The Thalassas moved to the southern hemisphere of Elysium IX, from the space colony Elysium VIII, in the summer of revolution 209. The children made and lost new friends over the revolutions that followed. The parents were home maybe once in a few months each, either visit lasting for a week before they had to ship out again.
In the search for lasting child care centers between school hours, the twins met a Ginserei their age by the time they were ten revolutions of age. They quickly took a liking to her, and she to them, as they shared in trickery and mischief.
Il’lyse was the first to realize that her new friend held secrets from everyone. She would spend at least a revolution finding the best way to pry it from her.
Soror Valide landed in an inconspicuous, shallow ravine in the forest. She knew this spot. It was another life; another time. She wandered away from the landing spot on foot, passing the last remains of the hidden clubhouse she’d helped make with her brother and best friend.
It wasn’t far to her destination from here. There was the rock where Tong-Chang had confessed a few secrets to her. Tong-Chang was a princess who’d run away from home, like in some dream or fantastic book. She was confused about her feelings for both boys and girls. Both of these were revelations that meant nothing now. The clubhouse where they’d kissed revolutions later meant nothing.
Closer to the road was a tree where Il’lyse had tied up a boy from school and stole his first kiss while he was blindfolded. Then she’d spread rumors in school that the forest was haunted by a beautiful ghost that stole children’s souls. The boy never bothered her again.
The trio, as they grew, slipped in and out of the back of the housing track. Soror Valide came upon the outer storm well.
The first escape was treated like a prison break that they saw so much of in broadcast shows and movies. They took to the bushes at night and scaled the wall going out to the drainage field. One time, the gate leading into it was open. Tong-Chang lost her footing on a storm drain she had forgotten about, but Das’ithrios caught her.
During the day, they practically ran the street by the Thalassas’ family home. When they were younger, their games were like with any other children. As they got older, they were less about this street and more about other places. Sometimes, in her adolescence, Il’lyse danced in the yard while Sut’hout played some music on his speakers.
Her fist refused to clench. She felt herself wanting to close it as she stood on the backside of the property that she grew up on. Soror Valide felt every fiber of her being want to squeeze her fingers together. Yet it did not happen. She didn’t understand it.
She trod the same unkempt grass where Il’lyse and Dasos had learned how to defend themselves in a fight, and the spot where Tong-Chang had joined them for three whole weeks before deciding that such skills were not her thing. The back patio led between the dining room and the side door of the garage. Soror Valide turned for the former, but she stopped when she remembered the light. She looked about, but saw that it did not come on.
Soror Valide checked the wind chimes once she found them. They were one of the same low-volume chimes as when she was little.
Their mother used the top of the wind chime to hide a copy of the house key. The key opened any one of four doors, including the slider that led into the dining room. There were three chimes that she kept in rotation in the back side of the house. The wind chime in use was a clue.
“Lyssa, dear, do you know the passcode?” her mother once quizzed her while Il’lyse was small and could be held in her arms. “Which wind chime do I have up?”
The seconds were counting down fast. The panel contained two rows of five buttons plus a master button on the side. The ten buttons were numbered, each with a few lyurunics. What was the wind chime outside?
Ten seconds remained. It was the bird one.
Seven seconds remained. 1-3-7-2, and then the master.
Five seconds lingered after the beeping stopped, and then the timer faded away.
The house was dark. No one was home. Of course no one was here except for Soror Valide. Her parents were always working. How often did they even come home to their kids?
Bon’sinne popped her head up from behind one of the sofas. She was playing a hiding game with Dasos and Il’lyse when they were toddlers. They weren’t as enthused by it as their mom had hoped. She sighed and drew closer to the chair they sat on. She needed a new plan in order to entertain them.
The family sat at the table where Keft’aerak regaled them with tales of naval soldiers turned to a life of crime and adventure.
Keft’aerak took turns with his own children, and once with Tong-Chang, trying to teach them how to cook. Il’lyse dropped a pitcher of tea. Keft’aerak consoled her without once raising his voice, and he checked her for any cuts before cleaning the tea and glass shards from the floor.
Upon the lower steps of the staircase, Bon’sinne sat with her daughter and helped her tie the laces on her first pair of dancing shoes. Bon’sinne kissed Il’lyse on the forehead and said she was proud of her for finding something she liked and taking part in it.
Further up the stairs the two of them argued. Il’lyse was older now. She was visiting home and telling her mom about her new boyfriend she’d met in college. Bon’sinne did not approve of him. Il’lyse cried out that she didn’t know why she bothered to visit, and that her mother would never understand. Then Il’lyse slammed her door shut.
Tracks were visible in the upstairs carpet. Soror Valide followed where the footprints went. The traffic almost never reached the one door in front of her, as opposed to the other rooms up here. Even the guest room saw more footprints. Was that damned girl right? Did it matter?
She felt trepidation like a bungee cord threatening to yank her back across the stellar system the moment that she tried to enter the room ahead of her. Soror Valide turned the handle with one hand, and pushed gently against the door with her other one. As if by forgotten habit, one of her fingers flipped the light switch.
The only signs she could see of anyone coming in here in the past few weeks was someone using the diffusion cleaner on the floor and a fresher set of footprints from someone who’d taken a peek from the entrance before turning away. The bedroom was pristine; it was whole and hers.
Soror Valide walked inside of the bedroom. The posters and pictures she had framed, in another life, were all here. One of the pictures on her bed stand showed the four Thalassas posing on a stage with a rock musician who pressed one finger on top of Il’lyse’s head. She was small back then, and often slipped into places where she didn’t belong. In this case, she had walked past security at this concert and met the musician, who had the heart to entertain his new guest until her family arrived.
Her family.
* * *
Two Revolutions Ago
Il’lyse took over the control of the shuttle they’d stolen. Cold, infinite beyond, she’d never done anything like this before in her whole life. Stealing a space vessel, flying one; any of it. Her heart raced, and she laughed. She could only laugh through her panic. Running away for a while was the right thing to do, right?
Maybe then her mom would finally understand. Maybe then her ideas of life and love would be fully recognized.
A ship was gaining on them by the time Il’lyse and Buska’vild reached the asteroid belt. Buska’vild told her that they would be able to lose the Allied Peacekeepers on their tail if she flew into it and used one of the rocks for cover.
She tried to do as he suggested with the little skill she had picked up, making it a rough ride for both of them, and he handed her a small box before taking the controls back from her. It looked like one of the gadgets Tong-Chang had been toying with when they’d last had lunch together.
They received a call from the ship. The written message that was attached to it said, “Lyssa, answer me!”
It was her mother’s ship. There were dozens of ships in service to the Allied Peacekeepers, and it had to be her own mother co
ming after her.
Il’lyse remained silent. She didn’t know if she was more angry or afraid right now. She was tempted to open the line of communication and tell her mother to shoot them already. All that Il’lyse wanted was to spend time with Buska’vild and his friends that she met once in Natt Grans.
Meanwhile, the stiern-boat sensed activity coming from a distance. It was high in magnetism and radiation. The storm lashed out from a combination of the system’s star and the residual energies of a battle fought some time ago, but it had to have taken an age to get this far. It was gigameters away, and then hundreds of megameters away.
One last, desperate message went out to the craft Il’lyse was on before the ship raised its shields. A tear went down Il’lyse’s cheek before everything turned black with splotches of fading crimson.
She regained her senses aboard another ship. It wasn’t full of military personnel. Instead, everyone wore the same one-piece suit with charcoal and brown all over; many of their hoods were down, and all of them wore the same mask. Il’lyse had heard of people like this, and it frightened her.
A Hulda’fi took off their mask and nodded to Il’lyse and her boyfriend. It was one of his friends. They were escorted from that point to the bridge.
“Ho-ho,” said the light-haired Aelf. “Our honored guests are here, husband.”
The man was none other than Admiral Fjorfolia. He said, “I’m glad. Welcome to the Hulda’fi, young lady. I understand you are quite special.”
“What’s happening?” Il’lyse said.
“For starters, your old life is over, child, unless you wish to explain to your mother out there why you ran away, or why you are on my ship instead of hers, having somehow survived the destruction of the boat you were on.”
“I don’t want to talk to her. No, not now, not ever.”
“Second, we are testing the cloaking fields on my ship, the Hastig Silver. I was about to report to your mother the news that we witnessed exactly as she had seen.”
“Will I ever see my brother again? Or my best friend?”
“Time will tell, but I am hoping you will see these, and more, as your brothers and sisters. Lady Tunderek, if you will escort our guest? I’m hoping you will enjoy your stay.”
“It will be my pleasure,” said the older woman.
Her strut exuded sex and presence. Lady Tunderek guided Il’lyse toward another chamber, during which time she dropped her robe in the corridor. One of the Hulda’fi scrambled to pick it up and take the transparent, light cloth elsewhere. It made Il’lyse think of this woman as important to the Hulda’fi.
In the new chamber, several more Aelfs and Ginserei, most of them girls, were afflicting pleasure on one another without much clothing present at all. The articles Il’lyse did see were different than anything she had experienced so far.
“Come join your new brothers and sisters,” Lady Tunderek said, pushing Il’lyse forward gently before lifting her top and shoving her into the hot flesh. She came and joined in with them, but Il’lyse couldn’t tell when or how.
Il’lyse took more and more of it all. She wanted her family more than ever. This was a mistake. No, her old family was a mistake. She got lost in the time she spent in that room, and other rooms, lost forever in the reaches of space, and was reborn from this flesh as Soror Valide.
* * *
Present Day
She screamed out, trying and failing to turn over the bed. It was heavy. So she grabbed the first light object she could get her hands on.
“This isn’t me!” Soror Valide said, chucking the lamp across the room. Then she nabbed the next item, and the one after that. “This isn’t my life. Get out of my head. You were never there for me when I needed you. Never!
“I hate you. I hate!”
Cold, infinite beyond, she didn’t. She wanted to. She needed to make this easier on herself. But she couldn’t. Her room was a mess, and Il’lyse fell to her knees. Her eyes flooded. In seconds she had rolled onto the bed, her arms around her knees, and she cowered from the world that remained cold and silent towards her.
Before she could ask herself how tonight could be any worse the front door to the house opened. Someone stumbled inside and laughed. This new person was a woman; it was Bon’sinne.
“What? Hello?” she said from the house entrance. There was a mild slur in her voice. “Zoey? Dasos? Eh-heh . . . Aerak, my love, are you home already?”
Il’lyse picked herself up from the bed. She couldn’t let her mom see her like this. No, Bon’sinne had stopped being her mom two revolutions ago. She couldn’t allow herself to be caught. Her eyes darted between the closed bedroom door and the window that was closer to her.
She opened her window. The sound of footsteps was coming closer. She bound for the darkness, ready to roll when she landed upon the ground outside. Soror Valide realized too late that she left her mask behind. It could be replaced, but it was a mistake she could have done without.
Then she fled for the bushes, cursing at herself.
[ 34]
Zoey stretched on her way toward the kitchen. The monitor on the far wall of the living room was playing the local news on a low volume. Dasos stood next to the kitchen counter, swiping up and down against his digital pad.
“Good morning,” she said to him.
“Morning, Zoey,” he said.
“How was work last night?” She grabbed a box of cereal and a bowl to pour it in.
“We got called to Mom’s house. Somebody broke in. We don’t know how they found the spare key, or got the passcode on the alarm in one try, but they tore up one of the bedrooms and left through the window. The only clue we have so far is the mask this person left behind.”
“What kind of mask?”
“It was the kind that the Hulda’fi use.”
Was it Soror? It couldn’t have been. “Is Mom alright?”
“She’s shaken up a bit. She came home after a night out with a few of her friends, and noticed that the alarm didn’t go off despite her inebriation. She heard the window open and then rushed into Lyssa’s room—sorry, I mean Il’lyse—where several items had been tossed and the light was on.”
So it was her. Why now?
“Don’t worry too much about it,” Dasos said. “Mom will be fine once we know this person isn’t coming back. She may change the locks and key, as well as the scheme for the alarm passcode, or she might sit in wait for the person responsible to come out again and make them wish they hadn’t.”
“She has a bit of a scary side, doesn’t she?” Zoey asked.
“Don’t all mothers? I kid. Anyways, how well did you sleep on your new bed?”
“It was comfortable, thank you. I’m surprised that their warehouse was able to deliver so quickly. I was expecting a couple days, or to have to spend hundreds of burras to make it happen.”
“A friend of mine from game nights works there. His father runs the place, so he was able to do me the favor.”
On the news, the station revealed a picture of Veran’uvia in relation to the scene of the gunfire that happened the day before. No one else had been injured or directly affected, but she had gone missing with a single splatter of blood being present. The shooter had been chased down, but collapsed before anyone could reach him. Their gun was taken away for analysis, but the alleged assassin died from taking poison while on the run. The Trullwick Police were working to uncover his identity.
“Does this happen often?” Zoey asked.
Dasos said, “No. Even with the increased Hulda’fi activity, this rarely happens. Accidents and disputes? Sure. Not shit like assassinations or terror from faceless killers; not since the alliance formed. This one was Ginserei, too, but you didn’t hear me say that.”
“I wonder what had happened to her.”
“As far as any of us know, she went into the arcade and then vanished once she turned a corner. I’m curious if she was transported somewhere. I would ask Captain Druvvin about it, but personnel aboard the Marslo
u, and their mission, are classified and out of reach until the mission is complete. We won’t know if our doctor is among them until they get back.”
“Then I guess all that remains for me to do is live my life and go to college. Why does the mundane sound like such a disappointment all of a sudden?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. Oh, speaking of college, are you ready for it?”
“I should be. I’m still missing one of those digital pads of my own. How much do they cost?”
“A basic one that can last you a few years or more, before needing repairs, can run you five thousand burras. There’s a store that sells them on the other side of the park if you want to spend more than you did yesterday on more clothes.”
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