Chapter Text
“Please. Please.”
A fearful pleading is all the doctor can muster, from lips dripping in cold sweat. A stranger in a sleek grey uniform holds a small machine to her forehead. Behind her back, another woman grips both of her arms, holding her in place. She doesn't know what she hopes to obtain with her begging. There's nothing in her head but terror and arousal.
“Her adrenaline is out of control, but she's healthy,” the soldier withdraws the device from her face. “Doesn’t look like she swallowed a pill. You don’t have one hiding in your mouth, do you, Miss Derrami?”
The doctor shakes her head in vigorous denial. “Please don’t hurt me,” she begs, eyes veering toward the right, where her bodyguard lies in a growing pool of blood.
“Gonna drag this one to medical, see if we can’t revive her,” yet another soldier says. Two of the uniformed women hoist the body and drag it away, after applying meager medical attention.
“Open your mouth. Now.”
Doctor Derrami Massei, forty two, thought to be one of the most brilliant minds in modern Avari biosciences, gives a weak-willed whine and opens her mouth on command, letting the enemy soldier drag two gloved fingers over her teeth, behind them, under her tongue, and even reaching back into her cheeks and throat, making her gag.
“No pills. Cuff her and get her moving.”
Derrami can only cry and beg for a nameless mercy that she knows she will not receive.
A mere ten minutes ago, she was bored out of her mind, sitting at her work station and playing a game of daebak against the computer. She had been absent-minded. She hadn’t noticed the distinct absence of a patrol frigate outside the little window that looks into the depths of space.
But in her defense: nobody else noticed, either. Before anyone aboard the asteroid base realized something was wrong, a breaching charge was already blowing open their airlock.
The sound scared her so badly that she fell out of her chair. On a miniscule base of fifty people, in the middle of absolute nowhere, there are no explosions. There’s barely even any yelling.
With her ears still ringing, one of the guards grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her to the escape shuttles. But it was far too late. By the time they reached the exterior hall, a firing squad of Sintra greeted them.
“On your knees!” That is what Derrami heard, and she would have obeyed: she was too afraid not to. But instead, her escort dragged her into a side compartment, the two of them narrowly avoiding sharp bolts of energy.
“Do you have your pill?” the guard asked, shaking, reaching into her uniform to withdraw a suicide capsule.
Derrami shook her head. She’d stopped carrying the morbid thing after the first few weeks being assigned to this horrible little station.
“Then you need to use mine. We can’t let them have—”
That was the last thing she said, before her torso was blown open.
Utterly paralyzed, unable to even scream, Derrami watched grey-uniformed soldiers pour into the room, apprehending her along with what was left of her friend.
She is cuffed, and walked onto the ship that forcibly breached their base. The blocky white infrastructure of the Avari Grand Council is replaced with the slick chromatic curves of Sintra design: the only threshold between the two is a doorframe reduced to molten slag.
She can only pray to the gods that she does not believe in.
There are others being taken prisoner. She wants to go to them, to speak to them, but the soldiers behind her march directly forward, keeping her in a straight line. She sees many, but not all, of the faces she knows. People died protecting her. But what could she have done? Derrami’s firearm training is just words on a page: she never carried a gun, just like she never carried a capsule. She never had the courage to take her own life. Could she have pulled a trigger? Against the Sintra? These not-quite-people?
That is a question she has tried to answer for so long. The Sintra have occupied her every thought for the past six months. Her daily grind, her every nightmare, her every wet dream.
As she is led through winding hallways and into an elevator, the enemy do not spit on her, violate her, or even call her names. The technology is familiar, yet alien.
When they exit the lift, a woman with two violet stripes across the shoulder of her grey, skin-tight uniform stands in front of her.
She looks exactly like any other avari. But that, perhaps, is what terrifies her most of all.
They all look exactly like any other avari. These creatures walk and talk just like anyone else! They have the same appearances. The same arms and legs and heads, the same hair, the same eyes, the same petals of flesh forming ridges on their brows and cheeks. They have the same internal organs! She’s checked! She’s checked again and again, on every corpse she’s been made to dissect! They are, in almost every way, impossible to distinguish from Avari! Not unless you rip out their spines can you find a difference! Not unless you unravel their genetic code!
But they are different.
They claim to be Avari, still. But they serve the ‘Sintra’, now. Whatever that is. They serve the ‘Empress’, whoever that is.
“Ma’am,” reports one of the soldiers behind Derrami. “We have the doctor.”
“Yes, I can see that,” the waiting officer politely replies, extending an arm. “Walk with me, doctor.”
“Please don’t change me!” Derrami blurts out. “Pl-please don’t, they won’t take me back if you do! Please don’t touch me! I want to go home, I didn’t—I didn’t want to do any of this, I—”
As she thrashes in place, held by the cuffs and the two soldiers behind her, the tall woman in front steps forward and brushes her fingers over the doctor’s cheek, making her heart skip a beat. “Don’t worry, doctor,” the Sintra officer replies with a smile. “You won’t have to worry about any of that. Just relax.”
Derrami lets out a gasp, a whine. She gives a dry swallow and a wet sob. Her job was to investigate these creatures. The government was supposed to protect her while she worked. They failed. Everything is failing. Nobody can stop them, anyone on the Grand Council who says that they have a plan is a liar! It’s over! It was over before it even began.
Six months ago, a deep space colony ship named Newpoint returned from its voyage. But it was never meant to return. It was meant to colonize a barren world, to expand the ever-growing frontier of the Avari Empire. The ship returned to Aeon, the planet it departed from, and… it was different.
The ship itself was different. The people were different. It was all nearly the same, but not quite right. And in its company was an enormous thing. A massive gleaming shard of glass, not quite a ship, not quite an object.
They claimed that they had found sapient life. They claimed they had found The Empress. That ‘she’ was aboard the glass ship, and that everyone must see her.
It was too late. By the time the Grand Council realized they needed to quarantine the ship, the city of Uvis was infested with them. By the time they quarantined Uvis, the entire planet was lost.
When the navy tried to blockade it, things became violent. It was war. Against the self? Against an idea? Against the ‘Empress’? Against the ‘Sintra’.
She was supposed to figure out how to change them back. How to undo the brainwashing. She was supposed to figure out how to defeat them! How to stop them from spreading!
They never change back. You can’t change them back. There are zero successful cases.
Zero.
Not under laboratory conditions. Not on the battlefield, being begged by former allies. Not when presented with a loved one, not a parent, not a child, a sibling, a life partner. No one. Nothing. They cannot be returned to normal.
The Grand Council publicly decreed after one month that no citizen should answer calls or agree to meet with anyone who may have been tainted by the Sintra. They still haven’t explained how dire things really are: if they did, people might start killing each other in the streets. Anyone who has been captured by the Sintra is as good as dead, as far as the Avari military is concerned.
Which means Derrami is as good as dead.
The Sintra spread faster than anyone could comprehend. Loyal Avari soldiers were captured, taken away, only to return days later, entirely obedient to the Empress. They will not relent. They make no compromise. They will not rest until everyone has seen what they have seen.
They are succeeding.
They are succeeding and it is the most arousing thing that she could possibly imagine.
The officer who whispers comfort to her, who runs fingers across her face, is tan, with short dark hair. Handsome and beautiful, just like an avari should be. The Sintra uniform shows off her body in a grotesquely sexual manner. Not something a sane woman would be caught wearing. But none of them seem to notice.
The Sintra are beautiful.
Objectively. They are captivatingly charismatic. Elegant. They carry a strange dignity. And they are not aliens: not at all. They speak flawlessly, their flesh is real flesh, their bone is real bone.
She knows this because of the vivisections.
Do they know about the vivisections?
It wasn’t her idea. She didn’t use the knife. But she was present. She did the study. They took place in her laboratory, under her watch. She could have forced them to stop. They would have replaced her, but she could have said ‘no’.
The pressure from above to solve the problem of the Sintra increased exponentially. A race to save the species. With more planets losing ground, with more fleets retreating, ‘questioning’ Sintra prisoners became ‘torturing’. And soon, ‘torturing’ became ‘experimentation’. They were desperate to learn anything. What happens when the prisoners are taken? How can being ‘brought before the Empress’ make even the most loyal citizen into a devout traitor? Is it an implant? Is it a chemical? Are they doppelgangers? Are they machines? But they received no answers. Nothing intelligible. Only cold silence, or ranting and raving about the Empress, the dream, the Sintra, of cities that do not exist and events that have never happened. Delirium.
“I—it wasn’t my idea!” Derrami shouts. She is the opposite of her captor. Short, plump and weak, pale, hair light and curly, ears long and tinged with a pink flush.
The officer withdraws her fingers, raising an eyebrow. “What wasn’t your idea, doctor?”
Derrami doesn’t dare respond. Her plea is true: It was not her idea. She didn’t want to hurt them. Especially not when they were so… real. Such real people.
But at the same time, she was terrified. She needed to know. Both for her government, and for herself. She needed to know why. How. How can people change like this, by the billions, in only a few months?
“Doctor… You’re sweating terribly. You feel warm. Why, I’d almost say you have a fever.” The hand approaches her again, brushing hair out of her face.
“We did a basic medical, Ma’am,” one of the soldiers volunteers from behind. “She’s perfectly healthy. Anxiety attack, most likely.”
“Really?” The officer doesn’t sound like she disagrees, exactly, but she is unsure. “Miss Derrami, you look… pink. I wonder if you’re thinking about what we’re going to do to you?”
Derrami’s mouth is as dry as a desert. She sucks her lips between her teeth, staring at the floor.
By now, the Sintra are known for many things. Relentlessness. Brutality. Degeneracy. …Promiscuity. And Derrami knows more about them than most.
The one thing nobody else knows is how hot it makes her feel.
Stupid. Idiotic. Why does she tremble in pleasure? Sick. Sick in the head. Mental illness. Damaged. Insane, even. A proper Avari should not feel sexual impulses except in bed. Yet somehow, she feels the impulse even now. A pathetic drive. To be controlled. To be obedient. The sort of thing she relentlessly consumed media of in various ill-advised web groups in her twenties. The sort of thing she left behind when she got a real job!
Sex, romance… such a painful world. But the idea of someone doing it for her, making her body work against her own confused mind…
That desire never really went away, but when she became famous for her papers, paranoia made the doctor delete her old collections, burn all her old contacts. Remove everything. Forget it all.
Open sexual discussions are beyond shameful to the avari, deviant ones especially so. The Grand Council would have stripped her titles if such a thing became known. She did what she had to do. She became an immaculate professional.
She never imagined her wildest fantasies would bleed into reality decades later.
“Tell us right away if you feel ill, Derrami. You’re far too valuable to lose,” the officer explains with a grin. “Get her comfortable in a cell. Just her. Nobody else. And no touching until we return home.”
Derrami can’t do anything except scream inside her own mind.
She is led down the long, linear hall. An energized door powers down and opens for her. But as they attempt to force her inside, panic overtakes her.
“No! Please!” She digs her heels against the smooth floor, trying not to be pushed forward. “What’s going to happen?! Please tell me! Why are you like this? Why? What happened to you?” she begs. They are alive, living people. Regal, confident, martial! But they do not wear the red and white of the Council. They wear the grey and violet of the invasive parasite.
The officer behind her gives a gentle, condescending scoff. “Aren’t you supposed to have figured that out?”
The researcher turns pale as a sheet, even as she thrashes in place, desperate not to be placed inside of the small, dimly lit cell.
“She might hurt herself like this. Tranquilize her, if you would.”
“Wait!” she cries out, but it’s too late. A small cylinder presses against her shoulder, and a pinch strikes her skin. The weeping mess of a woman cries out, one long gasp. Then she loses motor control. Her wiggling slows, and with great care, she is placed upon the ground.
“Just relax,” calls the voice. Derrami’s eyes close. She doesn’t hear the rest of the sentence.
And then, light.
—
Bright light. Violet light outside of her eyelids. No: it’s white. No: it’s more than white.
“What a satisfying resolution to your story.”
The words are explosive. They are detonations inside of Derrami’s mind. They are a winding, weary song, old and young. Maximum and minimum.
“HELP!” Is all that the woman can muster in reply. “Help me!” There isn’t anything. Just color beyond color. There’s no way to move, no way to scream. She isn’t able to make a sound. Is this a bad trip? Is this some kind of sleep paralysis?
But the voice understands her cry for help. Doesn't it? Despite the fact she feels wrapped in layers of concrete, Derrami is Known. She is Visible. Almost naked, in front of this presence. Could this be…?
“You have a question for me,” the voice gently prompts. “Ask it.”
There are a lot of questions. ‘When did I get here’ is a solid start. She was being shoved into a cell, and then… this. No inbetween. She wasn’t made to kneel before some strange being. She wasn’t made to beg for mercy or pledge loyalty to anyone. Is this the Empress? Or is this sensory overload?
She feels weightless. She isn’t sure what position her body is in. A question? Does she even have the power to come up with a question?
‘Who are you?’ No. She is too afraid. ‘What happens now?’ That’s what she thought she wanted to know. But she does know. She is going to become someone else. She is going to serve the Empress with complete loyalty. With unbreakable will. But why? How?
That’s it! That’s the question!
“How?” she cries out, into the white rainbow.
“Time,” the voice replies.
White light.
Ceiling light. White light above her, a ring of lights. Her eyes try to open, but the light is too bright.
She flexes her fingers. She's on something solid.
“Ah, she's coming around!”
Again, she tries to open her eyes. It hurts too much. Who is speaking? She tries to reply, but her mouth is numb. “Wushappen?” Is all she can mumble. The memories of the light and the voice begin to blur. Did that happen? …Did the breach of the facility happen? Is this happening? How much of her memory is real?
“You don’t need to sit up right away, doctor. You don't—oh, alright. If you're going to, then take my hand.”
As she tries to move, Derrami feels something touch her fingers. It feels very odd. There is something odd about her whole body. A sort of ‘stuck’ feeling. But she takes the hand that is offered to her, if only because she is afraid of having nothing to hold. It's a larger hand than hers. It pulls her upright easily, quickly. Frighteningly fast. She ends up leaning her whole body against the arm in front of her as she sits upright. There are quiet beeps in the background. Light chatter. A strange smell. And a firm presence to her side, which she grips onto for dear life. Now that she is no longer staring at the lights on the ceiling, she opens her eyes.
Grey. Sleek. Chrome. It’s Sintra architecture all around her. It’s rows of computers, machines. Tanks of fluid. Medical beds.
She turns to her right.
She clings desperately to a tall, dark-skinned avari, with wavy black hair, smiling. A strange twinkle in her eyes, and two violet stripes upon her sleek, form-fitting uniform. But this is not nearly so alarming as what the doctor sees upon her own skin: a sleek, tight uniform, just the same.
“Why am I—? What—!” She jumps back, nearly flying off the thin metal bed she was lying on. In fact, she would have fallen over, if not for the stranger reaching out to catch her, preventing the doctor from smashing her skull on the floor. Derrami reaches down, touching her own clothes. The material hugs at her skin, it twists around with her body, it covers everything below the neck. There are no stripes, but it is unmistakably a Sintra uniform. “No. I’m not. I don’t serve your Empress! I don’t, I—!”
Derrami abruptly shuts up. The stranger gently pulls her upright again, still smiling.
For all her supposed genius, the idea of ‘I shouldn’t reveal that I resisted whatever was just attempted on me, and instead I should play along’ didn’t occur to the doctor. She stares into the eyes of her captor with horror.
The woman gives a polite wink. “My name is Tema. Tema of Fifth Gaze.”
This uniform does not feel right. It feels sexual, somehow. Avari clothes are not meant to show off the body. This is like underwear! She can’t help but cover her chest with one arm, and her crotch with the other.
“And who are you?” Tema asks.
“Why?” Derrami quakes, looking down, pinching the shoulder of her clothes, playing with the moldable texture. She is shaking so violently that her golden hair falls out from behind her ears. She can’t stand the touch of the hand on her back, but she’s too afraid to try to move away from this woman. “Why am I…?”
“To get you used to it.”
She twists her head around, looking at what she can only imagine is some kind of twisted experimental laboratory. “But I’m not—I’m not—”
“You are. Starting now. Now please, tell me your name?”
“I’m Der—you know who I am!” she suddenly cries out, indignant beyond measure. “Where are my clothes? What happened?” She tries to crawl backwards on the bed, out of range of her captor.
The woman named ‘Tema’ gently holds the doctor in place, forcing her to sit upright and sit still. “Be polite, please, and I will do the same. First, try and relax.”
The small scientist’s eyes land on her captor’s belt. She reaches out, grabs the gun from it, twists it around in her hand and pulls the trigger.
Nothing happens.
Tema sighs, completely unflinching. “That’s not really what I meant when I said to relax.”
After pulling the trigger several more times, Derrami drops the weapon on the bed, and backs away. “I’m sorry,” she begs, slipping out of the arms of her enemy and pressing herself against the far wall as she remains seated on the bed. The suit is so thin, yet somehow it cushions her against the metal behind her body.
“You aren’t sorry in the least.” The smile becomes wry, before turning into a pitying frown. Tema reaches down and picks the weapon off the bed, reholstering it with no real rush. “But that’s alright. You’re scared. We aren’t going to punish you for your initial burst of fear. …I want to explain a few things to you. Will you listen?”
“What did you do to me?” Derrami reaches down and touches her body through the suit. Her stomach, her sides: feeling for any possible bruises or sore spots from surgical incisions. She reaches up and touches her neck. “What is this room for? Why am I here? What did you—”
“As I said, I want to explain things to you. So be quiet, perhaps?” There is a hint of sternness in the woman’s voice.
In utter horror, the doctor nods.
“This,” Tema indicates around the room, waving her finger in a circle. “Is your dream.”
Dream. Derrami’s eyes light up. Dream! The dream? The thing the Sintra spoke of, during those… awful interrogations? Is the ‘dream’ the reason? Is the dream what makes people change?
“You know what I mean?” Tema asks, surprised by how strongly the prisoner has reacted.
“I—no. I don’t,” Derrami admits. If she did, maybe they’d be winning the war. Maybe she wouldn’t be a captive. “What is the dream?”
“You are going to dream of a new life.”
Derrami blinks repeatedly, confused and baffled. She looks around again. There are others here. Doctors? Soldiers? …Patients? If everyone who was captured is forced to wear a Sintra uniform, how will she tell who is who? How will anyone?
She tries to process the words. “You’re forcing me to dream. Of… being Sintra?” The scientist inside of the terrified woman has awakened. She wants to know. She wants to understand the mechanisms that will be her end. If nothing else, she can be satisfied while she experiences her ego death.
“Yes!” Tema joyously agrees.
“But why would I?” the doctor asks, still covering herself. “You—you can put me in a uniform, that doesn’t mean I’ll listen to you. I’m not one of you.”
“You don’t have to listen! That’s the beauty of it. You can do anything you want. Until we stop taking it easy on you, I mean.” Tema gently claps her hands together, still grinning.
Derrami pinches her suit again, testing the elasticity of it. Peeling it from her arm, letting it pop back into place. She reaches up and pinches her cheek. Hard. She focuses on the idea of kicking her legs: something that normally causes her to fall out of bed and wake up from her nightmares.
“I’m not dreaming,” she decides, looking toward her captor with doubt.
“It’s not that kind of dream.”
Derrami blinks again, and says nothing.
“Think of it like this: we’re playing pretend. I would like you to pretend you’re a Sintra-Avari for me.”
“Are you stupid?” the doctor asks, brow furrowing in anger. Suddenly, she is not so curious. “Do you think I’m stupid? This—this is not how you—this doesn’t work! This is childish! Where is your Empress? How do you really do it? How do you really change people?”
Tema of Fifth Gaze, whoever she is, gives a great big beaming smile once again. “Slowly and carefully.”
Waves of light nausea wash over Derrami as she keeps her back pressed against the wall. She reaches up and rubs the sweat from her brow. “You capture your own kind, you dress them up, tell them they’re dreaming and that it’s all going to be ok? Tell them they just have to play pretend? And that’s how you’ve turned billions of people into lunatics?”
“Fantastic!” Tema exclaims, grin widening. “You really are as smart as they say!”
“Fuck off.”
“I’m serious.” The large woman gives a severe look. Not angry: just intentional.
Derrami swallows. Her throat is so tense that it is almost impossible. “Is it a drug, or a micro implant? Those are the only two I can’t rule out.”
Tema points to herself with both hands, before making a wide gesture. “I have free will.” She points to the doctor. “You have free will. You already figured out the puzzle. The only ingredient you’re missing is time.”
Time.
“Are you the Empress?” the tiny woman gasps.
Tema laughs politely. “No! No, not… not nearly so important as that. I am your custodian, from now until your awakening. I will be like your guide. Your companion. You understand?”
The prisoner just stares straight ahead, slack-jawed. That word, ‘time’. It makes her remember the blinding light. The weightlessness. Was it more than a dream? It was gone from her mind the moment she woke up, but it felt so… specific.
“Companion?” she finally chokes out, cheeks flushed at the use of the term: one with more than one meaning, in Avari dialect.
“Nevermind, nevermind.” Tema shakes her head and her hands. “I’m making this more confusing than it needs to be. Why don’t we get out of medical, and have a conversation somewhere more pleasant. Does that sound good?”
“Out?” the doctor asks, like a yon hound hearing the word ‘walk’.
Tema steps to the side, gesturing to the floor. “You should be able to stand on your own.”
Without hesitation, Derrami rises up. But the creases around her crotch force her to cover herself once again. She can’t stand it. She shuffles forward, looking around, looking for the exit. She glances at Tema…
Gods, this woman is huge. Tema is enormous. She is a full head in height above the doctor! A sleek obelisk of muscle. “How do I get… out?” she meekly inquires.
Tema silently gestures to one of the many doors to the room. “This way.”
Without a clue what her next steps should be, her goal, or even where she is or what has happened to her, Derrami walks over to the door and stares at the gently glowing square panel by its side. A Sintra control panel. She didn’t do much studying of their technology: but she knows that they only open for Sintra biosigns.
“They’ll open for you,” Tema calls out from behind, almost as though reading her mind.
Derrami whips around, shock evident on her face. She cowers as she realizes that the Sintra has come closer.
“You are Sintra, like it or not. Your rank is ‘recruit’. You serve aboard this ship, which is called the Fifth Gaze. You can go anywhere within your clearance.”
A faint and frantic smile crosses the face of the researcher as she quivers in front of her massive escort, tensed like a runner at the starting line. She can’t quite believe any of this. “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me where the escape pods are?”
“Go straight to the double-wide hallway, take a left, go to the elevators. Go to any odd-numbered deck. Follow the lights,” Tema pleasantly explains.
“S—stop fucking with me!” The humor is gone. Derrami almost chokes on her words, backing away until her body is up against the sealed door.
“I’m serious.” Tema follows, staying just a few steps away. “But they won’t launch for you, I’m afraid. I’ve placed you on a restricted list.”
“Prove this is a dream! Right now! Prove that I’m dreaming!” the doctor demands, face scrunched with the force of disbelief.
“I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do that you can’t just dismiss as technology or trickery. Besides, like I told you: it’s not that kind of dream.”
“It’s just a code word, after all? There’s nothing special to it? This is… How did you cook this up? Did you read a textbook on cult recruitment? This is—! It's childish!” Childish. That's the only word that makes sense. This woman is younger than she is, but the doctor is somehow being treated like a toddler.
Tema takes a step forward, and the doctor’s body becomes straight as an arrow, backed against the door. Her face turns pink as Tema walks just close enough that their chests are nearly touching. “I can’t convince you, but I can show you things, Derrami. I want to show you the beauty that the Empress wants to give you.”
“Fuck!” Derrami twists away, sliding along the wall, trying to escape, feeling nauseated. She pushes herself along until she bumps into a row of curtains, ducking under them, only to find herself yanked back by a powerful arm.
“Not in there, please!” The guardian presses Derrami up against her body as she restrains her, causing the doctor to flinch and fidget away, trying to restrain herself from a full-on scream. “That one is still sleeping. They won’t wake up for another hour.”
“D—d—did I—did—”
“Calm down.”
Derrami is being bear-hugged from behind, crushed against a wall of muscle. How can she possibly remain calm!?
“Deep breath.”
The doctor stares at the fluttering curtain. She looks around. There are several small curtained-off sections of the room. She looks back to where she woke up: sure enough, there is a curtain, withdrawn, over the place she once rested.
How many others are there? Eight? How many… how many of these beds had more avari in them?
“Z—zero. Zero turnaround,” she wheezes in a panic.
“What was that?” Tema asks, politely, not relenting from her forceful hug.
“Nobody gets out.” Tears are flowing from her eyes. It feels like a massive orb is stuck in her throat. “Zero percent. Zero successful cases. The Sintra can’t be un-indoctrinated. I’m not gonna… escape, am I?”
“No. You aren’t.”
“Of course you won’t tell me what you’re going to do.” She almost laughs at her own naivety. “Not until it’s too late.”
“You can have as much time to adjust as you want.” Tema slowly, carefully releases her restrained guest. “You can have lifetimes, in fact. As many lifetimes as you wish. Now, like I was saying, why don’t we go have a little sit-down somewhere else?”
“No!” The prisoner—is she a prisoner, or a Sintra?—slips away just as soon as Tema makes the mistake of letting her go. Eyes wide, limbs flailing, she slams her hand against the controls for the main exit: and it opens. Sweet heaven, it opens for her! It’s true! The metal sheet slides away, and she steps into the exterior hallway before she even looks at it.
And what now?
She rushes forward, down the hall, barreling past a few Sintra who pay her no mind, besides a minor glare for the noise she is making. There are so many rooms, so many doors, so many halls.
Where can she go? On an enemy ship? What does—what would a soldier do? What would someone who knows anything do? Take it over? Sabotage it? She doesn’t know a godsdamned thing. What the hell can she do?
Before she can move, before she can question why it’s so easy, hands wrap around her waist. Her body freezes. “Hey,” Tema quietly murmurs from behind. “You can try to run. But I should mention—”
She kicks, she squirms, she pushes her attacker off. She tries to dash toward—where was it the escape pods were? An elevator, somewhere! She scampers, but slips. She falls, bruising her arm as she slams into the metal floor, yelping in shock before moaning in pain.
Several people turn to look. A small group gathers around her.
“But I should mention that if you displease the Empress too much, even during your adjustment phase, your dream will get worse.” Tema smiles as she stands above her prey. “Much worse. You should stay with me, instead.”
“Who in hell are you?” The doctor begs, heaving and panting. “You aren’t Avari!”
“Not anymore.”
The woman on the floor is shocked. That’s not the answer she expected. That’s not right. All of the Sintra insist that they are Avari. They always do, no matter what.
“We are all but a dream of the Empress, Derrami. And I’m afraid that her dream is stronger than yours.”
Derrami stares up from the floor, silent except for her ragged breath.
“If you obey, you will live a long and beautiful life. If you do not, you will die a long and horrible death. It’s that simple.”
“That’s all it takes to change an avari’s mind?” she asks. “To make them change sides?”
“Yes,” Tema explains. “It just takes some time.”
“Time.” The doctor’s eyes flicker again.
A smile. “You heard her voice, didn’t you? I could see it in your face when you first woke up.” Tema squats down in front of the doctor, offering a gloved hand. “I think she respects your work, on some level. In the same way you might respect the work of a vigorous insect. You know?”
The unwilling dreamer slaps the offered hand away, and crawls up to her knees on her own. Then, she stands. “I won’t bend for you,” she declares, even as she trembles.
Tema rises with her. “You’re going to be easier than anyone else.”
Derrami looks the dark avari up and down in irritation. So condescending. So arrogant. So detestable. “Is that so?” she scoffs, backing away, nervously glancing at the small group that has surrounded her. There is no longer anywhere to run.
“Yes. You’re too curious for your own good.” Tema follows. She follows until the doctor’s frightened little body is pressed against the wall. Then she leans in right up to her face, while her hand slides into place against the cool metal, just close enough for Derrami to know that she is an inch away from being touched. “And more importantly, you’re just going to love it. You fell in love with me the moment I touched that little hand of yours.”
Derrami is suddenly defenseless. Weak. Her mind blank, her thoughts screaming at her to run, but body unresponsive.
“You think I can’t tell? From how you react to my touch?” The hand against the wall slides over, until it becomes a hand on a hip. Derrami flinches, shivers, blinks and tries to squirm away: but another hand presses up against the wall on the opposite side, trapping her between them.
“I—”
“Don’t worry, Derrami. Don’t scream,” the tall and powerful Sintra reassures. Her fingers reach out to stroke the doctor’s pale chin, turning her face up, forcing her into eye contact once again. “We’re going to start very simple. Your first lesson is: I am in charge, and you will obey.”