Episode 4 - Cold Fusion

  Chapter 31 - Operation: Erratic Possibility (or The Plunge)

  I can’t help but watch the feed on the security cameras as we interview the security officer. I can just see the screens over his shoulder. Several of them have a view over the indoor sedimentation ponds where most of the workers and symbionts spend their days and nights. The plant never stops after all.

  The whole facility is covered to try and minimise evaporation for the parts of the process that are open to the air. Getting new water is possible, just difficult. They have a desalination facility where symbionts call the salt from the water. The salt gets used as well, separated into base elements by more symbionts, the chlorine is used for sterilization within this very facility. I’ve spent way too much time here.

  Adrian’s voice speaks clearly in my ear. “Commencing Erratic Possibility. Lock in and sound off. I have tactical command. Everett, you have field command. Confirm?”

  Shion starts suddenly in her chair, flinching instinctually away from the Vespa on her neck. “Sorry, cramp. Continue,” she says to our interviewee.

  “Everett, confirming lock in. I have field command.”

  “Confirmed. Shion, sound off and confirm lock in?”

  “Shion, confirming lock in.”

  “Conrad, do not verbal confirm. Operation has begun.”

  I keep typing on my keyboard as Shion talks, working her way through the interview guide we’ve prepared. But I can’t help my attention from slipping to the other side of the room over and over again. I can see the top of metal water tanks and the roof of the facility through the glass windows beyond as well, the security room is mounted above everything looking down.

  Workers are on the floor between the sedimentation ponds - taking samples, checking meters, busying back and forth with the regular operations of the water treatment plant. Just another shift for them. In each pond, there is the silvery flash of symbionts beneath the surface - species like perciform fish good at separating matter to speed up the process of physical settlement in these ponds. In others, new species bubble oxygen through the water to feed bacteria or help move the water along each part of the process. Their hosts must be scattered through the plant, filling all the other roles needed to keep things running.

  My heart jumps when I see a familiar back pass through one of the camera-feeds focused on the walkways in the later stages of the plant, wheeling a dolly with the Dewar we’ve stored in my room for several days now. His path is in the open, but we’d specifically picked a course to his destination that was less used based on our observations. Sneaking draws attention, but no point in risking too many encounters either. The best way is always just to look like you are meant to be there.

  “Can you tell me more about your process for ensuring each of your team members remains current on their training?” continues Shion.

  I pull my attention back to my hands, and dutifully type the notes that I’m here to take. There’s no changing what is going to happen now. Maybe, like Shion and Everett, I’ll just get used to it someday. Just like I’m getting used to everything else.

  “I’m at remineralization,” updates Everett.

  I glance at the screen again and watch his tiny figure swing the Dewar off the dolly, rocking it from side to side as he steps it to the base of the plastic, caged IBCs full of whatever concentrated minerals are being dosed back into the water post reverse osmosis. Pell is wrapped over the top of his head. Everett punches a red stop button on the control system for the dosing manifold the IBCs are all plumbed into and flips a clear, plastic cover over the controls, then loops a padlock through a ring at the base of the cover securing it. We’d already fully briefed him on Diabardi’s exact lock-out procedures when we got a copy of the protocols in our investigation. To a passing worker, he should look just like any other maintenance technician isolating the systems for safety while he works his next steps.

  I pour my concentration into the words I’m typing in the hope they’ll keep my fingers from shaking. Shion in comparison seems calm, collected. She’s done this a million times, her only job is to keep on talking so the security officer doesn’t swing around and look too closely at his screens for the next few minutes.

  Then something catches my eye in the camera.

  Pooka sits in the middle of the warehouse floor, his tail flopped at his side, his head dropped between his shoulders, his eyes locked on the camera. We blur. I see him through my own eyes, and I see through his, and our hearts beat in unison. His mounting broodiness has been building to this moment. Bodies around us, everywhere, blind, in the quiet before the storm.

  I will be the storm.

  What are you going to do?

  What I have always done.

  In my heart I knew this moment was coming. Something about the ocean seemed to set him off, or the strain of his memories slowly returning the longer he lives, I’m not sure.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  I don’t want to kill anyone.

  I know.

  I know you don’t either. You loved them once, those women in your memories.

  I don’t know what else to be now.

  But there are no leaves there when you go back to the hollow. No wind, no water, none of these things you dream of.

  You dream of them too, you just do not know what it is you dream of. You do not have memories of them like I do. But, I’m not sure they are here anymore. I cannot keep the promises I have made to you.

  But every time you’ve done this, you’ve woken up and it was worse. You have achieved nothing.

  I know. And you will be the last. I will wake no longer after this. I am relentless no more.

  I take a breath, my hands pausing. I sniff as I look at the screen in the corner where Pooka looks back at me.

  “Uh, Miss Storm are you okay?” asks Shion, suddenly pausing the interview to look at me.

  I rub my nose suddenly, looking at her and trying to hold back the tears I can feel.

  “Yeah, I…” I don’t know what to say.

  I don’t want to be a threat to people, I don’t want to be constantly on edge. I want to keep the promise I’ve made to myself and never have to say goodbye to my Dad. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it’d just be nice if it was easier. Just less shit. I want the symbionts to at least be like us, all in the bottom as dregs together. At least, it’d be something.

  I can’t stop you. But, I don’t want to lose you, I’ve only just met you.

  I’m sorry, little pup.

  My mind races for something, anything… and lands on the one thing that is new this time.

  Blow the Erratic, I say to Pooka. Strengthen their bonds and let them see! The ones that still won’t change, you can set your brothers free then. You’ve done this so many times, and it was never better. So let’s try something different with the something new that is here this time, I beg you. Try it for me, one last battle, one last tree clinging to the edge of the cliff. And if it doesn’t work… I promise I will set you free with my own hand.

  Like the woman in his memories, who with quiet calm took her own life when they had finished walking together. Who passed together with love and peace.

  Pooka’s eyes glow in the camera. And I can feel him thinking about it. Actually thinking about it. This was new, something had changed this time. If it was true, if it worked, maybe something could be different. I don’t dare to hope for what.

  You don’t want to drug them?

  I don’t want any of this. I wanted to feel like I was sticking it to the system, while also living another day to do it again. And I want to, I dunno… be happy or something. I still want that. But I agree that this cannot be the way things are… and that they’re worse than I thought they were.

  We will not win what is not fought for!

  I take a breath again. Blow the Dewar. Release the Erratic. And see what happens?

  I will be as fury!

  Once he erupts… there may be no stopping him. I have to control what collateral damage that I can.

  “We need to get out,” I say suddenly, looking at Shion and interrupting the interview.

  “What-”

  “We need to get out now,” I repeat, getting to my feet. “You too,” I say to the security officer.

  I don’t even grab our things, pushing the door open and gesturing to Shion. “C’mon.”

  “What is going on?” asks Shion, trusting me and getting to her feet, leaving the security office calling confused after us. Her symbiont isn’t here, it’s back at our apartments. What about Adrian’s? Do they both need to breathe the chemical, does only one? I have no idea. We’ll find out shortly. The classified file on Erratic’s development described it as only being tested on humans. Weirdly, did they ever think to test it on the symbiont?

  Will I be okay?

  I can feel Pooka barreling through the facility on all four paws, his tongue hanging from his lips and bouncing as he runs. He ducks and dives between people, making his way towards Everett.

  “Adrian, tell Everett to take cover, he won’t be able to get out in time. Then get your own symbionts out. Just take cover, get away from the Erratic.”

  Pooka skids around a corner. I jog down a hallway, pushing open a set of double doors and bursting out into one of the elevated walkways over the ponds. I crash against the railing, leaning over it and looking down at everyone below. One of the workers sees me and looks up, one hand lifting to stabilize his hardhat as he tips his head upwards. I look out over the ponds, up towards the far end of the warehouse where the final stages of purification occur. I feel the Vespa on my ear buzz, Adrian not even bothering to reply to me as my warning passes through him. With a hum of its wings it takes flight, and I don’t even bother to follow where it flies with my eyes.

  Through Pooka’s eyes, I feel him bound with reckless, restless, vengeful joy, his cackle of mad glee bubbling up in his throat. His paws slap against the hard floors as he gallops, then he skids to a halt. All four legs are held braced, his ruff of black mane bristling and his white teeth gleaming. I see Everett through his eyes running, ducking behind some of the tanks, his hands over his head protecting Pell too.

  Pooka absorbs the energy from the air around him, gathering it within his ephemeral mass. Spilled water on the walkway flash freezes solid, the water in the air around him condenses to crystal flakes that drift around him as if time itself stops while he gathers the energy he needs.

  Then the Dewar explodes, shrapnel and white smoke billowing in all directions on a cloud of super-heated steam.