Vldayan's Covenant

By Jessica Galera Andreu

Year 2201. The Third World War has been the cup de grace for a planet to which the Scientific Community doesn't give it more than two years of life. Nevertheless, humankind has not been able to find new possibilities in the universe. Only some space-time ruptures, which get closed in a couple of minutes. Mia, Kat, Cora, and little Thunder are some of the residents of Arkana 21, a military base integrated in the Program for Rescue and Protection of Human race. Specialized in minors, and directed by Captain Vicksor Schulz, from the Alliances' army. All of them are kids and teenagers who nobody has reclaimed after the III. Their agonic routine though, will be altered when they find out that their staying in the 'Attic' is not only to separate the troubled kids from the rest, but with a secret mission associated with a mysterious boy called Marcus, a general of a legion in ancient Imperial Rome, and the only one capable of going through one of those space-time ruptures, specifically from the I Century A.D. The future of humankind depends on them; a future in which a very different world may be found, resting in a tensed, fragil, and breakable peace. A world of Titans, Giants, and cyclops. 'Only those who believe in the unbelievable, will be able to see'.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BadPress
• Release date: Sep 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9781071562734

Book preview

Prologue

Germania, year 11 B. C.

The roughness of the winter hadn’t stopped, and the waiting seemed eternal, even though days had turned shorter and the night ripped the last pieces of the dying sun.

Marcus moved through the swamp, watching the battle survivors. The gorge, near Arbalo, was not far away. The images of the suffered ambush hammered his head with a macabre persistence. The slaughter had been close to become real, and although many applauded his skill in battle, Marcus was convinced that luck had been vital to manage to avoid a greater evil. A great number of lives were saved, which, exhausted by this time of the night found a place to rest by the Rhin.

In all the years he had been a part of the Roman Legion, he had participated in many battles and conquers, but few had been more disgraceful like the one that had reached his bones in Germania almost a year ago. The cold there reached the deepest of the soul, and the terrain did not make the long walks that carried them from one place to another easy to take. Nor did the tribes of the savage with which they had to fight. Bitterness had started to control him.

He yearned to return to his home, to be full of the familiar aromas of the imperial Rome. To walk among its beautiful streets and be part of a historical greatness. But that greatness was built on the eternal conquer and Germania had given too much trouble already to lengthen its take. Marcus had lived many sunsets there, and many sunrises; and yet he feared, he would live much more.

He walked slowly, somewhat far away from the improvised camp in which the XIX Legion had set camp after the escape from Arbalo. In those cold lands, Marcus was used to sheath and unsheathe his sword, just a small movement, holding the handle of his weapon to avoid it to freeze from the cold. While he repeated that gesture, he sang, barely a soft whisper that would accompany him in that tense silence that he didn’t enjoy at all. He stopped then, by crossing the unexpected figure of a little girl. He had had German rebels in front of him in many occasions before, enough to recognize them. She didn’t belong to any of those tribes.

She was alone, and apparently unarmed, but the uneasiness held him like a second armor which could trespass the first one, feeling a strong cold over his hurt skin.

It was a girl of barely eight or ten years old. Her snowy skin melted perfectly with her blond hair, which lied very messy up to her waist. Her blue eyes blinked curiously and in them, Marcus detected an unusual calm.

Without taking his hand from the handle of his sword, he moved his eyes around and through the bushes trying to find some possible companions to this intrepid girl. She could not be there alone; not between the war of savages and romans.

When the girl moved one step closer, Marcus backed down, afraid.

‘Don’t move,’ he warned her.

It was very possible, that she couldn’t even understand him, but if his language meant nothing to her, he expected that at least his body language would. He unsheathed his sword very slowly, not with the intention to attack, but to send a mute warning. But the girl didn’t take it like that, and if she did, she dared him somehow, moving forward again.

‘I warn you, if you take one step closer, I will not hesitate to kill you.'

She smiled and continued walking until practically, she had covered the distance between them. Marcus remained clung to the handle of his sword, like this could wake him up from a bad dream in which he felt convicted. He had always hated to face women and children in battle, and to his bad luck, that scene had not happened, precisely in few occasions. He himself was only a child when he joined the Roman legions. But if he had learned something, to trust in inferior appearances of the enemy had only augmented casualties in his own ranks.

He had lost many friends on the hands of children, women, and many other enemies who had forged a treacherous excess of trust in the legionnaire.

Confirming his worst thoughts, the girl jumped over him, without having any time to react, and everything turned dark. 

1 Countdown

New Tropolis, year 2201 – Military Rescue Camp Arkana 21

A soft caress in the cheek made her open her eyes, barely a graze with the hand. Coraline moved her head and she felt everything was about to blow. All her body was resented, and by turning, she noticed that known feeling of reactivation of the blood circulation in her arms and legs.

She took her hand to her chest and held the white sheet that covered her nakedness strongly. She managed to seat on the table and noticed that she had her hair wet, something that gave her chills.

She squeezed her eyes and opened them again, hardly focusing her vision. When she realized she could see, she showed a timid smile. He was sitting at the corner of the bed, looking at her with a preoccupied expression. Vicksor Schulz, captain of the Alliances army, manager of the Military Rescue Program Arkana 21 and the man of her dreams, as real as unreachable.

‘How are you?’ he asked.

That she could hear his voice first in the morning was more than enough for her to forget all the sickness she had felt that morning.

‘Fine,’ murmured Coraline with a grave voice. ‘What happened?’

‘You had a crisis. You felt very hard.’

Vicksor ran his finger on her cheek very fast, another graze barely noticeable. ‘I want you to go to the Nurses’ Station to let them take a look at it.’

‘It doesn’t hurt that much,’ she answered, touching the zone with the index finger.

‘Still.’

Coraline nodded while Vicksor stood up and picked a syringe from the sanitary kit; it wasn’t a Standard one, but for Specific Attention. He had specifically required it for her.

‘You didn’t take the serum yesterday, did you?’ he asked.

He approached her again and held Coraline’s arm to inject her with a purple liquid in the interior articulation of the elbow.

While he did that, she could not stop staring at him. The bright hair covered his front and his gray eyes looked very attentive to the task he was doing.

‘Yes, I did’ answered her but I still suffer from crisis. I think the serum isn’t working on me.’

Vicksor looked up and fixated his eyes on hers by the time he put a bandage on the little jab.

‘How often do you have them?,’ he asked

Coraline breathed out.

‘A couple of times a week... three, maybe. It depends.’

‘Have you reported that on Probation?’ he inquired, thinking about the department that handled new meds rehearsals.

‘Yeah. Victoria told me they are working on something new. I’ll get to test it soon.’

Vicksor nodded and breathed heavily. He remained silent and crouched alongside Coraline’s bed, his own.

‘You... stripped me off?’ asked her, blushed.

‘You were burning up during the crisis,’ he answered, very uncomfortable ‘you had a sudden rush of temperature.’

‘That always happens,’ she interrupted.

‘I got you under the shower. Then you fell unconscious, but you were too wet.’

‘What a night I gave you, ah? It was supposed to be a night of celebration. I’m sorry I blew your party off.’

‘I wasn’t in the mood for partying. I don’t think there’s great motive for it. Although I wouldn’t have wanted this as a distraction.’

‘It’s been five years since the end of the war’ said Coraline, shyly. ‘It is a reason to celebrate.’

‘Five years... And we are just starting to pay the consequences. We have exploited the planet, ended with millions of lives and taken everything away from many people. I insist: I don’t think there’s anything to celebrate.’

‘If you put it like that...’

An awkward silence overwhelmed them. The grey look of Vicksor, that had remained on his own hands, found the big and living eyes of Coraline, who could barely stop herself from hugging him.

Taking courage, she kneed down, holding the sheet that covered her against her chest and approached Vicksor.

‘You know,’ she started ‘during the crisis I can see everyone very clear. I can see everything and everyone around me; I hear everything. I pray in my mind to not hurt myself and I hear a voice in my head that keeps saying: let it be over with, let it be over with, let it be over with’ Vicksor squeezed his lips while listening to her with a lump on his throat. ‘But this time I knew you were here, with me, and I was calm, because I knew nothing could happen to me, that you would take care of me.’

‘You have got to stop that.’ he answered, after a long silence. ‘I have asked you nicely already.’

‘Vicksor...’

‘Captain. I am captain Schulz. You put me in a really fucked up situation, Coraline.’

‘I love you.’

‘Stop saying silly things,’ he said, very upset. ‘You don’t love me, it’s just a damn whim, but...’

‘It’s not. I’m not asking for anything. I just want you to take me seriously, even if it is to answer me with indifference or to reject me.’

He looked at her with an overwhelming intensity, an intensity that blew over the air when the access door opened to the bedroom of Vicksor. It suddenly opened and a very tall woman, with blond hair and elegantly dressed with a skirt and a blazer in beige tones came in. Her eyes were so bright that Coraline thought they had no iris.

The red lips of the newcomer turned to a smile.

‘What a picture!’ said Iria. ‘Isn’t she too young for you, Vicksor?’

The man stood up like a spring to the surprised gesture of Coraline, who didn´t know where to hide.

‘Stay calm,’ he requested. ‘Get dressed and go to the Nurses’ Station please.’

She had no time to answer, since Vicksor abandoned the room taking Iria with him. Then, in the hallway, he let her go and walked in front of the woman, who followed him on a rushed pace.

‘I had no doubt that you would end up getting involved with someone, but I had my money on Liz, the lab’s manager. A gorgeous blond, just as you like them.’ Vicksor continued walking without paying attention. ‘My sister, on the contrary, had her money on Daniela, the girl from the coffee shop. Tall, slender figure... None of us were right. You are getting involved with a child who hasn’t turned eighteen yet.’

For that he did stop, he turned and looked at Iria with a killer’s look.

‘As there is no point, I will not bother to tell you that it is not what you imagine.’

‘The image spoke for itself. You are a soldier in command of a complex operation Vicksor. And she is a refugee, underaged for crying out loud. Is she really worth it? To throw you career away to look for fun in the wrong place?’

‘She had a crisis. I tried to help her. Everything else is in your fucked-up mind.’

‘A crisis...,’ murmured Iria, putting her arms on her waist. ‘And what is she doing in your room? Why didn’t you take her to the Nurses’ Station?’

‘Precisely because of the reason that has you here’ answered him, getting one step closer ‘and that reason is not me, so stop shooting me with stupid ideas.’

‘I am the president of the Delegation, and you are my subordinate, Captain, so I have every right in the world to ask for your explanations, not even considering that I am your fucking wife.’

‘As my fucking wife, I won’t give you any explanations. You can enjoy the agony as much as you want, but that is dead and buried. As president of the Delegation, I demand to know why there have been three energy drops in my base in the last month. When that happens, the auxiliary system blocks eight points of access, between those the Nurses’ Station. That is why the subject slept in my room last night.’

Iria sighed profoundly.

‘We will not solve this in the hallway,’ she said, angry. ‘Get a cold shower and come to the meeting’s room.’

Vicksor negated with his head and walked behind Iria’s steps, crossing with a couple of boys in the corridor that dedicated him a military salutation.

*****

He tried to put himself together and to forget that tense conversation he held with his wife on his way to the meeting’s room. There the encounter he asked to the President of the Delegation with the members of her team would take place.

The meeting’s room was a wide place with a long white table, with twenty ergonomic chairs in the same color. Only the wall lined with silver slabs broke the dominant white. In the opposed extreme of the entrance door hanged an enormous screen that used the whole wall. A holographic screen to have cyberconferences. In that moment, only the logo of the Alliances kept moving, spinning on itself accompanied by a low buzz.

There were no windows there, and all the light there was came from a giant led that lit up the whole roof when turning on.

Vicksor stopped when he entered the room, surprised because there was nobody there. Iria stood there without moving for a few seconds behind her husband.

‘Some time ago you were glad when I came in alone. Although the welcoming were hotter too.’

‘Where is Raymond?’ he demanded to know, ignoring Iria’s words, who passed by his side and sat heavily in the closest chair to the holographic screen.

‘He could not come’ she answered, crossing her fingers. ‘I’m sorry honey, but the situation out there does not let them take your constant attention calls, so you will have to be content with having Raymond in a hologram.’

Vicksor swallowed a whisper while walking to stay in front of Iria. Nevertheless, he just stood up.

‘Activate holographic screen’ he said ‘Password 1725/VS’

«Password identified successfully,’ announced a metallic voice ‘Captain Vicksor Schulz. Incoming connection. Do you accept?»

‘Affirmative,’ he answered, while putting his hands on the table.

In that same instant, the shape of Raymond Martínez materialized like a hologram in front of him.

‘Good morning, Captain,’ he greeted. Vicksor answered nodding his head. ‘Good morning Iria. Was your trip pleasant?’

‘Much better than the arrival, Ray. Good morning.’

‘Who could tell? You look beautiful.’

Iria smiled sincerely. As annoyed as she could be, she never rejected good flattery.

‘All yours’ said the woman, talking to Vicksor.

Before he could even say a word, nevertheless, Raymond got ahead:

‘Captain, I am fully aware of the difficulties you are having on the base. It is not the only Arkana suffering them, but we have to assume the situation and understand that there are... priorities.’

While he talked, Raymond walked from one side to the other with his hands on his back. His image moved through the room, as if he was there. The only problem was that the energy drops made interference with his shape.

‘What priorities?,' asked Vicksor, directly and dry.

‘Captain, the best previsions given by the scientists give only two years to the planet. Three at best. Since we haven’t been able to establish colonies in space, the priority lies on stabilizing the space-temporal rupture we have been able to open. Evacuation cannot be to a new place, but to a new time, and that’s were our resources and energy have gone.’

‘I am fully aware of that, but you cannot abandon everything else. I have a base here with twenty-six minors who have lost everything because of the war: their parents, their families, their houses. Everything. Many of them still suffer the effects of the chemical weapons; they are hospitalized, suffering crisis, they need medical attention and a damn energy drop takes that away from them. Imagine three.’

Raymond had stopped and he was listening to Vicksor fully attentive.

‘You have auxiliary systems.’

An auxiliary system cannot support three drops a month, Ray: specially when there is no energy to stock the batteries.’

‘Wind and solar energy are impossible to gather, Vicksor,' pointed out Raymond, taking his fingers to the bridge of his nose ‘the centrals have been destroyed. The kinetics of the transport’s network is not recoverable in a short time. The friction circulating routes are destroyed. They were our energy motors. Arkanas’s supply is minimal, as the rest of the bases. In the city it is inexistent. I ask for patience and understanding.’

‘Patience and understanding. And how do I ask that from these kids? How do I ask for patience and understanding to a boy whose bot keeping his lungs with clean oxygen stops working because of a fucking breakdown?’

Raymond looked at Iria, a silent SOS the woman caught immediately. She stood up and walked a few steps to the center of the room while she got out an optical pen from her pocket and drew lines in the air. These materialized shining in an intense green color, and in a few seconds, the tridimensional plane of Arkana 21 was shown to the two participants and Martinez’s hologram.

‘You’ve said that the auxiliary system blocks eight accesses’ she said on a tired voice. ‘Reduce them, and of course eliminate the Nurses’ Station from those blocks. But then you would have to double vigilance there because a drop in the Nurses’ Station may origin medication robbery and other substances which should not be at the children’s reach. If the block limits to External Doors, Munition and the Attic it’s more than enough. The auxiliary system will hold.’

‘Until when?’ Vicksor demanded to know, who had not moved from his place.

‘Talking about the future as things are right now, makes it very uncertain, Captain. I don’t know until when, but it will hold.’

‘Well’ said Raymond, visibly relieved. ‘I know it is not the best solution, Captain, but there isn’t anything else we can do. I appreciate that Iria got us out of this one. You are priceless, dear.’

Iria smiled again, although now this gesture looked false.

‘I’m deeply sorry about the situation, really’ added Raymond ‘now I have to go. It’s not necessary to say that I expect news of any progress. Good day, Iria.’

‘Good day Raymond. Thanks for everything.’

The hologram of the Chief of the Rescue Department vanished, and for a few seconds, silence was a heavy curtain between Vicksor and Iria.

With her hands on her pockets, the woman approached her husband and put her hip on the table that was in front of the place where he stood during the whole conference with Raymond Martinez.

‘You’ve heard him,’ she said, ‘things do not look good.’

‘I suppose they are worse than I imagined. Are you going to tell me or is it secret?’

She smiled softly.

‘Telling you...,’ she murmured ‘what?’

‘If my demands are not important enough for the Chief of Department to come all this way, they are not important enough for the President of Delegation to be here. But you are. What’s wrong?’

Iria didn’t answer for a few seconds.

‘It’s about the last opened rupture.’

‘Is it stable?’

The woman denied with her head.

‘Twelve minutes before its closure, but it brought something new: someone crossed from the other side. It’s not necessary to say that it is the first time since someone crossed a rupture, that the subject is gold and we have to study him for some time.’

Vicksor frowned, surprised.

‘Who is it? In what time did the rupture open up?’

‘Germania. Year eleven, before Christ. It is a general from a Roman legion.’

Vicksor puffed.

Resettled

Coraline entered the dining room after eleven in the morning. There were only some lagged ones, since Arkana’s schedules was very strict when it came to the possibilities that kids and young ones that there lived. Young ones, who mostly, had lost everything, and carried as many physical wounds as emotional ones.

Most of all, emotional ones.

The girl grimaced, because the couple of stitches she got on her cheekbone pulled. It caused her some pain, but luckily captain Schulz had made a good work on the wound, and it was not infected.

The minute he saw her coming, Leo went to find her.

‘Cora!’

‘Hi,’ answered her, with serenity.

‘Where the hell have you been? You disappeared last night and... What happened to you?,’ he added, putting his finger over the almost invisible thread.

‘I had a crisis. Another one. And I got hurt. They just sew me up.’

‘Why haven’t they closed it with laser?’

‘It’s not working. Cause of the energy drop I guess; they had to do it traditionally. And you know what? It hurts!’

Coraline passed beside her friend and continued walking till sitting at the extreme of the long metal chair that surrounded the perimeter of the big room. Leo looked at her with arms akimbo while she smiled, with her back on the wall.

‘Why are you smiling?’ asked the boy, ‘since when is pain good news?’

‘It’s not good news. But Vicksor was there during the crisis. He helped me.’

Leo denied with his head, trying to repress a weak smile, and sat with the girl, with the back forward and his hands crossed.

‘At least he would know how to act.’

She nodded.

‘I’ve slept in his room. He got me under the shower and he... stripped me to get me on his bed.’

‘Please tell me nothing happened,’ said the boy, getting up.

Coraline snapped her tongue, a little annoyed by the tone Leo used.

‘No, of course nothing happened. But, why do you say it like that?’

Because you know what I think; I believe that whatever happens to you about Schulz is insane. He is the captain, a soldier of the army, a man of twenty-eight years old, and married for crying out loud. And you, a war’s refugee, of seventeen...’

‘Eighteen in a month,’ she interrupted.

‘And some sort of experiment in the base he manages’ sentenced her friend.

‘Yes, I know all that, Leo. You keep telling me every day,’ she said, crossing her arms.

‘I remind you because you keep forgetting it, and besides, I don’t...’

Leo kept silent when the tall and slimmed figure of Iria entered the room. It wasn’t common to see her in the dining room; not even to cross her in the access zones of Arkana. It wasn’t usual that she visited, only to meet up with the high commands of the base, meaning the Captain or any of his trusted people. Because of that, Leo imagined that something important must have happened to the President of the Delegation, for her to go and mix with them, and something told him his friend had something to do with it.

Coraline got tensed, and her brown eyes got fixated on the floor, while Iria’s high heels approached her with her usual walk, secure but calmed. By getting to her, she put her arms akimbo and pierced her with her look.

‘What’s your name?’ she asked, directly.

‘Coraline’ answered her very softly.

The woman smiled.

‘No, your name here at the Arkana.’

‘232/PPS.’

‘PPS...’ murmured Iria ‘Interesting.’

She turned over her own high heels, and the same way she got there, she disappeared. Only then Coraline was able to get her head up again. The few teenagers that remained sat at the table looked at her directly, just as Seth, the manager of the dining room, a big man of fifty years, and the manager of the cafeteria, Daniela.

‘Ok’ Leo intervened, catching Coraline’s attention again ‘I suppose that the arrival of the northern witch and her only question have a reason, right? Because I don’t think that she suddenly wants to be friends with you.’

Coraline stood up like a spring and abandoned the room, followed closely by Leo, who held her, grabbing her by the arm once they were out. Coraline stopped and looked at him while he waited an answer. She had always thought that the effects of the chemical weapons used in the last war, had caused a positive effect on Leo. They had gifted him with a gift that allowed him to see when someone was lying to him, or withholding information. It wasn’t true. Nobody could have gotten something positive of the exposition to those lethal weapons that had ended lives like a roller. But in those occasions, Coraline got lost in that fantasy of superheroes, and not sick people.

‘I already told you I slept in his room. She arrived this morning, she entered without permission and she saw us. I suppose that she imagined the same thing you feared.’

Leo hold his head with his hands, crushing many of his rebel black waves of hair. His dark eyes opened like plates, and he squeezed his lips, worried.

‘You know that this is going to have consequences, right?’

‘The what?’ she screamed, almost desperately. ‘Nothing happened, Leo. You’ve seen me in a thousand crisis, do you think I am the most passionate person in the world?’ 

‘Of course not, but you will have to explain that to the Captain’s wife. Explain her that you had a crisis. Explain her that you had it in the room of her husband, because you are constantly pursuing him, you look for him.’

‘Leo, you are describing me like a psychopath. Of course, I try to find his closeness once in a while. Sometimes it’s all I have. Even though nobody takes me seriously, I’m in love with him, and there are some days in which by just looking at him, listening to his voice, see him smile, is the only thing that gives me the strength to move on through this shit. I’m sorry for that.’

Leo sighed; sad because of Coraline’s words. He understood her more than she thought and more than he was able to admit, but he knew that the consequences of that madness would only bring her negative things, like it had already happened.

‘Schulz has asked you many times to step back’ answered him, in a barely audible voice. You will get him in trouble.

‘I try to step back. But sometimes I need truce.’

‘Cora...’

‘I will not let this to affect him. I’ll do anything in my power. Nothing will happen.’

‘I don’t know him, but you just got asked for your identification.’

‘I know... nothing will happen. I’m going to sleep a while. See you later.’

Leo sighed deeply and didn’t say anything else when Coraline took half a turn and started walking to the stairs that went to the higher levels, the rooms of PPS: Probation Phase Subjects, sick children and adolescents who tried to get the right treatment. If not to heal, to palliate the effects of their various sicknesses. 

*****

Nelly closed the flap of the Portable Holographic Visor that Vicksor had given her, commonly known as PHV. In it, she had been able to know the details of the report that Iria had given the Captain no more than half an hour ago, and a noticeable question mark darkened her face.

‘I can’t believe this!’ said the woman ‘why hasn’t anybody told me about this?’

‘I told you, didn’t I?’

‘With all due respect, Captain, you are asking me to condition a Brain Management Camera. And for me to do it in twenty-four hours to use it with some General of ancient Rome. It’s just surreal!’

‘It can seem like that Nelly, but it is the first time that one of those damn ruptures reaches someone, and it is vital to find out how he managed to cross, what consequences can that have on a human body and how can we find the other side. Imagine how that man would be if he wakes up in the XXIII century, just like that. We have to prepare him for that, and obtain all the information we can.’

Nelly expired a deep sigh by the time she negated with her head, not convinced at all by the explanations of Schulz.

‘When do they bring him, exactly?’

‘Tomorrow, at sunrise. It’s top secret, no need to say that.’

‘Who am I authorized to inform?’

‘Nobody, you are in charge.’

‘Captain, I have many other occupations at the Arkana. There are kids waiting for new meds.’

‘Delegate it, Nelly. These kids will have no use for it if there is no place to live.’

‘All right,’ she concluded after meditating it. ‘I’ll arrange it. Victoria can handle the meds and I...’

‘Thank you. I know it’s rushed and that we are not in the best of circumstances, but time is short.’

Nelly just nodded. She was a short woman and a little chubby, but her character and bad mood were well known at the Arkana, for Vicksor valued very positively the way in which she accepted that request. It displeased her because it was rushed and unethical, in Nelly’s own opinion. Introducing someone to the BMC (Brain Management Camera) had been a forbidden practice during normal functioning of the Earth’s societies, excepting extreme cases, like crimes and very grave crimes. In those cases, the criminal was taken to one of those long capsules, where he was set with a series of electrodes, some of which served to extract the information of his brain.

Finding crime scenes, or knowing everything that the accused had done, had solved cases which would have been impossible in the past. Nevertheless, to navigate in the mind of others could be an intromission to that person’s intimacy that the law did not permit in any circumstances. Although at the beginning it had been made with extreme delicacy.

Even so, the BMC had the opposite utility, the one conceding the subject knowledge about something that had not been studied or ignored. Another thing Nelly hated. Lessons had to be acquired through effort and studies, not with a simple inception of all the information in the brain.

Nevertheless, even when the first use of the cameras was clear and legislated in each and every developed society, the second one had always been a debate subject among scientific circles. Some were of the opinion that in that way, one could hope for a perfect society, formed by people of high cultural level, and an intelligence that would not condemn humanity to the already experienced failures.

‘Why do they bring him here?’ asked Nelly, who had returned to her workplace and had activated her glasses again, focusing on her work. ‘Why haven’t they taken him to another Arkana? There were some that were closer, according to the place where the man showed up, according to the coordinates here in the report. Here we just rescue children with no families.’

‘I don’t know Nelly. I don’t do questions. I just do as I’m told.’

Vicksor was leaving the laboratory, but he stopped before scanning his finger in the corresponding access.

He turned, and watched the tired face of Nelly.

‘Is there something wrong, Captain?’ she asked.

‘232/PPS, what about her?’

Nelly frowned, surprised at the question.

She turned her body slightly, facing the other holocomputer and introduced her code. Then, her fingers marked the key to personal identification given by Vicksor himself, and in a few seconds, the woman looked at the data that showed in the air.

‘Nothing’ she answered, denying with her head. ‘The serum KS65 is not working. Her blood flow has an abnormal functioning. She suffers from collapses frequently, her body temperature rises, and she has seizures until she drops unconscious. Her people were one of the most affected ones during the first chemical attack. At the moment we don’t have nothing. Her data is very unflattering. Just like many others.’ Nelly commented, sad.

‘She said that Victoria was working on something new.’

Nelly denied with her head.

‘They are children Captain. Sometimes we have to lie.’

Vicksor turned and this time, he did abandon the laboratory.

When he got out of the elevator, he faced Coraline and two other girls that were walking ahead of her.  They waved at Vicksor and continued their way, while Coraline, who had just looked passingly at him, was starting to climb the stairs to her bedroom. The young one stopped for just a second, and started walking again, while Vicksor advanced with long steps through the hallway.

The Captain cursed to himself, still digesting what he just knew in the inferior level and stopped. He waited for the two girls to disappear, and then hurried up a few steps.

‘Coraline...’

She turned while she stood a little higher and stood still while her fingers grasped the metal stair railing.

‘How are you?’

‘Fine. They gave me two stitches. You did a fine work with the wound, Captain.’

‘And the crisis?’

‘See you soon, I’m fine. I will be fine’ she added, by seeing the worried face of Vicksor.

He nodded and disappeared, trying to release the nut that oppressed his throat every time he crossed one look with that young woman. He couldn’t deny it, Coraline was different to the rest of adolescents and children that lived there, or maybe he saw her like that.

*****

She arrived to the door of her bedroom and scanned her thumb to allow her to pass. She felt exhausted and dizzy, but the door gave her a harsh sound accompanied by the robotic voice.

Access denied.

Coraline frowned and scanned her thumb again.

Access denied

‘I just can’t believe this,’ she murmured, confused. ‘This is not my day...’

She turned her head while listening to some steps approaching loudly. It was a soldier, but that didn’t surprise her. The Arkana was a military facility and everyone there was a soldier. Or almost everyone.

‘Subject 232/PPS?’ asked the man, stopping in front of her. He was tall and with a serious face. Coraline thought that with one hand he could break down the walls sealing the bedrooms, and for a fast second she thought of the possibility of asking for his help. She kept her smile to herself, and threw out that idea, because apparently that man was not there for that.

‘Yes, it’s me,’ she answered, vacillating.

‘You’ve been relocated, miss.’

‘Relocated? When? Where?’

‘Right now, please come with me.’

The soldier went through her and went upstairs. Coraline followed him without complaining. She was certain that that had been the particular vengeance of Iria Schulz, the captain’s wife, for discovering her in her husband’s room. It was true that nothing had happened, but it was also true that because of the thoughts she reserved for Captain Schulz, made her worthy of far worse than a relocation in the Arkana by the Captain’s wife. Nevertheless, Coraline knew perfectly well that their relationship was more than over. Rumors spread quite rapidly in the Arkana’s hallway, the yelling between them in the discussions were far known. She would have never confessed to Vicksor her true feelings if she knew he was in a happy marriage.

Coraline stopped when the soldier continued climbing to the next floor. When she realized, she turned away.

‘Are you coming?’

‘There must be a mistake,’ she protested ‘the next floor is... the Attic.’

‘There are no mistakes, miss. Please, follow me.’

But Coraline could not take one step further until the soldier came back and grabbed her by the arm, practically dragging her upstairs.

‘Let me go!’ she screamed, scared.

She tried to let go and hit the man, who wasn’t affected at all. At the fierce resistance of the girl, the soldier was obligated to inject her a doses of I.T.-01 (Immediate Tranquilizer, first version). Coraline fell to her knees on a step, and although she wasn’t unconscious, she stopped resisting when she realized her body was deadweight, and her brain had no will to perform her own orders.

The