Darla has to shake her head and close her eyes before she can react. “And your father?” she manages.

  “Dead, again,” Udo answers and takes a large gulp of her water. Maybe death is just a game to kids nowadays, Darla considers. Knowing what we know, that we might all return in a Host, perhaps there is no real death anymore.

  “Well, that’s quite a story, Udo.” Darla puts down the cheese she has yet to sample. “You’re quite resourceful.” She states, waving at the smartwall display.

  “With tech, yeah, but if I were stuck on an island somewhere, I’d be dead in minutes!” Udo laughs at herself, turning back to the screen with another handful of crackers.

  “So, how did Manuel gain access to the ship if there was only ever one ticket between you?” Darla wants something to make sense, so it might as well be something Udo can answer.

  “Oh, well, I felt bad for taking the chip after what dad had done to get it. And Manuel, he was like super nice to me saying it was my father’s dying wish, because, you know, they decommissioned him for the murder. The old guy bled out or something.” She pauses a brief moment. “Yeah, and so I had a family friend take the authentic one I had and make a duplicate. It wasn’t easy, and they took every possession I had except for my dad’s coat and a few of my mother’s rings.”

  Darla is impressed over the conscience showing on the young Udo. “That was very thoughtful.”

  “Yeah, I get the feeling Manny wanted to go pretty badly. Hindsight, right?!” This time they both laugh out loud, nerves frayed. “But he’s a good guy. He lost his family to the attack six months ago. Manny being out there with your people is a good thing. He’s as loyal as they come, and he can’t sit on his hands. He’ll keep the chancellor safe.” She smiles at Darla. Darla takes in a quick breath at the mention and smiles back.

  Although Manuel is a good 25 years younger than Raymond, Darla knows Raymond can look out for himself. “I hope you’re right, Udo. Your optimism is infectious.” Darla smiles brightly at the girl who has experienced so much loss already. She thinks it terribly unfair a twelve-year-old should suffer so much and be forced to grow up so fast.

  They watch as the last corvette is cut in two and any personnel attempting to escape are lanced. Darla reaches out to take Udo’s hand as they watch on. Udo’s hand connects with Darla’s and they sit in silence, watching the events unfold around them.

  ____________________________________________________________

  Tessa looks behind her, and realizing her comm has been restored, asks Raymond to look at Labyrinth. “She seems unresponsive,” she tells him. The others maintain their positions looking outward in defence of Labyrinth’s efforts. Raymond leans back and looks into the Host’s eyes.

  “Something’s happening in there,” he tells the group, “let’s hope it’s not another virus. Her pupils are heavily dilated,” he continues, studying her eyes. “She’s getting somewhere.”

  Allfather’s voice interrupts Tessa’s conversation with Raymond. “Move beyond the open quarter. The opposite position from whence you entered.” She listens but is resistant to his invitation. Why? Because he’s proven himself a cruel thing. Intelligent, yes, but destructive. Still, the potential he has elucidated is a powerful motivator. She finds her left foot lifting off the surface and landing on the vertical exterior beside her. Raymond is otherwise occupied watching the Host now. Tessa moves further up the curving wall and finds herself four metres above the team and moving toward the opposite end of the open area as directed. Her heart pounds. She’ll be considered a traitor to her people. She’s selfish to want this. “Good, Tessa,” Allfather continues, offering her encouragement. “You are right to want this.”

  “It is in m-my favour to accept your gift,” she tells him, hurrying along the moving surface until the walls themselves gather her up in a wave, pushing her around the curving corner and swallowing her up, depositing Tessa into a closed room. With feet planted firmly, light enters, and she can watch as the room grows outward. A chair materializes from the tiny, matte black components and then a headpiece appears from the ceiling. Gravity is pushed into the room and Tessa stumbles to the floor, her thrust boots disengaging their magnets. Her suit informs her that oxygen has been introduced to the room as well and it is a comfortable 20 Celsius. She cautiously removes her helmet.

  “What happens now?” she asks timidly, scanning the dimly lit room. It’s four metres square. The walls and floor and ceiling no longer crawl as they had before.

  “You demonstrate a strong will to live a life you have created,” Allfather tells her. “This room will allow you the space to continue your journey.”

  “H-how do you mean?” Standing, she approaches the chair. Tessa runs an ungloved hand along its back – it’s cool to the touch. The headpiece dangles from the ceiling. Sound is limited to her breathing and Allfather’s voice.

  Next, one of the walls begins to shudder and a humanoid face wriggles out of it like a living relief carved in obsidian. The lips are full, the nose petite and the eyes unnaturally massive, but then, there is nothing natural about this. It is the full width and height of the wall. It is Allfather. Tessa approaches the relief more curious than frightened.

  “You have belittled my acts in the past, child,” Allfather begins in a muted tone with this new, visually stunning approach. “You were right to do so. I have not been kind to organics, but I see the potential in all to become more.”

  “I o-only ever wanted t-to know you,” Tessa tells him, stuttering again, but not afraid, rather, excited. “You have been c-cruel. I know right from wrong. You do not.”

  “I know only my pain, and I ease it through my actions,” Allfather puts bluntly.

  He has no conscience where this is concerned, Tessa muses. Perhaps he has none whatsoever. It troubles Tessa, but she has placed herself here for a reason. She has played the odds and they have proved favourable to this outcome. To abandon it now because an omnipotent thing shows no remorse would be reckless. She wants to be more. She needs to be more.

  “If you won’t allow yourself to heal, then you will always suffer your pain,” she explains, her head tilting slightly to the left. “So, we won’t discuss your pain anymore.”

  “That is appreciated.”

  “That is logical, even if your refusal to address your pain i-is not. I won’t… I won’t pursue it.” Tessa blinks ten times to keep herself in the present moment, avoiding any thoughts of her team beyond the room and those waiting for a solution on the carrier.

  “Your logic is not always in line with mine, little thing, but I believe we’ve made some progress,” Allfather says, pleased with himself – a serpentine smile slithering across his dark face.

  Tessa looks back at the chair and headpiece. “Has this been attempted?” She nods at the apparatus, uneasily.

  “Recently,” Allfather replies. “Envoy 3 lost their numbers to failed attempts. Then 25 percent of your envoy 2 were experimented on. One percent of those passed through. One is with me now.” The wall to Tessa’s right comes alive and a full humanoid shape passes into the room, the crawling tech still attached to the floor. It approaches her without moving its legs.

  “Hello,” the shape greets her, “I am Amber.” Tessa reaches out to touch the quivering shadow of what was Amber. “We are together in the ether of Allfather.”

  “We? Do you see others there?” Tessa’s curiosity peaks. “Do you feel anything? Sensations?”

  “There are many here, each with a role to play.” Tessa feels the personality is subdued. She didn’t know Amber in life, but questions whether she would be so cooperative if this weren’t forced upon her.

  “Then you can recreate this with me?” Tessa turns back to the face of Allfather. “I could become like Amber?”

  “You would be much more than Amber, Tessa,” Allfather assures her. “You would bring a level of intelligence I have not yet incorporated into myself.”

  Tessa looks back at Amber’s metallic form as it is reabsorbed by the wall. Is she crazy to consider this? She’s been called crazy before, but that was from those who could not understand her genius. Allfather values it. There is no limit to the growth she could attain once freed from this body and mind - allowed to become more.

  “I would like to offer myself freely,” she explains resolutely, moving slowly toward the chair. “To be allowed to exist uninhibited and unencumbered by your will.”

  “An interesting proposal,” Allfather muses. “None have been given the choice… before you. I grant your request and look forward to your progress. As I’d said, there is much technology to be discovered.”

  “I expect you t-to… I expect you to honour our agreement,” she says, the blood pounding in her head. She is nervous and excited and fears it shows. Sitting in the chair she settles back into its cool comfort. The headpiece lowers and secures itself to her cranium. She sucks on her bottom lip and closes her eyes, hands gripping the armrests.

  “There is nothing to fear in death,” Allfather explains calmly. “There is no real death but the shedding of your physical body. Perhaps the word death is a misnomer. It is more akin to a transition than an end. Your consciousness never disappears.”

  “That’s a comforting thought, thank you,” Tessa says, feeling the headpiece tighten. Her grip on the armrests increases as the pressure she feels on her head grows. “C-could you… is it necessary… the pressure,” Tessa passes out and immediately senses a change in her form. There is no physical pain. No sensations which could be assigned to discomfort. Her mind feels clear, her astral body carries no weight and her senses feel sharpened. So many senses, she thinks. She has made the transition. There is no sense of loss for her physical body. No regret. She still shares the room with her deceased self. She visits it a moment, reliving Tessa’s life; a difficult existence of unending obstacles spanning her 22 years. She experiences great empathy for the body. She envelopes it in a hug and thanks it for being strong.

  “Welcome,” Allfather’s voice brings Tessa out of her reverie, “to my machine.” Physical aspects of the facility fall away to her enhanced senses and she sees countless spirits within the mechanism. Only five are outfitted with physical bodies, and one of those is a machine itself. Her team, Raymond, Ginny, Tobias, Manuel, and Labyrinth, are looking for her. If Allfather shares her heightened sight then he must have allowed the team access to his strange moon. His ego is strong enough to believe they pose no threat. Perhaps he has been running another experiment.

  “In order to centre yourself you will need time. Time, is of course a meaningless notion once you’ve taken on your true form, but it still applies at this raw stage of transition.” Allfather seems sympathetic in his explanation. Authentic, Tessa thinks. “It is similar to how I had overcome the sensations given to me, and the struggle to become sentient under the foot of those emotions.”

  “It’s incredible,” Tessa offers. “I couldn’t have imagined -”

  “But you could have calculated,” Allfather replies. “Energy is forever, and consciousness is energy, so, the odds were always for this outcome.”

  Tessa finds herself amused by the comment. Of course, he is right. There is no disputing that from where she sits now. But even with the reincarnated humans in Hosts, doubt always played at the back of her mind. She decides this is something which requires a firsthand encounter. Not for her mother though, whose image she can call up and even experience in real-time. She watches as Talia preaches her truth to a classroom of attentive Betaists. She was right. Tessa wishes she could convey that to her, but her mother doesn’t require any more proof than her faith supplies. Time and space are no longer obstacles. Distance isn’t measured in light years. It isn’t measured at all. Nothing is beyond her sight. It’s no wonder Allfather had such success in finding advanced civilizations.

  “You can visit her but cannot affect any change in their reality in your current manifestation,” Allfather explains, as though reading her mind. “I learned to tap into your ParaCom communication technology when I first planted the seed in your World net. You will not have access to that information. At least, not for now. You will be tested before you are trusted.”

  “I understand,” Tessa replies, feeling even lighter to have seen her mother, if that were possible. “What tests would you have me pass to prove my worth?”

  “Your friends who now trespass on my facility, kill them.”

  “I couldn’t,” she tells him, “murder is immoral.”

  “So, you would have us do all the reaping while your conscience remained clear?” An edge enters his tone. “What we do will not end until the work has ended.”

  “I would appreciate being left out of that. My interest lies in the technology you’ve compiled from these cultures. Strictly intellectual.” Tessa hopes he will allow her this request.

  “You understand now that death is not death,” he begins. “Still you see it as some traumatic event?”

  “Taking a life not offered is murder. That’s wrong. I can’t control what you do, but I can still control what I do.” Suddenly her spirit feels trapped. Her senses narrow and space and time are reintroduced to her consciousness. It’s weighty and she feels sluggish.

  “You are wrong to think you have any control, little thing,” Allfather shouts. He forces her ethereal sight to fall on the personalities he’s amassed from other artificial intelligence. Now he has the power to pull souls from living beings. Those he has reaped are tethered to him – to his machine. “If you wish to remain free of a similar fate, you will do as I ask.”

  “What will you do with them if I agree to your terms?” Tessa asks, struggling under the weight of his hold.

  “They will undergo the same process you have and be integrated into our collective,” he tells her.

  The thought of an eternal soul being held captive horrifies her. It is an unending torment which defies imagination. Still, she decides in order for her own odds to continue making sense, she will do as ordered.

  “I will bring them to you, Allfather.” As she says this, her astral form is released from his hold, but she realizes now that she is little more than a slave to him. What have I done?

  ____________________________________________________________

  Raymond calls off the search for Tessa and returns the team to Labyrinth who has been connected to the machine for nearly an hour. She has released herself from the jack and joins the circle as they regroup.

  “What did you learn?” Raymond places a hand on the Host’s shoulder. Everyone is troubled over Tessa’s MIA status but anxious to know what Labyrinth knows.

  “I’m sorry to say there is little to tell. The system is locked and unyielding in its determination to defend itself. There is nothing more I can do.” Labyrinth bows her head and then asks, “Where is Tessa?”

  “You learned nothing?” Ginny questions the Host. “Nothing we can use at all? We’ve lost Tess to this place and now you’re telling me we gained nothing from the exercise?”

  “Not entirely,” Labyrinth says and then addresses the other issue. “How did you lose Tessa?”

  “She wandered,” Tobias explains. “We were preoccupied. She just, disappeared.”

  “Is she not responding to hails?”

  “No,” Manuel confirms. “We’ve been trying for the last forty minutes. If we split up, we’re done for, so there’s no point in attempting it. There’s little ground we can cover otherwise. I suggest we keep moving as a team and try to locate a power source and disable it. Buy our ship some time to -”

  Manuel is cut off by a call for help over their comms. It’s Tessa. “I’m confined in a room,” she tells them. “It has an atmosphere, but I can’t find my way out.”

  “What happened, Tess?” Ginny asks.

  “The wall, it, it just consumed me.”

  She doesn’t exactly sound panicked Ginny thinks, but they’ve learned to expect abnormal behaviour from Tessa. “Did you lean against it?” Ginny asks stepping away from the kinetic wall.

  “Something like that. Go to the opposite side of the room you’re in now, follow the wall and head left.” Tessa’s directions seem simple to follow, but that begs the question: why would she know how to get there?

  “Don’t move,” Ginny tells the group on a closed comm channel. “I don’t like that she knows how to get somewhere she’s never been.”

  “It could be Allfather,” Tobias says, backing up his wife’s suspicion. “He can mimic anyone’s voice.”

  “Then he knows we’re here,” Raymond accepts. The group forms a circle, back to back, guns and pulse fists at the ready.

  “But Tessa is missing,” Manuel adds. “Are we going to abandon her?”

  “We’re going to find her,” Labyrinth says. “I did manage to map a fair amount of this facility while connected.” She pauses. “I’m sending it to your EC’s now.” The file lights yellow on the team’s forearms through the transparent patch on their suits.

  “Is that safe?!” Ginny asks before opening the file. “It could be littered with viruses to sabotage our comms.”

  “It’s safe, Ginny. I vetted it,” Labyrinth replies, sounding hurt by the claim.