by Kate Sander
"Haven't heard a peep," Tory said. "And the Remiel isn't helping at all either. Something is blocking my visions."
"There are probably a lot of Zoya over here now," Senka said. "They had pills, could be hundreds. Wouldn't shock me if one of them could block your visions of the future."
Tory shrugged. "I haven't thought of that, but it's annoying that you're probably right."
More footsteps. Senka's eyes narrowed.
Eris moved into the now cramped spaced between crates.
"Hello, little girl," Senka snapped. "Here to challenge me to a fight? Or maybe imply that I'd kill one of my best friends again?'
Tory slapped Senka on the arm.
Eris blushed, inhaled, then, looking Senka in the eyes, said, "I came to apologize. My father- Sorry, the King," she stuttered, "always said I avoid conflict. I've been working on meeting it head on. I thought my friend was in trouble. As you haven't talked to me since we met, other than to make fun of me, I wrongly assumed you were here to hurt her." Eris held out her hand. "I'm sorry."
Senka held her gaze. This was probably one of the most surprising things she'd ever seen. Standing, she took Eris’ hand and shook it, "Apology accepted. It takes a real adult to admit when they are wrong."
Tory cleared her throat.
Senka took the hint, "And I'm sorry that I've been less than hospitable towards you. We don't have to be best friends, but, if you're actually here to help us defeat the Ampulex, then we are going to have to work together."
Eris nodded. "Okay. I just wanted to say that. I didn't want to interrupt." She backed away.
"Wait," Senka said, holding out her flask. "Have a drink. We will have to find more booze, but stay awhile. I want you to meet my friend Akira."
Akira nodded to Eris.
"We need to get to know each other if this rag tag group is going to work," Senka said. "Might as well start now."
They drank in near silence, getting used to the physical presence of being in the same space. Senka was watching and learning, trying to get a vibe from the people around her. And the person inside her.
"Where's Ujarak?" she asked Tory, trying to break the tense silence.
"Puking in his room," Tory said. "Funny, the big man can't handle the sea."
Thankfully, Senka's nausea was passing. Sniffing the booze was helping. The kid was getting bigger. MY kid, she reminded herself. The thought scared her more than anything.
What if she fucked all this up?
Akira snuggled into her shoulder and closed her eyes. Senka tensed a little at the touch, then relaxed. Kai purred happily in her lap.
Senka leaned back and closed her eyes, moving slowly so she didn't wake the two. Breathing deeply and ignoring the impending war. The impending doom. Leaning her head back, she fell asleep in between the girl and cat. A few moments of peace.
Before all hell was going to break lose.
6
Carter
Chaos.
That was the only word to describe what Carter was seeing.
Absolute chaos.
Carter walked into his office, where the entire ZTF was sitting around the large table. All of them bickering with the nearest person. Six Zoya in the same room, with their handlers, the poor bastards tasked to keep them alive. And out of trouble. Black Eyes took her place in the corner of the room, invisible to everyone but him.
"I don’t see why we are having a meeting," Igor said in his thick Russian accent as soon as Carter walked into the room. Everyone else fell silent to listen. He was ex-KGB, and his attitude said as much. "Matty goes in, makes a big boom. I go in, heal Matty. We go home, sleep like a baby. No meeting."
"Where do you even think you're going, Sherlock?" Igor's handler, John snapped. "You don't even know where you need to "make a big boom".” John was British and ex MI6. John and Igor knew each other before the ZTF and before Igor was a Zoya. They were best friends from back in the spy days. Apparently they'd tried to kill each other multiple times, and developed a bond over time. Their relationship was... complicated. But to John's credit, he was the only person who Igor would actually listen to.
"The boss will tell us," Igor shrugged.
"I'm in," Matty piped up. "It's been a while since I got to blow anything up."
"No," Carter said. "You can't just blow everything up. And Igor, you can't just go in and heal all the innocent. That's not how this works."
"It worked in Kenya," Igor said. "And Ethiopia, and Moscow, and Paris, and-"
"Enough," Carter snapped. "This is going to take all of us, therefore a meeting. This is no ordinary organization. Not easy to find and kill a terrorist cell. These are Zoya, who know we exist, and who are trying to take over this world and The Other Place." He shot Igor a look and leaned against the front of his desk. "Thus, meeting. Got it?"
"I'm just saying-"
"Got it?"
A nod was all Carter was going to get.
"Okay, now that we've decided that we do, in fact, need to have a meeting, I'm going to call Ramjeet up here to start. He has an interesting angle that we need to discuss."
Ramjeet rose to begin his part of the presentation. He knocked his papers off the table and, blushing, fumbled to pick them up. His Zoya, Emily bent down to help him. Handing him his papers, she whispered something in his ear and gave him a sharp, reassuring smack on the shoulder. Ram nodded and went to the front of the room to stand beside Carter.
"What I've been working on..."
"Speak up, Mate," Matty said loudly. "We all love yah, we're all family. It ain't stupid. We can't help anyone if we can't hear the smartest guy in the room."
Nods of agreement from the rest.
Carter's chest swelled with pride. There were genuinely good people in this room.
Ram nodded, clutched his papers and said, louder this time, "I've been researching the increase in worldwide natural disasters."
"We are Zoya," Lee said, tipping his cowboy hat, "With all due respect. We aren't scientists, and stopping global warming isn't going to happen in this room."
"I know," Ram said. "And global warming is a part of it. But what if it isn't all of it? I've been running the numbers and looking into the background radiation of the entire universe. It's changed. And the date that it changed corresponds exactly to the day that Senka and Tomo died," blushing again, he looked at Carter nervously.
Carter nodded. Bringing up his dead teammates still hurt, but he was a boss now. He couldn't let it bother him, especially with all of the ZTF in the room.
"What do you mean?" Simone said in her thick French accent. Simone was easily the most beautiful person in the room, and maybe the whole world. The actress and movie star was A-list and invaluable to the ZTF. Not feeling pain helped a lot too. "How can this be?"
"Look, we know that Freudman had a bunch of kids in that German compound. Tomo made some pills to send Zoya to The Other Place and to kill the person here." Ram said, gaining confidence as he spoke. "When a Zoya crosses over, there's a distinct brain wave pattern. There's also a massive release of energy. What if the German compound wasn't the only one?"
"We know of the one in Siberia," Carter said. "That's where Senka got the information on the German compound. There were a few more mentioned on the servers."
"Exactly. So what's stopping Freudman from using the pills on a bunch of kids?"
"You think that the energy is..." Carter drifted off. "Holy shit."
"See!" Ramjeet said excitedly. "Yes, I do. They are sending a mass amount of Zoya over, every day probably. The energy released changed the background radiation of the universe. That is causing solar flares..."
"Which is causing the natural disasters," Carter finished for him. The entire ZTF looked dumbfounded. "So we have to stop Freudman..."
"To save the world," Ramjeet finished. "I've run the numbers multiple times. I don't think I'm wrong in this. But you can check the calculations if you want."
"I believe you," Carter said. Patting his back and
signaling him to retake his seat, he said. "We all believe you. Good work, Ramjeet. Very, very good work."
"One more thing," Ramjeet said. "It’s destabilizing. The energy. It’s destabilizing everything. We need to stop them soon, or everything will tear apart."
Carter breathed deeply and nodded.
"Stop the Ampulex, save the world," Igor said. He put his head back and laughed. "My kind of mission."
"Anyone have any ideas where to start?" Carter asked. "Has anyone found Freudman? Cathy and Annabell? This is in your wheelhouse."
"Trail went cold," Annabell, the ZTF's youngest at only nineteen, said curtly. "I tracked him to the airport. He boarded an undocumented plane and left. I have not been able to pick up his stench anywhere since."
"We may be able to shed light on that," Matty said. "My dearest handler Leslie found the man's grandfather."
Leslie stood. "Wolfgang Freudman was born in 1876 in Germany. Ram found that much, we took it from there. He was raised on a small farm by Leipzig, went to medical school in Berlin." She shot up a picture on her tablet to the main screens in the office.
Lee whistled. "Sure looks like his grandfather."
Carter agreed with him. The man in the grainy black and white photograph indeed looked exactly like the man who had killed Tomo and Senka. Even the moustache and the soulless eyes.
"Never married," Leslie continued. "No kids. Official ones, anyway. Not sure about unofficial. He took an interest in the occult and in psychology. Did some pretty nasty experiments. Was fired from a few psych hospitals, then went off the grid. Not sure when he died."
"Well he had to have kids," Carter said. "We're clearly dealing with someone from his lineage."
"I know," Leslie said. "We've scoured everything. Every baptism record, hospital records, birth certificates, death certificates. This guy disappeared. I have no idea where he started a family. I have no idea where or when he died."
"What if he didn't?" Emily said.
Igor snorted and John smacked him.
"No, hear me out," she said. "He said he was a Zoya, right? We've all watched the video feed Senka sent of him killing them. Well there are a lot of crazy things Zoya can do. I can control weather. That's not possible, but I can sure make it foggy if I want to. Igor can touch somebody and heal them from anything. That's not possible. Annabell can smell so well she can track people from miles away. Not possible. Lee's so damn lucky he's never missed a shot. Simone can't feel pain. Matty can just blow shit up. All of this isn't possible. But we're here, and we can. So maybe he really is 147 years old. Not possible...." She shrugged. "I dunno about you but since I was hit in the head by that baseball I've seen a lot of impossible shit."
Silence.
"Holy shit," Lee said in his Texas twang. "I think the kid is right."
Carter nodded. "It's a start. Now, where are we at opening the Ampulex folder from the servers?"
"Still can't," Ram said. "Password is changed every hour and I can't hack it."
Carter's mind was racing. "Leslie, did Wolfgang Freudman own any property?"
Leslie nodded, "Yes. He had farmland in Manitoba. It was bought by," she checked her notes. "Hmmm, weird. It was bought by a company that was started by Roald Ammondson before he died."
"HA!" Black Eyes yelled from the corner.
The room erupted into motion. Lee took out his revolver and aimed it. Emily threw a knife, Simone gasped, Matty snapped his fingers causing a fire to burn in the palm of his hand, Igor laughed, and Annabell kicked her chair away, ready to fight. All of the handlers either froze with shock or dove for cover.
The knife Emily threw passed right through Black Eyes' head, much to the shock of everyone in the room.
"WOAH!" Carter yelled, raising his hands. "STAND DOWN, ALL OF YOU!" he commanded.
They listened, but all stood at the ready, staring at Black Eyes in the corner.
"Now, I want you all to meet our secret weapon. This is Black Eyes. She's a ghost from The Other Place. I was sure she was a hallucination from lack of sleep until now."
The ZTF looked around at each other and slowly sank back into their chairs.
"And you think being 147 years old is impossible," Emily mumbled.
7
Titus
"Bring me the Prince," Malin called from her perch.
Titus found himself being pulled roughly by two guards towards Roald and Malin. The crowd of villagers from Shamrock looked on in horror. Surrounded by Ampulex, they couldn’t move without being struck down to their knees. The Ampulex slaves, called the Forsaken, gnashed their teeth and lunged. Rabid, with no memories or human characteristics left, they were left naked and hungry. A hungry predator was better in battle. They lunged and snarled, their laughing Generals holding them back by leashes around their necks.
It hadn't been a battle. Those two, Malin and Roald, strolled up, crushed Jules with a house, and then announced that they were taking over the country.
The numbness was still there.
Jules was gone. How could Jules be gone? It had been so quick. One minute, he was pledging his allegiance. The next, he was dead. No fanfare, no tears, no battle. Just crushed to death. Titus tried to pull him out, tried desperately to get him out of the wreckage. Roald and Malin had laughed at his efforts. Then the village was surrounded by Ampulex, and some soldiers had dragged him away, kicking and screaming.
"I said, bring me the Prince," Malin barked. The crowd of villagers pressed in tightly around him, desperately trying to shield him from the Ampulex.
It was no use. The soldiers saw him and easily pushed people out of the way, dragging them by the hair if necessary. Titus was grabbed roughly and pushed towards the makeshift thrones that Malin and Roald had set up.
On the rubble of the house.
Big Mamma's old house.
Jules' fingers poked out from the bottom of the pile. Cold. White. Dead. Those bastards had killed him without a second thought. Then they'd put two chairs on the top of the wreckage and called them thrones.
Pure and undiluted hate raged through Titus. Those fingers, sticking out of the wreckage. Malin and Roald, sitting on top of him. Titus stopped in his tracks.
Dead. Jules was dead. His friend was gone. Just like his parents. Just like his brother.
Everyone who loved him was dead.
The anger built. They were sitting on Jules' dead body. Sitting there mocking him, on thrones. They were going to destroy Langundo. Destroy Solias. Destroy everything his parents and forefathers had built.
And Jules was dead.
"He was like a father to me!" Titus yelled suddenly, those cold, dead fingers setting him off. The numbness vanished, leaving only pain. Grabbing the guard next to him by the neck, he flipped him over his leg and punched him hard in the face.
The crowd yelled and jostled, trying to take on the guards surrounding them. The Ampulex unsheathed their swords, ready to fight. Titus turned to hit another guard and was punched violently in the stomach. Doubling over and coughing, he was soon overwhelmed by the soldiers. They tripped him and violently wrenched his arms behind his back.
Titus couldn't catch his breath. A guard knelt on his back while another stepped on his face, grinding it painfully into the ground.
"Enough," Roald barked. His voice carried to everyone in the scuffle and had such a commanding tone that even the people of Shamrock listened and stopped fighting.
The guard holding down Titus eased the pressure off of his back and Titus took a desperate inhale.
"Bring him here," Roald said calmly. Titus was hoisted to his feet and, half dragged half carried, was brought up to the remains of Big Mamma's house. He managed to silently call to Jules and ask forgiveness for stepping on his final resting place. The soldiers plopped him on his feet in front of Malin and Roald.
"Kneel," a soldier said in his ear. Titus spat at Malin's feet. Recoiling her feet in disgust, she gave Roald a sidelong look.
"She said kneel!" the soldier yelled in h
is ear.
"Never," Titus said.
Two well-placed kicks behind the knees while a third soldier pulled backwards on his shoulder was all it took to make Titus kneel on the wreckage.
"There, that wasn't so hard, was it?" Malin said sweetly.
"I do not kneel willingly," Titus gasped. A soldier pushed down on his shoulder, making his knees grind into the brick and causing Titus to wince in pain.
"But you still kneel," Malin said. "From my perspective, it looks the same. Same from their perspective," she gestured to the crowd of villagers behind him.
"They know I do not kneel willingly," Titus said.
"Yes, those particular villagers, maybe," Malin said. "But what about other villagers? What will they do when they see their Prince kneeling to an outsider?"
"Never willingly." Titus snapped. "They will always see me surrounded by soldiers."
Malin laughed, light and beautiful. "Oh, sweet boy. You don't seem to realize the type of power we hold."
Roald rose from his chair and squatted in front of Titus.
"Look at me," Roald commanded.
Titus had no other choice. He looked at Roald.
Images came into his brain, fast and painful.
His father stabbing his mother, over and over. Titus screamed. The knife was bloody and his mother's beautiful eyes stared at him as blood pooled around her head.
"I just wanted you to help me," his mother mumbled through bloody lips. Her body lurched as the King stabbed her again. "Titus. Where were you? Why won't you help me?"
Titus tried to scramble towards her. They were in the castle and she was lying on the floor in his parent's study. Every time he crawled forward, she got farther away.
The knife sunk into her chest again and his mother gasped, blood leaching out of her mouth. "I needed you, Titus. I needed you and you weren't there."
Titus was crying, but his tears didn't mar the image. He saw it clearly. The knife flashed, his father laughed, and his beautiful mother was stabbed again in the chest. The smell of thick, sweet blood reached him and he vomited.