Chapter 74

Alja was gone.

The thought echoed through Kaleb's mind, refusing to feel real and yet all too real. He felt numbed and in agony at the same time. It was as if a part of him was paralyzed by the pain of losing her while his ever diligent mind could see clearer than ever. He could watch himself sitting in his HQ office, while Aden was doing something to his body. The medic had insisted on treating his injuries again since he'd torn some of them open while he had run into Alja's retracting shields. He could feel himself not care about being healed and at the same time he let it happen, because he had to function. It was all he ever had done before Alja and it was all he ever would do now. For her.

He looked down at the handwritten piece of paper on his desk – the letter, she'd left there for him to find.

It meant nothing.

It had only cemented what he'd already known. Its only purpose had been to rub it in, to pull those cutting strings of Alja's web even tighter. And it had been successful. He was left in limbo, no longer able to truly live in the sense that Alja had shown him in their short time together. But he couldn't go back to the cold state he'd been in before either. And most importantly, he couldn't let himself slide into the blissful darkness of insanity, not with the promises, not with Alja's legacy tying him to – well at least some form of sanity, to something that wouldn't let him go, that wouldn't allow him to leave everything behind.

She had even told him how she had used emotion to achieve it. It's the same one that got me in the end. And I hate myself for using that against you too. Love. He was sure she had written about love. She had used the very love and trust with which she had given him every good moment of his life to betray him. For her it was the worst kind of abuse of her powers. He understood that. And he wanted to be angry at her, if not for what she'd done to him at least for what she had done to herself. But she'd been right. He couldn't. The only anger he felt was at the world around them, that hadn't even given them a chance, right when he'd thought he'd had a chance for the first time in his life. Because as manipulative and intentional as her actions had been, she had been honest with him in the end. And she had done it out of the same love, she had used on him. Emotion just never was that simple. That was one thing he had learned from her.

But that didn't matter now. He pushed the thought away. It wouldn't help what he had to do. And what he had to do was the only thing that counted. Except for –

"Aden," he interrupted the Arrow, who was telling him not to strain his body too much. Kaleb had registered the other man's talking, but tuned it out. "I know Arrows have some ways to get knowledge that is beyond the reach even of the Council..."

"Don't go there Kaleb," Aden cut him off as if he had read his thoughts.

And for a split second Kaleb was sure he'd heard some kind of warmth in the other man's tone, the kind of warmth that reminded him of Alja. "I have to ask. I have to know for sure." His voice trembled as just for a second all the pain, all the devastation broke though the numbness that protected the logical part of his mind. Aden's response almost got lost in the white noise that crashed into his head. But he forced it down with the vicious control he had honed all his life, the very control, Alja had hated so much.

"She is one of us. If we had any indication that there might be the slightest chance to bring someone back from CR, we would be trying that right now." Aden took a short look at the empty shell that had once been Alja, but now sat unmovingly in a chair ever since they had returned to the headquarters. "I checked that she is physically fine. Let her rest. Sometimes some of the mental functions return with time." But he didn't sound as if he believed it himself.

"Are you done with me? Then get back to finding the children. I'll help you once I've arranged matters around here."

Aden just nodded and was teleported out of the room a moment later, obviously at some silent telepathic command to Vasic, who was already on the task Kaleb had sent the other Arrow back to.

And just like that he was alone. The body that was with him in the room held nothing of the woman who had made that body give him pleasure, made that body something he desired. Because her soul was no longer there. There had been some connection to her, one he wouldn't have been able to grasp a few days ago. But now that it was gone he felt its loss acutely. There was nothing left in her that resonated with him, just his heart bleeding out in to an endless emptiness, where Alja had been. And the impact of her absence was strengthened immeasurably by the stark contrast to everything else around him. Nothing seemed to have changed. The earth hadn't trembled, the sky hadn't torn. The Net lay silent and smooth as ever like a lake that had neither been touched by wind nor even a drop of water that might disturb its surface. No one had known Alja. No one had been connected to her but him. No one knew to miss her but him. All the wonder that she had been, had been a secret. Now it would be his secret alone forever.

No one in or out of the Net knew what they had lost.

But they would. Oh, soon enough they would…

Kaleb, while constantly watching her out of the corner of his eye, avoided looking at Alja directly. He tried to convince himself that it was because there was nothing left for him there, but the truth was: everything was there, everything he didn't want to feel, couldn't allow himself to feel. If he had to look into those empty eyes, he wouldn't be able to function. But he couldn't let her out of his vicinity either. So he kept her close. Since talking to her didn't seem to have any effect on her and he didn't dare touch her for the sake of his sanity either, he simply teleported her around wherever he needed to go. Her natural shields were gone with everything else she had been. So he had taken her mind close to his in the Net and encased her in shields of his own making, solid black walls, similar to the obsidian archive but even harder, rooted deep in the fabric of the Net. She'd been so afraid of someone coming inside her mind. Now he could give her that security, behind shields that let nothing come in or get out – but only now that there was nothing left to get out.

When he brought her to a new room she just stood there, unmoving, not reacting to anything around her. Only when he pushed a chair softly into the backs of her knees she would automatically sit down. So that was what he did every time he had to change location. It wasn't often. He spent most of the remaining day at his Moscow office or other rooms in the headquarters. None of the very few people who saw Alja with him inquired about her. No one had to, because by now everyone had seen the broadcast. And no one dared to because Psy were brought up to look away whenever something happened that reeked of Council intrigues like this incident certainly did.

So Kaleb kept working, functioning like he had always done.

Only at night when he had to force himself to give at least his body the hours of rest it so desperately needed he couldn't avoid her any longer. He had to take care of her. The act made it all come back, the knowledge, the horror, the desperation. And it came with a vengeance, slamming into him, straining the bonds with which Alja had tied him to his sanity to cut deeper, to make him bleed inside.

She was gone. That realization hit him again and again: When he thought of her, when he looked at her, whenever there was the shortest pause in his busy days filled with war.

Her body stood in the middle of his bedroom at his house, her face carrying the same blank stare it had worn ever since he had gotten her out of that damn treatment chair.

"Alja." he whispered her name, his voice trembling.

She just stood there quietly. Her eerie black gaze fixed somewhere in the air. And he couldn't stand it. Everything he'd held inside all day just broke free. He grabbed her shoulders and shook her. "Why Alja? Why the hell did you do that? I could have protected you! I'd have done everything to keep you safe! I would have destroyed the world for you!"

I won't be the reason you turn into the monster you always feared you were. The memory of her answered him before he had even fully spoken the words. He gentled his grip on her, felt his face distort in ways he had never known before. He imagined this was what it would feel like to have his heart torn out of his chest. And just when he thought the last bloody bits of tissue would sever it from his chest a violent surge of hope pulled the tattered organ back inside.

Finally she reacted, her head tipping slightly to the side as if she was surprised at his behavior, as if she'd make some provoking remark any moment. Her eyes seemed to focus him for a second. But it was only because he was the source of the shaking that had unbalanced her. A moment later her gaze slipped off into the empty space once again.

And hope rushed out of him as fast as it had come, leaving him to this excruciating pain again. All his life he had looked down on the feeling races. Even though he believed Silence to be flawed, because it was a tool of power abused by the Council, he had been brought up to believe the ones who felt were weaker. But he learned that error of his entire race now. How strong did one have to be to endure the pain he felt right now and not go insane with rage to numb it or crawl into a corner and simply wait to die?

He thought it would have been impossible for him, had not Alja's web held him so fiercely.

But it did. And it forced him to listen, to look at what Alja had wanted him to see all along.

Yes, her time in the Squad under Ming had taught her well after all. The web she'd spun around him was stunning in its beauty and although he could see all the strings he couldn't free himself from it. It held him tight even though he knew he was being played and it was more perfect than Ming's plans had ever been. It was unbreakable because its strings were neither physical nor mental. They were emotional. And no Psy could touch them. No Psy but Alja. And she was gone.

But it was even more: His earlier assessment had underestimated her completely. Her web was far more intricate and far more complicated than he'd initially realized. It wasn't simply her love she had used to tie him to this world, to reality and the task of saving their race. Because her love would also have been understanding, forgiving if he had given up right then and there.

I know with which emotion you will react, with which emotion you always react. The words from her letter merged with something else she had once said: Guilt. That's what it is! That's what you're hiding under all this Silence. You never knew anything else. She'd been right. It was guilt that kept him trying, even though everything inside him screamed to give up, to end this pain. Even the monster whimpered in its cage. But the thick walls inside his mind muffled the pained sounds. Oh, how he wished he could hide behind those walls as well. Hide from that new guilt, that was even worse than the guilt he'd felt before. With the swan girl he could at least try to pacify the stinging emotion with the fact that he truly hadn't had a choice. And with Her, with his sun mind, he could tell himself he hadn't yet failed. He could still find her, save her.

But with Alja there was no excuse. He had longed for her, wanted her, trusted her with most of his secrets and then bathed in her ability to accept, even love the darkest parts of him. But not once he had tried to do her justice and worked to live up to her trust and to her unwavering belief in him and the goodness she still saw in him. He'd been so stubborn about not having the capacity to be good, he'd driven her to believe it was her fault.

He had walked around like going irreversibly insane was absolutely inevitable, had always believed it was true for him. He hadn't even given a thought that there might be a chance to avoid it. That there might be something he could do about it. But she had. She had believed it, so hard she had sacrificed herself for his chance. Yes, she absurdly had believed he had a better chance without her, as if he had one at all. How could he throw that away? The truth was he couldn't. Now he had to try, had to honor her belief in him although she could no longer see it.

But even the guilt wasn't all. There was one more emotion he hardly dared to admit to himself. And that might be the most fatal one. Alja had used it because she had known it had kept him going through the emptiness before he knew her. It was hope.

As little as he had talked to her about the one mind the NetMind had told him so save, Alja had sensed that She had kept him going before – the sun-mind. That was why Alja had asked about Her, when she'd first tried to make him hate her. That was why she had mentioned Her again in her farewell letter. She had used that hope too, like she had used anything she could find.

But beneath it all, beneath that old hope, the one his subconscious had nurtured for over seven years of his Silence, there bloomed yet another far more unreasonable but far more potent hope. And he had felt its effects just now, when he had thought for a split second he saw recognition in those empty black pools Alja's eyes had become: It was the hope of getting her back. Against all odds, against all facts, against what Alja herself had told him in her letter, against a reality that was screaming in his face, that she was gone, that hope held him prisoner.

Even as she stood there with an endless nothingness in her eyes.

Even as he had to push the backs of her knees against the bed again to make her lie down.

Even as he breathed in her scent of wildflowers after the rain, that slowly seemed to fade too.

Even as he held her unresponsive body as close as possible, the heat of it a mockery of the warmth of her personality that was missing like flesh and skin on a skeleton.

He took care of that body, washed and dressed her not caring that it might cost him precious time. Alja had left the remnants of herself in his hands, remnants of that beautiful radiant being that had illuminated his life for a short while. Her body deserved nothing less than to be treated with utmost care, even if she could never appreciate it again.

Right now he was waiting anyway – for a message from Aden. Soon enough everything would crash and burn around them. And his race had to show if it was strong enough to rise from the ashes.

He would try to his last breath to do right by Alja's legacy. That was why he waited for Aden and Vasic to find the children. That was why he'd even had asked the NetMind about Her, the sun mind, the woman he ought to save, again. But the neosentience had reacted only with a twisted, confused onslaught of information that was too much even for Kaleb to process. When he had asked to slow down, to clarify it had answered simply with a picture of darkness breaking up like walls being torn down, letting golden light flood in, Her light.

Which clarified exactly nothing to him. It was no answer to any of his questions, no indication how to find Her, who She was or how She could be saved. And suddenly there were bits of emotion jumbled up in the pictures the NetMind conveyed, urgency, guilt, as if he hadn't enough of that already. And he wasn't sure if he had never perceived those before, because he had been Silent or if the state of the NetMind simply indicated a new stage of deterioration of the Net. Probably the latter. But the result was that he was no step closer to fulfilling that task, while his time for the other, the one Alja had left him with, ran out. That left him with only one way to deal with the issue of Silence, the Council and saving his people from extinction: his way, and it was a violent one.

One person you do not want to die. It was the thing that had always kept him from taking that violent path. She might get lost, hurt in the ensuing chaos. The one person he cared enough for. Until Alja it had always been Her, the sun-mind, a distant hope, untouchable, insubstantial. Always one thought away from being a figment of imagination. And then Alja had come, with her warmth and light, not idealized, innocent and flawless – although in his eyes she'd been all those things. But most of all she had been real, touchable and now the long harbored dream of that sun-mind paled against the reality of what he'd felt for Alja. He would still try to find Her, to honor his promise to Alja, but the only relevance She had, came from that promise.

So when the message he waited for came in, he decided not to wait any longer. The fall of Silence and the Council was more important. Both had done enough harm.