Chapter 6 | Della | Adelia

“A messiah. I simply want you to become the messiah of humanity in this crisis."

It takes a few seconds for Della to process what Gandharva has just said.

“Me? A messiah? Why?” she asks, dropping her defensive posture.

“Because humanity needs one,” Gandharva says, looking back at the door to the room. It's closed. “It’s because the normal human logic goes against freedom in our case. It makes logical sense that humanity cannot fight against Gorons, and to most people, it makes sense to live a caged life with free food and water."

“I know.” Della's face writhes in disgust. “That’s why I ran from my old district…but how does making a religion out of me help with it?” She sits straighter against the bed’s headrest.

He walks to the window next to her, his upper half illuminated by sunlight. “If the Black Diamonds free a district, they’d hate us for taking their easy life away under the Gorons. But let’s say…an angel descends from heaven as a human to help humanity and opens the gates to freedom for every single district. Isn’t that just lovely?”

“Angel?” She asks, trying to pronounce it.

“It’s an English word,” he says, shrugging. “In my tongue, it’s devdoot…but there’s no equivalent word to it in Ikari. They are agents of God.”

“And people will buy this…angel thing?” Della asks.

Gandharva stands close to her bed. “At least they won’t hate you.”

“And how will I reach the gates of other districts? The Kix will close the gate and assign more guards to the gate now that I’ve…”

He sighs. “Yes, of course. Leave that matter to me. I have to talk to Kix tomorrow morning—for now, just tell me if you’ll cooperate.”

She clenches her right palm, looking at him, “I need some time to decide. I don’t want to be punished because I don’t think what I did was wrong, but I also don’t want someone innocent to be punished in my place.”

He leans down towards Della’s face, and she can hear his breathing. “You’re making it too complicated,” he whispers, “The question is—do you want to live, or do you want to die?”

She recalls her conversation with Ethan on the day she left. “It’s...well...once I’m found missing, I’ll be ruled out as a rebel...which means...they might consider you two to be potential threats and separate you two.” There is no knowing what happened to them now. They could be fine, they could be separated, they could have been taken hostage to keep Della in control and they could be . . .

She has already endangered her family by running away, and even though she is ashamed of it, she does not regret it. “I have something I want to do.” She covers her face with her hand, shameful. “I want to live.”

Gandharva starts to straighten himself, but Della grabs his collar with her uninjured right hand, bringing his face down again. She is surprised at herself being able to exert so much energy despite being so hungry, but soon gets over it and glares into his dark eyes, holding tightly, “But I will not let someone die just so I can become a figurehead leader. I will truly bring about miracles to mankind and lead them to freedom! So listen well, king—I will make the decisions.”

There’s a few seconds of silence as they glare at each other before a knock on the door startles both of them. Della lets go of his collar, pushing him away. “Come in.”

The young girl that was with Della when she woke up enters the room carrying a bowl of porridge. She keeps it on the stand next to Della’s bed, and bows at both of them. She blushes and turns to go away but Gandharva interrupts her, using his hand to straighten all the wrinkles on his shirt caused by Della’s aggression, “Now now, don’t be in such a hurry, Coraline.”

She looks around, bowing again. “This is Coraline Lafrancois.” Della resists her urge to eat the porridge and looks at the young girl. She’s tall, has short blond hair and is thin everywhere. “Coraline, this is our… saviour,” he continues. “You must know by now, of course. Everybody in the district is gossiping about her.”

Della looks at Coraline, who seems to be staring at her in awe. “Hello,” Della says, smiling, “I’m in your care.”

“Return by evening,” Gandharva says. “We have matters to discuss once...” he turns to Della. “Did you remember your name yet, Your Holiness?”

She shakes her head. “No, but everything is slowly coming back to me.”

Gandharva dismisses the young girl and closes the door before returning. “Don’t worry—I want real miracles, too. If I wanted a figurehead, I would have killed you off and had someone loyal to me pretend to be you.” He sits down on the chair, relaxing his legs. “Now, you need a new name.”

“Angel,” Della whispers. Angel Della? “Adela?” She picks up the bowl of porridge with her right hand and keeps it on her lap. There’s a small wooden spoon in it.

“Sounds too much like Della. That name will soon be public knowledge when people get transferred out of your district and everyone hears the story of the girl that just vanished from a district…so no. I want to distance you from being a normal human.”

“Adelia, then,” Della says, and starts eating.

Gandharva bows. “Your Holiness Adelia, what do you think of Coraline?”

“She seems sweet,” she says, smiling a little after a bite. “Did she cook this? It’s nice.”

Gandharva looks away, groaning. “This is awkward…again. I was hoping that you don’t end up liking her before I tell you that she’s your scapegoat.”

The image of Coraline being taken by Krots to their airship enters her mind, and she covers her mouth, sick to the stomach. A few weeks ago, she has seen her father being taken for no known reason. “Does someone has to die?” Della asks.

For a few seconds, she can see double of Gandharva as he looks down, saying, “We can’t let them take the captive to their spaceships and use some fancy technology to get information out of the captive—so yes, someone has to die.”

Della looks down as she speaks, hating herself. “Don’t you know…” she pauses for a moment, “…worse people that can be sent instead?”

He shakes his head. “I have plenty of people locked up for not cooperating but no, they won’t do. We have three ghosts…and only one of them can act as your scapegoat.”

Ghosts? Now that is a word that she doesn’t hear every day, thankfully. The spoon she’s holding chatters against the inside of the wooden bowl containing porridge as she says, shaking, “What…what do you mean, g-ghosts? She was like a…normal person.”

He laughs. “I call humans whose birth is not recorded by the Gorons as ghosts. They were born in secrecy and hence no record of them exists. And we need a ghost as a scapegoat because the young Krots were outside the gate—It can’t be someone from inside the district.”

“How old are the other two…ghosts?”

He thinks for a moment, then says, “There’s another ghost girl of thirteen, but I need her as a hostage. And then there's a boy of four…but even the stupidest Krot won’t believe that he could kill two young Krots.”

She squeezes her eyes shut until they start to hurt. “I need to talk to Coraline.”

Chapter 6 | Ethan | Phase two

Ethan’s reco's right wing crashes into a sentinel, and his void shakes, making it difficult to see. Nonetheless, he makes his reco move in an unpredictable zig-zag manner and takes cover behind one of the large asteroids floating in space. He then examines the damage of his unit on a corner of the left wall of his void. One of his ionic thrusters is damaged but still in a semi-usable state at half capacity…and that’s all the damage he has taken, despite crashing through an enemy and getting fired upon for a few seconds. The defences of Goron made space fighters are excellent, he thinks, as his hands operate two large levers in front of him, moving his reco away from the rock and towards the planet Vinci.

“I’m almost at the surface,” Ethan says, “What’s the status over th—” He stops speaking when the screen in front of him flashes with eight red dots. “Never mind,” he says, squinting—trying to find if the enemies are really present, but the sentinels are flat space fighters covered in black armour. It is almost impossible to see them in the darkness of space. “I think eight sentinels are blocking my way. We need more people here.” His reco is a space fighter intended for reconnaissance and hence is underpowered when it comes to combat...but the same applies to sentinels.

He waits for a few seconds and is about to shout in anger when—“This is Iris,” a sound comes from above him in the void, “I can confirm that Umida got destroyed, but the cargo is fine.”

There’s a small pause as Ethan moves to take cover behind an asteroid. “I was afraid of that when her signal disappeared. At least the cargo is safe, though. What about you, Charlotte?”

“I’m, uh, bored,” a peachy voice says. “No one’s, like, coming here.”

“Help us, then,” Ethan says, trying to not sound angry.

“Can you…uh, not take another way? Like turning, you know?” Charlotte asks, and Ethan can’t tell if she’s mocking him.

He looks around, and although he can’t personally confirm this because of the large floating rocks blocking his view, he says, “Don’t be silly. There must be a reason why we are advised to infiltrate from this angle. There must be many more sentinels in other directions. Now stop goofing around and get to where I am.”

“You were the one who, uh, told me to scout here,” says Charlotte, “but sure.”

“You also had to return after you finish scouting,” he says, clicking his tongue.

“I’m almost there too,” Iris says. “Wait...did Verve...?”

“He, well—pfft—he crashed into an asteroid again,” Charlotte says, laughing. “This is, like, the tenth time now.” Her loud laughter in the soundproof void is rather eerie.

Ethan presses his right palm against his forehead. He has expected Verve crashing since this is indeed the tenth time now that he has crashed into something. “This isn’t a laughing matter,” Iris says.

“Yeah…you’re rig—pwahahaha,” Charlotte breaks down into laugher again.

Ethan is about to say something when he sees Iris’ reco approach him on his right screen. “I’ll be the bait,” she says, and he is thankful that he has at least one sensible teammate alive.

“Uh, don’t wait for me, yea? Just leave the cargo there and I can, uh, bring it while sniping them.” Charlotte says.

“Don’t be stupid,” Ethan says, looking at the map on the screen, “You aren’t anywhere near us.”

“Aren’t we late already? There’s, like, a time limit.”

It’s dark inside the void, but there are glowing screens that give him all the information that he needs. The walls also simulate the space in the simulation, but being rectangular, they feel clunky. He glances over the floating letters on the screen, checks the numbers, and knows he has everything ready. His phaser hasn’t recharged back to maximum capacity yet, but he doesn’t have enough time.

On his signal, Iris baits the sentinels closer to the rock that Ethan is hiding behind. Ethan can’t see her, but a screen in front of him shows her position with a blue dot. He can tell that she’s manoeuvring the reco and dodging most of the attacks from the eight sentinels—the red dots. When she moves past the rock, the sentinels find Ethan spray firing them with his phaser beams—from both the left and right sides of his space fighter. Two of the sentinels get blown up right away, but the other six switch their focus on Ethan, acknowledging the danger.

He makes his reco turn and attempts to get away, but catches quite a bit of heavy fire from the back and his void starts shaking around, making it difficult to see the screens. He closes his eyes, knowing that death is near.

The firing stops. He turns around to see a sentinel getting blown up—Iris has seen that he’s taking heavy fire and is engaging them at close range to divert attention. He screams “Get away!” seeing that the six sentinels are about to sandwich fire on her.

She doesn’t get away. Instead, she runs into them and they form a circle around her. She dodges a few shots and shoots down one of them herself. Ethan starts accelerating towards the sentinels, firing at them in an attempt to distract. One of the sentinels tries to shoot at Iris but misses and ends up exploding the sentinel behind her. One of Ethan’s beams also finally connects and another sentinel explodes. Iris gets away from the exploding sentinel, and uses the dust and smoke formed by the explosion as camouflage, hiding. The remaining three sentinels focus their fire on her and evade all of their attacks. He looks down at his hands holding the two levers—how is she doing all those impressive manoeuvres with the same tools as him?

One of the sentinels’ beams hit Iris’s reco on its left wing, and it tumbles rightwards and crashes into a rock. The sentinels then shift their attention to Ethan. He shoots one down and survives for half a minute before the other two pincer him from both sides, and he can see flashes of light on all screens of the void as his reco explodes.

And so Ethan dies.

This is the tenth time today. He can hear a voice in the void. “Died in simulation. Please wait for everyone to fail the simulation before retrying.”

He storms out of his void, shaking with anger. Umida and Verve are sitting at a table. They both look at Ethan and he realizes that Iris and Charlotte have yet to exit their voids.

“Umida,” he asks, “What got you?”

“One of their larger spaceship shot at me,” Umida says, pretending to shoot him with her finger guns. “Pew pew! I was toast before I could even say anything.”

“And you, Verve,” he points his index finger at him. “You need to stop crashing into rocks…please.”

“…I don’t want to crash any more than you do. It’s just…it’s difficult and scary,” Verve says, staring at the bottom of his empty coffee cup.

“It-it’s fine,” Ethan looks away, lowering his voice. “You’re doing your best and not being a nuisance on purpose, unlike Charlotte.” As soon as he says that, he realizes that he did not see Charlotte do anything in their last fight.

“I don’t think she is trying to be a nuisance,” Umida says, giving a small smile and Iris exits her booth, approaching them. She has ginger hair in a ponytail right now, but Ethan has seen her change her hairstyle at least three times since he has been on the spaceship. She is the oldest in his group, maybe closer to her thirties than twenties.

“You…you put a great fight,” he says, looking at Iris. He isn’t used to giving out compliments. “It’s just a shame. We would have finished this so many hours ago if Charlotte was cooperative.”

Just then he hears the door to one of the booth’s opening and sees Charlotte exit it, yawning and curling her blond hair around a finger, walking towards them. “Can we, uh, go to sleep?”

“We only have two days to complete this assignment!” Ethan shouts. His temper, again. “ Why can’t you just cooperate with us? You said you were close enough to snipe. Where were you, anyway?”

“I, uh, sneaked in and delivered the cargo when you were busy fighting,” she says, and he scowls—not only because he is mad at her for using them as a decoy, but also at himself for not noticing her position during the battle.

Charlotte looks at him scowling, then smiles. “Oops. Was I, like, not supposed to say that?”

“So the simulation is a success?” Umida asks, and her gaze shifts to a large screen in the centre of the room. It shows the list of groups and Ethan only looks at the groups from which he knows people.

Group 1*

Group 4*

Group 6

Group 7*

Yayoi

Ethan

Fink

Klement

Zhong Zhong

Charlotte

Faraj

Gu Lei

Eric (1)

Iris (3)

Bambaata

Radu

Benício

Umida

Aatifa

Zelmira (2)

Kalyani

Verve

Royce

Lola

* = Completed phase two of Numen. May rest until phase three. Exalted Bhilzal will announce the details after the completion of phase two.

His group is the fourth group out of nine groups to have completed phase two so far. In total, that means twenty people have succeeded in the simulation out of forty-five.

Below the table of groups, there is a list that ranks the “Best performing candidates of phase two (as of now)”. Eric and Zelmira top the list, in that order. Then he takes a look at the ranking of his group. Iris is 3rd, Charlotte is 5th, Ethan is 11th, Umida is 15th, and Verve is dead last at 20th. By the time other groups finish their phase, Ethan assumes that he will be somewhere in the middle of the pack. “Not good,” he thinks, his fists clenched. “Not good at all.”