2 - ReceivedHer dark lips quivered as they felt nostalgia enter her mouth in the form of a yet unlit cigarette, purchased fifteen minutes earlier in an impulsive walk to the nearest dispensary avaible. Her internal monologue said something like 'It must have been like a decade since I st had a cigarette in my mouth', as if she didn't know exactly how long it had been. Except she did: it was nine years, two seasons and a day ago, on her sixteenth birthday, in which, while on a cndestine club night, she saw her friend –not a best friend, as she never really thought herself to have one, but definitely not a stranger either– die of an opioid overdose while she, carrying her to the hospital, kept a cigarette on her mouth, which, at the time, helped ease the nerves of secondary education. That day Salih Pannek decided short-term pleasures were not worth the long-term madies, and she refused to smoke or drink anything illicit ever again, leading to a few months of irritable withdrawal but eventually to a feeling of completeness that ultimately brought her closer to God.
So, why break such a powerful and historically-justified vow now? It is fairly simple. Her morning had not been quite good. She does not feel the need to go through it to justify the cigarette. It was decidedly not a fshback-worthy morning. What truly had put her on the edge was the st couple of hours, sitting in that auditorium with three hundred or so people, none of which she wanted to see, and most talking about whether her wife was, or not, going to survive the teleporting procedure and spawn safe and sound at the auditorium today. Wherever she went, a reporter did so as well, and she would be asked questions such as 'What were the st words Liya spoke to you today', 'Do you feel hope on today's experiment', or 'Why is it that no records exist of Salih Pannek before the year 780?', all of which she refused to even acknowledge, or the fact that, among the Empire's many sadistic ploys regarding the Bio-Telemate was that Salih's seat on the auditorium was pced exactly to the left of the Emperor's, a fact that only made her feel this strange, perhaps unjustified paranoia that those in command know well who she truly is.
No! She refuses. It is the tobacco's taste speaking to her these very unsavoury things. The cigarette needs to be removed from her power as soon as possible. She breathes in the cold Spring air and lets the Sun warm her skin as it stands more powerful than ever over the auditorium's rear door, and her fingers grab the unpowered cigarette and clutch on it hard, ready to flick it away ceremoniously, when ... !
A voice rumbled near her.
"Miss Pannek, is it?" And between the voice's sentences... a pained breathing ..."Or do you prefer.. Mrs. Merebold?"
She could not believe she didn't feel it coming. The Emperor's voice was deeper than ever, and the man stood in ways she felt too colloquial for the embodiment of authoritarian evil. YRATAK wore a suit of red and gold, complemented with a cape and highlighted by ... no, actually, it is no highlight, he merely seems to have a small, pink piece of tissue on his pocket, that he holds with his gloved hand and occasionally uses to brush around his nose.
Salih's breathing was cut short, and her teeth clutched back on the cigarette for safety. It was impossible to hide how hastily her lungs acted thereafter. She had never prepared for the moment she would meet the Emperor of Kharett, for she supposed that day would be her st on Earth, and she assumed such a day would be far less cordial than his introduction, and her head would be on the ground, before she could even answer any questions. It was most of her uncle's teachings, who raised her for most of her growing years since her orphaning.
But there he stood, still, now, seemingly unarmed (there must be a weapon somewhere...), with no visible guards nearby, asking which honorific she preferred. It was, of course, the kind of question a patriarchic leader would ask, but his tone was no less astonishing for that reason. She lived, and he still expected her to speak— is there a world where he truly doesn't know who he is speaking to? Where he thinks Ydra Yiemmansek has been effectively executed, or where he doesn't really bother finding her any more?
"As you prefer," Salih spoke, as clear as she could speak and with a faked reverence to the governor, and the poor, unused cigarette fell from her mouth to the ground. God! How pathetic to bootlick at this point in time! She finished her sentence with a sweet enough "your majesty." What will Liya think of this? Oh, she won't be able to tell Liya, will she? Oh, God, when is she going to tell Liya?
Too many Liya-adjacent ruminations fly around her mind, so many that, as the Emperor stretched his hand toward her, she barely noticed it happening, but once it was in front of her and awaiting her response, her mind went bnk, only for her internal monologue to conclude that if YRATAK is here to kill her, he will do so as soon as she gives him her hand. It is far too te to run yet another time.
Her hand receives his and clutches it, waving up and down in what is often known as a handshake. YRATAK's hand holds hers with a primitive strength, which Salih's deep most instincts assumed where those of a governing man, but that YRATAK recognized in himself as his wrath asking to execute this woman as soon as possible. There was a restraint at py — something keeping him from acting on his true, masculine desires of bloodshed.
... and then something else, as well. Something was strange about the grip of his hand on hers. It was not only the fact that his fingers were cold, colder than the breeze outside, or that, in every other greeting he pces his non-shaking on the other's shoulder to assert dominance. Her hand pressed against his in reaction to his grip, and she realized he gave away his strength too suddenly, as if it was not the move of a social engineer but that of a weakened man, hurt by the feel of her fingers.
Such weakness was not only noticeable in his handshake, mind you. Why did his voice sound so raspy today? Was it that she'd never heard him speak in person? Certainly not. The difference is far bigger than just microphone distortion. Doesn't he look a little tired today, at such a peak time of the day? And what is with that rubbing near his nose with that tissue of his?
Too many questions are pronounced within her mind, and even if she can't answer all of them at once, they all bring her the slightest bit of confidence that whatever menace faces her — it is a frail one. And her own strength needs not to be proven to herself. Her blood boils with courage.
The Emperor feels it, and begins to speak again. "It is soon time, is it not? Her reconstruction will commence ... in less than twenty minutes." He takes breaks in between sentences to breathe. There is definitely some sickness under that big crown of his. His hands are csped together, and he approaches them to his nose, again, subtly, but not enough.
"Fifteen." She had checked her watch soon before he arrived — so the calcution did not take her a second. Salih responded to him an instant after he stopped speaking, hoping to get him out of breath with words, rather than with her hands, which would be her preferred, albeit riskier method. "Everything is proceeding normally on the Undoer's end, according to Doctor Heggard. Surely you already knew of it." As her mind risked going numb, she breathed in and crossed her arms. He is shorter in person — despite his admirers frequently funting his two-meter height, she did not have to angle her head much to meet his sungsses, as if something had shrunk him, or as if it had all been false from the start.
"I do." Derision coats his every word, and, as ill as he could feel, he still made sure to let some ire seep through. He would not let this stupid, executable bitch get cocky with him. His fists clenched under the pockets of his coat. "We have worked closely with Laia Laboratories on this project." Any goodwill in his eyes turn into a serious expression — the kind often seen of him on public addresses. "Failure is not an option. And it will not happen." But it quickly changes. From behind the sungsses he wore, his eyes look down on her, and they even appear to, very rapidly, examine the entirety of her self before a small, hateful smile forms on his face. "At least, we are certain it will not happen." He concludes his sentence with an explosive accentuation of the word 'we'.
Salih's features react in many ways in a short span. Her posture is one of legitimate confusion. "What might you mean by that," Her only choice is to return to her former formalities. "your majesty?"
Animosity burns on the Emperor's eyes. His fingers wave up and down in front of her figure. "Bck skirt and a white shirt." He speaks of her clothing with an impossible, boiling mockery. His voice contains a ughter that would shake the ground. "Why are you half-dressed as a widow? Are you half-certain your spouse will die today? Or are you perhaps certain she will half-appear in thirteen minutes today, as a half-woman?"
She immediately despised the elements of herself that were described by the mouth of such a wicked, weak man. It would be more dignified to simply execute her. She had no true way of knowing whether he knew or not who she truly was, as his ways of speaking to women (especially those married to other women) were despised in the circles that were brave enough to discuss them. His hateful speech could be not really a matter of political antagonism, but just of the distorted view of the world he's crafted.
It hurt her more that his words might be a truth she refused to admit — and that he, of all people, would unearth her grief from a bck skirt now, where there is no Liya to seek for comfort. She felt very alone, but worst of all, she felt unafraid, and forced to reciprocate his smile.
"What of your widow, then? The dy who wore bck to her own wedding, where is she today?" Her eyes, dismissive as they'd never been, looked at him with a mocking pity, challenging death, and then watched the empty dent in his finger where a ring used to be. "Mrs. Daedani? Or should it not be Ms, now?" A thousand more questions spawned in the front-load of her mind. With the slightest more boldness in her blood, she would rapid-fire them all to him, until he either used his dagger (did he bring it with him, by the way?) to disembowel himself (unlikely) or had her executed in a terribly painful way for treason (many such cases).
So just after she spoke so valiantly, her breathing accelerated, a trickle of sweat ran down the side of her face and she wished really badly the cigarette was back in her mouth. Her fear of death returned to her like a sad, abandoned puppy, and she watched him with her yellowy brown eyes as his face winced for a moment, not heartbroken (why would he be? does he feel anything at all?), only slightly lowered, and pensive, his hands now behind his back and each fiercely pressing against the other's fingers as if they had necks to strangle. There was not only mady in him, but restraint — something keeping him from acting on his true, masculine desires of bloodshed.
"Donna..." He mumbles, and then he intends to start again out loud! "She —" But his sentence is cut short suddenly, his voice cracks and the tightness of his chest becomes audible. For a moment Salih gasps, her eyes in a silent atonement until he, now with eyes reddened, and a paler appearance approached the pink handkerchief to his nose again, breathing into it for a moment, closing his eyes and putting it back in the chest pocket of his suit.
An imminent death settled upon Salih's lips — and she felt a rising guilt at letting herself get killed before she could even know if her wife would survive or not this day. Because if she did — how terrible would it be for such a miracle to be succeeded by the sheer bother of funeral arrangements, having to reassemble her body after the Emperor's executioner slice her in sixteen different pieces of scummy flesh?
And only once she had truly despised herself again today, the Emperor fled the scene, walking in a direction slightly left of where Salih stood, not in a sprint of any sort but simply in very long, unstable steps, so unstable he seemed to bump into Salih's right arm, or perhaps just brush past it; the woman was not pushed much, she only flinched, and her hands seemed ready to fight back when she realized he had made it out of the small, alley-like space they were in, and when he had turned right two strong men in suits followed him to a car, quite as confused as all parties of this encounter were.
Salih shrank into herself, her own arms wrapping her body as she id against the nearest wall behind her. Her eyes closed, and she hoped the day would just start again.
"Salih, dear." An elderly woman opened the rear door from which Salih had exited just now to almost-smoke a cigarette. Ahan Merebold's hair was of a lightened, unsaturated green, and her eyes, to which Salih's desperately grasped upon, carried the hope of her daughter in her absence. "It's almost time. Liya is almost here." Ahan said, guaranteeing in words the most uncertain part of their day. As if it was that simple.
Salih quickly returned to a serious, but non-grievous expression, nodding quickly and walking inside the building alongside her mother-in-w.
The synthesis phase of the bio-telemate is not only much shorter than the disintegration of the user's body, but it is also much faster — it needs to be, much like destruction needs to be slow. Or at least, it needed to be that way for now. Ideally, technological development could have both reduced the forty-five minutes to a more tolerable amount— and advanced anaesthetic measures (yet to be developed — stalled by the Empire as most science is) would have been applied to make it a viable form of transport over long distances. It is important to remember that the device being tested today was simply the first prototype with chances of failure small enough to be worth the try. There were optimisations to be made, in the future, once the test had been successful and the proper financing had been delivered.
But that had not yet happened. About forty-five minutes away from Laia Laboratories by train (and roughly one hour by car, respecting the speed limit), is a decently-sized, subsidiary boratory had been arranged more like a theatre, for Liya's arrival. (The most anticipated 'Redoer').
Closer to a hotspot of urban density at the Ibraleshi capital, the city of Tatsubo, point B has an opposite atmosphere to point A. While the tter contains a small team of high-skilled professionals who worked very closely in the development of the teleporter, the former pnned to encase the ceremonial end of the experiment — having only four scientists in charge next to the receiving machine, observed by a crowd of nearly three hundred people, divided into sections as if it were an opera. Still, some discretion was given to the machine, and to the woman to be synthesised inside it, by elegantly pcing it so that its window is not visible.
The one empty seat was now that of the Emperor, whose disappearance would be ter vaguely justified by using terms such as 'sudden, unavoidable, urgent, and greatly important responsibilities' that he had to tend to. His limited presence at the Redoer, before he went after Salih, was characterised by a retively long speech met with both uproar and rolling eyes in the diverse audience (no hecklers, of course, anybody in a sane state of mind knows not to heckle YRATAK of all people...).
[...] We have worked very closely with Laia Laboratories for the inception of this very moment. Many remember them from the creation of the TELEMATE, which has allowed to simplify commercial operations and expand our technological grip on the Eastern Continent. The conception of this device means to change everything — and I am certain it will succeed.
He was not the only man of power supposed to be there, though, and his comments on the nation's technological supremacy did not come without a certain air of arrogance toward the foreign representatives present, including ambassadors for both Ghunda and Northern Primma (which were imperatively NOT seated one next to the other), and many members of what remains of the former Ibraleshi oligarchy. Indeed, with Liya Merebold being born in a small town of Eastern Ibralesh (Kiida), the region's popution arrived at the Redoer with a sense of pride — some separatist sentiment even being expressed in certain interviews given to present members of the audience.
What united them all was the ominous, varying knowledge of the experiment's risks (if severely downpyed by the Imperial press) — and the hope that it would not be in vain. Science has become time and time again a divisive issue, but there was no real discord at the time of her arrival. The days before it? There was rage regarding its funding, the alleged animal experimentation, the ethics of such a process... the days after it? They will be narrated in due time. But the point is, in the few seconds preceding knowing for certain whether the experiment had succeeded or failed, not one person wished for the second option. Priests of the Sun were even present at the pce, sending a proper prayer for the woman's survival.
"Li — Doctor Merebold should arrive in two minutes from now." Said suddenly Doctor Heggard, a stocky, bald scientist leading the redoing effort, holding a loudspeaker and addressing the evolving presence, his eyes fixated on Salih Pannek's eyes, who sat on first row, more imposing than many of the political representatives in the room.
Next to her, some of Liya's direct retives: the already introduced Ahan Merebold, and then Liya's father, Itteg Etso, slightly shorter than his spouse, dressed in a boratory coat he had not worn in years (decades, even. the wear is noticeable...), wearing his small eyes, his thinning hair, sitting with crossed arms and closed legs, not with worry on his eyes but a certain scepticism, enough so that it warranted him interacting with Salih, something he had not done in more than a year.
Ahan and Itteg had been chatting with each other for a while, responding to each other in between pauses of at least ten seconds, sometimes in Ibraleshi, but often in pin Kharetti. Salih tried not to engage and to ignore what they spoke to be respectful, but not only were they very loud, they also seemed to turn their heads to Salih whenever certainty was required.
"Salih." Itteg eventually said, and Salih was thrown off by hearing her name be pronounced so clearly by the man who frequently referred to her using her st name. "Did Liya tell you about the data transfer protocol used between transmission and reception?"
“Oh,” Salih’s eyes blinked twice, taken aback by the question. She raised her hand to her face and pronounced a slow, quiet ‘hm’ sound, although she had never really heard anything about data transfer protocols in her life. “We don’t talk that much about our work at home, I'm afraid.” Her face showed clear signs of regret. Although whether she regretted what she just said, or that she had lied about it, was unclear. “I've known portions of it here and there, but nothing any better than what is already well known.”
Itteg grunted, and turned his head back to his wife, building a new response to her from scratch. "Peh. That doesn't matter. I've gone through it over and over again. The machine is safe. You don't have to worry about it."
Ahan's left hand pinched between her eyes, which were closed while she shook her head. "I have to worry about it. She's my daughter. She's my only daughter."
Itteg's shoulder shrugged slightly, and his hands made a dumbfounded gesture, toward Salih, who did not reciprocate the surprise. "She's my only daughter too!" He spoke, loudly, before realizing he was heard by a number of pesky journalists that were transcribing their conversation. He followed up in passionate whispers. "That doesn't mean I have to be stressed. I know my only daughter would not try one of her own experiments if it wasn't perfectly safe."
Salih felt it was a proper moment to intervene. "Well —"
But Ahan interrupted her swiftly, without any malice. "I read that success is not guaranteed."
Itteg rolled his eyes. "A ninety-nine point four chance is basically a guarantee. She's just going to try it once." His index finger, indeed, embodied the word 'once' by being raised. He then used the same index finger to vaguely point at Salih. "It's going to be okay. Salih knows."
Salih winced. It felt like a perfectly reasonable moment to lie. But she didn't.
"I don't." Her tone was overcorrective, as if an absurd triviality that she didn't know. "I don't actually know. I just ... I trust her." Her eyes only momentarily observed the Redoer. It was impossible to see inside it, but she could tell there was no 'her' inside of it, yet. "I trust she wouldn't put herself in danger for this. I trust the enthusiasm she's put into this project. I trust in the projects we have set for the future. She wouldn't jeopardise them in vain."
Ahan refused to look at Salih to her eyes. Itteg squinted, and said: "Wait." His frown stabbed her gaze directly. "What projects exactly?"
"Itteg!" Ahan tugged the man's sleeve. "It's time!" At the same time as her raspy voice made the announcement, a number of people in the audience started mumbling to each other, and it seemed Doctor Heggard was prepared to announce the beginning of the end. It was time. At 3:15:32 p.m, of Spring's 29th day, that the transmission had concluded, and the reception would start. The machine began making sounds comparable to that of a printer — which is what they were meant to expect, but not for that was it any less ominous to hear.
An assistant of Doctor Heggard was in charge of observing the synthesis process visually rather than how the bald man did (through the computer connected to its sensors). While Heggard's back faced the crowd, his protégé's face could be visible by them, even if slightly obscured by the gigantic machine. She made an attempt at staying serious, impassive, but still, many took note of her flinches, the darting up-and-down of her pupils, and even a few instances of eye-contact with Liya's wife, as if scared to be the one watching the woman be manifested from within the machine just as she was brought to the world: fully naked and in a grand state of distress. Because while at the transmitter's end Liya had been dressed with a simple clinical gown and some simple accessories, the device had been thoroughly tested as to make sure such accessories are not sent to the Redoer. The risk of a glove or a sock being built into one's extremity was too high. Instead, they evaporate in the Undoer much like the user's body, and their content in matter is immediately discarded as soon as its recognised as inorganic and irrelevant.
Salih responded to the blonde assistant by staring back, not with anger or confrontation, but simply with some fear. The shivering in her eye could be seen from a kilometre away. A dam of tears, ready to burst open — as soon as the assistant grimaced in the slightest. Salih had been raised a realistic woman, no, a pessimistic one, always prepared for catastrophe, ready to move on at all points. She had moved on when her parents had been murdered, she had moved on when suddenly abandoned by a many-year partner, but... would she 'move on' now? Hardly. She knows well that she has aged beyond apathy. That she has been weakened first by the strongest of yearnings, by meeting Liya, and then by loving her. By loving her so much, and for so long. With a little more moral strength she would've done a bigger effort to stop her. She would've used every remaining strength in her body to stop her from leaving their house. Yelling, "You're not sure enough. It is not worth your life. It is not worth our future. Our future!".
But, as, she didn't do such a thing. She knew she would never want to get between the love of her life and the work that makes her smile. Her smile, when she's working, her enthusiasm... how could she dare try and kill that? And if her work ends up killing her... who is she to stop it? Is it selfish to want her to step back; live, rather than prove herself to the world— having it done already before? Perhaps she should have been selfish. Selfishness is prepared to murder a retionship as much as it is to save it. But Salih refused to be selfish. So now she only feared. She feared all those smiles had, one day, become an illusion, and human teleportation was no passion project of hers, but an obligation born from with an ulterior motivation she was too foolish to see. She feared she'd been wrong all along. She feared Liya was dead. She feared she would never see her again. That her wife's st moments alive were not spent holding hands with her, but in pain. In a lonely, long, strenuous state of pain, encased in her own invention— a casket birthed by her own brilliance.
Some argue that said fate, quick and brutal, would have been preferable to what happened in reality. That a grimace and a pout from Heggard's assistant would have been easier to grieve than the smile she sent to the audience that day. And the assistant smiled brightly— because Liya had been synthesised by the Redoer, without any failures or losses.
The bio-telemate had succeeded fully, and the woman inside the receiver was not only alive, but her eyes were open, and her expression was calm. It was serene.
"It was somewhat unnerving." The assistant, Xameinem Travia, would admit in an interview days ter. "I was chosen for this job because I have assisted numerous births— they told me that this would be simir, if the experiment succeeded. That Liya would be screaming, as soon as she awakened. Instead, she was first constructed, quickly and perfectly, and once that was finished, and her eyes opened, she just stared at me bnkly. I was happy to see her alive — as I had been emotionally prepared for the possibility of seeing a malformed corpse... but I suppose I got neither of the possibilities I was told to expect." Which was why she stared at Heggard, to make sure everything was fine, much like the sight of Liya suggested.
That everything had worked. The green symbols in his computer, the brightness in his expression, both hands resting on the back of his head as he smiles at what he feels is a miracle — it was a barrage of great news that converged into one, which he announced in the sole microphone on stage, which everyone in the audience watched expectantly, as they all hoped it was true.
"Synthesis finalised." He said first, and the glee resonated within the audience that did not yet know whether to celebrate or not. "The subject — Liya, fuck!" It was a happy 'fuck'. The kind to spring from your mouth after the unbelievable has come true. "Liya made it alright, f-folks! She's made it! No losses registered, the test was a success!"
For the week of the experiment, Doctor Heggard's words were etched in the annals of human development, stammered "folks" included. His hesitation, his scientific talk interrupted by a sudden burst of emotion... for a moment, they had done history. They were heroes— all of them. Psio Heggard, Trekkos Muias, Liya Merebold, and the team of scientists at Laia Laboratories... they were pioneers of the new world. Creators of the future. And it was time to congratute the woman that had made it all happen.
Over at the Undoer, where Liya's body had disappeared minutes prior, Muias only heard Heggard's announcement in his earpiece. Everyone else stood in a quiet sense of solemnity.
"Siliam." Muias spoke suddenly, not celebrating prematurely. "The synthesis has concluded. Can you verify the preliminary tests?"
"Is she good?" spoke one of the scientists present. Next to her, other two seemed to whisper to one another. "Muias. Is Liya alive?"
Melikah Siliam had begun typing long before Muias called for them. He did so silently. "The preliminary tests..." A new silence had appeared. An ominous one, with implications that were now unknown. "... they seem good. I have no reason to dispute them, at least."
"Thank fucking God." Muias suddenly fell into a crouch, his hands making a sort of prayer that also covered his eyes. "Sun... the Sun... Liya..."
"Muias — !" The previous scientist, Ytrima, approached again, standing before him. Everyone else in the room begun speaking to each other, too, specuting for moments until Muias spoke the ultimate words to reassure Liya's colleagues once and for all.
"Yes. She's — she is safe. She appears to be shocked, but everything points toward the teleportation being an absolute success."
