The wind whistled through Bexhill's rocks and pebbles, as the channel pulled them in gentle rattle beneath the spray like an elaborate instrument. This late evening the waters retreated, revealing the network of rock pools hiding beneath the waves, and with them a miniature landscape rose from the depths. Full of strange shapes and patterns of dark rock, hundreds of shimmering pools submerged for the day surfaced, all teaming with life. Above, a small trickle of people wandered the coastline beneath a deep red sky that thinned to blue over the far reaches of the channel.
Heather stared at the great expanse of water, lost in its swaying tempo. She watched in the far distance as a pair of small boats traversed the smooth blue on different courses, looking so close but destined to never meet across the wide expanse. Lost in the perspective, she missed at first as her mother sat down beside her, handing Heather a cardboard coffee cup. Connie held her own tucked into her left side for warmth, and after Heather accepted hers, both stared out at the open expanse. For a long time, they sat in silence.
"We never talk much anymore."
Connie’s words weren’t a conversation starter, nor a question. They hung in the air like the sea breeze, causing a sting but then passing away as if they’d never been. Heather glanced at her Converses, the soul of the shoes peeling more than before after their rapid exposure to running the previous day. She studied the way even this small part of her life came away at the seams, and wanted to reply, to reach out, to change this horrible toxic atmosphere only the two of them felt. Like the rock pools emerging before them though, there was a lot beneath the surface she wasn’t quite ready to face yet.
Connie looked at her, both with burning pride and deep pain. Growing up her daughter hadn't changed that much. The same grey-blue eyes like diamond, and good posture too, not prone to slouching like some of her peers. She had the same golden blonde hair as her childhood that ran right down her back. The tips of her strands brushed in a gentle sway against the pebbles below. But inside she was growing up so much faster than Connie ever dreamed possible. The girl was leaving her face and the woman emerging, and she appeared determined to face whatever was going on inside her head alone.
"Will dad come home soon?" Heather at last asked when the silence became hard to bear.
"The doctors say he can, he's eating again." Connie took a sip of her coffee, shuddering against the chill’s mixture with the heat. A subtle throw of breath clouded before her, a piece of strength fracturing away.
"So no tube this time?" Heather winced as she said it, instant regret as much for herself as her mother. The mental image scraped straight to the bone of all that was wrong with their tiny world. She took a sip of the coffee to hide the shiver, and let a little trickle of warmth flow through her, trying its hardest to breathe life into her. Physical warmth though proved no match for the clinical cold memories of her father lying cold and pale in that bed, eyes closed, in a way her brain stapled as ‘corpse-like’ and never let go of.
"No, thank god..." Connie said. She held her shivers inside, after years of practice.
The two women sat in silent appreciation of the smooth waters. The calming sea breeze and the distant cry of a seagull settling down for another night hung around them. Light ebbed behind the De La Warr Pavilion to the west, the futuristic 30s building at the heart of the seafront. The premature darkness of the winter months split by the lamps and distant cars.
"Are you alright Heather?"
‘Better than yesterday’, was the honest answer but invited questions she wasn’t sure she wanted to answer even inside her own head. This day had been fun, one of those few stolen ones where life worked for a while, but trying as she might to stop, Heather found herself checking and rechecking her watch. She knew this must have made her look restless or even bored, but in reality she was counting down the hours until 18:12. And deep down, was she ‘better’ or blocking out and running from the problem.
"I, yeah I'm ok." Heather said. She said it in a calm, offhanded way, even venturing to try for a small smile. But mums just know. Though they don't always confront, the most attentive know their child's emotions. So Connie could hear the gears grind above the ocean foam, and for once, she suspected it wasn't their estrangement causing it. She also knew that right now there wasn't much she could do. So instead they sat, and again silence fell over the otherwise serene scene. She wanted to put her arm around Heather, could see that she shook in the late autumn breeze. But that glass sheet lay solid between them, and though she sat so close to the most important person in her life, she'd never been so far away.
The cold wind made the single tear that escaped and traced her far cheek burn colder. It was time to go. She tried to keep her sigh hidden as she scrambled to her feet, and reached to help her daughter up. Her hand was so small in hers, and though she'd held the coffee in both, icy.
"Did you bring gloves?" Connie asked
"I, no. Sorry."
"Here, hold on." Connie placed her coffee between some rocks and then tugged at her own.
"No, mum, you need..." But as Connie pushed them into her hands. Heather knew she didn't have much choice. It was slow, but warmth began to ease back into her fingers as they trudged up the pebble beach and to the promenade. "Thank you." She mumbled. She wished she could say it louder, but her own sea of turmoil drowned the words out.
Unnatural light filled the tight train carriage on their journey home. The fluorescent glow above made the bright whites and greys clash inside with the endless looking void beyond the glass. With little detail visible, it made the East Sussex countryside feel ethereal and unreal. Connie watched her own eyes in the reflection wash against the silhouetted trees, feeling more as a specter of the past than an actor in the present.
Heather looked at her mother once or twice, not knowing what to say to break the silence between them. She wanted to confide in her what was really going on; Ore was a lot of it, but each colliding thought that didn't make sense to her cried out for help. She wanted to share the mess that filled her thoughts with a red fog. She needed to confide, but even the one she had been closest to seemed so far away. Resigned to the quiet, she gazed out the window, and at the coat of stars above.
Orion, colossal and dominant stared back in the centre of the twinkling sky; Orion the warrior, the brave. Heather traced each star in his form from Sirius to Betelgeuse. In her mind, she watched as the lines from her many books traced themselves to the heavens. There Orion now stood resolute; he wouldn’t have run. She'd felt brave like that once, a long time ago, even if it was childish naivety. She remembered sitting by her mother almost three years ago to the day, looking up at those stars.
It had been late 2008, almost four years ago and night approached fast. While it was a cool evening, Hastings lay exposed to the chills of the channel. Heather sat on this beach with her mother, but the difference with that day to the one just passed was the intimacy between them. She'd shuffled closer for warmth from the breeze, and to be closer to the one she loved.
‘How long will dad be away for?’
Her mother put an arm around her. Heather felt a rush of warmth inside and out. Here she has a shield from the harsh wind, protected by her most trusted friend. Without a word Heather had felt reassurance that life was ok.
‘Dad will be home really soon.’ Heather remembered each sense in that moment. When her mum had said it she had squeezed her a little tighter. The smell of her mother's perfume and the sea breeze muffled by embrace felt so real.
The details from that one snapshot were so vivid, clearer even than the present day. She could see the twinkle of lights across Hastings’ seafront stores, the merriment of its pub-crawlers, the loud abrasive conversation of the seagulls making circles in the sky. What stood out the most though in hindsight, was looking up to her mother gazing out across Hastings to the pier.
‘Is he ok?’
‘He's fine, he just needed to have some time, clear his head. He needs you to be daddy's best little girl in the meantime ok?’ Her words had the faintest creak in her mother's smooth voice, though in years to come Heather wondered if her memory inserted all these doubts after the fact, to feel less like a dumb child.
‘I thought he needed to go away for work?’ Heather had asked, innocent enough, naïve to her future self’s perspective.
‘Sorry, yes he's working, but it's a chance to travel around and see new sights too.’
‘Why did he need to clear his–’
‘Because,’ her mother had a slight shake to her voice ‘all grown-ups, people need time to themselves. Sorry,’ she put on her brightest smile, ‘didn't mean to be abrupt. I think mum's getting a bit tired. Are you ready to head home?’
‘People need time to themselves.’
At the time those words had an impact, but nothing compared to what they would in hindsight. And as much as she hated to admit it, there was also anger there too. Why had her mother shielded her from the truth, when by then it was bound to surface sooner or later. The evasiveness led to the inevitable blow being deeper, and perhaps worse, Heather knew that she too now inherited the trait, creating an echo chamber of avoidance between them.
"Heather?"
"Huh?" she blinked, remembering her surroundings.
"Have you got a headache? You look like you're in pain." Connie asked, looking at her with concern.
"Oh, no I'm fine." And there, even now she griped about hating the habit, she dodged without a second thought. Heather slouched back in her seat, feeling her breathing subside. It all felt so heavy to her. The stress of Ore, the thoughts of the past, the loneliness, a weight on her chest she wasn't sure how to lift. Those memories always drained her. As the train passed St. Leonards Warrior Square, she closed her eyes and tried to shut it all out.
****
Halos stood alone in the still smouldering lab. The dim flicker of his readings and occasional sparks were all that lit his carnage. Where once the great machinery had lined the chamber, if not gleaming then at least with order, now huge chunks of his family's work lay wrecked. The air hung with the coppery taste and smell of charred electronics. As he stepped past the small chunks of debris he felt the raw glowing heat they still emitted. Scrap surrounded the wreckage, ritualistic in front of the dormant altar.
He had been careless, and he knew it, and it pained him. He'd been so eager to take the next leap he hadn't taken what were simple precautions. Looking at the remains, he remembered how his father had told him that his drive was his best trait. He'd said that mistakes can get fixed, but a lack of passion could not. To have found his way to it at such a young age and held on to it made up for minor accidents along the way. His father had been referring to minor accidents by that rather than blowing up the lab. All the same, the thought made him smile.
Feeling safe in the knowledge Varsus would leave him be, Halos began to inspect the damage closer. Underfoot he could feel insulation and wiring crack against the stone floor. Debris made up of glass fragments and burnt polymer that he knew had saved his life now formed a blanket of destruction that led to the ruined chamber, any hope of repair to that hull fanciful. The temperature at the moment of ‘catastrophic error’ - as the readout put it as if to rub it in - reached beyond the point his instruments could measure. Without the shields in place when that happened, he'd be dead right now.
Reasoning he may as well take care of two jobs at once, Halos fetched a fine bristled sweeper and began to pool the smaller detritus. As he did so, he picked out a piece or two of the important electronics and pocketed them, the kind of components he’d be lucky to see in the landfill any time soon. It struck him how little of it mattered in the long run; while his set up might have as a whole failed in a spectacular way, the chamber had contained most of the shock wave. It was a shame so much of this machinery was on the wrong side of the plastic, but most of it was atmospheric equipment, and he was still quite sure that the world was habitable, if a bit explody.
Beyond a step or two from the chamber, the damage to the lab was cosmetic at most. The delicate parts were further away and remained intact. In fact, the only delicate part that was close to the blast was, well, him. If he’d thought to stand on the other side of the lab then he wouldn’t even have the bandage on his head; Versus had not done the cleanest job with that, ‘compassion’ not a strong suit of his. All the same, he would have to be pretty insane to think he could make a connection with the probes using the console in this state. There was no protective chamber around wild and exposed explosive particle physics. And there was still a chance of another explosion, or worse. He'd been lucky to survive the first time, so doing so minus any shielding would be reckless and dangerous.
With a few inputs made on the master computer, he began to power up the now open experiment for a second connection. What was life without a little insanity and danger? He wove between consoles and followed muscle memory in a flow reserved for performers and acrobats. A small rush of heat from the particle stabiliser shocked him and paused his flow mid dance. But he reassured himself, he should be in no immediate danger from where he stood. Unless it went wrong, then he could end up in a lot of danger, again.
The air began to taste metallic and bitter as the faint hum began to grow. The fragments across the lab floor seemed to join the chorus as they vibrated around his feet. The whine of aged machinery long worthy of retirement mixed with surging pulses. It groaned as it pushed itself to the absolute limit.
The noise surrounded Halos in a harmony; in a moment of paranoia, he wheeled around to the open doorway. But there was no way the sound was carrying to the surface. Behind him, an ultra-high definition camera lay primed. Its power was so great that it could focus on a grain of sand over twenty units away. Halos had built it himself in the small hours out of the abandoned surveillance system. It was among the many curiosities dumped with the rest of the lab waste.
Conscious that he didn't have the luxury of time, he ordered a steady power drain from the local source; emphasis was on the ‘steady’ this time. There was a brief flash as the bots absorbed energy, and then, the picture became whole, flickering an alien planet to life. Halos mouth went dry; his bones seemed to tremble as the awe of what he watched crashed over and engulfed him. He moved in slow deliberate steps forward, stopping close to the orb, and gazed onto another world.
The metal structure was a type of bridge, no doubt now that it was purpose built. It looked recent with no obvious decay or major weakness. That suggested recent inhabitants, at least within the last five hundred cycles. Halos' eyes traced the arch, registering the glimmer from the lights around it. It was so close that he could reach out and touch it. That would be a bad idea considering the high temperature the bots could reach, but it looked within grasp, if blurrier than he would have liked.
Lights shone from various points within the window, with no question now that some were artificial. These latter eureka-confirmers shone atop poles much like the ones in the cities of Ori, though a burning amber rather than the clinical white of those streets. Plant life surrounded the strange scene exploding from every orifice of this world, but not in an entirely untamed way. These cultivated specimens swayed in what seemed tolerable winds; they looked healthy and nourished, a habitable climate after all. Faint movements inside them could even be life of some kind, but he'd have to review the footage later to be sure of that.
He could almost feel the breeze on his face as he stood there breathing it in. It wasn't, the bots couldn’t transfer wind, but he felt that close to this mysterious paradise. He started to walk around and observe each angle of the orb. As he did, he continued to notice new details that there had been no time to during the first opening. One group was more intriguing still. It consisted of several rectangles of varying sizes along the sides and the floor of this world. The quality these artifacts shared in common was the unclear markings. As he squinted to make them out, Halos realised he must be looking at an alien language.
As he panned down he saw a remarkable object that blew the rest of the rectangles away. It was small, a fraction of a unit long and again rectangular. And was bound with not one but hundreds of sheets of paper–like material. And each page seemed covered with the alien language and in near–perfect clarity. As he looked, a breeze blew through the pages, and in quick succession, hundreds of them blew past.
Behind Halos the camera captured details down to the smallest dot on the page. It was the biggest breakthrough yet. Knowing the significance of the find, and eager to begin analysis Halos decided to end there. He cut the communications and gathered his tools and the camera. For a brief moment, he reflected on how his father would feel if he could see him now. He'd never gotten to see a living world, nor any of his descendants right back to their old home world.
Even with religion distant from Ori, Halos sensed deep within him the pride of his ancestors. almost as if looking down upon him. Their long work was proving its worth at last. In his knowing hands at was at long last reaching heights they never dared dream of. Halos felt himself look up to the ceiling, to where he imagined the stars were shining far above the crust. He'd never felt so close to them as he did in that moment.
