Radiant

My name is Lucas Tyler. My hacker dad wanted to name me George Lucas Tyler after the famous filmmaker. However, my psychic mom flatly refused. She had a brother named George whom she hated. He was a hedge fund manager.

I was born on earth on September thirteenth, 2000; a true millennial. I’m sure you’ve guessed how my parents rang in the new millennium. I figured it out long ago, and believe me, knowing when you parents conceived you is one type of strange. Being reminded of it every time you see your birthdate on a legal document is another.

My childhood was pretty normal. I would watch TV in the back room of my mom’s shop as she legally scammed the gullible with her trinkets and palm readings. My dad was usually in the office near me creating new malware to scam them illegally. I was oblivious to it all, mostly because of my obsession with Ben 10. How ironic.

When I say my mom scammed people with the whole psychic thing, I’m just being honest. That’s not to say she didn’t help people. I’m sure many of the people who came to her went away feeling comforted, or ready to face whatever trials led them into her shop. That’s also not to say she wasn’t a real psychic. She just didn’t always use her gifts to make money. Of course, I’m not sure my dad believed she had any real abilities. I don’t even blame him. Being told by your spouse that the nightmares she has every night are a foretelling of the future couldn’t have been easy to handle. Especially when they show a future where your only child was held captive by aliens.

My mom ended up being right. Not that it matters. All that matters now is that I’m useful to my alien captives. Behind their backs we call them prunes.

****

I slammed my hand against the panel, ignoring the pain as a series of lights radiated balefully from the console.

“Careful!” Emma exclaimed, grabbing my hand firmly, turning my palm up. The puckered red flesh around the crystal implant looked ready to split open again. “The least you can do is take your anger out with your other hand. You know the caretakers told you to take it easy with this one until it’s completely healed.”

I snorted, the anger already fading. “Caretakers. You think they would at least come up with a more accurate name to call themselves. Something like medical torturers.”

“Or misery doctors,” she countered. The worry lines faded from her face.

“Affliction physicians.”

“Ooh, that’s a good one.” She cracked a smile before turning back to my hand critically. “At least they stick up for us most of the time. If it wasn’t for them our lives would be a whole lot worse.”

“That’s not saying much.” I stared at the console in frustration. It should have worked. The caretakers had just checked the implant that morning, confirming the neural interface was connected correctly. I had been trying all week and still couldn’t access anything, while it had worked for Emma the first day. I had been captive nearly a year before they trusted me enough to install the implant, and here it was, a useless chunk of rock embedded in my flesh.

“Don’t worry, it’ll come.” I wondered if she could see how worried I was.

“What if it doesn’t?” Although it was rare, I wouldn’t be the first person unable to access the prunes’ technology. The shriveled aliens made sure each human slave served a useful purpose. For much of the last year that had meant disposing of reactor waste from newly docked ships. Believe me, it’s even more dangerous than it sounds. This was my one chance of getting out of there and prolonging my life past a handful of years. Just because I was a slave didn’t mean I wanted to give up and die right away.

“Sometimes it just takes a few days before your brain starts to make all the necessary connections to access the interface.”

“That’s what you said three days ago.” The door slid open, and a prune walked in. It glanced at us in what I had learned to be a disapproving manner before walking up to the main console. I made sure to keep the hatred off my face. Unlike the small console Emma and I were attempting to use, that one was only used by the aliens. Not only did the human implants not work on it, but they contained information none of us had access to.

Pretending to study the panel before me, I watched from the corner of my eyes as the prune placed its long, four fingered hand against the console, its own implant clicking into place against the corresponding insert. After a moment, its hand began to glow. Removing it, the prune turned its palm upward, a holographic image of the space station coming into view in front of it. Almost faster than I could see, the image zoomed inward, flickering between different locations inside the station. Seeming satisfied, the images disappeared as it lowered its hand.

Walking to the doorway, it swung its long arm at my head. Knowing things would likely be worse if I tried dodging, the hand smashed into the back of my head, slamming my forehead against the console. Emma jumped back with a muffled cry. “Lazy mush,” it gargled at us. I barely noticed it leave, my vision dim.

Gasping against the pain, I slowly sat up straight, feeling my forehead. My hand came away clean; at least I wouldn’t have to worry about cleaning up any blood this time. Feeling Emma’s arm wrap around my shoulders, I let her hold me a minute. Even though she didn’t make a sound, I knew she needed the time to recover as much as I did. After a while you learned to take the random acts of aggression without a peep. Even a whispered threat or complaint oftentimes found their way back to the prunes who made sure you knew exactly where your place was.

“Do you want to try again?” She removed her arm, pretending the attack hadn’t happened. We both knew that was for the best.

“Not really.” Even if I hadn’t had a headache now, we had been attempting to get my implant to work for several hours. It was Emma’s free day, and she could have been taking this rare time off to do something else instead of help me. I didn’t want to monopolize her entire day. I stood up slowly.

“You’ll get it, I know you will.” Even though she was trying to sound confident, I could tell from the crinkling of her brow that she was worried.

I glanced at the main console the prune had just left. “They make it look so easy.”

“That’s because it is easy for them.” Emma turned to stare at it too. “Since they mostly communicate telepathically, receiving information through a biological to computer interface is second nature.”

“Doesn’t seem fair considering all the other stuff they can do.” The prunes never missed an opportunity to tell us all the ways they were superior to us, whether it was by projecting images with their minds, speaking telepathically, or moving objects telekinetically.

“The caretakers told me it took them decades to come up with the implant we humans now use to access portions of their technology. They had trouble understanding how simple minded we were.” I turned to her with a raised eyebrow. “Their words, not mine,” she corrected hastily. She worked for the caretakers and had access to more information than most of us did. They were something like librarians and doctors all rolled up in one. Emma had one of the best positions possible with the caretakers, as they were more understanding of humans than other prunes.

On an impulse, I walked over to the main console, lifting my hand. “It’s not going to work,” Emma chided. Normally we weren’t allowed to touch anything like this that the aliens used for themselves, but since Emma was right, I didn’t see the harm in it.

Pausing, I tilted my hovering hand to stare at the implant. The octagonal crystal nestled in the center of my palm gave off a soft, blue light as the skin around it itched and burned. Feeling a bit foolish, I pressed my hand against the console, fitting the crystal into the corresponding insert.

A moment later I gave Emma a silly grin, who shook her head, shooting glances at the door. Just because we couldn’t access the alien’s technology didn’t mean they would be happy to see us messing with their equipment.

Knowing I shouldn’t press my luck, I lifted my hand, the crystal painfully pulling against my palm. “Owe! What the hell?” Confused, I leaned back against the panel.

“What’s the matter?” Emma took a step towards me.

“I’m not sure. It’s stuck.” I gently tried pulling my hand back, fighting another cry as pain radiated through my hand.

“What do you mean it’s stuck?”

“I mean, it’s stuck! The implant won’t come free.” Before the words left my mouth, my hand began to glow. Emma’s figure faded from sight as a wave of flickering images took her place. The images fell into sequence like the installation of a computer program, to reveal an ocean of data spread before me. Before I could do more than marvel at the vastness, a monstrous force reached into my brain to rip it open, pouring the contents of the ocean into it. I wasn’t sure if I screamed aloud, or silently to myself. Fighting the deluge with every bit of will I could muster, I felt it slow before blacking out.

****

The whisper of a thousand voices slowly faded to a gargling one as I gained consciousness. “You were right to come get me. If he really did access the Codex, his brain could never handle it. Your human implants do not contain the resistors ours do.

Feeling a gentle warmth against my face, I opened my eyes to look onto the face of Radiant S’karr, IDN 43529, third of eighteen caretaker of the Rak’nell quadrant station eight. The usual hatred at seeing one of my captors surged through me, and with barely a thought, the face disappeared as a crash sounded against the far wall. Emma cried out, and turning my head, I watched as she sprang from my side to run across the room.

Sitting up, I grimaced at the pounding in my head. “What’s going on? Did you take out the Radiant?” I pressed a hand against my head. What was going on with me? I never called them Radiants. They were prunes.

"What? You’re alive!” She half turned to me before looking back at the Radiant; the prune.

“Of course I’m alive. Is that thing dead? What’s it doing here?”

“S’karr is a friend. He doesn’t like how humans are treated, and when you collapsed, I didn’t know what to do, so I went and got him. You were hardly breathing.” She was staring at me with wide eyes. “I don’t know what happened to him. One moment he was using a scanner on you, and the next he was flying through the air.”

Radiant S’karr, possible human sympathizer. On nine separate occasions appealed the disposal of human slaves unable to resume their duties due to injury. Watcher assigned.

I grabbed my head with my other hand, the implant pressing sharply against my temple. What was going on with me? “I collapsed?” She stared at me worriedly before nodding to my right. Turning, I glanced at the console as everything came back. Pulling my left hand away from my head, I stared at the imbedded crystal in wonder. “I accessed it.”

Radiant under attack. Codex chamber fifty three. Security required. The musical thought wafted through my head. “The watcher,” I breathed.

“What?” Emma was walking towards me.

“A watcher was assigned to S’karr. They know what happened to him.” The watchers were specialized Radiants used in telepathic surveillance. I looked around the room wildly, knowing it was only a matter of moments before security burst through the door.

“How do you know that? Why would a watcher be assigned to S’karr?”

“Because they suspected him of being a human sympathizer.” I didn’t know how to answer her first question, since I had no idea myself. “We don’t have much time.” My darting eyes fell on the console as information on the patrol schedule for security flooded my mind. Racing through a thousand calculations, an idea began to form. Hearing Emma gasp, I slammed my palm onto the insert; the Codex receptacle.

As my hand began glowing, my mind ran through dozens of manifests until I found the one I was looking for. Dock 107, ship number 8421 Military. One of the Titans as we called them down at reactor waste. A top of the line military spacecraft containing a full complement of the latest weaponry, and able to hold a crew of up to 200. A good thing there were only 153 slaves on the station. Sending 153 messages out, I sent official communications to each department using slaves, explaining their temporary requisition in case anyone tried to stop them. At the same time, I remotely began the startup sequence on the Titan.

I felt my wrist band vibrate. “I just got notification that I’m to go to dock 107.” I turned to see Emma looking at me in confusion. “Lucas, what’s going on? How the hell are you using the console? S’karr told me if you could access it, it would fry your brain.”

“He was wrong.” Something tickled the back of my thoughts, and focusing on it, I could feel the presence of the security detail drawing near. I didn’t know what was going on with me, but I wasn’t going to question it now. There wasn’t time.

Lifting my palm from the Codex receptacle, I grabbed Emma’s wrist, and rushed out the door. Turning left, I started racing towards the docks, gently pulling her along. “I’m not entirely sure what’s going on, but you’ve got to trust me. We’ve only got one chance. I’m afraid if they find out what’s happened to me, they’ll find some way to stop it.” I knew I was babbling, and it probably didn’t make any sense to her, but we didn’t have time. I wasn’t sure if I could explain it any better even if we did. Not without some serious introspection at least.

Emma jerked her wrist, and letting go, I felt her slip her hand into mine. She was one of the few friends I had here, and feeling her tacit trust filled me with renewed confidence. Ever since she treated me after that beating months ago, I knew I could count on her. I was just glad she felt the same. Entering a nearby lift, I said, “Docks.”

The door closed and the soft whir of the lift filled the air as a frantic melody filled my head. Radiant down. Request information on attackers. How could they sound so beautiful in my head, when their voices were so rough and ugly?

Feeling exposed, I sent out a questing thought as a pair of mental eyes invaded my brain. You are a mush? The questioning thought quickly turned from surprise to malevolence as a pressure built in my brain.

I cried out.

“Are you ok?” Emma squeezed my hand in concern.

Human attackers found. Treat with care. Headed for…

Knowing I couldn’t let them know where we were going, my thoughts flickered through thousands of bits of information garnered from the Codex. Grabbing on one, I sent out a desperate wave of mental energy, attempting to disrupt their telepathic communication. It must have worked better than I had hoped as a thousand echoing cries of pain came back to me. Somehow, I knew I had affected every Radiant on the station.

The lift stopped, and I rushed toward dock 107, still holding Emma’s hand. A number of other humans were heading that way, having received the same message on their wrist bands. “Hurry! You’ve got to hurry!” They looked at us in confusion as we passed but felt relieved as most of them moved quicker.

“What’s going on?” Looking at the older woman, my thoughts flickered with information. Slave 38 of 153. Junko Hamada. Menial assigned to command deck.

"It’s an emergency, Junko. We’re needed at the dock as soon as possible.” Hearing the Radiants wanted us to hurry caused the others to pick up their pace. She raised an eyebrow, before following the rest.

“How did you know who she was?” Emma was starting to sound out of breath at our fast pace. “I’ve only seen her around a few times, and I know she doesn’t work anywhere near reactor waste.”

“I’m not sure.” Even if she were to believe me if I told her the information just popped up in my head, this wasn’t the time to try to explain it. As more people began filtering in around us, the word spread, and by the time we reached dock 107, a large group was jogging around us.

Entering the hangar, I stopped for a moment to take in the view of the Titan. It may not be the largest ship they possessed, but its smooth black lines radiated a grace and power none of the others could match. Breaking my reverie, I ran up to the main control console, kicked the comatose figure of a prune from my way, and placed my palm on the receptacle. Several of the people around me gasped as my hand began to glow. Knowing I would soon have a lot of questions to answer, I opened the hatch on the ship, overriding the docking procedures.

“Everybody, on board. We don’t have much time.” They stared at me blankly, and beginning to panic, I desperately sent my thoughts out to them, attempting to make them feel some of the urgency filling me. Unlike my experience with the Radiants, my thoughts seemed to bog down into a swampy muck. This must be how the prunes felt when around us.

Grabbing hold of arms and shoulders, I began pushing everyone I could towards the ship. “We’ve got to hurry!” I could already feel a psychic stirring on the periphery of my thoughts. Pressing against my fellow humans’ minds in willful desperation, I finally saw some of them glance from me to the ship, and begin moving towards the ramp. Sending out a questing thought, I found the last of the humans were entering the hangar. I began running towards the ramp myself, yelling all the way for everyone to follow.

Stepping onto the ship, a massive presence entered my mind. Falling to my knees, I barely noticed Emma crouch beside me as people streamed in. So. One of you has finally actualized our potential. I felt a malevolent laugh reverberate throughout my being. Do not think we are unprepared for you, Radiant. We are the true Radiants, and I am twelfth of forty eight, First of millions. You will be culled along with the rest. I will…

Getting the gist of the arrogant monologue, I sharpened my thoughts into a jagged arrow of hatred, drawing on the ever present anger and fear of the other 152 people around me. In a wordless cry, I sent it at the presence with all the force I could muster. In a shattering reverberation, it left my mind.

Standing up, I stared into Emma’s wide brown eyes. “What did you do, Lucas? I thought for a moment I felt something…”

I gave her a crooked grin. “I just saved us all.” Taking her hand, I ran to the bridge, where I placed my palm on the helm receptacle, my insert snapping into place. With the last of the humans onboard, I willed the hatch closed, opening the airlock. A hurried command from the prunes to shut down the ship skittered through the system, which I quickly countered. Cobbling together a virus from several quarantined programs scattered throughout the Codex, I let it loose with a smirk. No one would be following us anytime soon. My dad would be proud.

Removing my hand from the receptacle, I willed the ship through the airlock, and into open space. Now that I had initialized the link with the vessel, it was no longer necessary for me to have direct contact through the implant. Lifting my palm out, a holographic image of the ship appeared, hovering above it. Taking stock of our supplies and the individuals on board, a murmur of voices surrounded me.

“How are you doing that? Are we in space? What are we doing here?” Junko was looking at me in awe, as around us dozens of voices echoed her. Looking from face to face, facts and information on each flashed through my brain. I felt tears in my eyes as images of discipline and torture overlapped their faces; images stored away in the Codex–stored away in my brain. Even though I had never met most of these people, I knew them as intimately as family. I may now be a Radiant by the prune’s standards, but first and foremost I was human.

“We’re leaving. They won’t hurt us anymore.” As Emma gave me a tentative smile, I grasped her tightly to me. Earth might be halfway across the galaxy through hostile territory, but right here, right now, we were safe. I wasn’t sure what would come next, but whatever it was we would face it together. Free.