Chasing a Familiar Shadow

by Aman Gupta

  Their eyes could finally afford some tears. Joey held Emma’s left hand as they looked at the place that stole everything from them. Now, they only had each other.

  ****************************************************

  24 Days Later

  Sometime in September 2037

  At dawn, a group of beings, almost 50 in count, marched down the streets of Sierra. Jumping over debris and objects, they headed to the place where Central Park once existed.

  They stopped at the precipice, and spread around the Central Park’s perimeter, looking down at the hole in the middle of Sierra.

  A woman with golden hair whistled, and twenty of them jumped into the hollow space that went down two and a half miles below the ground where Sierra once stood.

  The rest of them spread around the town. Soon, they found two of the elevators that went down to Sierra – B. The elevators and the buildings had been destroyed, exposing the shaft. The woman and the rest climbed down the shaft using the elevator cables. They made it down to Level 5A, where the rest of the group had already assembled. After punching holes with their fists, they teared apart the barrier that locked access to 5A.

  “You wouldn’t believe what we found,” said Elijah Till, a tall, muscular guy, who approached the woman. “Looks like our informer was right.”

  Elijah could hear a lot of commotion and excitement among his army. He stopped one of the men as they passed by.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Elijah as the woman stood next to him.

  “They found something,” said the guy.

  “Yeah, we already found all the Betas,” said Elijah. “Control them already.”

  “Below it,” said the guy. “The access door was sealed. It’s...It’s... You got to see it yourself.”

  The guy delivered the news and ran away, scared to make eye contact with the woman.

  Elijah looked at the blueprints in his hands. “Below? That’s Level 6, as per the blueprints.”

  “Interesting,” said the woman as she grabbed the blueprints.

  “Maybe we can find a way to upgrade our strengths as per the research. Xavier has been hunting us like animals,” said Elijah.

  “The research will help us once we decrypt the entire thing,” said the woman. “If required, we will go back into hiding.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Elijah. “Xavier isn’t the only one. I can sense the presence of five others. We can’t afford to look weak, or we’ll end up at the bottom of the food chain.”

  “That’s why it’s imperative the world doesn’t know about me yet. We got a good thing going. The world thinks that I’m a cop. We should use it to make inroads,” said the woman.

  “Which reminds me to tell you one thing. When we buried that detective outside Orange Town,” said Elijah. “There was a minor hiccup.”

  “What hiccup?” asked the woman.

  “Well, after we cornered her when she returned for her partner and you switched places with her, we ran into Troy,” said Elijah. “He knows that we got the real Karen Smith.”

  “I hope you’re not telling me that Troy knows who I look like?” interrupted the woman as her eyes turned blue in rage.

  “No..No..No..All he knows is that we got the detective with us. He didn’t know why,” said Elijah. “He ran away before we could catch him.”

  The woman took a deep breath, and her eyes turned back to its usual brown shade. Elijah took a huge breath, too, when he saw that.

  “But he doesn’t know we killed her later,” said Elijah. “So, as far as he’s concerned, if he sees you, is you got away.”

  “I doubt Jester would be able to see through it,” said the woman. “But keep an eye on the developments.”

  Elijah nodded.

  “What about Vik?” asked Elijah. “The guy who gave you the research? I still think we shouldn’t have let him live. He knows a lot about our species.”

  “He has a special place in my heart. He unlocked one of my hidden talents. The power to erase specific memories,” said the woman. “He’s not a threat to us if that’s what you are asking.”

  Elijah chuckled.

  “Where are we with Magmus, Peros, or Kindra?” asked the woman.

  “We are still looking but still no trace of their clans,” said Elijah. “It looks like they’ve formed a coalition.”

  “That’s unfortunate,” said the woman.

  “I didn’t ask before. What about Siles? Can we approach him to join us?” asked Elijah. “We could use another Apollo in our fight against Xavier.”

  “Siles was planning to sell me out to Jester,” said the woman. “He’s no more with us.”

  “Siles is dead?” asked Elijah, shocked.

  Siles had the largest army of betas, although most of the Alphas had abandoned him in the past few months. Elijah was one of those Alphas. Siles often treated his Alphas as slaves, which made it easier for other Apollos to steal their allegiance.

  “Not for another two months,” said the woman.

  Elijah was confused for a couple of seconds. He kept staring at her as she disappeared before his eyes only to appear a feet away a second later. Elijah was shocked, and his eyes lit wide open.

  “So the rumors are true,” said Elijah. “You can camouflage.”

  She laughed. “No, it’s not that crude. I don’t experience time linearly, unlike you. It allows me to move through time, through these different universes, experiencing all possible moments out of a limited, defined set. I choose an opportune moment that maximizes the probability of my desired goal the way I see fit. The moments that I choose to become your reality, be it your present or your future, as much as they become mine.”

  “I didn’t understand a word you said,” said Elijah.

  “Imagine a convoluted helix of multiple but finite symmetric strands, running parallel to each other. Each strand not only represents a different universe but is also displaced in time relative to others, allowing me to experience what you call present and future, at the same time. I’m experiencing each strand, exploring a different reality. Your time is a straight line passing through the center of the helix. When all these strands are closest to each other and the linear line, almost about to overlap, at specific intervals, I can jump from any strand onto your line. What they call camouflage is simply another me from a different strand, a different universe, a future me grabbing onto your present. I have already identified the moments in the future where the jumps will occur as well as chosen the specific strands. The only problem is that the strands aren’t complete yet. I just need to follow the path while the strands grow and branch out slowly but steadily,” she said.

  “Does that mean you can create whatever reality you want?” asked Elijah. “Because that would solve everything. We could rule the universe.”

  “No, I can’t force anyone I haven’t met to do something that they wouldn’t. To me, each strand and its branches represent a specific permutation of choices that would be made by individuals in the future. Choices that would be as real as the person. I don’t get a do-over if that’s what you’re asking,” said the woman. “When a jump is complete, I’ve locked the decisions that certain individuals will make in the future, as the events around them will force their hand to make that decision. Only, now I know the choices and the people behind it.”

  “So you know the hand our enemies will be dealt in the near future and how they’ll react to it?” asked Elijah.

  “I know what I have to do to force them into a corner so that they won’t see any other way out,” said the woman. “Then, I’ll do what I’m supposed to do if and when they make those choices.”

  “Why are you telling me all this?” asked Elijah. “You haven’t been much of a sharer.”

  “Because in about two minutes, you will forget about it,” she said. “I have locked in a bigger purpose for you. In time, you’ll know.”

  Elijah could feel the heat originating from the torch he was holding as she smirked.

&nbs
p; “Go and take a look at Level 6,” said the woman as she grabbed Elijah’s torch, dismissing him.

  Elijah nodded in a foreign tongue. “Hail Katana!”

  He took her leave.

  Katana looked at the flames bursting out of the torch, as she played with fire. Her eyes went red as she connected to Elijah telepathically, to see what he saw with his eyes. They turned golden when Elijah opened the black vault door to Level 6 and lost memory of his recent interaction with Katana.

  Elijah couldn't believe his eyes when he entered Level 6.

  Thomas Clifford, Tim Simmelman, Layton Stone and Francis Summerwood once shared a powerful secret, a secret they buried in their hearts and decided to take to their grave because the world wasn't ready for it. Something whose existence once gave meaning to Winter 34 military base before a discovery changed everything. It was buried in Level 6, before the entire site was cordoned off. All 4 of them hoped that it would never be discovered for at least a millennia. They agreed the clock on their secret would keep ticking away.

  Katana laughed like a maniac standing alone in Level 5A, as she had unknowingly stopped the clock. Her body started to glow, turning tangerine, while radiating heat and emanating a powerful force for nearly twenty seconds before restoring to the original state. Thousands of new strands were created when the continuum just exploded. Katana wandered off to explore these strands and the realities they had to offer.

  ◆◆◆

  WORD FROM THE AUTHOR

  Hi, I am Aman Gupta. Firstly, I'm so glad that you decided to read this book. Hope you are liking the Eleven Graves Series. As you might know, the series will comprise of 5 books, so yeah if my maths is right, three more books are coming!

  I love the feedback that I get from you, the readers, on my social media as well as on Amazon and other review sites like Goodreads and Hypebunch. When I started dreaming about this story and refining it in my head, it was never intended to be a published work. It was just some story that I was going to write for myself to keep my sanity. :)

  But now when it's out there, I'm glad some of you feel the same way about the characters that I do.

  I intentionally try to vary the amount of description of certain places or characters to allow you to imagine it as if you are living this story through the eyes of your favorite character(s). Remember to make it your own. It might be my story but in a world populated by your imagination.

  Well, please feel free to review this book and recommend it to your friends. If you haven't read the first book of the series i.e. The Secret of the Missing Night, please do read it. The upcoming books and this one wouldn't make sense otherwise. I know. I know. A little obvious thing to say. I hope to put the sequel to this one out there very soon. I plan to start writing it in August 2020.

  P.S.: Stay safe. Take care of your families. And don't forget to spread positivity.