The Plan: Part 1 Read online

  The Plan

  Part 1

  J.A. James

  Copyright © 2020 J.A. James

  All rights reserved. J.A. James asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright Act.

  In accordance with the Copyright Act, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher and will constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  ISBN-13: 9798566010397

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you to Amelia B. for your encouragement.

  Part 1: the acruvae.

  CHAPTER 1

  Griesen ran the last leg of the cobbled corridor. He couldn’t be late. His anxiousness propelled him forward, faster. He halted, straightening his robes and gulping in a few breaths as he skidded to a halt outside the gated council chambers. He was jittery and nervous; he didn’t realize just how nervous. It’s just a formality. He’d already been chosen. He just hadn’t expected to be outside the council chambers so soon. The assignation had occurred only yesterday.

  He wiped his hands nervously on his long robes. The robes were meant for graduation, but they were his best ones, never mind the only ones he had that were acceptable enough for this first visit to Council.

  A few moments later, the heavy doors were opening; a gaping maw beckoning him in. He could hear Ana’s voice echoing as he cautiously stepped inside, feeling a momentary twinge of relief. At least She was there. The High Priestess. Ana had approached him directly, about this case. He felt honored to be handpicked from the roster of his graduating class.

  She had spoken to him at length about the case and managed to put him at ease. She granted him exemption from the rest of his classes. Save the last one, for the sake of optics. Time was of the essence.

  Just breathe, he told himself, walking through the open doors. This was everything he had ever wanted. Everything he’d ever worked for.

  Griesen. He heard his name announced by Her via telepathy, as he stepped into the dark chambers. He moved slowly up the wide carpeted steps, where the raw cut, crescent-shaped table emerged into view, revealing the Institute Council members.

  Only the Ordained members of the Institute held a seat at the table, which had been cobbled together from fragments of the Earth-moon when Angol was still in power.

  And there She was - Ana, who sat with regal bearing and glittering emerald robes. Her narrow gold crown glittered, dotted with black and red emeralds which pierced through the darkness. Even in the dim light, she could not be missed.

  Our graduate. Ana announced these next words again in open telepathy, a channel which she used to address all the Acruvae members in the room. Through this, the Council felt the weight of her choice; they understood the great lengths she had taken in reviewing all the graduates’ personnel files to finally select the one she felt would best work for Her, and for this case.

  Griesen paused after arriving at the top of the steps. He now stood at the epicenter of the marbled chamber. He glanced upwards, and spotted the glowing Observatore. The six-foot glass orb was suspended in mid-air above the moon-shaped table where the Council resided, the inside capturing the movements of a fairly young Human in her late twenties? Early thirties?

  She had no idea she was being watched as she continued walking through the busy city block down on Gaia. Streams of colors emitted around her. They were colors of a good aura, Griesen noted. Full of lightness and energy.

  “Welcome,” Ana greeted him, her tone suddenly warming.

  Griesen turned his brown eyes to her in restrained assignment. He addressed her properly, bowing his head for a brief moment. He then moved to bow deeply from the waist, tucking the long sleeves of his robes under his carriage to avoid creasing them too greatly. It was a moment before he rose, bringing his eyes to meet with hers. “Your Prefect.”

  He then turned to the Council members, slowly addressing them one by one through the proprietary Acruvae address. Again, he bowed to each of them. One by one – Judica. Belarus. Daelaenus. Pyrrhnes. In turn, they acknowledged him through their telepathic welcome, physically nodding their heads in the process.

  Their telepathic exchanges towards each other were completely open, a demonstration of courtesy. Beams of light subtly shimmered between him and every Council member he acknowledged.

  Energy transference.

  And lastly, Damus. Griesen paused for a second, feeling something sharp and flint-like in their energy exchange. But just as quick as he felt it, the feeling dissipated.

  He blinked. What was that? He chased the thought aside. It must be my nerves.

  “Ana…” A voice cut through the dark chambers.

  He turned towards the voice. It was Damus. “How many more Sols do we have to go through? We are simply pedaling backwards.” The tone brought on a stream of mutters from the other Council members.

  Sols. Damus was referring to the girl’s Sol in the Observatore – his case. But that couldn’t be right. First-time Seekers were always assigned a first Sol. Griesen’s eyebrows furrowed as he glanced between Damus and Ana, whose cool demeanor had changed; her eyes narrow and mouth sharpened into a tight line.

  Damus rose, casting a long shadow over the low hum of discontented chatter. He stood on the opposite end of the craggy longtable, opposing Her.

  Griesen felt a flintlike burn pass through him. He realized that it had come from Damus, who was radiating it now.

  He continued. “Ana, with all due respect - you know that the committee’s resources are thinning at the moment. We cannot continue to assign resources to cases that are beyond saving – particularly when there are other much more pressing issues at hand!”

  Griesen froze. Ana had wanted him assigned… was that what Damus was talking about?

  Ana then stood slowly. Her movements reminded him of a snake, pre-emptively getting ready to strike. Her back was ramrod straight, and only her knuckles, turning white, gripping the edge of the table, gave any indication of the tension building inwards.

  “I understand the place we’re in. But you also need to understand my role as the commanding Manifest. Your comments are entirely inappropriate given our graduate in the room, and the purpose of this meeting.” Her eyes narrowed at him as she hissed her last sentence. Griesen could not miss the searing glare she directed towards Damus.

  As she spoke, Griesen noticed Damus stiffening. A dull red flame engulfed his chair as beads of sweat quickly formed on his face. He watched, frozen, as he saw the flames wrap around Damus’ body, painting a dull red flicker against his dark tunic.

  Ana’s tutelage and years of training under Angol, the Great Grandfather of the Institute, had harnessed her latent gifts of telepathy and psychokinesis. She, the only Acruvae female in the room, commanded her Council with the strength and brutality of a male overlord.

  Griesen held his breath. He wanted to avert his eyes but couldn’t. In all his years in training, he had only seen Her with a collected and cool demeanor…never associating her with the wrath she was deploying now.

  She was the one Angol chose as his predecessor. It was clear why. Suddenly, he realized some of those whispered rumors had a grain of truth to them. Underneath her calm and cool exterior, Ana ruled with an iron fist. The thought passed through Griesen’s mind as he saw Damus ga
sp audibly.

  When the flames suddenly dissipated in a small cloud of smoke, Griesen felt a collective breath release from the group, including himself.

  “Now,” she spoke brusquely to the six sitting around the table. Her tightly coiled dark red hair caught the light through the chamber’s highbeams as she pressed a button on the table. The Observatore rose vertically, vanishing from view moments later. “I rest my case. There will be no more questions.”

  She cleared her throat, as if attempting to clear the air.

  “Council,” she addressed them all. “Welcome Griesen. I ordain him as the new Seeker to the Pierstadt case.”

  She turned her sharp eyes back to Griesen. “Thank you for your time. You are dismissed.” Her words were definitive; curt.

  Griesen nodded quickly again, casting his eyes downward as he turned hurriedly to exit.

  Suddenly, Ana’s voice entered his head. Walk, please. Don’t run. There was a small tone of apology to her words, if not a tiredness. Then he realized - what just occurred was something that he wasn’t meant to have witnessed. He didn’t know what to make of what just happened.

  He nodded imperceptibly, forcing himself to slow down on his way out.

  Chapter 2

  The Observation Room

  He remained a bundle of nerves after the council meeting. He couldn’t sleep that night, mulling over Damus’ words as he tossed and turned.

  How many more Sols do we have to go through? This is getting ridiculous. It was Damus’ tone that bothered him even more than the words. It didn’t make any sense. On top of it all, Ana’s violent rebuke told him there was some sort of truth to his statement – or something that she wanted to keep hidden…

  Each Sol represented one human lifetime. Rebirth marked the second, third and fourth Sol, and so forth. Humans were carefully seeded and assigned their Seekers according to their Sol cycle. Graduates, such as himself, were typically assigned young souls – humans typically on their first cycle.

  At first light, he rose promptly and dressed, slipping on a long beige tunic. He, like the rest of the students, were assigned twelve tunics in total – five beige, six white and one formal tunic – the solar threads on which were woven of much finer thread than the regular day-to-day tunics.

  His eyes were dry and tired from his restless night, but he barely noticed with the anticipation he felt. He was starting today. He walked outside, where his shuttle doors opened automatically, sensing his presence from metres away, as it materialized on the docking pad. All the shuttles were transparent in hibernation mode until they were materially occupied. It saved the Institute precious amounts of energy.

  Entering the shuttle, he held out his palm in front of him, transferring the coordinates of his assigned Observation Room as he sat down in the cockpit. The shuttle silently lifted off the airpad, zooming off into the sun-streaked sky.

  His mind shifted to the task at hand as he gazed at the stars which sailed past him. He was looking forward to meeting the Human – the girl whose image played out in the Observatore. His case. Finally.

  There was a blue dot that did not evade his view even as his shuttle approached its maximal speed limit. Earth – or as it was more commonly called, Gaia. He gazed at the blue dot as it became smaller and then disappeared from his vision. That little world which had become their entire focus twelve friels ago.

  He had been a small child when the announcement was made. He remembered holding his mother’s hand, staring up at the sky, witnessing Angol – when he was still Ruler - materialize on the Institute’s Omnichannel, his voice booming through the five Acruvae cities as he delivered the news. His announcement of finding the Humans, of finding new Hope and an energy source that would secure them for countless centuries.

  His mother…

  He swallowed, a small wave of anguish passing through him. He had no answers yet. They – his Mother and Father - had simply disappeared a few Friels short of his entrance into the Institute. They were descendants from the Dreamseeker lineage, and had embarked on a mission that was intended to last only a short evening. It had been a routine one down to Gaia. He always hated it when they left; counting the minutes until they came back. Only this time… they never returned.

  Technically, he had been old enough to survive without a Guardian at that point; but being alone had only deepened his sense of loss. He chased endless clues that went nowhere in an effort to understand their disappearance and a case that snapped shut after a short official investigation. None of the dead ends had lead to any real closure. But he was not ready to rest his case…

  But enough time had passed that the pain had dissipated into a dull, manageable ache.

  Gaia. This beautiful blue planet was the great discovery, and the Humans were the perfect Source.

  He knew he would be able to find answers to what happened to his parents. Down there. He stared down at the blue planet beneath him that was growing larger. He had to.

  The Institute had quickly operationalized around Gaia and the humans. And now, it was his own turn, as a newly-minted graduate, to test his abilities.

  Gradually, the Observation Rooms emerged into view beneath his shuttle. They were built in a honeycomb arrangement, stacked close together in a womblike setting, spanning over a football-field in length. The cavern-like structures were energy-permeable, feeding energy from the Acruvae who was stationed inside. A mild yellow electrical hue emanated above the honeycomb mass in a distinct cloud. Hundreds of Observation Rooms were dedicated to the Graduates for observing their case studies, and the waves of energy were pouring slowly out from the rooms, fusing together slowly in a netted web a hundred metres above.

  His shuttle docked on an empty marked landing pad, and he entered into a maze of narrow corridors with low ceilings, briefly brushing shoulders with other students coming from the opposite direction. He was amongst the thousands of graduates from the different modules and classes. He briefly nodded to several who made eye contact and they did likewise, their tunics briefly lighting up as they brushed by each other.

  All the students wore the same tunics as he did. Sometimes he wished they’d had more chances to talk with each other. But all the cases were restricted to the students and any necessary Mentors, and as always, remained strictly under confidence otherwise.

  He stopped in front of Observation Room #48108, where a blue light began emitting a pulse, fanning out, scanning his facial features. The door subsequently unlocked with a quiet swish. Looking around, he could see it was set up just like the rooms he had trained his two thousand hours in... nothing more. He relaxed slightly at the familiarity. It wasn’t different than before; how he’d been trained. Only this time, it was real. The training wheels were off.

  His earlier assignment from Ana meant that while the rest of his graduating class had to wait until the formal graduation ceremonies, he had a head start with his own case. His heart thudded slightly as he sat down in front of a large bank of clear screens. He was a Seeker. The official designation would be delivered a day before the official Graduation ceremonies, but when Ana had delivered the news, he couldn’t have been more elated. It was now time to find answers…

  The computer bank held all the data he needed to understand his subject. As he sat down, the screens blinked as they recognized his entry. The main screen in front of the desk materialized with a photo of his case study. The brown-haired Human. Halva Pierstadt.

  "Halva," he whispered. They were going to get to know each other very, very well...

  Somehow, Halva had warranted his early assignment to her. Prior to him entering the chambers, Ana's main assistant, Helio, had sent him a memo that he was now officially exempted from the ceremonial activities leading up to graduation.

  He hadn't let on about his early leave to anyone...including Gretchen, his best friend. It was his knee-jerk reaction, to tell her the news; but Ana’s severely cautious tone had quickly silenced any need in him to share. By nature of each case, non-disclosu
re was a strict requirement, and his entry into this case had commenced as soon as Ana had formally anointed him the Seeker for this particular case.

  He took a seat in the middle of the bank of computer screens, placing his hand onto a glowing blue tablet stationed in front of him on the table. A cylindrical bar of light began to emanate, slowly rising to hover above his hand.

  A blue beam of light lit his hand up from the underside, and he began receiving the flow of information that made up Halva’s life.

  CHAPTER 3

  HALVA

  She was an only child; the daughter of two parents who were similarly single children. Her mother, her father found each other after floating adrift in the same city for a time. They entered into their marriage quickly, and full of rosy expectation, as all marriages tended to.

  They met while her father was articling as a law student. As his successes grew in his career, his own demons, once manageable, became unchained; particularly after long 16-hour days with alcohol thrown into the mix. Their marriage began to fray months into the journey. Both sides had lost their parents in their youth. The father’s, to his abandonment and estrangement of them; and her mother’s to a fiery car crash when she was fifteen.