“The chamber is broken,” he said in a low pitch to his companion. Two glowing eyes, the color of the sky right before you leave the stratosphere, stared at the prison window’s vertical fracture. “It will escape.”
“I know,” the second coherent alien replied, as she surveyed a scathing incision in her torso. Vocals high as his were low, stifled in agony, she said, “Mallen, has your power worn?”
“I pray to Gatelius, no.”
Allister gulped. Fogginess lifted and revealed the capsule’s terrifying contents. Mystical darkness pervaded a blackened exoskeleton: Dylurshin Hexforth. It blinked, peered around, and discovered the crack for itself.
“Wendell!” the one called Mallen shouted.
Steel, iron, and glass burst outward. Wendell created a funneled wind and scattered debris to the ship’s other areas, while Mallen surrounded them in angelic light and whisked, no, transported them and the five other aliens onto open ice.
A third alien stirred and came to. “Look sharp, warriors,” the purple-haired female said and spit on the ice. Her three-fingered hands touched a double-sided saber attached to her hip and she sprang to her feet. Was she Uragonian? Allister asked himself. The spiked, armored suit. The skin and hair shades of lilac and light plum, without a doubt.
Alien to alien, Allister assessed their physical attributes and otherworld attire. His palpitating heart waited for anything to click and connect the dots. A salmon-skinned man opened square, black eyes, his four-fingered fist clutched a golden dragon’s head handle attached to a lustrous sword. Temporal light coursed through visible veins, which took hard, 90-degree turns in Mallen’s arms and legs, as they intersected his golden armored tunic. Wendell was a woman dipped in sky blue complexion then covered in a durable chainmail. She had white, straight, torso-length hair. He guessed her kinetic wind manipulation had guaranteed the ship’s less-than-catastrophic entrance as it braved the brutal atmosphere.
The unrecognizable others mobilized as fast as they could and gathered their strength to battle. A quick, jagged, and toothy grin followed a smoky eruption into the already dim Antarctic sky. The cosmic force known as Dylurshin Hexforth, plunged as a singular particle stream down the aircraft’s ravaged cabin, and took its beastly form on ice.
Grateful he couldn’t feel anything in the outskirts of time, Allister blinked and watched the scene take a turn for the worse.
“This is not the prison planet, which means we have been thrown off course,” the beady-eyed beast directed. “An interesting turn of fate, would not you say?”
Bleeding blue liquid over her hand, Wendell stammered, “We take him. Even if we die, we must make sure he does not return to Andromeda.”
“I do believe you mean, return to the Empire,” Dylurshin corrected, digging an arm in the ice.
Icicles jutted toward her. She dodged, and a miniature cyclone blew them to shambles. The other warriors engaged and fell, one by one, as Dylurshin turned their powers and insecurities on them.
“A century in space. A century imprisoned, never again,” the dark figure said. “What a beautiful place for exile.”
“Everyone is bound by time, Dylurshin, even you,” Mallen said. Exhaustion aside, his voice stayed deep, clear and commanding. He held his staff for support and did a double-take on it, as if realizing its weight on the outcome. “The chains of Infinity. If I can imbue the chains.”
Energy swarmed around him, building for a purpose known solely to him. It surged through the two-pronged weapon and sent sizzling power to the ship’s remains. Sturdy chains pulsed with an ivory glow, slithered along the ground, and slinked up Dylurshin’s legs and torso, searing its tough exoskeleton. It howled. Yes, Allister realized, in pain.
Dylurshin transformed its wispy limbs to sharpened, hardened, bardiche blade-shaped extensions. Mallen blocked the first cross body slash, swiped the next gut-aimed slice away, blasted a sideways swinging chop attack, then twirled the staff to deflect the barrage of daggers that zoomed his way. One slow step lead to a stagger, and needing the weapon for balance, allowed a jagged limb to impale him through the torso. Mist dissolved inside Mallen, and he slumped to his knees.
The spell ended. De-powered chains jangled against the ice.
“My companions, no matter how many centuries go by, remember our mission,” Mallen said, driving his staff into the frosty earth. “To keep the Great Betrayer from returning to claim Andromeda’s galactic throne. Tell this story to your children and their children and their children. You will not win, Dylurshin. As long as the Eight exist, you will never win.”
Dylurshin screeched.
From the heavens themselves, the Transonian’s temporal energy rained down, smashing into the battle’s six participants. His power illuminated and stole their bodies, extending to the sky.
Antarctica showed the courageous no empathy. The temperature dropped. Light flurries were upstaged too soon by rampant snowfall, and a cold, furious breath from mother nature signaled a blizzard’s beginnings. Mallen lay there, whispering what sounded like coordinates, knowing death wouldn’t come to relieve him, as Transonians were functionally immortal. The rectangular prison and its chains kept him company, a cruel reminder of failed justice.
“It happened here,” Allister said. Time sped up. He watched more ice arrive until the alien, the capsule, and the chains evanesced, frozen inside a glacier. Moments later, the year 2052 embraced him.
Florence Belladonna
CIA Headquarters, Langley, D.C.
Having fallen asleep in her clothes, Florence stirred on top of scratchy would be cream sheets. She threw off the covers soaked a dark tan by her anxiety and nightmares.
“What time is it?” she asked, not expecting an answer.
“Nighttime,” Bazzo said, lazing in the chair beside her. “Didn’t think you’d be out longer than me.”
“I didn’t want to wake up. Are they waiting?”
He nodded. “C’mon, that thing’s got Bridg locked up, and I think they know where.” Bazzo’s cheeks peeled to the ends of his face. He pushed himself up from the armchair cushion. “Christ, never got this banged up workin’ for ya dad.”
June 19, 2037 was her first day as assistant project manager on Wesley DeVries’s scrappy team. She finished his sentences. She tied his ties. She briefed him for his meetings. She told him when he was flat out wrong. Florence worked for him for a year and a half, then left to power through medical school and her residencies. Their spark hadn’t birthed into a flame.
She was a doctor by the time they kissed; they’d been friends eight years before they were lovers, and the kerosene of adoration and respect for each other exploded like a wildfire across a parched forest. During his presidential campaign, (which she ran), press outlets asked in interview upon interview if she was the first-lady-to-be. “I think I’d know by now,” she’d usually say, giggling. Then, she’d squeeze her shoulders and smile bright, so they knew she was being sincere.
She and Wesley were in Spain when he won the election. A beachside villa in Majorca, filled with decompression, relaxation, and his proposal for her hand in marriage. In a tuxedo, Wesley DeVries had knelt on the patio, as the Atlantic waves yelled against the rocks, protesting their happiness.
Due to rising suspicion in Florence’s superhuman abilities, January 15, 2049 was the last night they spent together before she had to be shuffled out of the public eye. In those few short months, the flight toward engagement, the life they’d dreamt, disappeared from the sky without a trace.
“Ey,” Bazzo said for the third time. “You sure you’re up for this?”
“Yes, I just... yes,” she replied. Florence had escaped the infirmary bed and stood still as stone midway to the door his shoulder held open.
She’d performed a physical examination on Bazzo in the helicopter and remembered his hand injury coating her cut-up fingers in wet redness. Now, the hand was safe inside a lightweight plastic cast. The medical technology had breathable, various-sized holes, wh
ich resembled the makings of a spider web from elbow to wrist and became solid from palm to knuckles.
Bazzo’s able hand guided her into a hug. “I know what you’re thinkin’ and you couldn’t’ve predicted...” he folded his lips in. Maybe he knew she’d lose her composure if he said the remaining words aloud.
But she found them waiting at the edge of his mind for her unwelcome telepathic probe.
“Couldn’t’ve predicted what?” Florence asked.
Bazzo answered by pulling her closer.
“It’s okay,” she whispered, her voice emptied of sorrow. “I need to hear it or I’ll keep acting like it never happened.”
“Wesley’s death wasn’t your fault. You deserved to be as happy as any of us.”
A crossroads would’ve been better than the sudden emergence of this singular, dark path, luring her to live a life dedicated to self-approved justice. It scared her that, as time went on, she’d become more and more like Giovanni. Revenge was an acceptable motivation, just not the best one to operate under.
The suited woman who guarded their shared infirmary room turned to them. “I’ll be escorting you to the meeting location,” she said with simulated politeness. “Please follow me.”
CIA branding was splashed over windows, wall charts, and agent and doctor uniforms. They walked, heads down, and exchanged no words. As they did so, she imprisoned her feelings in the topmost tower of her emotional castle.
It would be unfair to degrade the twin glass structures leading to the conference space by referring to them as doors. Frosted crescent moons, carved from their base up to their celestial height, gave it a semi-opaque appearance. Jewel-encrusted edges slid away from their central meeting point and the escort opened her hand to the disappointment of fluorescent cloth furniture and an acrylic table. “Mr. Black, Mrs. Whyzelle, as you requested.”
They entered.
Townsend rolled his sleeves. “Perfect timing, have a seat.”
“I’ll stand. Are we clear-headed?” Florence asked.
“I suppose,” Townsend answered. “But I’m certain you’d know better.”
“Excuse you?”
“I think what he meant is, he understands the value you bring,” the press secretary soothed. Words continued to fall out of her mouth, “We-we’d like to catch you up to speed on our developments.”
Her forehead straightened as her power dulled, and the false brown complexion returned to her psiborg leg. Florence massaged the artificial limb, running her fingers over its ridges, divots, and psychonium crystals.
“You’ll be happy to know Detective Steele is in the Vault.” Townsend leaned back. “He doesn’t remember what he did, and Cynque says he’s not lying.”
“He’s not,” Florence responded. “Dr. Giro influenced Steele’s mind.”
“I’m sure he’ll plead innocent.”
“I’m sure you’ll let him off too. He’s the only superhuman who’ll work for your corrupt dollars.”
“Not the only one.”
“Get to the point, Townsend.”
“The point is, you all work for us. You always have and unless you want our civilization to vanish underwater, or burn to nothing in the next ten years, you always will.”
Her arms crossed, and she squeezed her torso tight in a self-hug of sorts. “Can we not talk about this anymore?”
Clara Whyzelle’s cough ended the tense hush. “We should get started,” she said.
“Bazzo, this is my former colleague,” Florence said with questionable respect. “Townsend Black, director of National Intelligence. Townsend meet Bazzo, acting CEO of Belladonna Corp.”
“I’d shake your hand but...” Bazzo wiggled his elbow as if to explain his impoliteness with his ailment. “You look like a dick.” He sat down.
“Don’t worry about it. Unfortunately, I know who you are.” The director’s scrawny legs stretched, then retracted. He acknowledged Florence’s impatient glare with a nod and a shrug and motioned for Clara to turn on the paneled visual wall.
“It was an undertaking to get former President DeVries to admit him and his father had any involvement in the Andromeda Project and the Z protocols,” he said, “And we thought he’d be able to fill us in on the 2040 landing’s specifics, like, why it was such a fucking disaster.”
Zosma had been taken to a holding facility in Washington and since Neight was thought dead (circa 2042), Russell Ashur had to test and activate the Energy Containment Center. It suppressed the Z-energy before a second Cumberland, Kentucky incident transpired on a larger scale. Two major milestones, Rabia’s arrival and Neight’s resurrection (in 2044) sparked the conflicting conversation around Z-energy adoption for commercial use. Of course, it’s also where the remaining breadcrumbs ran out.
“Talk about a world security breach,” she said, “You let an alien bring toxic energy... my God, I can’t even say it, it’s so ridiculous.”
“I wasn’t in office. I don’t even think I was divorced yet.” He rubbed his trimmed beard. “Can you blame them? They were fascinated by intergalactic technology and magic, these ‘artifacts,’ and the quote, unquote apocalypse.” He scratched his head. “Some called Neight a god. Some called him the anti-Christ.”
“As interesting as Neight Caster is, I’d rather discuss—”
“Let’s get talking about the demon holed up somewhere with my sis’,” Bazzo said.
“Yes, the ‘demon’ calls itself Dylurshin Hexforth.”
She tipped her head, as if she’d misheard him. “Pardon?”
“Rabia’s activities followed a linear path; the Z-energy was always at the end.” Townsend tapped the table. “Dr. Giro was never alive. It’s a name, an alias, used for consistency and, to be honest, so far behind the scenes it didn’t make it into any major historical accounts. Whoever that body belonged to before, I suspect the creature swallowed their identity the moment it seized control. And same for the others it’s inhabited over centuries. We don’t know what Dylurshin is. We don’t even know if it’s living. But judging by what we’ve found, it may not be from Earth.”
“If it’s not from Earth, where... ?”
“We’re still figuring it out. There’s a lot of information to process and package.”
The folder’s name. The assistance to five of the greatest scientific minds. The mismatch in birth years, and wide-ranging appearances. The genetic inconsistencies in his familial lineage. They made sense. Lips pursed, Florence peered out the conference room glass. CynqueT-wielding workers shuffled up and down hallways, talking over each other. They organized and prioritized incoming intel.
“You got your hands on Nicolas Delemar’s Cynque,” she said. “And spent time combing through it. I hope you have warrants.”
“Delemar’s Cynque is government property you stole,” he retorted.
“Water under the bridge,” the press secretary added and laid a vintage leather knapsack on the table. “Remember this?”
Florence lifted the flap and unveiled the contents. “Nicolas Delemar found it working at NASA,” she said, puzzled, “in a dig, near, um... Tyre. Correct? Tyre, Lebanon.”
“Right, precisely.”
“What the hell’s this have to do—?”
“Bazzo. Enough.” Battle-worn nails traced a language etched in a slab dated 400 B.C.E. “If my memory isn’t completely shot, Tyre was still the capitol of the Phoenician empire during this time period. You think Dylurshin landed there?”
“No,” Townsend answered, “it’s where we think it first infiltrated.”
“The language in this scripture is closest to Old Latin,” Florence said, and hesitated, shaken by the psychometric connection to what NASA had coined the Infinity calendar. Prolonged exposure to the relic’s rusted iron sent a tingling up the bones in her wrist. She screamed as it reached her spine. Psionic energy scribbled over the text in coral pink, and a blush glow cascaded up her metal calf and thigh. She dropped the artifact to embrace the leg. It didn’t hit the floor.
The tablet clanged against the marble, devoid of her power.
Clara’s shriveled hands placed The Book of Ancestry before her. “We found it during our post-summit investigation.”
“You are a weasel, aren’t you?” Florence shook her head at the lazy excuse for unauthorized trespassing and thumbed the bound manuscript. She mumbled her way through paragraphs and caressed symbols, portraits. Thousands of pages of the same archaic Latin dialect told her family’s and other families’ constant opposition to an entity hiding amongst humanity. Families: the Ventus family, which split and became the Nephthys and Sparks families. And her own Mente family, which became the Belladonna family. All handwritten, it had been passed down through generations of psychics, elementals, Uragonians and more. The antecedents from the Andromeda Galaxy, Sichico Mente, Wendell Ventus, Kajam Tion, Frederick Xander, Evonna Caster were given chapter-long biographies that detailed their planetary origins. They’d been worshipped on Earth as gods and goddesses until they procreated and wove themselves into society. Their deaths were never confirmed, only their eventual absences from recorded human history.
Good God, we’re not superhumans, she thought. Florence ripped the sword of Psion from her hip and turned the embroidered sheath over from hand to hand. Her father’s eighteenth birthday gift was weighted with a different meaning and significance. On one side, a carbon copy of the creature she’d encountered in Allister’s mind. On the other, eight planetary bodies represented the civilizations governing Andromeda, five of which had landed on Earth. It explained her aversion to technology, keeping notebooks and not tablets or the Cynque. The responsibility to pass on the genes and the stories was now hers, though she knew kids wouldn’t be in her future. Wesley’s grotesque demise brought the threat of vomit to her parched mouth.
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