Emergence (11 page)

“Sinful Archusssa!” yelled a tall man with a long grey beard. “They should’ve killed you out in the wastes!”

“Heathen!” yelled another. “Heathen!” soon yelled many men, women and children, as they gathered at their doors to watch her pass.

“Looks like you’ve made some friends,” jeered one of the guards leading her.

“Die heathen die! Die heathen!” they cried, throwing scraps of garbage at her. She slipped and fell from one, and to her consternation, instead of being helped up by the guards, they let her lie in filth as a crowd gathered to pelt her more.

“Please,” she pleaded, whimpering, “help me!”

The guards laughed more, and only after most had their fun throwing garbage in her face, did they pull her up and press her on. Eventually they got to a lift, and Melissa felt relief as the thick metal door closed, silencing the deafening cries for her extermination.

“God, does she stink,” said one of the guards.

“It’s all that blubber,” said the other. “I think that sussa stuff make’s ‘em smell even worse.”

The lift stopped, and the doors opened onto a dark, damp level. They pulled her down midway, and threw her in a small room.

“Looks like you just won yourself a quick weight-loss program,” sneered one of the guards as he closed the door. “One meal, once-a-day, and you just missed yours. Maybe you should’ve eaten some of the shit they threw at you.”

Melissa sat back and cried as they turned out the lights and filled the darkness with howling laughter.

Chapter 11

The darkness enveloped Melissa, smothering her senses like a thick wet burlap bag that had no chance of relief or reprieve. In her childhood, the nighttime was when all the bad dreams came. For months one dream would repeat over and over as if it were stuck in an eternal loop. In it she was chased down a wide courtyard of marble steps, running with a flowing red gown she wore trailing behind her. She could never tell who she was running from, but they gained strength with each passing moment. She would turn to fight, but find she could manifest no sussa. Her hands hung impotent in front of her as a dark cloud came ever closer. She cursed it, forbade it to come any closer but it was all for naught. She would feel it consume her, stuffing itself down her throat and blotting the light from her eyes. And that was how she woke, screaming, thinking the darkness in her bedroom was the blackness that consumed her in the dream.

Over the years Melissa forgot the dream. It faded as most childhood terrors do, becoming blurred with the passage of time. But in that pitch-black room, she remembered it with full clarity, and while the darkness sought to claim her yet again, drown her sanity in a sea of fears, she net it with a clinical precision worthy of Richard.

That isn’t me -- it probably happened she who was me.
She took a deep breath.
Darkness holds no hold over me. I am different, I am myself; I am I, and if I want to survive I must think
.

She leaned back and closed her eyes, trying to concentrate. Back over all she had read she flew, trying to remember any mention of being deprived of the use of sussa, but the old woman was right; the Archsussa was an arrogant thing. Not once was there ever a mention of being caught, of facing a foe that could negate the power of sussa.

She scanned her prison, looking for any opportunity. There were no windows -- whatever room it once was, it must have served a similar purpose. The only air and light came from three holes cut in the thick metal door no larger than a woman’s fist.

She slumped back.
With my sussa, I could rip open the door and kill them all. I could blow a hole in the side of this vessel and fly out of here
. She sighed.
I need to sleep, but if I lie down, I will lose some of my power. But I just can’t think clearly
. She lay back on the cot in the room, feeling her eyelids getting heavy.
Just a few hours, so I can clear my head
.

It was as she closed her eyes that she heard Toby’s voice.

Toby?

She bolted off the cot and scrambled next to the door, putting her ear against one of the holes. She could hear Toby speaking with Richard.

“We will attack the Freilux in three weeks; we would be much stronger with your forces with us.”

“I have spoken to Desli may times about this, Nemesnik, but our feelings about sussa still stand; we want a world where a normal human is in control.”

“And how would you levitate the cities? How would you extract water from the ground?”

“We manage to live here,” answered Richard with pride in his voice.

“In metal caves that are cold, dark and damp? Where the only light you get is this false imitation set in glass? I have promised you several times and I make the promise again; if and when you help me overthrow the Freilux, I will allow open ‘scientific’ investigations. You will no longer be forced to be a fringe -- you will be a part of mainstream society.”

“We have heard your pledge, and agree it is a magnanimous one. But we also know our weakness. A few of us might stay true to our values, and spend the days researching. But many of us would probably grow accustomed to the easy living the Archsussa provides, and in time forget all about science. No, for us as a people, as a world to move forward, it has to be without the likes of you and your kind.”

Melissa waited, wondering what Toby would do.
He’s too headstrong to take that kind of insult
.

“You know, I could take great offence to something like that -- especially after all I’ve offered. It wouldn’t even strain myself to obliterate this place.”

“The last thing we are is stupid, Nemesnik,” countered Richard with venom. “Believe it or not, we are capable of negating your power. If you raised your hand against us, in here, it would be the last time you raised it.”

Their voices were silent again, and Melissa screamed with all her might; “Toby!”

“Some Archsussa might succumb to your science, Richard. But we who are steeped in the power for many years, know ways around certain things. The box you hold at your side, enables you to pull a voice over great distances, true?”

“Yes.”

“Well, my father may have died ignobly, but in the early days of his reign he was a strong and wise Archsussa. He discovered ways to pull our power over long distances, to affect things halfway across the world. He created a web which supports us all in time of need.”

“Toby!” screamed Melissa again, “Toby!”

“I think you’re bluffing.”

“And I you,” said Toby, “but neither of us would want to find out. I’ll take my leave of you, and leave you in peace, but remember; I am at the peak of my powers, and it would be folly to challenge me. If you want to rid this world of the Archsussa, you best wait until I am long dead.”

“Toby, don’t leave me . . . please!”

She could hear several doors slam, and knew they had gone.

Why couldn’t they hear me?
She heard footsteps coming to the door, and when she backed away, a tall guard opened it.

“Your screaming won’t do you any good, little heretic. What you heard was over our radio. They were meeting several floors above. How do you know the Nemesnik anyway?”

Melissa sighed, feeling defeated. “He’s my brother.”

The guard nodded with approval. “Well, at least you got to hear him once more, before you die.”

After he closed the door, Melissa began to feel hopeful.

An invisible web from which I could access sussa?
She went back though what she had read, but could find no mention of such a thing.
Was my brother bluffing? Or was it kept secret, as an emergency failsafe in case of something like this?
She sat down again, relaxed, and began to concentrate. She opened her mind more than ever before, trying to feel the slightest hint of sussa.

Through the night she focused, not moving, not thinking of what awaited her in the morning. Though her body wanted to collapse from fatigue she pressed her mind on, scanning around her. She began to sweat and shake, so hard was she focusing on finding the sussa.

Am I being too straightforward? If this web was hidden, then perhaps the content itself is also hidden, so no one but an expert could find it.
She pressed down, as if she were opening a ribbon, searching within the folds of existence. Finally, she felt something powerful pull her.

Is this it?

It was as if she discovered a narrow vein of gold hidden in a rockface. She touched it with her mind, and instantly was able to conjur a small firesphere.

“Power!” she cried, utterly relieved, “at last I have power again.”

She stood -- slowly, as her body was exhausted. Yet as she stood, the firesphere vanished.

I can’t manipulate this source properly -- it feels as if I would need months or years to properly adapt to it. Toby has had the time, but I haven’t.

She focused on the door.
But I don’t need a lot of power to escape
. She silently broke the lock in the door and opened it, seeing one guard at the end of the hallway.

I should kill you
, she thought to herself,
but I don’t need to
. She reached out to his mind and rendered him unconscious. Slowly she staggered to the small metal room that moved, got inside, and pressed a button she hoped would take her to the surface.

The lift moved up for a few moments, opening its doors onto a long white corridor. Melissa moved quickly but quietly down it, looking in several windows at people preparing food. She was desperately hungry, and fought with herself at every whiff of food about staying and stealing and eating or just moving quickly out. Somehow she resisted, finding an airshaft at the end of the corridor that she hoped would lead her to the surface.

She climbed for what seemed to be an eternity. Never had she felt more scared, or more fat. She barely fit in the shaft, and it was difficult pulling herself up the thin metal rungs.
I never thought climbing would be this difficult. Or maybe it’s that I never thought I was this . . . pathetic
. She stopped in the middle, catching her breath, feeling the chill of cold air sweep down inside.
If I get out of here, I can’t go the way of Toby. I can’t stay this fat -- I need to sleep, and find balance in my life. I . . . I hate myself
.

For the first time she had an epiphany about her emotional state. No matter what was being done to her by the community of the scientists, she was wreaking more havoc upon herself.
It doesn’t help they are so thin – I feel fat in front of them. Those people could have thrown anything at me, but they threw food. They dared me to pick up the scraps and eat in front of them for their amusement. I don’t know if they hated more that I use sussa, or that I’m fat
. She sighed heavily.
I never even thought I would call myself ‘fat.’

Up ahead she could hear the sound of wind screaming through a crack, and she pressed herself on, reaching a small hatch left slightly open. With all her might she pushed it open, revealing a vista of limitless white snow. For the first time since coming across the scientists she laughed, and managed to smile.

I just need to get far enough away, and I’ll be able to use my sussa
.

She clambered out, and began to quickly wade through the snow drifts.

“Stop right there!”

She turned, and found ten men pointing black metal weapons at her.

“If you try to run anymore,” said one of them, “we will shoot.”

“Enough of this!”

She focused all the sussa she could on them, breaking the mechanism that fired projectiles in six of the guns and knocking eight of them unconscious. But the other two managed to hold their ground and fire, with one shot wounding Melissa in the arm.