Eric and the Quantum Dragon

Awakening Centre, 10th District, Pan City

Tuesday December 18th, V26 (2046)

Sarah had been thinking a lot during the day about Andrew Frobisher. He was a nice boy, quiet and shy, yet he had changed in some ways since the incident with Mr Albright and the Portal. His Soul Spark had been stolen from him, leaving the boy a living zombie.

After the defeat of her Physics teacher, Sarah had helped get the Soul Sparks re-united with their bodies. For some of the returnees, the change in their personalities had been a good thing. Angelina was an example of that, the spoiled and angry Telekinetic now just a spoiled and friendly one.

Andrew had not been so lucky. Sarah had kind of kept an eye on him, since in a way she felt responsible for everything that had happened to the boy. Once his Soul Spark was returned, the shy boy became even more introverted, full of nameless anxiety at everything around him.

She had heard he was taking Counselling sessions, both at the school and privately. They made a little difference, but a few weeks ago he had gotten worse. His parents must have noticed and she guessed that was when they decided to try that ‘medicine’ on him.

He had been calmer she remembered the previous week, which on reflection was maybe just the medicine flattening out his emotions. Kind of like the emotional suppressants they fed the Guards, stopping them from getting unhappy or angry about their lives.

All of these thoughts had led her here, to the lobby of the Awakening Centre next to her school. She sat on the fake leather couch in the brightly coloured reception area, watching the day time workers head home and the evening batch of potential Awakened arrive for testing. The centre operated almost twenty four hours a day, with the students from her school taking up three of the working days each week. Which left two days and the evenings for everyone else to come in and try to Awaken their Ability.

She supposed a lot of the people going past were already Awakened, attending the centre for tutoring like her to improve their power. It was lost in these thoughts that she did not notice the silent arrival of Sister Domenica. A flick to her forehead elicited a small yelp of surprise and she blinked at the Necromancer.

“It is not Testing Day, Miss Evermore” her tutor said without emotion. “Why did you ask to see me?”

“Soul Sparks” Sarah said and her tutor gave a small involuntary twitch. On anyone else it would have been like them jumping back and yelling out in shock. Her tutor recovered her composure quickly and sat on the couch beside her, arranging her white robes primly.

“Why did you want to know about them?” Sister Domenica asked, her tone flat and cold once more.

“Do you know what happened at the school in early October, at the Parents and Teachers Night?” Sarah replied with a question of her own.

“Yes, I do” admitted her tutor. “I work right next door so it was pretty hard to ignore all the commotion. When the Portal was closed, I was one of the Adepts called in to try and restore the Soul Sparks to their owners”

“I hadn’t known it was you” Sarah spoke softly. “You helped a lot of people, didn’t you?”

“As much as I could” agreed the Sister. “There were a number whose bodies were never found, whose Soul Sparks could not be reunited. Those souls will be trapped forever in their crystals, not a fate I would wish on even the meanest of people”

“What about if the person had been really awful, someone who had committed terrible crimes?” Sarah asked, knowing this was not what she had come to ask but wanted to know anyway.

“Miss Evermore, every soul needs to progress through the paths of their existence. They are created in the Before, they live for a time in the Now, then they pass into the After. That is the way it must be for all of us. To trap a soul in the Now, compressed into a Soul Spark, is the greatest of crimes that can be committed”

“Even if they were really bad?”

“The After is many things, different for each soul who journeys there. It is the After that will decide what the soul shall endure, as reward or punishment for the life they have led”

Sister Domenica looked closely at the girl beside her, her normally wild and carefree expression subdued and pensive. Unseen by her student, the Necromancer allowed herself a sad smile as she regarded the girl.

“Is that what you came to ask me about, Miss Evermore?”

“In part. What I wanted to ask was about what happens to a soul that is removed then returned. Does it hurt the person somehow, does it change who they are?”

The Necromancer thought for a moment, tapping an index finger against her chin.

“This is something that very little is known about, even by Necromancers. The ritual to remove a soul intact, to compress it into a Soul Spark, is ancient and few people would know how to complete it successfully. Such a ritual was used for dark purposes, to harness the captured soul as a power source”

“That sounds like what Mr Albright was doing” Sarah responded. “He used the Soul Sparks to power his device, the one that opened the Portal”

“I know” Sister Domenica told her. “So you see, returning a Soul Spark to a living body is not something that was intended when the ritual was performed. It was meant to be a one-way process, trapping the soul forever in the crystal”

Sarah realised at last what she had feared all along.

“When we returned the Soul Sparks, we didn’t do it right, did we?”

Sister Domenica laid a cold hand on her student’s shoulder, the touch giving some small comfort to the girl.

“We did the best we could, Miss Evermore. Think of it like life saving surgery, where a surgeon has to cut his patient open to repair the illness inside. Even if the illness is cured, the patient still carries scars from the surgeon’s work”

“So Andrew is scarred inside from what we did?”

“I assume that is one of the boys that was saved? Then yes, his soul will carry the scars of what was done to him. That is the price he had to pay to be restored”

Sarah scowled, her fists clenching on her lap. Sister Domenica regarded the girl with cold eyes, yet for a moment something glimmered there. An emotion the Necromancer rarely felt in her life.

Rage. Rage at those who had decided to inflict such torment on the innocent souls that surrounded them. With a conscious effort, the Sister let that feeling go, flowing from her like a cold shower in the morning.

“You did your best, Sarah” Sister Domenica told her. “One day you will be strong enough to fix what ails this world, but for now you must be patient”

“Thank you, Sister” the young girl responded. “Thank you for all your help”.

Sarah stood and walked on leaden feet from the Awakening Centre, watched by the Necromancer until she was out of sight.

=====

The elevator descended a long way, dropping far below the Awakening Centre that lay above. Sister Domenica stood in the centre of the elevator car, her grey eyes focussed on nothing, hands clasped together at her waist.

With a ping the elevator announced its arrival at Level 66 and the doors opened. Beyond lay a short corridor, at the end of which was an armed Guard clone in a grey uniform, watching her alertly as she exited the doors and strode purposefully down the bare corridor.

As she got within a few meters, the Guard spoke up.

“Welcome, Sister Domenica” the Jack intoned. “You are returning for another research session?”

“Correct, Z-Twelve” she answered, her voice as flat as the clone’s. She presented her Ident card to the scanner beside the heavily armoured door that blocked the end of the corridor. On cue, the Guard presented a hand held card of its own to a matching scanner on the other side of the doorway. A confirmation tone sounded and the Sister heard the heavy locks disengage before the thick door rotated open.

Cold air wafted out, carrying a scent of antiseptic and exotic herbs.

“Have a nice day” Z-Twelve told her as she walked past.

“It is evening already, Z-Twelve” she corrected the Jack and entered the secret research facility she shared with one other Adept. The door closed behind her with a solid thunk, followed by the sounds of the locks engaging once more. Sealed inside this chamber, no-one could interfere with the dangerous and highly questionable work that was undertaken.

The Sister went to the central laboratory, her left hand slipping into a pocket on her robes to place a silver ring on her index finger. As she entered the high ceilinged space she shared, her co-worker looked up from his bench, a datapad open before him.

“Sister Domenica, I had not expected you back this evening” he said.

The Necromancer lifted her left hand and uttered a single word: “Restricto!”

Bands of green light flew from her finger, wrapping quickly around the startled man and binding him tightly. He staggered for a moment then fell heavily to the white tiled floor. He struggled and twisted on the floor, a look of confusion on his face.

Sister Domenica stood close by his thrashing form, looking down with no expression at all in her grey eyes.

“Stop making a fuss, Albright” she said, her words stilling the man instantly. “I just want to talk and I needed to make sure you didn’t do anything rash”

“I don’t know what you are talking about, Sister!” the man shouted. “My name is Hammond Pike, you remember that? I work for Archimedes, the same as you do!”

The woman did not move, her eyes still watching her captive closely.

“Until a few months ago, you were Tomas Albright, Physics Teacher and Summoner” the Necromancer declared evenly. “You should have been executed along with Robert Crepsley, the poor janitor who was possessed by the Emissary. Instead your Doppel-Ganger was sent to the gas chamber and you got a new identity”

The man stopped his fruitless twitching and met the eyes of his captor. A faint smile creased his face as he realised the Necromancer had always known his true identity.

“Yes, I am Albright” he admitted. “I made a deal with Archimedes to save my own skin, can you really blame me?”

The Sister knelt beside him, running a cold hand over his face and neck. Her touch was cold, colder even than the air of this hidden chamber.

“Did it hurt?” she asked. “All the surgeries to rebuild your face and change your eyes? To strip away your fingerprints and sculpt new ones in their place?”

“Yeah, it hurt a lot” agreed Albright.

“Good” said Sister Domenica. She got slowly to her feet and went to her side of the laboratory, to a safe that only opened to her touch. Within lay a tray of sparkling gems, light shining from them that only one of the Adept could see. She picked one at random and went back to where Albright was lying on the floor. He stiffened as she approached, as if the gem could hurt him somehow.

“You recognise it, don’t you?” she told him, kneeling at his side once more. “A student of mine came to see me today, a girl who has the strangest of gifts. She is not an Adept, yet I am not sure she is even one of the Awakened. Her power seems unlike anything else I have heard of in this world, either in the Light Side or the Dark”

“So, what does that have to do with me?” muttered Albright, his eyes still locked on the shining gem, a Soul Spark. One of the very same that he had stripped from a living body in a foolish attempt to open a Portal to the Abyss.

“Her name is Sarah Evermore, a child I am sure you remember quite well”

“Yes, I remember her. So she is your student? That is pretty ironic!” Albright snorted, shifting to make himself more comfortable on the cold tiles. “What do you want from me?”

“I want you to help me find out what her true power is. If she has the gift I suspect lying dormant within her, she can help me to achieve my greatest dream”

“Why should I help you, Domenica? So far I am not seeing any benefit to me in all of this”

The woman nodded her head at this, understanding him all too well.

“You think only of rewards in this world” she began. “You fear only the pain and punishments that can be inflicted in this life, here in the Now. I understand that, for it is all the simple beasts that dwell here can comprehend”

“Who are you calling a simple beast?” Albright muttered, then grimaced as the Sister flicked a fingernail against his forehead.

“Hush, I am speaking now” she told him. “Yet it is the After that should concern you most. The crimes you have committed, the stains you have made upon your soul, those will count against you in the eternity that awaits”

“I am not a religious man, Sister” he scoffed. “I don’t believe in Heaven or Hell or any of those fairy tales for the gullible. There is nothing beyond this life but emptiness and that I don’t fear at all”

Sister Domenica smiled at him, impressed by his bravado even when he was bound so tightly by her magic.

“I see. But what if I told you there may be a way to return from the After? To escape the destiny that awaits all living creatures?”

Albright regarded her with suspicious eyes.

“Resurrection? As far as we know, only one man ever achieved that and he was the son of a god!”

“Indeed” the Necromancer replied. “It is the ultimate goal of my kind, to overcome the limitations imposed on mortal beings. To come and go as we wish across the barrier from Now and After”

The man was intrigued, that much was obvious. He was a Summoner, a branch of Magic that had many similarities to the Necromancer. Albright could dive into the Dark Side and bring back creatures to serve him. The Sister could reach into the After and bring back spirits to do her bidding.

Yet it did not last and such summoned beings would always return to their own realms.

“You really think that little girl can open a Portal to the After?”

“Yes, I do” Sister Domenica breathed out so gently he almost did not hear it.

“Okay, I’ll help you” Tomas Albright agreed. “Release me from this Binding spell and we can start working on it right now”

“Hmm?” whispered the Sister. “I am sorry, the Binding spell lasts for a couple of hours. You are stuck like that until it ends. My apologies, but I am quite tired after all this activity. I will see you in the morning, Mr Albright”

The Sister got back to her feet and returned the Soul Spark to the safe, placing it carefully alongside the other nine. In the background she heard Albright cursing her name and wishing all kinds of misfortune upon her.

“Hush, dear sir” she admonished him. “You will be free by morning. Rest for now as tomorrow will be a busy day for us both”

She walked serenely from the laboratory, switching off the lights as she went. The big door swung open at her command and she stepped into the corridor beyond. The Guard Z-Twelve regarded her impassively as the massive door closed and locked behind her slender form.

“Mr Pike will be sleeping in the laboratory tonight. Please make sure he is not disturbed, Z-Twelve”

“As you command, Sister” he replied.

Sister Domenica walked slowly down the corridor to the single elevator, her steps measured and precise. It had been many years since she had felt any hope, any way of avoiding the fate she knew lay for her in the After. The stains on her soul were greater than Albright’s, the result of her own arrogance and determination to succeed where others had failed.

Sarah Evermore was the key, literally and figuratively. A Dracoris Familia, able to open Portals between the realms.

The Guard clone Z-Twelve was confused for a moment by the sound he heard. Then he recognised it as something called ‘humming’. Apparently humans were prone to hum when they were happy or satisfied with their life. He watched as Sister Domenica summoned the elevator and stepped inside.

As the doors closed, the humming could no longer be heard. He ran a check through the Quantum Network, intrigued to know what tune had been hummed by the Necromancer.

His data search revealed one match. It was a song released long ago, many decades before the V-Bomb that changed the world.

It was a little number called “Stairway to Heaven”.