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Chapter 17

Pinpoints of light appeared in Charleston’s vision, blinking into existence one at a time, until the darkness was full of bright spots, both big and small. He was again looking at stars in the night sky. For a moment, he thought he was back in 16th-century Japan, forced to retake that portion of the Test due to failure.

But he quickly realized how far from Japan he really was as the fading blackness of his vision was replaced by the broad vista of outer space.

He was looking out onto a vast sky, far wider and larger than the view offered from City Dome back home. But now he wasn’t staring up at the sky full of stars from a dome on the Earth below; he was in space. It was all right there in front of him, surrounding him, spreading before him as far as he could see and then further. There was a depth to space that increased its immensity. Stars were everywhere he looked. And as soon as he focused on one, more appeared surrounding it.

He turned to his left, his eyes striving to take in the entirety of the view before him, and was surprised when he saw a large planet off in the distance, swirls of blue and white interspersed with browns and grays.

It was then that he finally took in his more immediate surroundings, trying once more to get his bearings in an unfamiliar environment. He was standing on a large metal platform that extended out from him into the emptiness of space. To his back in the direction of the planet was a large rectangular building, rising up three or four stories. The upper level, he could tell, was made of solid glass, providing a panorama view to those inside.

As Charleston examined the building, he mentally prepared himself for the sudden rush of another’s consciousness. But, to his surprise, none came. No memories or feelings from another life filled his mind or heart. He was himself, Charleston, and no one else.

But shouldn’t I have some recollection of how I came to be here? he wondered.

Again, nothing came to him. The only memories and thoughts in his mind were his own, and he had no idea where he was or how he had gotten there.

He looked around once more. He was on some kind of space station. The building before him looked surprisingly industrial, with pipes as wide as he was running from the surface of the platform into the building several stories above him. Smaller pipes ran horizontally along the base of the building. There was a ladder off to his left that led to some kind of hatch, while two large doors were to his right. Hatches in the floor of the platform led to the lower levels of the ship. The building itself was enormous, running some hundred yards to his left and right. The platform he was standing on encircled the entire structure.

Charleston was at a loss. He understood that he was somewhere in space, orbiting a planet that looked eerily similar to Earth, but what exactly was he supposed to do? What was the purpose of putting him here?

He peered up at the top of the building again. A red light dimly illuminated the room above. He turned from the building and looked back at the planet, trying to make out landmasses or anything else that may be visible from space.

As he did so, he sensed a darkening from the corner of his eye, as if a cloud had passed over the sun. He turned back to look out over the vast canopy of stars and gases and distant planets.

What he saw caused his stomach to sink.

There was an inky blot forming in the distance, blocking out stars as it expanded in an irregular and haphazard way. It looked as if it was consuming the stars as it grew, their lights blinking out one after the other.

And it was rapidly moving in Charleston’s direction.

He stared into the center of the dark patch as it filled the space before him and an intense fear like nothing he had ever felt before suddenly possessed him.

Here was something worse than death or annihilation, he instinctively knew. Here was agony and torment and suffering that would never end. The growing black mass had an insatiable hunger that Charleston could feel, that emanated from the dark hole, radiating out in spirals of unsated desire. It wanted him, and it would have him.

Charleston felt paralyzed, helpless as he watched the darkness reach the edge of the ship and move towards him, like pitch-black thunderclouds blowing in off the mountains. As it drew closer, the ship’s platform took on the same inky color of the blot. Charleston watched with apprehension as the approaching edge of blackness covered him, as well, before running up the wall of the building behind him and over the other side.

And with the blackness now engulfing him, his fear intensified. He couldn’t move; he could barely breathe, his chest constricted in a terror stronger than any he had ever before experienced.

Intertwined with this fear was a feeling Charleston was unfamiliar with. He felt like crying, or curling into a fetal position, or both. It was hopeless, he realized, to try and fight whatever this thing was. It would absorb him into itself and he would become a part of its torment, pain, and fear.

The darkness intensified, becoming even blacker, if that were possible, and Charleston’s sense of helplessness increased with it.

But a thought tickled at the edge of the fear and futility that dominated his mind. There was some connection, here, he realized suddenly, between his own feelings of despair and terror and this blot in the sky. It was hungry, but it wasn’t satisfied by a physical consumption of Charleston’s body. Rather, it was feeding on his emotions, on his fear and hopelessness.

As Charleston realized this, the inky blot faded somewhat, turning a less deep black, and Charleston’s own fear receded slightly. There was a correlation between it and him. He tried to focus his thoughts on something other than the impending doom he knew was waiting for him in the center of the blackness before him. He thought back to Duman’s lessons and remembered the ease with which he was able to achieve transcendence as Minemaru. He hoped he could do it now, even without the man’s consciousness a part of him.

But before he could lose himself in the flame, a movement on the ship’s deck caught his attention. The blackness covering the metal undulated, as if a wave were passing through it. Charleston looked on as the now dark surface shimmered again, and fear once more blossomed in his chest.

The deck was roiling now, like water just beginning to boil. A large bubble began forming, rising up and out from the deck. As it rose, it expanded, growing larger and larger until it was bigger even than him.

Then it burst.

What stood in its place made Charleston’s whole body go cold.

It was a human-shaped creature with ashen white skin wearing a blood-red jumpsuit. It had long claws in place of fingers and some kind of darkness, like a blight, spread out in all directions from the thing’s mouth. Its eyes were a bright red, its bald head covered in purple sores and bulbous veins.

But it wasn’t its appearance that was so terrifying. It was something else, something intangible.

Before Charleston could dwell more on this, it sprang forward, a sound like broken laughter coming from its blighted face.

A primal terror once again seized hold of Charleston. He forgot the flame completely.

He ran.

He could either go right towards the two shut doors, or left and up the ladder. He chose the ladder, leaping up its rungs and reaching the hatch it led to in seconds. He frantically ripped at the handle, which was flush with the hatch in a small recess.

It was locked.

Pain lanced up Charleston’s leg. He stifled a cry as he turned and saw the creature’s claws buried deep in his calf. The thing only had four fingers, with a large gap in the middle, like pincers on a crab.

He smashed his foot into the creature’s face and sent it careening off the ladder to land heavily on its back. Charleston slid down after it and landed in a crouch, pain jolting through his leg from the bleeding wound in his calf. The creature was climbing to its feet, its face now splashed with a dark blue, almost black, substance Charleston assumed was its blood.

Charleston took off at a sprint, glancing quickly at the two shut doors that were so tantalizingly close, yet so far from offering an escape. A red light above them flashed on and, to his surprise, they suddenly glided effortlessly and silently open.

He skidded to a halt at the same time he heard a screeching sound behind him. The creature had ripped a 4-foot portion of pipe from the wall. Charleston bolted through the doors, which slid shut after him. A moment later, a loud clang reverberated through the room. The creature was trying vainly to get in. Another blow, then another. But the peresilium doors showed no signs of weakening and the banging stopped.

Charleston finally looked around. He was in a hangar full of small ships. They looked to be 1- and 2-person spacecraft, though there was a much larger one occupying the opposite corner.

Charleston started towards one when he heard another noise from the hangar doors. It was a sizzling sound that made his stomach sink. He turned and saw a spot in the center of the two doors darkening. The sizzling continued and the spot widened. Then, the peresilium began melting.

That’s impossible, he thought. Peresilium was the strongest metal on the planet. Evidently not on this planet.

The doors softened, pieces sloughing off them like melted clay.

Another sound reached Charleston now. It was a slurping, squishing sound and small holes appeared in the surface of the doors. Before he could tear himself away from the sight and continue running, tentacles burst through the holes and latched themselves to either side of the doors. The tentacles were only a couple of inches in diameter, but Charleston could see the cords of muscles running through them. They tensed and, with a screeching sound, the doors began sliding open.

Charleston knew he should turn and run, but the sight was so strange that he simply looked on as the creature stepped through the now destroyed hangar doors. Its tentacles retracted inside its blighted mouth. It made the same sound Charleston had taken for laughter earlier, and fear again seized hold of him. The thing rushed forward, the pipe still clutched in its pincer-like hands, one end a jagged point from where it had broken unevenly from the wall.

But Charleston was no longer controlled by terror. His brief escape from the thing had given him a chance to regain some of his composure, and with it an understanding of his enemy. The intense fear he felt was one of the creature’s weapons, the same as some snakes on Old Earth used to paralyze their victims with their venom before consuming them. This knowledge was the key to overcoming his fear. He could now assess the situation the way he’d been trained.

First, this thing could be injured, as his kick to its face demonstrated. Second, while it was like nothing Charleston had ever seen before, it didn’t possess such power that Charleston couldn’t fight it. If it did, he would be dead by now. Third, there was something in its laughter that instilled an unnatural fear in him, similar to the black blot outside. This was perhaps its greatest weapon among the many it had at its disposal.

I’ve been afraid before, Charleston thought, remembering his childhood as Minemaru. I can overcome this, too.

He shook his head, surprised at the clarity of the other man’s memories.

Will I always have two men’s lives and thoughts in my head now? he wondered.

He didn’t have time to dwell on that question now. Instead he used the fact to his advantage. He remembered the sense of peace and calm he’d had as Minemaru and thought of the flame. He could control his fear. He could act.

The creature was upon him now, its mouth open in a dark sneer, the pipe drawn back for a devastating strike aimed at Charleston’s temple. But rather than leap back and out of range of the deadly swing, Charleston stepped forward and into it. As he did so, he reached out and grabbed the center of the pipe with both hands, knowing the real power of the blow lay in the end of the pipe aimed at his head. As his fingers closed around the pipe, he spun with the creature’s swing and, in one smooth motion, used its momentum to rip the pipe from its hands.

As he completed the spin, he slammed his left elbow into the back of the creature’s head. The blow sent the thing stumbling forward. Before it could turn to face Charleston, he spun back the opposite direction, swinging the pipe low at the thing’s knees. Something cracked under the force of the blow, and the creature’s legs went out from under it.

Charleston allowed the momentum of his swing to carry him in another spin. As he gained more momentum, he twirled the pipe in his hands until the jagged end was aimed down. As he came round to face the now prone creature, he drove the pipe hard into its mouth.

The creature let out a half-gurgle, half-scream. Its tentacles unfurled, gripping feebly at the pipe before falling limply on either side of its head.

Charleston’s breathing was even and steady as he straightened up. But before he could even think what his next step would be, he heard the now familiar laughter coming from outside the hangar door.

He turned just as three more of the creatures leapt through the broken doors. Their laughter turned to angry screams when they saw their comrade dead on the floor. As one, they rushed at Charleston, who could see more approaching from the ship’s deck outside.

He turned and ran.

It wasn’t fear that drove him this time. He was outnumbered and knew he had to even the odds somehow. There had to be a weapons room somewhere onboard the ship. He just needed to find it before those creatures caught up with him.

The doors leading from the hangar into the main building slid open before him, his pursuers not far behind. Charleston found himself in a long hallway lit from above and with doors off to either side. He had no time to check what lay behind each of these. Instead, he raced down the hall to the door at the opposite end.

He could hear the creatures in pursuit as he flew through the next set of doors. He was at a crossroads. Without thinking, he turned right and ran down another hall, doors on either side blurring by him as he went. At the end of this hallway, he turned left, stealing a glance back at the creatures hot on his trail. They were a dozen paces behind him, still too close for him to duck into one of the side rooms and hope they simply passed him by.

He rushed down another hall, this one much shorter than the previous ones, and through yet another door. He found himself in a large square room that looked like a sleeping chamber. Bunks of beds lined the walls and another two rows ran down the middle.

Charleston frantically looked around for anything that could be used as a weapon, hoping that, like any good soldier, those who manned this ship would keep their personal weapons near them at all times.

A thought suddenly struck Charleston as he weaved in and out of the rows of bunks. Where was the crew? He hadn’t seen a single person. It was a ghost ship.

The creatures were in the room now and had spread out across the rows in search of him. Charleston ducked down behind one of the bunks opposite . So far he had seen nothing remotely close to a weapon, only beds stacked one atop another. As he knelt behind one of the lower bunks, he tried to figure what his next move should be. There were too many of the creatures to fight hand-to-hand, not to mention those tentacles added a deadly dimension to any combat scenario. He had to find something, anything, to fight them with. He knew he couldn’t run forever.

Charleston felt panic welling up inside him, threatening the calmness with which he had been acting thus far. The creatures were searching the room for him and it wouldn’t be long before they found him.

He tensed his muscles to make a dash for the door, but then his mind finally registered what he had been staring at the whole time he was crouched behind the bed: a trunk built into the bottom of the bunk. It was cleverly crafted so as not to block the aisle.

He quickly groped at it, trying to find a latch or a handle to pull. He could hear the creatures approaching. The box was completely smooth, nothing even hinting at a lock or way of opening it.

He pushed it in frustration and turned to run for the door. But before he could bolt, he heard a slight click and turned to see the side of the trunk slide open. He quickly rummaged through the contents of the trunk, flinging items as he did so, most of which were clothes, and finally found what he was looking for. It was a gun case. He flipped the top open and nearly screamed in frustration when he found it empty.

The creatures were nearly upon him now. He could hear their steps just feet away, could sense them feeding on his increasing panic. It was like they were relishing his fear, savoring it rather than putting an end to it by putting an end to him.

Charleston desperately ran his hands from corner to corner of the trunk before finding what he was looking for. He could see the creatures now from the corner of his eye. He quickly yanked the sword from beneath the clothes and swung it, still in its sheath, at the head of the nearest creature just as it came around the edge of the bed.

His blow hit home and the thing crumpled to the ground.

He spun towards the creature approaching from his left, unsheathing the sword as he went.

He was met with tentacles reaching for his face.

With lightning fast reflexes, he twisted the sword down at an angle and cut through five of the tentacles.

The creature screamed, but two of its tentacles snaked around his sword and latched on to Charleston’s right shoulder, while the third wrapped halfway around his head.

Pain erupted where the suctions gripped him. He grunted as he lunged forward and drove the point of the sword into the creature’s chest. The thing went limp and fell to the floor, but, to Charleston’s surprise, the tentacles remained. The creature’s weight pulled him down with it, awkwardly jamming the sword deeper into its body. As he fell, he caught a glimpse of the other creatures closing in on him from both sides.

With a strength fueled by desperation, Charleston threw himself backwards and off the dead creature’s body, pulling the sword free at the same time. The tentacles held for a second before ripping out of his shoulder and head, his own blood and flesh splattering the bunks around him. His momentum carried him into the nearest creature and both fell to the floor.

Charleston hit the ground and twisted, rolling in the direction of the exit, but not before the creature landed a swipe with its claws across Charleston’s back. He grunted in pain as he scrambled up and towards the door, the creatures only steps behind.

He had sacrificed a lot for one measly sword.

The door leading out of the sleeping chamber slid open. Charleston nearly laughed.

He was in the ship’s training room. And it was lined with weapons of all sorts.

Charleston didn’t stop; he didn’t have time to stop. He bolted across the empty space and through the next set of doors.

He was in a lounge, couches and tables scattered seemingly at random across it. There was no straight path to the other side. He leapt atop the nearest table and jumped his way across the room in more or less a direct line to the exit.

The viewing room led to another long hallway lined with doors. He had to be nearing the other side of the ship by now. He continued straight ahead, having gained a few seconds on his pursuers, but pulled up abruptly at the sight of something large and shiny behind one of the doors.

He’d found his way out.

If only he could get there before those creatures got to him.

He jerked the door open just as the creatures came rushing into the hallway behind him. Ducking inside, he frantically looked for a lock.

What he found was even better.

To the right of the door was a vacuum-seal button, meant to lock down any and all airways into this room. Charleston slapped the button hard and heard the satisfying whoosh of air as the room was cut off from the rest of the ship.

He quickly took in his surroundings. He was in a staging room, from where spacecraft could exit without compromising the ship’s airways.

But rather than 1- and 2-person spaceships, this hangar was full of war suits.

These were large, peresilium suits of armor, designed to protect their wearers from the worst an enemy could offer, while providing them with a small army’s arsenal of weapons. They had a cockpit in them, where the soldier would sit. The suit then linked to the soldier’s brain, allowing it to react to thoughts the same way the body did. The suit became an extension of the soldier himself.

Each of the suits in the room was standing open in its charger, and Charleston quickly jumped into the nearest one. With a compression of air, the suit closed around him. Monitors blinked on and several screens lit up to reveal a full 360-degree view of his surroundings.

Charleston wasn’t sure what to do next, but without warning, the suit took a step forward, out of its charging bay. It then raised its right armored arm at the door.

The creatures had almost gained entrance now.

Charleston had mere moments to act. If they could melt peresilium doors, they could just as easily penetrate his war suit. He had to annihilate these things.

No sooner had that thought crossed his mind then his forearm opened and small, foot-long missiles rose from within, each nesting in its own launch pad. The door crashed inwards, and the ashen-gray creatures, tentacles reaching towards him, came rushing through. Without understanding how, Charleston watched as the missiles from his forearm fired in rapid succession towards the approaching enemy.

His vision was filled with a sudden light and he could feel the heat from the explosion even through the armor. Alarms sounded in Charleston’s ears and he had the strange sensation of flying.

It was only then he realized his mistake. He had been far too close to his target to use such powerful missiles, and the explosion had catapulted him through the room.

Just as he realized this, he crashed hard into the hangar door leading to the deck outside. Alarms were still sounding, and the screen in front of him was riddled with static, while another was simply black.

The momentum of the blast had thrown him clear across the hangar.

“Diagnostics complete. System repair initialized,” sounded in his ear.

Charleston realized then that the alarms weren’t coming from inside the suit, but from the ship itself.

That can’t be good, he thought.

He stood up and took a few steps towards the entrance from which he’d come, peering through the static of the screen before him. He couldn’t make out the door or any signs of the creatures.

“System repair complete.” The screen went clear before him. “Suit is functioning at 73%. Front armor is functioning at 49%. Rear armor is functioning at 90%. Back propulsion is not functioning. Ammunition is 98% full.”

The voice stopped, but Charleston hadn’t been listening.

He finally realized what he’d been seeing this whole time. Or, better yet, what he hadn’t been.

He couldn’t make out the door from which the creatures had come pouring in after him because there was no door. There was no wall either. There was only a giant hole gaping in the floor where he’d been standing.

Alarms continued to sound across the hangar as Charleston surveyed the carnage before him. Blue blood painted the inside of what remained of that side of the hangar. Chunks of flesh clung to the war suits, many of which had been dislodged from their chargers. The ceiling was dripping. Charleston saw a tentacle slither across the floor. Before he realized it, his left arm raised and a burst of gunfire erupted from the suit’s wrist area. The tentacle exploded in blue liquid.

It was then that Charleston finally heard the automated voice speaking between siren signals.

“Ship’s engine damaged. Particle accelerator compromised.”

A low rumbling sound was coming from somewhere deep within the ship. Charleston cautiously peered through the hole in the floor where his missiles had struck. They had torn through the hangar’s floor and into the belly of the ship itself.

The ship suddenly shook. A loud boom echoed from the hole.

“Ship’s engine destroyed. Particle accelerator malfunctioning,” the automated voice sounded.

Another boom.

He ran for the hangar exit.

He was halfway there when a third boom, this one so loud it made Charleston’s ears ring, rocked the ship. He stumbled once before the explosion lifted him off his feet. He was flung headfirst towards the hangar doors. He instinctively brought his arms up to protect his face just as he made contact with the damaged doors.

This time they didn’t hold.

The war suit ripped through them.

Charleston’s vision went black as he was tossed around the cockpit.

When it returned, the screens before him were all static.

He felt another impact as he bounced hard off the deck outside of the hangar. He braced himself for a second blow, but there was nothing. Instead, he felt a sudden sense of weightlessness.

“Diagnostics complete. System repair initialized,” the now familiar voice sounded in Charleston’s ears.

He felt himself turning over and over, his stomach doing flips with his body, and he thought for a second that he would throw up. He had a sinking feeling that he was careening through space, the explosion from the ship having propelled him off the deck and out of range of its artificial atmosphere.

“System repair complete.” One of the screens flickered back to life, a crack running down its middle. Another was all static, while the others were simply lifeless. Charleston could see the stars of space whirling by as he continued somersaulting through nothingness.

“Suit is functioning at 65%. Front armor is functioning at 41%. Rear armor is functioning at 80%. Back propulsion is not functioning. Weapons system severely damaged. Missiles inoperable. Laser canon inoperable. Ammunition is 97% full. Thrusters functioning at 20%.”

Charleston was growing increasingly dizzy when the suit suddenly stopped spinning. Hearing that the thrusters were at 20% must have caused him to think about using them to stop his spin and the suit had obeyed.

He was still moving though, floating away from what was left of the spaceship and towards the planet below. The explosion in the ship’s core had torn a jagged gash up through the building, essentially splitting the entire thing in two. Charleston expected there to be fire, but there was none. There was just debris from the broken and ravaged ship, most of which was moving with Charleston towards the planet below.

He turned away from the wreckage and looked at the giant orb below him. It was breathtaking, even under the circumstances. White and dark swirls overlay a mix of brown and green and blue. Charleston could make out the outlines of continents and what he assumed was the blue of water. The planet looked similar to Earth in a lot of ways, though he could now see the red sun off to his left that differed from Earth’s star.

As he took in the sight of the strangely familiar planet, he realized that his speed had increased. The planet below him was rapidly coming more into focus, details emerging and growing larger. He thought he could make out the jagged brown lines of a mountain range extending the length of the landmass directly below him and the green of forests on either side.

He was so enthralled by the sight that he didn’t realize just how fast he was moving through space until the suit alerted him, jolting him back to reality with its electronic voice.

“Internal cool down initiated.”

He’d entered the planet’s atmosphere, its gravitational pull drawing him closer until he was now plummeting towards the land beneath him.

His stomach sank. He knew peresilium could handle intense heat, but his suit was already damaged by the many blasts it had taken while on the space ship. Could it withstand a fall from space?

“Thrusters engaged,” the voice said in response to Charleston’s thoughts. He felt his descent slow, though he was still falling at an alarming rate.

The planet’s surface was growing ever closer. His descent was taking him towards a rugged-looking coast. Whether he’d hit land or water was still unclear.

He hoped the latter.

As he continued his free fall, he tried to think of any way to slow down. As if in response to his thoughts, slats on his arms, legs, and back lifted up, creating additional drag to slow his plunge. The thrusters were still engaged, though they were far from full capacity. He was drawing nearer and nearer to the blue surface below, his speed still at an extremely dangerous level.

“Parachute deployed,” the voice sounded and Charleston heard a sound like wind whipping a sail. His body jerked awkwardly up and to the side.

“Warning,” he heard. “Parachute failed to deploy properly. Increasing thrusters.”

The chute had only opened partway. The mechanism must have been damaged in one of the earlier blasts. He was spinning now in a large circle. With each rotation, he was drawing closer and closer to the dark landmass below.

“Warning. Thrusters failed. Initiating systems repair.”

Charleston could only watch the view below him shift from a deep blue to a dark brown as he continued to spiral downwards. With each pass, the planet below him came into greater detail.

He could now see the green of trees against the light brown of the earth. Then he could make out white lines atop the blue of the water.

Another rotation.

Now the trees were even clearer. There was a large forest bordering a grassy field that ended next to a sandy beach.

He circled back over the water.

He could make out waves now, the white lines clearly crests as they curled up and folded in on themselves.

He thought he was very close to the planet’s surface now. Maybe one more rotation, if he were lucky.

Maybe one and a half if he were not.

He spiraled back over the land and now could see individual trunks and branches in the forest. In the field he saw wavy light-brown grass and small game trails crisscrossing through it.

He circled over the sandy beach. Dark rocks were scattered about with driftwood lodged among them. The ocean was under him again, so close now he thought he saw something flash in the water below. He was still too far away, he realized with a sinking feeling. And he was falling too fast to survive the impact on land.

He could only see the field now, the forest somewhere off to his right, outside of his vision. He was too close to the surface. So close, in fact, that he could gauge the distance now.

Thirty feet maybe.

The beach was under him, littered with dead grass and seaweed. Prints of various sizes and shapes zigzagged across the sand.

Fifteen feet.

He was going to hit the ground any moment now.

Instinctively he lifted his feet towards his chest, trying to angle his body back against the pull of the parachute, hoping to delay the impact another second or two.

The maneuver saved his life.

His body jolted up a few feet and his descent slowed enough to allow his momentum to carry him just barely back over the water.

He hit the ocean with a huge splash. The impact slammed him forward in the cockpit and all went dark.

His eyes popped open inside the war suit. The space around him was filling with water. The automated voice kept repeating itself over and over again. “Warning. Outer armor breached.”

He didn’t know how deep the suit had sunk, but he knew he had to get out of it.

And with that thought, the front of the suit opened and water rushed in. Charleston managed a quick breath before he was completely submerged. He pushed out and towards the light of the surface. It wasn’t very far. He hadn’t crashed into deep water.

Only a few more feet.

The light was growing closer and closer.

Charleston gasped and opened his eyes to the dim light of the testing room. He flailed his arms in a futile attempt to stay afloat in the ocean water.

There was no ocean, however. This part of the Test was over.

He was safely back in New Washington.

 

Chapter 18

“Could you explain to me, please,” Professor Slive sneered in a too-polite voice, “why you left so many questions blank in section six?”

Charleston stood on the stage in the amphitheater, his four professors – Slive, Thurmond, Duman, and Manfred – seated in a semi-circle in front of him. It was the final, most dreaded portion of the Test, the orals.

After surviving three real life scenarios, one more difficult and terrifying than the next, Charleston was now facing another horrible monster – Slive. “As I said when Professor Thurmond asked me,” Charleston began, his voice even, despite the annoyance he felt, “the options provided all had flaws, some serious, and I would not have chosen any of them in real life.”

He’d been answering questions from each professor for at least an hour now. So far, most of them had asked him to explain in more detail answers he’d given on the written portion. Charleston guessed those were ones he’d gotten wrong. But each of them had also broached new topics with their questioning, forcing Charleston to think quickly.

“The instructions did not say,” Slive shot back haughtily, “answer only if you find an answer you deem satisfactory. They said, choose the best answer.”

“There were no best answers,” Charleston retorted.

“Best is subjective,” Slive continued arrogantly. “You were to choose the best of the available answers, even if none were truly the best of any possible.”

Charleston said nothing. His frustration was growing. It was stupid to include something like that on the Test.

“Your arrogance is astounding,” Slive continued, looking down at his notes. “A test designed and written by the Planners to determine your future is deemed faulty by a mere boy,” he continued, his voice growing louder. “You, Charleston, know better than the Planners, is that what you’re telling us?” Slive’s eyes were full of hate and something else Charleston didn’t recognize.

“No, sir,” he replied, fighting to keep the anger out of his voice.

“And yet, that’s what your actions tell us,” Slive continued quickly. “They tell us you think you have a better understanding of how to determine your Purpose than the very people who designed that Purpose!” he nearly yelled.

Charleston glanced at his other professors. They seemed uninterested in the conversation, though Professor Duman looked as if he disapproved of Slive’s manner.

“Since you know so much,” Slive continued, “perhaps you should simply tell us what you will do.”

“Excuse me,” Charleston said after it became clear to him Slive was waiting for a response.

“Tell us,” the portly man said with a wave of his hand, “what will you do?”

Charleston looked to the others again, but they were of no help. He’d always wanted to be in the Dome Guard, but was that really what Slive wanted to know? “I’m not sure what you…”

“He’s not sure!” Slive interrupted gleefully. “And yet you were sure you knew better than the Planners on the Test.”

Charleston felt his face go hot at Slive’s misconstruing of reality. “That’s not what I did!” he retorted.

“That’s exactly what you did, boy,” Slive spat. “Or do you think you know better than me, too?”

Charleston glared at Slive, humiliation and anger boiling inside of him.

“Because if you do,” the man continued, “then perhaps we should discuss your answers on the History and Culture section of the Test.”

This was what Charleston had originally been so nervous about, Slive spitefully nitpicking each of his answers.

“The only problem with that,” Slive said contemptuously, “is I don’t have enough time to go over everything you got wrong. A day wouldn’t be enough, much less twenty measly minutes. It’s pathetic and unacceptable,” he finished, sitting back in his chair and crossing his arms over his belly.

After a moment, Professor Manfred, who was leading the panel, sat up and cleared her throat. “I take it you are finished with your,” she paused to find a word to describe Slive’s tirade, “line of inquiry,” she finished with a frown. “Thank you, Sherman,” she continued when Slive said nothing. “Now, let’s move on to the practical portion of the Test.” She paused and glanced at her notes. “I’ll begin,” she said sternly, looking up at Charleston from above her glasses. “Tell me why exactly you thought it was a good idea to deploy missiles inside a space station?”

Charleston’s face still felt hot and, despite his overall positive feelings towards Professor Manfred, her tone was a little too close to Slive’s for his liking. He cleared his throat. “I believed my life to be in danger and my first instinct was to protect myself,” he said, trying to sound mature and confident, though he felt like neither after the things Slive had said to him. “I didn’t realize the war suit would respond to my thoughts, or that it would…deploy,” he said after a moment, using her word to sound more formal, “missiles.”

“And why didn’t you know these things?” she asked, still stern and glaring.

Charleston tried not to squirm. “I’ve never been in a war suit,” he began lamely, “and…”

“Yet, we studied them in some detail in my class, did we not?”

“Yes, but…”

“And did we also not study the design of various spacecraft, including space stations?”

“Yes, but…”

“So, I will ask you again, why did you think it was a good idea to fire missiles in an enclosed environment?”

“I wasn’t thinking about that,” Charleston managed.

“In hindsight,” Manfred continued before Charleston could say more, “what would have been a better choice?”

Charleston seized hold of this chance to correct himself like a drowning man would a rope. “I could have used something with less power, like the machine gun,” he said quickly. “Or I could have flown out of the hangar and away from them.”

Professor Manfred held his gaze a moment, then looked to Professor Duman. “I’m through.”

The red-haired, red-bearded man with the deep scar on his face gave him a small, encouraging smile before beginning and Charleston felt the gloom and anxiety over Slive and Manfred begin to recede. “Why didn’t you think about the danger of firing missiles in a space station?” he asked.

Charleston’s stomach sank. Again! he thought. Are they just going to harp on my mistakes? He took a breath. “I guess I was too worried about those creatures getting me.”

“You guess?” Duman arched an eyebrow.

Charleston sighed. So much for things going better. Duman was a stickler, in his own kind way, for them being conscious of their thoughts and decisions. “I wasn’t aware of my thought process,” Charleston admitted. “I acted on instinct based on my training and the situation.”

“Hmm,” Duman responded. “Instinct, you say?”

Charleston cursed to himself. Duman frequently criticized this line of thinking in the Podkind. ‘Instinct is what people call not thinking before acting,’ he’d told them dozens of times.

“I didn’t think it through,” Charleston admitted reluctantly. He didn’t agree with Duman about instinct. He believed the subconscious could act based on the conscious mind, even if the decision itself wasn’t made knowingly.

“How were you able to inhabit another’s mind and body without losing yourself?” Duman asked, unexpectedly changing topics.

Charleston thought back to his time as Vanya and Minemaru. “It wasn’t easy,” he began, remembering the flood of emotions and memories that had threatened to overwhelm him. He still wasn’t sure what would have happened to him had he not been able to anchor himself to a memory of his own and thereby maintain his sense of self, but he had a feeling it wouldn’t have been good. “I remembered something from my own life,” he said, “and I focused all my mental energy on reliving it. Once I did this, I was able to access the memories and feelings of the other while still maintaining my sense of self and identity.”

Duman made another indiscernible sound before continuing. “You almost murdered a monk. Why?”

Charleston thought back to that moment on the cliff that marked the end of the pilgrimage. Minemaru’s inexplicable rage had been beyond anything Charleston had ever experienced and he told Duman as much. “Minemaru’s own conscious mind was powerful,” he continued. “He’d had training in something similar to what you’ve taught us. At first, I was able to use his knowledge to help gain control of his body, but he was constantly fighting me. In that moment with the monk, his anger overwhelmed me and I lost control. However, I was able to overcome it, once I embraced it.”

Duman gave a short nod, then looked at Professor Thurmond.

“Tell us a little more about your fight with those monsters on the space station,” he began. “In particular, why did you spend so much time searching for a weapon when you had one at your disposal almost from the very beginning?”

“What?” Charleston couldn’t stop from asking. “I didn’t reach the weapons room until after I found the sword.”

Thurmond stared at him, not saying anything.

Charleston felt suddenly uneasy. Of all his professors, he knew Tank liked him, but now he seemed as angry and disappointed as the others.

What is going on? he wondered. Is dealing with four mean adults part of the Test, too?

He thought back to the beginning of that particular scenario. The creatures had arrived, he’d tried to flee, but then…

Of course! he thought with a rush of excitement.

“The pipe,” he said.

“Yes, the pipe,” Thurmond replied disapprovingly. “Why did you abandon this weapon?”

Charleston tried to remember what he’d been thinking at the time. “I didn’t realize there were more of them,” he began weakly. “Nor did I have any way of knowing the creature would stay down if I removed the pipe.”

Thurmond made a sound surprisingly similar to Duman’s and Charleston wondered if his professors had to master making vague noises before being allowed to teach. “No way of knowing, you say?”

Charleston felt his face go hot again. “I could have removed the pipe and waited to see if the thing came back to life.”

Thurmond raised an eyebrow.

“And I should always assume there are more enemies, particularly in an unknown situation.”

Thurmond nodded. “Is that the only weapon you abandoned?”

Charleston’s mind raced to think of what else he may have missed. “Uh…” he began inarticulately, then stopped. He was drawing a blank.

Thurmond made that sound again before continuing. “Were war suits the only piece of equipment you could have used on the space station?” he prodded.

Charleston felt both relief and embarrassment flood through him. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought about it during the Test. Except he had, he now recalled. Only those creatures had caught up with him before he could… “The ships in the hangar,” he said quickly. “I should have tried to use one of those, at the very least to escape.”

“Why did you give up the distance you’d gained on the creatures to search for a weapon in a place where there may not have been any?” Thurmond continued, the only signal Charleston had answered correctly the change of topic.

Charleston’s momentary relief disappeared as he remembered his frantic search for any weapon in the barracks. “I was getting desperate. I couldn’t run from the creatures indefinitely and when I saw the sleeping quarters, I felt confident there would be a weapon somewhere.”

“Yet,” Thurmond began, “you are familiar with space stations from your Science and Technology class. You know each has a Combat floor and a Weapons room, correct?” Thurmond paused only a second. “But instead of continuing through the station until you reached this area, you chose to risk searching various bunks. And,” he said, still not letting Charleston speak, “in doing so, you were injured, perhaps seriously, as you had no way of knowing what kind of long-term damage those tentacles could do, though if they could eat through peresilium, it’s doubtful your body would hold up long against them.”

Charleston opened his mouth to respond, but Thurmond cut him off.

“I’m through,” he said curtly, looking at Slive.

Great, Charleston thought. If the professors who liked him had been so stern, he couldn’t imagine what Frog Face would say.

Slive smirked and leaned forward in his chair, eyes boring into Charleston. “Why did you break chain of command?” he asked quietly.

“Excuse me,” Charleston replied, doing his best to remember everything he’d done. He was exhausted and his brain felt fried.

“In St. Petersburg,” Slive continued haughtily. “You went outside the chain of command to suggest your,” he waved a hand in front of his face as if trying to catch the best word, “little scheme.”

“It worked, didn’t it?” Charleston replied quickly, regaining some of his confidence. As Vanya, he’d suggested to Second Lieutenant Bestuzhev, the man in charge, to spread sand on the ice that had formed on the square where the revolutionaries were in a standoff with the tsar’s soldiers. The idea had allowed Vanya and the others to keep their footing as they charged the Senate Building, where the tsar was holed up. But, he’d had to go above his own commanding officer’s head to do so. Clearly, it didn’t matter to Slive that that officer had been drunk.

“So,” Slive drawled out, “insubordination is acceptable if it results in success?”

“In the proper circumstances, yes,” Charleston replied. “No one was doing anything!” he continued, his voice rising. “We had a mission to complete and it wasn’t going to get done just standing there! Someone had to take charge!”

“And so our boy wonder here,” Slive sneered, “who knows better than the Planners, decided to lead the revolution.”

Charleston fought hard not to roll his eyes.

“Tell me, boy,” Slive continued, “how did that particular simulation end?”

Charleston held the man’s glare, refusing to back down. “We took the Senate Building and captured the usurper. We succeeded,” he said firmly.

“Ha!” Slive laughed. “And yet this usurper, as you call him, was the rightful tsar the entire time, was he not?”

Charleston tried again not to visibly squirm. “That’s what he said,” he began, “but of course he’d…”

“He was, actually,” Slive said, delighted. “He was the rightful tsar.” He paused to let this sink in. “So, to summarize, you broke the chain of command among a group of soldiers who were already traitors for revolting, and you captured the rightful tsar, thereby overthrowing the government you’d sworn to serve. Would you say that accurately depicts your actions?”

“How was I supposed to know he was the rightful tsar?!” Charleston nearly shouted. “Constantine was next in line.”

“By knowing your place,” Slive retorted quickly. “You were a soldier in the tsar’s army. Who were you to decide who the rightful tsar was? Who were you to go outside the chain of command to take charge of a situation you had no business being a part of in the first place?”

Charleston remained silent. There was nothing he could say that would get him out of this.

“I’m through,” Slive said, sitting back with a smirk.

Professor Manfred cleared her throat and removed her glasses. “Please step inside,” she said, indicating a door to his left that led to the building that abutted the amphitheater. “We’ll call you back in when we’ve made our decision.”

Charleston stared blankly at the woman for a moment before plodding towards the door. His mind felt sluggish as he sought to process everything that had just happened. He’d felt so sure of himself after the first two parts of the Test. Yes, he hadn’t gotten everything correct on the written portion, but he thought he’d excelled at the practical part, and wasn’t that the most important section? After all, his Purpose surely wouldn’t involve writing out answers and solving stupid puzzles.

He went through the door and into a long, dimly lit hallway lined with benches and doors. He’d never been inside this building before, he realized as he numbly took in his surroundings. There were windows above some of the benches, while others had artwork hanging on the wall instead.

He sat at one of the benches with a painting above it. It looked like a nature scene of some sort. There was a snow-covered plateau in the foreground on the right. At its base was a wind-swept plain with an icy stream running through it. His eyes naturally followed the wending waterway until they alighted on a dark tower in the far distance of the painting. It reached high up in the sky. Objects swirled through the air around it, birds of some kind, he guessed.

He turned away from the painting and stared forlornly at the floor in front of him. He felt stunned by what just happened. Yes, he’d known Slive would do his best to make him feel stupid, but he hadn’t expected the others to treat him so roughly. He’d made some mistakes, it was true, but he’d also done a lot of things right, he’d thought. Now he wasn’t so sure.

His thoughts quickly spiraled into a darker place. What would happen now that he’d failed, for surely he had failed? Passing a test, any test, doesn’t look like what just happened in the amphitheater. Would he be sent to the mines like Slive had threatened before? Or would he be assigned some boring Purpose, like street cleaning. He knew each Purpose was equally important, as Stiles said every year, but still…

The door leading to the amphitheater opened and Professor Thurmond’s huge frame filled the entrance. He was smiling. “Congratulations!” he said. “You passed!”

Charleston blinked in disbelief. “What?” he managed after a moment.

“You passed, Char!” he repeated. “Come out here!”

Charleston stood, though he wasn’t sure he could walk without his knees buckling.

“Don’t look so shocked,” the big man chided. “We had to put you through the wringer a little bit.”

Charleston had never heard that phrase, but he understood it well enough now. He followed Thurmond onto the stage, where Duman and Manfred stood smiling at him. Slive remained seated, glowering at an empty spot in front of him.

“Congratulations!” both professors said by way of greeting.

Charleston managed a small smile. “It doesn’t feel like I passed,” he said softly with a self-conscious laugh.

“You shouldn’t have,” Slive muttered.

“Yes, well,” Manfred began, resuming her seat behind the table, “that’s the point of this part of the Test.”

“To make me feel like a failure?” Charleston asked, his sense of humor coming back a little with his confidence.

“To press you on your more questionable decisions,” Manfred replied, her tone hardening, “and to address your mistakes.” She paused. “Despite these, you did quite well and we are pleased.”

“Yes,” Duman picked up, “you demonstrated proficiency in the skills and knowledge you’ve been trained in, while exceeding expectations in several areas.”

Slive snorted at this, but said nothing.

Duman ignored him and continued. “Using a focal point to maintain hold of your identity and consciousness was what we expected you to do. As you know, the flame is just a tool to achieve transcendence. Anything will do, and the memories you locked on to served you well. Tapping into Minemaru’s own skills and experiences was very impressive, despite the fact it almost backfired. It’ll be interesting to see how much of his knowledge, if any, remains with you now that the Test is over.”

“Your decisions on the space station,” Professor Manfred said once Duman had finished, “while not always the most well-informed or wise, nevertheless resulted in your escape from those creatures. The way you navigated your fall to the planet’s surface was quite good. Not many would have been able to manage that in a damaged war suit.”

“While some may consider your actions in Russia,” Thurmond began, glancing at Slive, “to fall under insubordination, I see them as fine examples of improvisation. Not only did you deal with the political nature of the command chain in the military, but your solution to the problem of the ice was creative and easy to implement. Your bravery in leading your men was also admirable. Your actions surely resulted in lives saved, as had the standoff continued, it would have ended in a massacre.”

Charleston’s chest swelled with pride and happiness at hearing his professors’ praise of his actions. The humiliation and anger he’d felt during the orals was fading quickly under the salve of their kind words.

Professor Manfred looked to Slive, but the man remained stubbornly silent. “Congratulations!” she said again after an awkward moment. “Now, return to your Residence Dome and get some food and rest. You are forbidden to discuss any portion of the Test with your podmates until after everyone has completed the orals.”

Thurmond and Duman both smiled at Charleston as he turned and left the amphitheater, excitement welling in his chest.

It was over! he thought in elation. The Test was over and he had passed! Maybe he really would make the Dome Guard!

 

The Podkind is a science fiction/fantasy novel written by Johnny Cycles. Click here for the next installment!