The Fall of the Absolute

by Karen Page

Chapter 2

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Chapter 2

They'd set an alarm, but it wasn't needed. Six years of regimented wake-ups didn't disappear overnight. Nor did the habit of exercise. The school only mandated exercise three days a week, but as they progressed through the school, they got into daily runs, with at least one bicycle session a week. They were out of the door at 7am. There was a small park not far away, and they did a few laps of it for their first morning of freedom.

The school had taught them all to cook, and cook well, but any time they helped in the kitchen, it was for lunch or the evening meal. Breakfast was new, and they hadn't thought about it when they'd gone shopping.

"Oops," Theo said, as they came down from their shower and noticed they had nothing in.

They both laughed. It was something so absurd that they hadn't thought about breakfast.

"Let's pack and get going," he suggested. "I'm sure there will be a café near the international hopperport."

The Tube was Earth's first underground railway, and it was still going today. Hoppers for such short distances were rare. The electric underground was still more convenient in a city that was still transforming itself.

The hoppers they'd used to come from Hayfield were smaller than most, but that still seated fifteen. The miniaturisation of the technology was new, but a few taxi hoppers were appearing that seated six. Thousands would be needed in each area. Since each journey didn't take long, ordering a hopper would be like ordering a taxi used to be. The hopper turned up and takes you to your destination. Due to the smaller battery size, there would be a limit on distance, and they would have to stay within the country. Borders still existed.

Theo was right, there was a café near the hopperport. They'd just sat down when Kelly and Hope turned up. They were both sporting small rucksacks, just like they were.

The four of them were close. Whether that was because Jennifer and Kelly had known each other since they were small, or because of the Beta team, nobody knew. They just gelled. All of them. It wasn't like Kelly and Jennifer were the primary friends and everybody else were "plus ones". They all got on, even if it was just Kelly and Theo, they would chat for hours.

Once finished, they made their way to the request line in the hopperport. There were standard routes that ran frequently. Then there were rarer routes, which were run via the request line. You logged your destination. If you were lucky enough that someone else was going there, you'd be grouped together. The hopper took you to your destination port, then returned for the next requester and their destination.

Nobody else was going to New Toronto on Scorpion, so they waited thirty minutes to reach the front of the queue.

Journeys on the planet took a fraction of a second, but when going outside the solar system, the traveller felt the difference of the interdimensional tunnel. It wasn't dangerous, but it felt odd the first time. It was best described as nothingness. There was no extra weight or feeling of weightlessness; it was like nothing existed. Jennifer was eight when she took her first long hop, which took three seconds, when her parents took her with them to the Rohastin Station. Scorpion wasn't as far and would only take a second. The feeling of the hop would be over before the traveller knew it, but there was always the strange feeling when they arrived.

They didn't even sit down. They got on the hopper, the doors closed and, a second later, the doors were opening. They walked out, the hopper detected they were gone, closed the doors, and went back to London. They flashed their passports at a scanner, and they were let out of the terminal.

"Stacy!" Jennifer called, seeing one of the senior investigators. A small girl, aged about three, was holding Stacy's hand. Kelly had seen Stacy briefly when she was younger, though Stacy hadn't made a lasting impression. Jennifer's interaction had been a lot more intense.

"Hey Kiddo," Stacy said, giving Jennifer a hug. "Blimey, you've grown."

She was sure that would get old quickly, but it was the first time someone had mentioned it. At school, growing was gradual. A ten-year gap was different.

"And who's your friend?" Jennifer asked, indicating the young girl.

"This is Tilly. We take turns in deployment. I'm on mummy duty this time."

"Hi," Tilly said, giving a little wave.

"I'm tasked with introducing you to your trainers. We always try to send someone recognisable the first time. The others are busy elsewhere. I've no idea about your training, and I don't need to know. Once done, Tilly and I will be back home for messy play, and before her brothers are finished at school for the day."

Tilly gave little jumps of happiness at the sound of messy play.

Investigators normally retired when children appeared. It seemed that Stacy, Andy, David, and Helen were bucking the trend. Apart from Tina and Luke, Jennifer hadn't seen a team so dedicated to helping others. Tilly would know nothing different, and it was great she got time with each parent. Helen was the only one who could have carried the child. Who the father was, Jennifer didn't know and, after a moment's thought, didn't care. All four of them were a single unit at work, and their hearts beat as one at home. Tilly had four parents, and that was that.

"Update the others on who I am," Stacy said to Jennifer as they made their way down one of the streets. The huts from the initial expedition were all gone. Nothing looked temporary anymore. The bricks on the building were shiny white. They obviously weren't like Earth bricks. Perhaps something they found locally, though on second thoughts, they weren't mining so perhaps it was something one of the asteroids had provided.

Once out of the centre, none of the buildings were close together. They were like mini-mansions, with drives, walls, and gates. This wasn't traditional frontier life. Yet those who lived here might not work here. A hop to anywhere on Earth was only a walk to the hopperport.

On the ninth building along the street, Stacy opened the gate and they followed her through the garden. There were plants none of them had seen before; they were indigenous to Scorpion.

Her palmprint unlocked the door and they stepped inside. A man and a woman were waiting in the entrance lobby.

"This is Alex and Adelle," Stacy introduced. "Jennifer, I believe you've met their godson, Jay."

"You trained with Tina and Luke?" Jennifer asked.

They nodded. "They were a few years older than us."

"That puts you in the same year as Eugene," Jennifer said with care.

The expression on Theo, Kelly and Hope changed too. It was noticed by Alex and Adelle.

"He's still remembered," Kelly said. "His painting is hung at the new Hayfield. The 12th of March is still a day of remembrance."

Alex and Adelle looked pleased.

"I'll see you all around. You have their devices. Give them later today."

Tilly and Stacy gave a wave and were gone.

Alex shook his head. "That girl is like a force of nature."

"I remember meeting her when I was seven," Jennifer said. "Just vague things. I remember her letting us out of the panic room when things were clear. That stuck in my mind."

Adelle nodded. "We know who each of you are, and your backgrounds. While you're here, you're going to learn some new languages and cultures. It's going to be intense. Like a bootcamp."

"What languages?" Kelly enquired.

"The home languages for the Alphonians, Reginaddes, Frotanians and the Yvestigans. Jennifer and Kelly have some advantages as they've mixed with some of them. You've all played concerts on all their home worlds. Before we start, are you all comfortable mixing with non-humans? If not, we need to know now before you spend weeks learning."

Nobody minded. Instead, there was a hint of excitement. All the species in the Rohastin spoke Hytuna. Even some of the species that decided not to join did too. But just as they were talking in English now when not dealing with someone unfamiliar with the language, the people on the home worlds would not speak Hytuna. They were lucky though. Those races had matured to the point there was a single home language. So, they only had four languages to learn. Sheesh.

Understanding and speaking a language was one thing. Reading and writing was something else.

"In this house, you will only speak Hytuna or one of those four languages. You will chat over breakfast in Hytuna, you will dream in Hytuna, you will curse in Hytuna, and you will cry out in ecstasy in Hytuna. When you go to see your family in four years will probably be the next time you speak English."

The four of them glanced at each other. Hope then said in Hytuna, "Sounds fun!"

"Let me show you the house and your rooms. You can then unpack and we can get going."

The ground floor had a large open plan kitchen and dining room. The counter appeared to be the same white material as the outside of the buildings. There were four barstools along one side of a kitchen island. Beyond that was a formal table for ten, and four double sofas. Jennifer noticed a door at the end with a palm reader, which she would inspect later. The other rooms were offices or setup for teaching. Upstairs were the six double bedrooms, each with an en-suite bathroom.

"This one is ours," Adelle said, pointing to the first one. "Choose which two you want. They are all soundproofed."

Even though they were soundproofed, they still left gaps. In Jennifer's mind, Adelle's room was bedroom one. Jennifer and Theo took bedroom three, and Kelly and Hope took bedroom five.

While putting their rucksacks in their room, they had a glance around. A large bed. Windows looking out over the garden and two desks for private work. Jennifer was itching to give the room a thorough inspection, but she left to rejoin the tour. There would be time later to get acquainted with her room.

"There is a small empty attic, accessible via that door," Adelle pointed out. "You can inspect it later if you wish. Let me finish the tour with the basement."

They marched back downstairs and into the kitchen. They went to the secure door that Jennifer had noticed earlier.

"All your palm prints are already registered in the house," Adelle said, unlocking the door.

They followed the stairs down. There was another secure room to the right, and two open doors along a small corridor on the left.

The first room on the left was a gym. The second room had a large mat on the floor.

"At school you learnt how to defend yourselves. You will continue that here, but you'll also learn some offensive fighting styles. You will learn human and non-human styles. Hopefully you will never need any of that, but it's best to be prepared."

Finally, they went along the short corridor to the locked door. None of them were surprised to see a weapons room with a firing range. What they were surprised to see was the cabinets were filled with weapons from multiple species.

"You will learn how to identify, defend against, and use each one. The grunts and cries of each species need to be understood. You need to know when someone is tiring or egging you on. There is no range officer here. You unlock and lock the weapons. You train when you can. All the rooms have cameras apart from the bedrooms and bathrooms."

The warning was implicit. Foul up and someone would know. Any stupid behaviour and someone would know.

As they made their way out of the basement, Adelle finished with some basic house rules. "You are responsible for keeping your room tidy and maintained. We aren't housekeepers. We are here to mentor you, and we have our own training to do. Cooking and cleaning the house are all our responsibilities."

She guided them to one of the training rooms where Alex was. Laid out on one of the tables were four tablets and four phones.

"These are your official devices. Email is routed via a proxy on Earth, so messages to family aren't tracked to your location. When you deploy, you will be given other devices."

Theo spoke up. He'd been quiet through most of the tour. "We're going to be learning a lot about these four species. If we tried to go undercover at one of their home-worlds, we would stick out. Humans on their planets would be rare that it would incite chatter."

Alex said, "True, if that was your job. It isn't. The initial part is based on the Rohastin Station. Aliens speak Hytuna when speaking with others, but if an Alphonian is speaking to an Alphonian, they will speak their native language. If you then need to follow, you need to understand their psychology. If there is danger, what does a Yvestigan do compared to a Reginadde?"

Adelle added, "The plan is for you to have jobs at the station. You will do those jobs and listen to the underlying talk of the station. Two of you are already known to others there. That is good. You may get invited to events that investigators might otherwise have difficulty getting to."

"What type of jobs?" Hope asked.

"That is still being worked on. I'm aware there might be some additional training to get you into roles, but that isn't the issue now. Now we get you so you can do your real job. Sit, and let's start with the Alphonians. We will start not with language, but with a dichotomy. They have a single language but two numeric systems. They've been embedded with the base-8 Hytuna for so long, they use base-8 at home too. There is a group of traditionalists that insists base-10 is retained, and it is used for a lot of formal government work."

It was a major difference in how they'd previously learnt a language. Earth languages like French and Spanish were simple, as the units of measurement never changed. There were always twenty-four hours in a day, and distance was mostly kilometres, with only a few countries retaining the use of miles. Temperature was Celsius, Fahrenheit, or occasionally Kelvin.

When they learnt Hytuna, which they'd all had a good understanding of before joining Hayfield, even the numeric system was different. Most people went through their lives knowing only decimal. Hytuna used octal. Time was different, temperature had a different scale, and distance had only three subdivisions.

When they finished for the day, there was no formal homework. It wasn't school. But there was love of learning in each of them. After they ate, all six of them sat on the settees and chatted about the Alphonian home-world of Alfare.

As the evening drew to a close, Kelly piped up. "Jen, this morning Stacy said that you should tell us something about her."

Jennifer nodded and then paused. "I'm not sure whether there is a Hytuna word for their relationship type."

"There is a close phrase," Alex said. "I'll be interested in how you explain it."

The other three younger adults looked interested. "Stacy is part of a unit of four. She is married to Andy. David and Helen are married. That is the legal side. You could say, though, that they are all married to each other. They, along with Luke and Tina, came to look after us early in the project. Someone in the company had heard some talk in the underworld about the project having had a breakthrough. Those six came to see if anything came of it. On the Saturday it was just me, Ma and Mum. They cross-dressed so we'd know how they would look that way too. As part of that, the four of them also swapped partners."

The other three gave small shrugs. Hayfield's attitude to love was: if you loved someone, you loved them. They'd seen gay, straight, and everything in-between. A Polyporus relationship was unusual, but it had been covered in their life skills lessons, so it wasn't unfamiliar.

"To them the biological parents of Tilly and her brothers are irrelevant. They are all parents to them," concluded Jennifer.

Adelle smiled, "Those four are the most senior investigators. Stacy probably wanted the others to know just in case they see one of the others with Tilly. Stacy and the others are always willing to talk about a tasking, but private life to them is treasured. For them to show you Tilly is high approval."

"But could it have been that there was nobody to babysit?"

"Tilly has grandparents who are retired. There is never a lack of love for that girl. No, for Stacy to bring Tilly, it was deliberate."

"Am I okay to go into the back garden?" Jennifer asked.

"Sure," Alex responded, unsure why someone would want to go outside when it was dark.

Jennifer went out into the warm night, shutting the door behind her. The blackout blinds hid the majority of the light, and she inched forward to where the alien grass was. If there were streetlights, they were not projecting much light. She lay down on the grass and gazed up at the stars. Hayfield had been remote, and the view of the sky had only been surpassed by the Welsh mountains. Here, though, there was no light pollution, and she almost wept at the vista.

The sound of the door filtered through her amazement, but she didn't glance across. It wasn't just Theo; she heard the sound of other footsteps. Theo's hand found hers on her left, and she heard him sigh. "There's too many stars to wonder which species live where we're looking."

"There might be ones outside the Rohastin's knowledge," Kelly mused.

"It takes about three seconds to get from Earth to the Rohastin Station which is about one hundred and fifty light years away. That's fifty light years per second. The centre of the galaxy is twenty-six thousand light years away, so that would take—"

"Five hundred and twenty seconds," said Alex. "Under nine minutes. But you wouldn't want to go there. It's a gigantic black hole."

Jennifer said, "Dr Mann once told me that the Yvestigans could only do jumps a maximum distance of thirty light years. They never worked out why. I've no idea what the limit is for Eos."

"And what happens if you hit that limit?" Kelly asked. "Do you stay in the interdimensional tunnel, or do you get spat out at the limit? Or is the limit, how far the tunnel can reach and doesn't form if you try too far?"

"Do you want me to ask?" Jennifer said after a pause.

"That depends if you are comfortable asking," Adelle said. "Your file states we can't ask Star Bright secrets."

"I don't think it's a secret about the Yvestigan limit. I just don't think it is widely known. It is why the Yvestigans arrived last over Australia. The Rohastin Council saw the jump and got two faster ships to Earth first."

"If you do ask your Ma, or Dr Mann, don't ring them. They'll detect the delay."

There was silence before Theo asked, "I thought Scorpion had three moons?"

"You obviously didn't get time to study last night," Kelly laughed. "It does. The orbit of two of them means they are never really visible from New Toronto. The other one will rise in a few hours. It isn't very bright."

Theo asked, "Is there a park I can run around?"

Alex was the one who answered, "Just carry on up the road, away from the centre. You'll come to the northern nature reserve. It has a path around it. The reserve itself hasn't been changed. It is what has been there for thousands of years. Some might call it bleak, but some of the native flowers are beautiful."

"I think I'll call it a night," Jennifer said, sitting up. "Good night."

Theo helped her up.

"You don't have to come," she whispered to him.

"I'm getting tired too," he responded, gently stroking his fingers across hers.

They grabbed their tablets on the way through the kitchen and scarpered up the stairs to their bedroom.

"What are you doing?" Theo asked, as she set the tablet on one of the desks in their bedroom.

"I'm going to send two emails. First to my parents to let them know I'm safe and started work but will be training for a bit. The second I'm going to send to one of the scientists and CC my Ma. These will be sent encrypted. I don't want that second question being in the open."

Theo sat at the bottom of the bed, watching her. She sensed something was up and turned to see him gazing at her looking a bit lost. She knew the problem. She was sending a message to her family, and he was torn what to do. Six years and these ghosts weren't laid to rest. She wondered if they ever would.

She went and sat next to him and put her head on his shoulder. "I know he might not respond, but what harm will it do if you send your dad a message?"

"He hates me," Theo said with feeling.

She took her head from his shoulder and moved so she could look straight into his eyes. "You weren't responsible for your mother's death. You were at Hayfield. Your dad wasn't responsible. It was a tragic accident. When he gets his head together and realises that, perhaps your messages will help."

"It's just so demoralising that I have to be the adult. He never responds."

"One day he will. They loved each other so much. He loved you too. And suddenly he found himself alone, not knowing what to say. I remember at the funeral you and he stood together at the side of the grave, both trying to be brave for each other. Both trying not to cry."

"And that was the last day I saw him. I was so grateful you came with me."

"That's what study partners are there for," Jennifer said, emphasising the word study.

Theo gave a small chuckle, and they rested their heads against each other's.

After a minute, Theo said, "You'd better send your messages before it gets too late. I'll send one to my dad."

Ten minutes later, they were both in bed, snuggled up together.

"What a first day," Theo whispered, even though it was a soundproof room. "What do you think tomorrow will bring?"

"Probably more of the same. There will be no introductions, so after a run and breakfast, we'll probably be at 100% intensity. They'll then ramp it up over the next few weeks."

Theo didn't chuckle. He knew she was right. After kissing her forehead, they both fell asleep on a world fifty light years from home.