The Human Experience

Lost all sense of time now.

Del finally woke from the Voice-induced catatonia. One of the first Helms to do so, as Orcadis predicted. I filled her in on the broken hangar doors, the Voice-people and the Star-Gods.

I think now she envies those peaceful bastards taking refuge in their catatonia.

The medics had confined her to bed, but Delia Alister wasn’t one for playing the patient. Her head felt like a bowl of beaten eggs, her thoughts still moving as if through tar, but sitting in the sterile north wing without any mental stimulation would only make things worse. Perhaps she could help Orcadis revive the remaining Helms. Perhaps...what had she been thinking about? Del shook her head to clear it. Yes, she needed something to get her mental wheels going, or else they’d rust.

She halted when she saw the Star-King planted in a chair right outside Orcadis’s quarters, eyes vigilant and hands folded atop his knees. Del silently cursed herself; she’d forgotten about his role as bodyguard.

He looked up at her approach. Del’s sluggish mind wasn’t quick enough to stop her from spewing anything just to break the tension. “I don’t know what you keep whining about,” she said. “Getting over catatonia is easy.”

The king challenged her with a raised eyebrow. He’d gotten better at coordinating his facial muscles during her catatonia. “Try being catatonic for a decade and a half. I wasn’t always this sack of bones, mind you. I was quite an impressive specimen – likely half Orcadis’s size.”

Del gave a half-smile, though her heart dropped at the mention of Orcadis. She figured it showed on her face, because the playful crinkles around the king’s eyes deepened and became sad. He looked at her a long moment, leaning forward in his chair. She tried not to squirm under his analytical gaze.

“What you did – rallying the Helms, giving up your mind to save those on board – it was...honourable,” he finally said.

No – that was my duty to myself. The bitterness behind the memory of his words surprised her. She shook her head. “We all do what we feel we must, Your Grace.”

Her formality made his brows furrow. “Do you judge me for my decision, Delia?”

Del met his eyes, alarmed. “Never, Your Grace.”

He frowned, taking up the opal-headed staff against his chair and shaking it at her with mock menace. “By decree of your Star-King, cut the formal horseshit already.”

“Forgive me, I didn’t mean – ”

“Ah, ah! I said cut it, not slap on a fresh dollop.” He offered a smile, eyes flickering. What did the man think he was doing? Did he hope to turn her own frankness back on her, use it to ram a spoonful of friendship into her mouth like she’d rammed soup into his?

She took a deep breath. “On the ramp in the hangar, I heard your thoughts screaming in pain as you sentenced Orcadis and Enver to death. Yet you still did it. Not out of vengeance or anger, but out of responsibility. I understand that. I can’t expect you to act according to my wishes when your sense of duty won’t even let you act according to yours. So no, Highness, I don’t judge you. I admire you.”

Serasta sat back, some of the tension leaving his body even as pain grooved his mouth. “That does not make it any easier, does it?”

Memories of pain desensitization training flooded back to Del, teachings whispered by Orcadis himself: Your mind is master. Ignore pain, trick your body into believing it isn’t hurt.

But could one trick one’s heart?

“No,” she sighed. “It doesn’t.”

For some moments they just stood in the hollow tunnel dug by their words, the silence ringing between them like funeral bells. Then, together, they drew themselves up with deep breaths.

“Well, I’m going to see how Orcadis is holding up,” Del said. Serasta squinted long at her, prompting her to add, “What?”

“Just making sure you’re not glowing. Go right in.” She nodded, her fingers tightening around the metal latch. The Star-King called after her in the last moment.

“Delia? I exiled them. To Delmira.”

She didn’t turn to face him, just closed her eyes and felt the hollowness shift inside. Was such a fate better? Worse?

“I believe what I said: no death can give justice for what they’ve done. Maybe life – a life spent in isolation and reflection – is the only thing that can.”

Not knowing what to say – it seemed inappropriate to thank him – Del simply forced down the knot in her chest and pushed on the latch, opening the doors.

She stopped dead on the threshold, melancholy forgotten in the lightning horror of seeing Orcadis with his hands on either side of Jesreal’s waist, Jesreal almost pressed against him, one arm hooked around his neck. By Tychon’s blinding light, they were either wrestling or making out!

“Shit, sorry!” Del spun and her forehead smacked against the edge of the open door. Stars popped before her eyes. Cursing, she reeled and felt a table corner dig into her hip.

“I’m o-okay,” she spluttered as Jesreal rushed to steady her. Catatonia was suddenly looking really good. Serasta chuckled outside, but she’d punish him later. Right now the earth needed to open up and swallow her.

Wiping hair from her eyes, she saw the whole scene. Jesreal had a – yes, that was a bottle of scotch in her right hand. Orcadis slumped against the wall, the front of his undershirt drenched as if he’d spat out the scotch she’d tried to medicate him with.

Oh. Wrestling, then.

Orcadis wore an unimpressed frown. “Frankly, my dear, you curse like a Rathian tribesman.”

She gave a sheepish grimace.

“He refuses to sleep,” Jesreal said quickly. “He’ll kill himself if he keeps on like this. Sleep deprivation will weaken his mind, making it an easier target for the Voices. I thought...” She tucked loose strands back into her plait in a last-ditch attempt at regaining her professional air, “perhaps some alcohol would help alleviate the stress.”

Orcadis was still breathing heavily from the struggle with Jesreal. He looked broken, exhausted, his face gleaming with sweat and his hair damp at the ends. Still, there was defiance in his eyes. “To intoxicate myself is to lose control of my mind,” he said. “I won’t do it.”

“You promised you would sleep once you cured every catatonic!”

“I promised I would try,” Orcadis said evenly. “But alas, insomnia. Besides, I’m too tired to complete my pre-sleep rituals.”

Jesreal groaned. “I thought age would cure you of stubbornness.”

“It hasn’t cured your domineering nature.”

Uh oh. Del backed to the door. Not your place, Delia.

Jesreal looked like she wanted to scream at him, but she took a calming breath and placed the scotch on the table with a finalizing thunk. “Killing yourself won’t fix anything, Orcadis. Start taking your life seriously. If you don’t forgive yourself, your Helms never will.”

Orcadis looked pleadingly at her. “And you?”

Her face hardened. “I will forgive you when Kaed does.” And she disappeared out the door.

Del waited until her footsteps faded to pick up the bottle with a low whistle. “Heavy. Mind if I help myself?”

Orcadis waved an absent hand. It could have meant a number of things, but she took a swig anyways to deflect the tension. Warmth bloomed in her stomach, numbing the throbbing in her forehead and hip.

“How does it feel not to be able to read thoughts?” he finally asked.

She fingered the bottle’s mouth, staring down into its glassy depths. “Like I’m missing one of my senses. The world doesn’t have the same clarity. I feel...blind.”

And vulnerable. Without knowing people’s intentions, that primal distrust had begun to kick in again. She eyed Lykus’s grin and checked her front for protruding dagger hilts, listened to Serasta’s quips and heard unspoken threats.

Del tipped the bottle back again, then wiped her mouth with her sleeve. “If you don’t give in soon, there won’t be any left.”

He didn’t take the bait, just leaned his head against the wall and exhaled. “Where is Lykus with the next catatonics?”

Del frowned. “There aren’t any more, remember? You can rest now.”

Orcadis pushed off the wall suddenly, teetering like he was already drunk. “You don’t understand.” He turned eyes foggy from sleeplessness to her. “If I go to sleep, I may not wake up.”

A hot current of fear passed through her. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “You’ve been exposed to a lot of radiation, that’s all. We’ll get you nice and Infected, then hook you up to the detector.”

“Who’s going to operate it?”

“I will. Teach me.”

“It took me turns to master it, to learn how to withstand being in close proximity to it when it’s in operation. You could pass out if you tried to work it. You could die.”

Del had to strain in order to pull out a lighthearted comeback. “I’m smarter than you, though.”

Orcadis wasn’t amused. He easily moved her away from the doors – still infuriatingly strong, curse him – and placed a hand on the latch. “I’m only heading into exile – on Delmira, it won’t matter if I’m a Helm. Now if you’ll please, I think I’ll pay Enver a visit.”

Where’s your mind, Orcadis? “You can’t leave the southern wing. The whole quarantine thing? You can still produce Voices.”

He turned back, frowning as his hand slipped off the latch. “That’s...right. Perhaps you shouldn’t stay near me.”

“It takes millions of thoughts to make a single Voice. And the way you’re acting, I don’t think you’ve produced ten coherent thoughts since I arrived. Relax.” She handed him the bottle. “Have a drink.”

Orcadis accepted it gingerly, swished the clear liquid around, then took a sniff and recoiled. When Del only waited, he sipped through puckered lips. She laughed.

“You know,” he said, “This is the first drink I’ve had since the evening I wiped from your memory.”

Her heart seized. “Don’t worry, if we end up making out, I’ll knock you over the head and take care of those memories.” She grimaced. Can’t ever hold back, can I?

But Orcadis was smiling. “The fault was not with you, my dear. I was ashamed of my feelings for you. You’re nearly twenty turns my junior, and you looked to me as a role model. I didn’t want to take advantage of your trust.”

Feelings? Her heart pumped wildly at the admission, but she forced herself to sober, angry with her own girlish foolishness. This was the man who had forcibly blanked her mind and called it ‘not taking advantage of her trust.’ The man who had created the Voices and thought they would just go away if he ignored his responsibility long enough. She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Do you always solve problems by refusing to think?”

“Yes,” he whispered. The instant, unhesitating honesty with which he admitted it surprised her.

Del lay a hand on his arm. “Everyone deserves a second chance.”

He met her eyes. The look he gave her was broken, tormented, hungry to believe anything that that would put him out of his misery. But it quickly passed. His eyes grew hard as he placed his hand over hers. “Not those who steal others’ second chances. Not those like me.”

A lump wedged in her throat. Was he right?

Orcadis smiled again, mirthlessly. “If I sleep, I’ll produce fewer Voices, correct?” Del nodded. He sighed that low, resonating sigh like rolling thunder, throwing back his head and gulping scotch like water until the bottle was empty.

Del gaped. “Amaris fucking strike me down, Orcadis!”

He wiped his mouth with his arm. “Don’t blaspheme, my dear.”

“The Star-Gods aren’t even gods.”

“But some are here on this ship, and they very well may kill us.” He sank down into a nearby chair with the effort of a man deeply fatigued. “Do you know how I looked like, in your memories?”

Embarrassment made her cheeks prickle. He didn’t have to be an ass about it. “I’ll have you know I looked quite dashing in your memories, too,” she snapped. She’d looked normal, but he didn’t have to know that.

He chuckled. “I looked like I do in real life. You know, it had always been a favourite activity of mine – when altering my Helms’ memories, I’d laugh at the ridiculously handsome stranger with blond hair and bronzed skin. Each altered me according to their standard of perfection. If more than one male was attractive and blond, I’d be confused. Which is why I’d expected the most ridiculous interpretation from you, of all people.”

“Hey!”

He ignored her exclamation. “You saw me as I was. That was when I understood that your affection was true. You didn’t idealize me, didn’t construct what you wanted to see in your head. You accepted what was there.”

Del’s cheeks burned so hotly she thought they’d burst. The old her would have run away or denied it, but that didn’t feel right anymore. The truth was she still loved Orcadis, though her love had changed. She now loved him as he had once loved her: as someone who needed her protection, someone broken and heavily flawed, but someone whom she needed to build back up.

She lingered awkwardly for a moment, then plucked up her courage and came to stand by his chair. Not exactly daring. She placed a hand on his shoulder.

His skin burned beneath her palm, slick with sweat. Alarm driving away her self-scorn, she moved her hand to his forehead and found it exuding heat, too.

“Don’t worry about that,” he said, taking her hand and pressing it to his lips. A slight Akkútian accent now coloured his speech, which was the best indication she’d get that the alcohol was kicking in.

A crash shook the door on its hinges. Del jumped – of course Orcadis didn’t – and moved to the peephole. She saw only an amorphous blob of black hair: the back of Serasta’s head pressed against the door. The crash came again, the force of it blowing her away from the metal doors. Orcadis caught her and they both thrust their weight into the door to reinforce it.

Del looked out again. Framed inside the peephole’s convex lens, figures bulging and swirling as they moved, were Serasta and a glowing form that towered a full head over him. They remained locked in a struggle as she watched. Serasta tried to beat the thing with his staff, but only his flesh could touch it, staff whisking harmlessly through its body.

The Star-King delivered a crushing blow to the side of the apparition’s face. It staggered back some paces. “Come on!” Serasta yelled, grabbing the doorframe to brace himself.

The thing smiled. Its body twisted, widened, and to Del’s horror a second head and set of limbs emerged from its side, detaching.

She felt like she was watching it give birth. It spat the second figure out in a matter of seconds, and this one, too, solidified into human shape. A woman’s shape.

Both figures advanced, silver light coruscating around their darkened forms. They worked in tandem, the man throwing a spinning kick into Serasta’s left side while his female counterpart spun and kicked into his right. Cornered, Serasta twisted, missing the man but catching the woman’s heel directly in the gut.

Del winced. Serasta crashed into the doors behind him, doubled over, staff clanging to the floor.

Burning fingers curled around her forearms. “Orcadis, what do we do?” she breathed. Some irrational part of her wanted to rush out and defend, though she knew she couldn’t touch the apparitions.

But Orcadis pulled her away from the peephole. She heard the next exchange as the doors shook. Serasta’s cries pierced the steel.

“What are you doing?” she demanded as he pulled her to the back of the room. “We have to hold the doors!”

Orcadis calmly moved to his detector and removed the veined stone from the energy compartment, pocketing it.

The doors juddered again. A grunt, then a hailstorm of objects harassed the doors on the other side. Bulges formed in the metal as objects hit, then bounced off. Del realized the Voice-amalgamations were throwing whatever loose things they found in the corridor. She ran back to the peephole. A tornado of objects circled around the figures – books and tools and debris not yet cleaned up from the explosion. Serasta, amazingly, was still standing before the doors, arms widespread in a regal gesture that denied admission.

The maelstrom of energy and objects hurtled toward the doors, looming huge through the peephole. She couldn’t help screwing her eyes shut as they collided, their force transferring painfully into her body, dents jabbing into her.

She heard the limp thump of Serasta’s body hitting the floor.

Orcadis tried to pull her off the doors again. “No!” she cried, shouldering him away, hugging the doorframe with her eyes squeezed shut against the hot swell of tears. “I know what you’re doing. I won’t let you. I won’t give up on you!”

She felt his beard tickling her ear as he buried a kiss into her temple. “I’ve revived the catatonics. My purpose is complete. There’s nothing left for me here, Delia.”

An invisible fist buried into her stomach. “I’ll be damned if I’m handing you to them! It’s not that easy to escape what you’ve done! You can’t give up!”

She screamed when he locked his arms around her waist and lifted her off her feet, her nails scraping against the metal as he peeled her away. Orcadis held her back from him in one arm as he pulled the door open with the other.

Serasta lay in a heap on the floor, coughing. Orcadis released Del, stepping between Serasta and the silver figures. “If it’s revenge you want,” he said, “I’m here.”

Leering, the male shape came forward, halting mere inches from Orcadis. “I am hatred and vengeance,” he growled in an eerie, hollow voice.

The woman moved to stand beside him. “I am distrust and insecurity,” she said.

“We have come for retribution,” they chimed in unison, and as they spoke the debris against the doors quivered, shooting into the air poised for Orcadis.

With a yell Serasta grabbed Hatred’s ankle, pulling him down to the ground. He fell along with the debris he’d gathered around him. Distracted, Distrust angled her missiles at Serasta instead.

Del jumped in front of the Star-King, steeling herself, arms locked before her in an X to defend from the blows.

A crazed yell bounced down the corridor. Del hazarded opening an eye and saw Enver charging toward the scene in a limping run, holding a chair aloft over his head. He brought it down on Distrust. Del winced as it swept right through the shadow-woman, splintering on the ground, its legs skating some paces away. The lack of expected resistance had Enver doing a forward nose-dive, slamming into Distrust’s back.

He didn’t seem to care, just changed gears and began clawing at her instead. Serasta struggled to keep Hatred on the ground. Del exchanged glances with Orcadis, feeling frustratingly helpless.

But Orcadis shot her a rogue smile. He grabbed one of Enver’s flailing arms and drove it into Distrust’s shadowy face with such force her head exploded in a burst of light.

That’s more like it, she thought, hope sending up new shoots at the sight of Orcadis joining the battle. Del bent and wielded one of the broken chair’s legs. She deflected the flying objects Hatred propelled forward, her impromptu bat cracking sharply as it made contact with metal tools, cutlery, and debris remaining from the explosion. The things that got past her guard pelted her arms and legs, reawakening old pains from her battle with the Helms, until the throbbing in her injured forearm became a white-hot blaze that blurred her vision.

Like an abating storm, the energy around them suddenly died, every flying object clattering to the ground. Hatred and Distrust shattered into light, currents of angry Voices drifting and hissing over Del’s head to disappear down the corridor.

Only the sound of her own heavy breathing remained in her ears, muted by the adrenaline still thrumming through her veins. “Well,” she said through deep breaths, straightening her tunic, “they’ll think twice before threatening us again.”

Orcadis looked over her shoulder, expressionless. “I’m not so sure about that, my dear.”

She followed his gaze. A man and woman, figures shadowy, veiled in silver light, stood at the corridor’s end.

Lykus stood with them. Del’s heart twisted when he led them forward, pointing at the group.

From her peripheral vision, she saw Orcadis bringing two chair legs up in a defensive double-sword sparring formation. Del just stared at Lykus, her own weapon limp at her side.

Lykus halted in front of them. The figures lingered behind. “Everyone,” he said lightly, “I’d like you to meet my new friends, Empathy and Loyalty.”

Empathy and Loyalty were smaller than those two monstrous shapes Lykus had seen the kings fighting just now. Hatred and Distrust, Del called them.

“Similar thoughts stick together. They fuse with one another more readily,” Loyalty said. She’d adopted a lean woman’s figure, curves soft and well-proportioned. Her facial features were fuzzy, she herself little more than a shadow contoured in silver light, but she had a decidedly human voice. She’d told Lykus her physical form would develop as her component Voices coiled tighter together and she worked out her identity. Empathy was stalky and soft spoken, deferring most of the explanations to his companion.

“The four of us are products of the Iron Helms’ minds,” Loyalty was saying now. “We are their most predominant thoughts and experiences. Distrust and insecurity from their childhoods as outcasts, hatred and a desire for vengeance because of their leader’s betrayal, empathy as encouraged by the organization they pledge allegiance to, and,” she gracefully held out her arms, “loyalty towards the man who accepted them unconditionally.”

Everyone followed her gaze to Orcadis. He smiled wanly, wiping sweat-dampened hair from his forehead. “You’re not here to kill me, then?”

“We are here to protect you.”

“Ah. How refreshing. But as welcome as the sentiment is, that won’t be necessary. I thoroughly intend to give myself over to your...siblings.”

Del tossed the chair leg she’d been holding to the floor, crossing her arms and shaking her head. Lykus frowned. He didn’t appreciate her objection. Didn’t she know by now that she was his?

“Like hell I’m thtaying by mythelf on Delmira!” Enver roared.

“We need you to find a solution for the Voices,” the Star-King said. “It’s the very least you could do.” His lip curled as he looked up at the bigger man. “I don’t recall giving you leave to slink away into the shadows and die.”

Orcadis spoke softly, as if he hadn’t heard Serasta at all. “Kaed is dead.”

The statement carried in a hollow echo down the corridor. A low growl moved in the back of Lykus’s throat as he realized Del must have told Orcadis about the ‘I’m-going-to-kill-myself’ note. Treacherous woman. She’d known he longed to deliver the news, to watch Orcadis’s eye twitch as he struggled with negative thoughts, perhaps see him succumb to one of those crazy rituals that would preempt the need to think. Del had even emphatically promised to gouge out his eyes if he mentioned the note to Orcadis.

But Del rounded on him with that squinty look that usually preceded one of her vicious pinches. He shrugged, trying to convey that indeed he had not been the lucky bastard to deliver the blow.

She turned to Orcadis. “You don’t know that,” she whispered, placing her hand on his arm. The gesture kindled a visceral fire in Lykus’s chest – the kind of reaction he’d expect if someone else used his toothbrush.

Orcadis winced as though a horn had blared straight in his ear. He brought a weary hand to his forehead. “My son is many things, but he is not a coward. He condemned this ship thinking he was saving the world from the Voices. Kaed wouldn’t have let himself live so long as he produced Voices.”

Empathy shuffled closer to Orcadis and lingered there with a wilted posture, saying nothing.

Lykus snatched Del from behind, chuckling darkly into her hair. “I guess we have you to thank for Hatred. Turns of stewing in revenge plots.” He held her tighter when she began squirming. “He reminds me a little of you, actually. Let’s see...maybe if Orcadis flexes for him he’ll go weak at the knees, too. Shall we try it?”

“Piss off, Lykus.” Her elbow punched between his ribs, catching Solmay’s nearly-healed knife wound. He sucked in a breath between his teeth, tightening his arms around her midsection to punish her for the hot stabs through his side.

He barely saw the knuckles headed for his face before his mouth filled with blood. Lykus woke up skidding across the floor, white starbursts popping before his eyes. His jaw throbbed so hard he thought he’d retch. Gods, but Orcadis hit hard. He remembered why the Iron Wolf had been content to stay beneath this man’s thumb. Not only could Orcadis sense when you were plotting against him – he could snap your neck before you realized he knew what you were up to.

When his vision cleared, Lykus found Orcadis’s form hulking over him. He bent in a fluid motion and grabbed Lykus’s collar. “Your toothbrush?” he boomed. “Your star-forsaken toothbrush?”

His eyes were cloudy and red-streaked. Alcohol? So much for playing the pity card.

Orcadis slammed him to the ground. The world darkened in a blur of nausea as the back of his skull cracked against metal. Slam. Lykus slipped beneath the waves of consciousness, surfacing at intervals, hearing Orcadis’s bellows between the hot waves crashing over him.

“...Raised you, you ungrateful brat!” Slam. Lykus floundered to keep the world from slipping away. “Is this what I get...trying to save people?...All your fault!” Slam. “...Had to go and kidnap Kaed! You...think I’ve forgotten that? If you hadn’t...should have told me he was Infected, damn you!”

With a final lava tsunami breaking over his skull, the world stabilized and Lykus found himself blinking at the ceiling’s intertwining pipes. His head felt like cymbals were clashing inches from his ears, skewering his brain.

Serasta and Enver restrained Orcadis, though neither did a very good job. He batted them away easily and sank to his knees, head in his hands as he gulped uneven breaths.

Del helped Lykus into a sitting position. He waited for the ringing in his ears to recede while she wiped the bloody spittle from his lips.

The entire situation became overwhelming. Hotness sprang to his eyes, guilt that assaulted his body in waves like the pain had. “I’m s-sorry,” Hector forced out through swollen lips. “I never meant to be like this, Orcadis. I wish I could be different.”

Orcadis looked up, tears gleaming in his beard. “Hector?” He grabbed Hector’s collar again and pulled him close to analyze him. Hector winced, but Orcadis soon released him. “Here,” the Greathelm whispered. He eased the fingers of Hector’s right hand open and pressed a cool metal block into his palm. “This was never mine to control you with.”

Hector blinked at the remote in his hand. He looked back to Orcadis, barely able to concentrate. “Thank you.”

“Put some ice on that head. And please, for your own safety, treat Miss Alister with more respect when you’re Lykus, yes?” Hector nodded dumbly. Orcadis smiled. “Good lad.” He rose with Enver’s aid, making the gnarled burnt man curse under his breath as Orcadis leaned his full bulk on him. “And this, friends, is why I don’t drink. I think I will sleep after all.” Orcadis turned to Empathy and Loyalty – everyone seemed to have forgotten they were there, shadowy features unreadable. Empathy had shuffled closer to Hector. “I trust you see now that I hardly need protecting. Please redirect your attention to my companions. Good night.”

Enver led him away to his quarters.

“I’m sorry,” Hector whispered to Del.

She just huddled into his shoulder, her body heaving with restrained sobs, and Hector held her without another word.