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PROLOGUE
by Julie Dillon
Cisia gazed at the back wall of the laboratory, a cold sweat beading up on her pale forehead as the Ministry's scientists fitted electrical wires into the plugs they had implanted in her skin. They hovered around her, watching her from above their white face masks and monitoring the readouts on the computers by the wall. Cisia waited, her muscles tensed, as they finished hooking her up into the Core. She kept her eyes staring straight ahead of her, afraid to look down at the wires that protrueded from her skin. Finally, her body suddenly convulsed and erupted with pain as the scientists casually activated the equipment, sending fiery eletricity and Ether surging through her veins. The tests seemed to get worse and worse each day. She didn't know how much longer she could take it. Clenching her teeth as the bitter bile rose up in her throat, she tried to take some small comfort in the fact that the tests would end soon, one way or another.
Just as she felt she a couldn't take the pain anymore, she felt a hand gently shake her shoulder. The pain quickly ebbed and faded like a melting dream. She opened her eyes groggily, surprised to see Talehn staring down at her.
"Cisia, wake up," Talehn said softly, drying her damp forehead with a soft hand towel. "It's all right, you were only having a nightmare . . . I know you probably need more sleep, but it is almost nightfall; and we have to leave soon. The Ministry will come looking for you as soon as they realize you are gone . . ."
After a few moments of frightening disorientation, Cisia relaxed and remembered where she was. Talehn, a high level Ether technician, had helped her escape the Ministry's testing facilities the night before. She had spent the entire day asleep on the couch in Talehn's small apartment. She rubbed her arms; the plugs and scarred wounds were still there, a grim reminder that her time in the Ether labs hadn't been just a dream. "Surely it can't be nightfall already . . . I am still so tired, I felt like I didn't get any sleep at all . . ."
"Here, drink this, it'll wake you up." Talehn handed her a cup of pleasantly aromatic black coffee. "We won't be safe here for much longer. You know how difficult it is for the Ministry to create an individual capable of becoming an Interface. They have invested so much time and money in you . . . I have no doubt that they will tear this entire city apart looking for you if they have to."
Cisia stood up weakly and, clutching the coffe mug in shaky hands, walked past Talehn to the small window. She gazed out from Talehn's apartment down at the vast metal city, set aglow by the red light of the second sun. Central District was the most crowded metropolis in the region; like other districts, it was a giant, maze-like network of mutileveled streets, vehicles and buildings, a living organism of titanium and reinforced glass. Feeding power to this organism was the Core, a massive machine run by a fusion of Ether and solar power. Cisia could see it, set in the heart of the city, flanked by the Ministry's headquaters and Ether labs. The Core towered sinisterly above Central District, pulsing with Ether and electricity, awaiting Cisia's inevitable return.
Before the land had been cultivated, Ether used to flow freely throughout the world in intangible currents. It was a hidden and extremely powerful source of energy, and had long been tapped and used by sorcerers and mages. Ether thrived where there was life, and normally it would regenerate its depleted resources naturally. However, now that machines had been manufactured that could use Ether as fuel, Ether was used up much more rapidly and was becoming scarce. The vast metal organisms that were the various districts spread their tendrils across the land and consumed the life they touched, and Ether no longer regenerated itself. Not without the aid of an Interface, that is.
An Interface was a person with an unusually poweful life force. Under the right conditions, when injected into the Core in an induced comatose state, the Interface could generate unusually high amounts of Ether, enough to power the entire city. In larger districts, several Interfaces were implemented. It was a dificult process to create an Interface; they had to be specially bred and cloned, and were required to go through years of painful and intense training. The Ministry claimed it was a great honor to be chosen, and the majority of the people found it a necessary sacrifice for such a clean, cheap energy supply.
Cisia shuddered and turned away from the window. "Why does it have to be me, Talehn?" she asked softly, running her fingers over the scarred tissue and plugs. "I can't spend the rest of my life trapped in that machine . . . "
"You won't have to," Talehn said, hastily stuffing food, money and clothing into a pack. "I'm not going to let that happen. They cannot keep doing this to people. I'll do everything in my power to keep them from getting their hands on you again."
Cisia smiled at him, knowing he would keep his word. As the second and third suns slowly set over the horizon, Central District began to glow, lit up by the thousands of lights from various buildings and vehicles. The Core itself brooded in the center of it all, glowing and pulsing with green veins of energy. Somewhere, buried deep in the metal, was another unfortunate soul like herself, plugged into the Core with a myriad of wires and tubes and feeding strength to the city. The current Interface was dying, though, his body slowly being torn apart by disease and the heat of the newly formed Ether. With each day, the Core's power output dropped even lower. If the Ministry didn't implement a replacement soon, Central District would be without power, and thrown into chaos. Talehn, a former Ether technician, knew this as well as Cisia did, yet he had still risked himself to get Cisia out of the testing labs. He put her safety and well being above that of the city's. She trusted him with her life because of it.
"The police are going to be looking for us, so we'll have to be careful and move quickly."
Cisia strapped her pack of supplies on her back. "What are we going to do once we are past city limits?"
"We'll deal with that when we come to it," Talehn said with a slight smile. "Come, we haven't much time."
Cisia nodded and followed behind Talehn as he snuck out of the apartment and quickly headed out to the alleys behind the buildings. He didn't even stop to glance back at his home, which he probably would never be able to return to. Aiding in the escape of someone under the protection of the Ministry and interfering with the implementation of an Interface were both serious offenses. Cisia had tried to talk Talehn out of it, but he would have none of it. He wouldn't be able to live with himself if he let her become the next interface, had he told her. He didn't care if they both were hunted down for the rest of their lives. They would just have to find a way to live outside of the Ministry's influence.
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