Forsaken
Part 1 of The Chronicles of Agilia
By Kevin Gordon
Copyright 2011 by Kevin Gordon
Part I: Oblivion
“Have you ever had the feeling that you weren’t meant to do something? Like, you’re driving, and you reach the intersection of a road you must turn onto, a road you otherwise might not’ve even been on, and the light suddenly goes wrong? Traffic goes by, and you’re faced with a choice; do I move forward, risk merging into the traffic, just to get where I was going? Or do I listen to this voice in my head, telling me it wasn’t meant for me to go there, that the light going bad was a sign from Holis, and I should just turn back. Have you ever felt that?”
“Yeah, I suppose we all have.”
Wudcina lingered for a moment, taking time to appreciate the impatience of youth, made blatant on her scarred yet beautiful face. He pushed back on his chair, resting the heels of his palms on the wide desk that separated the two of them. “And what we do, in that circumstance, defines who and what we are. There are those of us who thrill in trying something new and different, and taking chances. But even they sometimes turn back, when they see those signs.”
In unconscious sympathy Agilia leaned back in her chair, a chair that felt too much like the ones she sat in as a child at school, in front of many teachers she always tried her best to ignore. It was stiff, with a thin metal frame and a wooden back and seat. The frame was even angled so she couldn’t tilt the chair back on its hind legs and throw her feet up on the desk before her. Not even the thickness of her black duprene suit could dull the discomfort. She half expected to turn around and see one of the old rickety euals polishing the tile floors.
“And then there are those like me?”
“Yes. Those like you,” answered Wudcina, somewhat seriously, somewhat mockingly. He was a short old man, with a thick, chiseled jaw around which hoops of wrinkles were laid. He leaned back in his wide chair behind an even wider, massive desk, and she hated him for his superiority. The office, though terribly cluttered, spoke of wealth and wisdom, and though he was grey with a little too much around his middle, he struck her as one of the most vibrant people she had come across in a very long time. “People who go on,” he continued, “no matter the signs. People that seem to make their own destiny. Time is a beast, the likes of which you couldn’t imagine. We now have a machine that can take us back in time. We can change things that went wrong, improve our own timeline.”
“But?”
He sat up straight, and slammed his fist on the desk, sputtering out a surprised laugh. “You’re not even amazed at what I just said, are you?! I just told you we now have a time machine, and you’re not even the least bit impressed.”
She shrugged. “Nope. Seems like it was only a matter of . . . time.”
He winced at her attempt at humor. “Getting tired of me rambling on?”
Her eyes drifted casually out the window, onto the crowded grey streets bustling with life, wishing she could be out there, finding something to get into, some job to work on. She had never been inside a building like this, filled with men and women of the mind, in all her travels. The Science Foundation always had a certain degree of mystery about its name, after all, it was the only government institution able to snatch children away from their families and educate them on their own. But now that Agilia was finally inside, she saw it was filled with boring bureaucrats in white lab coats, just like she knew it would be. I could never be like them – confined to one building, stuck with the same people day after dreary day. Well, at least you don’t have to worry about where your food’s coming from. Her belly rumbled almost on cue, and in an instant the small degree of respect she had for Wudcina turned into a dull hatred at the fat hanging obscenely on his frame.
“Yeah, I suppose so.”
“Well, you need to listen. People like you never do, though. Your type has figured out you always get your own way—you hate to listen to teachers, parents, anyone with authority. Because you’re damned special.”
She folded her arms with a satisfied smile. “From what you’ve said, I certainly am.”
“Then listen!” He took a deep breath, preparing for the plunge. He hated that she had limited intelligence, or rather, limited exposure to science, but she was the best candidate available to him. The only candidate. “Time has two facets. The first part relates to the physical universe. You can’t change an event without a correspondingly large amount of energy. The more factors the event will influence, the greater the energy needed. So changing the color of one’s shoestring wouldn’t need much energy. But changing someone’s clothes, the position of their favorite chair, would require a lot. Killing someone important in the past requires a fantastic amount of energy.”
“Yeah, I know. But people like me don’t need all that energy, do we?”
“No, you don’t,” he said, smiling approvingly. “All you need to worry about is the Holis side of things, the second facet of time.”
Agilia sat up. “Excuse me?”
“Time is an aspect of Holis. And if you don’t believe in the Iquitian sense of the word, than let us say time is an aspect of the Master-Creator. The MC watches us grow, and progress. Maybe one day our kind will evolve to exist in different temporal states, as we can now move about in the three-dimensions. But for the present, the MC doesn’t want anyone messing with time. We’ve sent two agents back before you, and we’ve seen it happen. Those signs, those portents, grow larger and larger. When our agent gets near the target, things really go haywire. We’ve lost both agents, and we don’t even know how it happened. Suffice to say they were moments from fulfilling their objective. Holis, or the MC, just didn’t want them to finish.”
She chuckled, and took another drink from the glass in front of her. “Sounds pretty damned crazy.”
“Pretty damned crazy is traveling back in time. What happened to those two is pretty damned scary.”
Down she fell along the side of the building, watching the windows slip past her at a frightening rate. Iqui was a terribly crowded world, densely packed with people, overrun with buildings, infested with ground cars, aerocars, transports – even the air was packed to the point it could almost be seen anywhere and everywhere. Consequently, stealth was a difficult proposition, in a world where almost anything could be seen. So she learned to repel down the buildings, swing between the bridges, hang from the pylons – anywhere that the ordinary person would be least likely to look. Even now, people inside the building she repelled down laughed and ate, fought and sexed, all without even thinking to look outside. Her gaze was caught by the raindrops, and was surprised to find she was falling almost as fast, making the pearls of water appear to be in a kind of stasis. The ground rushed to meet her, eager to embrace her, but with a flick of her wrist she denied its call. Her micro-thrusters engaged, and she slowed her fall to make her body feel it was just a long jump. She landed hard on her muscular legs and quickly switched on her face-scrambler. In moments she was in the crowd just around the corner, walking home again after another successful kill.
Why do they want me?
She had been rolling the thought over in her mind all while she waited for her target earlier. It was a boring, grey day, with little to distract her mind. She had all but decided to refuse their offer, until today, until her long hours in the rain, waiting.
I feel like I’ve been waiting all my life.
She stepped slightly to one side, making a few men beside her curse her under their breaths.
You’ll be sorry . . .
Suddenly a groan could be heard overhead as a trans slipped off its energy-rail. It brought a wide shadow to where she walked, and its bulk arced down, impacting the ground with terrible force, narrowly missing her head. A few others near her,
not quick enough, were slammed by the metal, crushed in an instant beneath the machine’s bulk. She heard the screams, saw the blood, but it just didn’t matter to her.
I told you you’d be sorry.
She moved on, thinking on the Wudcina’s words. Rolling them over in her mind, trying to sink her teeth into them, and digest their meaning. She wasn’t the brightest of people; not one to fathom great depths in a profound statement, not one to understand science-speak. She was a creature of the government; a hired assassin, who knew how to wait, how to kill, and how to escape.
And I’ve been escaping all my life. Why do I feel like now, I’ve been marked for death? That stuff about Holis must’ve gotten in my head. She stopped and sat on a bench, as the rain let up for a while. The sun was trying to make is presence known again, trying to force its way through the toxic clouds. Holis killed them. She rolled it over in her mind. They had the power, yet Holis killed them.
“Another close call, eh?”
She nodded to the fat man across the bar who spat those words, as more of the foul liquid oozed down her throat, numbing her pain, dulling her senses. The counter before her felt like the rail she propped her gun up on earlier, and she again felt like she was waiting. She squirmed in her Duprene suit, wishing she could’ve stopped by the PersonaWash to get out some of the filth she had acquired on her last three missions. Never cared about this before – must be that damned Science Institute with those perfectly clean, perfectly fat fools.
“You know, we keep on having more and more accidents. Those damn trans,” groaned the fat man, as he waddled back behind a tall cabinet filled with half-washed glasses and bowls, “are nothin’ but death traps. Should’ve been outlawed a long time ago!” He came back out with a hot plate filled greenish noodles that swaddled a few morsels of meat. He dropped it in front of her, sloshing the noodles almost over the edge.
“Hey! I’m paying for that.”
“Sorry, sorry,” he said, holding up his hand with a smile. “Sometimes I forget my actual paying customers.” He nodded down to a few men dressed in little more than rags, looking bitter and mean, hunched low over similar plates of noodles and meat. “Gotta make my damn quota.”
“Stop your damn whining.” She shoveled the noodles into her mouth, actually hungry for the first time in a while. She was used to skipping meals, but eventually her appetite caught up with her. She actually liked it that way, as the food always tasted better when she was ravenously hungry. “Who’s got it good? At least you’re fat. You’ve had your fun. I’ve never seen so many skinny people. I mean noodles—noodles!” She flung them back onto the plate, sighing with disgust. “Who’se gonna get fat offa this? I can’t even eat more than a plate of this, and I’m damned hungry.”
“You’d be shot if you did,” he said flatly.
“What, they lowered the max again?”
“Yup. One day, one plate. No more, under penalty of death.”
“Damn.” She shook her head, cursing the world under her breath. “Sometimes, I could actually eat that second plate.”
The fat man leaned in. “I always gave it to you before, and I always will. Those regs went into effect a year ago.”
She looked at him, startled and surprised.
“Why?” he asked, in response to her expression. He wiped the counter down with a rag with more holes than cloth, smiling to himself. “Maybe ‘cause I know you need it. I know you lead a life that gets little to no ‘thank yous.’ I know that one day, maybe when someone else needs just a little bit of . . . something, that you might give it to them, and know it was the right thing to do.”
She finished her plate, and after thanking him for the first time in a long time, stepped outside, and just walked the streets. She meandered aimlessly through the tired masses that reeked of too few showers, along streets and sidewalks churned up yet never repaired, under lights that were usually burned out or barely lit. The air stank, it was hot, and it was the first time she actually realized it.
And I could change it all. Me.
She stood at the top of a small bridge that arced over a thin creek filled with stagnant brown water. Below her, she could see a few huddled groups bathing in the putrid mess, while a couple of lone souls stood guard, watching for CRODAM patrols. Further down, in the shadows, she could see a few women being dragged down by laughing hands, their bodies a feast for the strong men’s lust. She had seen it a hundred times before, once even was almost dragged down there herself, yet only now, did she see it could be different.
What would it be like? she thought, as she moved away, looking up at the stars. Where would they send me that this would all change?
She got on her motobike and rode, long into the night, the fetid air becoming cooler and lighter the faster she went. The darkness was as a blanket that soothed her mind. She drove with the throttle fully open, hugging the roads while burning the streets. With every yellow light she saw in the distance, she responded with a burst of speed. Out into the country she flew, away from the press of metal and stone, away from the good and evil, the sin and vice. She drove to where there was neutrality; a blend of the ground and the stars into a grey blur, with only a few deserted hovels to remind her of civilization. She rode without lights, only guided by dim starlight. She slammed on the brakes hard, coming to a division, with one sign pointing one way, one pointing another. She sat before them, listening to the engine throb erratically between her thighs, beating in sympathy to her own heart.
No omen to sway me, one way or the other? She looked up into the sky, waiting for an answer. I know how to cheat my fate, but I don’t know how to build my future. She gunned the engine, and sped down the path she had chosen, still in the dark.
The next day, she reluctantly sat in the chair back in the Science Foundation, struggling to pay attention to what Wudcina said. She yearned for a drink, a smoke, and the handle of her gun. The antiseptic clean of the offices irritated her even more. Everyone outside wallows in dirt and grime, struggling to clean their clothes once a month, yet in here I feel like the dirtiest person ever created. She had become even more self-conscious about her clothes on this second visit, cursing herself for skipping the trip to the PersonaWash that morning. Ah well. I’m sure they’ll give me new clothes.
“Are you listening?”
She shrugged reluctantly, straightening up. “Yeah, I actually am.”
Wudcina started in his chair, as a slight grin crossed his face. “You’re starting to believe, aren’t you?”
“Just tell me,” asked Agilia, haltingly, “how am I going to change all this? Who do I hafta kill?”
“First, tell me something. I’ve done a lot of scientific study, but I rarely have the opportunity these days to study people, and you’re quite a specimen. In fact, it’s hard for me to believe you’re an assassin, someone who can kill without doubt, without regret. All our other candidates were . . . less aggressive, one being a CRODAM officer, another, one of my colleagues. When did you start killing? Was there some time, some incident that told you who you would become?”
“Why would I tell you?”
“Why wouldn’t you? I am about to bend the laws of physics for you and this entire world. I can help you do something that almost no one else in all of creation has done. I have power, woman,” he said emphatically, the man within him surging to the fore, “and I am giving it to you. The least you could do is be grateful for it.”
She smiled wryly. “You sure you’re just a scientist?”
“I’ve been here a long time, but I haven’t always been here, haven’t always done this.”
Agilia sat back looking at this man, wondering why she was about to tell him something she never told anyone else in her life. She could see the gaze of command in his eyes, could see that at one point in his life, he probably made people talk using much more controversial methods.
“I don’t know. I guess it was one time I went out with my girlfriend, Danici. Danici was one of the wildes
t, craziest girls I’d ever met.” She leaned forward, her hands clasped together, as she thought on a past she preferred buried and forgotten. She absently picked at some dried stain on her leggings, and then pressed on. “Well, we were walking home after a party – she had a big glass bottle of liquor, and this guy just runs by her, knocking her almost over. He stops and yells ‘stupid bitch’ and she, with this amazingly quick motion, wails up and smashes him on the head with the bottle. It went clean through his skull, dropping him dead to the ground, and she just starts laughing and laughing. I start laughing too, and I go over and put my boot into the hole in his head. It all of a sudden becomes so damned funny, that here this guy thought he was so big and tough, and now the two of us are laughing, standing over his bloody head.”
Wudcina nodded somberly. “And that was when it began? You never bullied other girls, or killed little animals as a child?”
“I’m not some damned sociopath! I know the difference between right and wrong. At least, I knew . . .”
He nodded. “Thank you for indulging me. I’m sorry if I got too personal.”
“No, no.” She took a deep breath. “I think I’ve needed to tell someone that, at least, before I die. Because that is what will happen on this mission, isn’t it?”
“The chances of success are quite low. But I’m sure that’s how it is for you on any mission.”
“Yeah, but I know I’m not gonna die on any of those.”
He smiled. “Do you know why the world is as you see it? Did you ever hear of the disaster at Hulce?”
“No. I don’t have much use for history.”
“Suffice it to say, that all our hopes died that day. It was a day that we would have conquered the stars. OLMAC, the company that manufactures our food, actually created an extrasolar vehicle.”
“A what?”
He couldn’t hide his disappointment at her ignorance, and cursed under his breath. “It was going to go around the planets. But before it could launch, a terrorist group destroyed it. Not only did it destroy the ship, it killed Mechle Rulsi, the owner of OLMAC at that time, who happened to be the ship’s pilot. All of that started a ripple that ended in a few wars, a couple of atrocities, and the world not wanting to take any more chances. OLMAC never tried to go into space again, and all of us stayed put on this spinning rock. I won’t bore you with the sociological stuff. All you need to know is that ship must launch.”
Agilia nodded slowly, for the first time feeling as if she belonged, as if she understood why she was here. After all, it was just another mission, just in a different time. How I get there isn’t important. “How did you know I was the right one?”
“You never got caught! All those missions, all those people you killed, and you never got caught?” he remarked, shaking his head. “That told us you might be someone special. Then we gave you a test, a test that proved just what you are. You see, the universe sits on a brane, like your body lies on a sheet. Your foot is like a star, and the bigger it is, the bigger the impression on the sheet. Well, creation is made up of thousands of these branes, all sandwiched together. People like me, we make an infinitesimally small impression on that sheet. People like you, well, somehow you don’t. You can travel from one sheet to another, one brane to another. Your body, your essence, seems to conduct the energy in a way we still don’t understand. That’s how people like you are able to change events in time. For people like you, the energy acts differently. Your mind knows ways around it, like you know how to make your own destiny. I know you don’t understand all of what I’ve said—I’ve had to leave out a lot of the science-speak just to tell you this much. But, maybe you’ll remember, and eventually understand.”
“Still, how did you know about me?” pressed Agilia. “I work for a discreet employer, keep my image and name out of the media. How did you know about me?”
“Agilia, once I was in the business of stewarding rogues like you. Men and women who thought the world of themselves, and in truth, they earned every bit of their self-adulation. So I know what types of people become assassins, and how long they tend to last. You’ve always had my eye, even though you didn’t know it. I have many contacts from those old days, and month after month, year after year, your name kept being circulated. When our two agents failed, for some reason your name clicked. And when I finally took a good, long look at your record, I understood why. Something has kept you alive this long – I’m hoping it’ll keep you alive a little while longer.”
She spent the night with a man she knew—another assassin like her. Once in a while he would call her, or she him, just before a mission that might mean death or permanent capture. He was very good at what he did, under the sheets, and she rewarded him with an equally impressive performance. They seldom spoke, but afterwards, as they drifted in and out of sleep, he spoke, to her surprise.
“I’m gettin’ outta this.”
His words were more like a guttural mumble in low bass tones. She glanced over at him, and found his eyes glued to the ceiling.
“Why?”
He turned over, and pulled the sheet over his shoulder. “This isn’t life.”
Why do I think of Holis at a time like this?
She stood outside a building that she had traced to the terrorists. It wasn’t a long trip, back into the past. She spent two weeks in training, going over the weapons she would take back and getting a rudimentary history lesson on the planet at the time, with five Science Foundation minions taking every sample from her body she could imagine. Finally, after those two weeks Wudcina helped her into a small, silver orb, and wished her a good trip. The orb seemed to dissolve into space for a few moments, and when it coalesced, the planet Novan was nowhere to be found, leaving her alone in the blackness of the void. The actual time spent on the journey was traveling to where Novan was located in the past. In that sense she was thankful, for though she didn’t understand the physics behind time travel, Agilia knew it had been done seldom before, and if something went wrong, she could die in a way no one had ever thought of before.
Not in all that time—from when she sat down in the craft, to when it dissolved, to the long four months in isolation journeying to the past Novan—did she once think of Holis. Death was meaningless to her, for she had faced it too many times to count in too many different ways. But what’s more, she could feel that she wasn’t in mortal peril. On every mission she ever went on, from her first to her most recent, she could feel if she shouldn’t step this way or that. It wasn’t a physical reaction—no hair stood up on her neck or nausea in her gut, but it was more like a dimming of her thoughts, a weight that would settle on her consciousness. And not until now, with her goal almost achieved, did she feel that weight settle on her soul.
She was in the wrong time, though. She diligently checked the date when she arrived – she was always very good about detail in any mission – and found the craft had taken her thirty years too far in the past. The OLMAC ship she was supposed to save was still not yet built, but the terrorists already were making their plans. She found the group, and assumed the plan would still work, no matter how far back they were killed. She stood in front of a squat, dirty brick-and-steel building with a small handgun in one hand and a mini-nuke slung over her shoulder. All she had to do was turn the handle of the door, walk in, and destroy them all. But her hand wouldn’t move.
All I need to do is turn the handle.
She reached up, but it stopped a few inches from the handle. She could almost feel the metal’s coolness, and yet, could not touch it.
What’d he say? ‘The energy to change such a massive event would be like . . .’ what was it? ‘Would be like the energy needed to create not only all the stars in our galaxy, but all the stars in ten galaxies like ours.’ She stood there, her arms at her sides, now unable to even lift them.
Why did Holis let all this come to pass? If there is a Holis, why did she let us end up like we are—miserable, hungry, smelly, and hateful? She thought back for a moment
. That’s really what it is. We all hate so much. We hate ourselves, hate each other, hate the place we live and the things we do. She turned around, and walked away.
I need a drink.
Agilia sat in a bar, familiar yet different, trying to forget about how easy it was to drown. There was a thin man serving the drinks, and it just didn’t seem right to her. Couples sat in polished booths, sharing bread while waiters and waitresses brought platters full of steaming, succulent food.
“You had enough?” he grumbled angrily, with a bitterness familiar to her.
“What’s it to ya?”
He brusquely wiped down the counter with a white cloth, taking a moment to polish the handles of the taps. “I don’t know you. You gotta pay before you get anymore.” He paused for a moment, regarding her suspiciously. “Besides, you don’t look like you belong here. I’ve got nice people in here – and I wanna keep it that way.”
She took out the few old credits she was supplied with and slapped them on the table. The thin man snatched, then fingered through them, looking back at her now and then. She slumped on the table, her arm sprawled out along its length.
Never thought of myself as a coward. I guess we always learn something new about ourselves.
She looked down along her arm, to the small bump near her wrist on her arm.
Maybe I need to press it now, bring back the ship, and just go home. She took the last bit of drink left in her glass, holding it up, to see if anymore would come out. Ah well, enough of this.
She staggered out, and back onto the streets of the ancient city of Ithmarin. She was constantly surprised at how bright everything was—the lights above her, the shine on the buildings themselves. The oppressive closeness of her time was gone, replaced a spacious euphoria. There was an ebullience in the eyes of everyone she passed; a fierce affirmation of the opportunity for a good life they all had been given. While the bartender might not have reflected it, she could see it nonetheless in every face that passed her, especially in the little children that danced through the streets like death was but a distant lie. She breathed in deeply, and could taste the sweet moisture on her lips.
So this is what it was like. It’ll be a shame to see it all go away. After all, what do I owe to them? She thought of her hard life, filled with violence and pain. Why should I do them any favors?
She passed by a café, and saw dozens of couples sitting, drinking, and eating. They laughed, and leisurely picked at their food, food that beckoned to her appetite. Sure ain’t noodles here. Then it hit her, how many times the fat man did what he could for her. He don’t even know how many I killed, what I’ve done, yet, he was always good to me. It was then, that the memory of her intermittent lover came back. “This isn’t life,” he said. That’s all he said. He didn’t need to say anymore. Every single day I think the same thing—I just never admit it to myself. I’m just happy that I’ll never die from some random accident or eat contaminated protein mush. But even though I live, I’m not alive. None of us are, back then. Agilia looked down at her hands, the hands of an assassin, missing their favorite gun. Is this what I’ve really been feeling? I can’t live, making others die. I can’t kill to stay alive. One life for one life is fair trade, but I’ve killed hundreds for this one life. And it’s time I gave something back. She turned, and ran back towards the building, slinging the mini-nuke back over her shoulder and readying her pistol with a new determination in her eyes. On the way, as she ran across a crowded street, a small car hit her, and blackness consumed her mind.