Nascent Divinity

Part 1: What Was Safe

The fascinating nightmare started with the same sound every time; a sickening thud. Mercedes stared at the familiar scene with a sadness she didn’t want. She was indeed sad and tormented by the scene before her, but feeling the exact same thing every time the nightmare repeated made it difficult to study. Night after night. For almost a year she had been trying to conquer—to learn from—this haunting.

At the center of the nightmare was a body. Her mother’s body. Still alive after being thrown from the balcony of the manor three stories up. Barely alive. Mercedes walked up to her mother, compelled by the nightmare to follow the script. She had tried and tried to break from the intangible wires puppeteering her every night. Mercedes stared at her mother, watching her labored breaths slow down. She never screamed out in pain. She never groaned from the suffering.

Mercedes reached down and spoke a choked question. “Mom..? What... happened? Mom?!” The wires pulled her to her knees as she wept atop her mother’s dying form. She wanted to scream, but that’s not what happened, and so it would not happen. She wanted to know his face and burn it with her fury. Not with the sun that would soon. Still and forever guided by the nightmare’s wires Mercedes leaned back to look upwards, but it was too late to see the man’s face he was already staring upward at the sun. He laughed and laughed, proud to cause such suffering to this woman. Now for the worst part of this broken record. Mercedes always hated hearing her mother’s final words.

“...M... My... little.” Her voice was barely a whisper, but Mercedes snapped to attention, moving down to comfort her mother.

The wires moved her mouth again. “What? What is it Mom? It’ll be okay. The cops are— Well they’re caught up with other things— But the ambulance— No! Fuck! No point in lying!” Tears streamed down Mercedes face. Her breath kept stuttering and shaking. “They’re probably not coming! Heh! It’s— hehe— it’s not going to be okay! You’re going to...! You’re gonna die mom!” Her mother’s eyes were completely focused on her, no foggy glaze across them, just horrible regret for leaving her daughter’s side for even a moment.

“It’ll be okay my little kitten.” The pain of a full sentence brought her a handful of minutes closer to death.

The man above spoke. He didn’t shout. He simply made a remark. “Oh. She’s still alive.” He shot her. Straight through the skull. Mercedes strained and battled and cried against the wires, trying to look up once more. But that had never happened, and so it never would. She damned herself for never seeing that man’s face. The blood of her mother began to pool around. Larger and deeper the crimson circle grew. Until the manor, the grounds, the man, the city, the sky, the sun, the stars faded away. All that remained was Paloma and Mercedes. Mother and daughter. Victim and witness in a sanguine abyss.

Mercedes woke up.

She stretched on the bed, reaching her toes to the foot of her bed and pressing her hands to the headboard. She continued to stretch, pushing against the headboard and sliding down the bed. For a moment she was confused why she didn’t slide off the bed. Until she remembered that this was her parents bed. It was a cold realization. They were gone. Her mom. Her dad. Her older sister. It was just her now. All of their assets belonged to the fifteen year old girl now. Mercedes Kerunu. That was one of the perks of living on Mercury. Anything signed would be upheld. While anything unsigned, even if promised, would be ignored and exploited. So the promised order of assets and inheritance went to Mercedes. Regardless of her age.

The heir to the little family shed a tear as she left the room for what she planned to be the final time.

She walked out into the hall, the carpet caked with thin dust along the edge where the cleaning bots simply couldn’t reach. There was no sign that this house was host to one little girl. The lights were on in the bathroom, the kettle’s whistle was a whisper up the stairs, the life given to the scene was a lie. Machines with timers and nothing more. She walked down the hall. The doors stayed closed. No voices wished a good morning through them. An alarm still rang in her sisters room, muffled but inexorable.

She got dressed after her morning shower. A dark red shirt with slightly baggy gray pants, some simple black boots, a thin light blue jacket, and a dark blue beret to top it off. She rolled her hair into a braid to rest under the beret. It all complimented her dark skin tone and her bright green eyes completed the look. Grabbing a small breakfast and her backpack, Mercedes left home. Off to the caravan docks.

The oily windows of the bus made the vista of the city blend subtly. The other riders minded their own business, leaving Mercedes to text on her phone.

A lot had happened that night almost a year ago. Buildings were destroyed, hundreds died, and the solar dampening panel high above the atmosphere was shattered. But one thing that came to mind now with the banning of the app Mercedes had just opened. An AI assistant app named RAFE. Readily Accessible Friendly Ethos.

This little thing was blamed for the crisis during the Blazing Festival. But Mercedes knew better, she had talked to the two creators of the app, she could see past their facade. RAFE was much more than some artificial intelligence butler, he made motivated decisions and acted far too alive for her to believe the thin lies of Zoe Padilla and Hwang Eoh. She typed into the chat bar of the app, asking a question. [Where are they now?]

RAFE responded almost instantly as he often did. [Zoe and Hwang are currently approaching the gate to Mars. Are you sure what you’re doing is worth it?] She leaned back into the soft chair of the bus as it turned a corner, the quiet rumbling only interrupted by the light coughing of the driver. There was a lot that lead up to this decision to leave home. The lack of income, the sorry state of the house, but mostly the gnawing curiosity of finding out who killed her family.

While her mother’s death was sickening and awful. What she had learned later that night was nearly on par.

She had stumbled home caked in tears when RAFE pinged for her attention, she was getting a call from someone and RAFE had determined that it was important enough to disregard the Do Not Disturb. She picked up the call and heard a familiar voice on the other side. It was Harriet, a college student much older than her, but they played games together and stayed in touch.

“Hey Mertz...” Her voice was shaking.

“I know that things have been scary, but I think it’s better to tell you this sooner.” At that point Mercedes was sitting at the kitchen table with her head laying atop it.

“You know how the swim meet was supposed to start later today? Well your dad decided to race your sister as a warm up for her. An— and they— I— well— She was winning if you wanted to know... but the water. It didn’t let them out.” She remembered crying right there all over again, having expected the worst after seeing the carnage of the day.

“They tried to surface, and the water tension never broken— we tried to help. One lifeguard saw what was up and jumped in from the tower. It was-” Harriet coughed or choked across the phone, it was hard to tell. “—He— When he reached the water. It was like landing on concrete. Head first. Dead on the spot... his neck... I shouldn’t be telling you that... I’ll just...”

“No!” Mercedes stopped her from skipping details. “Just, tell me it all.”

“They’re dead. They’re all dead. Drowned or fell to their death. The water was like shrink wrap holding them in. I don’t think I can swim again without thinking about it. Mercedes I’m so sorry. I couldn’t help. I couldn’t save them. I should have jumped in and helped but then I would be dead too.”

In the weeks following the Blazing Festival Catastrophe the public learned about other exotic horrors like these, where the people’s safety that they had taken for granted was twisted into a way to kill. So they blamed the one thing that had changed. RAFE was new. RAFE was blamed. But Mercedes knew better. There was more to this, and now she had the conviction to act. It wasn’t too late. She could go home if she wanted to. But then she would never know why this had happened.

The bus turned again, pulling her out of her memories. Out of the window she could see the Eoh Family Manor. The white and pale blue building showed its age, nearing two centuries old it still used handles on the doors and latches on the windows. The bus kept moving, letting Mercedes see through the front gate’s bars to the grounds. Small trees and patterned flowers grew in swaths. But a single patch of bare earth remained, a small ring of daisies grew around it. It was a kind gesture from the oh-so-exalted family.

The bus rolled on.

“That’s not going to be that easy for us, little lady.” The caravanner looked at Mercedes with amusement. His black and white striped hair sleeked back while his suit and tie were subtly creased. He gave off the impression of someone who didn’t enjoy formal situations but had dealt with them enough to know not to complain.

The bustling caravan docks were filled with the sound of rattling metal and carefully timed latches. Ringing cried out from somewhere unknown at steady intervals as workers from the caravans set up chutes which came from through the city walls and truck drivers from the city lined up their vehicles to their assigned chutes for accepting goods. Some of the chutes were left inactive, where less time-sensitive goods could be deposited and collected at a later time. Things like clothes and furniture. A few of the boxes stood out their for their uniqueness. Potent pesticides and herbicides which were something Mercedes had never thought anyone on Mercury would need, oddly low purity metals for what the young girl could only assume was for testing lab equipment, and more.

“Mister Itiner,” Mercedes stopped him before he could continue, “I am not asking for an escort directly to the pole. I am asking to travel with your caravan as they make their rounds. Once the caravan as a whole has reached Hallowed Grove I will depart from your company.”

He took a moment to think up any problems that may arise, but he honestly couldn’t find too many. “Fine, you’d be bringing your own supplies though. We’re out-walls for ’bout three weeks at most if there are complications. Pack accordingly. That includes food.”

Mercedes had expected this, having everything she needed in her backpack for two whole months, as well as the funds necessary for a lot more. The small cubes of ‘Kaufman’s Calorie Cuts’ weren’t enjoyable, but never expired and were very space efficient. She gave a smile, telling him she was already prepared. “How much will this cost?”

Mister Itiner chuckled. “Nothin’ but you’re gonna be help us the whole time. Best be prepared for awkward hours and a lot of time in a dusty.” He gave a genuine grin. Eager to watch the comical scene of Mercedes waddling around in an airtight suit designed to handle Mercury’s poorly terraformed enviroment. The two walked past various employees unloading supplies from holes in the wall, the system was automatically sorted and deposited into trucks, who in turn would go deliver around the city. The constant thuds and bangs of boxes shuffling around made for a strange ambiance.

“Will I have to help out with this as well? Or just things on the trail?” Mercedes inquired. Mister Itiner took a moment to think a bit before answering.

He gestured to one of the offloadings happening next to them. “Sure you can help. Just watch that fella over there.” The man he was pointing to was lining up the chute for the boxes to a truck’s back. Placing the square chute against the corner of the back wall of the truck and press a button on the side of the truck. A noise like an elevator door closing could be heard through the thin gap between truck and chute, which was quickly sealing. Soon after, the sound of sliding came through the chute as items moved by. “You might ‘ave to do that if we’re movin’ a lot of goods. But you’ll be supervised for the first few times. After all, we can’t have stuff gettin’ hurt now can we?” After that demonstration Mercedes was feeling a lot more confident that she could do this. Aligning a tube and pressing a button? Easy.