by Corin Cain
“Used to look a lot better back in the day,” comes a cracked voice from behind me.
I turn. An old man with a shock of white hair is sitting on a bench, catching his breath as he motions with a cane to the meteor.
“What do you mean, sir?” I ask, giving him an extra dose of respect.
“Saw that thing come down. Oh, must have been twenty-five years ago now. It was a real beaut back then.”
“What do you mean, a real beaut?”
He coughs, then laughs slowly. “Ha, they all said I was crazy. That I was seeing things. But I swear to you, that meteor had this big, beautiful, blue and black thing in it. Never seen nothing like it before – and never gonna see nothing like it again. The scientists in their hazmat suits took it away.”
An Orb. It was an Orb!
Hope springs in my chest. I stare the old man deep in his eyes. “I believe you. I’ve seen one as well.”
His eyes widen. “You playing tricks on an old man?”
I shake my head. “No. You aren’t crazy. A blackness blacker than black, right? A darkness darker than the absence of light. A beauty – a danger, a wrongness.”
The old man’s jaw drops. He clamps it shut, then shakes his head. “A blackness blacker than black… By God, you did see one! All this time… All this time, I thought I might be crazy… But you saw one too! Tell me more, young lady, tell me more!”
I give him a sad smile. “That’s all I know. I saw one, pretty small actually, when I was a kid. I always wondered if I imagined it. Same story as you. A meteor hit the ground, and scientists took it away. Now we both know we’re not crazy, as much good as that does us. You have an excellent day, sir.”
I nod respectfully, and leave.
Was it a lie? Of course. But it was a lie designed to make him stop doubting himself. I know what it feels like to not trust your own eyes. It’s terrifying. Now, he’ll know for the rest of his days that what he saw was real.
I check out of the hotel and take the next flight back to New York.
When I step back into my penthouse bathroom and see my face, I know I’m going to find my way back to the jungle planet. My eyes are wide, my jaw set.
Nothing will get in the way of me being reunited with those three Aurelians.
I spend the weekend preparing my battle plan, and the first thing I do when I get into the office on Monday is call a meeting.
I walk into the boardroom and the ranks of my legal troops are filled and ready, all dressed in their battle uniforms of pricey suits and Rolexes.
I open my laptop and start the first slide.
“I have incredible news for the future of Wells, Gold and partners. The alternative energy market is filled with one thing: Money. Speculation is at an all-time high, with Silicon Valley pouring billions yearly into the field. China has pushed its way into the global market. There is a gold mine of money just waiting to be scooped up. And we’re going to get it.”
My voice is pitched at the perfect tenor to grab attention, to inspire, and to enthrall.
By the end of the presentation, every lawyer and partner listening thought it was their own idea. That’s how you sell stuff – I learned that a long time ago.
They all file out, until only John Gold remains. He extends his hand, and I shake it, looking him clear in the eye.
“You’re right. It’s time we added a bigger stream of income to this firm. Alternative energy has exploded in the last decade, and I’ve been wanting to get into the sector for a long damn time. You’re right, Aubrey. I do get complacent. You continue to push me forward.”
I smile, charming him. “We’re a good team. And we’re going to take it by storm.
15
Aubrey
Twenty Years Later.
I run my hand through my wet hair, applying the grey dye carefully.
I’m sixty-four years old. Luckily, in the age of botox and plastic surgery, I can simply pretend I spent money not to look like it.
My one subterfuge is the hint of grey in my hair – a subtle touch that instantly makes me look older.
If I don’t add that touch of grey? I still look and feel thirty-two.
I know now for a certainty that I can get back to those three men. I’ve been stuck back here on Earth for three decades; and I haven’t aged a day.
It’s fate. Destiny. I came back from their world inexorably altered, and deep down I know that means we’ll be together again. Me, and my three Aurelian warriors.
Together, we’ll be complete.
John Gold passed away six years ago. Since then, I’ve been calling the shots completely, and my firm has become the country’s powerhouse in alternative energy.
Then, I moved into politics.
President Marigold Landels shakes my hand. “You’ve shown incredible promise, and I feel confident putting you on as our Secretary of Defense. This is an age of peace, and an age in which the best defense is found from energy sovereignty.”
“Thank you, Madame President,” I reply, keeping a grave expression on my face as I accept the honor.
I got my security clearance a year ago. If they interviewed my therapist, she didn’t tell them jack shit to stop my chances for success. Thank God therapy is more normalized in this day and age.
I take my office in the West Wing of the most important building in the world, and instantly staffers start pouring in with requests.
I ask for information on the energy projects. They send me a huge list of projects, and all it takes is a “control f” for the term “orb” and my search comes up with the project I’d been chasing after all this time.
Given that its taken me twenty years to get this far – twenty years of scheming, subterfuge, determination and grit – I find it ironic that I find what I’m looking for within twenty seconds of taking my seat at that desk in Washington DC.
A top-secret, classified energy program…
…based off materials recovered from a meteor crash in 2003.
The staffers and executives are stunned when my first actions as Secretary of Defense aren’t to review our troop levels, visit our bases overseas, or discuss new military technology.
Instead, the same day I take office, I order a plane to take me to that particular energy project for a tour.
It’s top-secret. Classified.
But I’m the goddamn Secretary of Defense.
The same day as I take office, I achieve the goal I’d worked at diligently for the past twenty years. I knew that all I needed to do was get in, and I’d find it. I take an executive plane and I see it for myself.
I am going to see the Orb. It sounds so crazy, but it’s going to.
The project has been running for nearly forty years now – forgotten by most of the government. The site is stunned when the Secretary of Defense herself makes a surprise visit. The scientists who meet me at the gate are full of smiles, eager to show off decades of work that they’d assumed had been lost and forgotten, as happens to so many government projects. Along with a scientist, a high ranking military general stands silently watching me. My coming here must have triggered some alarm in the military structure of the government.
But they have no idea.
The scientist in charge of the site is eager to show his prize to someone new – especially somebody as senior and important as the Secretary of Defense.
“It’s incredible,” he tells me, leading me into the bowels of the scientific institute. “What’s more, I think we’ve only tapped a tiny percentage of this material’s true potential. The licensing and patenting of such an energy source will be quite a morass of technicalities. For example, the substance itself seems to defy our attempts to quantify it in a meaningful way. It’s practically classified by the impossibility of trying to classify it.”
Sensing the chance for more funding, or increased recognition, the scientist winks at me in an over-familiar fashion.
“Of course, that will be your prerogative, Madam Secretary.”
; He leads me to the Orb, and I struggle not to show the reverence on my face.
There it is - encased in glass. A glowing, shimmering sphere that’s blacker than black; more like the absence of anything, than being anything in particular.
I stare at it for a second – not caring the impression it gives this scientist, or my staff.
I don’t care. I’ve spent twenty years play-acting a roll to get here – right here.
I stare at the Orb, and it’s like greeting an old friend.
The blue-black ball hovers, as if it is instilled with power.
“Does it… Does it float on its own?” I ask.
“Peculiar, is it not? This substance seems to possess an innate energy. Because it’s such a unique substance, from what I understand you’ll be drafting the non-disclosure forms about this project in such a way that completely prevents any mention of the substance. Please, watch, a small demonstration.” The scientist flips a switch.
The Orb suddenly pulses with anger, as electricity is pulled from it and into a long wire. I watch the readings on the dial going up, higher and higher.
“This could power an entire block of homes!” The scientist breaths. “Imagine, if we’re able to recreate this substance.”
I look into the Orb.
It’s angry. Violated.
The scientists have been sucking from it for four decades; like vampires.
But it possesses more power than they could ever claim. It is eternal. Its anger is mitigated by the knowledge that it will continue long after these human parasites have turned from walking apes to bleached bones, and then into dust itself.
Don’t ask me how I know this – I just felt it.
It was like the Orb was speaking to me, through the glass. Like it recognized me – knowing I’d seen others like it. Understood its power.
I respected it, and it returned the compliment in kind.
As I stood there, surrounded by oblivious scientists and staffers, I felt what the Orb was saying to me. It knew what I wanted. It could give it to me…
…but it demanded a sacrifice.
A sacrifice… What kind of sacrifice?
Like, a blood sacrifice?
I stare deep into the orb and the blackness changes. Blue streaks of lightning flare out, and the scientist jumps back while I stand transfixed. I step forward, and I see through time and space.
It’s them!
My jaw drops as the Orb shows me the jungle planet. I glance left and right, but if the general or the scientist can see what I am seeing, they make no indication of it. I watch as the Orb shows me Stryker, Brigg and Haleon dragging the head of a huge scorpion beast into the dark cave. Somehow I can tell it’s showing me the past, but it doesn’t feel like I’m watching a movie. It feels like I’m really there. I watch as the aliens drag the head to a huge Orb in their cavern the size of a warhorse and the Orb gobbles up the sacrifice eagerly. Then time in the vision flickers forward and a rift in reality is opened in the middle of the plains for the Aurelians to capture me.
The three Aurelian sacrificed the head of some beast to the Orb to get me.
I know I will never be able to bring one of those into this scientific institute – even as Secretary of Defense, I couldn’t expect to be allowed to – fuck, I don’t know; sacrifice a goat, or something, to the Orb.
But is that even what it wanted? There isn’t a beast on the planet Earth that could rival the massive head of whatever disgusting creature the three warriors defeated to earn me!
The vision snaps out, and I’m brought back into the room. I get my bearings.
“What happens if you open the box?” I turn to the head scientist.
The scientist licks his lips nervously. “We… We lost a few people to it. The energy… It isn’t very well-controlled. Only three of us have the scan cards that can open the glass encasement.”
“Four. I will require one.”
The military general who accompanied me to this site scoffs. “There’s no need for that, Madam Secretary.”
I give him a long, appraising look. “I decide what there is a need for.”
But even as the general huffs and puffs, I’m already thinking of something else. Something more important.
What the Orb wants.
A sacrifice. What can I sacrifice?
I need that keycard!
I have two problems. I need to somehow get a sacrifice in here – whatever that might be - and I need to get that keycard. For a split-second, I imagine grabbing the nearest guard’s gun, and just killing the staffers and scientists gathered around me – sacrificing them to the Orb.
But while I’d do almost anything to get back to the Aurelians, I wouldn’t do that.
The Orb seems to mock me, twirling in its glass prison.
You want a sacrifice?
I feel myself in communication with it – staring into the swirling, blacker-than-blackness, as if its tethered to my soul.
You want a sacrifice? I repeat.
“I sacrifice all of this.”
The scientist looks at me, confused. “I’m sorry, Madam Secretary. What did you just say?”
I ignore him, staring deeper into the Orb.
“I sacrifice my life here,” I tell it, out loud. “Everything I’ve worked for during the last thirty years. Everything I’ve bled for. It’s all gone now. They’ll take away my position.”
“Is she… Is she talking to the thing?”
It’s the general, and I know he’s as confused as everybody else.
I know he’s probably staring at me – everybody else is - but I can now see nothing in front of me except the Orb.
“I sacrifice everything,” I told it. “I give it freely, not knowing if you will accept my sacrifice, and not knowing if you will deem it worthy to let me return to where I want to go. I just give it to you: My entire life’s work.”
As I say those final words, and snatch out as fast as I can and grab the key card from around the scientist’s neck. I rip it from the lanyard. Before he can act, I’m pressing it against the panel that controls the glass encasement.
The scientist’s eyes widen in horror as the door swings open.
“Run!”
The scientist, the general and the rest of the gathered crowd floods from the chamber; terrified at the sight of the unleashed Orb.
I don’t blame them. Tendrils are emerging from the Orb, crackling with electricity that arcs in all directions.
One crackling bolt of energy skewers the arm of guard in the corner – holding him aloft as his body twitches, and flails, and then seems to burn from the inside out.
Burnt, smoldering and dead, the guard’s smoking body falls to the floor.
More tendrils shoot out in all directions.
It’s like that scene at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, when the Nazis open the Ark of the Covenant. Tendrils of crackling, devastating, intelligent energy ripple outwards, targeting and exploding the cameras that have studied this Orb for years.
The Orb pulsates, and the heavy glass panels covering it pull away, falling aside as if they’re made of paper.
The tendrils crackle all around me, and I know any one of them could pierce me with that same otherworldly energy; rending me to dust and atoms.
But I stand firm, as if the death and destruction crackling all around me is harmless.
I stand firm, and I address the Orb – my voice bold and fearless.
“I’ve lost it all,” I bellow. “All for just a chance. Please, please accept my sacrifice.”
And I have sacrificed everything. I just violated a top-secret government project, stole a keycard from the top researcher, and let an innocent guard die as a result.
I’ll be arrested for this; if the government’s black-suited operatives don’t just make me disappear. It doesn’t matter if I’m the Secretary of Defense – not now.
But I don’t care.
“Please,” I beg again, and for a second the Orb seems to judge me.
>
And then grants me what I demand.
It’s almost as if its laughing, as the Orb opens the portal I’ve been dreaming of for thirty years; one with the verdant scent of an alien jungle wafting through it.
So familiar, despite the thirty years since I last filled my nostrils with that air.
I gulp, hardly believing this is happening. Taking a deep breath, I snatch the gun from the guard’s smoldering body, as well as a spare ammo clip, and step through the rippling portal.
16
Aubrey
The portal closes instantly behind me, snapping shut like a guillotine. The Orb clearly didn’t want me changing my mind – not again.
I don’t care, though. I break down, falling to my knees as I stare out at the dangerous paradise around me.
I’m back, and now it’s all real. The same teeming jungle. The same lighter gravity. The same warm, lush scent to the air.
The only thing that’s different is me – and I’m not referring to the fact that I’m wearing sensible boots beneath my pantsuit this time, unlike the heels I’d been snatched in thirty years ago.
I clamber to my feet and take a deep, deep breath.
I’m feel like a conquering explorer – one who fearlessly lands on virgin ground, and burns his ships behind him. There is now no way back to my old life. And if there was? All that would await me is a court martial and endless science experiments when I continued not to grow old – no matter how many decades they kept me locked in some government prison.
No turning back. No going back. Not again.
And good.
At least this time, I know that when a fire breathing monster flies down and roasts me to a crisp, I’m not going to wake up panting in a mental hospital.
If an oversized wolf decides to hunt me, I’m going to be eaten on this jungle planet for real.
I’ve had twenty years to prepare, and twelve more before that to dream.
I grip the steel of the pistol I stole. I trained extensively in small firearms while I was making my way towards the post of Secretary of Defense. If a beast tries to make me lunch?