The Gap - Chapter 7

​Back cover description:
Zora lives her life in tenuous routine, using her unique gifts to guide refugees through the treacherous Gap in search of safety within the walled-off empire to the north. But her journey takes a turn, one day, as she uncovers dark secrets among the jungle's predators and bandits. Soon, survival becomes more than just reaching the other side, and it may come at the cost of everything she once held to be true.

Chapter 7

It's dark inside, with all the lights off and the windows covered by canvas shades, but to my eyes the room is as clear as noon. It's an ability I didn't even know I had until a friend of mine went on a night hunt with me and kept stumbling around trying to keep up.

I search the room quietly, poking through cabinets and drawers. There's not much. Mostly medical equipment and doctors’ charts. I give up after a few minutes and sneak back outside to search another tent.

The next two tents are occupied by doctors and a handful of patients; I leave them be and skip down a few tents. One is filled with office equipment and clerks’ workstations, another is packed from floor to ceiling and wall to wall with electronics, some old and deteriorating, others in varying states of disassembly and repair. That one overwhelms me so completely that I promptly make my way back outside.

The next tent is equipped with much more sophisticated equipment than the others. There are machines that hum with activity and computers that chirp out notifications every few moments. Beakers and flasks adorn the tables, while shelves of neatly organized chemicals sit organized on shelves along the wall.

Still unsure of what I'm looking for, I poke around the lab stations, shuffling through undecipherable reports and charts. Not much of it makes sense to me; I understand Freesian just fine, but my geek is a little rusty. The village I grew up in had a primary school, and I had nearly completed my fifth year, ready to attend a larger secondary school in the nearby town, when the Burn happened.

Even so, I have a perfect photographic memory—for better or worse—which has allowed me to pick things up over the years. Through reading, through experience, by listening to the odd subject matter expert that wanders through town every now and then.

Haven't seen too many experienced biochemists journeying through the Gap, though.

I'm seconds from giving up and heading to the next tent over when I notice something. A rack of vials in a chiller with a glass door. They're filled with blood. This alone is enough to draw me in for a deeper look. Each one, I notice, has the name of a south continent region written on its label—Gohla, Dasura, Yi’Raton. And there are a few dozen racks in the chiller with about fifty vials each.

I open the door and pluck one of the vials like a flower. The contents slosh around as I bring it up for a closer look, coating the sides a pale cardinal. This one is labeled Fathora-84. Fathora is a region in the southernmost part of the continent, one of the few that gets snow in the winters. I've heard snow is adored in Freesia, where a quaint blanket of white coats idyllic neighborhoods and lush evergreen forests.

Down south, it destroys the few crops that manage to survive the toxic soil.

Because while volcanic ash up north or on the islands across the eastern sea is rich and fertile, coveted ground for farmers and gardeners, that’s not the case here. The Burn surfaced many substances that were never meant to rise above the depths of our planet’s mantle, substances that curse anything living that dares to occupy the same space.

I return the vial and leave the tent, having acquired more questions than I began with, then proceed along the dirt path leading deeper into camp. The next few tents are just sleeping quarters; I pass them by, comforted by the sounds of deep slumber. One tent has the most enticing smells coming from it. My stomach protests as I pass that one as well, and I realize just how hungry I am after having run all that distance from town.

Finally, I reach one structure that's larger than the other tents and made of more durable materials. Its high-arched peaks and imposing placement within the center of the camp give the impression that it is somehow more important. There's a sign just by the entrance that reads Joint Force Operations Center / Headquarters Building.

For some reason, an involuntary shiver runs down my spine, prompting me to take a step forward. I pull at the door, only to find it’s locked. It's made of cheap wood and low-grade plastic windows; I could simply break in if I wanted to, but it's not exactly the profile I'm trying to maintain here. So, I channel a small stream of energy through my fingers and push the locking pins into place.

The doorknob twists on my command, I step past the threshold.

The inside is surprisingly fresh and modern for a jungle outpost, a harmonious mix of contemporary Freesian workspace design and locally sourced trophies. Though, it disgusts me how they've appropriated our people, our lifestyle—traditional Fa’lai artwork, framed Deguri shawls, Sudlandian scimitars—as if they somehow belong here, or have even a rudimentary understanding of what they’ve mounted on their walls.

But hey, they hand out candy, right?

Directly facing the entrance is a receptionist’s desk. On the other side are two hallways branching off from a lightly decorated waiting area. The first hallway is blocked by a heavy steel door with a complex locking mechanism and security checks. This one has a sign above it that says Current Operations / Future Plans. The second hallway is unobstructed and features a row of offices and a conference room. This one is labeled Command Section.

Maybe I lack the desire to figure out the door’s mechanism, or it’s the fact that I think I hear low voices beyond its armored walls. Or perhaps it's something else entirely that draws me to the right. In any case, I choose the path leading towards the command section, my breaths quickening with each step.

I take care to read the plaques beside each office door--Public Affairs, Command Judge Advocate, Protocol. I understand the Freesian words, but the terms are unfamiliar.

I begin to question if any of this was worth the trouble coming out here. It can’t be much later than two or three in the morning. I can still make it back before Ollie wakes up. Maybe I’ll call it quits after this.

But I still can’t shake the sour pit in my stomach, and I feel like I need something to give Ollie, some sort of token or sign to give him closure. Answers. Anything to make sense of the senseless act that took Nico’s life.

I continue.

Chief of Staff, Deputy Commander, the plaques down here read. Finally, I reach the last door in the hallway. It’s no different than any of the others, save a wooden plaque hanging in the center with the Sudlandian flag and the word Commander hand-carved into it. I unlock it with a touch, then silently step inside.

I don’t know what I expected from a commander’s office. War plans, maps and charts, maybe medals and weapons on the walls. What I see before me looks like…well, a normal office. Not that I’ve seen too many to compare it to. There’s a holographic display screen in the center of a humble desk, a desk covered with papers and folders in no particular order. The walls are hidden by an assortment of memorabilia and awards from a variety of military units, peppered with the occasional piece of children’s art. There’s a shelf in the corner filled with books. Some of them seem to be about leadership, some about strategy. Some look like fiction; I even recognize a few from a bookshop in one of the cities about a half day’s journey north of the Sudland border.

I shuffle through the papers, hoping something here will be useful. One is a printed presentation titled Syunia Regional Initiatives - Weekly Roundup. There are slides about the eastern sea nation’s rising influence in regions throughout the southern continent, about a variety of partnerships and programs meant to build their influence and reputation. One slide describes a bilateral agreement with Gohla to terraform large swaths of their land into habitable areas in exchange for mineral rights in those zones. Another discusses plans to build rail lines in Jakash. Yet another lists the seaports and airports they’ve financed in this hemisphere. Schools, stadiums, irrigation.

A road. Through the Gap.

My cheeks flush, searing my skin hot with adrenaline.

Syunia is known to be the Freesian Empire’s biggest adversary. Though never breaking into all-out war, no. Rather, using other nations and other conflicts to test out the latest in their weapons technologies, to wage proxy wars, compete for global reputation. The fact that they're financing the highway—a high-visibility, high-impact project on the Empire’s doorstep—is unsurprising, but an illuminating revelation, to say the least.

It's another piece to the puzzle. One I don't have time to solve now. I fold the report into quarters and shove it into my waistband, then continue sifting through the mess of documents.

None of it is worth much. Finance summaries. Event plans. Nothing I would need to reach any kind of closure. Nothing that would explain or prove their presence at the build site.

To be honest, I don't know what I was expecting. Some kind of signed confession that they committed a massacre with a full description of why in the addendum? It's silly. And I've made up my mind to head back to the lodge.

Then, I see a red corner sticking out from underneath a binder, barely visible among the desk’s chaos. I'm drawn to it like a moth to flame, knowing somehow that it might burn me. This is the last one, I tell myself before moving the binder to grab a folder marked CONFIDENTIAL.

The first page inside the folder is simply titled Lab Results - Series 114D with the Freesian Armed Forces insignia beneath it. It's no more than a dozen or so pages, but it feels heavy in my hands, as if the ink on the pages is weighed down by the words they form.

I flip the page. The first few paragraphs are a jumble of jargon and science. Numbers and statistics. Most of it is either useless or incomprehensible. I scan the next few pages, quickly losing interest.

But then something snags my attention, and I back up a little.

…While the target variant remains relatively rare, we have identified positive trends in the dominant gene’s distribution in Yi’Raton and the surrounding region.

Yi’Raton. That was one of the regions from earlier, one of the labels on the blood vials.

Across the Mideastern Range, the prevalence of KA-145 is negligible. This aligns with pre-Burn population data gathered, suggesting the gene is not widespread in traditionally nomadic populations. However, similar trends are seen within dense urban areas, which lowers the probability of population density as a factor. The most significant clustering can be found near the foothills of Mt. Taurkor…

I grunt at the Freesian name for Dhor, a caldera-capped mountain near the central coast on the west side of the continent. It’s considered by many to be sacred. Not me, of course. Seeing as Dhor was the peak that suffocated my town and turned my life into the shadow of what it could have been.

…though samples of the gene collected to date continue to lack statistically significant concentrations. Furthermore, the distribution within these mountainside communities is not uniform and shows no actionable correlation between subjects. This finding warrants further investigation by expeditionary units.

I'm starting to get lost again in the technical speech, translating more from context than actual knowledge of Freesian. But the next line is clear enough to pull me back in.

Concentrations of KA-145 in recent subjects are not yet at levels previously found to be effective in combat trials against Syunian standards, tactics, and techniques. Recently acquired samples from the Ghola region show strong links to the rare multi-expression dominant capabilities sought by national security objectives.

My hand drops, and some of the papers flutter to the ground.

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Title image courtesy of David Riano - Pexels