The Plan: Part 1 Read online

  Griesen docked his shuttle at the Athenes Bridge pass. They would have to walk the rest of the way in. Gretchen’s shuttle was already there. They were the only ones in the lot. As he stepped out, the air was still, cool and silent.

  “Hey, slacker,” Gretchen called out gruffly as he stepped out of his shuttle. He turned towards the sound of her voice, finding her sitting on a steel grate with a full satchel, her feet hidden by the long blades of grass.

  He surrendered his hands up in the air with a mock sigh. “Is a slacker considered late when you never specified a time?”

  She smiled and punched him on the shoulder. She was almost as tall as he was; her grey-streaked curly hair delivering a cascade of silvery light around her in the dawn sky. She stuck out her tongue at him as she motioned ahead.

  “This way,” she said. A tall, long row of steps presented themselves.

  Her brunette hair had started going silver in her third friel. She was still young when it began changing colour. Over the last few friels, her features had changed and were growing more defined. Her eye color had deepened from light grey to violet. She was aging well. A sign of a Wise elder in the making.

  “This case of yours must have taken a sudden turn. Otherwise I’d say that you’re turning into a slave driver much like Ana herself,” she said with a long face at him.

  He gave her a baleful look in return. “Never. If I do… just stop me. I mean it.” He thought about how Ana had reacted to Damus’ outburst. Had she done it to stop him from saying anything more? He wondered. Had she done it for my sake, or the Council’s? He suspected it had been more for him than anyone else in that room.

  He spoke again. “Thanks for turning this around so soon. Really. This Drop – it’s happening so quickly.”

  “I was just glad I could do it,” she replied. She raised her eyebrows at him. “What do you think makes her special?”

  Griesen shrugged. “Well, the fact that it’s happening so soon makes her early. So that makes me fortunate. But more special than the rest?” his voice trailed off. “I haven’t figured that out yet.”

  They faced the path and turned towards the sign marking the direction of their unit. It would be roughly a mile trek inwards, and a steady uphill one at that. They began hiking upwards along the rocky, jagged steps.

  Minutes later, they were both breathing hard. Griesen checked the sky. They had to dispense the potion at the scheduled time. It was getting close.

  “She must be special, given that you missed graduation for it.”

  Griesen didn’t say anything as they paused for a brief moment on a rocky plateau. The clouds were thick and moving quickly, pushing them into the middle of a trail of milky white tufts. He was grateful for the atmosphere which partially shielded his face from hers. But he couldn’t miss the slightly hurt expression on her face.

  “You didn’t tell me anything about not attending,” Gretchen said. “I looked for you. Everywhere.”

  Griesen looked down. “I couldn’t say anything about it. I – I wasn’t allowed. I’m sorry.”

  “You couldn’t even have told me that you weren’t coming? Come on.”

  “Don’t get me wrong, Gretchen,” he responded tersely. He felt his jaw tighten. He wished he had told her. “But you know how it is around here.”

  They didn’t say anything as they continued their climb upwards.

  “I’m part of this case now too, you know,” Gretchen said. “I can appreciate being on the Right Path as the Institute encourages us to be...but don’t you think you’re taking things a little too seriously?”

  In a way, she was right. He had brought her on board to create the potion, but he still didn’t feel right about sharing any of his suspicions with her. At least… not yet.

  “I’m sorry,” he apologized. “It’s just been a lot of things going on and starting on this case so quickly.” The Right Path meant following Institute orders without question. Hadn’t he done so for his entire career? And yet - still he’d found no answers yet about his parents. This is why I’m here, he thought. For answers.

  They said nothing more, continuing to hike up the steppes. At last, the dome was spotted. As they approached it, Griesen suddenly saw a vision – a dark figure running past them. It was more of the feeling, and he couldn’t shake it.

  He frowned, the coldness of it freezing him in place. He hadn’t had a premonition in a long time…

  “What’s wrong?” Gretchen asked him, realizing he’d stopped behind her.

  He looked around them, seeing nothing but trees. There was silence in the air; nobody else was around. Nobody else could be here; there wasn’t another shuttle parked in the lot and it was impossible to get up here without one. It was one route in and the same route out…

  “I just felt something…” his voice trailed off. The image stayed with him. It had been a ghost of a man, and he didn’t like it. “I had a premonition. Somebody’s here.”

  Gretchen paused, looking alarmed, then looking around. “Your intuition has always been stronger than mine. Should we leave?”

  Griesen debated it for only a moment. “No. We can’t. Otherwise we’ll miss this Drop.” Who knew when the next one would be for Halva? They could be waiting for months, or years. No. They had to do this drop.

  They both stood then, side-by-side, as the door's red beams emerged, scanning their bodies to confirm their identities. Once the scan completed, the dispensary doors opened.

  They were met with the cloudy haze of the roiling cauldron of liquid taking up most of the space in the central confines of the room. This was the Looking Glass – the portal that would take up the elixir and deliver it directly to Gaia, to the case study.

  The lights switched on automatically as they entered, filling the room with light.

  “I spent all night on this one, just so you know.” She placed her satchel on a narrow counter adjoining the back wall. “Given your subject’s parameters, I distilled and pared it down to the exact two ounces of the final elixir required for dispensation.”

  She continued, as she pulled out numerous notebooks, and then a small globular container from her bag which held the precious contents that she had been working on. The liquid contents inside shimmered a psychedelic rainbow of colors.

  “A combination of 34 elemental ingredients, some boiled, some distilled, and others of which were chemically combusted,” she said softly, as she unscrewed the container to reveal the vial.

  She held it up to the light. “The perfect two ounces for your newest Earthling acquaintance, soon to be joined-at-the-hip friend who doesn’t know it.”

  Griesen applauded and rolled his eyes comically at her grandiose announcement. “Very good. Everything looks great.”

  “Save your sarcasm for the next performer. I only accept appreciation in the amount of 500 uelps or more!” she sang back at him she skipped around the seven-foot cauldron towards a small double-stacked steel fridge. She placed her hand on the handle. It lit up and beeped, recognizing her heat signature. It clicked open after an extended second.

  Reaching inside, he watched her place her vial carefully on the rack, closing the door for a moment. The vial was being checked and sanitized prior to dispensation.

  As they waited, Griesen flipped open a flap on the arm of his tunic, pressing a button to release a hologram. This particular screen monitored Halva constantly, tracking her energy levels, and level of emotional stress. He flicked a few buttons on the screen. She was good. She was ready… or as ready as she’d ever be.

  Time-wise, they were nearly there.

  “We’re getting close,” he said to her.

  “Okay. Almost ready,” she responded, as she pulled open the door, emptying the tincture into a new flask. She placed it gingerly onto the gold-plated resting plate which extended on a track stretching the diameter of the gently roiling cauldron. The plate, detecting the new weight of the flask, issued a single beep as the words were produced:

  DISPENSATION READY
. The screen behind them lit up with the notification.

  Griesen looked over towards her as she moved back to the bank of screens on one wall of the room.

  “I’m ready,” she called out.

  “Okay, good. Anytime now. We’re good!” He continued to watch his screen with Halva on display. He held his breath.

  “Then let the magic…begin!” she said with an elated grin on her face.

  The plate turned over, pouring the liquid into the central tract, which changed color to a purple-reddish haze.

  The Looking Glass then cleared, materializing with a vision of Halva. She was in her office, alone. They had all but abandoned the monitors.

  Minutes passed. And then, longer minutes.

  Gretchen frowned, checking the timer she had held in her hands.

  "It's taking too long. I'm not sure why..." her voice trailed off. She pulled out a bent notebook, and began leafing through it. He knew exactly what she was doing; she was retracing all her steps, from the distilling of the herbs and energy anemones to the dispensation. Looking for something.

  He waited, looking back and forth between her and the Looking Glass. Halva continued working - she was at her office - but nothing was happening. Strange. A sense of foreboding started to rise in him. The vision he had of a fleeting shadow came back to him.

  “Who are you?” he whispered.

  Gretchen pulled out a second notebook, this one filled with notes and innumerable scribbles. She murmured to herself, frowning.

  The potion should have impacted her in a matter of minutes. He checked the clock which was running alongside the Looking Glass. Ten minutes had passed without any indication of change, or otherwise.

  "I just don't understand how -" she picked up the glass vial the potion had been dispensed in and then her hand froze in mid-air. She was still for a moment, and then nothing.

  "What?" Griesen asked her. He was drumming his fingers against the edge of the Looking Glass, feeling his anxiety spill over at the sight of her frown. "What's wrong?"

  She looked at him, her face gone ashen white. "This isn't my vial."

  "Of course it is," he shot back reflexively. How could it be otherwise? He’d seen her put it in there. Her exclamation felt like it had come from another planet; yet another shot of dread shot up through him. "How could it not be your vial?"

  She looked at him. "I feel it. It's not mine," she hissed, her facial muscles tensing up.

  Of course, this was Gretchen. Of course she would know if it was hers or not.

  She looked around the room quickly. They were alone in the lab, but she likely now felt as he did - that somehow their work had been invaded. A breach of trust. But he was still hoping that for all of Gretchen's brilliance, the error would have come from her - unlikely, but by far the most comforting answer given the other options. She dropped her voice.

  "I have this thing," she said. Before she said anything more, she walked over to a row of switches beside the door of the lab. She flipped them all, turning the air ducts shut, filling the room with a steady hum of sound. Not only would this mask their voices, but also to a degree their telepathy if anyone was listening.

  He noticed that she continued to rub the vial with her one hand. "You see," she said to him softly. "The last time I was with my Earthly subject on Gaia, I was down there for two months."

  He nodded. He remembered when she’d gone away. The longest stays for the Acruvae down on Gaia were mandated at 12 months, to prevent the adoption of what they deemed ‘unhealthy human habits.’ A twelve-month cycle was long enough to have lived through all four seasons and all the traditions that came with the annual stay. To endure a longer term required a significantly deeper clean to rid of all the toxicities relating to the adoption of human habits.

  Gretchen was looking at him, nervously now. "I didn't pick anything up, but there was one thing," she said. She plowed forward before he could say anything further.

  "My subject had a nervous tick. A habit of initialling everything she owned, somewhere. Anywhere. And of course, in that long of a time span, I came to conclude that while it may not have been healthy, and that I consequently cured her of that habit, I realized that for her it came out of a necessary instinct, to protect what was hers."

  Gretchen continued. “She initialled everything she owned, carving in by knife or pen, the smallest of her initials somewhere. Into a nook or cranny, a corner. A bottom. I started doing it.”

  She began to talk faster. "To my vials, first out of fun. But then I realized it gave me a comfort, kind of… like a signature at the end of an artist's piece. Just a mark to finish off what was finally...you know, done." She looked away, then back at him. "And yes... to signal my personal ownership of it."

  Griesen stared at her. “Gretchen. You know we can’t do this!” This was his best friend, the one who followed everything by rote to an even greater degree than he did. That she adopted this habit - or anything, from Gaia, from those Earthly humans whom were so in need of rescuing - would be seen as highly punishable by the Institute.

  "So…you also put your initials on the bottom?"

  She shook her head vigorously, no. "Of course I didn’t do it so it was so obvious. I just nicked the bottom corner. Of every vial I completed the solutions for." She looked at him, her eyes widening. "Griesen - don't tell anyone, please," she said pleadingly.

  He said nothing. He realized quickly the implications of what she was telling him. If he reported her to the Institute, she would face serious fines and the likelihood her security ranking would be stripped.

  “If I was a lesser friend, then you’d have reason to worry.” Of course he wouldn’t tell anyone. She was the last person he’d put out.

  She pulled out a small case. It was her apothecary of potions - a worn, brown leather box no larger than the palm of her hand.

  "Here," she whispered. She took a vial out of the box. "Feel this. The bottom."

  He felt the cool vial in the palm of his hand, and thumbed the bottom of the vial. And there it was - an indelible scratch that lightly nicked the surface of the potion. Barely there - one wouldn't have even noticed if she had not mentioned it.

  "On every one of them," he whispered.

  She nodded. "And this one is not one of them." She looked down to the one sitting between them.

  Griesen picked up the small vial, palming it lightly in his hand. Indeed - the bottom had nothing there; as smooth as glass.

  He felt sick to his stomach. The sense of foreboding he’d felt at the door… he had been correct.

  “Of course I won’t tell anyone,” he muttered. She was his best friend. “We do have another problem on our hands, however. Exactly what did we just give Halva?”

  “It was just in the fridge for a few minutes,” she said softly. “I don’t understand how it could have been swapped…”

  He took another glance at the vial, eyeing it closely. There was a tiny drop left.

  "Well, we can’t figure that one out right now, but let's try and figure out what's in this one.” He handed it to her. “I’m betting whatever was in this one isn’t meant to help us. Or her. And we’d better hurry.”

  Gretchen remained frozen for a second, and sprang into action as soon as she seemed to absorb his words.

  "O-okay." Vial in hand, she walked quickly to the work table where she began unpacking her satchel, which held her measuring tools, various elemental potions and herbs.