I’m losing it. Sweat slid down her neck and pooled around the seal for her suit and helmet. A terrible knowing, one that she could not rationalize, stole her breath and quickened her heart. My nightmare…
It’s here.
“… okay?”
Raza’s static-filled voice broke her trance. Inhaling sharply, 141 calmed herself. Complete the mission. Then I’ll be free.
Erased, forgotten. That’s all she wanted. No more nightmares, visions of pain and suffering, or disembodied voices crying out her name; no more ghosts of a past that no one, least of all her, wanted to remember.
“I’m fine,” she said into the mic. I won’t have to be me much longer.
Fighting the winds, she pressed forward, climbing up and over a striated shelf. When she crested, she gasped. Desiccated bodies littered the periphery of the gouged-out crater while dozens of aliens from various factions stood in a staggered ring around a gigantic monolith the size of a four-story building. Hypnotized by an unseen power, some of them grasped at the air while others shivered and shook.
The voice called to her from the black stone etched with glowing red glyphs in the middle of the crater. “141…”
No, she thought, unable to resist the urge to walk forward. With each step down into the bowl, she came closer to the pillar jutting out from its impact point in the blackened ground.
This is wrong—
Sirens shrieked, warning of an imminent attack.
Not real, she told herself, pressing her gloves against her helmet to quell the deafening sound.
The sirens faded away, replaced by a low hum coming from the monolith. Clenching her jaw, she tried to change directions, but her legs wouldn’t respond to her command.
STOP.
As the invisible force drew her forward, 141 caught glimpses of the terror-stricken faces of the various aliens swaying in front of the monolith. Oh, Gods—
Beneath the transparent visors she saw their wounded eyes, bloodied and sunken, and caved-in mouths.
Terror seized her heart as she gazed upon the towering structure. I can’t disarm this—
“141…”
The voice plunged into her, infiltrating her bones and blood, sucking the air from her lungs. Left breathless, she halted in place, a few meters from the monolith, aware of the many sets of eyes sinking behind her own.
Who are you? she thought as something cold and slimy slid down her spine.
“141…”
Body stiffening, she lost feeling in her limbs, and her vision dimmed. Any sense of fear and violation drifted away as her own sights turned inward, and the true depths of her nightmare came to light.
“Commander, we’re in position,” one of the helmsman shouted over the battle-noise coming from the holographic war globe projected in the center of the bridge. “Your order, Sir?”
Standing over the command station interface, she looked at the statistics scrolling down the secondary display. Her warship had taken minor damage after a failed attempt to communicate with the Grogons resulted in a firefight.
We’ll try again, she thought, wanting to reinitiate the translation program and find a way to communicate with the new alien species.
“Communication from Central Command,” the helmsman said, relaying the coded message to her console. The text appeared in bright blue next to her ship’s readouts.
141.
Her heart froze. Order 141; the release of the military’s secret planet-killing bomb.
This doesn’t make sense. The Grogons posed no real threat, and their species—and countless others inhabiting the Earth-sized world—had yet to colonize other planets.
“Commander,” the helmsman said, pointing to red dots on the war globe. “The Grogons are coming about for another attack run.”
The order flashed on her ship’s readouts.
This is wrong. But she had no other choice, lest she risk losing her post. And after twenty years of service and relationships lost, she couldn’t imagine doing—being—anything else.
“Order 141,” she said, typing in her authorization codes.
“Launching,” the helmsman said as the internal sirens wailed. “In three…two…one…”
141 gasped, heart thudding against her chest, resurfacing from the tidal wave of memories.
I remember.
Standing in front of the humming monolith, she bridged two realities.
I dropped the bomb. Shaking, she gulped for air as her nightmares congealed, forming a haunting vision she finally understood. I destroyed the Grogon homeworld—
Lightning tore apart the skies, but 141 drew further inward. The military took away my name…
And after disavowing her in the wake of the scandalous genocide, stripped her of rank, stole her identity and designated her as 141. No chance for goodbyes, not that she had seen her estranged wife in over four years.
They lied, she thought, remembering the scathing reports about her character, the public shaming and awful renouncement.
“For your heinous actions against the Grogons, we revoke your citizenship and reject you as our sister,” the Starways President announced over the intergalactic broadcast.
No longer human. Heat stacked upon heat in her chest. They took everything from me.
The monolith’s hum rose in pitch, overpowering the wind and thunder with its shrill cry. Red glyphs grew brighter, the ground beneath her vibrated. In her peripheries, she caught sight of the other aliens disintegrating as a savage hunger blanketed her mind.
“141…”
Rage, unlike anything she had ever felt before, lit up every cell in her body, setting her insides afire.
Give me justice, she thought, reaching out to the monolith. As soon as the tip of her glove touched the smooth surface, her senses extended beyond her body, channeling through the sh’nar and across the galaxy.
She found the Warden first, sitting in his office, filing a false report about her disobedience. Transcending physical bounds, she wove her fingers around his neurons and yanked back. The Warden screamed, bucking out of his office chair and clawing at his temples.
She moved on, already bored by his fading cries. Desiring a greater satisfaction, she turned her sights to military outpost constructed next to the devastated Grogon homeworld.
You made me kill them for an outpost? she thought, gathering the legion’s soul-lights in her hands. She squeezed her fingers down, crushing all 700. Criminals.
On the fringe of her awareness, she heard the sh’nar’s raucous tones escalate. Disinterested, she reached out farther into the cosmos, finding countless planets and populaces to ensnare. You all abandoned me.
Anger boiled through her, magnifying in bands of red light that projected from her fingers. I will end you all.
“Screw it,” she heard herself say, vision splintering.
With the galaxy in her clutches, she felt the tickle of the chibi mouse’s whiskers against her skin as it plucked the food from her injured hand.
No, she thought, resisting the sentiment of the memory. I didn’t save it.
Other memories blossomed forth, competing with the dark force captivating her heart. She remembered Raza’s touch, the way her lucent fingers mended her wounds, the alien’s essence delving deeper than her lacerated flesh.
Nobody’s touched me since—
Her mind made the long-forgotten connection.
Sienna.
Anger surged anew in her heart as she recalled the terrible moment when she lost her wife.
Don’t take her away from me!
But pleading with the surgeons lowering the mind-wiping halo onto her head did nothing, not when they believed her to be the genocidal commander.
Falling to her knees, she extended her reach as far as the sh’nar would take her, past the known galaxy, into the deepest reaches of space, grasping at all the soul material she could see, ready to wipe away all the light of the universe.
“Hold me.” Sienna, faced away from her and dress
ed in civilian clothes, dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. “Well?”
The commander walked over and wrapped her arms around her wife’s slender waistline, settling her head into her perfumed neck.
“Don’t forget me while you’re up in the stars, all right?”
Never. Not even after seeing the divorce notice waiting on her desk as soon as she hit orbit.
The pulse in her veins quickened, the stentorian cry of the sh’nar reaching its peak as the memory faded away, and she found herself stretched out across the heavens.
I am a killer.
Then stillness, silence, as the collective universe held its breath, awaiting her reckoning.
Three.
I am—
She smelled her wife’s perfume, saw Raza’s smile as her blue hands glided across her skin.
Two.
I am...
(—forgive me.)
Gray whiskers tickled her fingers. Hope, possibility, in the face of death, reminded her of choice.
One.
Tears falling from her eyes, she embraced all that she was, and called out her name.
“I could have ended the universe.”
Raza looked at the commander with the same knowing smile as she ran her lucent fingers up her body, repairing her damaged tissue with ease. For a brief moment, the transparent half-cylinder beneath her vibrated as the alien starship broke from Cerreca’s orbit, and jumped to light speed. “The sh’nar was created to respond to the strongest desires, and empower that person to right the world. Given your history, we knew it would react to you.”
“But I’m a murderer.”
“Yes, and you have suffered for this,” Raza acknowledged, helping her sit up.
Thinking of the Grogon homeworld, reduced to ashes and rubble, she whispered: “I have.”
“In remembering all your past—not just the loss and tribulation, but also the reasons for life, for hope and choice—you found cause not to repeat your mistakes.”
“Yes.” Silently, she added: I am not 141.
“This is the conviction that shut down the sh’nar’s power.”
“But I killed the Warden…that entire legion…”
Raza held on to her arm. “Your humanity saved the universe.”
“I guess,” she said, regarding her revitalized body in the breaks of her white patient gown. Forty, going on twenty—at least that’s how her joints felt and skin looked. “So, what now?”
Raza brushed back the loose strands of hair from the commander’s face. “We will take you wherever your heart desires.”
Home.
She hadn’t thought of such a thing in years.
Where would it be?
“Take me to your world,” she answered.
“Not Earth?”
Shaking her head, she took Raza’s hand in hers, and held it close. “To new memories—and better dreams.”
Raza smiled. “Alright then, Commander.”
“Call me Ceri.”
BIO
L.J. Hachmeister is an author and registered nurse from Denver, Colorado. When not touring comic cons, she practices a lot of Brazilian jiujitsu and Doce Pares Eskrima, and chases after her two rambunctious dogs.
L.J. is represented by Paul Stevens of the Donald Maass Literary Agency.
LINKS
Author Website: https://www.triorion.com/
Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/L.-J.-Hachmeister/e/B0071QCTS2
Twitter: https://twitter.com/lj_hachmeister
Valentine Blues
James A. Hunter
The kids in Valentine, Nebraska just aren’t right. Not anymore.
They’re Dangerous. Unpredictable. Hungry. As violence breaks out and people start dying, butchered in their homes, only Yancy Lazarus—bluesman, gambler, mage, and former wet-works man—can put things right. Well, he can try…
Something was wrong in Valentine.
I could feel it in the air, beating down on my senses like an invisible sledgehammer.
My El Camino rumbled beneath me as I cruised along US 20, nearing the edge of the sleepy town, a few worn buildings poking up along the horizon. I leaned over and cranked down the window, letting the wind whip into the cab, filling the interior with the scent of fresh-turned earth—musky and rich—and the sweet aroma of wildflowers offset by the pungent smell of cow shit. I breathed deeply, inhaling a great big whiff of country air, then exhaled it slowly through my nose.
Great swathes of dusty dry yellow stretched off to either side of me, a flat land deep in the heart of a drought, but ahead lay a patch of green, like an oasis in a desert. I turned an eye skyward, searching the clouds above for any telltale sign of the strange energy bearing down on me, but the sky was clear as far as I could see. I turned my gaze back to the two-lane cut of asphalt lazily meandering off to the left. A “Reduced Speed Ahead” sign popped up on the right, so I dropped down from sixty-five, coming damned near to a crawl as I passed by the first few buildings on the edge of Valentine.
Off to the left lurked a recently renovated motel, the Trading Post, laid out in a “U,” the grass out front lush and inviting, a series of squat bushes lining the roadway. The motel vanished in a blink, replaced in short order by a run-down gas station, followed by a few rows of single-wide trailers, many old and worn. None of ’em looked occupied. The run-down trailer park disappeared behind a clump of leafy trees as the road straightened, swelling into a four-lane boulevard, lined on either side by gas stations, hardware stores, a couple of fast-food chains, and a spattering of rough motels with names like the Waterfall Inn or the Motor Carriage Lodge.
Cheap tacky places that appealed to approximately no one, anywhere, ever.
I travel a lot, living out of the back of my car, moving from state to state, town to town, bar to bar, eating cheap bar food and playing the blues for beer money, so I know a thing or two about sleepy towns. This place? This place was a Podunk shit-speck—maybe eight or nine hundred people—the kinda town folks drive through, but only because they were on the way to someplace better, more interesting. The shops lining the streets damn near shouted that fact at the top of their lungs: all catered to the weary travelers looking for a bite to eat or a place to catch a wink.
Podunk to the core.
Not that I have anything against Podunk shit-speck towns, mind you. Not the kinda place I’d ever want to settle down in, obviously, but small towns are the best places to shoot the shit with crusty old-timers over at the VFW hall. Tradin’ war stories, having a few laughs, killin’ time.
I stared at the shops as I cruised, my eyes picking over the long shadows cast by the fading sun, searching for signs of life, but everything seemed dead. Cold. The air washing into the cab felt heavy with arcane power, some powerful construct laying over the entire town like a smothering pillow.
Eric Clapton blared from my speakers, but with a grunt of irritation I flicked the power button, killing the gritty tunes so I could get a better read on the town. The music died, replaced by silence. An unnatural quiet radiating from the buildings and the streets. A hush that demanded compliance. Valentine felt like a friggin’ library, presided over by some haughty, overbearing lady with boxy glasses and a motherly cardigan, eager to bring down the gavel the moment some snot-nosed kid broke the peace.
I rolled up to a three-way intersection guarded by an unnecessary stoplight looking down on an otherwise empty street. There were cars around, true—lots of older American made trucks, a few newer SUVs in various makes and models, a couple muscle cars with peeling paint—but they were all parked along the streets, empty. On the surface, everything looked fine. No sign of trouble. No evidence of rioting. No burnt buildings or broken store windows. The stores, though mundane, looked neat and clean, carefully and lovingly maintained. But no people.
Not a one.
I stopped at the light even though I had a green, loitering for a moment as I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel, the sound unnaturally loud in the stillness.
Straight ahead, flanking the US 20, lay more motels and fast-food joints. Then the road broke away, clearing the shit-speck town, cruising on for another three hundred miles until it turned into Interstate 25 in Wyoming. To the right, though, lay North Main Street, a quaint two-lane, slicing deeper into the town, leading back into the residential area, eventually turning into the US 83, which headed into South Dakota.
I was bound for Rapid City, which meant that bastard road was on my route.
For a long beat, I considered just gassing it, laying my foot down flat against the pedal and driving right on through this shithole. Skip Rapid City entirely and head west into Wyoming instead. After all, one town was as good as another, since I didn’t actually have a place to be.
I idled at the intersection a spell longer.
Yep, the smart thing to do was to keep right on truckin’, put this place firmly in the rear-view, and leave the residents of Valentine to deal with their own bullshit. Whatever bullshit that happened to be.
I frowned, sighed, then reluctantly gave the Camino some gas and wheeled right, puttering onto North Main Street and deeper into the heart of the town. Dammit. Idiot.
Stupid, bleeding-heart moron, is what I was.
I passed a few more shops and city buildings, all made of old red brick—a post office here and some kinda historical center there—before finally passing into a winding neighborhood loaded down with cute, double-story cookie-cutter houses that could’ve filled the suburbs of any city in America. Lifeless trucks and motorhomes dotted streets and driveways. Too-green lawns stared at me as I rolled past, mocking me with their vitality while the rest of the town remained dead and quiet. Still no friggin’ people. Zippo.
I started taking turns at random: a left on West Second followed by a quick right onto North Edna, my gaze constantly sweeping back and forth. Constantly searching for any indication of what in the holy hell had happened here.
Parallel Worlds- the Heroes Within Page 19