Zoe Thanatos(75)

At first glance the two faces looked identical, but the second photo lacked the strange quality the first possessed. The eyes and hair were the same but the other features were slightly different. The second woman’s nose was noticeably larger and her cheek bones arched high above her face. Something about the woman’s face suggested an air of superiority and he realized it was the way her mouth formed a smile, taught and a bit smug, the corners upturned infinitesimally.

The pictures moved without provocation, Zara’s face aligning over the second woman’s. Soon he could no longer tell which photograph he was looking at. Their faces were interchangeable, the woman’s face morphing into Zara’s and vice versa until they were the same person. A file icon pinged on the bottom right-hand corner of the glass, a point of light ebbing beneath it. Evan looked to the screen on his Communicator again, then looked back up at the information kiosk. With a quick movement of his hand he touched the file icon and watched as a third photo emerged, this time of an Elder with the same blonde hair, dark eyes and high cheek bones. Her chin was upturned, as were the corners of her mouth, a superior smile upon her lips.

Maybe his mind was still asleep, which would explain why whatever he was meant to see in the photos wasn’t clicking. The Elder woman looked like the second woman and even like Zara Terra, but he couldn’t make sense of it. The only photo that looked slightly out of place was Zara’s but he could still not comprehend why. All three women appeared to be one and the same, but Zara Terra was not classified as an Elder, so what was the explanation for the Elder’s photo?

He looked to the communicator again and read the message half a dozen times more, each time understanding nothing. ‘Look again,’ it instructed, but at what? Perhaps Zara Terra was just another Elder, a misclassified oversight in the network. It didn’t seem odd for a Resident from Last City to have so little information available. Most of Last City’s residents were those with whom the Crown was not concerned. Elders had gone there to retire, those who had no interest in the rigmarole of life in the Royal City, and outcasts who had been banished from the inner cities. The lack of information on her was inconsequential, yet something about it continued to bother him. Who was the sender of the message and why did he or she want him to ‘look again’?

The communicator pinged and when he looked down he found another message, the second more cryptic than the first.

‘Make the right choice.’

A loud knock on the door startled him, his heart pounding hard in his chest as he nearly dropped the device to the floor. He quickly looked to the information kiosk with the intent to shut it down when he realized it had already done so. The faces were gone.

He opened the door and found Hector standing on the other side dressed in full military regalia. He bowed his head briefly to Evan, a formality he had never been privileged to, and straightened his back formally.

“Evander Nero, your immediate presence is requested by command of the Queen and Her Royal Highness the Queen Mother. You will please follow me at once as I escort you to the ancillary Throne Room in the Military Complex.”

Evan had barely a moment to think before Hector moved to the side of the entry, a movement he realized meant right now. Why meet in an ancillary Throne Room instead of the actual one? More important was the mention of the Queen Mother. He couldn’t recall the last time the first Straton Queen had been on Terra.

Hector looked at him expectantly as his mind tried to keep up. Without a word he walked through the door, letting it close behind him as he followed Hector towards the Military Complex.

There were only a few occasions when Evan was permitted to enter the Military Complex, such as when he was accompanying the King or Queen. His relationship with them came with certain privileges, but for the most part those did not include entrance into the secret military compound on his own. As he followed Hector, Evan felt an increasing sense of apprehension. Something was amiss.

During previous visits the complex he observed a rather serene environment where everything and everyone worked as a function of the complex itself. Crown Soldiers quietly stood guard at entrances, roamed the interior corridors, and went about the usual business of protecting Terra and its residents. That untroubled scene was gone, replaced with a discordant atmosphere that left Evan feeling uneasy. Soldiers were dressed in their formal uniforms, boots newly polished, fitted jackets with various insignias inscribed in metallic colored threads, and weapons holstered at their sides. The sight of them with weapons was still as unnerving has it had been the first time.

There were triple the number of Soldiers present, if not more, forming lines in multiples as higher ranking officials shouted instructions at them. More soldiers congregated around great panels of glass which glowed with maps that animated, updating in real-time. All around the complex was a cacophony of orders and salutes from the soldiers. He had never seen so many before and the feeling that there were even more out in the corridors of Terra did little to quell his uneasiness.