Tatooine
Sanctum Sanctorum
“Anakin, did something happen?” Strange asked. His student was playing with his food and kept glancing at his mother with conflicted eyes.
He put down his fork, leaving the pasta abandoned. “Do you remember that holocron we found?”
His interest perked up. “Yes. Did you learn something from it?”
“I did,” he nodded. “The Jedi Master who recorded it spoke about using the midi-chlorians to multiply cells and theoretically create life from a single cell. He deleted all mentions of it fearing that the Sith might use it to achieve immortality.”
Shmi turned to her left sharply, her face pale. “Stephen, could it be that I…”
“That someone created Anakin through midi-chlorians? Possible, but I think not." He shook his head.
“Why?” Anakin asked.
“Why let you fall into slavery? If a Force sensitive wanted to use Anakin for immortality, they would have to be fools to ever let you out of their sight.”
He sank into his chair. “True.” No one had ever come looking for her mother. Unless Gardulla or Watto were Sith lords, there should be someone looking for him. Unless they created more Force-sensitives like him.
The thought sent a shiver down his spine.
“I want to be certain,” she said, wrapping her hands around her upper arms.
Strange tapped his index finger on the table. “There are methods. The safest would be for us to enter your mind to see if there are any missing or suppressed memories.”
“Then let’s do it,” she said without wasting time.
“You have to be absolutely sure. This is an invasive procedure. We might see things you wish we didn’t,” he said. There certainly were things she didn’t want to talk about.
“I have nothing to hide, not from either of you. If there is even the slightest chance that what he is worried about is true, I won’t risk it.”
Strange twirled his fork in the spaghetti. “Let’s finish our lunch first."
—
Strange lowered the Cauldron of the Cosmos onto the mandala surrounded by three larger ones. Anakin was inscribing a modified version of the Runes of Kof-Kol around them.
“Shmi, please lie on the upper circle,” he said. She nodded and did as requested. She took deep, slow breaths, trying to calm her mind.
“Shouldn’t we be meditating?” his student asked, eyes closed in concentration. Stephen summoned two mandalas, lighting the cauldron with orange, ethereal flames.
“We can’t be certain how long this’ll take. It’s best if we are in more comfortable positions,” he said. Entering a person’s mind would leave their bodies standing still like stone. A meditative position in that state tended to leave one with numb legs.
“And let the cauldron be the medium,” Anakin said as the final string of the runes coalesced around the cauldron.
“Yes.”
He turned to Shmi, checking the ritual preparations one last time. As both our consciousnesses enter your mind, you will feel the urge to resist and push us out. It is a natural defensive response. What you need to do is to relax and try to ignore the feeling.”
“Okay,” she said, continuing her breathing exercises.
Strange laid on the circle on the cauldron’s right while Anakin was on the left. Their hand motions were in perfect sync. A string of runes left the cauldron, coiling around their heads. The master and student felt their consciousness slip away. Two more runic lines left the cauldron, wrapping around Shmi’s head in the same manner.
—
When he came to himself, he was flying through a tunnel. It reminded him of entering hyperspace, with blue and white streaks of light around them. The rushing sound of the wind was new.
“Where are we?” he said, raising his voice to be heard over the wind. If it were any stronger, the two of them would be blown away.
“On the path to your mother’s mind,” Strange shouted back.
“Then the wind is the defensive reaction?”
“It is.”
“Shmi, if you can hear us, remember what I said about relaxing,” he said. The entrance part always tended to be tricky. The host’s help, even if it was subconsciously, smoothed the process.
The wind intensified for a moment before the two found themselves freefalling. The streaks blended into one another, getting faster and faster. A blinding light, as if a blazing sun, grew as they proceeded forward.
It ended in an instant.
Strange rolled forward with his momentum, rising to his feet quickly. Anakin followed along. They stood back to back in total darkness, waiting.
“Is something supposed to happen?” Anakin asked. Everything was pitch black, but he could see his teacher clearly.
“The mental space is fluidic. It will take shape according to our experiences so we can perceive it,” he said, searching for any sign that might lead them deeper into Shmi’s mind.
Anakin felt something caress the hairs on his neck. He turned around, following the feeling. There, right beneath their feet, was a door knob. It was brown and grainy for some reason. “Is that a door?”
Strange looked down, squinting his eyes. “Seems like it.”
Anakin grasped the handle, slowly twisting it open, and peeked, head down first. He was looking up and blinked at the sight. It was a library only; everything, including the books, was made out of sand. Bookcases that were twice his height went on and on forever. Tomes, indistinguishable from one another, were lined up perfectly.
He pulled himself up first before helping his teacher.
“A library of sand. How fitting,” Strange said.
Anakin approached one of the bookcases. He traced his finger over one of the books but didn’t do more. “Are those her memories?”
“Memories, thoughts, wishes, dreams. Everything is in here,” Strange said. It probably appeared as a library because he had spent the years before he met Anakin reading whenever he could. The sand was obviously a representation of Anakin's and Shmi’s lives on Tatooine.
“How do we find what we are seeking?” he asked. There was no end to the bookcases. Searching one by one wasn’t a solution.
“We perceive this place according to our experiences. Where do you think we might find memories that might be hidden in one’s own mind?” he asked his student. They hadn’t studied the mind arts as much as battle arts. No time like the present for a practical lesson.
He looked around. “Since we are in a library, there is a section dedicated to forbidden tomes.”
“Exactly.”
“How do we find that section, though?” he asked. There weren’t any signs around.
“By walking,” he said, walking in a completely random direction.
“Walking?” Anakin asked after a brief hesitation, catching up to his teacher with quick steps.
“Currently, your mother’s mind is unaware of us. The more conspicuous we are, the less attention we draw. Otherwise, her subconsciousness will draw from our memories to create defenses,” he explained.
“If our experiences can affect the mindscape, wouldn’t we be able to use that?”
Strange smiled at him but didn’t respond. He stopped, waiting without another word. Anakin closed his eyes, thinking. How could he think of something that might lead them to their target?
“Wait, I got it,” he said, pressing two fingers on each side of his forehead. Strange scanned their surroundings for any changes. From behind a bookcase, a robot rolled forward, silver, white, and blue.
It stopped before them, beeping and whistling.
“This is R2-D2. He is Queen Amidala’s gift.”
“What does he do?”
“He is a hacker, a really good one,” he said, still concentrating. A short pillar rose from the ground, a hole on its side. R2 rolled to the socket, extending a thin metal appendage. He plugged it into the port, turning it left and right.
He retracted it and displayed a holographic map of the library.
Stephen chuckled, ruffling Anakin’s hair. Anakin felt a smile creep up his lips at the silent praise.
“Artoo, are there any closed sections in the library?” he asked the droid. Artoo beeped, sliding the map around, displaying an entire area blacked out. “Seems we have a lead. "Go on, Artoo, take us there,” Stephen said.
The droid rolled forward without a word.
—
“Are they me?” he asked, inspecting the guards standing in front of the building. Two Anakin Skywalkers, taller and more muscular than him, stood at attention. Even their faces were different, not older, but somehow more manly.
The building was more intriguing.
It was their quarters on the surface. It belonged to Watto, but for so long it was the only home they both knew. As with everything else, it was made up of sand.
“Yes. You are her son and hero. Her subconsciousness is simply distorting that image a bit.”
“Well, in that case,” he said, walking towards the building. His copies barely glanced at him before turning their eyes forward. He pushed the door open, seeing nothing but complete darkness once more.
Regardless, he took a step forward. Strange followed him, looking around for another door. They didn’t expect the floor to give in.
—
They fell face down on metal ground.
Anakin scowled, letting out a quiet curse. He got up, looking around, and his face fell. “Recognize this place?” Strange asked.
“Yeah. It was when Gardulla was our…” he stopped, face twitching randomly, “owner. This is where we lived with other slaves,” he said. Some he remembered, barely. Others, though, were nothing more than shades.
At the corner, he and his mother were eating their meager rations. As always, she gave pieces of her food to him. He clenched his fists, nostrils widening. Gardulla had managed to scurry away in the aftermath of Jabba’s death. He wanted to kill her too, for all that they went through.
But he couldn’t because he made a promise.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“I barely remember any of this. Only that I hated it and Gardulla,” he said, approaching the memory of his mother. He squatted, watching her feed him since he didn’t want the tasteless food.
“We should continue,” he said, glaring at the cramped quarters. At least twenty of them lived in the same room on bunk beds. The day when the Hutts would pay for all of this was approaching fast.
Strange watched his student, seeing the turmoil on his face. This was difficult for him; he knew that much. But the pain this humiliation and degradation caused? He couldn’t even see the depths of it.
He followed him through the door.
—
The next memory segment was more interesting.
They were in a stadium, standing next to what he assumed to be a Hutt. The term “giant slug” really fit them well. He hadn’t seen many extraterrestrials, but this one was the ugliest by far.
The one speaking to her wasn’t any better. The stocky body of a bumblebee, the ears and expressions of a fruit bat, the tusks and snouts of a warthog, and, to complete it, the face of a bulldog.
He assumed the Toydarian to be Watto.
“Mistress agrees to the bet. Your junkyard for the boy and his mother,” a brown droid said to Watto. The Toydarian smirked, laying a disk on the table. A guard pushed Shmi forward to the table. She shielded Anakin from it, covering his eyes.
His stomach turned.
Being treated like cattle and wagered like property would make anyone have the murderous urges Anakin possessed. As this was a memory, there was nothing he could do.
He chuckled, head hanging low, bitter and angry. “Right, I remember this one. Gardulla lost the bet, and we were turned over to Watto. I didn’t understand what was happening at first. Took me some time to figure out what being a slave actually meant.”
One day, he was fixing broken droids for Gardulla. Next, he was doing it for Watto.
“Did you kill Watto?” Strange asked.
Anakin didn’t look up. “Why? Shouldn’t I have?”
“No one who didn’t go through all this has the right to decide what you should and shouldn’t do. I am against cold-blooded murder, but I haven’t walked in your shoes,” he said. Telling a young man who was born into slavery that killing his oppressors is wrong was nothing more than sanctimonious bullshit.
Anakin looked at his hand, clenching it slowly. “He was at my mercy. I wanted to rage at him, to curse and humiliate him.”
“But you didn’t,” he said. For all the anger that plagued Anakin when it came to slavery, he wouldn’t inflict it on another. Even if it was Watto or Gardulla.
“No. At that moment it was pointless. Why should I let that bug decide my future? Why shouldn’t I just kill him and be done with it? So that’s what I did,” he said. The moment when his blade cut through Watto rang in his ears. The sound of the flesh being torn apart, the blood covering the floor, and the broken bones flashed in his mind.
“I don’t have any sage advice to offer, only that you are right. Your future is what you make out of it. Whether you paint it in blood or justice is up to you,” Strange said. He believed Anakin was on the right path, even if there were bumps along the way.
“It would be so much easier to just kill them all,” he muttered, knowing he wouldn’t actually do it.
Strange patted him on the shoulder. “The easy path seldom means the right one.” The peaceful moment was broken when all the eyes in the stadium zeroed on them.
Shmi’s subconsciousness realized there was something wrong. It wasn’t at the point where immediate action would follow, but Strange didn’t want to wait for it.
“We should move,” he said, searching for an exit.
—
The next memory washed Anakin’s fury away. Sorrow took its place in droves.
Shmi was in her room, alone, crying. Just like the day Anakin had managed to open a stable portal for the first time. Thinking that her son was lost forever wrecked the woman. Her sole light in this world was gone so soon.
Strange stopped his student from rushing forward to hug his mother’s memory. “It will only make the situation worse for us,” he said. Physically interacting with such a vivid and recent memory would be like firing a flare gun.
Anakin gave a slow nod and walked away, going for the door.
—
“What is that?” Anakin asked, blinking. They were in another dark space, standing before a transparent, uncolored orb.
“It could be what we are searching for or something completely different.”
He closed his eyes, trying to use the Force on a hunch. Without his physical body, using the Mystic Arts and the Force wasn’t possible. Unless, of course, what led them to the first door wasn’t his mother’s subconsciousness.
He shuddered visibly, letting out a groan.
“Anakin?” Strange asked, watching the colorless, writhing orb.
“This is a well of Force. I think there is something in it,” he said, rubbing his forehead.