your English." Johnny pulled his CD wallet out of his backpack, opened it, and laid it across his lap. He started flipping through the pages. "You are very skilled. Or are you living in Japan for military or something?"
"I…don't speak English. Wait a minute…" Hitomi furrowed her eyebrows. "I'm speaking Japanese right now. I hear you and Van speaking perfect Japanese."
Van flatly stared at Hitomi. He had just looked ragged and tired before. Now he looked ragged and confused.
"What are you talking about? I am speaking Standard New Gaean. As are both of you."
"And I speak and hear English." Johnny stopped on a page and replaced the CD in his player for a new one. "This is a world in which we have the gift of tongues. The ability to understand each other, be it through some subconscious psychic link of communication or something. I don't know the specifics. Oooh." He looked up. "Maybe somebody installed interpreter chips into our brains why we slept! The beam of light must have been a dream."
Van and Hitomi stared at each other. Johnny did not notice.
"And the scientists have put us into this experimentation world where they monitor our every word with cameras and microphones! Not only do they test their chips, but they do psychological endurance tests! Will we go crazy? Will we believe that we are on an alien planet?" Johnny grabbed Van's collar and shook him. "ARE YOU REALLY PARANOID IF THEY ARE AFTER YOU?!"
"HEY!" Van ripped Johnny's hands off of his shirt and threw Johnny back across the cart. "What the hell are you talking about? You're insane… Jeez…"
Van settled in his little corner in the straw. Hitomi looked from him to Johnny, the latter of whom was sitting up and picking straw out of his hair. Johnny was several inches taller than Van, but Van was obviously much stronger. He really is underfed. I wonder if he is anorexic or something…
"Am I?" Johnny mumbled. "Are you sure I'm not the only sane one?"
"Whatever," Van muttered back.
Hitomi watched Van for a while and then turned her attention to Johnny. The American was staring at Van, thinking hard about something. The wheels were turning upstairs, and it had already been proven that quite a few of those screws holding the proverbial wheels were loose. The question was a matter of how many.
Hitomi sighed and burrowed back into her windbreaker.
She noticed that Johnny had a pair of lethal-looking knives thrust into his belt.
Oh boy…
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He's not fucking serious.
Dilandau watched the horizon line rise perpendicularly to his line of sight as he guided his Alseides to land on the plains. The sunrise was beautiful this morning. Disgustingly beautiful. All we need are for the birds to sing and this will be one fucking perfect picture. I think I'm gonna be sick. Place needs a blowtorch…
The Alseides touched down in the clearing. Johnny's car was the only other object on the vast expanse of grass. Dilandau tilted his head.
"Hm."
So, Folken hadn't lost his mind completely when he said they would find something on the Fanelian plain. It didn't change the fact that Dilandau had been ordered out to complete menial cleanup work.
I'm elite, he thought vehemently. What the hell does the damned Strategos think he's playing at, anyway? This is junk for common soldiers to handle. I have an attack to organize, damn it.
Dilandau heard the hiss of gears switching guymelef from flight to ground mode behind him. Finally. Took you two long enough…
Two weights hit the ground behind Dilandau's Alseides. Dilandau growled and flipped the intercom switch on the control panel. Let's just get this over with…
"Gatti, Migel, you see it?"
There was a crackle of static. Dilandau growled and whacked the side of his Alseides. The metal arc encasing his hand clanged against the casing of the cockpit. What a fucking waste of my time…
"Yes, lord," two voices answered over the intercom.
"Good. Get it and let's get out of here."
The intercom crackled again. Dilandau hissed. That frequency of static was from a distance—
"What do you see, Dilandau?"
The bastard's monitoring my INTERCOM?!
Dilandau made whining noises in the back of his throat with the effort of not screaming. He swallowed and cleared his throat.
"I see a machine of some sort," he growled through his teeth. This is bullshit. "I'm sending you the coordinates. Come get it yourself. And get your fu—cursed bugs out of my Alseides."
"I am otherwise occupied."
Doing what? Shoving your claws up your ass? "I also have prior engagements, Strategos."
"None of which I am aware."
Dilandau thought of how nice it would be to ram his sword into Folken's back until the tip cleared out his chest with his impaled heart. Still beating. That would be nice.
"…Therefore, I assume that you are unoccupied at the moment. Bring the machine back to the Vione and send the coordinates you promised."
Break his ribcage and hope the splinters get his organs. I wish being exposed to the sunlight would make his heart catch fire and turn to ashes. Maybe if I twist my sword the right way I can impale his lungs as well…
"Dilandau, are you listening to me?"
Fuck off. "Yes, Strategos."
"Then you are clear on my orders?"
It would be so easy to make it look like an accident. Or play it off on some poor common solider… "…yes…" he muttered halfheartedly.
"Good. I expect you back soon."
The static crackled off. Before the last snap died off Dilandau roared and punched the intercom panel into the Alseides wall. The wires crackled and showered small, showy but insubstantial flurries of sparks. The arm sheath worked like a brass knuckle in these situations, to his advantage. The feeling of something crumpling and breaking under his touch was therapeutic. Better that than somebody's skull. It would get him into trouble he did not want to deal with. The army was liberal with its red tape.
Dilandau twitched. The intercom speaker was now dangling by a few chords attached to its back. Whatever. It would still work. He had done this no less than five times in the past month alone. Easy to fix. He sometimes suspected that the new unbreakable design for the intercoms had been inspired by his outbursts alone.
Dilandau sighed and pulled his arms out of their sheathes. He pulled his coronet off with both hands and brushed his hair off of his face. The damn thing started to stick to his forehead and trap hair when he was excited.
"Um…Sir?"
He had forgotten to switch the intercom off. Dilandau closed his eyes and rubbed his hand across his forehead. The friction of the leather and skin was pleasant.
"What, Gatti?"
"Should we start to move the wreckage?"
"Yeah. Get to it. Make it snappy. I want out of here as soon as possible."
"Yes, Sir."
The two Alseides behind Dilandau walked forward from either side, moving into Dilandau's line of vision through the view-grille. Dilandau snorted and pushed his coronet back onto his forehead. This was going to be a first-class pain.
"Well, don't just stand there. Move the damn wreck. And get it back in one piece. This is menial soldiers' work. Don't embarrass me."
It would serve Folken right if I brought this thing back after I let my boys have a go at it with their crima claws. Dilandau watched Gatti's and Migel's melefs clumsily stoop down to lift the wreck between them. The Alseides units were not built for this sort of work.
"Well, move it along! We don't have all day!"
"Should we examine the wreck first, Sir?" Migel asked.
"No. Just move the damn thing. Hurry it up."
-----------------
Folken switched off the intercom and pulled his left hand back into his cloak. There was something oddly numbing about using his living hand to perform the most basic of tasks. Reach outside some safety cloak and touch the outside world.
Safety cloak. He looked down at his robe. Security blanket. Why I still wear this thing in the first place. In some pathetic attempt to make myself feel more secure with myself or present an image. I don't even know anymore.
Folken walked to the apex of the bridge and looked down at the levels of control. The sun was shining directly into the windows around the Vione's control deck. The stone room was glaring with sunlight. A lovely image of paradox.
He had been unable to sleep for forty-eight hours. The effects were badly starting to manifest themselves in his thought processes. It's not like I haven't done this before many times, he thought. School to work, days without sleep. Stupor and surrealism. Freedom from dreams. Nightmares.
Insomnia was becoming an incessant problem. Folken had plenty of time to sleep in the past few days, but his mind had refused to shut itself off. Always just beyond the breach of sleep, his thoughts churned. Never. Stopping.
"Van…"
"Lord Folken?"
Folken blinked and turned his head slowly toward the messenger standing next to him. The beautiful, immaculate front he had perfected over the past ten years had never cracked in front of anybody. It was automatic. He no longer noticed its presence.
Thoughts and reality were detached.
"This just came from the capitol." The messenger offered a paper bag with a cylinder-shaped bulge at the bottom. Folken grasped the bag in his claw and nodded to the messenger. The messenger walked away as quickly as decorum would allow.
Still frightened, he thought with some amusement. I wonder if they still believe that I drink blood out of skulls.
Folken opened the bag, knowing fully well what was in it before he tipped a glass bottle filled with white pills into his left hand. The glass was cold, smooth; the pills clicked and clanked against each other and the bottle.
They were kind enough to remember to send my medication. Bastards.
Folken turned the cylinder over in his hand. The pills tumbled against one another and cascaded over slopes formed with each rotation of the glass. Beautiful.
A lovely image of paradox.
Folken clasped the glass in his palm and walked briskly off of the observation deck, down the stairs, past several people that suddenly pretended to be busy and breathed a sigh of relief as he passed without comment, and out of the sunlit room. The pills clanked and tumbled over each other intermittently. The slight vibrations of contact could be felt through the glass. It was easy. Every fiber in Folken's hand was concentrating on the glass, extending itself to the pills.
The glass began to grow warm.
Folken walked into the deepest sectors of the Vione's energist heating chambers, past several converters and heaters of elaborate, wrought iron design, and stopped at the central furnace. The furnace was a spheroid shape, suspended by a wrought iron arm that ran along the ceiling like a single rib before it dropped. It was fed by hundreds of huge tubes connecting to all of the converters in the chamber.
The heat was sweltering in there. The furnaces were heated to levels of white-hot flame. The light was blue, seeming almost cold in gestalt, but was in fact hotter than a room that glowed red.
Another illusion of paradox.
Folken found a pair of tongs in a holder and used them to twist the latch on the furnace door. The door creaked open with a gust of scalding air. Folken backed up slightly and stared into the white flames. The light cast sharp shadows up the angles and planes of his face.
A long time passed.
Folken pitched the bottle into the furnace.
The bottle smashed into the basin of the spheroid contraption.
Folken stared into the fire a while longer before closing the hatch and swooping back up the stairs into the cold hallway. Two worlds of blue light merged into one another, contrasts of temperature, scalding and freezing.
Emotion. Allegory. Irony.
…I wish that I could shut myself off and repair everything…