Hey! bestknight32 here! This months chapter is ready so i hope you all enjoy it! I feel like their might be some questions for this chapter so feel free to ask! I also like to thank dahliingg for creating the base of the story and Tim Baril for making this chapter you two are the best! Alright thats all until next time! "Its dangerous to go alone! Take this Next Chapter!"
Amiya led Hayden out of the offices.
"Maybe start with giving me an overview of just what Rhodes Island is," Hayden suggested.
"Of course!" She bobbed her head in agreement as they walked down the narrow hallway. "Rhodes Island started out as a cutting-edge pharmaceutical company dedicated to researching cures for some of the world's toughest diseases. With the arrival of catastrophes and oripathy, RI became dedicated to finding a way to help the infected. To that end, we attract and recruit some of the best people from all over the world, almost all of which are infected."
"How does that pay for all of this?" He gestured to the mobile city around them.
"While our primary focus is on curing oripathy, we also research other things and provide a range of specialized medical knowledge and procedures to those in need."
"Like a research hospital."
"Yes. We also license our work to other organizations and manufacture and sell medicines."
"Still, that can't really fund everything Rhodes Island does, can't it? And how does that explain all the guns?"
"Ah. Yes." She looked slightly abashed. "Well, the world is a dangerous place now and not everyone shares our goals or methods. So we needed a way to protect ourselves. That led to hiring various mercenary groups and a military organization from Kazdel called Babel that had been dedicated to peace. Eventually, we officially folded these into the Rhodes Island organization and expanded. Now we send military personnel to help provide security for others, assist in social issues all over the world."
"So you're like…good knights?"
"Kinda? We participate in the Contingency Contract system. That means we hire our military, communication, medical, and military assets out to other organizations in order to help out with humanitarian disasters and high-pressure operations that others struggle with on their own. It's all about saving more lives."
"So you're an emergency and relief force, with the muscle to back it up. And you get paid for it in return."
"Exactly!" She beamed. "We also have wealthy sponsors, some of whom come to work with us as well. Like Melantha!"
"Wow. That…seems rather altruistic, not something most rich people would volunteer for."
"Yes. Well, catastrophes changed the world. I guess that helped some people rediscover their values, or the better side of themselves."
Their first stop was a dark, quiet room with a lightning symbol on the door. A few green lights artfully spotlighted the pillars and machinery in the place. A complicated mass of glowing cables connected various boxes and silos and tanks of some kind. Nobody was working here at the moment.
She gestured to the machinery. "This is our power generator."
"Uh, looks ominous," he noted. "How does it work?"
"That…a great question." She touched her lip with one finger, thinking about the answer. "Um, I have no idea. But I do know that it works the same way that people can utilize originium to create Arts. But in a mechanical way, not a biological one. Er, I think."
They passed by the shipping department, where staff were boxing a variety of medicines and devices and getting them ready to be sent out.
Next, they arrived outside the Work Shop.
"Closure is waiting for us inside," she informed him. "She's the chief engineer. She's in charge of maintaining the Rhodes Island facility."
"Did I…know her before?"
"Oh yes! Actually," Amiya giggled, "she really enjoys playing pranks on you. Because, you know, you can be kind of serious most of the time."
"I see." If she'd been willing to go so far as to pull pranks, it sounded like they had known each well. He wondered how he should react to her now, given that he couldn't recall her at all. "So she didn't have a grudge on then, I take it? Like Kal'tsit?"
"I don't think so." She pulled open the door.
Hayden spotted a wire or chord in the opening and stopped the door's progress. "Hold up. Is that normal?" He pointed.
Amiya looked around the edge of the door and peered into the room. Looking up, she spotted something. She called out. "Closure! A bucket over the door? I thought we agreed to no pranks this time."
Female laughter echoed around the room. A face popped into view from behind some large device. "Aw, I thought that would get you for sure." She came fully into view. Closure was young, with shoulder-length black hair and dark eyes. She wore black sneakers and a black RI jacket over a long, white t-shirt that reached to her bare, upper thighs. Presumably, she wore shorts or something underneath. A toolbelt hung from her hips, overloaded with technical gear. "Don't worry," she said, reaching for the bucket, "I'll take it down."
"Not a problem," Amiya told her, yanking the door open.
Closure screamed as the bucket landed on her head, drenching her with water. She pulled the bucket off and pouted at Amiya. "Meanie!"
Amiya ignored the other woman and walked past. "I know she looks irresponsible," she told him over her shoulder, "but she's actually pretty good at her job. Don't underestimate her just because she's childish."
"Amiya!" Closure gasped. "I do have good points, you know." She turned to Hayden and stuck her hand out. "Hey. Guess we're meeting again for the first time, huh?"
He awkwardly shook her hand. "Yeah. Sorry about that."
"Not your fault!" She smiled at him. "We get to become friends all over again. Isn't that great?"
He couldn't help but return her smile. "Only if you promise not to drop a bucket of water on my head."
She pretended to think about that. "Hmm. Dunno if I can promise that." She playfully stuck her tongue out at him.
He hesitated. "We were good friends, before?"
"Sure!"
"Did…I mean…did I have any good points?"
"Of course! You're smart, determined, and good at figuring out solutions to problems. My whole job is problem solving, so maybe that's why we see eye-to-eye so much." She laughed. "And I guess some people think you're, uh, cold for various reasons. But you seemed kind enough to me when the time came for it. I mean, different situations call for being different versions of ourselves at different times, right? People need to be understanding of that."
"Kind." He mulled her words over. "I would like to be more kind and less cold."
Amiya broke in. "Anyone can choose to change how they act if they want to. We don't have to be the person we have been if we think we can become better. Not to say that change isn't hard. For you, losing all your memories, it should be easier though, right? You get to choose who you want to be right from the start."
"I suppose," he allowed. "Though it does seem a shame to have lost so much."
"Hey," Closure objected, "it's not like everyone else lost their memories too. So your old friends are still going to be your friends now."
That gave him a measure of relief. He'd been floating in a sea of uncertainty. But knowing he had some kind of connection to others did feel grounding.
A small, flying robot appeared in the air from the back of the room. It was a cube about the size of someone's head. It hovered next to closure. "I'm back. Can I be of service?"
"I need emotional therapy after Amiya's abuse," Closure quipped.
"I am unable to assist with this matter as I do not have emotions," the robot drily answered.
"This is Lancet," Amiya introduced, waving to the flying cube.
Lancet came to hover in front of Hayden's face. It gave Hayden the impression that it was studying him. "Good morning, Doctor Hayden."
"Uh, good morning…Lancel."
"My name is Lancet," the robot corrected.
"Ah, my apologies."
The cube tilted in the air. "Is this an attempt at a joke? I am afraid that I do not share Closure's alleged sense of humour."
"No. Sorry. I lost my memories. I'm afraid I do not remember you."
"Is this a continuation of the joke?" Lancet inquired. "Closure has before attempted to fool others by continuing to lie to them even though that is an evil act."
"It's not evil!" CLosure objected. "I'm just playing."
The cube turned to 'face' her. "You are playing evil. And this is funny?"
"Yes."
"Even to those you are lying to?"
"Some people like being tricked."
"I do not want to be lied to as that would undermine my ability to make effective decisions." The cube rotated back to Hayden. "Would you like me to lie to you?"
"No, definitely not. And I'm not lying. I really did lose my memories."
"It's true, Lancet," Amiya added, trying to be helpful.
"I see."
Hayden shook his head. "This isn't just some regular robot, is it? It has a mind of its own?"
"Of course I do," Lancet answered, almost indignantly.
"But how is that even possible," Hayden breathed, fascinated.
Closure put her hands on her hips and laughed with great confidence. "When you're as great as I am, you can make anything." She winked. Then she turned her head and called out. "Guardian! THRM-EX! Come on out."
Two more robots revealed themselves. Guardian was a vehicle type with six black wheels and a tall, narrow, gray body. It looked like the kind of thing you'd send to space to investigate moons and planets. THRM-EX, with four high-traction wheels, looked like the military version of Guardian, his body black but for a glowing, orange half-sphere for a head that somehow seemed dangerous. Both spoke and displayed their own personalities, further impressing Hayden.
"These are incredible!" he enthused.
Closure looked smug and beckoned to him. "That's it, praise me more." She turned her head and looked at the robots. "You all should be grateful to have been built by such a remarkable, genius engineer such as myself."
Lancet turned towards her. "Ah. This is also a joke, correct?"
She stuck her tongue out at it.
Lancet whirled and began drifting away from the group.
"Hey, I didn't dismiss you," Closure called after it.
The robot ignored her and continued on its way.
"They can disobey?" Hayden's brows rose. "I don't know if that's amazing or terrifying."
Closure crossed her arms. "Don't worry. I call the shots around here."
Guardian turned, ran over her foot, and drove off.
Hopping up and down and cursing at the robot, Closure shook her fist. "Stupid machines! You just wait until your next diagnostic! I'll fix you real good."
Amiya chuckled and took Hayden by the arm. "Come on. There's much more to show you."
Closure waved goodbye and returned to haranguing her robots.
Outside in the hall, Hayden felt uplifted by the encounter. "I think we could be friends. Again."
"See?" Amiya seemed excited. "There are plenty of good reasons to stay."
They took an elevator to another level and entered a dorm area.
"This is one of the civilian areas. It's where people sleep and we have a school here. And—hey are you listening?"
He jerked his head up. "Ah, sorry. Lost in thought. Those robots…"
"Yeah yeah. Ok, they're neat. But I can't wait to introduce you to my best friend. She should be at the school right now."
They entered a hall lined with classrooms. Inside each, a dozen or more students of various ages sat in lectures, experimented with chemistry, or underwent physical training. Each room seemed to have a different purpose.
Amiya lightly knocked on a brightly multi-coloured door and then poked her head inside. "Effy?"
"Come on in," a soft voice answered.
They entered a small room painted bright yellow. From the tiny tables and chairs, toys, and cartoonish posters on the wall, it seemed to be a classroom for very young children.
A tiny woman rose from a desk in the front corner of the room. She had gray boots with bright red laces and gray thigh-high stockings on otherwise bare legs. Her short, frilly dress was white at the shoulders but faded to gray on the wide, flaring hem that just reached past the tops of her legs. A long, white cloak edged in crimson red hung on a hook next to her desk and the red would have matched the red accents and ribbons in the dress.
She turned her head towards them and her very long, light-brown hair was a bit wild and unkempt. Her irises were pale pink and didn't seem to focus on them as she spoke. "Amiya, is that you?"
"Yes!" Amiya stepped forward at the same time that Effy did and the two bumped and giggled before hugging. "I brought Doctor Hayden to see you. Well, to meet you again for the first time, as Closure said." Amiya released the other woman and stood next to her. "Doctor, this is my best friend, a volcanologist, amazing Arts user, and the best teacher in the whole school, Eyjafjalla."
The woman quickly waved her hands. "Oh, Effy is fine. Not that you ever— I mean…"
Hayden awkwardly cleared his throat. "I called you by your full name before?"
She leaned forward and tilted her ear towards him. "Sorry, what was that?"
He felt surprised that she hadn't heard him but raised his voice anyway. "I called you by your full name before?"
"Um, yes. You can, er, could be very formal."
"What would you prefer to be called?"
She opened her mouth and then paused. "Hmm. Actually, you are one of the very few people who actually pronounce my full name correctly."
"It's a beautiful name. And unique, I think? Seems like a good idea for at least one person to use it? No?"
Effy smiled, embarrassed but seemingly happy. "Ok. Thank you."
"Huh. So I should call you Eyjafjalla too?" Amiya teased.
Effy tried to slap the other girl and missed. "No! You call me Effy. You never get my full name right anyway."
"Hey! I try!"
Something seemed off about the teacher and he frowned without realizing it.
Amiya saw though. "Oh, right. You don't know anymore. Effy is a bit hard of hearing. And blind."
"Oh!" He was suddenly mortified. "I'm so sorry. I didn't—"
"It's fine!" she hurried to assure him. "It's how we met. The first time. I came to Rhodes Island looking for a cure."
"You're infected?" he asked.
She nodded.
"Did we…have any luck with treatment?"
"Not yet. But I remain hopeful," she answered brightly.
For some reason that he couldn't identify, he felt guilty in the face of her handicap. She seemed very sweet. It was a shame that oripathy was taking her senses from her. He regretted the fact that his memories, and apparently all his knowledge and understandings of the disease and her condition, were now gone. Could he possibly be of any help to her? Or would she grow worse, perhaps die, because he'd lost so much?
A white-haired, fox-eared woman in a blue dress ushered a bunch of little students into the room. She had sleepy eyes and a somewhat distracted voice. "Come on, everyone. Don't dawdle. Everyone to the back of the room and make a circle."
"Hello Rosmontis," Amiya greeted the newcomer.
She looked up and when she saw Hayden, her eyes widened. "Doctor!" She blinked and then gasped. "Then Ace and Scout must be back." Without another word, she rushed out of the room.
Amiya raised a hand to stop her but the other woman was gone in a moment. Amiya sighed. "Oh no."
"Oh dear." Effy reached out and took a moment to find Amiya's shoulder. "Did something bad happen?"
It took a couple of seconds for Amiya to find her voice and when she did it was broken. "We lost a lot of people on the mission. Including…"
Effy's face fell. "Ah. Rose is, er, was close to them both."
Hayden felt a bit morose himself. He could easily imagine the horror and pain the woman would experience when she learned the truth.
Would she blame him for it? Blame him because they'd all gone off to rescue him and he'd come back alive but they hadn't? It seemed likely. Was it fair? He wasn't sure. Maybe someone coldly calculating, like he'd apparently been, would say that losing a few foot soldiers to recover a top researcher was worth the cost. Unfortunately, he was probably the most useless person on the entire Rhodes Island base at the moment. Because everything they'd hoped to recover had been in his mind and now it was lost.
They'd all died for nothing.
Even he hated himself at that thought.
One of the kids shouted across the room. "Teacher! What are you doing?"
"I'd better go to them," Effy said, regret in her tone. "Sorry. With Rosmontis gone, it's just me here."
"What are you going to do with them?" Amiya asked.
"Well, they're young. I'm going to try to explain a bit about Arts to them."
Hayden's ears perked up. "Arts? Could I sit in on the lesson?"
"Oh, right," Amiya slapped her forehead. "You don't know anything about it."
Effy smiled and bowed her head. "Of course. Although, I'll just be giving a general idea of Arts. Not that anyone's much of an expert, of course."
"You don't know how Arts work?" he asked the two, puzzled.
"Not exactly," Amiya admitted. "Actually, there's a lot we don't understand. But that's part of our research, sort of. RI is more interested in how originium affects the body, but understanding originium, in general, is part of that."
Hayden and Amiya took seats on the floor outside of the circle of kids, none of whom paid them any attention.
Effy took a seat on a stool at the back of the room and began to explain things to the kids, who all listened with mostly rapt attention. "The Arts is a technique that allows us to manipulate and transform matter using the power of originium. To use Arts, we require a fuel or catalyst: originium. Anyone can use Arts if you have originium in a mechanism. Those of us who are infected, however, like I am, can create Arts directly by using the originium in our own bodies."
"How?" asked a little boy.
"Well, I don't know," she answered honestly. "No one does. Yet. But we're studying it."
"So it's like magic?" a girl asked, raising her hand.
"Yes. You can think of it like magic."
"Can I learn to throw fireballs?" asked another, excited.
"Well," she elaborated, "how Arts are used depends on the type of device used. Different devices do different things. And with people, with the infected, our ability to use Arts manifests differently in different people. So while one person can throw a fireball, another might be able to lift really heavy objects, and another might be able to freeze things. It all depends on the person. And no, we don't know how each person differs. Everyone has to uncover their abilities on their own."
Hayden couldn't help but ask a question of his own. "Is there any skill involved?"
"Oh, absolutely! Just like with anything in life, each person has their own level of potential, so that some are naturally stronger or faster to learn than others. On top of that, practicing and developing our skills is very, very important. You can be born naturally very strong with Arts, but if you never use it, you'll be weak. While someone with less natural potential who trains every day really hard will be stronger. As well, we can use various originium devices to help us do different things or bring out our powers better."
This made a great many of the students sit up and happily whisper to each other. Because it meant that anyone could become strong.
Amiya jumped in with her own comment. "How many of you have seen the guns that some soldiers carry?"
Some kids raised their hands.
"And how many have seen people use bows and arrows?"
Many more raised their hands.
"That's because anyone can use a bow, but it takes originium to use a gun. They are special devices that are very expensive and somewhat rare. Because they use originium, guns take more practice to use. So even though they can be more powerful, not as many people use them."
Many of the boys looked disappointed to hear that.
"Now," Effy's voice softened a bit, "there is a cost to using Arts."
That silenced the students and she regained their full attention. From the sombre expressions, everyone expected to hear something awful, and they did.
"You see, even though being infected means that we can use this magical power, doing so makes us weaker. It hurts our bodies."
A boy frowned. "But what about all the soldiers who use it?"
She gave him a sad smile. "For the people of Rhodes Island, they're making a sacrifice. In exchange for being able to do great things and help people, the oripathy in their bodies grows worse and worse. Someday, they will die, even faster than the infected already are."
Needless to say, the excitement had gone out of most of the kids. Because even at their age, they understood death.
Hayden sank into his own thoughts and let the discussion go on without him. The more he learned of this world, of oripathy and the infected, or Rhodes Island, the more tragic it all was. Frankly, it was disheartening.
Thing is, nothing he'd heard from anyone indicated there was a place on the planet that was free of these troubles. These so-called catastrophes, namely meteor strikes, seemed to have delivered some powerful new material to the planet. This had, beneficially, given the people here great power. On the other hand, it was also killing them. Not before some of them, like Effy—Eyjafjalla—suffered along the way to their early grave.
He was somewhat ashamed that his first instinct had been to run away from all this war and bloodshed, from these problems. However, the more he was exposed to the people and the situation here, the more he felt his sympathies fall in line with them.
If only there was some way he could actually help. He looked down at his hands. They were empty, just like his mind. Whatever gifts or skills he'd had were gone. Weren't they? Was there some way to get them back?
Maybe there was, maybe there wasn't. It made sense to operate from a worst-case scenario though, didn't it? Hope for the best but prepare for the worst. If that were the case, then how could he proceed?
If what other people said about him was true, his greatest strength seemed to be his mind. How ironic that this is what had been affected. But while his memories were gone, his raw intelligence seemed to be ok, as far as he could tell. Perhaps he should find some way to mentally challenge himself and test that.
If he was still smart, then he was capable of learning. That meant that he could relearn what he'd lost. Though it was a shame to have to start from scratch and not have all that hard-won wisdom he'd once had.
Then again, perhaps he could look at things from a different angle. When people lived and learned, they went down certain paths. By doing so, they tended to develop certain biases, certain blind spots, certain patterns in how they analyzed and reached conclusions.
By starting over, he was free to take a new path. Some of it would be treading over ground previously travelled, but a fresh start might lead him to reach new insights that the old version of him had long ago passed by. He'd be able to study all his previous research with new eyes and see things in a new light. Theoretically, it would be like having a whole new person on the team and it could lead to new breakthroughs.
Or maybe he was just kidding himself and being way too optimistic.
Still, he was touched by Eyjafjalla's condition and Amiya's kindness. He regretted the loss of so many lives in rescuing him and hated the idea of a world at war with itself. If he could do something to help, like the rest of Rhodes Island, then maybe he had a moral responsibility to do so.
It was something to think about.
