A Call to Service

A Call to Service

“Anderix, can you sheck that?” called his mother when a pneumatic tube pumped in and a glass-and-brass cylinder rattled into the Contact Box. She was from a small town outside Geratron near the Lightning Fields. Although she spoke Ascendrian, a language devoted to clear concise communication of ideas in math and science, she still sounded like a southerner to those in the capital. Anderix was busy tinkering with a mechanical arm that used stored kinetic energy from the user. He was hoping to establish a way of returning the power to the crystal that was the source of energy for the whole system.

“Be there in a minute,” he called. Then, under his breath, he added, “...just got one more thing to...” and trailed off.

Anderix had been back from the academy for over a year, and though he had been reunited with his underschool friends, he just didn’t connect with them the same way he used to. He didn’t want to tell people that he had felt enlightened and alive in a whole new way when he left the Ascendancy and lived in Kefar. He had learnt Common Tongue quickly and was good at it. He was motivated by wanting to know what the people around him were saying about him. Something about the outsiders made his skin tingle and his mind race when he talked to them. The people of the other Crestrealms were different in a way he wanted to be different, even from one another. None of this “Everyone must work towards Perfect Function” and “Individuals serve the Ascendancy” stuff that had been forced into his brain for as long as he could remember.

Anderix remembered lying in a field of wild grass with his classmates, enjoying the sun, delicious dried Virielian fruits, and tea. Though he could never express it to them, he had felt that tingling that made him feel more alive.

Every graduating student at the Academy was required to complete a final Advancement: a practical application of Mechanum engineering intended to improve either themselves or the Ascendancy. For Anderix, it was an optical enhancement that helped him see the finer details of the projects he worked on. At the academy, he was a novelty, and the brass-and-glass, crystal-powered opticals he had to wear made connecting with other students difficult. Still, a few had befriended him despite his superior technology.

“Anderix! Sheck the CB for message. It could be from the Command Centir or your application for the reshearch and development position. Can you even hear me?”

His mother put the stewpot back in the centre of the solar oven and walked partway down the corridor towards the main room. “Anderix!”

“Okay, okay, I am going!”

He reluctantly put down the screwdriver, closed his eyes to remember his plan for the next step of the device, and exhaled. He walked into the commute room, where the CB and the front door made it the second most exciting room in their home after the workshop.

They lived in Tower 7, Floor 12, Apartment 16, with a corner-window view of Assembly Square near the centre of Voltaris. His father was a Command Center underling, which was why their apartment was so close to all the Voltaris icons. His father’s position was even the reason Anderix had been allowed to leave the Ascendancy and study abroad.

Statix, his father, was considered a liberal. He often argued that even though the technological development of other Crestrealms paled in comparison to the Ascendancy’s great advancements, they might still possess knowledge worth sharing and lessons worth learning. The hardliners who controlled the Command Center were sceptical and wary of foreign ideas from inferior Crestrealms polluting the minds of their people.

Anderix opened the pneumatic tube. After so many uses, unscrewing the cap had become fairly easy, and it released a sharp pop of pressurised air.

“Must be an old one,” he said to himself. “The new ones are tough to...” He stopped. “Mom! It is from the Command Center, and it is addressed to me.”

“Well, read it then,” she said, walking down to meet him in the commute room and leaning against the heavy metal front door.

“You are required to meet at the Office of Exterior Affairs at sunfall three on the upcoming Restday.”

“What is that about?” asked his mother, immediately anxious. Such high-level CBs almost never arrived at their home, and never before for her son.

“I have no idea, but I guess I will find out this Restday.”

It was finally Restday, and Anderix walked out into the sterile streets of Voltaris. He recalled the organic influence he had noticed on the streets of Kefar and studied the stark grey efficiency of the symmetrical, functional, and durable towers and grids of his section of the great city.

He felt that tingling again, but then his training took over. In the Ascendancy, emotion was not ignored, but it was rarely allowed to override reason. He realised he must be careful not to let his experiences overseas cloud his judgement. He recalled the lesson from Teacher Dorix in Year 4 that he had been made to recite endlessly: “Trust what works. Test what fails. Improve everything for the advancement of the Ascendancy towards Perfect Function.”

Voltaris was proudly the most functional city in all the Ascendancy, though Geratron was often a close second.

He walked along concrete roads between concrete towers to Street 15, Section 5, and waited for the steam car at Stop 72. It arrived at precisely sunfall two-and-a-half and would take a quarter-time to reach Stop 50, where the Office of Exterior Affairs occupied an entire block.

It was quiet because it was Restday. Once Anderix arrived and spoke to the building control supervisor at the desk, he was surprised to learn that dozens of meetings were taking place and he would need to wait to be called.

“The CB said I should be here at sunfall three,” he said impatiently, realising that if he wasn’t assertive he might be late, and being late would not go down well.

“Then you should have arrived a half-time earlier,” replied the control supervisor coldly.

“I have this CB.”

He handed over the still-flat, pressed paper bearing the invitation to meet with Subordinate-Leader Rolix. Initially frustrated, the building control supervisor took the invitation and read it carefully.

“Oh, you are Anderix. I have a pre-meeting preparation message for you. Go straight up to Floor 9. That’s almost at the top, you know. Your father is Statix, correct? I apologise for the misunderstanding. Please take Steam Lift 2 to Floor 9 and turn left to Office 910.”

Anderix feigned a contented smile as he once again felt the relief of his father’s position. Apparently, it was still good for more than a view of the square. As he waited through the hiss of steam at each stop on the way up, he wondered what would happen when his father retired.

The final shudder of the steam lift roused him from his musing. He stepped onto the ninth floor and knocked at Office 910.

“Enter.”

The command came from inside in a deep voice.

“Anderix, sit in that chair. I am Subordinate-Leader Rolix of the Office of External Affairs. I know your father, which is why I have asked you here instead of ignoring this whole matter, as I should be doing.”

“What whole matter are you talking about?” Anderix tilted his head, genuinely confused.

“Anderix, we received a request from the High Council of Kefar that you travel to the Solaryn Reliquary for a meeting.”

“A meeting... with whom?” Anderix hesitated. “Why?”

“That is what we would like to know. Ordinarily, this kind of thing from the outside would be ignored, and you would be investigated. There are countless non-conforming Mechanum spies roaming our streets, selling our technology to inferior Crestrealms that will stop at nothing to get their hands on our advances. But...” He paused and smiled at Anderix. “You studied abroad under a ‘special’ program sponsored by the Freno faction, which would have us give all our knowledge and advantages away to whoever asked nicely for it.”

Subordinate-Leader Rolix was a little breathless after speaking so quickly, and his face had turned a shade redder than when he began.

“For two reasons, I am not going to ignore this and allow it to be filed away with the hundreds of other requests we receive every day. You, Anderix, are going to the Solaryn Reliquary to meet with whoever it is from the minor council of Kefar, blah blah blah...” He continued in a demeaning, sing-song manner, rolling his hands dismissively through the air. “Do you know why?”

He asked rhetorically and, for a moment, didn’t even look at Anderix. Instead, he turned his back and stared out the window.

“One, because your father is Statix, underling of the Command Center. Two, because I am interested in finding out what the High Council of Kefar wants with lowly Citizen Anderix. Did I mention that you were requested by name?”

He perused a file on the desk, running his finger down a list. “We know that you spent time with your permitted classmates: Kaelen Thorne, Quireus Dona, an assortment of others, and a female from the Solaryn Reliquary, a certain Tajan Rigan. We think these assets may be useful to us.”

He walked around the desk and spoke down to Anderix, who remained obediently seated. Anderix was surprised by the thickness of the file and that anyone had cared enough to gather so much information.

“You will go, and you will report back to me whatever this is about. It is time we stopped ignoring these outside interferences and started controlling the interference instead. Do you have your travel papers from your year of study in Kefar?”

He didn’t wait for an answer.

“The meeting is in two weeks in the southern port of the Reliquary, and you will need your papers to leave from Steamport 1 next week. I have made special arrangements myself: travel permissions, voyage permits, and information blackouts. I sent word to your father that you are doing this for us, all of us, and, of course, for me.”

He smiled at Anderix, who had never been more intimidated in his life, not even when asking a question in front of hundreds during a voice-casting about crystal vibrations in his year abroad.

“You, young man, will find out what they want and why they want it so urgently that the High Council directly requested it. You will not give them any information they can use about anything they don’t already know. Is that clear?”

“And remember, Anderix... Individuals serve the Ascendancy, not the other way around. You can see yourself out.”

The Subordinate-Leader’s face tightened into an imitation of a smile. He called towards the door. “Next!” Then he looked back at Anderix. “I’ll send you a CB with some gold pieces and the documents. Report to me immediately when you return.”

He raised his voice towards the door. “I said... next!”

Thy Quest
Anderix has experienced life both inside and outside the Mechanum Ascendancy. Identify two moments that show how his time in Kefar changed him. Then explain why Subordinate-Leader Rolix considers those changes dangerous.