Chương 66: Chapter 28: Shattered

I looked at the shard in my hand, running the timeline through my head. The woman in the memories. She was part of the SLOAN project. She died giving birth to her. But somehow I ended up with the shard. Somehow I ended up having her shard when my dad found me. It was possible he didn't even know who's shard it was.

"How?" I asked to the empty room. It didn't make any sense. Out of all the people, it had to end up being Sloan's mom in the memories. Was that why she was after me? I wondered. I paced back and forth across the tiny room, trying to think of what I could do. I felt frustrated, angry, trapped. I needed to do something, I couldn't just sit around and wait. Nori will help I thought. I paused, looking at the doorway as I realized it. Nori would know what to do. She knew the melodians, she had power in the ship.

If I explained what happened she'd step in and set things right. Flint said he'd be back soon, but I didn't know how long 'soon' would be and it felt like the longer I waited the less time we had to fix things. I needed to talk to Nori. I opened the door, peeking my head out to look down along the hallways to find that they were completely empty. Every door was closed, the place felt like a ghost town.

I took a deep breath, my eyes focused on any movements that might be out of place, but I saw nothing, it was perfectly still. As I made my way down the hallway I noticed a few of the doors were on their see-through setting, letting me see inside to reveal a melodian standing there, stone still, their eyes glowing as they were under the effects of the assembler. None of them seemed to look at me or acknowledge I was there. They just stood there. Frozen. Unmoving.

I looked ahead, ignoring the glowing eyes behind the glass doors as I made my way to the elevators. I was expecting someone to stop me, but I got nothing. Once again there was no movement on the floor. With a deep breath I reached out, pressing the button to summon an elevator. I stepped back, looking up at the readout screen, but instead of showing an arrow it just showed a black screen. No lights were on the panel, no indication of an elevator being on its way to my floor.

I pressed the button again but got no response. I squinted my eyes, looking around me.

"What?" I asked to the empty room, assuming Artemis could hear me, "What do you want from me?" I didn't get a response, but as I looked around the room I noticed the stairwell entrance on the adjacent wall.

"Fine, we'll do it the hard way" I said as I made my way over to the stairs and started my long climb up to the surface. It was hard at first, as expected. The floor I was on had reached its full amount of gravity a long time ago, but thankfully with each floor I climbed I was getting considerably lighter. It wasn't long until I found myself on the green floors, then up into the blue where the gravity had gone down enough to let me hop up to each landing with ease, skipping the steps entirely.

Unlike the time I'd used the stairs the last time, I was alone, nobody else was using them. I assumed the elevators were still working fine, Artemis just didn't want me to go to the surface. Unfortunately for him, it wasn't his choice. As I emerged from the stairwell at the surface of the lifeboat I was met with a considerable amount of movement. The mechara were filling the streets, talking to each other. They seemed worried, a slight panic in their tone as they spoke to each other.

I made my way down into the streets, keeping my eye on Nori's building as I navigated through the various streets and pathways. It wasn't long until I was stopped by a mechara, a surprising thing since they had a tendency to not even notice I was there.

"Oh finally!" he said, approaching me with a small box in his hand "I need you to take this for me" he said, shoving the box into my hand. Before I could ask him what it was or why he was giving it to me he'd already turned around, rejoining his friends around a small railing next to a bridge. I didn't have a chance to approach him as another mechara tapped my shoulder from behind "Excuse me" she said, sounding a bit frustrated.

I turned around to find she was holding a small cart with a few items stacked toward the back of it.

"This needed to get to the bakery rotations ago, please just take it" she said as she shoved the handle into my hand. I was so surprised I didn't even ask her what it was about. The mechara never spoke to me, at least, not like this. She shoo'd me off, looking mildly frustrated that I was still there. I shook my head, making my way off toward Nori's building once more when I heard a loud bonk in the back of the hand truck. As I turned around another package landed in the cart as a mechara walked by.

"What the…" I asked myself. I continued walking, holding the truck behind me as more mechara were throwing things into it. They always seemed to see me from a distance and get this look of frustration and relief as they saw me walking by. As I walked I couldn't help but think of the melodians down in the ship below us. Living their lives as servants to these mechara.

Maintaining the ship for them, taking out their garbage, transporting everything for them, all for the privilege of going into a cursed machine that takes their lives away from them, so they only enjoy their lives when they're living in their past. It was disgusting and they all seemed oblivious to what they were doing to the melodians as they sat back in their convenient spot at the top of their little food chain.

I turned around to find the cart was completely full, more mechara were approaching as they looked for a spot to place something in the cart for me to take. I shook my head. I wasn't a delivery worker. I wasn't their trained pet. I dropped the handle and tried to make my way forward without the cart but the mechara had surrounded me. They were frustrated.

"Oh come on we've been waiting for so long and you're just gonna drop it?" one mechara asked.

"So lazy" another comment came from the other side.

"Absolutely unacceptable. What happened? Did they all just fall asleep on the job?" one mechara sneered next to me. I was losing my patience with them as they all continued to berate me for not doing the work they were expecting me to do.

"Yyyyeeeaah!" I yelled out as I kicked the cart over, causing all of its contents to pour out onto the street. They all backed up in shock, their beaks open as they looked at me with wide eyes, a gasp going through the crowd.

"Leave me alone! If you want this stuff to go somewhere so badly just take it there yourselves. I'm not a damn dog" I said, using the English word for 'dog' since I hadn't encountered a similar word in mecharan. Despite them obviously not understanding, they knew I was angry, causing them all to back away from me a bit. A mechara approached from somewhere in the back of the crowd, holding out a box as he excitedly approached me, likely being too far back from the commotion to know what had just happened.

He placed the box in my hand and without saying a word I lifted it above my head and smashed it on the ground, causing whatever was inside to shatter. He gasped, reeling back as I turned and continued on my way toward Nori's building. As I made my way through the street more mechara would approach me as others from behind would warn them not to give me anything. Most listened, some didn't. I was handed another package, and yet another package got smashed onto the ground.

The look of horror on each mechara's face didn't phase me at all as I proceeded to destroy anything they tried to force onto me. Whatever pain they felt was nothing compared to what the mechara had just put all of those young melodians through. I'd reached a point where I just didn't care anymore. As I approached Nori's apartment building it seemed a security guard had noticed the commotion. The mechara had cleared the area in front of me as I approached.

He stood firmly at the door as he reached down, pulling out a familiar looking flashlight.

"Stop!" he yelled out to me as I continued approaching. I didn't care. I needed to talk to Nori. We needed to fix this. The guard turned the light on, causing the outside of my vision to turn white. I was too focused. Too angry. Too determined to give the flashlight a second thought as I just casually walked past him. The look of shock on his face as I completely ignored him was priceless.

As I made my way through the main sitting area the mechara all had their eyes on me but they didn't seem to want to get involved as I made my way through, going to the back where the steps were and making my way up to Nori's floor. When I got to her door I gave it a firm knock.

"Yes?" I heard Nori's voice from the other side of the door.

"It's Tess. We need to talk" I said firmly.

"Tess!" I heard from the other side of the door as it slid open a moment later. She looked happy to see me but the excitement in her eyes changed as she saw how angry I looked.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"May I?" I asked, gesturing inside. She nodded, ushering me in as the door closed behind us.

"Tess? What happened?" she asked, following me inside.

"They destroyed them! All of them! They, they, did something to the melodians, this… Assembler four, they… They…" I stammered, my anger clouding my thoughts.

"Slow down slow down!" she yelled over me "They destroyed the melodians? What?" I shook my head, taking a deep breath as I tried to calm my nerves.

"Music. I was showing them music. We took the instruments and I've been teaching them music. Then… Their eyes turned white. Flint called it the assembler four. They didn't have a choice. We need to stop this before it's too late, I need your help Nori" I said as I tried to fight back the tears in my eyes.

"Okay, we can take care of this Tess, it's okay" she said reassuringly.

"It, it was the mechara, they went down there during the spinup. They went down there and destroyed the instruments. I… don't know what to do" I said, still stammering as my thoughts were all bumping together.

"Tess it's fine, you don't need them" she said, placing a hard on my shoulder.

"I… What?" I asked, looking up at her.

"You don't need them. The melodians have gone without them for nearly as long as these lifeboats have been around, they'll be fine" she said. My thoughts felt clouded, I was sure I didn't hear her correctly "W-what?" I asked again.

"Look, Tess, the mechara were getting nervous about what they were seeing up here. The young melodians weren't doing their parts anymore, they were trying to stay out when it wasn't their time, it was getting chaotic and it was making everyone up here nervous. We have so much to do already. We're trying to fix up lifeboat seven, we're trying to figure out where the black shard is and if we can recover it. Now isn't the time to start shaking things up with the melodians.

If they want to use the instruments they can do it later but now isn't the time" she said. The tone of her voice was reassuring but the content was horrifying. She didn't understand what she was saying.

"Nori. I need your help with turning off this new version of the assembler. We need to get more instruments from earth. I think I can convince the melodians to stop using the assembler entirely. If not the older ones, at least the younger ones. I can teach them. I can give them a better life" I said, pleading to her. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

"Tess, why are you so convinced it's a bad thing? I mean, everyone was getting along just fine before. And I mean, you don't have to use it. We can just do what we've been doing and keep moving along. Doesn't that sound better?" she asked.

"No! That sounds horrible!" I yelled at her, backing away.

"Tess, please you're getting emotional. Just calm down, think about it" she said.

"Calm down?! Flint was right, you're not as different as I thought you were. You're just like the other mechara. So comfortable, so satisfied with the way you've pacified the melodians. You like how they do all your work for you, give you a more comfortable life while they live in their own past, remembering when their lives were better" I said, my fists balled up as I let my anger pour out through my words.

"Tess look at yourself! This is what they're so afraid of! Without the assembler you get so angry, so short tempered, so…" I couldn't hear her as my ears were pounding, my anger taking over me as I grabbed the chair next to me and threw it with all the force I could muster into the moving structure on her wall.

"No!" she screamed as the chair flew through the air, colliding with the intricate gears and mechanisms as its part exploded around the room, shattering into thousands of little pieces as the entire structure fell to the floor. She was in shock, her mouth gaping as she looked at the remnants of her prized possession now turned into rubble.

"Tess… How… How could you…" she said, her voice getting quieter as she spoke. She got down on her knees, her eyes turning yellow as she started to cry, gently trying to scoop up the pieces of the structure. I stood in silence, practically growling with each breath I took. Nori screamed, turning around and swatting her hand toward me, but she was slow, I caught it right before she made contact with my face.

"What's wrong Nori?" I spoke slowly, letting each word cut into her, "You're so angry. So short tempered. So emotional." She pulled her hand back, sitting on the floor in front of me as she tried to breathe.

"What would your father think of this?" I asked.

"W-what?" she asked.

"You have a chance to help free the melodians. But you choose not to. Because you're afraid. Because you don't want to see your life change too much. You're so comfortable and you don't want to give that up. You told me Lampro saw more in the melodians, that they deserved the same respect as the mecharans. He told me he'd never lost hope. He wanted to see the melodians set free. Yet here you are standing in the way of that.

He'd be ashamed of you right now" I said as I tore into her, each word accentuated like I was stabbing her with each thought.

"G-get out…" Nori said, the anger in her voice clouded by the pain she felt. I turned around, walking toward the door as I heard her crying behind me. I put my hand on the door but a thought occurred to me.

"How do you sleep at night?" I asked her. She stopped crying for a moment, I could feel her looking at me.

"W-what?" she asked. I sighed as I opened the door, stepping through it.

"It's an expression Nori. Look it up" I said as I slammed the door shut. I stepped out in the hallway, crossing my arms as I stood there, trying to think of what I needed to do next. I was so sure Nori would be on my side. I trusted her. I believed she'd do anything to help the melodians. But as soon as it was time to step up and do something, she took the easy route. I thought she was different.

There was a voice off to the side, dragging my attention away from my anger for a moment as I saw several guards approaching, each carrying a flashlight. It was time for me to leave, but as I turned around I saw a similar group of guards approaching from the other side. I could try to charge through them, but there were so many. The last time I'd encountered more than one light it pulled me into the white void without giving me a chance to fight it.

They were running toward me, I figured I could try to close my eyes, run through them and hope there weren't any melodians in the group that could stop me. Just before I started to charge I heard Flint's voice from above me.

"Tess! This way!" I heard as a melodian hand reached down from the flight above me. Without hesitation I jumped up, grabbing onto his hand as he pulled me up and over the railing on the above floor.

"She… She said she wouldn't help us. She said…" I started to say.

"I know. I heard the whole thing. We don't have time, we have to go" he said as he grabbed my hand, pulling me down the hallway. Before we reached the end he turned, pulling me into a maintenance room and closing the door behind us.

"Flint… I don't know what to do. I thought Nori would be on our side. I don't know…" I said, trying to find my words.

"We're getting you out of here" he said as he climbed up a small ladder, leading us up into the floor above. I followed him, climbing up into the room above to find a much larger maintenance room leading out and away from the main lobby area.

"No Flint, I don't mean right now, I mean, what are we gonna do?" I asked as we quickly made our way through the room, passing several large pieces of machinery that looked like they were some kind of filters."'We' aren't going to do anything Tess. I'm getting you out of here. Abel's flight leaves in ten rots. We need to get you on it. You can't be here any more. You deserve better than this place" he said as we exited through the back of the room, finding ourselves on the outside.

"I… I can't leave them all here like this. I have to do something" I pleaded with him.

"I'll figure something out Tess. We'll find some way for you to get more instruments to us. You can send us more MP3 players and we'll figure it out" he said"Wait!" I yelled out to him, grabbing his hand and stopping him.

"Tess we don't have much time, we need to…" he started to say.

"Come with me!" I said, talking over him. He blinked, his eyes going wide.

"With… You?" he asked. I nodded, grabbing his hands a little more firmly "Yes! Come with me, I can show you earth, I can show you all the music you want. I don't want to be alone anymore. I don't want to be the only one of my kind. You said you wanted to see the sky, right? You could LIVE under it. We could live together, please. Flint bit his lip as he looked out toward the front windows of the ship. We could see the earth in view, the red horizon just barely eclipsing the sun.

"I've always wondered what that looked like…" he said quietly.

"Flint…" I said, shaking his hands a little. He snapped out of it, looking up at me with a nod "Okay. Yes. I'll go with you." We both wrapped each other in a brief hug before we started making our way down the back fire escape, bringing us down to street level.

"What's it like when it rains?" he asked as he started leading me down the alleyway. I smiled, excited about the prospect of bringing Flint home with me, teach him English, introducing him to my friends back on earth.

"It's cool! You'll like it! Water just falls from the sky. It's like a shower but it comes from the sky" I said.

"And when it gets cold it freezes right?" he asked.

"Snow! Yeah it covers everything in white, it's beautiful. But that only happens in the winter" I said as I tried to keep up with him. As we excited the alleyway it looked like the mechara had been looking for me. Several of them pointed at me, yelling out as they grabbed the attention of anyone that had a flashlight.

"Down!" Flint yelled as he ran a bit faster, grabbing a small hatch in the center of the street and lifting it up. I didn't hesitate as I ran straight in on all fours, followed by Flint quickly behind me. When Flint closed the hatchway it got rather dark, but we could still see enough to move forward.

"What is this?" I asked.

"Maintenance tunnel! Go forward! I'll follow behind!" he yelled out. I didn't need to be told twice as I started running along the tunnel.

"... gravity…" I heard behind me.

"What?!" I yelled back.

"Is it true the gravity doesn't change? If you go up or down?" he asked.

"No no it's the same wherever you go. It feels like the bottom of sector three!" I yelled back.

"So cool" I heard him say. We got to a spot where the maintenance tunnel opened up, turning into a large chasm in front of us.

"Flint I thiaaaaaaaaaah!" I screamed as he grabbed me, throwing me across the void like it was a sport. I slammed onto the floor on the other side, tumbling a bit but regaining my senses shortly after Flint landed on his feet next to me.

"Come on!" he yelled out "No time for sitting around we have to go!" I was a bit flustered by how casually he'd just thrown me across the gap, but it wasn't the time for that. I'd recognized the chasm. It was the same one we'd driven through in the jeep. It meant we were passing through the middle ring and making our way to the back where the ships would launch from.

"The people from the MP3 players" Flint yelled behind himself as he led me through a taller hallway that started to curve upward.

"What about them?" I asked, getting a bit winded from the running.

"They're humans right? Can I meet them?" he asked, sounding a bit more excited at the idea.

"Oh uh. I mean, I guess they'd probably say yes to that" I said as I realized being on earth would be extremely different now than it was before.

"Cool! Good! There was this one person. Elvis. I wanted to meet him" he said with a bit of a hop in his step.

"Oh uh… Right, not all of them are…" I started to say.

"Stop!" Flint yelled out as we reached a doorway "We're here" he said.

"Oh good" I said as I was trying to catch my breath.

"Tess we don't have much time. You have to do exactly what I say. Follow my instructions EXACTLY and we can get on that ship together. You have to trust me" he said as he opened the door to what looked like a large locker room of sorts.

"Here put this on" he said as he threw a jumpsuit my way. It looked just like the one I'd worn when I first arrived on the lifeboat. Flint was changing into his already. He looked up at me, a flash of annoyance on his face.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Sorry, could you turn around?" I asked him.

"Tess shut up just change into it!" he whisper-yelled at me. I shook my head.

"Sorry…" I said as I quickly changed into the flight suit. Flint to his credit had turned around for me. As I zipped it up I felt a helmet press onto my head from behind.

"Okay, keep this on, don't lift the visor, act like them and please stop breathing so heavily" he said as he turned me around. He was already wearing a similar helmet.

"Okay. Sorry, that was a lot of running" I said. He tapped the visor.

"Act just like them. If you hear something from a mechara, or Artemis, or anything, ignore it. Be like them. Don't react, don't do anything that will draw their attention. Got it?" he asked me. I nodded as he turned around, opening the door into a large, tall hallway. It had been a few weeks since I'd been in a hallway designed for the mechara, I'd found myself getting used to the shorter ceilings in sector four. Flint led me through the hallway, walking slowly with a calm, neutral gait to his steps.

I followed behind, doing my best to do as he did. Two other melodians passed by us in the hallway going the opposite direction. They also had flight suits on, their visors covering their eyes as they walked past us. As we turned the next corner we were faced with a large open platform with a familiar looking transporter ship in the center of it with a line of melodians that were slowly making their way inside.

As we approached we noticed there were two conveniently open spots on the left side of the grid they'd formed as they entered the small platform. The two I passed in the hallway I realized, Artemis cleared the spots for us. Flint stepped to the side, letting me go in first as I took my place, grabbing the overhead strap like the other melodians had done. I sigh of relief came over me as I heard the doors starting to close. I was about to turn around when I heard Flint say quietly "Don't move Tess. Not yet.

Don't move." I took a deep breath, looking forward.

"Stop!" yelled out a mecharan voice from behind us. My eyes opened wide, a shiver running through me. No I thought as I heard his footsteps coming up to the ship. The door stopped.

"What is it?" another mecharan voice yelled out from the other side of the room.

"You need to stop! Open the door! The melodian, the one without the assembler, we believe she's on that ship!" he yelled out. I was shivering, I wanted to run." Don't" Flint said under his breath, just loud enough for me to hear. The door started opening again as my muscles tensed. I wanted to run, to hide somewhere, to find some place they couldn't find me. Maybe the lower floors. Maybe in the woods somewhere. Maybe Artemis would stop them from installing the assembler in me.

I could convince them to let me be their translator or something. The thoughts went racing through my mind as the door finally opened, the large doorway hitting against the metal floor underneath as I heard the mecharans walking up the platform. I stared forward. I didn't dare move a muscle.

"Okay who is it?" the man said to the group. Nobody responded, nobody moved.

"This isn't funny" the other mecharan joined in, "we're not launching this ship until we find you. We're on a tight schedule, this isn't a game" he said.

"Uh huh" the first mechara said, sounding a bit annoyed. I heard another set of mecharan footsteps approaching from behind.

"Looks like we got her" he said, "you can close this back up. We can still be on time." I blinked, wanting to turn around, but I knew I couldn't move. It was possible that Artemis had convinced them they'd already caught me. Or maybe Nori had a change of heart and told them I was still with her. Not like I was in a position to ask. The doors started to close once more as I relaxed as I felt myself continuing to shiver from how close of a call it was. Whatever the reason, it didn't matter. We made it.

Just as the doors closed the ship's engines spun up as we took off from the low gravity platform, finally letting me move again.

"Flint! We did it!" I said as I turned around to find an empty spot behind me. My world froze, my hearts sinking into my stomach as I looked at the empty spot where Flint had stood. I jumped to the back of the ship, looking through the window to find the three mechara standing around Flint, his helmet was on the floor as the three mechara were holding out their lights, they looked like they were threatening to turn them on.

Flint briefly turned around, looking back at the ship as his ears were laid flat against his head, the deepest sadness I'd ever seen in his eyes as he watched the ship take me away from him.

"No!" I yelled, banging on the window, "No! Stop! Let him come with me!" I screamed. None of the mechara noticed me as their attention was on Flint as he turned around and started slowly walking away.

"No! No no no!" I screamed, tears clouding my vision as I watched my friend get taken away by the mechara.

"Please… Please don't take him from me! Please!!" I screamed again as they turned the corner just as the door to the first airlock closed behind the ship as we prepared to exit the lifeboat.