Second Contact: Digitesque, #3

Author’s Note

Second Contact is a pulpy, action-oriented story centered on two characters whose impulses, fears, and blind spots sometimes drive them to act with violence, cruelty, recklessness, apathy, or neglect. The world they live in is frequently violent, with a fictional history that includes genocide, pandemics, and war.

In addition to what you’ve already encountered in the previous books, Second Contact includes a scene that explores an antagonist exploiting a disability for their own political gain, experimenting on and killing human test subjects, and intentionally engineering a pandemic.

To the best of my knowledge, and speaking only from my own perspective, if any elements from this book not already present in the series were to trouble some readers, I would expect it to be these. I hope this knowledge serves you well.

Previously

When an army of humans marched to destroy an ancient shrine, Isavel Valdéz believed they were trying to defeat the ghosts once and for all, and she fought hard and isolated herself even further in order to do what seemed right. But the shrine was the key to the human afterlife itself, and Ada Liu raced to defend it, allied with body-stealing ghosts, voracious dragons, an ancient starship, and cryptic aliens.

Isavel found her in the shrine, but although they fought and she defeated Ada, the core of the afterlife itself escaped destruction, blasted off into orbit beyond anyone’s reach. And even though Ada turned her back on humanity, Isavel saved her from a fiery death in the collapse of the mountain and the shrine where they’d fought.

Now Ada’s ship is gone, and she must stand by as her alien friends call to the stars, seeking to break a millennium of silence and be rescued by distant cousins they have never met. If they fail, their spirits will be crushed, but if they succeed, Ada will be left alone and without resources, in a world still darkened by the shadow of the technophage - an ancient nanotechnological infection that disrupts humanity’s ability to form large societies.

Isavel Valdéz ultimately learned that she had been led on by lies, and that she’d almost destroyed the afterlife itself. She turned on the temple steward who misled her and revealed her to be an Ancient schemer. But in rejecting the temple’s leadership, her influence among her people is dwindling, and by taking the blood of a dragon and finding its own gifts in her veins, her sense that her second life was gods-granted is dwindling as well.

With the war seemingly over, Isavel no longer feels needed and is left wondering once more what to do with this life she never expected to have.

Meanwhile, her adoptive city’s future clouded with uncertainty, Ada wonders what her own future holds, and how she can live in a world where few trust her and she trusts even fewer in turn.

Foreword

I’m still not sure how I feel about the stars.

Growing up, we would look to the sky and see them there, dwarfed by the Ring and the moon, driven into hiding every day by the sun. There was something out there; we heard the echoes in our stories. But nobody quite knew what it was, and it certainly never seemed important. After all, the stars were impossibly far beyond reach.

It turned out that wasn’t true. It also turned out they weren’t so alien to what we already knew, aside from their being on the other side of the sky. Different, certainly, but different arrangements of the same things. Why should they be fully alien, after all? We’re all made of the same stuff, living in the same times. It can be surprising, to meet something you expect not to understand, only to find facets of mirror-shine if you only look the right way.

Isavel told me once that she met Ada twice - first as a stranger, second as a friend. She never explained exactly when that second moment happened, only that they met on new terms and saw the same person in a different way. Or perhaps the way they had seen each other all along, but honestly and with less fear.

Sometimes I wonder whether we met the stars a second time in much the same way. Not at first - reacquaintance is often cautious or rough or both. But when we did accept that the black and the signal fires were waiting for us and we took the plunge, it wasn’t frightening or confusing the way first times usually are. We were ready. Maybe, deep down, we never quite forgot our first time among stars.

Certainly, the stars themselves had never forgotten us.

Chapter 1

Ada Liu had been warned, as a child, not to go shouting in dark forests. In a world of unknowns, of vasts untamed, where anybody you met might be able to summon death at their fingertips with a mere thought, you were careful. You stayed quiet. You watched, and waited, and tried not to announce your presence to people or creatures or machines that might want you dead.

Not every child listened to warnings, of course. Ada had left her fair share of fire and ash and echoes in the forests over the course of this surprisingly short, incredibly long summer.

And now she stood in the middle of a starlit city square, almost entirely alone, and looked up at the dark forest of the universe. At the stars, twinkling pale and innocent, that hung unsuspectingly far beyond the protective embrace of the silvery Ring that encircled the world. Tonight, for the first time in a thousand years, Earth would speak to the stars. And she wondered if, sometimes, the dark forest was just...empty.

A few ghosts floated through the city, barely real, barely human. They didn’t belong in this place, even if their ancestors had built it, even if some of them, in Ancient lives, might have built it themselves. This city belonged to the Outers, who wanted to run away because they thought they didn’t belong to it. Along with most of the ghosts, the Outers were huddled in the ziggurat behind her. Everybody was there as final preparations were made for the transmission.

Ada, however, had wanted to see the stars one last time before they disappointed the lonely, trapped people of this city. Her friends. One last time she could look up at the black without a hint of bitterness. Nobody had come for them in a thousand years; nobody had sent a message; nobody had given a sign. There was no reason to think there was anybody out there who could.

Ada?

She turned to see Zhilik, his white fur a pale grey in the light of the night. She wasn’t sure what would be worse - watching the Outers crushed by a final confirmation of their loneliness, or seeing them taken away forever by strangers from beyond the stars. She tried to smile. Why are you out here, Zhilik?

"Why are you? You made this possible. You belong in that room more than many."

To hear the deafening silence? She breathed in through her nose. I’m sure that’ll be great.

You belong in there so you can do what the rest of them are doing. Hope.

She widened her eyes at him. You’ve told me several times you didn’t think there’d be a response.

Perhaps I am not hoping for a response. He stepped closer to her, alien eyes with slitted pupils gazing on those same stars. If he wasn’t hoping for a response, then what?

Knowing Zhilik, she imagined he was hoping for no response at all. She thought that would be for the best. If nothing happens, you’ll belong here. You won’t be able to tell yourselves this isn’t home anymore.

His triangular ears perked up. She thought he agreed, though he would never say as much out loud. Many Outers saw themselves as strangers in a strange land, unwelcome and unwanted on this human planet. To suggest otherwise, it seemed, was to threaten what little identity they had managed to maintain over the centuries.

Would you like that, Ada? For us to stop looking to the stars?

She looked at him. Keep looking at the damned things. Just don’t look for an escape. I don’t want you to leave.

Why not?

She sighed, looking around at Campus. Its buildings were alive, used, and maintained. Its streets were solid. Its technology...was in use, at least, even if it wasn’t new. And the Outers who lived here did not stifle her. They ignored her, mostly, and alone in this crowded place, she found herself more at peace and freer to study than she had ever been among humans. I don’t think I can keep telling myself this isn’t home.

Zhilik breathed out loudly, his nostrils flaring, and he rested a furry, four-fingered hand on her shoulder. Come. The message has been recorded, but Kseresh requested I bring you in to watch before they beam it out. We will see what happens.

She looked up at the stars and dared them to answer.

The air in the ziggurat was thick with tension and with smell. For the most part, Outers didn’t smell much at all, but for whatever reason, when they were tense with anticipation, they started to smell musky, and just stepping into the building, Ada could feel generations’ worth of dreams and promises seeping from their pores. She didn’t bother trying to cover her nose - she had done so once, only to be loudly accused of being rude - but she held the gaze of every human ghost she passed as she did, and in their eyes, she saw a shared understanding of the musk’s power.

Still, her eyes did not water, and she made it into the command room without signalling any discomfort, as best she could tell. In truth, it was a somewhat comforting smell to her at this point, after so many weeks living with them. An honest smell, earnest and straightforward. It spoke to the giddy terror in that command room, huddled up against the walls, all eyes on Elder Kseresh as his old four-fingered hands hovered near a large computer screen.

His eyes met hers as she entered the room behind Zhilik, and his ears twitched. Ada Liu.

She nodded. I’m finally here, yes.

Some hissing laughter rippled through the room. She saw a human shape startle and looked over to find Tanos and Sam leaning against a wall in the back, a slight gap separating them from the Outers but no discernable gap between the two of them. They met her eyes, and she saw Tanos mutter something, to which Sam nodded.

Their gaze made her more uneasy than the gaze of the hundred-odd Outers packed into this room, so she turned away, eyes dancing through that sea of multicolored fur as the elder spoke. Ada Liu, before we do this, I wanted to thank you for everything you have done. We would not be here without your help, your fighting spirit, or, frankly, your human fingertips.

Zhilik patted her on the shoulder. Somebody had to get through all those biometric computer systems.

She chuckled. Well, I wouldn’t be here if not for you furballs either.

Much of it was down to their centuries of tireless recordkeeping and work, some of it was down to her own impetuous insistence on trying to fix the planet, a little of it was down to her bastard gods. Everybody knew that.

Only a few knew that she wouldn’t be standing here if Isavel Valdéz hadn’t taken her into her arms, carried her to safety from a collapsing ruin being consumed in the sky. Those few were looking her straight in the eyes whenever her eyes chanced in that direction.

She cleared her throat. Well, are you going to get it over with? Push the damned button.

Anxious murmurs rippled across the room, no doubt transmitted by recorders to dozens of devices elsewhere in the ziggurat, where the entire community was watching. Elder Kseresh turned around and flicked the button.

Everybody drew in a sharp breath.

She wasn’t sure why they were holding their breaths, but she was doing it too, until somebody in the room let out some air. Kseresh’s ears perked up. Breathe, all of you. We never expected an immediate answer. It may take minutes. Hours.

He did not go on to say days, months, years. He didn’t evoke the infinite darkness of space or the infinite silence it might hold. Hope could only stretch so far.

Ada leaned back against the wall, looking at Zhilik. What now?

He bobbed his neck. I do not know. The message itself should be instant, and any response would be instant as well. We test our patience.

She shook her head, not wanting to, but she was in no mood for sleep. Nobody was. How could they be?

Zhilik pulled a set of small cubes out of his pocket and flashed them at her. The abstract, bold carvings on each side were alien to Earth itself, but Ada had seen them a few times before, whenever Zhilik had tried to teach her this old game from Mir, their ancestors’ homeworld. She smiled and shook her head.

Let me rope some other poor humans into this first. She turned to Tanos and Sam and beckoned them over with her fingers.

They glanced at each other, and she could see their lips moving in whispers even as they crossed the room. When they reached her, though, they peered up nervously at Zhilik instead.

Sam’s eyes flicked back to Ada. What’s up?

Ada shook her head. Nothing. This is going to be a boring, long wait, so let’s play a game.

Tano’s eyes widened with delight, and he listened to the rules eagerly. Sam seemed much more skeptical, keeping her arms closed as she watched Zhilik explain with hands and words and examples. Ada cracked her knuckles, confident enough that she could at least get second place, if not win, against two new players.

The blow to her ego when Sam won the first round wasn’t as bad as she had expected. She laughed and leaned back. Lucky.

Sam raised an eyebrow. Play again and let’s find out.

She wasn’t just lucky.

When an unexpected sound pierced the air in the command room, though, it wasn’t what they had been hoping for. No surprised or astounded message from the stars, no alien voices, no lost ancestors. It was an electric thrum, a crack, the distant sound of glass shattering and cutting its way through the wind down onto pavement.

Ada jumped to her feet, grabbed the doorframe, and started hauling her way through the packed ziggurat. The city, this refuge of the strange and outcast in the midst of its own dark forest, was under attack.

Isavel didn’t want to fight anyone. She’d done enough of that.

So why did people insist on getting in her way?

It wasn’t just anyone, either. In the aftermath of the battles up and down the coast, many of the hunters and warriors in particular had gravitated to Glass Peaks, and some had found their way into the temple guard, where they found camaraderie and status. And among the three guards currently squatting in what was generally the most discreet way to exit the temple was a floppy head of blue hair she recognized. Rodan.

She’d been avoiding everyone in the party she’d briefly lived with over the past week or so. And why wouldn’t she? To them, she was the Saint Herald of the Gods, her motley collection of gifts and her closeness to the temple and its clergy clear signs that she was apart from the rest of society. She felt less and less like a person, more and more like a list of titles.

She felt like nothing around these people.

So she had to leave. And Rodan and his two friends were blocking the way.

Hail, standing beside her on the temple roof, assessed the scene with cool blue eyes. He knows us. We can talk our way past him. The three temple guards were huddled in the alley between the main temple structure and an annex, joined to the temple by a single wooden bridge spanning the two ancient concrete buildings. One of his friends seemed to be a hunter, from her tall, lithe build; the other, from the gun, Isavel guessed must be a coder.

Many of the coders from the Institute had stayed in Glass Peaks with ailing Elder Tan, their leader. He claimed he wanted to be present to advise in case the ghosts returned but privately it was known that he had found his dying days and could not travel.

Sometimes, when she thought of him, Isavel tried to imagine the day her own age caught up to her. Health suddenly failing, body crumpling in on itself. It was always fast, unexpected, with little warning but a few years’ whitening of the hair.

Try as she might, she could not imagine she would live the century it would take for old age to drag her to Elysium.

Rodan’s small party seemed to be playing a game of chance, which would distract them at least a little. Isavel glanced at her bodyguard - her friend? - and pursed her lips. Hail didn’t understand just how badly Isavel wanted to escape from people. And Isavel didn’t think she understood just how preoccupied with the Herald’s activities most people were. We need to find another way. I don’t want to be questioned.

They can’t challenge the Herald.

No, but they can ask me questions they won’t like the answers to. She glanced up at the night sky, the darkness and stars only slightly shying away from the torches and scattered Ancient lights of the city. She looked at the annex, at the wooden bridge above the alley. I’ve got an idea. Come on over here.

After Isavel died, after she was reborn, after she burst out bloodied and screaming from that open-air burial, one of the first things she had seen was the Ring that now glimmered high above them. Steel and starlight said to encircle the entire world and house all the gods of Earth. She had been certain her death and life were their doing.

Hail followed wordlessly, until they reached another edge of the temple’s oval rooftop. Gravel crunched under their feet until they came to a stop.

The gods weren’t around when Isavel had eaten a dragon’s heart and felt its fire in her chest. She had done that, not the gods. She had found her own way, had had the thought, had torn through the flesh with her teeth. She had done all of that herself.

How do you feel about a little flying?

Hail’s eyes widened at her in the dim light of the cityscape. The dragon’s gift? Can you really -

Not exactly. She let her gaze go out of focus as she concentrated on the gifts in her blood, like extra muscles her brain knew just how to use. The dragon’s gift was a little bit stranger than the others - for one thing, it made her feel like she had wings. And with a gentle flex of her warrior’s and dragon’s gifts, in tandem, tiny hexagonal scales of light pooled above her skin and clothes, pearling along her awareness and her upper back until they coalesced into exactly that. Wings.

The pathfinder’s gift let her plunge them from radiant blue to the starry black of night, and dragon wings, like dragons themselves, were filled with the raw contempt of gravity itself. She felt like she was being dragged upwards, bobbing in the air like a boat on water. She extended her hands to Hail. Hang on. We’ll drift down, get to the roof of the annex, and jump down the other side again.

Hail glanced quickly between the bridge and Isavel. You mean we’ll drop.

Slowly. I’ve done this before. She thought of that time, hauling an unconscious Ada Liu out of a disintegrating Ancient ruin as a mountain came apart around them. Not exactly the same thing, but the thought made her smile, inadvertently, and Hail seemed to take that as encouragement.

She took Isavel’s hands, looking a little flustered as she did - even Hail, who Isavel trusted more personally than the rest, was a bit starstruck of her at times. So when Isavel stepped up onto the ledge and Hail followed, and she reached around under Hail’s arms to get a better grip on her, she wasn’t surprised to see Hail blush and look away, apparently too close for comfort.

Ready?

I trust you, Herald. Hail sounded less than ready, but Isavel scowled at her a little and Hail hurriedly corrected herself. Isavel.

No more titles from here on out. She let the dragon’s gift fill her with a sense of flight, of the kind she herself would never quite have the wings to manage. Here we go.

They stepped off, and Hail gasped very slightly; holding an adult person under the arms like this, it turned out, was more awkward than fully carrying them, but they only had a short way to drop before they thumped down onto the roof of the bridge.

From there Isavel hurried quickly to the annex building. They crossed the roof in a hurry, and just as she’d remembered, there was a dead-end alley that ended on one end of the building. She gathered Hail in her arms again, and they floated their way down without incident beyond a mild sense of exertion on Isavel’s part. Once there, they donned their cloaks and started walking away.

A perfect plan, until they reached the junction at the entrance to the alley, and Isavel heard quick footsteps nearby. Too quick to be casually strolling through the night. She didn’t want to be seen at all - she wanted everyone to think she was asleep in the temple. The longer she had, the better.

She grabbed Hail and marched the alarmed-looking hunter down the alley, away from the temple, but they didn’t make it in time.

Hey! The voice was familiar. Who are you?

She froze. Hail looked at her, flicking her eyes behind them. Why not just tell them she was going on a stroll? Because -

The footsteps approached rapidly from behind. Listen, we have ways of knowing if you’re ghosts -

Isavel winced and spun around. No, you don’t. I don’t know of a single ghost actually being found in the city since the war.

The war isn’t over - Rodan stopped in his tracks, about twenty meters down the alley, a tall, unarmed woman, no doubt a hunter, and a man with a gun at his sides. Rodan’s eyes widened. Isavel.

Hail stepped away from her. It was not a gesture lacking in faith or protectiveness - on the contrary, hunters spaced themselves out from their friends when they worried they were about to get into a fight. They didn’t want to draw fire on their friends.

The man with the gun took a step back. The Saint Herald?

Yeah. Rodan recovered from the apparent surprise, smiling cautiously, and started walking towards them. Sorry, I didn’t know -

She held up her hand, her thumb pressed into her palm - otherwise, a raised palm was a dangerous thing from someone with the hunter’s gift. Stop. I’m not looking to chat. I’m going for a walk.

He winced, but he did stop, even backing away a little. The last time she’d spoken to him, wracked with the understanding of who she was in everyone’s eyes - almost everyone’s - she’d dismissed him even more harshly. Sorry. We just thought -

The war is over. I don’t care what Jera says, and I don’t care what people are muttering about the ghosts holed up with the Outers. She’d heard the rumours, the fear mongering. They named the ghosts, the inscrutable Outers, and a dark sorceress. Isavel had seen the face of their fear - on a dance floor, in an ashen ruin, on a mountain peak. That face would not leave her own mind in peace either, but to her, its lingering did not feel like war. There’s no more fighting. It’s done.

After everything they’ve done -

"They’ve been quiet. Do you want to be the one to break the silence? She glared at them all. Don’t be fools. And don’t follow me. I’ll be back later."

She left them with that lie, turning away. Hail scrambled after her.

If the people of the city provoked Ada Liu somehow, they could certainly trust her to respond strongly. If that was their will, so be it. Let them be fools. The gods would do nothing, and neither would Isavel. Her responsibility was to herself, first and foremost. To find a place in herself where she might plant a seed of peace, nurture it with a ray of hope.

Isavel. Hail reached for her shoulder.

Quickly. She let her pathfinder’s skin shift and change to something paler; the bronzed olive skin her mother bore her with stood out too much in the northern pallor of Glass Peaks. She leaned closer to Hail. I shouldn’t talk. Some pathfinders might recognize my voice.

Hail nodded, pressing her lips together in an exaggerated enough expression that Isavel smiled a little. Hail smiled back, and Isavel wished she could feel more certain that Hail was truly a friend, and not first and foremost a self-appointed holy bodyguard.

They pulled the hoods of their cloaks closer around their faces. Isavel’s ears perked up whenever sounds seemed to change around them, waiting for any sign they had been spotted, or that Rodan had told someone who suspected her of leaving more permanently, but it seemed nobody expected their Saint Herald to disappear into the night. It was much harder to see the unexpected.

They exited the city’s western gate and began to climb through the barely-maintained ruins that led to a great bridge spanning the inlet south of the city. Generations of plant life had taken root, grown old, died, and decomposed on these ruins, a thick brown layer of earth seeping into the Ancient architecture and almost entirely masking the memory of what had once been its true nature.

Hail broke their silence partway there. Have you decided where you want to go?

Isavel had not. Confronted with the thousand paths forking out through the forest ahead of her, she found it easier to invent something on the spot, something so far away she had a great deal of time to change it along the way. Or maybe it would stick. South. Sajuana. Maybe I can find my mother’s family. Find a place where she could be Isavel, first and foremost.

Old shadows briefly crossed Hail’s face, and Isavel felt stupidly selfish almost immediately. Hail was herself from near Fogpoint, which lay along the coast in the same direction, and had left little but bad memories in that place. It was perhaps a cruel thing to ask her to return, but Isavel did feel a certain pull southwards, and Hail nodded without complaint. It will be a long march.

Everything was. Good thing I won’t be alone.

Hail smiled at her again, and while it did comfort her a little, Isavel wished that smile didn’t look quite so...concerned. So dutiful.

They reached the edge of the ancient bridge and looked south. She took a deep breath, trying not to let on that she worried about how closely the hunter watched her. Hail had grown increasingly concerned about her mental health; the first time Isavel had suggested leaving the city, Hail had even suggested she see a medic, as though this were some bout of melancholy. She’d prodded about why Isavel had grown colder towards the gods, as if that were unthinkable. Isavel had told her the truth. She wasn’t sure the shape of the answer fit the nook of expectations Hail had made for it, but she was grateful Hail had not pushed her any further than the one time and had instead quietly asked if she could come along and help.

Isavel stepped onto the bridge, and Hail followed. As they passed a Watcher, its silvery metal shell glinting in the blue light of its own heart, she tried to imagine what the far south was like. Her mother had told her story after story, regaling her childhood self with tales of the winding adventure that had brought her so far north of her homeland. Isavel couldn’t see such a future for herself either, any more than she could see herself growing old and frail. It seemed too unreal.

As she walked across the bridge, she looked southwest to the hilly woods reaching towards the sea, to the rolling forest behind it. There was an island out there. An island with a city. A city with a woman.

None of the futures she had been presented with seemed real to her; not endless service to the gods, not roaming the world in a party of adventurers, not saving the world. But she could so easily imagine herself crossing those deep waters, walking into that city, and finding that woman in the middle of a square waiting for her. Even though that also felt like the most impossible thing to do of all.

Chapter 2

Not everybody had been in the ziggurat. Ada had hoped so, once she’d understood what was going on, but she had been wrong.

Sixteen dead.

Outers didn’t carry weapons - they never had, for fear of incurring the wrath of Earth’s gods, and they had yet to start even after being liberated from that threat. What weapons they kept, she assumed for trade or for human friends, were locked in storage. Nobody had fired back. The Outers had died silently under silent stars, and their enemy had wisely fled into the woods. Ada would have torn them apart if they hadn’t.

She did not want to watch the cremations. She wanted to act. So here she was.

This is insanity. She had never heard Elder Kseresh raise his voice like this. Ada, you cannot undo centuries of carefully maintained peace with the neighbouring humans. They only tolerate us because they see us as harmless recluses.

Tolerate you? She jabbed her finger towards the northern edge of the city, where they had killed. "They’ve been prowling