Chapter 13 - Benjamin White III

Ku Yong Underground Penitentiary

"The High Council's Ambassador, huh?" Nova sat against the back of the cell he shared with Benjamin White. Benjamin rolled his eyes. He'd been ignoring Nova since they'd been imprisoned by the Emperor of Ku Yong. Still, Nova had plenty to say. "I'm guessing after this, the Council will reconsider adding me into their ranks. I can prevent these kinds fiascos."

Benjamin looked at Taulk incredulously.

"How so, you ask?" Nova took it upon himself to continue their one sided conversation. "By telling the rest of our great leaders that sending five high value figures of our society into a slaughterhouse is a really stupid fucking idea!" Nova's voice continued to rise until he was near shouting by the end of his sentence.

Still, Benjamin gave no response.

"This is ridiculous. They could've put me in a cell with Ostia, or Beatrice. I would've been fine." Nova shot a menacing glare at Benjamin. "Why the hell did they lock me in here with the worst conversationalist in history."

"Probably to keep us from giving your subordinates orders." Benjamin finally spoke.

"Ah! I thought for a moment the Emperor snatched your tongue along with your freedom." Nova tried to joke, but given their situation, Benjamin clearly did not find it funny.

"Why haven't you been using your telepathy?" Benjamin asked curtly.

"The same reason you haven't…" Nova paused to think. "What do you call it? Shadow run?"

"Shadow travel." Benjamin corrected him irritatedly, pressing continuance.

"Yeah, the same reason you haven't shadow traveled us out." Nova finished his answer.

"I didn't know superium affected your abilities." Benjamin rose from his lax state.

"Most people don't." Nova feigned mystery. "Keep it that way."

"Ah." Benjamin seemed to trail off in thought for a moment.

Quickly he turned to Nova and asked, "Have you ever wondered why it doesn't shine?"

It was something Nova had thought of several times before in detail.

"I always thought, if the Rai Jin's Nectar killed a third of every living thing it touches, it must kill a third of everything else, right?" Nova trailed his answer into a question of his own.

"Well, when you search through the probabilities, it seems the most likely correct theory." Benjamin said thoughtfully.

Another rare moment in which the two agreed upon a subject.

"Dead metal, eh?"

"I hate that the Boralisean people named it with such arrogance. As if finding something that could harm us made them superior in some way," Nova said twisting his face into a scowl.

"I always thought it was an inferiority complex that inspired the name." Benjamin gently rebutted. "I think it made them feel like they had a chance to defend themselves should we have ever chosen to act against them."

Nova considered Benjamin's words. Even before his rebirth he was not fond of mankind. "Men commit atrocities that most Rai Jin would never dream of doing, even with the ability to do so with a fraction of the effort. They should feel inferior."

"Can you blame people who do not have the knowledge and resources available to us, to act out of desperation?"

Benjamin again forced Nova to reconsider his words. "The majority of the atrocities you claim are committed by man are done for the sake of survival. Whether selfish or selfless."

"Your faith in man is astounding," Nova said thoughtfully. He and Benjamin were not often left alone. It was their first true private conversation in the fifty some years they'd known of one another. Nova found himself with new respect for the Council's Ambassador.

"We were men once, too." Benjamin responded simply.

"Not a thing I'm fond of remembering," Nova's face twisted into a scowl.

"That might be why you see them as lesser beings."

"They are lesser beings." Taulk was not happy to think of man as his equal. "They act and react based on emotion. No logic or rational thinking to be had. They destroy the world around them for their own gain and feel no remorse. They lie, murder and steal. Men are less than the creatures they eat for sustenance."

"In your eyes perhaps," Benjamin said patiently. "But the very reason the High Council's Faction was created was to stop Rai Jin from committing the same atrocities you condemn man for. Are those Rai Jin still greater beings than an upstanding man?

Nova refused to acknowledge his question. No matter how Benjamin worded his argument, Nova was adamant in his belief.

"How long do you think we'll be here?" Nova asked, attempting to change the subject of their discussion. Benjamin was slow to answer. As always he deliberated his answer until he found words that would favor of the High Council.

"I don't presume to know Kamarion's mind, but I doubt he'll sanction a prison break," Benjamin began. "Which is probably for the best, as the Council isn't aware of the presence of Superium here."

Nova nodded his head in agreement.

"So chances are, we'll have to break out ourselves," Benjamin continued.

A loud buzz rang through the hall of the dungeon. Nova and Benjamin both turned their heads towards the direction of the sound. Nova recognized the sound as the very same that went off when they were escorted through the prison's first door.

A mechanical click sounded and the door far down the hall moaned open. Five or six pairs of shoes clapped against the ground, slowly increasing in volume. Nova and Benjamin remained seated as two guards escorted two women, a teenage boy and a young girl, each cuffed with metal that did not shine on their ankles and wrists, through the hall. The cell next to theirs clicked open, and the guards ordered their captives into the cell.

"Move," one grumbled. They silently walked in. Through the bars of their cell door, the guards removed their cuffs, and left without any further words.

Just as the door shut behind the guards, the young girl began to whimper. Her cry was quiet, yet in the quiet hall, it echoed in Nova's ears loud and clear.

"I figured we would," Nova said, continuing his conversation with Benjamin. "We may have some tagalongs."

"It would seem so." Benjamin replied curtly.

"Where do you suppose the others are?" Nova asked. The moment they entered the dungeon Ostia, Claud, and Beatrice were separated from their leader. His concern for them was growing steadily by the moment.

"Hopefully not too far," Benjamin replied. "I doubt they have enough Superium to keep more than a floor or two of this prison Rai Jin suppressant."

The child one cell over continued to weep as Nova and Benjamin sorted their thoughts as one. One of the women imprisoned with the child cleared her throat, "Why did they take us?" her question was asked quietly, still, in the dungeon hall, her voice echoed into Nova and Benjamin's cell.

"Because you are one of us." Benjamin did not shy away from answering.

"One of you?" the teenage boy broke his silence.

"Rai Jin," it was Nova who responded this time. "You were chosen to receive the Rai Jin's Gift, and man fears what you have become."

"I don't understand," the other woman in the cell said. "I only went to the Medical Center to get checked for signs of the plague."

"So was I," said the teenage boy. "They told my mom and dad that I needed more testing and then brought me here."

"Is that was happened to you?" the first woman that spoke asked the still weeping child.

No words came that Nova could hear, but he was sure he heard a short rustling noise, the sound normally given off by a nod.

"The boy who tried to steal Bajir's research, what was his name?" Benjamin asked Nova.

"Boul." Nova said. He nearly spit the name out. It left an unenjoyable taste on his tongue.

"Where is he now?"

"Sitting on the Emperor's right hand."

"He's using Bajir's work to single out the Rai Jin gene in the common peoples' blood." Benjamin spoke his epiphany aloud.

"And separating Rai Jin from their families and bringing them here." Nova finished.

"Here I thought you couldn't read my thoughts." Benjamin smirked at Nova.

No, his one's just easy to understand, Nova thought to himself desperately wishing he had room to insult the man's intelligence. He found however, that it was easier to get the stoic man to speak when he kept a serious demeanor.

I need him for this one.

There was little else to say for Nova. He was only relieved that after two days of silence from his cellmate for at least a little conversation. As a man who constantly heard the voices of others in his mind, silence had become an uncomfortable thing.

The first woman that spoke was clearly not comfortable in their silence either, as she sat in the next cell, attempting to comfort the young girl who'd been brought in with her small group.

"My name is Licia." She said. "I'm a teacher at the Ku Yong West Academic Center. I taught your class in your third year. Do you remember me?" Licia spoke her words with gentle care, the kind one would expect to hear from a mother nursing her child.

"Mm hm." The girl responded quietly.

"Good." Licia said. Nova could almost hear the warmth of her smile in her words. "You are Adrienne, right?"

"Yes." Adrienne seemed almost excited that her old teacher remembered her name. Though captivity made any form of joy she may have experienced very short lived.

"You stick by my side okay?" Licia said. Nova was nearly reassured himself by the confidence in her voice. "I'll keep you safe."

Nova heard movement from their cell. He assumed it was the young girl moving to Licia's side.

This one has value. Nova thought to himself. One who could captivate the hearts of the children would be a necessity in the near future for Rai Jin. Nova smiled to himself, glad he'd managed to find one such as her in this predicament.

"Rest assured," Nova said aloud for them all to hear. "we will all be leaving this place soon."

Benjamin nodded to Nova. Their differences set aside, he was with him.

"And, when we escape," Nova continued quietly to Benjamin, "The Ku Yongi will know why the Boralisian people fear our kind."