Chaos Theory Cosmic Lovely

by Penelope Fletcher

  This gave him comfort. Needed, as he stared at a considerably large complication.

  Lara, Max and Christabella were with him, and because of the recent arrival had been thrust into substantial danger. Blue had protested Christabella’s presence, but she insisted staying with Max.

  Shifting on the spot, a roof tile digging into his stomach, Blue’s mind wandered.

  He had hugged his son hard before he had left, startling them both. Caesar had not commented on his strange behaviour, but the resolute touch to his mind as he walked away fortified Blue.

  His son demanded he return.

  Though small, Caesar had always been able to take care of himself. It was both a curse and a blessing, he supposed. He knew worrying about them was pointless, but recently, he couldn’t reason himself out of the fear something would happen to the flesh of his flesh when he was not there to protect him.

  “Is that really one of them?” Max breathed, breaking into Blue’s fractured thinking.

  It was a good thing. It pulled his mind back into focus. “Yes,” Blue answered.

  “It’s bigger than I imagined.”

  “Let me guess, you thought they were little green men, right?” Lara snorted. “Foolish Human.”

  Max scowled. “I certainly didn’t think aliens would look like that. I mean, what the hell?”

  Blue refrained from revealing what he knew of the Novan moving a hundred feet from them. He was conscious Christabella trembled like a leaf, her fear pulsing in sticky waves. She was brave to have come, he respected her for that, but he wondered if she was strong enough. With a frown, he wove another barrier over her mind to keep her thoughts and emotions as contained as possible.

  The alien was highly sensitive, and would have no doubt sensed her mind, but would think it was merely one of the slaves.

  Standing nine foot high, the Novan glowed with unearthly light. That light could brighten, haloing the being in a radiant brilliance when it was submerged within the Reckoning. Moist, elongated limbs were gently corded with muscular tissue. Translucent skin revealed beryl and citrine coloured veins running throughout its body. The stringy masses of its circulatory and lymphatic system were scarlet, showing it had fed recently to breathe in Earth’s oxygenated atmosphere. Multihued clouds of firing synapses were visible at the back of its bulbous cranium. Gigantic obsidian eyes glinting with galactic speckles dominated the top half of its head, swallowing the space the human form afforded for a forehead. Tapered black slits, nostrils, fluxed at immense speed. The Novan’s chest vibrated it burned through its respirations so rapidly. Appearing to the naked eye as a sheath of textured skin, its mouth was sealed shut, but when they fed the hidden seam would split to reveal the mucus soaked cavern rimmed with luminous fangs. They did not have a tongue or a voice box; such crude communication had been bred out eons past. Communication was wholly mind-to-mind.

  Host stood guard beside the Novan, the parasitic Symbionts attached to the back of the Human’s necks at the base of their skulls, suggesting careful placement opposed to hasty attachment in battle.

  A Hybrid stood in front of the Novan, nodding her head ever so often.

  Blue knew her. Valerie. She was spawned from Sigma stock, of lower rank and ability.

  His substitute.

  Did they already suspect he had defected? Was that the reason the Novan had touched down planet side?

  “How many aliens do you think there are?” Max whispered.

  Blue refrained from rolling his eyes at the male. Whispering was not necessary. Did he think they would get this close to a being with extrasensory perception without Blue first weaving incredibly powerful barriers to block out any sound waves and psi-gamma flares from their mental signatures?

  “We’re not sure. The Creator doesn’t think like you Humans do,” Lara answered. “One is the same as a thousand to them. Their mind is unified in a way you couldn’t possibly imagine.”

  “I’ll rephrase. How many do you think are in that encampment? Are the others in danger?”

  “One,” Blue stated. “Logically, one has enough power to do the work necessary. Why would there be more? Igor would have called for help if there was trouble.”

  “Is it a girl or a guy?” Max asked. “I don’t like the idea of hurting a female much, but it looks male. Can we take him?”

  “The alien’s gender is irrelevant to us and them,” Blue said.

  “What? Why are they so interested in our women then?”

  Lara sighed heavily. “Human females grow life, not males, which is why the Symbionts only attach to male Hosts. It reduces the chances of lost stock.”

  “I’ve noticed you tow the line between us, them, and you pretty thickly.”

  She jerked a shoulder. “Just telling it like it is.”

  “I really don’t like you.”

  “The feeling is mutual, trust me.”

  “Trust? You?” Max snorted. “In what galaxy would that ever happen?”

  “Enough,” Blue ordered, pausing to glare over his shoulder at them. The tension between them continued to grow at an alarming rate. He wished it was sexual because they would clash eventually, and Blue wasn’t unsure of who would lose in that skirmish. He had no desire to tell Kali she had to bury her friend. “Be ready in case we are needed. Lara, you can handle this? If he senses us, we must erect a barrier over the area to keep him from calling the Hive.”

  “Just say the word, and I’ll give you everything I’ve got.”

  Max patted Christabella’s shoulder when she whimpered. “Why don’t we just shoot him?” he asked.

  “That will definitely bring the entire Hive down on our head.” Lara lost all colour at the thought. “That’s a psychic maelstrom we must avoid at all cost.”

  22.

  “I’m escaping.” Valiant said this as casually as possible, but the man he’d muttered to still had to choke an exclamation and thump his chest.

  “What?” Creighton whispered to the brawny male who’d suddenly addressed him as if they were already having a conversation or were old friends. Military, he guessed, from the fierce-looking MainLander’s buzz cut. “What did you say to me?”

  “You heard me standard.”

  Valiant leaned through the bars holding him prisoner and looked down his nose to the man beside him. He was getting on, but by no means out of the game. Wearing the loose trousers the Hybrids had given the male prisoners, his chest was compact, but his shoulders broad. There was some grey at his temples, wrinkles around the eyes and mouth, but Valiant would place him at no more then his late forties. HiCaste considering the vitality of his skin. LoCaste tended to look a little gray from all that fake air.

  “Why you telling me this?” Creighton asked.

  His guess Valiant was military was confirmed when he turned and exposed the black ink dog tags tattooed on his pectoral. “There are other men here more suited to a breakout attempt,” Creighton pointed out.

  Valiant knew the men he was talking about. They were LoEco citizens who were bruisers. They’d be great as a distraction technique, but good for nothing else. He had no problem being callous about the distinction.

  In times of war, shit got deep.

  “That’s not what I need. I’ve been watching you. You’re observant, quick-witted, calculating. That is what will keep you alive. Together, we could get out of here. I would try by myself, but I need someone to watch my back.”

  He was tempted, but Creighton shook his head. “I’m … waiting.”

  “The man that used to be inside the Host you keep getting teary-eyed over is gone. You understand that?”

  Gut roiling, Creighton couldn’t help but turn and stare at Rikard.

  His husband stood swaying alongside the other Host set to guard them. There was no recognition in his eyes, no animation on his face.

  He was a shell. A ghost.

  It broke Creighton’s heart.

  “We have a daughter,” he managed. “I’m worried I’ll get out of here th
en miss her if she’s bought in to be….” Neither of them wanted to be reminded of the female screams they heard in the middle of the night when the Hybrids went to work. “….If she’s brought here.”

  “The Half-pint’s yours too?” Valiant nodded to the red head clamped around Creighton’s legs.

  She’d been that way since he’d been thrust into the cage and found her catatonic in a corner.

  “Madeleine’s not blood, but family.”

  “I get that.” Valiant had more respect for the man now. “I have a friend who is like a brother to me. Soon as I get clear, I’m going to look for him. Z’s smart. He’s either hiding, dead, or Host. If he’s the latter I’ll put a bullet in him and bury his scrawny ass, but at least I’ll know for sure.”

  “That’s the hardest part, isn’t it? Not knowing what’s happened to them.”

  Creighton pondered his options. His hand ruffled Madeleine’s cap of fiery corkscrews. That soothed him. She was his responsibility now, and one he took with the utmost of seriousness. If he never saw Max again, he would hold peace with not protecting the boy’s mother better by ensuring the survival of his sister.

  Fear for his own daughter had kept him from sleep. The sick twisting in his gut had him in constant panic of what might be happening to her as he paced caged and helpless.

  Kali wasn’t beautiful in the traditional sense, but there was something about her that repelled and compelled in an attention-grabbing tandem. Aside from her Delphi looks, those two opposing forces could have strange affects on males. In the past, she had been protected. With her politically influential HiCaste fathers to safeguard her, no one would dare physically harm her to satisfy their curiosity, but with the bounds of society shattered to pieces, he wasn’t sure if she’d be safer with the aliens or with who should be her MainLander kin. It was horrifying to accept, but a reality he had to face. Sitting and hoping she had found honourable men to guard her was the best he could do, and that just was not good enough.

  Then there was Rikard.

  If he had to sit and watch his dead husband shuffle around with the same feeling of hopelessness as he had for the last five days he would go insane.

  Dedicating the rest of his life to raising the child he held in his arms, and searching for the one he’d lost would keep him alive.

  Creighton held out his hand to shake. “I’m in. My name is Loklear, Creighton.”

  Valiant paused then a wide grin split his brooding features. “Huh. Small planet. The name’s Valiant.”

  “The plan?”

  “No matter what happens, stay with me. The nanosec they realise they can run these guys are going to go nuts, and head straight for the entrance doors. Don’t get caught up in it. I’ll seem like I’m going the wrong way, but I know this place, and know where we can get out unseen. Our priority is to get armed, and get out of here in one piece. Got it? I know where we can find supplies.”

  Creighton’s eyes widened. He scooped up Madeleine, and pushed her head down to rest on his shoulder. “Now?”

  Valiant slipped his hand through the bars and flashed his wrist at the scanner, so the OmniLock hidden beneath his skin could disengage the locks.

  The door popped open.

  “No time like the present, old timer.” Valiant snatched Madeleine from Creighton’s arms and mashed himself into the bars. “Door’s open!”

  The haggard prisoners blinked at the open doorway like parched travellers spying an oasis.

  They moved as one, a sea of bodies crushing each other to get free.

  Creighton barely had time to press his front into Valiant, and grab the cold bars. They caged a howling Madeleine between their bodies, her small hands fisted on Creighton’s chest, her whole body trembling.

  People went down screaming. Some clambered back up; others were crushed beneath the surge of trampling feet. Fists flew and legs bucked. The first to wedge their bodies out the narrow opening were the strongest. The meanest. Shoving the weaker aside, they were twisted to cruelty by the need to survive.

  The escapees were loud and messy – a perfect distraction. They clashed with the Host in a rabid clamour of noise.

  As predicted they headed straight for the main exit.

  Valiant motioned to a divot in the wall and they shuffled out the cage, keeping Madeleine’s head averted when they passed the dead bodies of the prisoners who had fallen in the stampede and would never stand again.

  No sooner had they slipped into the depression and were cloaked by shadows, the doors creaked open.

  The monotonous droning and shuffling feet identified the newcomers as Host.

  Madeleine whimpered.

  The deadly look Valiant levelled at Creighton had him clamping a hand over the girl’s mouth. Whispering hush noises in her ear, he turned her face into his chest so she couldn’t see, and covered her other ear with his hand.

  There were heart-stopping moments of silence.

  The doors squeaked and the noise levels of the rioting in the corridors got louder until the door whooshed closed.

  Back flat to the wall, sidling warily, Valiant peered from the alcove. When Creighton shifted he held up a hand to signal he should wait.

  After a few beats, he gave a thumb up.

  “That easy?” Creighton breathed, easing his hold on Madeleine’s mouth.

  “Don’t jinx it,” Valiant murmured.

  He prowled forward, quickened his pace, and hooked an arm around the neck of a straggler about to leave the room.

  With an efficient twist he snapped the Host’s neck.

  Matter-of-fact, he patted the body down for weapons. All he found was a pocketknife the Human probably had before he’d been paired with a Symbiont. Valiant jammed the blade between his teeth and checked the body’s shoe size. “These should fit you.” He tugged the boots off and threw them at Creighton. He could survive a while without footwear, but he doubted the HiCaste had tough soles like him. He tugged off the Host’s threadbare jumper and struggled into it. “You can carry the Half-pint? We won’t find shoes her size here.”

  Creighton crouched, and as he put on the boots, Madeleine climbed onto his back. She looped her skinny arms around his neck, laying her head beside his. “We’ll be fine. What now?”

  “We leave through those doors, real careful like, then sneak towards the back of the building. Half way to our exit there’s a narrow corridor that’s rarely used, and a cubbyhole off it is full of supplies. LiquiNu pouches, weapons, ammunition, the works. We grab all we can carry and slip out the back door. I had to transport criminals through it back in the day before I made the Starless unit.”

  “Starless?” Creighton lowered his voice. “They’re a myth.”

  “Yeah, not so much.” Valiant checked the room to make sure there was nothing valuable he could use. “I’m heading towards the OutRim. Last intelligence implied the greatest concentration of Host and Hybrid was inland. The further into the wastelands we head the safer it’ll be. You and Half-pint are welcome to join me.”

  Creighton puffed out his cheeks. “My daughter?”

  “I’m looking for my friend too, but we need to find somewhere safe. We can reconnoitre when we have a firm base. Survival first. We’re no good to them dead.”

  They made it to the back of the building with no problems. The Host and Hybrids were busy regaining control of the Human uprising charging for the entrance.

  Reaching the ‘cubbyhole’ Creighton lifted an eyelid at the massive steel doors Valiant had led them too. “This is a vault.”

  “Our society is built on the illusion of peace.” Valiant flashed his wrist at the scanner and the bolts holding the door closed snapped open. “Of course the weapons are hidden.”

  Madeleine was set down by the wall with instructions to hit them if she saw anyone coming, and they used their combined muscle to push open the heavy doors.

  Valiant cautiously slipped inside.

  Shelves of food and weapons lined the wall as he expected, but what he f
ound in the middle of the room had him fisting his hands.

  A young female, dressed in a black-sequined choli and brocade skirt, her short crop of white hair matted with blood. At her feet was her discarded dupatta, a twist of jade silk. She rocked on the spot, digging her fingers into her skull. Henna stained her skin in an intricate swirl up her arms and stopped at two rings of silver. Her eyes lifted and burned molten gold. Unbridled hatred sparked in their depths promising fiery retribution. Topaz jewels were suspended on her brow between her eyebrows in a detailed sunburst. The cosmetically adhered bindi was what gave the StarChildren their name.

  He uncurled his fingers.

  Valiant could smell her from where he filled the doorway. Spices and fresh herbs mixed with a warmer undertone, something like stone baked bread.

  “Namaste,” Valiant stuttered, his hands coming together briefly.

  Despite the respectful greeting, the Hybrid stiffened. She clenched her arms tighter around her bloodied knees. A gem winked at the side of her nose. “I don’t care what you do to me,” she rasped, voice faintly accented. “Torture my mind as you wish. I will not serve.”

  Valiant stared at her golden skin, witchy eyes, and lush lips. He felt his heart roll over in his chest. “Never?” he asked dumbly.

  She glared at him. “Never,” she hissed. “My mind is my own, as are my feelings.”

  “That’s good to know.” Valiant cleared his throat. “So you’re a good one secluded from the bad ones? Make my day and say yes.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Creighton muttered. “She’s dangerous.”

  “She’s a StarChild, unarmed, and female. I have a vibe.”

  Creighton rubbed tired eyes. “Cosmic. Your ‘vibe’ will keep her from sticking parasites on us and marching us back here the first chance she gets?”

  “No, nine years of combat training and being the most decorated operative in my squad will. That and my shiny new rifle.” He hefted one of the weapons off the wall as he spoke, petting it fondly. “But like I say, old timer, I have a vibe.”