Chapter 3: A Friend to Power
The great hubbub of voices echoed throughout the station as Colonel Ari Ben Zayne marched through the station. The flow of people around him invigorated him, made him feel strong. This post was his, as it should be. He had always known he was destined for greatness, especially in the military hungry Human Remnant. Few people truly understood the lure of the military in this post-apocalyptic human society, but he intended to ensure that nobody ever forgot the name of Ari Ben Zayne.
He had powerful friends, more powerful than most people realized. He was on his way to meet one of these friends now. One of his friends was Alfred Bester, current leader of Psi-Corp. Even Vice-President Clark owed him a few favors.
His every step was precise, and fell heavily in the wide corridor. Babylon 5 had always meant to be his. Not that slackard Jeffry Sinclair. With the other man's current assignment it had led the way for his ascension. There was some resistance, including from Commander Takashima. She was enamored with Sinclair and did not take kindly to her new superior officer. Ben Zayne cared not for the feelings of those around him, but he required obedience. Pure and simple.
He lifted the data-pad again to ensure he had the proper location for the meeting. Brown Sector, Area 6, Level 6. He sniffed, his muscles contorting around the scar that slid down his face like a singular hanging thread from the web of a spider. An odd place for a meeting of friends. Brown Sector was called by the local military personelle "Down Below" but at any rate, it was a heavily undeveloped part of the station. Many rooms hadn't been completed there and in many cases the area had been left open, except for a massive amount of building refuse from lazy people who cared not to get their jobs done.
He passed by some of the technical staff who saluted him as he passed, turning from their repairs as they did so. Ignoring them completely, he stepped up the the door that separated Blue from Brown Sectors. Raising his hand to the button panel, he input the open door and it slid open.
"Are you sure you want to be going in there sir?" one of the technicians asked. "There a lot of loose floor boards in there sir. I'd hate to have to pry you from out of a floor that gave way."
"When I want the opinion of a blue-collar worker I will ask for it," Ben Zayne snapped, throwing his head back as the door slid open. "I have business over here."
"Business?" the man frowned, "Must be some shady stuff, sir."
"Mind your tongue or I'll have you thrown in the brig," the Colonel snapped, and stepped through.
The door slid shut behind him as he stepped through. The sound wasn't loud and with a smug smile he continued to walk through the Brown Section. He was at once greeted with the smell of dust. Lots of dust. It had always amazed him that dust could get so heavy in a place with little human traffic. As the Chief Medical Officer on board would say, dust was a product of dead skin cells, both human and alien. And he knew for a fact that not too many people ventured here, besides the occasional construction crew who actually wanted to do their job.
He had gone only about a dozen feet when he felt the section of floor his right foot fell on sag slightly underneath the weight of even the touch of his foot. He looked down, and saw that the piece of flooring wasn't finished floor. He had been in construction as a teenager before joining the military and remembered from experience that there was three parts to making floor. One was the actual layout. The second was a lesser floor that acted more as a mesh web. This was an invention of the year 2200. This mesh webbing was very fragile but when combined when the third part of floors, the actual top floor panels, they would mesh together and create a metal that was tougher than anything seen in any of the other races. Say what you wanted to about inferior Human technology, there was no better floors in this part of space.
Ben Zayne might not have liked it, but he was going to pay heed to the warning of that technician. Even if the man was a cheeky b-ard that he had a right mind of reprimanding for speaking without permission. Everywhere he looked, the floor reminded him of a large chessboard and he did not intend on falling through and breaking his leg or doing worse damage.
He didn't know how long he moved through "Down Below". Could have been ten minutes. Could have been an hour. He hadn't brought a watch, deciding against carrying one today. Because technically it was his day off, even if he still wore his uniform. But this friend would not be kept waiting. It was never a good idea.
After what seemed like an enormous amount of time, he turned around a corner and with a start pulled up short. There stood a Vorlon, his environmental-suit a set of triangles before the falling robes that surrounded it. The suit was a swirling set of colors, blue, white and green. No color was predominate over the other.
"Ambassador Mor'losh," Ben Zayne inclined his head, "It has been a long time."
"What is long to the mouse is nothing to the swaying tree," the Vorlon replied in a deep voice that sounded like the rumbling of old Earth automobiles. That was why Ben Zayne assumed that Mor'losh was a male, because of his deep voice. But what the Vorlon meant, he had no real idea.
"You called me to meet you," Ben Zayne said, "Although I am surprised you would want to meet here. Why not somewhere more open?"
"Some matters are best left where eyes and ears cannot overhear," the Vorlon replied.
As Vorlon answers went, that was a pretty straight forward answer. Ben Zayne nodded, and the Vorlon turned and headed off, gliding away. Some people claimed that Vorlons walked. But Ben Zayne didn't believe so. They were far too graceful to be walking. They walked for a few minutes in silence. Waiting was futile, Ben Zayne knew, because a Vorlon usually didn't act unless acted upon.
He opened his mouth to speak but the Vorlon interrupted him surprisingly. "The wise wait for the wind before setting sail. The time for standing still has passed."
"What do you mean?" he pressed, "What is happening?"
"The Shadows are here," the Vorlon said and Ben Zayne halted in mid-step. Ben Zayne knew all about the Shadows and their desire for chaos. He realized they were a threat. And threats needed destroyed.
"Then the rumors are true that Sheridan found them?" he asked, moving forward, "What do they want here?"
"What do you want here?" Mor'losh asked.
Ben Zayne rolled his eyes. He wasn't sure he would ever completely be comfortable with the Vorlons propensity for vague answers and deflection. He once again wondered if the true power of Vorlons was simply confusion the enemy with their cryptic wisdom and counter-responses.
"What do you plan to do against them?" he asked.
"We need a weapon," Mor'losh answered, gliding around a crate piled high with building material. "One that is not expected."
"So a secret weapon then?" Ben Zayne asked. He liked the sound of that. Mor'losh turned to him and his eye-stalk zoomed in an almost human frown.
"No," Mor'losh replied, "Unexpected."
Ben Zayne close his eyes and rubbed them. He wasn't going to argue with Mor'losh. It wasn't going to do any good.
"What is this weapon going to be?" he asked.
"Unexpected."
Frustration well up in Ben Zayne. D-n Vorlons. Always making it difficult.
"What can I do for you then?" he asked.
"Open your mind," Mor'losh said and Ben Zayne frowned as suddenly the stalk opened wide and a beam of white light stabbed through his eyes and held him in place.
The light throbbed several times, Ben Zayne unable to move. He felt his understanding broadening, even though he felt pain surging through his every atom. He felt as if he was on fire, his blood boiling inside of him. There was nothing but understanding and pain.
With a shuddered gasp, the pain stopped and he collapsed to the ground, his eyes squeezed shut. His body trembled from the ordeal, but the pain was already vanishing. As if it were snow retreating from before the sun.
"We are now one, weapon," he said, his voice intermingled with the voice of Mor'losh who now resided inside of him. "We are unexpected."
Raising his head, he opened his eyes, and they glowed white.
"Can you really expect me to believe that you are responsible for the Vorlons taking over Ben Zayne?" Gideon asked, thrusting his staff to point at Ben Zayne, who was now struggling to stand. "They made him a weapon, unwilling though he was. They gave him no choice."
"But they only took him over because I had met with the Shadows," argued Sheridan, sitting on the crate with the building materials that the Vorlon and Ben Zayne had passed. "It was a direct response to what I did."
"Had it not been you," Gideon remarked, "It would have been someone else that brought them here. Unhappy chance brought you to that impasse. Only arrogance claims that we are the center of the universe and we are destined to be the creator or destroyer of worlds. We can make choice to make either of those happen, but chance is the greatest and purist definer of events and actions. Not us."
Sheridan looked down at the ground. The more he was with Gideon, the more he began to think that the shadow of acceptance to the truth was creeping around. But he was not yet ready to give up on his self-loathing. There was too much that was left to justify the guilt he felt.