Season 4: Episode 2 – The Difference Between Them

This series contains mature themes and is intended for adult listeners.

POV: Kylah Marie

>Begin Porta Cor imprint.<

“Open a Porta Cor transmission. Say something. End it,” I say to the group in front of me.

How the fuck did I get stuck teaching this?

Yedder raises his hand.

“What the hell are you raising your hand for? Are you surrendering?”

“No,” he says, dropping it fast. “I have a question.”

“What?” I ask him with irritation.

“Do I say it out loud? Or in my head?”

I stare at him. “In your fucking head. Did someone hit you?” 

I turn, and Keelia is already screaming at her brother. “CAN YOU HEAR ME?”

Across from the room, Kimbal shouts back, “I CAN!”

I slap my forehead.

After a few minutes, it’s finally quiet.

Kerrih and Karrah are looking at each other, giggling. I know they’re connected.

Creepy; they look so much alike except for their hair color.

Caius faces Varro and then turns his back on him. Testing if it still works if they’re not looking at each other.

Keelia and Kimbal are spread across the room from each other, pretending to punch the air in front of them, but they are quiet now.

Yedder and Flandan stare at each other like they’re in a staring contest.

Open Porta Cor transmission with trainee group 1.

>Sending Porta Cor transmission connection request to Trainee Group 1. One moment.<

Hurry the hell up, Porta Cor.

“Hey, let’s wrap it up. I have more to teach you guys.”

All their voices hit at once. Chaos.

Disconnect Porta Cor transmission to Trainee Group 1.

>Porta Cor transmission with Trainee Group 1 disconnected.<

“Does it always ask you if you want to accept the transmission?” Varro asks.

“Yeah, you can refuse. They leave a message, or they don’t.”

I stretch my neck from side to side, feeling tight. I need to get back to combat training.

“Alright, let’s try imprints.”

Yedder raises his hand again, and I look at him with narrowed eyes.

He drops his hand. “What’s an imprint?”

“It stores your memories,” I say. “You open it. It records. You close it, and it stops. You want it later; you pull it back.”

“The command is similar, but you say Start Porta Cor imprint, and it will repeat back to you Begin Porta Cor imprint to let you know it’s going. All your thoughts and shit you say get recorded. I want you all to open one now and let it imprint for the rest of the day for you.”

Then I remember. “Don’t forget to close it at night. Fucker records everything. Snoring, talking, farting…all of it.”

Kerrih says, “Kylah Marie, what happens if you get a transmission while your imprint is on?”

“It records it,” I tell her. “Everything that happens while it’s open.”

“Oh, that’s helpful if you need to recall a conversation,” she says.

“It is.”

Caius stares unmoving at Kerrih while she talks to me.

“Alright, let’s move on to practicing the creation machine use we started yesterday.”

Caius still hasn’t moved. Is he daydreaming?

They all line up and, one at a time, they enter what they want—one food, drink, or clothing item into the pad on the creation machine.

Caius does not move to the line.

I move in front of him and wave my hand in his face. “Hey, you awake?”

He blinks at me and then realizes where he’s supposed to go and gets in line.

Legion Commander. Can’t even get in line.

I survive through the morning, and in the afternoon, I have knife-fighting training with the twins. Now I’m where I should be.

I’ve trained fighters of all levels throughout Anturia.

I hand Kerrih and Karrah each a small dagger, mostly blunt, but they still might jab an eye out if misdirected.

“You said you never did any kind of fighting before?” I ask them in disbelief.

“No, it’s not proper for young women to fight in 1371 AD Earth, especially for merchants’ daughters,” Kerrih answers.

“We learned cooking, sewing, managing a household with servants,” Karrah adds.

“How to read, correspond, and do some household bookkeeping,” Kerrih says.

“We both play the harp,” Karrah continues.

Kerrih concludes, “And we know singing and dancing.”

I blink at them as they both answer me, finishing each other’s thoughts without missing a beat.

“Okay. Well, fighting is kind of like dancing.”

After I show them how to hold the dagger properly and note they are both left-handed like me, I show them how to thrust it up, down, or in an arc to the side.

I watch them swiping at the air for a bit with the daggers.

Kerrih’s thrusts are precise. Measured.

Karrah’s hit harder. Commits too far.

A few minutes pass, and I say, “Okay, now I want you to stand facing each other, a little apart, practice swings at each other. Let’s watch the eyeballs, each other’s and your own.” I point to a small scar in my right eyebrow.

I stand back and watch them.

The pattern continues for a moment, but their smiling faces shift. Kerrih’s gaze is steady and locks onto Karrah. Karrah’s jaw sets, and her eyes narrow.

Not bad. Not safe either.

Karrah gets a little too close to Kerrih’s cheek with an arc thrust.

I move to intercept.

Before I get there, Kerrih brings up her dagger quickly with precision.

The two blades clink as they lock, and both women seem unwilling to drop.

Karrah grimaces, brows furrowed, and Kerrih smiles in a cold, unnerving way as they push against each other.

There it is.

“Weapons down.”

They hold a second longer.

“Again. No striking.”

I watch them practice for a while longer.

Again, Karrah overextends, this time toward Kerrih’s throat. I jump in and grab her arm, twisting it away from Kerrih before the strike lands.

“That’s enough.”

I walk them back to Facility Two after taking both knives back from them. Once they are both in their rooms, I make sure a guard is posted outside.

I move to where Bryn and Dahlfia are staying.

I walk in, and they whisper together on the couch. They stop whispering and look at me. “Well, how did today go?” Bryn asks me.

I go straight to the creation machine and get a strong drink without ice. I drink the whole drink down and then get another one before I sit down in the chair next to them.

“Man, the fucking Porta Cor transmissions almost killed me,” I admit.

Bryn smiles. Dahlfia smirks.

I point at Dahlfia. “You do the next batch.”

Dahlfia says, “That’s not what my training schedule has for me.”

I roll my eyes and take a sip now, the edge off with the first drink as it settles in me.

“For the dagger training, the bird watched me from up above in the trees the whole time I was training them. Like he was assessing me. Fucking weird,” I shudder and take another sip of my drink.

“What about the twins?” Bryn asks, leaning toward me, interested.

“Well, they may look a lot alike, but they are not alike,” I answer. “Kerrih moves controlled and precise, almost calculated. Karrah pushes too far.”

“Like someone else we know,” Dahlfia lifts an eyebrow.

“No, not quite the same. Maybe a younger me.”

I shift a little, remembering them giggling on the transmission. “They seem like normal sisters sometimes.” And then I remember the dagger practice, “but there’s something there underneath it.”

I shrug. “Something to watch for.” It’s all I know to say.

Dahlfia and Bryn look at each other in a way that confirms they have a similar assessment of the two.

>End Porta Cor imprint.<