NOVEL NEXT B3 Chapter 5
The four dispersed from the galley's cramped confines, Angar and Garioch striding toward the studio's brutal embrace, while Simo and Iyita veered off to the saloon's scarred table.
The passageway seemed to shudder, and time seized like a rusted cog in some ancient engine, grinding the world to a halt, freezing Angar mid-step.
Spirit materialized before him, her ethereal form shimmering into existence, her platinum hair catching the lumen-strips' glow, casting a halo that warred with the corridor's shadows.
Her translucent blue eyes, heavy with the weight of millennia, fixed on him with that familiar mix of weary compassion and quiet urgency. "What happened, Angar? Theosis can't tell."
He loathed when her command over time bound him like a prisoner in his own flesh. He much preferred the times she allowed him movement other than voice and facial muscles.
Assuming she referred to his recent plunge into meditation's void, he replied, "I attempted to find my way back to the Mindscape, but my consciousness breached some manner of hub-plane. What do you mean, Theosis can't tell?"
"He sifted through your recent memories," she said, her voice a balm to his soul, "and found no trace of whatever caused those strange ripples to emanate from the Zephuros. If you've stumbled upon something akin to the Mindscape, that would explain it. It cost him immense effort and cycles to trail the Grays there. Describe this new plane."
Since Angar had expected his feat to earn a Glorious Achievement, if Holy Theosis remained blind to the event, that accounted for the absence.
He recounted it as best he could, the desolate expanse of dust-choked antiquity, the towering arches of bone and rust, the portals to the unknown, and that inexplicable certainty that one threshold led straight to the Mindscape.
Spirit absorbed his words, her form hovering motionless, her expression etched with solemn focus. When he finished, her ethereal glow wavered with an unusual tremor, and her translucent eyes widened, the weight of forgotten eras yielding to astonishment. "Angar, this hub-plane you describe...I think I glimpsed its shadow in my mortal life, when our Lord's Divine grace still blessed me, a forbidden place where realities converge."
The word 'forbidden' grated against Angar's resolve. He needed to return there to reclaim the Mindscape and gain his three training sessions.
So, he needed to shift the conversation before she barred him from it entirely, but he had to seek confirmation first. "Understood. You mentioned ripples. Was my discovery the cause of the Zephuros' ejection from her Alcubierre bubble?"
"Of course," she replied with certainty.
A little guilt settled like lead in his gut. But with that truth laid bare, he saw no need to confess to Thryna or, through her, Hidetada.
The Saint was likely withholding his Tier 3 gear as a deliberate lesson in patience. Fine, then. Angar would mirror that restraint, patiently keeping all revelations locked away from his chapter's grand marshal.
To pivot fully, he pressed on. "I'm glad to speak with you again, Spirit. You know I'm bound for Crusade on Abyssalhome? To aid in liberating millions of Pleiadeans from those underground bunker-communes, selflessly saving them from that Hellworld?"
She tilted her head slightly, a gesture that carried forgotten sorrows, and stared at Angar for a long moment before speaking. "When Theosis delved into those memories of yours, know what he did uncover?"
Angar's brows furrowed, his mind racing through the mundane fragments of his recent life. "It couldn't have been anything of importance," he stated. "Desire for my Tier 3 gear? To hold the top records in the aerospace-mechanicum?"
She shook her head as a weary sigh escaped her lips. "No, Angar. You harbor hatred for Iyita because you nurse a crush on her. Seriously? How is that her fault? Why stoop to such pettiness?"
"Pettiness?" The word erupted from him like blaster fire. "She's an evil temptress, compelling me to commit the grave sin of coveting a wedded woman."
Spirit's eyes narrowed, a spark of exasperation cutting through her eternal kindness. "She's compelling you to have a crush? Forcing this infatuation?"
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"Yes," he stated. "What she wears passing to and from the rain locker? Calling it provocative would be a gross understatement. She cornered me alone and laid her hands upon my shoulders, kneading them. I suspect she's a Heretic, planted to seduce and corrupt me into Hell's thrall."
"You're being profoundly immature, Angar," replied Spirit, her tone filled with disappointment. "I'm certain she's no more a Heretic than Presbyter Prostasia. You can't demand that women you find attractive barricade themselves in their quarters or swaddle themselves in shrouds. I know you're young, your blood aflame with hormones, but this pettiness? I'm extremely disappointed in you."
Angar exhaled sharply, annoyance growing in his immobilized chest.
It wasn't pettiness. When he was on Lerig Station, he thoroughly enjoyed when women showed a daring amount of skin, especially leg. So much so that it was a real problem.
This was very different.
And since he didn't want to defend himself by telling the blessed Mother just how much he liked gazing upon inappropriately clad women, he said, "Probe her mind, then. I wager you'll uncover Heretical taint, a scheme to twist me into an abomination serving the infernal abyss. Why hasn't she quickened with child yet? Because her marriage is a front."
Spirit let out an exasperated breath, her ethereal form wavering slightly as if the weight of his stubbornness pressed upon her. "She's clean, Angar. No shadows of Heresy cling to her thoughts. She's simply a young woman you have a crush on."
"Young woman?" he retorted, incredulity sharpening his voice. "She's old."
"What?" Spirit blinked, genuine surprise flickering across her luminous features. "Old? She's twenty-seven, Angar." Her brows pinched together in realization. "Unless...wait, is this because the women of your world all perished around thirty? To you, any female nearing that age is ancient?"
"Perhaps," he conceded, "but if she's twenty-seven, she's about 70% my elder, and comparatively old."
Spirit closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Twenty-seven isn't old, Angar. And she's no Heretic. I can discern such with unerring precision. I've honed the skill over long millennia."
"Read her mind more thoroughly," Angar pressed, his words echoing in the frozen corridor. "As you've delved into mine before, when you lay your hands upon the temples."
"I needn't," Spirit replied as her form wavered slightly. "Heretical thoughts stand out like fissures in cracked armor. She harbors none, nor any inappropriate thoughts toward you. None at all. Parts of her psyche are veiled, but such shielding is commonplace, taught in Cloisteranage and throughout the galaxy. You utilize it yourself."
"Plunge deeper," Angar insisted. "Touch her temples. Unearth her designs that night she cornered me, clad for ablutions, massaging my shoulders when no one else was present."
Spirit exhaled another sigh, a spectral breath that seemed to stir the stagnant air despite the stasis. "Very well, if only to lay bare the depths of your ridiculous pettiness."
She pivoted with graceful inevitability, her luminous silhouette gliding the scant meter to where Iyita stood petrified like a statue of olive-skinned seduction, even in the gubernator's armor.
Spirit extended her translucent hands, placing one on each of Iyita's temples. She turned her head back toward Angar, her blue eyes filled with introspection. "No Heresy lurks here. Nothing beyond the ordinary churn of a mortal mind. I told you as mu…wait."
Her form tensed, a slight ripple disturbing her ethereal calm. "There are shadows…concealed pockets, not from mere mental training or blocks. Like the veils I weave over your own thoughts and memories, shielding them from Theosis' probes."
She lingered in the communion, her presence delving further into the labyrinth of Iyita's psyche, while Angar pondered the revelation, his mind like a forge hammering at the implications.
When she withdrew, pivoting back to face him, her expression bore the weight of unearthed enigma. "That's...profoundly strange."
"Unless the Neural Nexus birthed an echo of its own," Angar ventured. "A counterpart to your own form."
"What?" Spirit's voice sharpened, a rare edge cutting through her composure. "Nexus transcended into Theosis upon our merging. There was no remnant, just a machine-entity receiving a Divine upgrade."
"You became this echo of yourself, did you not?" asked Angar.
"Yes, but I was flesh and blood. I had a soul. Machines don't. Nexus was just code, not a life. When we joined, I died, and Nexus became Theosis. What you believe...it's impossible."
"Are you certain?" Angar challenged. "How else do you account for what you've just uncovered? Is there a better explanation as to why so damnably little is known of the Teths and Noxes hidden within the Holy Empire's higher echelons?"
Spirit fell silent, her form hovering in contemplative stasis, her gaze distant as if peering through the fog of millennia into forgotten code and Divine machinations. "There are a few other explanations to explore. I must depart. Do not brand her a Heretic, Angar. I mean it. But tread with caution all the same."
That left him in the same spot as he was in currently, unwilling to ruin the life of a possibly innocent woman, only avoiding her like the plague.
"How powerful is she?" asked Angar.
"She's only third…honestly, I can't say," replied Spirit. "I hide some of your true information, so the info I access can be manipulated. Still, it shouldn't matter yet. I must go."
"It was a balm to behold you once more, Spirit," he stated. "I hope to see you soon. I'll miss you."
A smile graced her lips, illuminating his soul like the sun. "I'm always with you, but, yes, I'll miss you too, Angar."
Spirit dissolved into luminous mist, her sacred afterimage lingering in Angar's vision for a heartbeat as the corridor's stasis shattered.