“The transfer rig will take about twenty minutes to warm up,” Zakos announces.
I nod as I watch the doctor approach the steel console beside the tile containing One’s body. He presses a few buttons and the slab comes out with the same hydraulic whoosh as before.
From where I’m sitting I can’t see One’s body. Zakos presses a few buttons on the edge of One’s slab, then presses the console again. The slab whooshes shut.
“You don’t need …” I start, then catch myself before I call her One. “You don’t need to connect the body to me?”
“No,” he says, with professional pride. “All of the containment pods are linked to this mainframe terminal,” he says, pointing at the largest monitor. “Everything besides the pods’ hydraulics are controlled through here: brain scans, vitals, preservation protocols …”
“Do you have other bodies in there?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says. “Quite a few. Some of them are unaffiliated mortals I’ve used for experimentation. The rest of them are Greeters.”
Zakos, oblivious to the fact that I’m a traitor to the Mogadorian cause, explains to me that when the Loric were first scouting for a planet where they could hide from the Mogadorians, they made contact with a few scattered mortals. The Mogadorians captured these humans almost ten years ago and subjected them to a series of interrogations. However, Mogadorians knew next to nothing about earthling psychology or behavior back then, and at that point our interrogation techniques were quite crude. Some of these “Greeters” caved to Mogadorian interrogation, but it was quickly discovered the intel they gave—about the Loric’s locations, what they told the Greeters upon contact—was often faulty. Because of this, my people began an ongoing research endeavor that used complex brain-mapping technology to find a more accurate means of extracting information. In other words, rather than asking for it, we tried to find a way to take it.
“And, as a matter of fact, Anu’s experiment with you was an offshoot of that research. Unfortunately it failed, but I was intrigued. The procedure you are about to undergo represents a massive refinement of his work.”
I can tell that Zakos thinks this little history lesson is complete, but I want to know more.
“And you’ve kept these Greeters alive this whole time?”
Zakos gives a breezy laugh. “Not exactly. We’ve raked their brains so thoroughly trying to extract information about the Garde that all but one of them have perished. Of course we’re keeping the others preserved, should our technology advance to the point—”
“Who lived?” I ask, interrupting him, steering him back to information I know One will want, should both of us survive the procedure.
Dr. Zakos looks at me silently for a moment. For a second, I worry that I’ve raised his suspicions.
Instead, he impishly raises an eyebrow. “Want to see?”
He dashes over to a panel next to another tile and opens the containment pod. After the mist clears, I crane my neck to get a better look.
I see a handsome, solidly built middle-aged man. His skin is shockingly white from being in containment for so long: it’s practically the color of vatborn skin. But otherwise he looks healthy. His eyes are closed.
“Just one moment,” Zakos says, pressing a few buttons inside the pod. Then Zakos leans over the man.
“Malcolm Goode?” he says, addressing him gently, like a normal human doctor addressing a normal human patient. “How’s it going in there?”
Malcolm Goode opens his eyes.
I feel a chill, a wave of nauseating pity for this poor human, trapped in a cold box for years on end.
“Hello,” he says, looking up at Dr. Zakos with an expression of utter guilelessness and trust. It’s like he has no idea how much time has passed, or what he’s been subjected to. “I seem to have forgotten where I am,” he says, smiling innocently. “Could you tell me where I am?”
Dr. Zakos only chuckles in response. “Well,” he says, addressing me. “You get the idea.”
And with that he reaches over to the panel, presses a few more buttons, and Malcolm is prompted—whether by wire or chemical—to return to sleep. But not before he fixes me with a haunted, quizzical look.
I’m under. At first it’s just a void, a black so black I wonder for a moment if this is what One experiences when she disappears. Then come blasts of light and crackling static, as I find myself plunged into One’s memories.
I look around, getting my bearings. I’m in a wooden shack, in bed, my head hanging over the side of the mattress. Through the cracks in the floorboards, I see rushing water: a river.
The Rajang River.
“They’re coming.”
I turn to see Hilde, One’s Cepan. She’s staring through a slat in the door, ready to fight. She rushes to me, shaking me, pulling me out of bed.
