Darkfeather

by Andrew Demcak

  “I made a deal with Dr. Albion, and she transferred me up here,” Cedric said and indicated the subterranean base with a wave of his hand.

  Lumen made a sour face at Cedric.

  “No, really, it’s cool.”

  “Really?”

  “It is or I wouldn’t stay here.”

  “I’ll take your word for it. Cedric has the coolest powers,” Lumen said to Keira. “He can read objects and know their history and who has touched them….”

  “That’s not all I can do,” Cedric said and winked at Lumen. Yellow sparks snapped around him, and suddenly his whole body liquefied and ran down through the metal grating leaving only his crumpled white jumpsuit behind.

  “Oh my God. That’s awesome!” Keira said.

  A glowing mist rose back through the grating, filled up the jumpsuit, and solidified into Cedric. He stood up and brushed himself off. “I can become any state of matter: solid, liquid, gas, flame, ice, metal,” he said. “You name it.”

  “That’s amazing,” Keira said. “I can transmute one thing into another, flesh into stone, lead into gold.”

  “You’re an alchemist.”

  “Yeah, sort of. I can also amplify the powers of anyone I touch. UBE said that I don’t have regular Zetan powers. I’m a mutation.”

  “Who’s UBE?” Cedric asked.

  “How can you not know who UBE is?” Keira asked and blinked.

  “I just don’t,” Cedric answered. “Who is he?”

  “Didn’t Kun contact you?” Lumen asked.

  “Who?”

  “Kun, EBE’s brother?” Lumen said.

  “Who’s EBE?”

  “EBE is UBE’s life partner,” Keira said.

  “I don’t know any of those people,” Cedric said. “I’m not one of the Twelve Heroes. I just have these powers. That’s what Dr. Albion said.”

  “They’re the aliens who crashed at Roswell in 1948,” Keira said. “UBE is my mother’s best friend.”

  “And Karen is your mother,” Cedric said and pointed to Keira.

  “Yes,” Keira said and blushed a little bit from Cedric’s attention. “How did you know?”

  “I see the resemblance.”

  “You know her?” Keira asked excitedly.

  “We work together on the Sun Stone,” Cedric said.

  “What’s that?” Lumen asked.

  “That’s what we’re going to show you two.”

  The elevator door hissed open behind them. Keira turned to see her mother exiting the elevator car.

  “Sorry I kept you waiting,” Karen said as she walked up to the group. She wore a white lab coat and had her red hair in a bun like Dr. Albion. In her hand was a tablet like the one Dr. Albion carried too.

  “No problem,” Cedric said. “I was just telling them about the Sun Stone.”

  “We’ve had a great deal of luck reverse engineering it from the Skipping Stone at Paragon.”

  “That’s EBE and UBE’s ship,” Lumen said.

  “You’re right,” Karen said, “Not many people know that. You must have above Top Secret clearance.”

  “EBE told me himself,” Lumen added.

  “Wow, we could have used you when they asked us to build another one that humans could control. We had no idea what any of that stuff was for.”

  “Good thing I can touch something and find out what it is and who has used it,” Cedric said. “Otherwise your mother and I would have gotten nowhere.”

  “But you’re a biologist,” Keira said. “Why are you working on a space ship?”

  “Zetan ships are living beings.”

  “Really?” Keira asked, intrigued.

  “They’re sort of like huge amoebas. You have to understand cell mechanics to understand Zetan ships.”

  “Should we show them?” Cedric asked.

  Karen nodded. “Follow me,” she said and started down the metal stairs that led to the cavern floor.

  Keira walked beside her mother, and Lumen hung back with Cedric.

  “Once we show you what you’re going to be flying, we can start talking about your training and the various simulators you’ll use,” Karen said to Keira.

  “We’re really going… into outer space?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “When?”

  “You’ll see. Everything is ready for you.”

  Paragon Academy, Los Angeles, CA, Two Years Ago, 2017

  10.

  “LUMEN,” CEDRIC said from the other side of the locked door. “You’ve got to come out some time.”

  “I hate it here! I want to go home!”

  Cedric looked down at his rubber slippers and knocked. “That’s how we all feel when we first get here.”

  “But what do they want from me? Why can’t I leave?” Lumen’s voice sounded like she was on the verge of tears. “I want to see my mom and Halmeoni.”

  “Didn’t Dr. Albion explain about the Paragon Academy?”

  “I don’t care what she said—it’s all lies anyway!”

  Something thumped loudly behind the door. Cedric knocked again. “Lumen? Are you okay?”

  Silence.

  “Lumen?” Cedric asked. “Answer me or I’m coming in. Lumen?” He paused for a few moments. “Okay, I’m coming in.”

  Yellow sparks snapped around his body as Cedric transformed himself into a gust of wind. His white jumpsuit billowed outward and then fell to the ground as he blew beneath the crack under the locked door. He materialized on the other side next to a pile of furniture and dirty clothing that was blocking the entrance. Cedric walked over and grabbed a towel off the pile and wrapped it around his waist.

  “Lumen, where are you?”

  Cedric headed to the bedroom at the back of the dorm. He peeked in the open doorway. Lumen lay facedown on a narrow Army bunk. He could tell from her breathing that she was crying. Cedric walked over and sat next to her.

  “It’s all right,” he said while gently touching Lumen’s shoulder. “I know what it feels like. You feel trapped.”

  Lumen turned over to face Cedric, her eyes red and puffy. She pulled her long black hair out of her face and tucked it behind her ears. “How long does it take?”

  “What?”

  “Until you get used to this place?” Lumen finished her question.

  “I felt just like you for about three months when I first came here. I couldn’t wait to get out of here. But after a year, I realized that they weren’t ever going to let me go. I just accepted it. This Army base is my home now.”

  “But your family and friends,” Lumen argued. “They must miss you. They must be looking for you?”

  “I’m sure Paragon sent them some kind of misinformation about me and my whereabouts. I gave up wondering if they’d rescue me. Maybe they all think I’m dead?”

  “Dead?”

  “Who knows what they might have said?”

  Lumen noticed that Cedric wasn’t wearing his power-deadening cuffs. She pointed to his wrist.

  “Oh, that,” Cedric said. “Dr. Albion took them off so I could get in here with you. When I’m on the other side of that door again, I’m sure they’ll be put back on my wrists again.”

  Lumen smiled sadly at him.

  “You’re just lonely,” he said standing up. “You’ve only been here a few weeks.”

  “Three weeks, five days, and ten hours,” Lumen corrected him.

  He grinned at her kindly. “Remember, I’m your friend. We can hang out whenever you want.”

  “Are you really my friend?” Lumen asked as she sat up.

  “Of course.”

  “You’re not just spying on me for them?”

  “We’re in the same boat, Lumen. We both have a power they want, and they need to control both of us.”

  Lumen looked at the shirtless Cedric. His torso was very athletic with strong pectoral muscles and broad shoulders. “Why are you wearing that towel? Did they drag you out of the shower to come get me?”

  “No,” Cedri
c said bashfully. “I can’t keep my clothes on when I change forms.”

  “What?” Lumen asked and started laughing.

  “I had to turn into a gust of air to get under your door.”

  “Oh, I see. So, your jumpsuit is still outside?”

  “Yep. Right out in front.”

  “Maybe I should unbarricade the door so you can get your clothes,” Lumen said, standing up, already resolved to accept her situation, at least for the time being.

  “That would be great.”

  “I mean, I can’t have you wandering around the base in a towel, can I?” Lumen led him back out into the front room and began to move the tables, chairs, and unwashed jumpsuits away from the doorway. Cedric helped her.

  “Maybe later I can show you something one of the techies gave me from the lab.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s called ‘Cube,’” Cedric said and put several jumpsuits over a chair back.

  “Cube? What does it do?”

  “I don’t know exactly, but it will get you high.”

  “What?” Lumen asked and turned to face Cedric, her eyes wide. “How does it do that?”

  “Who cares. Let’s have some fun.”

  “That seems crazy.”

  “It’s how extraterrestrials get high. I think it stimulates the pleasure center in your brain.”

  “It sounds dangerous,” Lumen said as Cedric helped her drag a desk back to its place near the far wall.

  “If it wasn’t a little dangerous, it wouldn’t be fun,” Cedric added with a wink and looked right into Lumen’s eyes. “It will be fun, like totally possum.”

  “Possum?”

  “Yeah, cool, you know, like sick and ill? Now everything cool is possum. Like playing possum? Everyone here says that.”

  “Possum, huh?”

  “Yep.”

  “All right, then,” Lumen said as she unlocked the dorm room door and opened it. “I don’t have to be in any of the labs today. Dr. Albion doesn’t have me on her schedule either. Let’s go see this Cube of yours.”

  “Now you’re talking,” Cedric said with a smile. “Let me put on my jumpsuit first.” He let the towel drop and then shimmied into the tight bodysuit.

  “You’re just going to change right here?” Lumen said, looking away at first, then peeking back at Cedric. “Don’t you care who can see you?”

  “You can’t hide from the universe.”

  “I guess not,” Lumen replied.

  “IT REALLY is a cube,” Lumen said as she examined the shiny onyx object in her palm. It was a little bigger than regular gaming dice, but all black, engraved with unusual hieroglyphics, and it felt strangely heavy. She walked around Cedric’s dorm room and then sat on his bunk. “How does it work?”

  “The tech wrote down the instructions here,” Cedric said and handed Lumen a folded piece of paper. “But we have to get it back to him before tomorrow.”

  “Can’t you just touch it and know how to use it?”

  “Not always,” Cedric said, sitting next to Lumen. “My power lets me see all the people who have encountered it: where they were, who they were with, what they were thinking or saying, that sort of thing.”

  She nodded and unfolded the paper. “Huh, it says here that there isn’t much difference between an alien and a human brain. Both have the same basic parts and functions. The Cube sends a short musical frequency into the brain that stimulates the amygdala, the nucleus accumbens, the ventral tegmental area, the cerebellum, and the pituitary gland. Basically, it activates all the pleasure producers at once.”

  “That’s wild!”

  “It sounds like having an orgasm,” Lumen pointed out, and then—remembering she was sitting on a bed in the dorm room of a handsome young man who she had just seen naked—blushed. “I mean, it sounds like the same bodily response. You know what I mean.”

  Cedric grinned.

  Lumen continued. “You hold the Cube in your right hand and then press it up against your forehead for a few seconds.”

  “Like Homer Simpson?”

  “What?”

  “D’Oh!” Cedric said and slapped his forehead.

  “Yeah,” Lumen said and tittered. “Just like Homer.”

  “You go first,” Cedric said.

  “What? Why me?”

  “You’re already holding it.”

  “But you’re the one who wanted to try it in the first place,” Lumen said. “Did they say anything about its side effects?”

  Cedric was silent for a moment, and then Lumen realized something. “Wait, you stole this from the lab, didn’t you? I can see your thoughts, Cedric, even with the cuffs on. They didn’t let you borrow it.”

  “Does it matter? We’ll have it back before they notice.”

  “I guess it doesn’t, but are you sure it’s safe?”

  “If it was really dangerous, would they just leave it lying around?”

  “You’re probably right,” Lumen said and smiled wryly at Cedric. “Okay, I’ll go first.”

  “Cool!”

  Lumen positioned the black cube in the middle of her right hand. It glinted in the fluorescent light. She brought it slowly up to her forehead and pressed it there. The Cube felt warm against her skin. It vibrated faintly. Lumen pushed down against it and waited. She felt a pulse of an unknown sensation, then a tickle that made her want to sneeze. And then it rushed into her. Lumen’s ears sang with a resonating drone like the sound of a tambura in an Indian raga, and her vision filled up with blue-white light, shooting stars, and dancing fireworks. She tasted ripe watermelon and smelled dewy honeysuckle. Her skin rippled with thousands of tender caresses, stroking and touching her. Dazzling thoughts coursed through her brain, saturating it with activity, neurons firing all at once. Lumen felt her mind reach out across the globe like a net, encompassing it, capturing everything.

  And then the image of a golden lotus sprouted within her body, its first bud opening, spreading out tingling petals, consecrating her entire being. As the bud collapsed, it revealed a single luminous seed. Within the seed, all the knowledge of the universe was written by molecules and tumbling atoms. Inside their protons and electrons, fish wiggled onto ancient shores and turned into dinosaurs, and then became mice, birds, and apes that escaped into the Paleozoic trees. The history of time expanded and looped back upon itself like a rubber band snapping into place. The seed continued to grow, filling itself up, getting brighter and brighter until there was nothing else in the world but its constant, all-knowing light.

  Lumen gasped in exaltation as sparks of delight soared up through her body, coating her with the ashes of phoenix wings and stardust.

  Cedric held her close as she swooned. “Whoa! Take it easy!”

  Lumen’s consciousness slowly bobbed up again. She felt her mind emerging as if from a pool of sparkling water. Her whole body felt cleansed and alive. “That was amazing!”

  Cedric kissed Lumen on the lips. She pulled away but then, looking deeply into his eyes, kissed Cedric back.

  “I’ve been wanting you to do that since I first met you,” Cedric said.

  “I think I have too,” Lumen said, a little embarrassed.

  “What happened? You were really gone there for like thirty seconds.”

  “It felt like forever—I saw the whole history of our planet! I saw everything.”

  “I’ve got to try that,” Cedric said as he took the black cube from Lumen’s hand. “Just like this, up against my forehead?”

  “That’s it. Wait for it,” Lumen said beaming. “It’s amazing.”

  Cedric had just heard the word amazing when he felt his mind boomerang out of his skull and come to rest in a glowing white room. Twenty feet ahead of him someone was sitting in an overupholstered armchair, their back to him. Cedric realized he was on his hands and knees. He stood up, brushed himself off, and looked around. There were no windows or doors in the room, just a white glow from the walls, floor, and ceiling. The room was silent except for a
person in the armchair who slowly turned the pages of a newspaper. The person didn’t seem to notice the arrival of someone else. Cedric cleared his throat. The person in the armchair startled a little bit and turned around to look. Cedric saw that it wasn’t a person at all, at least, not one from this planet. The beige-colored alien got up off the chair and waddled over. The alien’s eyes were black as basalt but smooth and unfathomable. They saw right through Cedric.

  “You must be Cedric,” the alien said. “How on earth did you get in here?”

  “I… I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I mean, I know,” Cedric said and swallowed hard. “The Cube.”

  “Aha, that makes sense,” the alien said and scratched his bald, pear-shaped head. “I wondered how you were going to do it. I’ve been waiting for you. You are still at the Paragon Institute, are you not? And you’ve met Lumen Kim?”

  “Yes and yes,” Cedric answered, puzzled, and paused. “Wait. How do you know all this about me?”

  “Forgive me,” the alien said. “Let me introduce myself. My name is EBE, and I am a distant relation.”

  Cedric didn’t know what to say. This was all part of the trip I’m on, he thought. I’m super high, and this is one big hallucination.

  “Yes and no,” EBE said after reading Cedric’s thoughts. “This is all very real, although you arrived at this place by a back door. We usually get here through deep meditation. If you were one of my students, I’d have to kick you out and send you back to try again the proper way. Intoxicants are the wrong way into this place.”

  Cedric stared blankly at EBE.

  “I have something very important to tell you. If you remember anything from this experience, remember this: You are one of the Twelve Heroes. This will not mean anything to you right now. But please believe me, it’s vitally important. Do not let Dr. Albion know. She thinks you have certain Zetan powers, but that you aren’t a Hero. There is a reason my brother Kun hasn’t contacted you yet. You are our spy deep within Paragon.” EBE walked around Cedric and looked him up and down. “There is one more thing I need you to do for me.”