{"id":780,"date":"2024-10-08T19:54:46","date_gmt":"2024-10-08T23:54:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/?p=780"},"modified":"2025-01-28T23:27:00","modified_gmt":"2025-01-29T04:27:00","slug":"the-changeling-game-chapter-72","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/the-changeling-game-chapter-72\/","title":{"rendered":"The Changeling Game, Chapter 72"},"content":{"rendered":"<style type=\"text\/css\">\ntt {\nfont: .857em menlo, monaco, consolas, monospace;\nmargin: auto;\n}\nh2 {\ntext-align: center;\n}\nh2.chapterhead {\nmargin-bottom: 2em;\ntext-align: center;\n}\n  .nowrap {\n    text-indent: 0;\n    display: inline-block;\n}\n<\/style>\n<p><b>Title:<\/b> The Changeling Game <small>(Formerly <i>Identity Theft<\/i>)<\/small><br \/>\n<b>Author:<\/b> Ardath Rekha<br \/>\n<b>Chapter:<\/b> 72\/?<br \/>\n<b>Fandom:<\/b> <i>Pitch Black<\/i> (2000); <i>The Chronicles of Riddick<\/i> (2004); <i>The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury<\/i> (2004)<br \/>\n<b>Rating:<\/b> M<br \/>\n<b>Warnings:<\/b> Adult themes, controversial subject matter, harsh language, violence<br \/>\n<b>Category:<\/b> Gen<br \/>\n<b>Pairing:<\/b> None<br \/>\n<b>Summary:<\/b> Audrey tries to cope with a dark and foreboding future as she forecasts a deadly path of destruction, while struggling to keep her own plans from collapsing.<br \/>\n<b>Disclaimer:<\/b> The characters and events of <i>Pitch Black,<\/i> <i>The Chronicles of Riddick,<\/i> and <i>The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury<\/i> are not mine, but belong to Universal Studios.  I just <i>wish<\/i> I were in charge of their fates.  No money is being made off of this.  I\u2019m writing strictly for love of the story.<br \/>\n<b>Feedback:<\/b> Absolutely, the more the better!  Shred me, whip me, beat me, make me feel grammatical! I post \u201crough,\u201d so I can always use the help. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n<input type='hidden' bg_collapse_expand='6ae81b573399a0056795212' value='6ae81b573399a0056795212'><input type='hidden' id='bg-show-more-text-6ae81b573399a0056795212' value='Long post is long. Click to read the story.'><input type='hidden' id='bg-show-less-text-6ae81b573399a0056795212' value='Hide the story again.'><button id='bg-showmore-action-6ae81b573399a0056795212' class='bg-showmore-plg-button bg-green-button  '   style=\" color:#D9ECFB;\">Long post is long. Click to read the story.<\/button><div id='bg-showmore-hidden-6ae81b573399a0056795212' ><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"chapterhead\">72.<br \/>\n<u>The Planet-Killer\u2019s Hit List<\/u><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cWe understand that you have a report for us, Audrey.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She nodded, studying the faces\u2014the few she could see\u2014on the screen. General Toal, Todd, and Dennis were visible; most of the other participants had their faces hidden and their names reduced to first letters. Apparently, she wasn\u2019t cleared to know who they were. Most of the others couldn\u2019t see <i>her<\/i> face, either, though.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She also, apparently, wasn\u2019t cleared to know how they\u2019d stolen Quintessa\u2019s proprietary tech for making instantaneous calls across the light years\u2026 but she had her suspicions about that. She\u2019d already been warned not to ask.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cI\u2019ve identified the pattern in almost all of the planetary destruction cases on record,\u201d she told them. \u201cAnd, based on that pattern, we can predict which planets are next, for roughly the next fourteen years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cWhen will Helion Prime fall?\u201d Toal asked before she could continue.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cSometime in October 2521, so probably less than eleven Standard months from now.\u201d <i>Merry Christmas,<\/i> she didn\u2019t add, although she was tempted. That was four days away and it felt like it was going to be her worst since the one on Helion Prime itself. \u201cIn between now and then, around May, we should expect to see the Aquilan system fall. I\u2019m guessing the Quintessa people didn\u2019t talk about it in their call because it\u2019s not a shipping or travel hub. It\u2019s almost as much of a backwater as the planet <i>I\u2019m<\/i> on.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cAudrey,\u201d Michael murmured behind her.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She made herself let it go. For now. She was going to try to plead her case to General Toal again at the end of the call.\n<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cWhat is the driver behind the pattern?\u201d one of the concealed speakers asked, their voice digitally altered.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>Yeah, let\u2019s just cut to the chase, why don\u2019t we?<\/i> \u201cLevel Five Incidents.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cOfficially, such incidents don\u2019t exist. How have you managed to track them?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>Because I have nothing else to do with my time\u2026<\/i> \u201cI started with a database of all incidents in which a Star Jumper was reported damaged or destroyed. I then excluded any case where the Jumper was later put back into service. That doesn\u2019t happen with real Level Fives. Next, I excluded cases where any of the passengers and crew survived and their whereabouts could be traced and confirmed. Real Level Fives have no known survivors. Something inevitably \u2018happens\u2019 to everybody who was on board.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">With one exception, that she couldn\u2019t help feeling a little proud of. Officially, all of <i>them<\/i> were dead, too.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cWhat did this give you?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cA list of forty-seven incidents in which a Star Jumper was irreparably damaged, or was destroyed, or vanished in transit,\u201d she told them, \u201cfrom the three earliest missing ships, the <i>Isli<\/i>, the <i>Nick Fury<\/i>, and the <i>Tenth Crusade<\/i>, to the \u2018implosions\u2019 of the <i>Scarlet Matador<\/i> and the <i>Lucy Ricardo<\/i> in May of 2517. I built a timeline of the incidents, along with their locations where known. Next, I built a database of what the Federacy calls \u2018Black Planet Incidents.\u2019 Every time a colony planet failed, for any reason, and the planet was declared uninhabitable in the aftermath. Narrowing those down took longer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cBut you did narrow them down,\u201d General Toal prompted.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYeah. Thirty-two cases, one of which is still questionable. And thirteen future targets, based on the pattern that emerged. The first attack occurred in the Ilanga system, one hundred thirty years ago. Fifty million settlers vanished in under a week. The <i>Ibhubesi,<\/i> one of the early colony ships in the second generation of Star Jumpers, experienced a catastrophic failure when it arrived in 2144. It disintegrated during its descent through Ilanga Prime\u2019s atmosphere. I know that doesn\u2019t necessarily sound like a Level Five Incident, but it\u2019s all about what might exist on the other side of the threshold it was straddling. If, for example, the atmosphere of the other \u2019verse\u2019s Ilanga Prime was highly corrosive, that would explain the recordings we have of its destruction.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cSo the fourth hypothetical Level Five Incident, which took place 376 years ago, led to an attack 246 years later?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYeah.\u201d Audrey activated her chart on the main screen so that all of the viewers could see it. \u201cIn each case that followed since then, the attacks on colony worlds that reduced them to \u2018black planets,\u2019 or \u2018black rocks,\u2019 have happened in order, corresponding to probable Level Five Incidents that occurred in-system. The only exception is the attack on Furya twenty-nine years ago. I can\u2019t find a corresponding Level Five Incident.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cWhy are you including it in your timeline, then? If it isn\u2019t part of the attack pattern\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cIt is,\u201d Michael said from behind her. \u201cI was there. It\u2019s absolutely part of the attack pattern.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Audrey switched the main screen over to a collage of video images, many of them similar to the one that she and Michael had watched a little over two months earlier. \u201cThis is surviving footage of the attacks from a dozen of the identified worlds. The top right footage comes from Furya.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cFurya is also the only world in the pattern that hasn\u2019t been reduced to \u2018black rock\u2019 status, and is still marginally habitable, even recovering,\u201d one of the hidden speakers commented. \u201cIt\u2019s a break in the pattern, yes, in more ways than one. Perhaps there\u2019s a different kind of incident that triggered its inclusion, and somewhat different treatment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cThe exception that proves the rule, maybe?\u201d another hidden speaker suggested.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cCould be,\u201d General Toal agreed. \u201cAs for the rest of the pattern\u2026 the data is quite telling. And the attacks, as our intel previously indicated, have been slowly accelerating. There was a decade between the attack on the Ilanga system and the next, on the Sorj system, then nine years until the attack on the Tjindu system. Six Indigenous Australian populations were rendered \u2018extinct\u2019 by that probable genocide. The quiet period between attacks has been steadily shrinking, and now the timeline is indicating the likelihood of three strikes in slightly over a year.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cAnd yet you predict that the remaining eleven attacks, after the Aquilan and Helion systems, will take place over a thirteen-year period,\u201d another hidden speaker noted. \u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cThe Coalsack nebula, the Aquilan system, and the Helion system are near neighbors,\u201d Audrey explained. \u201cThey <i>used<\/i> to share a trade route, but it was discontinued after three Star Jumpers experienced Level Five Incidents along it within a year of each other. One \u2018died\u2019 in the Coalsack nebula. It ruptured shortly after transitioning back into U1 within the nebula itself. Officially, it was holed by a massive asteroid, but there wasn\u2019t one recorded as passing through that space in U1 itself, and some of the other surviving readings from the ship are really weird. The next seemed fine when it docked at the space station above Aquila Prime, but all of the cargo and passengers that got shuttled down to the surface burned up during entry. The shuttles carrying them were unharmed, aside from fire damage on their <i>insides.<\/i>\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Tomlin, she suspected, had been thinking of that very incident when he had ordered the <i>Scarlet Matador<\/i> to bypass Tangiers Station B and land on the planet\u2019s surface instead.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cAnd the incident in the Helion system?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYou know how an unidentified group of terrorists supposedly blew up the <i>Mary Prince<\/i> during its entry above New Mecca, sixty years ago?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cBloody hell,\u201d one of Toal\u2019s unseen colleagues muttered.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cA week after that explosion,\u201d Audrey added, \u201cthe Quintessa Corporation announced four new routes to replace the route that the ships in those three Incidents had all used. I know, there\u2019s a <i>lot<\/i> of supposition and inference getting drawn into all of this, but all of you know just how spotty and heavily redacted the records we\u2019re working with are.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cSo you believe that the shorter timing of the next attacks is due to the close proximity of the three systems, and that we should expect intervals of roughly a year after that,\u201d Toal prompted.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYeah. And there are possibilities of unforeseen pauses.\u201d She highlighted five different spots on the chart. \u201cI don\u2019t have any guess why, but there are five times in the last hundred-twenty years when the attack pattern got pushed back by a few years each time. Maybe we\u2019ll get lucky and there\u2019ll be another pause soon, but I wouldn\u2019t count on it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cSo you are predicting the fall of the Aquilan, Helion, Melpomene, Tulsa, Trafalgar, Clovis, Oahu, Maneki Neko, Catalan, Cascadian, Dubai, Nineveh, and Tangiers systems over the next fourteen years?\u201d another unseen participant asked.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cIf the current patterns hold, yeah.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cThat\u2019s a lot to <i>accept,\u201d<\/i> yet another participant said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cEven if you don\u2019t want to believe Audrey\u2019s analysis,\u201d Michael said from behind her, \u201cwhich I think is solid, you only have to look at the intel coming from our spies in the Quintessa Corporation. The Corporation is predicting the same thing and has already begun moving its assets off the worlds in question. A week ago, the resupply route to Furya got shifted back to Tangiers Prime, and two other minor routes that relied on a stop in the Helion system got moved away a month ago. They can\u2019t shut down the major routes yet without revealing more than they seem to want to, but there are six new test routes in the Sirius Shipping dockets that bypass the Helion and Melpomene systems. Oslo Shipping has eight upcoming test routes, one of which also bypasses the Tulsa system. And no new ships are under construction in any of those systems\u2019 shipyards. Their schedules have shifted over to repairs only.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">As he spoke, Audrey called up the data he was referring to on the main screen.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cRats deserting a sinking ship,\u201d one of the unseen participants muttered. \u201cThey won\u2019t even try to warn the populations?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cIf Level Five Incidents are, indeed, the trigger for these attacks,\u201d General Toal observed, \u201ca warning would require them to admit that those Incidents are real and that the Corporation bears culpability for them and their consequences. How long <i>they<\/i> have known the connection between the two is uncertain, but even if the Coalsack planets were the first they were sure of, they have demonstrated a willingness to let millions die rather than admit their involvement.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cSo what do <i>we<\/i> do? Is there a warning we can get out to these worlds? Without exposing ourselves?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">That, Audrey reflected, was the crux of the matter. Although technically almost everyone on the call was a Federacy officer or asset of some kind, they were all involved in <i>subverting<\/i> Federacy policy. That policy included at least one form of government-sanctioned slavery and a <i>whole<\/i> lot of subservience to a corporation that held a monopoly over Faster-Than-Light travel, as well as some other forms of human rights and alien rights abuses. She and Todd were far from the first espers that General Toal had hidden away from the Federacy, she\u2019d learned. If his actions were ever uncovered, he would probably be executed for treason. And most of them, if caught, would meet fates <i>worse<\/i> than death.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Which made it nearly impossible for them to openly blow the whistle on the abuses they uncovered.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cWe\u2019ve learned some things about the armada behind the attacks, in the last few years,\u201d General Toal said. \u201cIncluding its name. Necromongers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201c\u2018Death-Dealers?\u2019\u201d One person snorted. \u201cHow <i>imaginative.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cOh\u2026 fuck.\u201d Audrey muttered before she could stop herself.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cWhat is it, Audrey?\u201d General Toal asked.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cI\u2026 I don\u2019t know for sure, but\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cGo on.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cThe <i>Moribund.<\/i> What he said to me. \u2018Death to the things that killed us. Death to the makers of the cages. Death to the \u2019verse that trapped us. A trillion deaths for every one you took from us. We come. We come to take it all back. All the worlds your filth has stolen from us will burn.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201c\u2018Moribund\u2019 means \u2018Deathbound,\u2019\u201d the person who had snorted added. \u201cWho is this \u2018Moribund?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cNot human,\u201d General Toal told the group. \u201cBut that may explain the rumors that these \u2018Necromongers\u2019 are \u2018part human and part something else.\u2019 And it would explain several other puzzles we have been working on\u2026 when was the last time you spoke to him, Audrey?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cNot in years. After New Casablanca, he hasn\u2019t tried to communicate with me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cDid he ever say anything else that might be connected to the attacks on these systems?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She thought for a moment. \u201cSomething about not needing outside help to rise\u2026 \u2018we will break the \u2019verse itself.\u2019 The last time I heard him say anything, he wasn\u2019t even talking to me directly, but I think he was talking about me. He said, \u2018let it tear down <i>all<\/i> of the cages and break the darkness, and we will agree it is not filth,\u2019 and then he said, \u2018you know what will appease us. In due time, we will make it happen.\u2019 He says \u2018we\u2019 but I don\u2019t think he has any allies among the other <i>Apeiros<\/i> themselves. Maybe he means this armada?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cAudrey is the child who is in communication with the alien species?\u201d One of the others asked.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Fucking hell. Seventeen and still \u201cthe child\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYes,\u201d Toal replied. \u201cThe \u2018Moribund\u2019 seems to be set apart from the rest of the species we call the \u2018Apeiros.\u2019 He evidently has his own agenda, one they neither agree with nor approve of, but are unable to prevent. If there <i>is<\/i> a connection between him and the Necromongers, they will not stop attacking worlds once they have wiped out all the systems where Level Five Incidents occurred. Those attacks might potentially be practice runs for all-out genocide.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">The meeting continued for a while, as others on the call discussed potential strategies for leaking information about the \u201cNecromongers\u201d into public awareness, particularly on the Aquilan and Helion systems, and what might be done to bolster planetary defenses on target worlds without signaling just how much they knew to those Federacy agents influenced or controlled by the Quintessa Corporation. Audrey listened quietly, not really able to come up with suggestions of her own about any of that. Her whole focus, for the last two months\u2014aside from keeping up in school and dealing with the fallout from the college acceptance letters she had begun receiving\u2014had been assembling the timelines and connections between Level Five Incidents and Black Planet Incidents. Thinking about what to do next about these \u201cNecromongers\u201d was something she could barely fathom. The scale of it all was overwhelming.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>If there\u2019s ever a Level Five Incident in this system,<\/i> she thought with a shudder, <i>I\u2019m gonna spend every waking second convincing Mom and Alvin to take Elodie and go <b>anywhere else\u2026<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Or, she reflected, she could shift them to <i>Elsewhere<\/i>, to play pioneers in its redwood forest\u2014<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>That<\/i> was an idea she needed to discuss with General Toal. A possible escape portal already existed on Tangiers Prime, and now on Deckard\u2019s World. Could similar ones be created on all of the other target worlds?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">The meeting was concluding. As everyone said their goodbyes, she asked General Toal if she could speak to him privately for a few minutes. Once everyone else was gone, she took a deep breath.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cI know what you\u2019re going to ask, Audrey, and I\u2019m sorry. The answer is still \u2018no.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cBut\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cI <i>am<\/i> aware of the value of the full scholarship and mentorship offer of the caliber you received. It <i>can<\/i> be postponed for up to two years to accommodate interplanetary travel issues, and I am happy to help you make the arrangements to do so. But you may not return to Tangiers Prime and begin attending Khair Eddine until you are biologically eighteen years old. That\u2019s still almost a full Standard year away. You will have to spend a minimum of five months in cryo to travel to Tangiers Prime, which I will only permit once you <i>are eighteen.<\/i> You need to plan accordingly.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cBut\u2026 what do I do in the meantime?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cWe can keep you busy, I\u2019m sure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">It was a struggle not to burst into tears. <i>Busy<\/i> wasn\u2019t the problem.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cThat\u2019s not going to help her, Sir,\u201d Michael said. \u201cShe needs more social contact with peers. And she especially needs a peer group that isn\u2019t constantly prying into her past.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She felt his hand on her shoulder and leaned back, resting the back of her head against his chest. In the last two months, it had grown easier and easier to think of Michael as a kind of father figure, although her crush on him still periodically reared up. Her way of dealing with <i>that<\/i>\u2014finding someone who reminded her of one of her <i>other<\/i> crushes and having a fling with him\u2014had only worsened her disconnect from the rest of Eisenhower High\u2019s Class of \u201921. While most of them accepted that she <i>had<\/i> been a virgin at the time of the \u201cJunior Prom Incident,\u201d her flings in the aftermath had, in their minds, moved her firmly into \u201cslut\u201d territory. They seemed particularly vindictive about it because none of their own number had gotten a taste, and especially judgmental about it because almost none of the guys who <i>had<\/i> were what they considered \u201cwhite.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>Stuck on a fucking racist, sexist planet\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Graduation was less than two months away, and a relief, but the question of what she was going to do afterward was getting messier and messier.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Eight of the ten schools she had applied to had accepted her. Five were disallowed completely thanks to her own research; General Toal had vetoed going to any schools that were on the Necromongers\u2019 \u201chit list,\u201d except the Tangiers System itself. He would have vetoed that system as well if it wouldn\u2019t have led to her all-out mutiny. But he wouldn\u2019t allow her to <i>start<\/i> traveling to either Khair Eddine <i>or<\/i> New Casablanca University until after December 4, 2521. That meant that enrollment in the Class of \u201925 was impossible. Enrollment in the Class of \u201926 <i>might<\/i> be feasible, but figuring out what to do in the meantime, to keep from getting crushed by her growing isolation\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cI do have a suggestion about that,\u201d Michael said after a moment, when neither she nor General Toal spoke. \u201cI want to relocate the safe house to Wyndham Landing at the end of the southern hemisphere summer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cHuh?\u201d Audrey glanced up at him in confusion. On the screen, General Toal looked baffled as well.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cDeckard Tech is on a quarterly arrangement rather than a semesterly one. They\u2019ve accepted Audrey and have offered her a full scholarship, too. She can attend there until she\u2019s <i>able<\/i> to transfer to Khair Eddine. The spring quarter up north starts in May, the summer quarter in August, and the autumn quarter in November. Then, instead of starting the winter quarter in February, she can board a Star Jumper going to Tangiers Prime and get there between five and ten months later, with a full academic year of credits under her belt to help catch up with the year she missed.\u201d Michael outlined it the way he might have outlined a military campaign. She wondered if that was how he thought of it.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">As she\u2019d slowly gotten to know him better, she\u2019d realized that he didn\u2019t <i>have<\/i> much of a civilian mindset to draw on. And, of course, that the reason she couldn\u2019t read him was that he was an esper, like her, with the <i>tightest<\/i> mental shield she\u2019d ever encountered.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">He had been twelve years old, he\u2019d told her, when Furya burned, and his parents bundled him and his little sister onto an escape ship. He\u2019d been fourteen, a year of cryo and two years of foster homes later, when the Federacy had begun to figure out that Furyan refugees were paranormal <i>goldmines<\/i> and he\u2019d taken his sister with him to hide in the woods of Catalonia Prime. He\u2019d been sixteen when General Toal\u2014then a Colonel\u2014had found them and helped them escape offworld. Of the ensuing twenty-four years, he\u2019d spent roughly a third of the time in cryo, traveling from world to world, training to be the best soldier he could become, and helping Toal locate and hide other refugees from Furya and, in the last few years, fathom and manage the \u201cQuintessa Problem.\u201d His focus on his mission was needle-sharp and there was room for little else in his life.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">And yet he understood that she needed more than that\u2026 and was starting to <i>starve<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Then again, given that she seemed to be at the dead-center of his current mission, it made sense that he would understand her better than she could understand herself. And that, where she had become stuck and thwarted, he would have found a path through.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cThis could work,\u201d General Toal said. \u201cAs it happens, one of the <i>Undine<\/i> class ships is scheduled to depart Plymouth Station A in mid-February 2522. I <i>had<\/i> already investigated that angle. That would get her to her destination in time for all of the customary orientation activities scheduled for the start of the next school year on Tangiers Prime\u2026 and she can visit with the Meziane family while she waits for the dorms to open, since her mentorship offer <i>is<\/i> from Dr. Meziane. Who, by the way, absolutely cannot know who you really are until you arrive there, Audrey. We will come up with a plausible reason for the delay. Is <i>that<\/i> acceptable, child?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cI\u2026 yeah, I think that could work.\u201d She understood what Michael\u2019s <i>real<\/i> goal with it was: to get her connected to a group of students her own age, ones who hopefully hadn\u2019t heard wild rumors about her and wouldn\u2019t try to delve into her past\u2026 to give her access to the companionship she craved and was currently deprived of. \u201cGeneral Toal? One more thing?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYes, Audrey?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cWhat if there\u2019s another way to evacuate some of these worlds? What if we could find another \u2019verse we have access to, like Elsewhere, to pull people into if an attack is inevitable?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cIt\u2019s a possibility,\u201d he said after a long, thoughtful moment. \u201cYou are currently the only human being we know of who has access to more than two other universes\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">With his permission, after all, she\u2019d \u201cinfected\u201d Todd, Dennis, and Michael with Threshold Syndrome, giving them access to Elsewhere and Wonderland, but those were the only ones of her \u2019verses she could pull someone into without killing them. The <i>Apeiros<\/i> had promptly congratulated her on producing a \u201cnew brood,\u201d but had said they were unable to speak with them directly, even though all three men were espers. Dennis had apparently been amused when she\u2019d campaigned to get him admitted to the safe house\u2019s \u201cinner circle,\u201d given that he and Michael had been its two <i>human<\/i> managers\u2014in charge of everything AIs were legally prohibited to control\u2014the whole time, and it was Michael who had green-lit Todd\u2019s rescue. She\u2019d only been cleared to find <i>that<\/i> out after the fall of the Coalsack planets.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201c\u2026and there\u2019s no way to get you, or any of the ones with access to \u2018Elsewhere\u2019 or \u2018Wonderland,\u2019 onsite in the Aquilan system in time,\u201d Toal continued, \u201ceven assuming one of those \u2019verses is habitable there. Dennis and Todd have, unfortunately, already confirmed that neither \u2018Elsewhere\u2019 nor \u2018Wonderland\u2019 are habitable on Helion Prime, and the time it would take to get you here, to see if any of your other universes would be viable, would cut things far too close. It is a possibility to explore for the future, though.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">He\u2019d already thought of it. She\u2019d wasted her time, and his, bringing it up.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cIt <i>is<\/i> a good idea, Audrey,\u201d he told her, his voice gentling, \u201cand one we will continue to pursue.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Michael drove her home not long after. Spring was fully upon Settlement Point, and she could hear the distant rumbles of a thunderstorm. The air was warm, soft, and carried the scents of blossoms and rain. Life was burgeoning all around\u2026 and yet the cold, terrible touch of that call had left a sense that, just beneath the surface, something eldritch and implacable waited to devour it all. Even the twinkling Christmas lights on every house couldn\u2019t drive that feeling back.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Her mother, definitely not <i>eldritch<\/i>, was waiting for her when she walked through the door. \u201cSo, did you talk to your handlers about college?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Of course that was what was on her mind.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She\u2019d spent the last two weeks, since the acceptance letters began arriving, trying to talk Audrey into turning down all of the offworld offers and going somewhere local, with increasing desperation, even though she knew that none of the truly local schools had the programs her daughter wanted. She\u2019d even tried to sweeten the pot by saying that she could probably get Audrey a \u201clegacy\u201d scholarship to her own alma mater, where she could study law.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Audrey did <i>not<\/i> want to be a lawyer.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYeah, they\u2019re going to be making arrangements to transfer the safe house to Wyndham Landing, so I can attend Deckard Tech,\u201d she said, wondering how upset her mother was going to get about <i>that.<\/i> It was the only school she\u2019d applied to that wasn\u2019t offworld, but it was still a hemisphere away.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>\u201cReally?\u201d<\/i> her mother asked. \u201cThat\u2019s wonderful!\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Now Audrey was confused.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cAlvin? Audrey\u2019s going to Deckard Tech! Now tell her <i>your<\/i> news!\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Alvin, carrying Elodie, entered the room smiling. \u201cIt\u2019s brand-new news, too, and we were waiting to hear what your plans were before we made a decision about it. I\u2019ve been offered the position of District Attorney. In <i>Wyndham Landing.<\/i> I\u2019ll start in June if I take it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cTake it!\u201d her mother said, laughing. \u201cIt\u2019s perfect timing. Elodie won\u2019t miss any school. She\u2019ll start Kindergarten a few months after the move! And we can stay close to you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Audrey felt completely off-kilter. The one thing she\u2019d been dreading about the new arrangement, the separation she\u2019d thought was inevitable no matter where she went, had just fallen away. At least, for another year, she would have her family and her little sister close\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Her comm chimed. She glanced down at the screen.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em\"><tt>It wasn\u2019t easy, but we\u2019ll always have your back.<br \/>Merry Christmas, Kid.<br \/>\nM,M,F,E,C&amp;S<\/tt><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">They hadn\u2019t given a <i>thing<\/i> away. She loved her handlers.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">For one brief moment, at least, Audrey\u2019s frustration and dread of the future fell away.<\/p>\n<p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Title: The Changeling Game (Formerly Identity Theft) Author: Ardath Rekha Chapter: 72\/? Fandom: Pitch Black (2000); The Chronicles of Riddick (2004); The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury (2004) Rat","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"\u201cThe Changeling Game\u201d 72: \u201cThe Planet-Killer\u2019s Hit List\u201d","bgseo_description":"Audrey tries to cope with a dark and foreboding future as she forecasts a deadly path of destruction, while struggling to keep her own plans from collapsing.","bgseo_robots_index":"index","bgseo_robots_follow":"follow","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fan-fiction","category-the-changeling-game"],"permalink_manager":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=780"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1145,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780\/revisions\/1145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}