Chapter 37 – Hardwired
Sunday, July 19, 2308
On the third afternoon, after leaving his cell, Fox sat on the small rise, feeling the warmth of the air and the radiance of the sun, absorbed and reflected by the crystals of the sand.
He pushed his attention into the sand, the silica crystals of sodium-two hydrogen. Once superheated, it melts into glass and then slowly evaporates into the atmosphere; Exactly like Terillium.
Fox looked out at the watery haze of heat, rising from the flat white plane. Terillium was not unique in its solid structure. Most heavy metals, as well as crystals, evaporated into the air.
Terillium was not unique.
It did not need to be mined, Fox realized.
All Atoms were once Terillium Atoms.
And that, as such, all atoms could be reverted back to their original state, fully turned on - as Terillium.
Fox thrust his hand into the loose grains. If he wanted, he could revert the atoms. And he understood; that was how Epsilon had reduced itself to a single amplifier.
Fox scooped up a handful of grains and let them run through his fingers. First they rained out as gold, then as silver and finally as snowflakes, before evaporating completely in the heat of the late afternoon.
As the sunlight reached Fox, on the eighth minute of its journey from the surface the yellow dwarf star at the center of the solar system, Fox saw how each particle’s life cycle was forever repeated. It broke free from the sun, perfect. It heated the atmosphere and then the particle struck the sand itself, penetrating the silica, sinking and shedding disguises until eventually merging with the planet’s terillium deposits.
The heat that was reflected back from the planet, or say from the surface of the moon, would continue to cool until settling somewhere.
Fox saw clearly; he did not need an amplifier.
Everything was Terillium.
Everything was him.
He was everything.
He laughed.
Ashley’s Journal, Monday, July 21, 2308
After getting disqualified two matches in a row, I tried to restrain myself a bit. I’ve been practicing what they teach us and I’m working with the boys on their level.
I am actually putting forth a genuine effort to practice Mrs. Rabier's advice. I don’t know why. It just seems easier than fighting.
This way, we’re all learning more than we could if we were fighting.
With each other, the boys respond to everything with violence. None of their petty arguments are personal. They don’t even know each other. It’s all about ego and dominance.
When I stand up there in front of some kid and they blow the whistle, I’m not facing his record, or his reputation. It’s just him and me.
I treat him just like I would any of the boys in the canyon back home.
But they treat each other like wild animals. They stare each other in the chest and only look their opponent in the face to taunt or insult each other. They lose focus looking each other in the eye, and then wonder why their attacks fail.
This is more than just physical coordination and ability. I go out of my way to make eye contact. Once I do, if they continue to advance on me, I consider it an act of betrayal. The friend I spoke to in that glance wouldn't attack me. Anyone who does is no longer a friend.
I just wait for them. I watch and I wait, and when they move, I move first. I always wait for the attack. I’m the girl; I don’t have to attack. And from all my ballet practice, I am soooo fast.
They are really no match for me. It’s not fair; I can break any of them, anytime I want. It’s the isolation, away from the ring, that bothers me most. It’s almost over now though, just a few more days.
Friday morning we go home! I honestly can’t wait for a whole day of sleep. That’s all I want, sleep. I’m going to sleep for a week. Then I’m going to get up and take a nap.
Tuesday, July 21, 2308
"I met with Senator Miller this afternoon," Stanwood told Fox, unseen, through the plastic door. "He doesn't like you. And apparently someone ransacked his office, so it seems Miller isn’t much liked either."
Fox laughed, sitting in his cell, legs crossed, eyes closed.
"For what it's worth, I told him this is wrong,” Stanwood said. “I believe we have no legal right to be holding you like this. It's not up to me, of course. As a suspected traitor, technically, we can hold you forever, but we'd need to strip you of your citizenship. They're trying to get the paperwork through justice. Believe me, once they do, this gate won't stay closed. Miller wants to use the same tech you developed for Black Willow.”
Stanwood paused.
“Can you believe it? I don't know if that's the textbook definition of irony, but it makes me smile.” The smile came through in his voice.
Fox didn’t answer.
"So, here's the deal. You have until the Attorney General signs whatever warrants he's going to sign. You have that long to save your family. He's going to sign the warrants, and when he does, you and your family will be stripped of your citizenship rights.
"Miller already has a lien on your wife and children. He’s claiming them as line items in previous budgets. He says he owns them, and the first thing he intends to do is cut them up, to see what you've got going on under the hood.
“I explained that if he did that, we wouldn't have any leverage on you. I got him to agree to just take one, preferably your wife, and to let us use the children to keep you talking. I figure, that way, everyone gets something. It’s all about compromise, after all. You still have some interest in cooperating and thereby ensuring your children's continued safety.”
Fox heard fear in Stanwood's voice.
“We all know your wife was a traitor to the republic before you even met her. So there’s no doubt about what is going to happen to her."
“She is a patriot, as am I,” Fox said, hearing even a little fear in his own voice.
"We know he's going to sign them, the AG thinks you're dangerous enough that we don't have to wait for you to betray the country. After what happened at Epsilon, it's in the nation's best interests to remove you from society.
"By the way, did you know they have a triggerman on your block? Apparently, they have a wet worker, dedicated to you, undercover for the almost seven years now, Mister Justin Case."
Stanwood fell silent for a moment.
Fox remained motionless.
"That's what they've got lined up for your pretty wife and those two adorable children, unless you talk. Right now.”
Stanwood waited.
"You have answers they want, and if you don't tell me, they're going after your family. Don't you even care?”
“I care, and you do not exist.”
At the same moment, several hundred meters away, Fox sat on the small sand dune. There was no point in thinking about Stanwood, about where he was being kept or if he would be rescued in time.
There was no in time.
There was only now.
Fox spread his fingers and his power into and through the tiny crystalline grains and contemplated his existence.
Sand, mostly silicon, number fourteen, a chemical analog for carbon. Fox pushed his sensory perception into the grains of matter surrounding him. He could feel himself, he could feel the earth as himself. At the same time, he could feel himself inside his cell and could hear Stanwood make his idle threats.
What he found strange was how normal, how natural it felt.
He had not changed.
It felt more like he had come home and that home was all of creation.