Not a terrible amount going on this time – but the transition to the Renaissance room is complete. You might notice that Torsten is a bit hostile – a bit more like Maiya, now that he’s been under her care for a while.

Word Count: 40,069

Eventually, I fell asleep, and wasn’t awoken until several hours later. The ceiling was a deep, midnight blue, and the noise had quieted outside in the caverns. Dust had settled. The world was calmer. Curie looked at me and shook me away. As I lifted my head up, he pointed me towards a metallic object, half-constructed, in the corner of the room.

“It’s compiling right now, so you’re looking at a cross-section of a modified droid. It will capture us; there’s no doubt about that. If we leave it in the room tonight, it should gather data about us while we sleep and report back to The Embassy with data. The Embassy is obligated to send that data to Inland, who issues the order to capture. But it looks like they always say yes, so we shouldn’t be too worried.”

“You gleaned all of that from the source code?” I asked.

“Yeah, boss. It’s all in there,” Curie said.

“I told you not to call me boss, kid.”

“Well, don’t call me kid, then.”

We laughed. I asked how long it would take to finish compiling; Curie told me I’d just better go back to sleep, and that in the morning we’d probably be taken away. I didn’t feel tired anymore, however, and I was fascinated at how the droid compiled It was being built from the bottom up, component by component, as if it were a real machine – t looked like it was being printed by a mysterious, ghostly force.

Little by little, metal fragments and wire snippets appeared in place, completing the droid just a little bit more. With each little bit of construction, my fear grew. I didn’t know what to expect when the time came to be taken away; I was also afraid that Curie and I would find no way of resisting their experiments.

Curie knew I was thinking this. “Don’t worry,” he said. “If you can’t stop them, I can. I’ve got some tricks up my sleeve.”

I felt in my pocket at the Mu Gun. “Well, don’t think that I’ve got nothing myself.”

I took out the Mu Gun and created a forcefield between the outside caverns and the inside of our enclave. I just wanted a slight feeling of shelter, in a way that I didn’t get living on Cydia anymore. Curie must have been feeling it the worst, knowing that there was a fresh and beautiful planet out there waiting for him on Earth. I wanted him, on some level, to feel safe. To feel like Cydia was a place worth living on.

Together, we fell asleep, Maiya’s cables dangling from their outlets, Curie’s darkened arm hanging from the bed, and my eyes staring at the midnight sky on the ceiling.

Before we knew it, there was a rapping at the forcefield, and I pushed the button on my Mu Gun instinctively to retract the wall of light. Knowing, and fearing, what was to come, I didn’t even bother resisting. I looked in the corner; the droid was long gone. Now there were several men, presumably in fetches, strong-holding us and silently dragging us away. Curie and I put up no fight, and I saw him smiling to me as were were dragged out of our enclave and into oblivion.

It was only a few minutes before we realized where they were taking us. Beyond the living area, beyond The Embassy’s office, was a transport mechanism used to move large pieces of slate. The transports would chop up the pieces and distribute them among various purification plants; this was what the light trams next to each mining station went to.

At least, I had thought that they were transports for Slate. As it turns out, only a few of them were – there were several transports meant for other purposes, hidden among the legitimate transports. They were obvious in several ways. They were large enough to fit several human beings – large cylinders that resembled elevators, connected via a Slate tube to a much larger building – and they were not light trams. Every other transport connected to the building was a light tram.

Although any other person might have assumed these larger transports could have been meant for especially large pieces of Slate, I knew better by now; it was simply a high-security entrance to the Renaissance facilities. What I didn’t know, however, was that the men holding my body and those holding Curie’s would split at the transports.

As I entered one cylinder, Curie entered another, and neither of us were sure if we would end up in the same place any longer. And yet, we didn’t make a sound; we just accepted our fate, knowing that we both had a plan in mind. And if we didn’t, that we would come up with one soon – before it was too late for us.

Inside of the cylinder, I saw what would be taking me to the Renaissance facilities: A rock, beneath our feet, grew upwards and wrapped around us, creating a secure pod. After we had all entered, the pod doors closed, and I felt the rock engage. Embedded in the stone were several glowing crystals; as they glowed brighter, I saw that the rock lifted into the air.A magnetic transport system using impurities in the stone – it was one of the first technologies I’d seen on Cydia that was built without the use of Slate.

I was fascinated as much as I was frightened. I watched one man work the controls as the others held me down. Physical controls – real, physical controls. I could only imagine that these transport vehicles had existed at the beginning of the mine’s history, when Cydia was younger, and when Slate was just being discovered as a useful resource. So very long ago – and yet they were in working order. The rock rumbled with us inside, and all of a sudden we were shooting off through the pipelines at speeds that made my fetch’s stomach churn.

There were no stops along the way; the ride lasted for a good minute or so before it abruptly ended. With my limbs restarted, I could not hold my stomach, but I felt as if I was going to vomit. I restrained myself, thinking that the men holding me captive might harm me if I did anything out of the ordinary. Instead, I tried to collapse onto the cold ground as soon as the pod’s doors opened.

I coughed and wheezed. The men let me gather myself before picking me up and dragging me.

We had landed inside a building, in a port that opened into a hallway. I was reminded heavily of The Embassy’s office; no doubt Marco’s abode was derived from this larger-scale equivalent. I kept expecting to see him around every corner. At every turn there were infinitely many copies of me and my kidnappers; we marched through hallways, endless hallways, as I gave into their hold and let them lead me directly to those who I needed to speak with.

Along the way, I kept hoping we would run into other people – Curie, at the very least – but we never did. There was nobody to run into; the facility seemed empty. And at no time along the way did my capturers ever say a word to me. It was silence, through and through. And to them I reciprocated the gesture. Only our footsteps pattered on the metal flooring.

Eventually, doors lined the polished walls. Lights, gradually more of them, lined the walls next to the doors. They hovered, gently floating up and down, inorganic and ghostly, the spirits of those who had been taken to the Renaissance rooms.

There was a stark contrast between the Renaissance facility and the Inland facility. I had assumed that both were set up to participate in the same practice, but there was no conflict in the Renaissance rooms. In fact, being led by these silent men, I almost felt comforted about the possibility that I might not escape from my fate. I felt resigned, calmed. But I wasn’t accepting.
More hallways. More doors. Still, not a soul around but us.

Eventually, we came to a door at the end of a hallway that did not lead to yet another hallway; instead, it led to a large room containing several floating consoles and cryogenic tubes. The tubes, no less than ten of them, were neatly lined up on the eastern wall and connected by large pipes to refrigerating units that kept their insides cool. The consoles floated in the middle of the room, waiting for some scientist to take control of their power.

I could see other machines, larger machines, located all around the room. I couldn’t make out what they were for; I didn’t want to find out. One of them, a large pillar, stretched all the way to the ceiling and was spotted with openings – human-shaped openings that I assumed were meant for patients and test subjects. Robotic arms traversed the length of the pillar, scanning for patients to probe.
Cool mist filled the cryogenic tubes.

The panels hovered, silently.

The room, empty, revived my fear. To emphasize this, the men released me and pushed me forward so that I stumbled, almost falling onto my face against the hard Slate tile. I looked down, resting on my knees, at the reflection of my face. I kept a stern look and waited for something – anything – to happen. I prayed for an opened where I could turn the tables on these men. I made sure that I still had my Mu Gun and turned around to face my kidnappers.

Big mistake.

From behind, I was grasped by a mysterious force, and my arms were held in place against my back. I turned my head around and saw a man in a white lab coat, goggles over his eyes, his hair slicked back and greasy, adjusting the handcuffs he had slapped across my wrists.

“You may go,” he told my kidnappers, who then removed themselves from the premisses. Fussing with my handcuffs, the lab worker continued talking. “Quite a mess you’ve gotten yourself into, wouldn’t you say?” He moved my body over to the eastern wall and pressed it against a cryogenic tube. My left cheek felt cold against the glass, and I could see the cool, condensed air shuffling around inside the tube.

“I’ll say,” I responded.

The lab worker continued fussing with the handcuffs. He was taking so long that I began to think he was suspicious of me – he worked his hands up my body, padding me to make sure I wasn’t packing heat, completely missing my Mu Gun – as if he were trying to avoid it. As he got closer to the back of my skull, I became more nervous that he would discover I was in a fetch.

He approached my neck, making curious noises. Hums. Grunts. He was questioning me. I knew that if I let him keep doing, there wasn’t anything good in store for me. He would discover that I was in a fetch, and he’d send me straight to The Collective. Rip my soul right out of my body, and that would be the end of it.

As he inspected my neck and began to move upwards, I knew I had to do something. I thought back to my fight in district 137 with the thugs on the way to the Inland facility with Curie, and I knew what to do – I knew what my fetch was capable of.

I swung my head backwards with full force and hit the lab worker square on the forehead. He, holding onto my handcuffs, fell over, taking me with him. I struggled and picked myself up, then began to fiddle with the cuffs until I had gotten them loose.

With my hands free, and with no thugs around to restrain me, I picked up the lab worker with one hand. He tried to subdue me with his own fists, but I stopped them; he was clearly not in a fetch. His natural strength was no match for the strength of my artificial body. With it, I subdued him against the cryogenic tubes instead of me.

“Hi. My name in Vincent Torsten, and, now that you know who I am, I have a few questions for you.”

The lab worker became frightened – this had clearly never happened before.

“Don’t worry. This won’t be complicated,” I said. “It’s just a few simple questions. I won’t hurt you, I promise.”

“You’re in a fetch!” he said. “Please, stop! Did somebody send you? Did Maiya send you here?”

I stopped intimidating him. “How do you know Maiya?” I asked, loosening my grip on his arms. “No, that’s not the point of this. I’m here because nobody seems to know about the operations going on in this building. And, for some reason, whatever is happening here is affecting the entire planet. I’d like to know why, and I’d love to see it stop so that hardworking citizens can be relieved of panic. I’m sure you’d know the answer to at least a few questions I have.”

“If Maiya sent you, I’ve got nothing to say.”

“Nobody sent me.”

“If you say so,” the worker said.

“First things first,” I said, pressing him closer to the cold cryogenic tube, “I came here with a friend of mine. His name’s Adam Curie. You wouldn’t happen to know where he is right now, would you?”

“You think I’m going to tell you something? You’re insane. Breaking free from government capture, assaulting a laboratory worker. I will have you arrested and killed.” Half of his face smiled; the other half was being crushed against the cryogenic tube.

“I think you’ll at least tell me what wing he’s in, if this place is as huge as I think it is. And if you won’t tell me anything, I’m sure there are ways to get it out of you.” I reached with one hand into my pocket and pulled out the Mu Gun. With haste I let him go, back away as he caught his breath, and fired the Mu Gun directly at him. Light shot out its nozzle and enveloped the man in a blue prison from which he could not escape.

“There’s no way you have one of those…” he said.

“You don’t know much about me, unfortunately.” With him locked away in the capsule, I put the Mu Gun back in my pocket, ensuring I wouldn’t retract the light. From there on out, I knew it would be smooth sailing – I had one person who knew most everything I needed to know. Now all I needed to do was find Curie so we could drill him for answers.