Elysium: Book Six of The Liminality

Chapter 17: Seepage

It's dark out when I finally finish the loop around the observatory. In night mode, the floor of the promenade emanates a faint glow but the chambers along the inner wall are completely dark as is the island below. As usual, there are bonfires all along the shore and some of the lower slopes

I'm clutching my harvested strands all bundled up in my zipped hoodie tight against my bare chest. I feel like a looter whenever I come across another soul on the promenade but no one seems to notice or care what I'm carrying.

All of the unilluminated chambers look so much alike that I miss my mark and go right past the corridor leading to my cabin. A hear a slithery, thumping sound behind me and it's a pod—my pod I assume—scrambling after me like some dang loyal dog. It's amazing how fast that thing can go without having actual legs.

The pod comes right up to me in the hall and pops open wide, silently beseeching me to climb in. I hesitate. I really don't want to enter the damned thing, but I do anyhow, concerned I might hurt its feelings as if that were possible.

Somehow I kind of sort of trust it now not to kidnap me, so I let it take me home. But when it seals up, I am kicking myself. Am I really this big a sucker? Did I just let myself get taken hostage again? How many times am I going to let myself be fooled?

My trust is rewarded, though, by a very short ride, right back to my chamber as intended. I'm a little irked, though, when it crashes into the wall of the cabin, again cracking more of the frame. I wish there was a way to teach it how to park outside or at least go in through the front door.

I clamber out and pat its spongey sides, pleased by its obedience. This thing is basically an avatar I didn't create, now attuned to my will just like Billy was before he petered away into nothingness.

I'm thinking this pod needs a name. Fido would have been a good one, but I had already wasted that name on Fritz's beast. Rover? Or maybe Uber. I figure that was more appropriate for something that existed only to shuttle me around at my beck and call.

"Okay. I'm calling you Uber from now on. Got it?"

I wish there was some way for the damned thing to acknowledge. That was the thing about these avatars. They never have faces. No means of communication with their masters.

"Uber. You're Uber." I point and stare and enunciate as if I'm training a dog.

I go over to the kitchen table, wipe it clean of splinters and cracked plaster, and dump my load of loom strands onto it. I untangle them and lay them out side by side, sorting them by color and brightness. They're limp and well-behaved. They don't try to escape like roots.

There are sixteen strands in total and all but one has extensive coloration at both ends. One is dark all the up to one tip where there was a meager splash of blue. All the rest are dark on either end of their midpoints, though the darkness tends to favor one end or another.

Their lengths vary considerably. The longest stretches from my shoulder to my finger tips and the shortest is just twice the length of my hand.

I can't seem to make sense of their banding. I try to remember what little Gaia taught me about reading them. Each strand represents the connection between two souls. The black parts in the middle represent unrealized potential—room for growth in a relationship. Each end displays the current status and history of each soul in the pair.

My problem is I have no idea what the colors mean. I also have no way to determine which end is mine or even who the other end belongs to.

I mean, I can guess. There are only a few strands that are bright and well developed at both ends. Maybe seven in total. These must represent most significant people in my life, past and present, living and dead. My parents are clearly among this group. Gaia, for sure. Urszula. Bern and Lille. Karla?