Celine’s modelesque figure had transformed to sand. The loose, granular substance spilled out, cascading over her shoulders and hips like they were cliffs. He reached for her in an attempt to rescue her from disassembly, as she allowed the soil-sand mixture to claim her legs. Nowhere near as concerned as he, she opened what remained of her mouth.
“I’ll have a plane waiting in El Jadida,” she gurgled, her sandy, dripping torso and face melting into the planet’s crust. “Take it wherever you want, as long as it’s out of my country.”
Zosma Caster
The Subconscious
“Leesa Delemar, are you here?” Zosma Caster asked in a melodic voice.
Traced in vague white energy lines, physical echoes of humans she’d encountered drifted close to her astral form. Her three-fingered hand extended to touch one. Confusion drew it back. Nicolas Delemar, Florence Belladonna, Bridget Sparks, Jared Brandt, Dorian Xander, Russell Ashur, and Rabia Giro, the former Andromeda Project’s core members, were present in her foggy subconscious. Where was—? Allister. A smile crossed her face, which gleamed a lilac complexion. The clarity of his presence rivaled the other figures. Propelled by her palpitating heart, she floated to him.
“I’m here.” A hand, likely belonging to the airy voice, touched her armored shoulder.
The fog dispersed. Cape, double-breasted tunic, two letters “A” and “P,” conjoined at the same line representing the Andromeda Project logo; Lieutenant Leesa Delemar had returned dressed in death’s bleakness. The fading shapes were redrawn, and her cold touch brought life to their interactions with Zosma.
“I felt my memories slipping,” Zosma said. “I was not sure if it was a dream or—where am I?”
The question begged context. Did she mean the physical plane or the astral plane? A subzero chill pushed on the environment from outside her mind. Shivers rattled her subconscious. Her body must be somewhere cold. She’d landed somewhere cold. Three memories flashed in order: Z-energy erupting from her enflamed skin, she and Allister transported to the thermosphere, waking up surrounded by—
“Your physical body? I can’t be sure. This is your subconscious,” Leesa answered, peering into the void. “There’s a place I need to take you.” Light pulsed from her fingertips, gifting dimension to infinite dark. It took a sharp upward turn, creating a wall of energy blue as an ocean. The Lieutenant strutted the wall’s direction and said, “Your father’s spell left your psyche vulnerable, hurry.”
Zosma followed. Z-energy lives on, she thought, grateful and worried.
Thick fog crept back in with purpose. Leesa, steadfast and unaffected by diminished visibility, didn’t notice it sifting between memories and the people who represented them. Distracted, Zosma fell behind and exclaimed, “My memories, they are fading again!”
“One of these isn’t a memory, it’s here to take them away,” Leesa said, then shouted, “Show yourself, creature!”
Zosma held Leesa as their eyes darted from one wispy Andromeda Project member to the next. “Where is Rabia?” she asked.
“Run,” Leesa said so only she could hear.
Their frantic feet tapped the fabricated floor. The fog, so dense now it was like liquid nitrogen, assumed a serpent’s shape and doubled. Two cobras. Two pairs of soul thirsty, vile red eyes, whipped ahead and reared to strike, separating her from Leesa.
Terror morphed the energy wall’s serenity to the chaos of an impending supernova. Bolts licked outward in a shuddering crackle; one snake hissed, disintegrating, struck from behind by their might. The beast grew with its companion’s destruction and swore vengeance in snake’s tongue, coiled in itself.
Zosma didn’t need to see to know that the energy wall parted near the bottom. Leesa had kept going and shouted from the opening, “Leave it! The wall will stop him!”
Cackling reminiscent of Dr. Giro’s pomposity pierced the emptiness. Zosma presumed it laughed in defiance, at the protection promised by what she believed was a figment to pacify her loneliness. No choice but to obey, she traded her offensive attack for a swift exit.
Leesa commanded the energy through her black-gloved hands and built a ten-foot warrior outfitted in grey reflective armor and a bull-horned battle helmet. The phantom guardian’s spiked shoulders swaggered, and its rusty knees squeaked as it stepped to confront the onslaught, equipped with a sharpened spear. “You will guard this sanctum blessed with the strength of an entire people. Nothing gets past you,” Leesa told it. “Nothing.”
At the first opportunity, Zosma jumped forward, tucked, and rolled across the open threshold. From the other side came a bright flash of Z-energy and the howling concession of vanquished fog. The knight had done its work.
Silk straight hair blew in Leesa’s contorted face, as streaming light from her palms connected to the turbulent wall. Energy waves crashed together, closing the passage to Zosma’s reimagined conscious. A triangular red door formed.
“The spell you spoke of,” Zosma began. “The one my father cast?”
“Neight Caster kept our minds separated to hide you and Z-energy from the Universe. Your body was turned human, molded to resemble me, a form acceptable for Earth’s narrow perspective. For a long time, you didn’t know about me, and I didn’t know about you. But he came.”
“Allister.” She smiled again in spite of herself and the stress she’d experienced in his charge, draping her arms over her body wishing they were his. “The magic of Uragon... ” Her face sank “... is not foolproof. I woke up, and lost control.”
“I expected it. There’s no way you could’ve controlled this.”
“What was that thing? What does it want?”
“Dr. Rabia Giro, he’s been waiting for me.” Leesa walked back and forth, hugging herself. “Erasing your mind lured me out.” Mid-stride, she froze. “His influence is... he can’t be here. I can hide. If I hide, can you summon me?”
Because they occupied the same mental space, Zosma was privy to her thoughts. Leesa had a level of emotional intelligence, but if she were a software program, it’d be antiquated code. Compassion felt inconsistent to her current linear, logical thought processes. Digging to its root, the concern wasn’t so much for Zosma’s welfare as it was for the Z-energy’s.
Leesa ceased musing. Zosma gazed at the under-construction refuge encircling them, a replica of her planet, Uragon’s countryside. To the right, orange hills bled into sky-scraping mountains and ended like an unfinished painting. Set in the center, a stone tower straddled what was to come and what already was. To the left, a blank canvas.
“It is magnificent.”
“The rest is yours to build,” Leesa said. Her astral form glitched, losing what little color it had. Yanked back by invisible force, Leesa flew head over heels until she struck and was sealed inside the energy wall.
“Leesa!” Zosma screamed. “Let her go, I cannot do this without her!” She rushed toward the vertical energy barrier. Calm, intact, but their connection to each other blocked. Knowing a terrifying influence on the other side itched to invade her haven, Zosma waited, powerless.
C20 Lab, Somewhere Cold
Zosma’s sun yellow eyes opened to humans gawking at her like an experiment. Those stares were not unlike ones she’d seen from her own people. Horror and fascination culminating in the same collective action: discrimination, putting her in captivity, labeling her an outcast. Panicked breaths condensed as they escaped her plum lips. She swallowed. Multiple voices spoke in hushed tones, though one dominated over the others, unfeeling and loud, next to her pointed ear. Rough rubber bombarded her personal space.
“The alien’s awake, Doctor,” a male human said. “I need to put it under again.”
She was an experiment.
“Wait, I want say hi,” a voice squealed, quieting the room. Horridly pale and plump, Dr. Rabia Giro loomed, a fluffy mustache plastered beneath his nose. “Good morning, Princess Zosma,” he greeted with an elder’s smile and strange accent. Using a fat finger, he double-checked
the burly straps restricting her to a padded operating table. “Sorry for trouble, have to make sure you don’t escape.”
Does he think these can hold me?
“You were there, inside my head,” she said. “What did you do to Leesa?”
“Lieutenant Leesa Delemar is dead. You killed her during your... awakening,” he said.
Her wrists rotated under the straps to relieve chaffing and encourage circulation. Zosma tensed and whispered, “That is not possible. I saw her. She helped me.”
The Lieutenant’s wispy voice replayed from their conversation in her psyche.
“For a long time, I didn’t know about you, and you didn’t know about me,” Leesa had said.
You didn’t know about me, the sentence fragment repeated. Allister’s arrival to the Andromeda Project shifted the tectonic plates representing Zosma’s consciousness and, in a month’s time, coupled with feelings of betrayal, Z-energy’s power rose like magma through the cracks.
I woke up, and lost control, Zosma thought, knowing it was an understatement when she’d admitted it.
The sensation of pins and needles tap dancing on her cold skin was a painful reminder of the searing, catastrophic energy pulses that erupted from her and threatened the planet’s northern hemisphere.
“I expected it. There’s no way you could’ve controlled this.” Leesa had given her the response as some sort of consolation.
This. The Z-energy, it was uncontrollable, yes, but it was hers.
“I saw her,” Zosma repeated, less convinced.
“Your imagination, child. Be right back, don’t move.”
Compared to science facilities on her planet, the laboratory and its technology were inferior. Simple robotic assistants mimicked basic functions. Acting as extra hands, they worked alongside humans smothered by long puffy garments. Few left their bodies exposed, they’d designed warm fabrics to fit over their misshapen five-fingered hands, wrapped their dull white, brown, and black faces in thick, knitted textiles and shielded their ocular organs behind clear plastic protection. Cold was a human weakness. One of many.
The chill in her bones made sense.
To date, the majority of her experiences on Earth had been limited to similar scientific labs, except when she traveled Europe with Allister inside Leesa’s body. Zosma’s mind was aware and had taken ownership, perceiving the adventures as her own. It was the first time she’d been able to experience Earth’s natural beauty and eclectic culture.
Then, she woke up and lost control.
Freedom to explore taken from her, she was back to a centralized computer brain. Electron microscopes. Machines speaking in beeps, hums, and clicks, passing secrets of their endeavors to keep her restrained. Primitive, easy-to-understand language, deciphered in seconds. Her synapses fired, and she opened her hands to expel power. Nothing. “These devices stop me from using my energy. Where is it?”
Next to the computer, Rabia nodded sideways at a massive glass bowl sandwiched by two flat white disks. “Your power is there.”
Zosma’s eyes narrowed. He’d told the truth. Her power source, Z-energy, flowed inside of Neight Caster’s energy prison, the famed containment center. There’s no way I could’ve controlled this.
At birth, she was called the star’s goddess. Her beauty and abilities foretold to surpass any other being in the galaxy. Uragon’s Princess, destined to hold the highest honor on their planet, Neight’s crown. It had been less than fifty Earth years since Uragon fell to invaders and Neight and Zosma began their 2.5-million-light-year trek as refugees from the Andromeda Galaxy. For her years on Earth, the containment center had served two purposes: to make sure she didn’t eradicate the planet on accident and their intergalactic enemies wouldn’t find them.
Her mind went blank. Vacancies in her thoughts and feelings, attributed to the suppressed connection between her and the Z-energy’s power. Tingling sensation flew up her spine. Memories bubbled to the surface. The time she manipulated matter to form an army against Uragon’s conquerors.
“I remember,” Zosma muttered. Straining her entirety, she summoned the Z-energy.
The man called Rabia Giro stroked her arm. She recoiled. “Give back my power and fight me like a true warrior.”
“I am not warrior, I am scientist.” His hand burst. A collection of grey mist encircled the operating chair and prowled, as it had done in her mind, toward her crown-less forehead. Thin blue energy formed a film around her and a loud zap blocked the attempted infiltration. “Why is not working!”
The human male from earlier scrambled to his computer screen. “It’s achieved 1 percent access to Z-energy, Dr. Giro.”
Enough access to stop him from entering her mind again. Knowledge of Rabia, his motives and actions, ached for recognition, tugged at her attention, yet, they were shrouded, connected to Leesa’s psyche in the distance and not hers.
For a long time, I didn’t know about her, and she didn’t know about me.
“I have controlled wielder of great energy before. She was like you, strong, lost, confused.” Rabia cupped her chin like she was a child. “We can work together to save humanity and many more.”
“No one will control me,” she said, taking back her chin. Returning strength loosened the straps, sending blood to her six fingertips. “I am not her.”
“Two percent access, Dr. Giro,” the man called out. “We have to cut off n—”
“Do it then,” Rabia said. His parasitic mist wriggled toward her. “Will be painless.”
The containment center’s override system activated, taking Zosma back to 0 percent access to the Z-energy.
Chapter Two
Cynqued
Dr. Rabia Giro
C20 Lab
C20 opted to forego non-disclosure agreements and anonymity to ensure privacy. Instead, Rabia suggested their operations exist off the grid, a few thousand miles from civilization. On the continent’s surface there were no identifiers, but isolation underground had kept their survival secret for months.
Born in Bulgaria, Rabia spent twenty years working the industry, publishing research on the acceleration of human genetics and applications in clean stored energy. The manuscripts circulated prominent science communities and fell upon the Andromeda Project directors’ laps; they were beyond intrigued. In 2040, they recruited him to study Neight and Zosma’s alien genetics and energy.
Rabia fished a disinfecting wet nap from his lab coat pocket and wiped his hands clean. “Hard to keep you at 0 percent access,” he said. Over many years, his heavy Eastern European accent had lightened to fragmented English.
The lab’s robot assistants were dormant, and he’d dismissed his staff to their solitude. The room and its appliances were given dimension by the containment center’s feeble glow. In recent days, he preferred minimal artificial light when he worked, he found it less distracting.
He massaged his forehead. “Your power, it always finds you.” Two chubby fingers dragged across the containment center’s monitor, rotating the diagrams and measurements. Its computing style and language belonged to an alien civilization, the Uragonians. They communicated using one million plus identical circular symbol variations. He’d found black a mainstay around their circumference. The symbols’ interior coloring, whether solid or in gradients, were mixed and matched with triangles, squares, octagons, etc., dictating their deeper meaning.
Forming sentences in the language had become second nature. Deciphering the functions and formulas governing Uragon’s advanced knowledge of physics and energy hadn’t become anything aside from confusing. He was a geneticist after all, not an engineer. Hands clasped behind his back, Rabia swiveled to look at Zosma and gather his thoughts. She slept in stillness, hair draping her armored shoulder pads, brow furrowed in hostility. He nodded and resumed tackling the complicated science. “Impossible to keep you... ” his voice trailed. Any access to the Z-energy would awaken her, and the machine’s numerical measurement tools revealed her closeness to gainin
g 1 percent.
The containment center’s alarm rang. Complaints about the inefficiency of the algorithms the machine used to block her power leaked from Rabia’s mouth.
“You cannot read it, can you?” Zosma asked. Her statement held no inflection, no boast.
“Quiet,” he snapped, tapping his knuckles against his lips. “I will remember how to read this forsaken language... in matter of time.”
“Where is Alli—” his name caught in her throat. She cleared it. “Allister,” Zosma finished.
“I owe explanation for actions. I know this.” He reached her bedside unprotected, no gloves, no heavy coat or scarf. “They will tell you I am evil, but I am in business of self-preservation.” Following her vacant irises, he inspected the ridges separating the metal ceiling.
“I do not believe preservation means to them, what it means to you,” she said.
Another obnoxious fit of the alarm’s ringing. He resisted the inclination to override the containment center as she rose from 1 percent to 2 percent access to the energy. “It does not,” Rabia answered. “However, poor imagination come from missing perspective. Humans have not seen, so cannot fathom what would mean to evolve.”
Her limp arms dangled off the metal cot’s edge, and her chin fell to one side, touching her shoulder. “They are not ready for evolution,” she said.
“I will ready them,” he assured her. “Or you prefer they perish, like your race?” Greyish particles flitted from his figure and settled on her like seedlings in ripe soil. It was the last chance he had to influence her or risk losing the most valuable player in his game. As if a gunshot sounded, the race for control began. They spoke formalities on the surface, while a wrathful battle occurred for her subconscious. Mounting energy access made her a formidable mental warrior, but Rabia had more practice. Round one ended.
“You are fortunate for my disadvantage.”
Zosma Page 5