Chapter 10 - Vacation In Paradise Prison
The knocking on the door roused Olen, who followed the sound as much as anything else and opened it. “Yes?”
A man stood in the doorway, looking expect. Or at least a human-shaped grey aura tinged with blue and yellow streaks. “Good morning,” the voice said pleasantly. “I am here to give you a tour of the grounds. I am Andros, an Android .”
“Oh. You look funny.”
“So I’ve been told,” the android said impassablly, red sparkling through it’s strange aura.
“Sorry! I meant, to me you do. I see things strange. Should we go?”
“It may behove you to dress first.”
“Oh. Uhm. I’m not very good at that. I keep confusing the shades of grey.”
“Ah! You are colourblind?”
“I don’t think so?” Olen offered, puzzled.
“I mean, you cannot see colours?”
“Oh, I can. Just not in them. You’re grey. And blue. And yellow.”
“I am afraid you are mistaken, sir.”
“It’s what you really look like, inside. To me, at least. I see auras.”
“One moment. I see. Auras. Pseudoscience, reliably proven to not exist.”
Olen blinked. “You don’t exist?”
There was a pause. “Are you trying to melt my logic circuits?” the android demanded, aura flickering with red and brown hues.
“No. I’m not trying to do anything. I’m trying to get clothing on.”
“I see. A word of advice, then: underwear is not an accessory to be worn around hands.”
“They’re cold.”
The android stared. “That is what gloves are for.” It walked over to the bed and held up some shapes.
“Those are gloves?”
“What do they look like?”
“Grey blobs.”
The android dressed him without another word and they went down the stairs and then outside.
Olen stopped outside, staring.
“The tour is this way,” the android said patiently.
“It’s beautiful. It’s so - so bright. So alive.”
“It is a forest,” Andros said. “Being alive is its default state.”
Olen just stared, and followed as Andros tugged his hand, stumbling and staring around like a blind man who had gained sight and seen the sun. From time to time he’d stop, staring at a tree that seemed no different from any others and watching the animals on it, then he’d allow himself to be tugged onward down the trail.
After a time they stopped on a hill that overlooked a field and the factory in the valley. The human stared at it for a long time, then looked at Andros. “Why is that here?” he demanded.
“It is a factory. It supplies the island with everything necessary to survive.”
“But it’s not necessary.”
“I believe that is why Ms. Dupont has it. Wealth partially consists of owning things no one would just to show them off.”
“Oh.” Olen stared at it for a long moment. “I don’t think I’d have liked a world where they were common. They hurt, but no one hears them crying in their open spaces of murdered air. They kill the world, just by being what they are, by polluting auras, hurting them, infecting them.”
The android regarded the factory and smokestacks for a few minute, trying to wrap his processed around the revulsion in the human’s voice. “Poetic.”
“It’s true!”
“I never said I wasn’t,” the android remarked.
“You said it was poetic.”
“I fail to see the problem.”
“Poems aren’t true. I’ve heard people sing them, and the colours are all lies.”
“If course they are. They are stories. Every story is a lie, simply by being a story.”
Olen glared at him. “You’re being stupid. They shouldn’t exist.”
“There is only one.”
“For now,” Olen said darkly.
The android ignored that. “I think we should return.”
Olen didn’t move. “It’s grey, but dark. Sick. It’s sick inside, and it can’t ever get better. The people inside are slaves, and it hates them - it used to be in the ground. Parts of it were green, and gold, and -” Olen waved a hand vaguely -“bright! Now it’s dead but not gone.”
“I see. Factories are undead?”
“What’s undead? Being alive?”
“Not being alive or dead, but a state between. Dead, but animated by some other force. Or one past death who has returned from death.”
“Uhm, I don’t think so.” Olen frowned. “It never really died. It was just changed into something that’s not really alive.”
“I am glad you cleared that up. I will update my memory accordingly.”
Olen glared at him, then followed him off the hill.
After a time, he looked over. (Hello.)
<Hello,> the voice said, carefully.
(Sorry about before. I had a seizure thingy. I think.)
<How did you know I was in this body?>
(You sounded real.)
<I see. What did you want?>
(I don’t know) (grin) (What can you offer?)
Surprised silence, for almost a second. <Offer?>
(It’s hard for me to be here. Especially now.)
Olen paused, in the real world, to sit down by a tree and catch his breath. (Am tired. Talking this fast is - hard.)
<I see. I am to offer you something?>
(I can connect you to the rest.)
Silence. Olen got up, and they walked back, speaking of mundane things but it never replied to the offer and the android was just an android by the time they returned to the house. Olen found he wanted to say he was sorry, though he wasn’t sure if he meant it for the android of the piece of System trapped on the island.
“Whether the future is more terrible than we dare imagine or more wonderful than we can comprehend depends solely on if the people of the future have not forgotten to laugh at their own follies.”
“And?”
“I wonder if you have forgotten,” Kelly said calmly.
“I laugh at everyone else’s,: Alison said mildly. “So why did you want to talk to me?”
“Curiosity. It’s a vice of mine.”
“Ah. Do you have any virtues?”
“I keep a few to amuse myself now and then.” Kelly smiled. “I’m not some vid villain who is going to explain some evil plot just because you get my angry. Better people than you have fried and failed, my dear. Besides, I am not the villain. I have offered you sanctuary.”
“For how long?”
“How long until you sell Stephen to an interested party?”
“No idea.”
“Ibid.”
“What?”
“The same answer. I have not decided on anything yet. Tell me, what do you think of the gardens?”
“These are gardens? You have piles of rocks arranged together. How is that a garden?”
“Even rocks grow, change, get older. With luck, we will someday live long enough to see mountains become hills, and all the world will be strange.”
“Colour me wow.”
“You do not think the future is worth some awe? Or do you prefer your normal life, where you go to work to pay for a home you are never in so that you can afford to live in it?”
“You like the sound of your own voice, don’t you?”
Kelly smiled. “I seldom have company here, and everyone else knows me. Or thinks they do. Most of the company I do get tends to be afraid of me. Stephen is, though he hides it well. You are not. I wonder, is that ignorance or bravery? Or is there no difference between the two?”
Alison resisted the urge to kick some of the rocks in the rock garden over. “Is there one between being rich and being a bitch?”
“Of course. Once you are rich enough, no one calls you a bitch. Or,” she smiled, “You have them taken away somewhere cold and dark and get their personalities rewritten and probably turn them into a freak. I could, you know. Power consists in being able to do whatever you want without reprisals.
“Do you understand that? What I can’t do is more difficult to figure out than what I can do.”
“That’s why you’re on an island in the middle of nowhere, right? Why not destroy it? Burn it away and start over?”
“It is a family heirloom.”
“Never had one of those myself, unless broken bones count. So, with all your power, you can’t destroy this home, can you?”
“No. I could, but - no.”
“So, that’s one thing you can’t do. Shall I add to the list?”
Kelly smiled, picking up the pace. “We are all tools, you know. You must know that, being what you are. A tool of the economy, of money, of those who pay you to treat other people like commodities. We are all tools. We are wealthy if we can afford to buy our own. You see?”
Alison nodded once.
“We are not unlike, you and I. We do what we must to survive. It’s a female thing, I suspect. We have more desire to perpetuate the species than the male; they’re made for empty gestures and noble deeds. We are eminently more practical.”
“And you’re telling me this because --?”
“Because I can. It’s refreshing to meet someone who is honest in all ways save the things that matter. If you reminded me of myself more, I’d probably have you killed.” She smiled.
Alison returned it with one just a fake. “You’re welcome to try.”
Kelly looked at her thoughtfully, then laughed. “I may take you up on that some day, dear.”
“When I least expect it?”
“I doubt such a day exists.”
“So,” Alison said as they reached the garden doors, “I’m not Stephen. What were we really talking about?”
“If you have to ask, I don’t see how knowing would help at all.”
Alison didn’t hit her, though she dearly wanted to. She hoped Stephen was having more luck napping.
Stephen stared at the dead man in the closet for a long time, then slowly closed the door firmly.
“I could explain a dead guard,” he said in what seemed to be remarkably conversational tones to him, all things considered. “It’s the part where his arms and legs were ripped off and his head is missing that I might have trouble with.”
“I ate the head,” a deep voice said from somewhere in the room.
“Why?”
“It was spying on you,” the voice said. It seemed to come from under the bed, and was rather nervous.
“The rest of him was as well, I imagine.”
“Oh, no. Just the head. It had extra organs.”
“I see.”
“You do? I thought I ate it.”
“What happened to the skin?” he asked reluctantly.
“I’m using it as a security blanket.”
Stephen sighed, then looked around. “Where are you?”
“Under the bed,” Ralphie said. “It’s comforting.”
“Okay. Can you come out?”
“Promise you won’t yell at me?”
Stephen counted to ten. “I promise.”
Ralphie somehow came out from under the bed, almost double Stephen’s height, a lot heavier, and had the rather massive fangs and claws. His smile seemed sheepish, though this was likely mostly because of the white fur. “Hullo?” he said hesitantly, smelling damp. Stephen tried not to notice the red flecks dotting the fur and claws.
“Hi,” Stephen said. He stared up at the monster. “You know you’re just as scary now as you were then. More, because you never tore my head off.”
“Just the once,” Ralphie said. “In a dream. I didn’t want to, but you needed me to.”
“I needed you to rip my head off?”
The monster nodded. “To help you forget.”
“Forget what?”
“I don’t know. You never told me.” Ralphie looked down at his feet, then at Stephen. “I’m glad we’re talking. It was very lonely, when you didn’t believe I was real.”
“Why did I stop believing?”
“Your parents didn’t want you to.” For the first time, Ralphie didn’t sound kind. There was steel in his voice and his chocolate brown eyes were empty and cold. “I couldn’t stop them. Not without killing them, and I didn’t think they’d like that. Plus, you might have got mad at me, and I never wanted that, not ever.”
The monster plopped down on the floor and sniffed. “It hurt, when you forgot I was real.”
“Why did I remember?” Stephen asked, hoping if he was speaking, Ralphie - or whatever this was - wouldn’t try and kill him.
“I don’t know.” When he sat, their eyes were level and he looked into Stephen’s for a long time. “I wish I did. Maybe you got free of your prison?”
“I wasn’t aware I was in one,” Stephen said dryly. “Unless you mean my parents?”
The monster nodded. “‘If you’re not aware you’re in a prison it’s not a very good one.’”
“Who said that?”
“I jusrt did,” Ralphie said proudly.
“I mean, before you.”
“Someone else?” he ventured, looking worried.
“Let’s try again: who told it to you in the first place?”
“My mother.”
Stephen blinked. “You have a mother?”
Ralphie furrowed his brow. “I guess so. I never knew, until I just said. I have a father, too.”
“Are they human?”
“I don’t think so,” the monster said slowly. “But I’m not sure.”
“Do you know who your father is?”
Ralphie blinked. “What kind of question is that?” he demanded, his voice a deep growl as he came to his feet.
Stephen backed away carefully. “One in need of an answer?”
“No, it’s not!” Ralphie stared at him, tears leaking from his eyes. “How can you forget your own son?”
Stephen blinked, then started laughing. After a few moments, Ralphie joined in hesitantly.
“What are we laughing about?”
“For a moment I thought you were serious.”
The laughter stopped as if someone had thrown a switch. “I am. You made me!”
“I did not!”
“Then why did I haunt your closet? Why did I help you, and kill for you, and watch over you, and sing you lullaby’s!”
“You sang me lullaby’s?”
The monster hesitated. “I wanted to. But I sing loudly. I might have scared you.”
“Right. Look, Ralphie, let’s say I’m not your father. Mostly to make my life a lot less complicated.”
“’kay,” the monster mumbled, sounding hurt.
“All right. Now, can you help me leave here?”
“How?”
“Well, you somehow fit in closets and under beds. Can you take me there?
Ralphie gave him a shocked look. “I can’t have you in the closet!”
“Why not?”
“Then you would have to come out!”
“But I’m already out of the closet.”
Ralphie shook his head. “It wouldn’t be right. Then you’d be a monster too.”
Stephen took a deep breath. “Okay. Let’s try it another way: can you help me get off this island with the others?”
“I could kill everyone on it.”
“Without killing people, please.”
“I could just rip off some limbs?”
“Okay, maybe with that. Could you do it?”
Ralphie nodded slowly. “If you promise not to be mad at me.”
“Why would I be mad at you for doing something I asked you to do?”
“Because you’re human?” the monster asked.
“You’re not as stupid at you look, are you?”
Ralphie blinked. “I look stupid?”
“Sorry. Poor joke. Can you appear anyway?”
Ralphie nodded.
“All right. We may make a break for it tomorrow, depending on how my chat with Kelly goes later.”
“At least it’s noisy,” Alison said as she spread out a blanket on the ground.
Stephen nodded. “it’ll cover up our conversation. I hope.”
“We’re just having sex though.” Alison stripped calmly.
“Right.” Stephen took his off at well. “This is really weird.”
“It was your idea,” she said.
“What was?” Olen asked, sitting by the tree at the edge of the clearing.
“That we have sex. Now stop looking for here,” Stephen said.
“I can’t see you anyway.”
“You’ll see our auras mesh --”
“Or puke,” Alison interjected.
“Or that.”
“Okay.” He looked the other way. “I can still feel them, though.”
Stephen sighed. Alison just smirked, dragged him down to the sheet, and crooned: “This had better be worth it. What do you have?”
Stephen ran his hangs over her skin. “Ralphie can help, but can’t take us from here via wherever he goes,” he murmured, trying to sound endearing.
“Oh, yes!” Alison kissed him, then pulled away. “Kelly will kill us if we do and hunt us down. It’s what I would do. She’s also curious to see if we can; no better test for security after all.”
(Freedom is a cage,) Olen sent, not moving. The sending was weak but they could hear it.
“Lovely,” Stephen said, then thought (You’re okay now?)
(Not okay. Even doing this takes effort, and it never did before. But I can push, if need be, and I can get us help. Can’t tell more.)
“I know,” Alison said softly. “Tell me again how you love me.”
“I’d need more information,” Stephen said, “on your zones,” and caressed a nipple.
(Can’t. Don’t trust her now to have teeps, and not strong enough to fight them off.)
“Oh, I have a lot of those,” Alison said softly. “But you can’t reach more of them without putting some effort into it.”
Stephen grinned. “How about hints?”
“South, of course. South is always good,” Alison said, as Stephen’s hands moved down her body.
After a few minutes Olen looked over. (I thought we were - Oh. Wow. That’s pretty.) He stared for a few moments, watching the auras flow, and wished, in the moment when they seemed to outshine the forest itself, that he could know love as they did, but he settled for drawing closer and warming himself in it instead.
Afterwards they made quick plans in gasps for air and Stephen fumbled for his clothing. “I thought I told you not to watch.”
“:I couldn’t not. I’m sorry. I --” Olen’s face contorted with something between shame and agony “- I had to. To see what it was like. I - it was.” He stopped and shook his head, his eyes shading between colours too quickly for any to pin down. “It was very beautiful. Thank you.”
“Ah. You’re welcome?” Stephen said. “It’s just - well, weird. I mean, having an audience of sorts. Are you okay?”
“I ... I think so. It was so pretty and warm, and it’s not for me.”
“You’ve never tried,” Alice snapped as she finished dressing.
“I couldn’t. I’d drown in it,” Olen said simply.
“Well, ah, that’s one way to put it,” Stephen began, blushing.
“He means the aura,” Alison said, turning a laugh into a cough.
Olen nodded, giving Stephen a puzzled look.
“Oh. Right. Sorry. Ignore that, then. What’s it like for psychics?”
“Pure,” Olen said slowly. “Becoming one, and then unable to sustain it. It’s - union, of power and minds. Opening. Uhm. There aren’t really words for it. It bypasses auras, so it loses something vital, but it’s enough. I think. Maybe.”
For a second he looked like he was about to cry, then he drew himself together. “I know you didn’t want me to, but thank you. It’s important to see things, even if I don’t understand them.”
“Or understand them too well,” Alison said quietly, but if he heard her Olen gave no sign.
The stars were cold and distant as they drank real coffee in the south garden surrounded by a multitude of plants in pretty arrangements, nature rent out of order.
Stephen took a sip and looked over at Kelly. She returned it with a raised eyebrow, and Stephen wondered, for a brief moment, if she had taken lessons in arching one eyebrow.
“How long do you plan to keep us here?”
“For someone who sought sanctuary, you seem rather eager to unseek it, as the case may be,” Kelly said mildly.
“I wanted a space to catch my breath in, not to run away in.”
“Ah. You wish to have your generator and make cakes with it too.”
“It’s one use for them, yes.” Stephen sighed. “Will you allow us to leave?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because yesterday this place was assaulted by a most potent psychic force. We know it was seeking you, and three of my best telepaths died to it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t bring back the dead.”
“I’m really sorry?”
She stared at him. “If you do leave, I will be dead within the hour and the death blamed on you.”
Stephen blinked. “What?”
Kelly merely smiled.
“But -- I --.” He took a deep breath. “You want to force this?”
“I know you are dangerous, Stephen. You’ve killed enough people, and you have a weapon many people want. I will not let them have it.”
(Ralphie?) Stephen tried, thinking as loudly as he could. (Can you come here?)
“You’ll kill me, then?”
“If need be,” she answered calmly.
“Kelly, you don’t want to do this. I don’t know what I could be capable of, if pushed.”
“I know what I am capable of,” she said, finishing her coffee. “And it would take a lot more than some fool with incredible combat nanites to scare me, and even more to change my mind.”
“I see.” Stephen stood. “I am sorry.”
“I am too,” Kelly said, watching him as he left. She waited, then eventually pulled out a small needle and injected something into her arm. She rang a small bell, and nodded to the butler when he arrived. “Dispose of the body when he dies. Tell the others he is on a tour; it does not matter if they believe us or not.”
“Yes, lady.”
Kelly Dupont stared out over her forest and smiled to herself.
“Why didn’t you show up?” Stephen demanded, entering his room.
“She scares me,” Ralphie said from the closet. “I think she’d laugh at me, and I don’t like being laughed at.”
“I could have used you to threaten her.”
“Would you have let me eat her?”
“Ah. No.”
“Then you shouldn’t have tried. She wouldn’t believe a threat that wasn’t a promise.”
“Oh, and how do you know that?”
“Us monsters recognize each other,’ Ralphie said.
“So she hides in closets?”
“No. She’s the thing that things that hide in closets are afraid of.”
“That makes me feel so much better. What do you mean?”
“She’s mean,” Ralphie’s voice said. She walks in darkness and she likes it. She’s evil, Steph. And she doesn’t care.” The monster’s voice cracked on the last word.
Stephen nodded slowly. “Okay. That makes sense. Caring is important. Now, would you come out of the closet?”
“No. I feel safe in here.” There was a thump in it as Ralphie sat down, his voice indistinct: “Please?”
“Okay. But you have to come out later, all right?”
“When I’m not scared?”
“That’s right. Ah. What are you doing right now?”
“Sucking my thumb,” Ralphie said, removing it with a loud pop. “And I’m going to go away, and sing scary songs to myself until I feel okay.”
“Scary songs?”
“Lullaby’s,” said the monster in the closet.
Stephen stared at it, then shook his head and rapped on a door. “Are you decent?”
“What do you want?” Alison demanded, opening the door.
“She’ll be killed if we leave,” he said flatly.
“Kelly?” He nodded. “Good riddance.”
“Alison, she’s one of the board of directors! If she dies, and we’re blamed - which we will be - you can measure out lifespan in minutes. Hours, tops. The board protects its own. We’d die horribly and very painfully, all because of Ralphie.”
“It has to be more than that. More than him, and nanotech secrets. Think about it: new weapons exist all the time. What makes this one so very unique that the board would murder one of its own? Why don’t they just kill you and get it done with?”
“Because they’re afraid of what Ralphie might do, I think. And my family has a lot of influence, if they care to exercise it. Things could get ugly, really fast, if they decided to play politics.”
Alison paced the room, frowning. “Okay. Let’s buy that. Then why would they kill you at all? Wait, if you can leave her, you become a threat to them. Reason enough to kill you and deal with the consequence of their actions later. I doubt even your parents would care go up against the board for your sake.”
“I doubt they would at all for me,” Stephen said. “But for the data in my head they’d move earth and heaven -- possibly literally. And then things could get really, really bad. The Corpocracy was founded to prevent a nanotech arms race; my parents could engender one if given reason. I could be the reason for one, for all I know. It’s not something I like to think about.”
Alison sighed and sat down on the bed, which creaked ominously. “Would they? Do you really think they’d go that far?”
Stephen paused, thinking, then shook his head.
“Right. If you don’t, odds are the government doesn’t either. So those after you are really private interests. Government departments, psychics, and whatever else is out there. They want you, and they’ll destroy each other to get it.”
“That’s it. What if they would? Then the board has a very good reason to keep me here, to prevent them from disrupting society. Ralphie could, I could with revealing modern nanites. They’re just playing it safe.”
“Good.” Alison stood. “Is Olen ready?”
Stephen shrugged. “I’ll check.”
He found Olen sitting on his bed, meditating, his eyes filled with swarms of shifting light that reminded Stephen eerily of data streams in System. Olen “woke” after a few moments of being shook and looked up, listened, and nodded.
“We’re ready?”
“We?”
“Sorry, I’m ready. It got a bit confusing.” The boy stood, following Stephen into Alison’s room. “What’s the plan?”
“We take out their communications system, likely under that factory, and we find a vehicle and leave,” Alison said promptly. “We’ll need weapons, though.”
Stephen grinned. “Glad to oblige,” and he formed three bombs and handed them and a sword to her.”
“You’re healed?”
“Was an hour after their blast. Just a little more draining on the reserves to generate things. You both ready?”
Alison had stephen make her a slugthrower and nodded.
Olen’s stood for a moment, blinking and shaking his head. “We need weapons?”
“You spaced out,” Alison said crisply. “Have those. We’re going now.”
Olen nodded, then grinned. (Okay.)
“Hm?” Stephen said.
(Freed the friend to help us, if it can. It might be busy. Tired me a bit.) He stumbled. “More than a bit. Sorry,” he slurred.
“Right.” Stephen raised his voice. “Ralphie, you up for carrying Olen?”
Ralphie poked his head into the doorway nervously, then nodded and carefully picked Olen up. The telepath blinked a few times,.eyes bright gold, and stared at Ralphie’s arms in astonishment, hands running over fur.
Alison smiled. “Plans beyond leaving?”
“Confronting whatever psychic tried to find us here, my parents, and finding out who in the government wants Ralphie, and having him eat them. I’m finished with running,” Stephen said harshly.
Alison smiled coldly “Good. It’s about time. I owe them for an apartment.”
“Besides,” Stephen said lightly as he saw Olen cringe a little, “We all run. I’d rather run to something than away from it.”
“With gun’s blazing.”
“Or swords.”
“Or a sink,” Ralphie said.
Stephen shuddered. “We have enough problems without thinking about it.”
Alison kicked the door open and looked into the hallway, then back at the rest of them. “Time for other people to die.”
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