The Roots That Chain Us

Part 1/2

    I run as fast as I can, my calloused paws scraping the rough, porous ground. It is noon and the Sun has shifted from white to sharp blue, scorching my skin. But the Master will not wait. He is kind, as far as Masters go, but he will whip me if I shame him.

    I clutch the package to my chest with my paw, careful not to jostle it. My feet skid on slick mud dripping from the dome above, overflowing the drains. The air still reeks of dung and wet earth from the morning Feeding.

    I see no one as I run, panting in the humid heat. But at least I make good progress. The domes grow larger, the roads broader, as I near the city’s heart.

    Here, the powerful make themselves known: mist-sprinklers run all day atop the domes, casting glittering mist into the air. Statues of long-dead Masters flank the shaded entrances. Tikai crouch in these shadowed alcoves, hiding from the worst of the noon’s heat, waiting to resume their endless chores.

    I head for a specific dome: one of the largest, known to all. It’s cleaned after every Feeding, revealing a shell of polished, laminated glass that blazes in the sun. A parade of jade statues rings the base, a testament to its ancient prestige. I avert my eyes from the glare as I approach.

#

    The entrance is a large tent of colorful linens, arranged in precise, elegant patterns. Inside, several warrior Tikai stand waiting, armored and armed.

    I rise onto my hind paws and hold out the package with my four others. A perfect sphere of deep, opaque green. It yields slightly to my touch but does not burst, proof that it has arrived unharmed. I do not know what it holds.

    “A gift for the Master of the dome,” I say, eyes lowered. “From Master Siffa.”

    A Master comes. Not the dome’s ruler. My Master is not that important. I lay prostrate on the ground, holding the package above my head.

    He moves slowly, as Masters do, his gelatinous bulk shifting in peristaltic waves, contractions rippling beneath the surface like melting glass. The white micro-roots along his underside extend and retract, gripping the rough floor as he slides forward.

    I do not lift my gaze beyond his base. Instead, I watch the shoots of white lightning that crisscross his otherwise opaque green skin: thin threads of bioluminescence twitching beneath the surface, pulsing with unreadable meaning.

    He morphs his body, extending a long pseudopod to take the gift. He lifts it gingerly from my grasp. Then, with a sudden squeeze—he pops it like a bubble. Green slop splashes down onto my head, warm and slick.

    I risk a glance upwards, curious.

    He holds a small orb, glowing and pulsing in shifting colors, like coiled roots tangled around one another. The patterns never settle, never repeat.

    Information.

    I cannot fathom how, but I know what it is: a message. A vessel for knowledge meant for another Master. Another mystery I must conquer, for her—for all of us.

    The Master leaves, not sparing me a second glance.

    “Out at noon?” one of the Tikai asks.

    He dips a ladle into a jug and offers it to me. I drink cool, refreshing water. I hadn’t realized how parched I was.

    They let me stay, waiting with them in a comfortable silence. My skin itches beneath my green fur, the first sting of sunburn. I am thankful for the shade.

#

    I make my way home at a leisurely pace. It is nearly time for the afternoon Feeding.

    Tikai scramble along the domes, moistening the earth, dumping fresh fertilizers. A few Masters already climb the domes, spreading themselves across the fertile soil, shaping into perfect spheres to better absorb the sun and the nutrients. Soon, the domes will be carpeted in glistening green flesh.

    Closer to home, the domes grow smaller. Here and there, plain stone and concrete houses appear, where the lesser Masters dwell. There is no room for them atop the domes, so they make do with artificial lights.

    The streets grow crowded. Tikai swarm through the avenues, scurrying from task to task, pulling carts, carrying packages. A few Masters skip the Feeding entirely, gliding past in squat, open-roofed electric vehicles. They mold into the seats, gelatinous bodies adapting seamlessly to the contours. Each trails an entourage of Tikai, struggling to keep pace.

    I spot my Master’s dome. It is small and unadorned. Siffa is the only Master in the household. My family is already at work, dumping sparse quantities of fertilizer and watering the dome with buckets.

    I skirt around the base and head for our home behind it. A squalid building of stacked stones, held together by unadorned cement. An ugly sight after the splendor of the central district. And yet, it is home. The only one I have ever known.

    Inside, the air is cooler. Rows of bunk beds cram the narrow room, stacked floor to ceiling, as many as the space allows. I make my way toward the back, toward the showers. My skin burns worse with every step.

    Something leaps onto my back.

    I roll instinctively, flailing in a tangle of limbs.

    I twist, try to grab hold.

    Whatever it is squirms free, scaling the nearest bunks in a blur.

    A familiar face grins down at me, wide and toothy, eight canines peeking from behind thin lips, eyes round and bulbous as fists.

    Zuka. My mate.

    “I catch you every time, Omi,” she teases.

    I grin up at her in greeting.

    “I was distracted… Master sent me out at noon again.”

    “That is no excuse! You must always be ready!”

    She leaps from the bunk. I catch her. We tumble together, hitting the wall in a heap, arms wrapped around each other, yapping with laughter.

#

    Zuka rubs a mix of mashed herbs into my skin, cool and numbing, easing my pain. We sit in the barracks’ shadow, watching the Master.

    He is old, even for a Master, moving with deliberate care, slow and dignified.

    His flower shimmers in the sun, refracting a halo of prismatic color. He always positions it in the most conservative place, where a head might be, shielding the fruit pouch hidden beneath its petals.

    Sensory stalks bud from the flower, sweeping the air around him. Metallic devices adorn them, some embedded deep within his gelatinous flesh, piercing the thick, plastic-like layer that shields his fragile membrane.

    He climbs the dome with difficulty, brushing away the Tikai who try to help. Near the top, his body melts into a perfect green circle, spreading across the soil, open to the sun.

    It’s strange, knowing he was already old when I was born. How many generations of Tikai do the Masters watch grow and die in a single life?

    I have only one memory from a time before the Master. A cage. A press of bodies and a stench of excrement.

    But Zuka was with me. We held on to each other then, as we do now. For all that I resent him, I still thank the Master for buying us together.

    “All done!” She pats me on the back. “Best get back to work,” she leans in and whispers, “we’ll do more reading tonight.”

    I head into the dome, moving through its honeycomb of chambers with practiced ease. The blue UV lights make it feel like noon, even now, but the salve spares me from another burn.

    Despite being the youngest Tikai, I’ve been given an important task, one few are trusted with. The Master is a scientist, a maker of new things. Most of his chambers are filled with machines: some of polished metal, some of pulsing and writhing tissue.

    Each evening, once the Master is done, I clean the main laboratory.

    I don the protective suit as he taught me, sealing myself head to paw. Airlocks separate the lab from the rest of the dome, and I must connect a hose to breathe. Once inside, a spray of sterilizing chemicals and harsh UV lights scours me.

    I begin at one end of the chamber, scrubbing every surface: first with hypochlorite, then water, then alcohol. I leave metal gleaming, but I steer clear of things that breathe and move: the machines that live.

    By the time I finish, sweat mats my fur. The suit clings to my body. My panting fogs the visor from within. Yet out of all the strange contraptions, all the wriggling curiosities, one thing draws me every time.

    It lives inside a cage of steel-glass, fed through sealed ports, watched by cameras from every angle. Every time I enter, it demands my attention. It pounds on the glass. It screams, but I can’t hear it. It gestures with its upper limbs in frantic patterns. It’s trying to communicate. But I don’t know how to answer.

    The creature stands on two long limbs, impossibly balanced on two flat hind-paws. Hairless, except for the genitals and atop its oval head, where strands of fur unfurl in long, slim threads down its back. It has only four limbs. Two small eyes track me intensely.

    I know the Masters travel the stars. I know there are other worlds.

    This creature is not of this one.

    It is too strange. Too aware. Too desperate.

    I wish I could speak to it. I wish I knew how.

    But I cannot break steel-glass.

    And I cannot displease the Master.

    So I turn my back on it.

#

    I crawl into bed, sore and drowsy from the day’s work. The salve spared my skin from blistering, and I snuggle comfortably beneath my blanket. I wait for the others to fall asleep. My mind drifts.

    I wake to gentle prodding.

    Zuka hangs from my bunk.

    “Let’s go,” she whispers.

    We sneak out, careful not to wake anyone.

    Outside, each moon dominates its slice of the sky.

    Nivessa shines white and serene, dipping into the horizon. Her larger sister, Etuvar, rages: plumes of ash and fiery lava burst from her volcanoes, splashing down into oceans of fire. The sky ripples with blue and green auroras, painted by her fury.

    Beneath their gaze, we creep through familiar alleys between barracks and blockhouses. At a dead end, where three walls converge, we begin to climb.

    We scale the wall with ease and find our hiding place, our secret spot, a small triangular nook hidden on all sides by concrete and rusting metal.

    We’ve stashed our treasures here, beneath a saggy roof, wrapped in cloth and leather to keep them safe.

    I rummage through the bundles until I find the light-ball I stole from Master. It is fuzzy and squishy as I press it into the wall. I spray it with fertilizer, then water. A moment passes… then it blooms with soft blue light.

    “I found a new one today,” Zuka tells me, “I think it is the best one yet.”

    She unfurls a parchment, used and stained, but still legible.

    I still struggle to read, but she teaches me patiently. Since that first book we found, the one meant to teach young Masters the language of the Tikai. Funny, how it taught us their language too.

    “...the biological and fossil evidence is overwhelming,” she reads aloud. I follow the symbols with my eyes. “It is a truly symbiotic relationship. It began with our fruit. The Tikai could not resist the high fructose content, and in consuming it, they spread our seeds and fertilized our soil. This was the first, but not the only, way our species benefited from each other…”

    The text repeats itself, circling the same idea. A symbiotic relationship…

    Maybe once. Maybe before they became Masters. Before they bred us like livestock. Before they chained us with knowledge.

    “Do you think they really believe that?” Zuka asks, lowering the parchment.

    “That they are helping us? They do… in their eyes we live because of them, we live for them.”

    “They whip us. Kill us…” Her eyes shine with determination. “It has to stop. We have to show them.”

#

    The next day is one like any other.

    We wake with the sunrise and gather outside to eat. Some lounge on flat boulders, others squat around the fire, warming their canned rations. Only Tobla gets double portions, the sole warrior in the Master’s service.

    We talk of simple things, easy and familiar. We laugh. We tease. We are a family, of sorts. I never knew my mother. Or my father. But these people… they raised me, as much as the Master did.

    They taught me joy and laughter. Love.

    The Masters care nothing for these things.

    My day is spent cleaning the most delicate possessions, in ways the Master taught me personally. The machines, parchments, and leather books. The hidden treasures and fantastical devices, like the globe that spins in mid-air, glowing from within. I polish them carefully.

    I only disappointed him once, when I spilled a bucket of water near his mind-terminal. The machine sparked, then died.

    He had me whipped.

    By Tobla.

    I still bear the scars in my fur.

    But I do not resent him. He could not refuse the Master.

    So I take my duties seriously, scrubbing until my calloused paws sting. Until my back aches and sweat soaks my fur.

#

    I scramble along the inner wall, gripping the hexagonal honeycombs carved into the stone. In one paw, I carry the Vel’ett: the squirming ball of tangled roots that carries secrets.

    The Master guides me, with his synthesized voice.

    I stick my head inside the indicated hexagon. From within a metal ring, a mass of writhing, viscous tentacles reaches out. I place the Vel’ett gently into their reach, careful not to touch them. They coil around it, pulling it into the socket with practiced ease.

    Light begins to pulse along the roots, random, chaotic, a spasm of shifting colors and patterns.

    A new language to learn?

    Or do I need a mind-terminal?

    I pause… in the ordered silence of the dome, I hear a commotion.

    I glance at the Master—he senses it too. He settles into his mind-terminal, melting into its circumference with a perfect fit. From there, he will see through the cameras.

    Tobla bursts into the room, running.

    He skids to a stop near the Master.

    “Master,” he pants, bowing his head. “Master Urut comes. He is very… displeased.”

#

    Warrior Tikai barge into the chamber, guns unholstered.

    More flood in behind them.

    Dangling from two arms, they carry Zuka.

    Thick mud drips from her fur, each heavy drop spattering the clean floor. She thrashes against their grip, clutching a torn and stained book to her chest.

    I freeze mid-step.

    No!

    I scramble down the wall and throw myself prostrate before the Master.

    “Please…” My voice cracks. “Please Master! She didn’t mean… she wouldn’t…”

    Words escape me. I know what she’s done, what she has been caught doing. I press my face to the floor as Master slides free from the mind-terminal.

    Master Urut enters the room, flanked by his warriors.

    “Is this the stock you breed, Siffa?” His synthesised voice booms. “Thieves and liars?”

    “I will see to her punishment myself,” the Master says, measured and calm. “She is young. Foolish. There is still use in her.”

    “It’s not just a book she stole, Siffa.” Urut’s voice rises. “It’s worse! Our true histories. Do you understand?”

    The Master hesitates.

    “Mercy, then,” he says. “Decapitation.”

    “No, Siffa. Your bark is too soft, old fool. An example must be made.”

    My heart sinks. Not the Irrik’ta…

    “Please Masters!” I croak between tears.

    A warrior shoves me face-down, the weight of him pinning me to the floor, paw wrapped around my neck. Cold metal presses against my temple.

    Her eyes lock with mine. Bright. Defiant.

    “We were not always slaves!” Zuka screams, thrashing against her captors.

    A warrior hits her with the butt of his gun.

    “You see, Siffa?” Urut roars. “You foster impropriety. Rebellion even! If this happens again, your funding ends. You end.”

    He turns and glides away.

    The Master does not object, sealing her fate.

    The warriors follow.

    I am released.

    I seize the chance and bolt forward.

    Paws grab me.

    Hold me.

    I push. I punch and I scratch, drawing blood.

    Yet Tobla’s arms imprison me like steel.

    I catch a final glance of Zuka. She grins at me, faint and sad.

    I am sorry, she mouths, as they drag her away.

    She is gone.

    She is gone.

#

    Tobla chains me to the post, locking the collar around my neck like I’m a misbehaving child.

    “I know you hate me now, younglin,” he says, releasing his grasp on me. “But this is for your own good.”

    “Did the Master order this?” I ask, voice thick with spite.

    “No. He said only to restrain you during the… punishment. But I know you, child. You would chase her. You would die beside her.”

    “And you, Tobla?” I snap. “Will you just stand there while they torture her?”

    He flinches, avoiding my gaze.

    “It is done, Omi. I could look away while you spirited away Master’s scrolls. But she was caught. Nothing will change her fate now.”

    “So you bury your head in the sand and do nothing. Coward!”

    “I… I do what I can,” he meets my eyes, steady now. “Do not anger the Masters, Omi. You have not seen what they can do.”

#

    I pull on the chain. It’s fastened deep into the barracks wall, sunk into the stone.

    I loop it around my arms and push with all six paws.

    I push.

    And push.

    It doesn’t budge.

    I slam the chain against the wall.

    Cement flakes rain down.

    It is not enough.

    Still, I try.

    Even when my paws bleed.

    When my muscles scream and my limbs shake.

    I keep trying.

    I don’t know when it will happen, no one tells me.

    But I know it’s coming.

    Noon passes.

    Desperation builds in my chest.

    The Irrik’ta… a punishment worse than death.

    They will whip her. Cut her.

    Until she is covered in open wounds, her blood spilling freely.

    Then they will apply the Irrik’ta spores.

    Flesh will become soil.

    The fungus will grow.

    It will spread.

    Consuming her.

    Bit by bit.

    Over days.

    A fate no one deserves.

    She will suffer until her last breath.

    The Tikai will watch.

    And do nothing.

    I scream.

    Like a beast.

    Trapped.

    Wild.

    Powerless.

#

    Night falls, and I know it’s too late.

    The Irrik’ta will have taken root.

    I sink to the floor: exhausted, raw, broken.

    Tobla brings my rations. I hurl them at him, mindless of the boiling liquids.

    He says nothing. Just cleans the mess in silence.

    Everyone avoids my piercing, raging gaze as they shuffle into the barracks, heads bowed in shame.

    There is no laughter tonight. Guilt eats at their souls.

    They deserve it.

    One by one, they slip under their covers. Silence settles.

    A pair of gleaming eyes stares down at me from a bunk.

    Toba, Tobla’s young son.

    When our eyes meet, he ducks beneath his blanket.

    “Can you bring me a blanket, Toba?” I whisper.

    A pause.

    Then, soft scurrying between bunks.

    He brings me a neatly folded blanket.

    Her blanket.

    I hold it tight.

    It still smells like her.

    Sobs erupt, unstoppable and silent.

    I can’t give up!

    Toba watches, small and sad.

    Scared.

    “Can you help me, Toba?” I point to the keys hanging from Tobla’s bunk. “Can you bring me those?”

    He backs away in fear, eyes suddenly large.

    “It’s okay, Toba. No one will know it was you. Just hand them over,” I try to smile. “Nothing bad will happen. I promise.”

    He glances at the keys, then back at me.

    Torn.

    “Please, Toba… Do it for her.

    Remember how she played with you?

    How she cared for you when you were sick?”

    He trembles.

    “Please…” I beg, voice cracking.

    His eyes glaze with fear.

    In a blur, he scrambles back to his bunk and disappears beneath the covers.

    My hope shatters.

#

    I know her suffering has ended when Tobla releases me.

    Relief floods me.

    Six days…

    She endured six days of agony.

    And now… it’s over.

    But the guilt returns.

    A guilt that burns itself into rage.

    They’ve been Masters for too long.

    They don’t understand.

    They don’t chain me now.

    They don’t watch me.

    They expect obedience, from a people who’ve never known anything else.

    Fools.

    I will hurt them.

    I will make them regret.

    I do my duties with a passion born of hatred. I must not give them a reason to suspect.

    That night, after dinner, the family gathers.

    The Tikai sit in silence around the fire, preparing for the funeral.

    “I remember when she was young,” Tobla begins. “How she crawled upside down under the bunks, laughing, chasing Omi.”

“I remember how she cared for my mother…” Sibu adds.

    “Cowards!” I hurl the insult like a stone.

    They flinch.

    Good.

    I will not share my memories with them, my grief.

    Instead, I slip into the city, threading along its dark alleys.

    I find our secret space.

    The few books and scrolls we collected. The light-balls we stole. The little jade statue of a Tikai. All still here. Untouched.

    As if nothing happened.

    I sit.

    I remember her.

    I cry.

    And scream.

    And rage.

    Until I am empty.

#

    The trust they give me will be their downfall.

    Between chores, I steal moments to read the old books and scrolls Siffa collects. I tinker with gadgets. I push buttons and prod biomechanical machines. I learn.

    Progress is slow, constrained by the few scraps of knowledge I can reach, but the true knowledge lies elsewhere: in the mind-terminals.

    Their secrets are stored in the Vel’etts, information coded in biochemical reactions and neurotransmitter impulses, only accessible in the mind-terminals.

    Somehow, I will crack them open.

    I will learn what they think only they understand.

    When no one looks, I do as Zuka did. I skulk around other domes, the lesser ones, where few warriors are on guard. I slip in, unnoticed and ignored by Masters.

    I steal.

    I collect pieces of technology and knowledge. Even a Vel’ett now sits in my treasure trove, pulsing with dying light.

    I learn of their empire, of other worlds where the Masters rule.

    I learn of war.

    Slowly, I unveil the reality that has always existed, obscured from our ignorant views.

    Somewhere along our evolutionary path, we became slaves. Even the Masters, centuries old, remember only chains. Not even they recall when we were equals.

    I will remind them.

#

    Silence falls as I join them by the fire.

    It has been this way since her death.

    I greet them with cold, hard eyes.

    I eat my rations cold. A silent meal, where once there was laughter.

    I stare into the fire.

    “Don’t you ever wish to be free?” I ask them quietly.

    Sebu stiffens.

    “Free from what?”

    “From the Masters,” I say.

    He snaps upright. His canned rations hit the dirt with a dull thud.

    “Don’t say that!” He hisses. “Don’t condemn us to her fate!”

    “We condemn ourselves,” I reply, tossing my can into the fire.

    “I will have no part in this!” Sebu mutters as he leaves.

    The others go too.

    Only Tobla remains. Toba peeks out from behind him, small and afraid.

    “What would you do with your freedom, Omi?” He asks quietly.

    “I… whatever I wanted to. That is the point… and it isn’t just mine, Tobla, it’s ours. We must take it back.”

    He exhales slowly.

    “The Masters are harsh, yes. But the laws are clear and just.

    If we obey, we eat. We have shelter. Family.”

    He glances down at Toba.

    “Whatever you do, Omi… don’t let others pay the price.”

    I look at him sharply.

    “Would you betray me to the Masters, then?”

    “No, Omi… but I will not help you.”

#

    The creature in Siffa’s lab tracks my every move.

    I’ve studied the cameras over time: where they track, where they don’t. I tested it over time, noting where Siffa would call me out for my mistakes.

    There’s a corner of the lab the cameras never reach.

    Near a control panel, where glowing roots emerge and snake into the steel-glass enclosure.

    As I approach it, the creature stirs.

    It gestures.

    It points to the panel with one long, slender finger.

    There are buttons. And there are wiggling things of metal and biomass fused together. And something else. A device like Siffa’s voice synthesizer.

    I lift it up. A single viscous root connects it to the panel.

    I press the button.

    I wait.

    Nothing happens.

    The creature waves its limbs frantically, demanding my attention.

    In slow, deliberate motions it presses a finger to its palm, opening and closing its mouth as if speaking.

    I hold down the button.

    “Can you hear me?” I speak into it.

    The creature speaks back!

    Its voice is loud. The sounds rough and deep, a mourning song without rhythm.

    I don’t understand.

    It’s asking me something, I think.

    “I’m sorry… I don’t understand.”

    And it doesn’t seem to understand me either.

    The creature slumps, sinking to the floor. The long head-fur spills forward, hiding its face.

    “Hey.”

    It doesn’t move.

    “Hey! Look at me!”

    It looks up.

    I point to myself.

    “Omi,” I say.

    It tries to repeat it, the notes all wrong.

    Then it climbs to its full, staggering height.

    It points to its chest.

    “Human,” it says.