Arch/Eternal - Chapter Fifteen

A bath in the torture tub (AKA "Standard Augmentations")

Skip this part if you’re caught up!

This is Arch/Eternal, a sprawling novel-in-progress in the genre of philosophical sci-fi. Think Dune meets Harry Potter, and maybe channeling a little bit of Dan Simmons.

If you’d prefer to start from the beginning, here’s the Prologue.

And if you want to follow along with the world-building behind the story, take a look at the companion series shamelessly titled A Terran’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Finally, here’s a short summary of what’s happened up to this point, to save you from having to click on a bunch of links to figure out what the hell is going on:

Earth is a protected (read: ignorant) planet nested within a galactic community known as the Fellowship. Historian/researcher Rita Freeman is a secret ambassador of this organization, who spends a lot of her time on other worlds. In an effort to help Earth become a full citizen planet of the Fellowship, and to rescue its people from total self-destruction, she is recruiting talented young people to build a better society.

One of these is Jackson River, who grew up with his grandmother in a tiny desert town in northern Arizona, and at 11 years old, lost his best friend after an episode of severe bullying. Another is Esther Quinn, who grew up in an idyllic home in Connecticut. When she was 11, her brother Adam was recruited by Rita to become the founder of a new movement called Cubensia. Years later, Esther moved to Boston to join him.

By some stroke of fate or fortune, Esther, Jackson, and another boy named Deek are late to a Cubensian launch party that becomes ground zero of an attack that destroys an entire city block. Rita scoops up all three of them into her spaceship, and heads for an interstellar gate buried in the dark side of the Moon.

On the way, she fills them in on the galactic drama that has been playing out between the Fellowship and the Confederacy, and the Firstborn, a powerful race of beings at the head of each of them — respectively called archs and eternals. Esther grieves the loss of her brother, Adam, and is vocally suspicious of an arch named Morning who was bonded to him, and should have protected him from what Rita claims was an attack by an eternal in Boston.

On the other side of the gate, they arrive at a planet many thousands of lightyears away, called Priezh. After a very brief introduction to a nine-foot human-looking alien named Poe, Rita tells them she will be back in two weeks, and leaves them there to receive the Fellowship’s version of basic training…

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Standard Augmentations

None of us were dressed for the kind of cold that hit us as soon as we left Rita’s ship, so it was a pretty big bummer when it turned out it wasn’t any warmer when we left the hangar.

We walked through an oval-shaped passage, perhaps twelve feet at its highest point, and at least twenty feet wide. The milky white walls formed wide ridges that narrowed and deepened the further up they went. Along the ceiling, the grooves were about as wide and deep as a fist, and seemed to glow with reflected light, brightest along the center. It took me a few seconds to realize that the ridges themselves were glowing, as though coated with some bioluminescent material.

I turned to Esther and Deek to mention this curiosity when it occurred to me that the cold would be a lot harder for them to deal with than it was for me. It didn’t matter I had thin Arizonan blood — there’s just no substitute for meat on the bones. 

Poe’s long, slow strides kept us moving at a brisk pace for a hundred meters or so, following a steadily tightening curve. 

In Boston, as soon as I stepped off the plane, I was hit by the scent of the air — wet and alive. A total contrast to my home in the desert, which had the smell of kiln-baked fossils. And then, a week or so later, Callan took me to see Old North Park in Concord, at my request. It had been Nali’s recommendation, and it was the first time I left the city, and breathed in the early Fall ripeness of grass and trees.

Here, in this underground tunnel on Priezh, and despite the wickedly low temperature, a vibrant scent of fresh vegetation filled my head and lungs, alongside heady aromas of natural ferment. So much so that I expected the tunnel to let out into some vast underground greenhouse. 

Instead, we emerged into a cavernous room the approximate shape of a kidney bean. It was wide and open above, with a complicated array of what looked like (but probably weren’t) skylights along the ceiling, the bottom was partitioned like a topographical map, with terraced floors and raised platforms of varying heights that might have been tables, chairs, or decoration. In direct contrast to the hallway through which we’d been walking, the interior here was all muted browns and blues. 

It was also still, unfortunately, very cold. Poe didn’t slow down, and we didn’t either. 

On the other end, the walls curved and contracted gracefully into two exits. We left through the one on the right. This one’s deep, matte brown walls curved into the same ovular shape, but gave off much less light. 

As we followed one branch after the next, I started to panic that I wouldn’t be able to find my way back, before I reminded myself that it wouldn’t matter either way. We were at the mercy of this huge person, whoever he was and whatever he intended to do with us. I just hoped it would get warmer at some point. 

Finally, we turned a bend and found ourselves in a much smaller chamber. Along one wall, a bay of coffin-sized pods the color and texture of volcanic rock protruded from the floor. There were a dozen of them, but only three looked wet on the inside.

No thanks, I heard my brain say.

Poe pointed at the wet ones. 

Deek shook his head. “You want us to get into those things?” he asked through chattering teeth.

“Pruhar taarar You’ll need to cotsalgoth amrin remove your clothing pruheh sherugoth if you would like to keep it,” Poe said. 

“What are they for?” Esther asked. Her efforts to keep her own teeth from chattering made her sound more angry than she was. Or maybe not. 

“Koranith bara tolathis,” Poe said. “Standard augmentations.”

“I’m going to need…a lot more information,” Esther said.

Poe took a deep breath and folded his arms. “Niranth,” he said. “After.”

While Esther glared at the stoic giant, I started taking my clothes off. 

“What are you doing?” Esther said.

“Rita told us to trust him,” I said, “and I trust Rita. Also, what are we gonna do? Leave?”

It’s very hard to get your limbs to obey you when you’re telling them to remove the only protection you have against frigid air. Even more so when it looks like you’re about to climb into a stone basin coated in wet ice. I’ll say this — it did mitigate the embarrassment of getting naked in front of three people I barely knew. 

While I studiously avoiding looking at her, I heard Esther make a disgusted sound, then say, “Turn around!” I assumed she meant Poe. 

All three of us avoided eye-contact as we climbed awkwardly over the waist-high rim of the three creche’s that were meant for us.

Whatever coated the inside of the thing wasn’t exactly wet, so much as sticky. And warm. Revulsion fought relief as more and more of it came in contact with my skin in the process of getting all the way inside and laying down on my back as Poe instructed. 

As soon as I was in position, I felt the substance start to creep up my skin. My first impulse was to pull away, but too late — it was like superglue, and it quickly filled the tub. I barely had time to struggle before I was submerged. It was in my ears, my nose, my mouth. Just as I started to panic about suffocation, though, I felt airways open enough to let me take a big, grateful breath. 

I took several, in and out, trying to calm myself. I couldn’t move a muscle, and I couldn’t see or hear anything, but at least I was warm now. 

“I apologize for the rush, and for the lack of explanation.” Poe’s voice. “It’s challenging to communicate without the augmentations. I promise now to do what I can to help you prepare for each phase.”

Out of nowhere, a billion hot needles pierced my skin. I felt my lungs contract in a scream, but it was lost in the noise of agony. Somewhere just below the absolute threshold of endurance — that place where sanity dies — the burning flipped to freezing. For an instant: relief, as cold blasted away the hellfire. But then a splitting, aching frost sunk deep into my flesh.

Like a switch, the cold vanished, and was replaced by an intensity of itchiness that I could not have imagined. Some part of my brain noted that I was lucky to be immobilized, or I would have eagerly clawed all the skin off my body to make it go away. Instead, I could only gasp and writhe against whatever viscous substrate held me. 

Finally, numbness. I nearly wept, hoping that would be the last of it.

“Once again,” Poe said, “I apologize for the lack of warning. But this process is most effective when it is not fully anticipated. The brain and nervous system must be properly calibrated, and there is, unfortunately, no better way to do this.”

If I could have, I would have shamelessly begged to be let out. Instead, all I could do was think the words.

“From now on, I can give you a moment of notice before each consecutive part of the procedure. The first was focused on your skin, strengthening the dermal tissues and networks of blood vessels, in addition to the calibration of all the embedded nerve endings.”

Oh sure. Sure. Of course.

“Next, your muscles and tendons will be treated. Please note that the sensations you feel are not an indication of actual harm or physical damage. This is not to trivialize your experience of the pain, but the knowledge should allow your higher order functions of reasoning assert more control and help you endure it. The second phase will begin now.”

This time, tiny vicious worms bore through my body, everywhere at once. I screamed again and again — it was the only thing I had control over. My higher order functions of reasoning tapped out right at the beginning.

After the worms, it was like I had restless leg syndrome, but in every appendage, which, after only a few moments, I decided was worse than the worms. I writhed again, whimpering curses of the damned, muscles tensing and releasing in undulating disorder. I wondered what would happen if I vomited.

Eventually that horrible phase passed, and I shivered impotently. If my jaw hadn’t also been firmly held in place, my teeth would have chattered hard enough to break. I tried very hard to take deep breaths, to calm my tortured body, but it was no use.

“The next phase will fortify all of your connective tissues,” Poe said calmly, “including the rest of the vessels in your circulatory system.”

This ended up feeling like someone injecting ice cold lighter fluid into every single one of my veins, then setting it all on fire. It took my breath away. I didn’t scream, I just squeezed my eyes shut and prayed to die. 

“Nearly done,” Poe said, but it was hard to hear him as I roasted from the inside out.

When it was over, I felt so completely stiff and numb that I couldn’t have moved even if I hadn’t been encased in rigid goo. 

“The last augment will be the most difficult,” Poe said. “It’s purpose is to increase the density and tensility of your bones. The pain will come in waves, the number and duration of which will be unique to you.”

I think I’ll pass, I thought, letting out one strained chuckle, just before my bones blew up. He was right, it was the worst one. It felt like every bone in my body, from my skull to the tips of my toes and fingers, had exploded. 

Waves? I thought, just before it happened again. 

And then again.

And again.

Thankfully, the traumatic bursts of anguish resolved into a predictable rhythm, like the ticking of a hateful clock. 

I hadn’t cried for pain since I was a little kid, but I cried then. Just helpless sobs, tears pooling around my eyes, only to be absorbed into the stickiness that entombed me. I wanted Nali. I wanted my mother. More than anything, more than anything, I wanted that clock to stop. 

Eventually, of course, it did. 

For some long moments, my body kept reflexively bracing for the next wave of pain, until it finally became clear that the waves had passed and gone. 

In their wake, an existential throb. A depth of weeping fatigue almost dreamlike in its potency. The typical ticker tape of egoic thoughts had been scoured away, so that there was nothing coherent passing through. Just feeling. Later, I would wonder if that raw, wordless emotional state is what torture victims experience. 

Again, and finally, Poe’s voice. 

“Now, you will sleep.”

I had barely attached meaning to the words before merciful oblivion swept me into an endless dark.

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