I smelled the gas a second before I sensed the surge in energy rippling toward us in an intense fireball. By instinct, I gripped the spacetime around the two of us and ripped it apart, dropping us into a singularity outside of space and time. Amber trembled in my arms as the entire universe lay unfolded and exposed to us and the tidal forces of all the matter and energy in the universe billowed up, threatening to drag us along into the bliss of nothingness. But we were already gone before it could all come crashing back down.
28
“AMANDA HAD YOUR MOM.” Amber’s voice was soft, like the water and foam that raced up the sand and spread out between my feet and toes. “Probably how she knew to call us when she did—because your mom called her and told her we were there. She must have left those triggers in your mom’s mind in case she didn’t come back from that warehouse.”
“I should have—”
“You stop that.” She whipped around and glared at me. “Don’t you dare blame yourself for what happened. You understand? It just... happened.”
I didn’t say anything. Instead, I looked out at the distant horizon, where the ocean met the sky in a dazzling canvas of red and gold from the setting sun. My hand rested on my navel, and I could just feel the gentle pressure of barely deformed spacetime reaching out from the quickening life inside me to caress the tips of my fingers in a tentative embrace. My daughter. The mystery girl from my past—the only other person who could possibly have my same powerset. She had saved my life twice already in just the past twelve hours, and if I was right, would do so again at least one more time sometime in her teenage years.
“I guess this is goodbye.” I sighed as I looked over at Amber. She was leaning back in the sand next to me, her eyes catching the last light of the sunset as she watched me. “I need to go back forward in time to get Nicole and take her back to my time to save Alan.”
“And I need to get home before my parents realize I left this afternoon for Chicago.” She sounded bitter. “You said we meet end of freshman year, right?”
“At Northwestern University, yeah.” I nodded, my eyes never leaving her.
“I guess I can wait another four years for you.” She smiled at me through the tears in her eyes. “What’s time to love?”
I watched her, my thoughts beyond words, as the light slowly faded around us. This was the woman I had fallen in love with... so many years before. The woman I had set out to conquer the world with. The one constant in a world that was always changing. So much more was still set to change. But I knew. In that moment, I knew perhaps more than ever before. She was it. My reason. My rock. No matter what came, I could go on. Would go on. Because of her.
I wanted to remember her forever, just like this.
“I love you,” I whispered.
“I love you too.”
THE END
IF YOU ENJOYED PRIME IDENTITY, HERE’S A FIRST LOOK AT ITS SEQUEL
PRIME CRISIS
1
I TRIED, AND FAILED, to look relaxed, bouncing my knee a little under the desk in front of me in a way I hoped would look casual. I glanced around the room I found myself in and took in the narrow white lighting along the edges of the walls, which, like all the rooms and hallways around here, were the only sources of light to be found. I wasn’t sure who had decided on the aesthetic, but I found it depressing, somehow. It was cold and uninviting. Just like the panel of six people seated at the other side of the desk across from me. I tried to ignore the sound of pens scratching across paper that filled the air from the notes they were scribbling down.
“You’re rated... Class B?”
The woman directly across from me frowned down at the notes in front of her, and the spectacles she wore threatened to fall off as they slid further down her nose
“Er, yes.” I winced. Most arbiters were rated at least Class A or higher, able to inflict a substantial amount of damage to multiple targets at once. But it was impossible for my caste to be rated higher than a Class B power level. I just had to trust everyone at the table would know that. “I can technically affect up to seven targets at once, though that number has gone up consistently over the past few years. Obviously, with more targets, the less control I have.”
“For your caste, that’s quite impressive.” The man next to the woman raised an eyebrow and studied me with an unreadable expression.
I fought the urge to use my powers to see how I was doing, but I hadn’t needed the ethics courses I had taken over the past three years to tell me that would be wrong. Besides, I was sure there were detectors in the room anyway, to say nothing of the fact I was certain anyone at the table would be able to sense me using my powers on them.
“You grew up in Las Vegas?”
I looked over at the woman at the end of the table who had asked the question, and I noticed that everyone else at the table looked her way as well. She was short—maybe just a hair over five-feet tall—and her head was framed by copper-red hair that came to a few inches below her shoulders. She wore a simple plaid shirt and jeans, at odds with the more formal attire of the others in front of me. She looked familiar, somehow, but either because of my nerves or something else, I couldn’t place where I had seen her before. Besides, she looked young. Too young, in fact, to be here. It looked like she might have wandered in after getting lost on her way to the local high school. Nearly everyone else, by comparison, looked to be well into retirement. It didn’t help matters that, of the six people in front of me, she was the only one who didn’t have a pen or paper in front of her. I glanced at the others, who had turned back to me expectantly. Apparently I was supposed to answer the girl’s question.
“Yes?” I looked back at her.
“What brought you out here?”
“Northwestern’s my father’s alma mater. Plus, I’ve heard the arbiter certification program out here is the best in the country.”
“Well, you certainly have the grades to move on.” Another man sighed as he leafed through his stack of papers. “You’re majoring in psychology at Northwestern, aren’t you?”
“Yes.” My eyes darted over to the girl at the edge of the table. I was pretty sure she had just rolled her eyes.
“And you showed excellent instincts in your certification exam,” the man continued. Since it hadn’t been a question, I didn’t say anything. “You have some really solid service here as well.”
“Why do you want to become an arbiter?” the only other woman at the table asked.
Of everyone at the table, she was the only one I had recognized, and the only one I knew was still an active arbiter. Cherub had a pretty characteristic look to her, and she eschewed the masks that many other arbiters preferred. Even if I hadn’t spent the past three years training under other arbiters in Chicago, I would have been able to recognize her.
My eyes flickered to the others around the table, who had all paused from their notes to watch me. Even the girl at the far end of the table stopped picking at the loose threads hanging off her shirt to look up at me. It didn’t take a mind reader to tell this was the most important question they had asked me so far, and I had a strong suspicion I knew why. As a rule, the arbiters I talked with observed the taboo of any discussion of Stormfront, the arbiter turncoat who had betrayed another arbiter to a terrorist cell. It had happened over seven months before, but the implications of his betrayal had shaken the arbiter program across the nation to its core. The repercussions from his actions were still being felt. I could see it in the careful way the panelists now studied me.
“I guess it’s always been my dream,” I said finally. I had wanted to say something more impressive, but all that came to me in that moment was the earnest truth. That would have to do. “Ever since they found out I was a prime, my parents always told me the most good I could do was to become an arbiter, and I think I just internalized that. I’m never going to be the strongest arbiter, or the smartest, but I can be the hardest working. I can’t give up on that dream, not while there’s a chance I coul
d change someone’s life.”
“That’s a good reason.” Cherub smiled, and it felt genuine. “You think you’ll go back to Las Vegas when your internship is over?”
“I’m not sure. Right now I’m trying to decide between here or Las Vegas.”
I had been reassured that, whether I stayed in Chicago or not, it wouldn’t affect my chances of getting an internship, but I had also been under the impression I would have landed an internship within a week of my certification exam at the end of my junior year in college, not mere days before the end of summer vacation. I couldn’t help but feel like something had gone wrong. The three others in my certification year had already landed internships—and good ones, at that. They really didn’t mess around with this program. I had gotten desperate enough that I had put a list together of the arbiters I had studied under to ask if I could intern under any of them. It wasn’t exactly a frowned upon practice. In fact, most arbiter programs required new interns to find the arbiter they would work under. But here, it seemed admin liked to choose the intern pairs. So, I had decided to wait it out. Hopefully, after this meeting, my wait would be over.
“Fair enough.” Cherub shrugged.
“But, Las Vegas doesn’t have any sports teams.” The girl. Again. Of course it was her. “Why would you want to go back there?”
“Umm...” I tilted my head a little to the side as I watched her. “I have family there?”
“I guess that makes sense.” She smiled and leaned back in her seat, then laced her fingers together behind her back. “You follow any sports, though?”
“I’m a Bears fan.”
I couldn’t help but smile at the grin on the girl’s face, though I quickly masked it after spotting the scowl on the woman’s face across from me. Luckily, it seemed she had been looking over at the girl, not at me. At least I hadn’t been the only one to smile. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught one of the two men across from me smiling appreciatively as well.
“They’re having a pretty good season so far.” She sighed.
The woman across from me cleared her throat loudly, then shuffled her papers. “Well, I don’t see any problems with moving forward.”
“Nor do I.” The man next to her nodded. “I think it’s an exceptionally good fit.”
“I think he’d benefit from someone more closely matching his own powerset.” The girl shrugged as she studied her fingernails.
“Nonsense.” The other man frowned. “He’s ranked the top of his year. He’s already shown an expert mastery of his powers, and leadership qualities to boot. What he needs is exposure—the chance to brush up against all different kinds of rogues. I don’t think he’d get quite the same opportunity under any other arbiter in Chicago.”
“He has you there.” Cherub leaned forward to grin at the girl at the other end of the table.
“You drink coffee?” The girl looked at me.
“Er...” I furrowed my brow. “I’m not sure I follow?”
“Oh stop it, Amber.” Cherub lost some of her cheerful demeanor as she looked to the girl.
I frowned. Cherub clearly knew this girl... there was a connection there. It burned at the edge of my memory, but it still escaped me. That was going to nag at me until I worked through it, but now wasn’t the time.
“I spent a few years living with a Mormon family during my last few years of high school.” The girl shrugged, then raised an eyebrow as she turned back to me. “You don’t drink coffee, do you?”
“I hardly think that kind of question is appropriate—” The woman across from me looked indignant.
“No.” I shook my head and smiled a little. I was starting to like the girl, even though I got the distinct impression I shouldn’t. “I don’t drink coffee.”
“I was afraid of that.” She hung her head.
“Well?” Cherub’s eyes were on the girl. I looked around the room and found that everyone was watching her as well.
“Fine.” She lifted her head up and tapped her fingers on the desk. “You all have made very good points. I have no objections.”
“Good.” The man closest to me smiled as he turned back to me. He extended a hand. “Well then, Kyle, congratulations. I think we’ve found you an arbiter for your internship.”
I leaned forward and shook his hand, though I was still confused as everyone else stood up. I mirrored their motion, then shook each of their hands as they filed out of the room. Cherub and the redhead hung back, talking quietly to each other. It was clear they were both good friends. Something about that seemed familiar as well. I shook my head, then glanced at the two of them before turning to leave.
“Hold up there.”
The girl’s voice caused me to spin on the spot.
“Something wrong?”
“We still need to chat.”
“Oh, sorry.” I took a step toward the two of them. “I thought I was free to go.”
“Without even finding out who you’re interning under?” Cherub had an eyebrow raised.
I blinked. “I figured you guys would let me know in a few days.”
“Well, you’re more patient than I was.” Cherub laughed and held out a hand. “I don’t know if we’ve introduced ourselves. I’m Kiara.” She gestured to the redhead. “And this is Amber.”
“Oh.” I glanced at the girl before looking back at Kiara. “Will I be interning under you, then?”
“Not me—I just did a round of internships.” She pointed back at the girl. “No, you’ll be interning under Amber.”
I followed her gaze to the red-headed girl and frowned. “Are... are you old enough to be an arbiter?”
“I’m forty.” She sounded irritated at having to say what I was sure she had had to explain many other times before. “Rogue attack last year left me looking like this.”
“Oh. I guess that makes sense. Well, thank you, then, for accepting me as your intern.”
“You’re welcome.” She sounded bored.
Again, I wished I could access even just a part of my power to get a read on her, but I knew that would be an even worse idea now than before. After all, I was apparently going to be spending a large portion of the next year with this strange girl.
“Can I ask you?” I bit my lower lip as I felt my face grow warm. Thankfully, neither woman would probably see that. I hadn’t meant to say anything in the first place, but now that I knew I would be working with her, I figured I had better find out rather than keep guessing. “Your face looks kind of familiar, but for the life of me, I can’t place you. I don’t even think I’ve seen you around the hub at all.”
“I’m stationed at the ninth-district-hub, out in Evanston, not here in the seventh.” She frowned. “Although I pretty much work wherever they need me. But I’m an anon, so you probably wouldn’t have seen me over the past three years of your training if you ever went out on regular shifts.”
“Right.” If she wore arbiter gear that obscured every bit of her, then there wouldn’t have been any way for me to recognize her when she wasn’t wearing her gear. Still didn’t explain where I had seen her, though. “I guess maybe I just saw you at a cross-training session, then.”
“Well, your past-self was pretty involved in arbiter training.” Kiara grinned at her.
“How am I not surprised?” Amber rolled her eyes. “Any way, cross-training or not, you probably have seen me, or at least, the forty-year-old me. Every damn news outlet seems to find an excuse to show that footage they got of me at least once a week. You’d think that after a year—”
“Oh, come on!” Kiara laughed and slugged her on the arm. “You’re the only person I know who would find a way to complain about getting to go to space and then collecting a national award for it. Besides, that’s the only footage anyone has of your face. What, you think newscasters want to always be putting up pictures of you wearing your helmet when they talk about you?”
“The helmet looks cool.” Amber looked sullen. “Jake and I spent a long time tweaking the design to
get it just right.”
“Wait, you... went to space...”
I blinked as the pieces all seemed to shift into place. I tilted my head to the side and studied the girl again. Now that I knew what to look for, I could see it. If I was right—and my knees almost buckled as I realized what that would mean—I had seen her during cross-training at least a few times. And on the news on a regular basis, with and without her full gear.
“You... you’re not... are you...?”
“Pardon?” She tilted her head to match my expression.
“Gravita?”
“Guilty as charged.”
I tried to look calm and collected at the revelation I was going to be interning under arguably the most powerful prime in Chicago, if not the US. I failed spectacularly, tripping over my feet as I moved toward the seats Kiara had gestured to.
“This is going to be a long year.” Amber sighed and rubbed her forehead.
About the Author
ROBERT SCHMITT is a lifelong fan of science fiction of all sorts. In college, he studied neuroscience, which in no way prepared him for his enduring passion for writing. He lives in Denver, Colorado with his wife and three daughters, who all mean the world to him.
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