Chapter 17 – Matris Cordis
July 23rd, 2552 - (13:25 Hours - Military Calendar)
Epsilon Eridani System, Reach
Visegrád Relay
(5 Months Later)
:********:
Dr. Elicia Sorvad leaned back in her chair as she studied the screen of her desktop display. Everything was almost ready. Shifting her attention from line to line of the report, she was certain it would convey everything of importance to any whom it may concern. She was aware of precisely who that was: her colleague, sometimes boss and ONI's top xenoarchaeological aficionado, Dr. Catherine Halsey.
She had no doubts that her good friend would be eager to see their findings, or rather her husband's. Elicia certainly was herself. From the parts of his research that her clearance as both his field partner and wife made her privy to, it was clear that the fruits of their labor were in full bloom.
The meteorite crater that took up the last two years of their lives was unraveling more of its secrets. The crater, a millionth the size of the famous one buried underneath Earth's Yucatan Peninsula, was arguably a million times more important as a treasure trove of information. She could think of several dozen other Section III scientists and old friends in academia who'd gladly put their hands around her neck to get it. A sad reality to think of if she weren't just as willing to do the same.
New avenues were opened in the last week for accurate dating of the site. The actions of the excavation team in examining the millions of years of dirt soon revealed to them that it wasn't millions of years at all, more like a thousand centuries.
It all started from an epiphany. Her husband, Laszlo, surely took his time thinking it through. He realized that the radiocarbon dating method they'd implored up until now was in fact flawed. Not only was it not giving them the results they were looking for, it made it seem as though there was nothing anomalous about the meteorite itself. As if nothing was strange about the handful of chemical elements it was comprised of that were all uniquely distinct from each other and altogether foreign to the periodic table.
Then there were the hieroglyphs.
If there was any evidence to refute the possibility that the meteorite was debris flung over to Reach from the formation of the neighboring Beta Eridani system, it would be the hieroglyphs. The inscriptions engraved on the facets of the meteorite were the whole reason why Elicia and her family moved to Visegrád. They were here to answer several questions. Who put it there? What did they make it of that it remained legible even after suffering atmospheric reentry burns ubiquitous to meteorites? Finally, why? Why here? Why Reach?
The first question was the most obvious in the early days. Human civilization on Reach was too young for it to have come from them. Moreover, it couldn't have come from the Covenant. Although samples of their own glyphs showed similar characteristics to those inscribed on the meteorite, there was a profound difference in their respective styles. Graphologically speaking, it was like comparing a three-year-old's handwriting to that of a 19th century novelist. If there was any comparison to be made whatsoever, it was to say that the Covenant language used on their ships and in their religiously infused communiques was a poor hand-me-down, a secondhand imitation of what someone else had decided to write on a random piece of rock.
It couldn't have come from humanity. It was too old.
It couldn't have come from the Covenant. It was too advanced.
That left a third option: the existence of a third power in the galaxy, one far older than humanity and far more advanced than the Covenant. As to the exact identity of this third party, that was anyone's guess but she had her suspicions. There were people in ONI who knew how to read these hieroglyphs thanks to something too classified to be admitted but too obvious to be dismissed: prior exposure to similar samples.
Dr. Halsey was one of them.
Laz was aspiring to be one himself. As a professor both of astronomy and ancient archeology, he was put in the best position to learn the strange language firsthand. He could find what others couldn't and dig up old secrets others wouldn't. When it came to deciphering them however, that was where the pinch came in. They ultimately needed to rely on Halsey's input as much as his own findings. Still, he was gradually gaining his sea legs on the rolling waves of alien linguistics. Seeing him mulling over different pictures of the rock's glyphs at his station, with an ever-narrowing list of possible translations for them, was a sign he was making progress.
Some of those same translations were going into the report that she was finishing for him in her personal office. So was the extra detail under the 'Methodology' section which made mention of the recent change in their dating methods for the meteorite. A switch from the classic radiocarbon to the potassium-argon or K-Ar dating. The new method allowed them to surpass radiocarbon's natural limits which capped at measurements of 50,000 to 60,000 years. K-Ar was able to measure 100,000 to 4.3 billion years. Low and behold, the meteorite was out of the range of radiocarbon dating but just on the lowest end of the potassium-argon spectrum.
Essentially, it and its crater were no older than 100,000 BCE and could be no younger than 97,446 BCE. An old rock in human terms but barely a zygote on the grander scale of the milky way galaxy. Stock-standard observations among the meteoritics community would come away with a straightforward conclusion. The meteorite was part of a larger celestial body. It landed with the estimated force of several Archer missiles. Lastly, it was uninteresting enough to leave where it was or perhaps, for those with greater Egyptological leanings, make a Pharaonic dagger out of it. Not so for her and Laz.
As xenoarchaeologists, there was no way for them to leave the meteorite and its amphitheater-sized crater alone and unstudied. ONI was of the same mind. Such was the reason why the Office was quick to induct Laz into its fold of scientists two years ago. By then, he had already made several similar discoveries on Reach that more than caught their interest.
Elicia was aware of two reasons that made her husband a recruitable associate and not enemy number one. First was his connection to her. She was already a long-time scientist with Section III before he came along. There were serious conflicts of interest in offing the husband of an important employee. Second was his obvious adeptness at discerning geological abnormalities. It was too rare and impressive a skill to kill him for, and one of the reasons why she couldn't say 'no' when he took a knee and asked for her 'yes'. Ironic how a quality she thought made him a perfect fit for her had also kept him alive.
Once the newest crater was discovered, ONI was quick to call on his expertise. He asked for his family to accompany him of course being the family man that he was. So, Elicia and their daughter Sára moved to the location ONI chose for them.
Wrapping up the 'Linguistic Translations' section of the report, Elicia took the chance to give her fingers a rest. She relaxed into her chair. As she did, she took a look around at the building that served as their home and workplace for the past year. Her 'office' was a former maintenance closet that had once served as the office of the site's chief technician. It was refurbished for her use. Despite her desk, a chair and a few amenities left from her housewarming gifts, there were still visible signs of the space's old purpose. Pipes ran the walls which rumbled from the occasional test of backup generators. Large displays and monitors were still providing readouts for her part of the facility, scrolling along oceans of information. Despite the kinks it was better than their last home, Farragut station, by leaps and bounds.
The communications outpost known simply as Visegrád Relay was one of Reach's three primary carrier hubs, the outposts responsible for the planet's interstellar communications. Built into the top of a mountain, the giant, claw-like satellite dish on top of it was a dead giveaway. The open-air of the courtyard was their front lawn. The deep valleys and high mountains beyond the gate were their vista. The road leading back down the mountain they were on was their driveway and the small town at the end of it was their neighborhood. The remote clusters of settlements known as 'kivas' were the closest things they had to neighbors besides the relay's maintenance crews. The small agricultural communities altogether formed a town that was the outpost's namesake.
She was surprised as much as her husband was upon learning of ONI's decision following the discovery of the crater. Even Dr. Halsey told her in their private communiques that their approach caught her off guard. The Office decided against relocating Visegrád's denizens as per the norm for such a find. Instead, Section II conducted a small-scale counterintelligence operation by leaking information on the site to the general public. No mention was made of the strangeness of it or its historical significance. All that was explained was that an investigative team was being sent to conduct research and for locals to continue minding their own business. Interestingly enough, the information was only made public to those locals. These were the very same people who'd left off living in big cities to mind their own business in the countryside. The operation went according to plan and no eyebrows were raised as the investigative team arrived.
What's more, the relay itself was chosen because of its proximal location to the crater. The facilities available to the excavation team as well as the heads of the mission, the Sorvads, made it ideal. Isolated from an already isolationist settlement. Advantageous levels of data transfer speeds thanks to the reliable communications systems. Roomy enough to host a family of three amongst the steely corridors, barrels and crates. A truly spartan existence but not entirely unlivable.
Her new outlook on the place wasn't always the way it was. Before her temporary reassignment, it was truly a stark hovel carved out of a mountain. Metallic, expressionless, dark and cramped. However, her experiences earlier in the year taught her to be grateful for little hovels.
The Battle of Ballast was an event she never thought she would have to live through. When she did, it was an event she never thought she would have survived. She truly wouldn't have were it not for an embedded agent from Section 0, a band of ODSTs arriving at just the right time and finally the penultimate discovery of her life.
Whatever he was, or whatever it was, the ancient construct that referred to itself only by the esoteric name of 'Offensive Bias' was a godsend. Figuratively and perhaps even literally.
What power could make an artificial intelligence last for centuries in a subterranean chamber that had no means of getting there or leaving it? No natural means at least. The UNSC could hardly keep smart AIs from doing the human equivalent of ramming their heads into the walls in their seventh year of life. Yet the Forerunners had achieved this and more. Far more than anyone in ONI's scientific community could expect of humanity thousands of years into the future.
If the Forerunners, this ancient species of aliens more advanced than modern humanity, was capable of creating something like Offensive Bias then surely a rock was beneath them. If the old construct were with her now, she would certainly ask him for clarity on that. Why would a civilization capable of making something like him feel the need to write on a meteorite? Why would they store strange components and artifacts inside it that two years of research couldn't help them understand? More importantly, why would they feel the need to bury him several kilometers underground on a completely uninhabited world? Better yet, if these beings were so powerful, why weren't they here to answer these questions themselves?
What happened to them?
Where did they go?
Why?
So many questions. The fraction of time she had to pose them to the sole intelligence capable of answering them was an injustice. The person who did get to prod him a bit was her friend, Dr. Strawson. He still wasn't satisfied either after their exchange. The terse replies to complex questions as well as the outright expectation that they knew more than they really did was frustrating. It was as if some important context was missing.
What did it mean that the Forerunners 'ceded' them?
What did it mean that those who found him were his 'masters'?
Above all, one of Strawson's unanswered questions lingered on as a gnawing pain in her mind.
The 'plague' the AI mentioned, what was it?
She found it hard to believe an advanced race like the Forerunners would still have to worry about the sniffles. The closest thing she could think to compare it to was bubonic plague and mankind had wiped out that disease years before they started colonizing Sol. So what kind of pathogen were the ancients worried about? Why were they so concerned to the point that it was one of the first things Offensive spoke of when mentioning the planet, that its atmosphere and ecology was sterile, as if a big part of his reason for being there was to make sure it stayed that way?
Then again, there were far better questions to be asked, the kind that kept her up at night if she let them. The true nightmares began when she considered that the AI wasn't referring to people alone.
What kind of a plague could infect an atmosphere, or the bio-geographical composition of a whole planet?
Was that why the Forerunners weren't around anymore, because of some ancient super-pathogen?
If the Forerunners were gone, what about that pathogen? That plague that, all things considered, made the Forerunners sound delusional? Either they were crazy or the galaxy was a far more dangerous place than her wildest imaginations were willing to fathom.
She hoped to God it was the former.
She wondered what her interrogators thought, the people from Section 0 who swore her and everyone else who entered that chamber to silence. Were they just as terrified? Or were they too invested in maintaining gag orders to worry about some scientist's existential dread? Would it even matter if they did worry? Would anything matter if the AI known as Offensive Bias was indeed telling the truth?
Elicia wished from the bottom of her heart that the construct was still with them so she could plague it with more of her questions. Sadly, the loss of the 'Priority One Asset' to a Covenant strike team was a blow to the UNSC that few would ever learn of. The dogmatic alien league hellbent on wiping the stars clean of humankind was able to steal it away. Despite the major defeat it represented, there was still more knowledge to be gleaned from the situation.
The Covenant revered their gods and the artifacts they left behind. Moreover, they wished to emulate the fabled Great Journey their forebears undertook to godhood. These were those same beings they referenced in that famous first message, the one broadcasted to that unfortunate CMA battlegroup at Epsilon Indi: 'Your destruction is the will of the gods, and we are their instrument'. The manner in which the Covenant strike group retreated after retrieving the ancilla was a good indication as to its religious importance. Considering this, it was a minor leap in logic to suggest that the gods of the Covenant's ubiquitous pantheon were actually the Forerunners themselves. And if they were, if these were indeed the gods that 'ceded' humanity, why would they then turn around and ask other species to go and destroy them? Was it a more classic case of antediluvian judgement, that of an angry deity seeking the destruction of a sinful mankind?
If so then what was humanity's sin, and why did the Covenant seem to know so much about it when a contemporary construct like Offensive Bias never so much as brought it up?
Using her own dating on the rock, she could gather that the Forerunner civilization was 100,000 years older than humanity. She suspected it to be even older once their perceived level of technological progression was factored in. Not surprisingly, 100,000 years was a long time to hold a grudge for a wrong or slight that was never made clear to those who did it.
Elicia took another break from the swamp of her inner thoughts but quickly found herself wandering into the next set of worries. More important than ancient intelligences or fantastical plagues was the picture on the side of her desk. The photo within the frame was of a family. Hers. A younger version of herself stared back like an illusory mirror. It lacked the same graying hairs and wrinkles that met her in her usual reflection. The same could be said for the genuine smile on her face that she had a hard time copying nowadays. Maybe it was because of the other two who were present, one of which she was around far less than the other.
Laz was there. He was leaning into her. His iconic mane was missing the grays that took over in recent years but lacked none of the joy in that mischievous grin of his. He managed to look crazy and elegant, yet timeless, the refined family man that was admittedly better at being a father than she was at being a mother.
Squished in the middle of them was the six-year-old face of their daughter, Sára. Having her father's complexion and her mother's eyes, she was strikingly cute even from the womb. Elicia took pride in that. They made a cute kid together. She only wished she'd done more than that.
The photo was of them at a zoo back in Esztergom. They were about to leave and Laz wanted to take a picture at the exit so they could capture the sign on the gate. On the way, Sára spotted a Moa enclosure. It was love at first sight with the nearly three-meter-tall bird and she stubbornly refused to leave it. Elicia broke up the quarrel between the two of them with a compromise; they would take a photo at the enclosure and another at the exit. The negotiations panned out okay and the family portrait gained a fourth member; a Moa standing in the background, head turned curiously to the side. Elicia preferred it to the next photo at the gate. Unbeknownst to Laz, the reason for it was because Sára was more enthusiastic with the Moa, giggling like a lost kid in Santa's toy shop. She counted it as one of those few moments she was responsible for that actually made her daughter happy.
Those were too few and far in between not to memorialize them when they happened.
A lifetime of secretive research projects, field assignments and duties to her ONI benefactors led to a lifetime of separation. Always being away was something she looked forward to at first. Having joined ONI before him, she would leave Sára with Laz while she went on extensive trips around UNSC space. She got to both see and do extraordinary things in the name of furthering humanity's understanding of the galaxy. She uncovered discoveries only a minority of other scientists could ever imagine and even less could dare to speak of. The non-disclosure agreements she was bound to, however, had an effect. They influenced what she could tell Sára or Laz on the long-range calls that Sára always hounded her father for. They limited what she could say. While she heard about new friends or playground bullies, she herself was forced to settle for sparse details whenever the question of 'what've you been up to' arose.
'Not much'.
'Just work'.
'Nothing really'.
It never ceased to amaze her how those few words could sum up their relationship.
She knew Laz would understand. He definitely did once ONI subsumed him into its ranks. But she feared her daughter never did. Over the years their conversations lessened as Sára grew into her own life. The handful of interactions they had usually boiled down to the same answers to the same questions.
'Not much'.
'Just work'.
'Nothing really'.
Laz once explained it by saying 'like mother like daughter'. She hated that saying. It was too much of a gut punch. Even now, he was doing all he could to stay with his family and to keep them close. Meanwhile she had done all in her power to shunt them to the side. She used to be able to use working for the Office as an excuse. With Laz now indeed walking a mile in her shoes and still asking to have his family by his side, she was stripped bare of any and every argument.
Perhaps that was why she took the assignment on Ballast.
When news broke that the Sarcophagus was almost fully accessible, she jumped right on the opportunity to help finish the dig. Thinking back on it, she might have been trying to escape the awkwardness at the relay, for all the good it did her. Coming back home, all that was left to her was the reality she had managed to rationalize away for almost 20 years.
Her daughter was more a stranger to her than the ODSTs she'd known for a day.
Worse, she was soon to become more estranged now that she'd gotten accepted into her favorite university, not that she knew it yet. Elicia planned to take advantage of that.
She failed at bridging the uneasy gap between them after the move to Visegrád. She expected the close setting would drive them closer. As it turned out, proximity was not a guarantee for reconciliation. It could have the opposite effect of teaching one how to avoid a person sitting within arm's reach. Sadly, it did just that. She didn't have a plan then. She did now.
Elicia turned from Laz's report to the communications app in the upper right corner of her display. In a minimized screen was a message from 'The Office of the President – Harvard University'. The letter could have said 'From Gen the living margarita' and it would have read the same way. Harvard's university president, Genevieve Lavigne, was a longtime friend. They met during her own university years when she was working towards her first doctorate. Gen was with her in most of her classes and the two of them quickly hit it off as study buddies. The leap wasn't too big to make from that to drinking buddies at dorm parties or bars they could find off campus. The way her friend could take more shots from a glass than a shock trooper could from a rifle always left her in awe. They'd stayed in contact since then, arguably on better terms than those to whom she held greater obligations. The close connections came in handy however. She of course told Gen when she found out her daughter was applying to her university to study medicine. Gen in turn told her she would let her know ahead of schedule if Sára made it in or not. She didn't disappoint.
The message came in three days ago and Elicia hadn't closed it since. The news was a golden opportunity to prove to Sára that she could still be a mother, to prove that she still cared.
Her connections on Reach came just as in handy as those she had on Earth. She got to know many of the villagers in Visegrád after moving in. Sure, it was Laz's idea to 'get to know their neighbors' but she liked to think it was some of her own foresight as well.
The Varga family took particularly kindly to visits from the Sorvads. The family of third generation farmers weren't perturbed by the outsiders. Rather, they took them in like they were long-lost relatives, following the millennia-old culture of hospitality common to the region of Hungary from which they immigrated. They liked to have dinner with them when Laz, Sára and herself came by. Their familiarity made them the perfect middlemen for her plan.
Sára would be receiving her results sometime this week. Elicia used it to her advantage by working with the Varga family to organize a party for her celebration. A surprise she wouldn't be expecting. So far, the venue in the Varga residence was nearing completion. The food was purchased yesterday, the going away gifts the day before. She would send out invitations to the locals she was on good terms with once Sára got the notification herself. They could setup the surprise event at that very hour and make it a day to remember, another moment where she could see that smile again. It would be all the sweeter knowing she was the one that put it there.
Elicia finished her edits on the report. Making it as fluent and coherent as possible, she sent it on ahead to Laz's computer terminal. She closed off her display and withdrew her datapad from her pocket. The screen activated at her touch. She cruised into the communications application and pulled up the number for the Varga family residence. Several seconds into the call she heard someone's voice. She was hopeful until she heard Mr. Varga's monotone messaging system. She tried again. Again, no response.
She tried a third time. No response.
A fourth, fifth and sixth attempt were met with the same non-response.
Slightly flustered, she tucked her pad away. She wanted to find out how far they were into the final preparations. Sára could receive her notification any day now and she needed them to be ready at the drop of a hat. The anxious fire burning in her gut made her lean out of her seat. She could always go check on them herself.
No, she thought. That could be taken the wrong way. They might think she didn't trust them enough. She did trust them. She just wanted to be sure.
Then a memory crossed her mind. It was shortly after the happenings on Ballast that she returned to Reach. Instead of going straight to Visegrád however, Dr. Halsey called her in for a visit. The meeting at ONI's secretive CASTLE Base was the kind a person could hardly forget, mainly because of the 2-kilometer-long underground elevator ride needed to reach the actual base. Through a number of certified back-channels she found her way to Dr. Halsey's office in the Omega Wing. There, Halsey informed her that she could in fact violate her non-disclosure agreements so long as she only spoke to someone like her. Elicia was hesitant at first but eventually took her at her word. Her AI compatriot Kalmiya was a big help, confirming no other person or AI would overhear what was said in that office.
Elicia was glad for it too. While she came clean on subjects like the Sarcophagus and the ancient construct found inside, she also took the chance to speak on something else. Something she didn't normally ask her.
"Dr. Halsey?"
From behind her desk, Halsey turned from her main display for the first time in their meeting. The light from the screen illuminated her in a holy yet ghostly glow, blue eyes striking, hair whitening, lips pulled tight in an ever-inquisitive combination between a frown and a smile. She peered over the brim of her glasses. Probably having noticed the concern in Elicia's voice, she looked her over with the air of a psychiatrist studying a patient, an impression she tended to give most people she interacted with. "Yes, Elicia?"
Elicia swallowed. "Ugh, do you-...I don't know how to say this."
"You do know." Halsey corrected. "You just don't want to say it."
There was that psychiatry kicking in. Elicia chuckled. "You're reading my mind again, doctor."
That got a faint smile from her. "I don't read minds, Elicia. I simply help minds read themselves and come to their own conclusions about what it is they think." She returned to typing up whatever she was working on. "But if that's what you call 'reading minds' then call me a telepath."
"...So, what am I thinking now, doctor?"
"Of the question you want to ask which, by that confidence you demonstrated in the coherence of that sentence, I'd say you figured out that what it is you want to say is worth saying." She locked eyes with her as she continued to type. "Am I wrong?"
Elicia shook her head. "A bit too on target there." Her hands laying in her lap gripped her pants as she found the strength to blurt it out. "Have you ever regretted not choosing family over work, for not staying with them?"
The typing stopped. Halsey's hands froze where they were. Her eyes widened by a minute fraction as she noticeably stiffened. She quickly broke eye contact, glancing here and there, anywhere except at her. She sucked in a steadying breath and refocused on her display.
"That is...a bit personal, Elicia. I don't know if I have much of anything to say on that front."
"Ugh-, but don't you have-"
"I'm sorry, I can't speak to that. Look, maybe we can have this discussion some other time. Is that alright with you?"
"I-...yes, doctor."
Elicia took the hint and the conversation came to a rather abrupt end. They said their goodbyes. Another lengthy elevator ride and several flights later, she was back in Visegrád. A few months later and here she was thinking on it again.
The exchange was odd. Halsey's calm composure was almost instantly erased with a single question. She never knew her friend to be so elusive on matters that weren't highly classified. The only thing she'd asked about was her family. Maybe it was too personal but she had hoped she was close enough with her by now to be able to ask. Maybe she was wrong. Then again, Halsey was one of if not the most important scientific mind that ONI, if not the whole of humanity had to offer. She had plenty of secrets that many in the upper echelons of the UNSC respected her for. Her, a civilian scientist. With that type of repertoire, there was no telling how many proverbial or non-proverbial skeletons were hiding in her closet. Elicia felt she had a decent idea 'whose' skeletons they might be.
The point stood and so did she from off her chair: she could not end up the same way. She could not let things remain as they were to the degree that she avoided it if someone ever asked her about Sára. She couldn't, no, she wouldn't avoid the subject. She wouldn't avoid her. She wouldn't pretend her daughter didn't exist. Not anymore. She would make sure of it.
Elicia went over to the coat hanger in the corner of her office. She grabbed her jacket and threw it on. She stopped at the door to take one last look at the picture on her desk, at the mischievous husband, the satisfied wife and the gleeful daughter between them.
"Time for a fresh start." She said and left the room.
:********:
Elicia walked out into the chilly dark of Visegrád Relay's data center. The chamber was a wide-open space with three interior floors, the first acting as a base, the second as the actual data center and the third which would take her out into the rest of the facility. She pulled her jacket around her against the refrigerator-like temperatures that permeated the second floor. She passed the bookshelf-sized data servers that rhythmically ascended and descended in and out of containment sub-chambers. She crossed the bridge that took her above the first floor over to the third. She slipped through the exit, up a small rampway and through a short corridor that led into the supply area.
It was a wider space full of crates, barrels and large fuel canisters lined against the walls. None of the usual tech specialists or cargo handlers were at work. They were off-duty, enjoying their lunch hours somewhere in the heights and depths of the facility. She moved through the supply area to the far side. The bulkhead of a door there stood between her and the outpost's control room. The stripes of black and yellow painted onto its frame acted as a kind of 'do not disturb' sign, but she knew the person on the other side wouldn't find the interruption unwelcomed. She typed in the entry code on the keypad beside it. A flash of green and two affirmative beeps later, the locking mechanisms disengaged and the barrier hissed apart.
The control room beyond was relatively well lit the further one went inside. The ceiling lights changed color from orange at the entrance to a sterile white towards the far wall marked '01 Secure Area'.
Standing in front of the handful of central computer terminals was an unfamiliar man with a strange face. Unfamiliar in that he wasn't wearing the partly-reluctant-partly-excited smirk she was used to, strange in that what had replaced it was a sharp focus on what he was doing at one of the terminals. A beige jacket, brown work pants and a beard he could have stolen from Aristotle himself, the overhead lights highlighted everything. To Elicia's shock, her husband was beginning to look his age. Not always a bad sign but it was a solid indication he was stressed.
Stress meant new information, new discoveries, and measuring by the scrunch of his brows as he typed away on a keypad, she could tell it was too big for her to pass up.
As soon as she walked in she barely avoided tripping over a wire that ran from one side of the room to an active generator. It somehow wasn't enough to alert him to her presence.
"Honey?"
Laz continued typing.
She came closer. "Honey?"
He seemed to hear her but his attention never left the display of the terminal he was using. His fingers gained speed on the keypad. Whatever he was working on, it shot past in lines of data that she could hardly make out.
"Laz?"
The typing stopped. His gaze shifted to her before the rest of his face did, giving him a split-second to mask his earlier expression. He mustered a smile and immediately she sensed he was going to lie to her. Or try to.
"Hey Ellie. You need something?"
"Did you see the edits for the report I sent?"
His eyes flickered to the display. "Oh yeah, I-, I did. I saw it come in."
"Did you...read it?"
Laz opened his mouth and the words failed to come out. After a brief hesitation, he shook his head. "Ugh, sorry, I haven't. I've been busy."
"With?"
Laz made a calculated gesture towards the terminal without looking at it. "I was reviewing some supplementary data I thought would be a nice bonus for Dr. Halsey. I know she likes as much information as possible on projects like these, evidence for some of the minor claims we might make, especially with plausible hypotheses of what we're dealing wi-" He cut himself short. A flash of worry disrupted his otherwise calm façade.
Elicia noticed. "Plausible hypotheses of what we're dealing with? Is that what you wanted to say?"
"Yeah. Sorry, I'm a little out of it today. Tired. That's why I want to get this done as soon as possible."
"Tired?" The word itself made her take a closer look at him. His eyes were bloodshot. His shoulders were slumped.
"How long have you been up?"
He sighed. "I haven't slept since yesterday to be honest."
"And why's that?"
"This report I'm sending in, I'm a tad concerned what Halsey will think when she reads it. I was rerunning as many of the timeline calculations as I could to make sure everything's fine."
There was no clear lie yet. Elicia wondered if what she was seeing could really be chalked up to exhaustion, that is until she realized the lie was right out in the open.
"You were double checking calculations for the time projections?" Elicia asked. "Laz, that's what I was doing. Its literally what you asked me to work on in my review for the last few days. We were working on the same thing."
He smiled nervously. "Right. I wanted to see what problems we'd notice so we could compare notes, see what if anything is amiss."
Elicia stood unamused. She folded her arms across her chest and stared him down until his pretended confidence gave out.
"Okay, stop looking at me like that. You're making me more nervous than I already am."
"Why are you nervous in the first place? This isn't the first update we've given Halsey on the goings on with the crater. I've never seen you this anxious about it." She leaned in, lowering her voice. "What's really going on, Laz?"
Laz matched her stare with his own, albeit tired and uncertain. At length he rubbed the back of his head as if to comfort himself. His voice came out sullen yet pronouncedly honest. "I have some new information on that crater and the remains of the meteorite. It...changes things. I need to make an addendum to the report."
"An addendum? Changes things? Well, what'd you find out?"
She watched him turn to the door behind her, to the corridors leading into the room and to the hatchway in the ceiling behind him.
"What're you looking fo-"
Laz put a finger to his lips. He pointed twice to his ear. Elicia slowly caught on. He wanted to make sure there were no other ears that might be listening. There was silence between them for several long seconds as they tried to hear if anyone else was around. Nothing aside from the natural processes of the outpost came to ear. Now more certain they were in fact alone, he took in a deep breath and held it.
"Latchkey."
Elicia stood erect as a shiver traversed her spine. "From the crater!?"
Laz's finger shot to his lips again.
"Sorry." She whispered. "Is that true?"
A slow nod of his head confirmed it. "No one else knows, no one. I haven't so much as told the excavation team either. I was debating whether to tell you or not for the past hour. I'm 90% positive what we have on our hands is something impossibly huge. Too huge, I'd say, for two people to keep under wraps. It might even be too big for ONI. I have the draft for the addendum on the screen here. However," He held up the small computer on his arm for her to see the screen. "These are the big takeaways that I've been able to piece together. Etymologies, lexicography, translations, they're all cross-referenced to support my conclusions about the texts we managed to compile."
Elicia ran through it. In under a minute, she understood the gist of what he wanted to report. Her instinctual rationale was to tell him to hide it rather than include it. If she was right, this would be the kind of discovery that got scientific minds like themselves laughed out of rational circles. However, if his findings were indeed accurate, then the Sorvads had just made a discovery the likes of which compared to the first functional lightbulb of the 19th century, the first airplane of the 20th and the first translight engine of the 23rd. It might very well beat them all.
"You're certain?" She dared ask.
Laz's reddened gaze pinned her in place. "I stayed awake for the past 48 hours just to be certain that I'm certain. I'm sure of it, Ellie." He tapped a key on his personal computer and the display of the main terminal stopped scrolling, settling on a finished section of the addendum. His voice came out as a man far away and growing even more distant. "This is going to change everything. Everything."
"Scratch that." She said, putting her hand to his cheek. "It already has."
Though tired, he was quick on the uptake. He leaned in and kissed her.
As he pulled away, she beamed from ear to ear. "I'm proud of you."
His mischievous grin resurrected, the one she always loved to see. "It was a team effort."
"Then I'll take one for the team." She kissed him again and nodded to the terminal. "When you send that in, put your name on it. Just yours. "
"What about everyone else?"
"You're the one who led this whole operation." She patted his face. "You can add us in after you've gotten your name out there."
"How am I supposed to do that?"
"Finish the addendum obviously." She joked. "Then you'll need to be ready for the press conferences."
Her jest got her a laugh. "We'll have to see if I can still fit in a tux at that point."
"Mhm, oh, and send a copy to me if you can, preferably keep it untraceable." She walked off towards the nearest corridor. "Don't mention you sent it to anybody else. I want to read the whole thing myself when I get back."
"No problem, ugh-, wait, where're you headed?"
Elicia stopped. "Oh, I forgot. I'm going to the Vargas. I want to see how far along they are."
Now it was Laz's turn to eye her with suspicion. "So, you are still serious about it then? The surprise party?"
"Indeed I am, and I want to make sure I get a front row seat to her reaction."
Laz scrutinized her appraisingly like she was a scientific associate well on her way, or a mother finally laying claim to her title. "Proud of you. She's going to flip when she finds out you did it."
"That's what I'm counting on. Remember, keep it between the two of us. It's called a surprise party for a reason."
"I will."
Elicia recalled a nagging question she wanted answered. "And you're sure you don't want to come?"
His visible satisfaction subsided somewhat as he shook his head. "More than anything, I want this to be a mother-daughter experience. You two can bond over this. I don't want to get in the way. If I went, she might think it was all my idea and clog her ears when you say otherwise. You know how she goes."
Elicia did know. She was reminded of another reason why she was happy she married him; moments like these. "You'll figure something out?"
"Don't worry. I'll have my own way of celebrating with her when the time comes. Plus, at this rate there's no telling what this discovery will mean for my work schedule. I couldn't say for certain if I'd be free to come down to the Vargas' place."
"Alright then. I'll leave you to it."
Laz hailed her off as he returned to the computer terminal. "Be sure to ask them for me if they need help with anything else. I'll be sure to put in a call or two if it keeps things rolling."
"I will. Be back in a few."
Elicia moved on with greater strength in her stride. She walked away, feeling that the two of them were finally switching places. He was going to finish his work while she was going to make things right.
:********:
The door of Visegrád Relay's southern entrance crawled open. Elicia stood in wait until there was enough space to squeeze her way out. When there was, she took a step forward, got a glimpse of someone standing on the other side and knocked into them.
The two of them staggered for a second. Getting herself aright again, Elicia turned to see who it was. She looked into pools of blue eyes, bangs of brown hair fastened under a headband, a figure she could have mistaken for her younger self were it not for Laz's more olive skin. Standing in front of her was the little girl in the picture frame. Only she wasn't so little anymore. She was grown up now but still young, a strong jaw and just as beautiful as Elicia remembered being at that age.
Sára straightened, allowing Elicia to see what she was wearing. Brown work pants like her father's and a gray shirt beneath a leather jacket was all she needed to guess that her daughter had gone out. Sára regained her balance and the pair of goggles around her neck swung to a stop. There was a flicker of shock on her face at seeing who she'd run into.
"Anya?"
The slip of Hungarian, the Sorvad's mother tongue, was a prime sign Sára was either nervous, flustered or both. Elicia was nervous herself, feeling a familiar burning in her stomach.
A tense silence passed between them as they realized the awkwardness of their predicament. Elicia moved to break the ice first. Sára was faster.
"Wait, are you-...are you going out right now?"
Elicia chose her words carefully. "Yeah, I was going to go get something."
"Oh." Sára let out a long sigh. She gripped the strap of her small handbag tightly and averted her gaze.
"Is something wrong?"
"Huh? Oh, no-no, its nothing."
Elicia sized her up. "Are you sure you're okay, sweetie?"
"Well, do you have a minute?" She met her gaze again. "I-, um, wanted to show you something."
Elicia detected the earnestness in her voice and realized the gravitas of what she had to say. "Yeah, of course, go ahead."
Sára brightened up. With hesitation, she reached into her handbag and pulled out her personal datapad. "I actually got some news from the university I applied to. They said I-"
"Can it wait?" The question slipped out on its own. It was in the air and in her daughter's ears before Elicia could take it back. More came out. "At least until I come back. I'll hear you out, I promise. I just need to run a quick errand first."
She saw the surprise on Sára's face before she saw the hurt, a slight lessening of the smile that she hadn't seen in years. She'd killed it again.
"Oh, ugh, yea-...yeah, it can wait."
"You're positive?"
Sára gave a curt nod but said nothing more. By that point it was dawning on Elicia how hard she'd just screwed up. The acceptance to Harvard must have reached her earlier in the day. She was probably on her way to tell her parents, mostly Laz, when she ran into her instead. The first person she runs into for such an important part of her life and this is what she gets when she tries to tell them?
"Wait," Elicia said. "Actually, why don't you tell me now? That's better than having to wait forever for me to come back."
"No, it's fine." Sára said more adamantly. "I can wait."
Elicia never thought three words could feel so painful. She felt the burning in her stomach rise into the back of her eyes. She wanted to correct her mistake. She couldn't see how. Sára had already clammed up and there was no telling if she would ever open up to her again. Without warning to herself or her daughter, she gave in to the urge to cradle her face in her hands. Sára appeared shocked but didn't pull away. It was enough.
"Sweetie, look at me."
She did.
In that moment, Elicia wanted to tell her that she loved her. That she was proud of her.
The words fell short.
"I'll be back in no time."
Sára's smile returned. It was a pained thing. Not honest. Forced. "Okay."
Elicia let her go. The conversation ended there and she left the awkward atmosphere behind, not looking back.
She came to the outpost's inner courtyard. The area was awash with supply crates and waste barrels in need of moving. A skeleton crew of the relay's cargo handlers were hard at work, sacrificing their lunch break for a lighter shift later in the day. They maneuvered their cargo into the loading building on the western side of the relay. Some chatted from the driver's seats of the pair of flatbed transports parked around the yard or meandered about the cargo pens beside the entrance. None took notice of her. She was happy for it and hoped none of them saw what had happened. If they did, they made no move to show it as she walked by.
Section II's work paid off. Its envoys had warned these workers to mind their business around the Sorvads before they came to live there, preparing the way for them. Consequently, it gave her few friends to talk to around the place.
She came to the outer courtyard from which she could see where the highest parts of the relay merged with the neighboring mountain. She set her sights on the small civilian flatbed variant parked there. The spade was an excellent means of getting around Visegrád, great on open plains and versatile on inclines. The orange hooded vehicle was the Sorvad's sole means of transportation, their family vehicle. She climbed into the driver's seat. It was still warm from Sára's recent use and so was its engine.
She turned the key in the ignition and got the rumbling response she wanted. She reached for the rearview mirror and angled it to suit her needs. Doing so put the world behind her into focus.
Sára hadn't moved from the entrance. She was still standing there, looking back at her.
Elicia saw a somberness in her stare that hadn't been there before. She shut her eyes against the sight, stopping herself from running back to finish the conversation like she wanted. She put on some gas and drove towards the gate in the surrounding wall. Its motion sensor reacted to her presence and the gate slowly lifted. Fighting down the desire to turn around, she drove on through to the outside.
:********:
Stupid.
Idiot.
The two words arose in varying combinations in her head while she drove. The long winding road around the mountain was giving her too much time to think. Her thoughts refused to leave the conversation. The pointed criticisms of 'should have' and 'could have' chattered on in her mind like a pack of demons. She gripped the wheel hard and pressed on the accelerator in an effort to silence them. It worked, mostly.
She would make it up to her later. Later.
Elicia blocked out the pain tugging at a part of herself she didn't want to deal with just yet. Another occasion to throw on the pile of wasted opportunities.
She sped down the road, crossing the first bridge that spanned over a small chasm. She drove on to the second bridge which was larger than the first and with a better view. A brief glimpse at the waterfall on her left made her feel a piece of the tranquility a place like Visegrád had to offer. The sound of running water crashing into the river below was able to drown out the worries and regrets vying for her attention. The distant mountains on her right were a picturesque ideal for a resort. Sadly, or thankfully, the region's isolated location only made it attractive to rugged individuals like the Varga family and ONI personnel on special assignments like herself. The fraternal moons of Csodaszarvas and Turul were out above the horizon as well, a bonus that transformed the landscape into a kind of holy land for nature-lovers.
Her inner struggle subsided and Elicia felt free to think on other things again. Reaching the Varga family residence was at the forefront. She came to the end of the bridge where it fed into a massive wall of rock that jutted out of the ground like fingers and hands. At the center was an open underpass that would take her through. She drove into it and came out one of the exits.
Here the asphalt disappeared. Left in its place was an ever descending and ever rising terrain of grass and rock and dirt. The surrounding trees of yellow and red leaves grew towards the sky in a twisting ascent, as if they were intent on snaking into the clouds one millimeter at a time. Their great height was outmatched by the digit-like walls of rock that encompassed much of Visegrád, turning the town into an interconnected neighborhood of canyons, rivers and bridges.
Elicia piloted along a dirt path that passed for a road. She drove by a house tucked in an out-of-the-way corner on her left. She decided to take a look. The house and its storehouses were built into the mountainside itself after the fashion of medieval Scottish hovels. The overall residence belonged to the Horvaths, a family of grain farmers famed for hunting down any of the local Moa that dared step foot on their property. Their ruthless efficiency gave them the respect of the townsfolk and the fear of the Moa who tended to keep well away from them.
She spotted the small courtyard beyond the storehouses and the two-story house beyond that. There was no movement in the yard. It was a strange thing to see given how the Horvaths liked to keep themselves productive like most of the town. Their spade was parked in the driveway and there was no one in the storehouses either. But she thought she saw someone looking at her from one of the windows of the house. They dipped out of sight before she could see who. That was strange too. Then again, the Horvaths did like their privacy. Everyone around here did.
The feeling of being watched didn't leave her though. Before she fully passed the house, she saw, or perhaps her eyes fooled her into thinking she saw someone standing on the roof. Not standing exactly but not sitting either, more like crouching. It was so perfectly still that she was unsure if it wasn't simply one of their chimneys. It was a blur of gray amidst a world in motion and just as quickly as she noticed it the house passed out of view.
A loud squawk pulled her eyes to the road as something dashed past her hood, barely escaping a head-on collision. She gasped and slammed the brakes. The spade screeched to a halt. She took a moment to compose herself and loosen her death grip on the wheel. She checked the rearview.
Behind her, a flock of Moa were running in the opposite direction, wings bobbing, heads turned aside to give her a frenzied glare. They sprinted as a group towards the Horvath residence. They passed perilously close to it before disappearing around the bend. Another oddity.
Under normal circumstances, the Moa would have avoided going anywhere remotely close to the house. They never liked to come this way thanks to their fear of the corner-side hunters. So why were they okay with it now? More importantly, why were they this active at this time of day? They were mostly evening and nighttime animals, so why the change? Tense, she took a look around, wondering if the reason they were on the move was because they were running away from something. If so, what?
She saw nothing. The road down the hill ahead of her was empty. She allowed herself to breathe a little easier. Still, she remained on her guard while she got back underway.
As she drove, she sensed something was wrong. There were no trucks out and about on the road. No people on foot either. Just the flock of agitated Moa.
Where was everyone?
She arrived at an area where the road leveled out. It was a strip of even ground that ran between a hillier spot on her left and a river on her right. There she slowed to look around again.
There were storehouses on the hill on her left, atop a grassy alcove within the walls of the canyon. She was surprised to find no one tending to the bundles of hay left outside the storehouses. It was very much unlike the Vargas to not look after their own goods.
She looked to the river on her right, beyond the house-sized islands within the waters to the actual housing complex on the other side. It was a sizable complex, on the larger end of the spectrum of Visegrád's homesteads. It was the largest in this kiva and too big to miss. On the other hand, it would be easy to miss the Varga family themselves. They had more room than they needed behind the high walls surrounding their property, the size of which tended to remind her of a small fiefdom. Big or not, there should have at least been someone outside dealing with the barrels on their exterior patio or renewing the paint on the walls.
There was no one.
There was no sound besides that of the nearby waterfall cascading down the canyon walls and into the river.
Out of curiosity, she pulled out her datapad and attempted to call them. There was no ringing. The call didn't even go through. Confused, she tried a different tact and called their neighbors, the Fekete family, who lived right up the hill from them. There was no ring again. This time the device gave her a notification that she was out of signal range. She wasn't certain how so she ran a diagnostic test. The results were shocking in themselves. Both her short-range and long-range communications were down with no sign that they were soon to be back up again.
Now with more questions than answers, she decided to chalk it up to her datapad going faulty. There was no possibility, no logical reason why she would suddenly lose service from the relay to here. She threw her truck in reverse to perform a three-point turn and drove for the bridge leading across the river.
She navigated onto the patio in front of the walls of the Varga residence. The gateway on her section of the wall was wide open and she drove on in.
The inner courtyard was empty. However, there were a few barrels and crates cast here and there seemingly at random. This too was unlike the Vargas. They loved keeping things organized both inside and out.
The house itself was large and yet quiet, its windows dark. She parked in the driveway and called out to them.
"Albert!? Luca!? Theo!?"
She waited for a reply. None came.
"Anyone home!?"
She waited again to see if she would get an answer. After 30 seconds of abject silence, she realized she might not get one. Maybe she needed to get closer. She pulled out the key from the ignition and left the truck to simmer down. She crossed the courtyard and walked up the stairs to the front door...except there was no door.
Where it should have been there was instead a gaping hole. Pieces of wood and metal were scattered on the ground and she found herself stepping on the fragments. Some of the shattered frame still remained lodged in the side grooves and she heard a repeated clicking from inside. The sliding mechanisms were still trying to fasten themselves into place around the door that wasn't there, as if someone had tried to lock it.
Her heart fell into her stomach. Someone had broken into the house. Alarm bells rang in her head and she was flooded with the desire to leave. Her rational mind, or what she hoped was the rational part of it, stopped her from running to the truck.
She needed to see the inside. If the Vargas were harmed in any way, she was the closest thing they would have to an ambulance.
The nearest authorities were kilometers away. The distance was on purpose since Visegrád was a town that preferred settling its own affairs. That was also its greatest danger. There was no sign of the neighbors either. If anyone was seriously injured in there or worse, there would be no help that could reach them in time. She needed to make sure they were okay, and if not, to help how she could.
Elicia shut her mouth. She didn't want to risk calling out any more names by accident. She might have already given herself away on the off-chance that whoever broke in was still inside.
One hesitant step landed her on the threshold. Another brought her into the interior.
Most of the lights were out. The few she could see flickered spasmodically in the far-off corners of what she knew to be the living room. She did her best to avoid stepping on more of the splinters from the door, dragging her feet through the debris. This only revealed more debris. Larger and larger objects got in her way. She quickly went from dragging to stepping and eventually pulling her legs over things she couldn't see. If the difficulty of moving around was a good judge of her surroundings then she was looking at a living room in chaos.
She felt along the walls for a light switch, found it and flicked it on.
The lights themselves seemed to hesitate. A full second passed before they were on. It was as she'd thought; the room was indeed a mess. Couches and chairs were overturned, coffee tables broken and vases shattered. The display projector the family loved to gather around was knocked off the wall and lay broken on the floor. So were the party streamers and banners that read 'Congratulations Sára!'.
There were signs of a struggle, a brutal one at that. There were claw marks on the tables, scratches on the couches and burn marks on the walls. There was blood too. To her horror she found stains of red were strewn all over the furniture. There were drops on the floorboards and thick pools behind the couches.
Worse yet were the bloody handprints and footprints scattered about. Some of the latter were unusually large, more like boots. They weren't random either. She noticed how these strange boot-prints ran alongside handprints that clawed desperately in the opposite direction; drag marks, several of them, all of which led down a hallway.
Her heartbeat rose from her stomach and clogged up her throat, tightening it so she could hardly focus. Then something saved her from being suffocated by the madness around her. She once again felt she was being watched.
She slowly turned back to the door. There was nothing outside. She looked around the room and noticed something out of the ordinary. Of the large boot-prints of blood heading into the hallway, there was a pair of them further into the room which were side by side. There was a mild depression in the floorboards there, as if something or someone had stood there for a while.
As if they were still standing there.
Elicia's chest shook from the labored effort it took to breathe. She slowly reached down to the floor and picked up two of the door fragments, never taking her eyes off the spot. She stood back up. Feeling her heart threatening to beat out of her chest, she tossed one of the fragments in the direction of the two boot-prints.
She never saw it land. She never heard it either.
Her breathing quickened. She swallowed hard and risked throwing the second fragment. This time she both saw and heard it land, passing through the air above the boot-prints without issue.
She relaxed a bit. Still alert, she turned to the hallway and took gradual steps towards it. She listened for movement. There was none. It gave her the strength to step out into the hallway. The blood trails ran down its length before turning left into a room at the very end: the kitchen.
Her progress forward was a series of calculated steps, each measured with the right amount of weight to keep the floorboards from creaking. She made her way to the end of the hall without touching too much of the blood. There was a lot of it and it came in more profuse amounts at the threshold.
She braced herself against the wall and slowly peered inside.
The smell hit her before the sights could. The room was dark but she could smell something awful. A strong stench emanated from within that made her dry heave. She managed to hold in her lunch and willed her fingers to search the walls for a switch. She felt a finger make contact and turned it on.
Never in her life had she regretted something so immediately.
Beneath the lights, above the kitchen table, were the Vargas.
Everyone was here. Albert, the father. Luca, the mother. Theo, their son.
All were here. All dead.
Their limbs were shackled with chains that were strung through the ceiling itself like a weaver's thread. They were left in various states of mutilation, the likes of which more than deserved the silent cries and voiceless screams frozen on their faces. The horrors they must have witnessed were evident to any and all as it was written into their very flesh.
Luca was hung on the left side of the kitchen. A number of deep gashes crisscrossed her body and stopped at a bloody abscess in the side of her head big enough to fit a fist through. It still steamed.
Theo, the six-year-old son, was hung on the right side of the kitchen. There weren't as many gashes on him. There was a particularly deep one at his throat however. Whatever had cut him had done so with such effort that, even though it didn't look like it, there was very little keeping his head connected to his shoulders.
Albert was the worst of them all. He was hung in the middle and had more chains wrapped around him. It may have been to keep him restrained while his wife and child were tortured. It may also have stopped him from fighting back as something gutted him from the waist up. The carnage didn't stop there. The hole carved into his belly revealed innards, exposed ribs. Some of it had fallen to the floor below, onto the smashed celebration cake of which the 'ra' in 'Great work, Sára' had been erased by viscera and wanton destruction.
Elicia didn't move. She couldn't. Despite her mind screaming for her to run, she had neither the strength nor the will to move. She couldn't feel her legs. Everything was numb.
Then suddenly she could feel everything.
She felt the floor disappear from beneath her feet and found herself staring at the ceiling in one swift, jarring motion. No, that wasn't right. The floor hadn't disappeared. Something was holding her up, not by her arms or by her legs but through her back.
Fresh blood splattered the ceiling as she heard a hiss, something sizzling, humming. She finally registered the pain. A white-hot sting came into focus at the center of her chest, emanating throughout her body in waves of agony that grew worse and worse. Her limbs seized up. She struggled to lift her head. When she did, she caught a glimpse of the blade of azure plasma sticking out of her stomach.
Blood, hers, sizzled and evaporated around it. She felt it steaming, burning and cauterizing her insides.
She wanted to scream but realized she couldn't breathe. Her strength ebbed. She used what remained to look behind her, an agonizing turn of her head that brought her face to face with nothing.
There was nothing holding her or so it seemed. Then she recognized the odd refractions in the ground below, the shimmer, a slight movement.
The active camouflaging deactivated like water rushing over rock, revealing the full visage of the creature that had just impaled her.
The Elite wore a familiar armor. A color of crimson, blue accents and a large helmet rounded at the back. A zealot.
Its face was too close for comfort. Its mandibles were shut. The dark marbles of its eyes were staring at her with the air of an animal but the premeditation of a sentient being. It watched her. She realized it was waiting to see how long she would take to die.
The pain was excruciating now. She wanted to scream, to struggle, to do anything other than what it wanted her to do. She started convulsing. Somehow, she found the air to cry out but it was muffled by the blood that came spewing out of her mouth. Some of it landed on the Elite's face. Its mandibles twitched in displeasure. Before she knew it the blade was withdrawing from her body, torturously slow at first then all at once. She fell to the floor and landed on her stomach. More pain greeted her upon impact though not as much as she would have thought.
She lay there motionless. The Elite towered above her as it waited. She got to see what it had used: the energy dagger on its wrist. The blade of energy still shone with her blood. The Elite deactivated the weapon on its right hand. With its left, it took an object out of its palm and tossed it to the floor. It landed in front of her and she recognized it as the first of the door fragments she had tossed in the living room, the same one she never heard land.
She tried scowling at it to show her hatred for it. For what it had done to the Vargas, would it had done to her, what it could still do to many others. With teeth soaked red she gritted them in anger. Her rage soon gave way however and her countenance faltered. The need to get air into her lungs stole her attention. That too was a task which proved more insurmountable by the second. She didn't know which scared her more: the torment of trying to suck in air or the fact she was growing numb. A newfound exhaustion pulled at her consciousness. She fought against it but saw it for the losing battle that it was.
Movement returned her focus to the Elite. It must have noticed she was on the brink because it turned away from her and strode down the hallway, its footsteps so disturbingly silent that it seemed to vanish back into the nothingness from which it came.
She heard a commotion outside not long after it left. There were the harsh squawks of Jackals, the whining barks of Grunts and the terse commands of an Elite giving orders. In a short while, the sounds also left her awareness.
Blood pooled around her. She strained to get on her feet. In the midst of her struggle, she spotted her datapad on the floor. It must have fallen out of her pocket when she was attacked.
Through ragged breaths and pained sobs, she reached for the device. Her fingers fell short. Her arm collapsed to the floor and showed no sign that she would ever be able to lift it up again. At that moment she remembered the diagnostic test she ran before she came inside. There was no signal. Regardless of if she reached it, she couldn't reach them. Visegrád Relay was in the dark. Laz, Sára, there was nothing she could do to warn them.
The weight of her reality killed the last of her strength and her head slumped to the floor. Her eyes grew heavy. She sensed herself slipping away as her world began to darken.
She remembered her conversation with Laz in the control room, her chat with Sára at the door and saw now that it was the last time she would ever get to see them. She wouldn't get to see the smile she wanted to, of the adorable little kid holding onto her parents for a picture at the zoo. It would never appear again over a celebration cake in front of people who were also like family to her.
Then Elicia's fading mind made a realization which crushed her more than the pain she could no longer feel. Sára, when was the last time she told her what she thought of her? Did she know that she was proud of her, that she loved her?
How could she know? Her mother never told her that, and now she would never know.
Matris Cordis – Mother's Heart
