Season 1: Episode 4 – The First Fracture

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

>Begin Porta Cor imprint.<

The last council Porta Cor update said the humans were calm.

Curious. Grateful.

That is not what I found.

When the door to the lab where the humans were kept was finally opened for me, blood soaked the floor. One guard was dead, and another was sobbing from her wounds.

For the first time since the Porta Segreta awakened, I understood something with absolute clarity:

We were no longer in control of the door we opened.

I finished watching the sunset with Afanen this evening. Her mother took her back inside to bathe just moments before.

My mind was preoccupied with everything related to the Porta Segreta. Still, over the past week, I found myself thinking about it less often, focusing instead on my family and my own well-being. I stood up to go inside, and as I passed through the door into the house, I became curious, realizing I had not yet received the weekly council update. It was late.

The update never came. Oswalt did.

I walked to my office, closed the door, and let the connection in.

>Begin Porta Cor connection with Oswalt.<

His voice sounded a little nervous, but still clear and certainly not overly panicked.

“Bryn, we are calling an emergency council meeting. I’m calling everyone into the chambers now.”

I paused before responding,

“I’ll be right there.”

I told my daughter-in-law and Afanen I had to go quickly and headed out the door and down the street to the city center. 

As I got closer to the government buildings in the center of town, I came across other councilors walking to the emergency session as well. We nodded to each other in turn but didn’t say anything. We all had the same tight expression on our faces. We rarely had emergency sessions during breaks. In fact, there has not been an emergency session in the past 78 years.

Once I was inside the building, Dahlfia came up to me and fell in step beside me as she usually did. She looked around the hallway to make sure no one saw us and pulled me into her office once we got to her door.

“I’ve been here for about half an hour. First, I felt something was wrong. I was taking my evening walk when I began to hear whispers about the humans in captivity. One or two people talking, I could ignore. But the buzz became such an uproar from multiple sources. I came right here and got here just before the emergency session was called.” She whispered to me in a hurry.

“What is it?” I asked her, not understanding what happened.

She shrugged at me, “I’m not sure exactly what happened, but it has to do with the humans we have had in observation.” She gave me a knowing, lingering look.

I exhaled slowly and nodded, then we waited for the next group of councilors to walk down the hall before slipping out of her office and heading toward the council chambers.

Oswalt came in behind us with checklists and papers, and his pen dangled precariously off the edge of his clipboard, ready to roll off onto the floor. Dahlfia turned back and tucked it into the clipboard for him. “You alright, Oswalt?”

He sighed heavily. “I don’t know. I don’t know.” That was all he could seem to say.

Dahlfia turned around and looked at me, and for a moment, it felt like a million words passed between us, even though we said and thought nothing to each other. I understood that we both felt as though something terrible was about to drop on us.

We entered the chamber and took our seats quickly, waiting for everyone else to fill in. Then Mallaidh came to the podium and took a deep breath before speaking.

“The situation is now contained, but we experienced some loss of life from subjects, observation team members, and guards.” It was a strange way to begin an emergency session.

Oswalt lifted his little hand as if wanting to add something, but he looked so timid. Mallaidh ignored him for a moment and continued, “Our fast action has secured the location.”

Oswalt cleared his throat and stood up, flipping through his papers. “I have conflicting information.” He announced.

She gave him a sharp look, “Well, there are some minute details where we are not certain.” She confirmed. Then she looked away from Oswalt and back to the council, “Some of the humans reacted poorly in the observation rooms and acted violently against our procedures. There have been deaths on both sides. I will take the senior leaders to the observation facility for a thorough investigation so we can determine what happened to contain any wild, unsubstantiated rumors.” She looked back at Oswalt, who was sinking back into his seat, when she said the last three words of her sentence.

She then looked at me, the third in command, Tynaref, and waved us to follow her. I stood up and followed her out with Tynaref behind me. As I filed out of the chambers with them, I stole a glance at Dahlfia across the way, who lifted her eyebrows at me as if to say, ‘Fill me in later.’  Of course, I would.

A little while later, we arrived at the observation facility. There were about twenty guards outside the front door, fully armed with swords and knives. I had never seen such a show of force outside of a sanctioned fight in the 600 years of my life.

As Mallaidh approached them first, they opened the doors for us and stood at attention. The three of us entered, and the facility manager approached us. She was a skinny female with silver-tinted skin and blue eyes. Her grey hair was swept up in a bun, and she looked completely disheveled.

“Mallaidh,” she addressed her and then gave a short nod to both Tynaref and me in greeting, “we will need some guidance on what to do.” She informed us, then motioned for us to follow her into the building.

We wound our way through the maze of hallways and levels of the building until we reached a floor that was even more heavily guarded than the front door. They let us pass inside, and the hallway was a disaster with splatters of blood here and there, broken picture frames on the walls, and smashed pieces of furniture littered here and there coming out of various rooms.

We walked to the end of the hallway, and the facility manager stopped outside a set of double doors, then turned to face us. “This is the room where we were housing the humans to observe. Prepare yourselves. It’s quite shocking,” she advised.

She turned back to the door and sent a thought to it, and it slid open. She stood aside so that we could enter first. I wasn’t prepared at all, even though she advised us to be. Blood soaked the floor. I didn’t know whose blood it was, but near the door, one guard lay dead. Across the room, another sat trembling in a chair while a healer bound her wounds.

There were smashed desks throughout this area, and a clear wall separating this side of the room from multiple one-room living quarters where I assumed the humans had been held. Each tiny quarter had a bed, a sink, a bio-waste remover, and a creation machine. Some of the rooms were filled with strange objects that I had never seen before, and others were completely sparse and empty. There were twelve rooms in total.

The facility manager pointed to three of the rooms still occupied by humans first, “They cannot see through the wall, so these three are unaware that anything was going on. Apparently, they came from different places on Earth and could not communicate with the other nine humans.”

She sighed and pointed to the other nine empty rooms. “Of those nine, six are dead. We’ve just removed the bodies to take them back through the Porta Segreta to bring them home for whatever burial ritual their people may see fit to complete.”

“What happened to the other three?” I asked, lifting my eyebrow and then looking around, wondering if I should be concerned for my own safety.

“They have escaped.” She admitted. “We do not believe they are in the facility any longer. We have searched for them but cannot find them through all of our scanning and teams combing the entire place.”

Mallaidh looked like someone stepped on her favorite glass figurine, “How did this happen, Athrylith? You were put in charge of them and told me twelve would not be too many for your facility to handle.”

The facility manager shrank a little, feeling the blame already shifting to her this early on, “We had no way of knowing they would figure out how to use the creation machines outside of what we instructed them, the way that those three over there had.” She pointed to the three still in captivity.

“But they figured it out,” I concluded for her.

She nodded to me. “Not only did they figure it out, but they also began to replicate many things. One of which was a weapon that the man used to blast open his door when one of our healers came in to do some routine lab work, killing her, and then as the guards rushed him, he used another weapon to kill them both.”

She took a steadying breath before continuing, “Then he released the other eight before more guards could get in here. He apparently gave weapons to some of the other eight humans as well. There was a huge bloody battle here in this room and out in the hallway. All the guards died, as well as six of the humans. We had a couple of other guards with minor wounds and, of course, this one with more serious wounds.” She motioned to the female guard, who was now standing up and being escorted out by her attending healer.

She walked us back out into the hallway and motioned down both directions. “Three of them got out, and because we had no more guards on this floor at the time, they fled. We do not know the direction. The guards at the main entrance did not see anyone go by, and there was no sign of any breach at the service door or the emergency doors at the back. However, I am told the supply doors were open for delivery when the delivery personnel had left, and one of our guards had not yet returned to close them. It is possible they escaped that way. We are using seers to try to help us track where they might have gone.”

Mallaidh looked livid. Athrylith looked like she wished she were anywhere else except here. I gently touched her shoulder to calm her, “You did the best you could. There were too many unknown variables for you to anticipate every outcome.” I offered her comfort. “You should probably give your statements to the investigators and then see a healer. You will have much to heal from inside.” I reminded her.

Mallaidh looked away, disgusted, as I comforted Athrylith but I did not stop. This woman and all the staff here had witnessed something emotionally and psychologically devastating, and they would need recovery as much as the wounded guard who was now ushered out of this floor and off to the healer’s ward.

Tynaref nodded in agreement with me, putting her hand on the facility manager’s other shoulder and patting her gently. “I agree.”  Mallaidh could say nothing at this point, but I felt that once we were alone, a confrontation would happen.

“We need to notify the council of what went on and decide what to do next.” Mallaidh suddenly said. “Please do not let anyone in or out of the facility until the investigation is completed and the council has made a decision. We will send word to you.” Athrylith nodded in agreement, and the three of us left the building and went back out into the streets.

Mallaidh said nothing as we walked. I was more concerned about where the other three humans with weapons were, and I looked nervously down the streets as we moved back to the chamber halls. I usually did not walk around armed.

Thankfully, we made it back and called everyone back to attention again in the chamber hall. Mallaidh was back at the podium, and I was back in my seat along with Oswalt, and then Tynaref beside me, flanking the podium, looking out at all the councilors with expectant faces. I kept my gaze forward.

Mallaidh recounted what happened, and the chamber was so silent for so long that I wondered if we had collectively stopped breathing. Then Mallaidh added, “I move that we contain the details of this incident from the public and order a lockdown of the city.”

“Why would we say we’re locking down the city if we don’t tell them what happened?” I inquired. 

“We will tell them we have some new experiments under lockdown right now,” she countered quickly to me, narrowing her eyes at me.

“I disagree with this. It doesn’t feel right. With potentially dangerous humans out there in our city or even beyond, we need to make people aware and vigilant.”

“I agree with Bryn,” Dahlfia said out loud. 

Everyone whispered in hushed tones, but no one else spoke out loud. Mallaidh countered us, “What’s dangerous is causing widespread panic in our streets, Bryn. We don’t want everyone walking around with weapons and stabbing each other when someone moves to get a glass of water. Can I hear a second to my motion to contain the incident and order the lockdown due to experimental technology?”

Murithir stood up, “I second.”  A couple of others waved their hands in agreement. I sat with my mouth gaping open, looking at them all in disbelief.

“Motion carries,” Mallaidh said sharply, “emergency session closed.” And she walked off the podium and over to me. “Do not counter me in public like that ever again, Bryn Tal.” She warned me close to my ear. “What I am doing is for the best, and you know it.” I blinked rapidly at her, feeling like she just threatened me. For two hundred years, we’d never been the closest to each other because of differing interests and personalities, but now we were like oil and water.

She stepped off the platform as the other councilors began to file out of the chambers. I looked at Oswalt to see if he had caught what she said, and his bottom lip trembled slightly. He heard. Tynaref must not have, because she smiled softly at me and then stood up, following the others out.

I sat there a moment as Oswalt pulled together all his papers to send out word of the lockdown and to communicate with the public. Dahlfia hopped up the steps and got down on her knees in front of where I sat.

“Bryn, are you okay?” she asked me with a look of concern on her face.

“I’m not certain,” I answered her honestly. “Let’s talk.”

I took her into her office and filled her in on everything I’d seen, including some of the glossed-over details Mallaidh left out of her speech to the council, and then I told her what Mallaidh had whispered to me before leaving the chambers.

“She threatened you. Bryn!” She looked aghast at the thought. “Why would she be so angry over this, and why would she take it out on you and the facility manager?”

Why indeed. I thought.

We were all to have escort guards take us home, and I walked with four of them that night, and then they stood outside my gate even after I went inside. My daughter-in-law, Pensaer, and Afanen were both asleep by the time I got home. I peeked in on Afanen, sleeping in her bed, and saw her necklace from Kylah glowing softly around her neck.

I sighed. Outside, I heard a flock of nightbirds soaring overhead, going about their hunting as though nothing was different tonight.

Later that night, as I sat in my office, the report was finalized and delivered.
No rebellion.
No fault in the machine.
No failure in our systems.

Only a failure to understand what fear makes people do.

And the door remained open.

>End Porta Cor imprint.<