Dimension

by Shay Zana

  Materializing his sniper rifle, Natheus takes a deep calming breath, props his sniper comfortably, lines up his primary optical crosshairs with the centre target, simultaneously commanding the other two barrels to line up with the flanking targets telepathically, and lets his finger slide onto the trigger. Waiting for his heartbeat to slow, he steadies his hand, his lungs trapping air, exhaling, and squeezes the trigger, the kickback of the rifle supported by his shoulder. All three of the virtually simulated shards hit their mark, right in the centres of the painted targets.

  Now, he sets the targets back two kilometres, but instead of wielding his Parallel, he commands the weapon to dissipate from his grasp, millions of motes flexing into nothingness and reanimating themselves into his Phoenix bow. Clutching the bow firmly, Natheus examines its symbols as they glow in symbiosis with him for a moment, and poises it outward, stretching the kinetic energy bowstring while a spear of entity particles amass. The red entity arrow glistens against the golden starlight of Sparta’s simulation, casting a moment of nostalgia over the Paragon before his features harden in focus.

  This shot will require much more concentration than with the Parallel.

  Instead of angling the bow upward like a long range shot would usually require, Natheus aims the entity arrow precisely at his centre target, knowing that his entity will travel on a straight course, defying gravity. Well, simulated gravity.

  Correcting his stance and aligning his shoulders, the Paragon prepares by taking in a sharp breath. He lets the arrow loose with an eerie wisp of wind, the organic particles reacting to the rush of air. As the arrow soars sinuously, Natheus stands even more rigidly, his eyes enamelled with emptiness as he engages his telepathic connection to the particles. He forces the cluster to rip apart into equal thirds, leaving the centre arrow to fly straight, while he simultaneously angles the other two off course and pinpoints their trajectory to punch into the flanking targets. As the three arrows hit their mark in a unison of light bursting through rock, his eyes return to their hazel sharpness and he sighs in mental release, engaging his magnification optic irises to zoom and examine his precision.

  Perfect precision.

  His environment shifts again, leaving Sparta to reveal the reality of the room in its crisp ivory. A live gun range takes motion, moving targets screened by obstacles, enticing the Paragon into action, the concentration diminishing the feel of the cool tear that had escaped...

  THE DARK BETWEEN STARS

  Alcohol. Strong alcohol. But first something cold. A cold beer. A damned strong, cold beer. Deo bends and cranes his neck, diving his vision inside the chiller in the kitchen in desperate search for beer, thirst gnawing him like a bitch. Boone better not have drunken it all.

  “Hey, D. Looking for something, man?”

  Speak of the devil. Deo brings his head out of the chiller to shoot Boone a narrow glare. “Where’s the beer?”

  “That depends, what brand of beer?”

  Deo now passes the little shit one of his renowned frosty expressions.

  Gnawing his lip in mock nervousness, Boone paces over to the pantry, grabbing a packaged meal. “We might be out of beer.”

  Growling, Deo slams the chiller door shut in frustration. “You owe me.”

  For a moment, Boone relishes in Deo’s frustration, but quickly fails to contain himself as a sly grin stalks up on his face. “Luckily for you, the Fire Blade was well stocked, the finest from Kronos brewers. Rahna brought some over, but I made sure to grab a few extra packs.”

  Deo just gives Boone a look of expectancy, which Boone responds to by reaching into his curiously bulging hoodie pocket and bringing out an icy cold, transparent bottle of beer. “Say please.”

  “Give it to me or I’ll shoot your balls off.”

  With an amused snort, Boone conceals the bottle behind his back, his features provoking with a revealing grin. Deo does not look amused at all, staring blankly at him until their eye contact grows awkward. It is when the victim suddenly turns and reaches for his rifle on the bench that Boone’s grin vanishes. He tosses the beer to Deo, who catches it one-handed and immediately cracks it open. As Deo walks out of the kitchen without any words of appreciation, Boone calls, “don’t get drunk or Maz will shoot your balls off.”

  Ignoring him, Deo trudges moodily through the hall. His insides are still stiff from the recent surgery, his shard wounds from the jungle scene at Olympus still stinging with inner rawness, and beer probably is not the greatest idea to aid his recovery. Fuck it.

  Everyone has been keeping to themselves lately. Mazayus is in navigation, setting co-ordinates for Altair and generally just researching into each of their locations. Natheus had been hogging the shower about an hour ago, but now is nowhere to be seen. Boone is raiding the kitchen, stuffing his face, and overall just being a shit, and Kitera was meditating in the starboard observatory, last he knew. He catches a glimpse of her vibrant red garment as he passes. Mixed thoughts of her catch him, forcing him to stop in his tracks, absorbed by her mist of fairness. Her garment is similar in style to the white garment she wore on Olympus, and her generous silver jewellery ignites in the light of space, shimmering in iridescence.

  The enfolding dark that shrouds Deo’s mind fades as he immerses himself in the Cipher’s divinity, watching her lithe movements as she sways to a silent rhythm. She moves so fluidly, like a feline in her grace, limbs extending, evoking emotion, expressive with sorrow. He has to wonder what this dance means. Another ritual to send off the dead? She takes all deaths so personally, as if it were all her fault. The destruction of Babylon consumed her in guilt, it was like she was possessed by it. He never knew much about the Ciphers before knowing her, no one did, but it is obvious to him now that she has some sort of connection to every life form around her. When things die, she feels pain, not just emotionally, but physically, and perhaps in a form beyond his ability to know. Is that how Altair was able to locate and catch them from the waterfall? Because she is connected to the vessel?

  Her movements alter in pace, hands sweeping the air, curving her body serenely. When she spins, he can see her eyes are closed, her face full of expression, changing from focused to mourning. Her feet carry her gingerly, sliding from the heels to the soles to the toes in a deft breeze, never faltering in balance. She displays her flexibility and agility in various sequences, motions flowing together seamlessly in ethnic choreography.

  Deo finds himself just as entranced as the first time he watched her dance, unable to look away or even move until a strain in his abdomen makes him aware of his held breath. His subtle shift in weight carries a soft rustle through the room, and it is right in this moment that she slumps from her ritual and opens her eyes to him. As she stares, her eyes ripple with energy, as if lit from within.

  He feels abashed for a moment for interrupting her, but her eyes soothe him as they settle into his. Cautiously, driven by an impulse that takes over his body, Deo steps into the observatory and toward her.

  As Kitera stands to meet him, his features crease in response to his sudden unease. A small, reassuring smile hovers over her lips. “Come,” she says and gestures for him to sit with her on the plush sofa that encircles the observatory. She feels his pacified reaction as he follows, and it pacifies her, also. Nerves at the sight of him leave her soon after. He appears much more approachable in his casual attire, a pair of grey baggy gym pants and a black tank top. She crosses her legs beneath herself, while he just sits with his legs widely spaced apart, balancing his beer bottle on his knee. He smells of men’s shower gel and beer.

  “Sending off the dead?” he asks softly, careful not to sound judgmental.

  “The fallen are many. Olympus, Kronos, all that I have come into contact with, I can guide to the Zodiacs. Breathing the same air they breathed, walking the same sphere they walked, experiencing the same experiences all connect me to them.”

  “And the ones you haven’t come into contact with?”

  Her lip gives a tug. “I
cannot guide.”

  Deo gives an understanding nod, taking a small sip of beer to accompany the unexpected pinch in his chest from her words. “I let a kid die back there. Make sure he gets where he needs to be.”

  “Hadar’s soul is strong. He will make it.” She surveys his stooped head, and after a moment, she asks, “are you prepared for what is to come?”

  He stares at his beer for a moment. “Are you?”

  Kitera gains a reaction of sad understanding and looks back to space, strewn with stars. Is she prepared for her Paragons to give their Sacrifices?

  “What was it like?” Deo begins quietly. “Being in another dimension...”

  “Words cannot describe it. So much was beyond my understanding.”

  “It was that different?”

  “No, just... empty. My reach to the Zodiacs diminished, and in their place I felt the Demons.”

  Deo studies her face for a moment, her pale skin accentuating her elfin appearance. The seeds of sadness lurk within those silver eyes, and a darkness lurks much deeper that he cannot decipher. “I can’t even imagine what it’s like for you, Kitera, living in two worlds.”

  Surprisingly, Kitera can see sympathy in his eyes, his usual stern expression softening, accentuating his warm features. “I remain at the threshold of transcendence, and will remain. I am at peace with that. Do not keep sadness in your heart for me.”

  “I could say the same thing to you,” Deo replies gently.

  A sad smile comes to her as she looks away to the stars again, trying to imagine life without her Paragons. “There are many things we cannot control.”

  “Yeah...”

  Silence assembles in the air as they continue to sit side by side, Kitera listlessly watching the dark between stars, thinking of him, and Deo peacefully swigging at his beer, thinking of her. Both of their minds are a ferment of tension and an unexpected comfort, finding light within each other where they had previously found only darkness.

  As Altair has been drifting across the galaxy in their days of preparation for the Sacrifices, they have encountered many strangely beautiful distortions, mild and some even mimicking natural states. Moons without planets, brilliant solarflares colliding with nebulae and creating neutron stars, rogue planets, transparent planets with visible cores, planets and moons and stars all forming within hours instead of millions of years, their time distorted. They have recently just passed through a nebula actively eddying at the centre, spiralling inward like a drain, and spurting up and outward from its centre had been a spear of light just like those common within the galactic core of a galaxy. The stars and planets that it housed were pulled inward like the natural form of a galactic core, and vessels could be seen scurrying to evacuate endangered civilians from the star cluster. All around them, the operation of evacuating the entire galaxy is in full throttle, armadas of fleets converging, both Serenity and UEU. The galaxy is in chaos, but around this chaos are mesmerising events that should not exist.

  After taking a long draught of his beer to finish it off, Deo reaches down to place the empty bottle on the floor. “If we seal our dimension, won’t that have some affect on the ikamanu shifting between dimensions to distort their rate of speed?”

  Kitera ponders. She has not thought of that, although her theory to the ikamanu travelling at such high speeds is still just that. “Perhaps, if that theory is correct. If so, then intergalactic travel will cease to exist.”

  “And you won’t be going home.”

  She has not thought of that either. She gives a thin smile to stop her features from falling to sadness. “I will have Altair, and I will be free to walk naked.”

  At her dry humour, Deo chuckles. She had done that multiple times before Mazayus explained to her that it was inappropriate. Must be part of her culture.

  Kitera follows his smile, his loosening attitude filling her with warmth. “How are your wounds healing?”

  “Good, yeah,” Deo replies, subconsciously feeling at his abdomen. “Healing up nicely. Yours?”

  She presents her shoulder. “I have fully healed.”

  Surprised, even for the quick healing benefits of elixir, Deo leans closer to see where her shard wound had previously been. No mark at all, but it has only been a few days since the incident on Olympus. “That’s impossible.”

  Expecting his shock, Kitera’s eyes shine with taunting mischief. “It is not impossible.”

  “Elixir doesn’t heal that fast.” He reaches to her shoulder tentatively and feels at the skin. It is smooth, as if she never sustained a wound at all.

  She cannot help but feel desire shoot through her at the warmth of his touch. “It was not elixir that healed my wound.”

  Frowning up at her, Deo cocks his head to the side in curiosity.

  Kitera gives a soft grin as she reaches her hand into a small pocket in the side of her garment, the silver symbols on the material catching the light as it undulates above her hand movement. She pulls out a small leathery pouch, and as her fingers work to gently open it, Deo can instantly smell a sweet yet smooth, almost vanilla scent waft up to his senses.

  “This is shii,” she explains as she pours some of the silver liquid onto her palm, its glistening texture like translucent silk. It reminds Deo of her eyes.

  “Shii is native to my people’s pilgrimage world, Nefnala. It comes from a plant called tikal,” the Cipher continues, presenting the fluid in a sacred manner. “It is sacred to the Nefnala, and in return for our care, it heals us.”

  Deo stares down at the glowing fluid in her palm, and now steals a glance at her face before speaking. “Is this why your eyes are...” his sentence trails off.

  She nods, a ghost of a smile. “Yes. My people have become evolved by the shii. It is shameful to admit, but we are... addicted to the fluid and its effects on us.”

  Alarms sound off in his head. “What other effects does it give you?”

  “We have adapted to respond faster to the healing properties of the shii, as it lives within our blood, much like your entity.” Suddenly, her eyes flick back to him, and her hand extends toward him. “It will heal you.”

  But the Paragon jerks back and shakes his head in protest. “No, thanks, I’d rather not get addicted to the pretty silver stuff.”

  “You will not. Addiction only occurs after long-term use, or hereditary genes. The shii is even instilled into the elixir in small quantities.” Her palm moves closer still. “It will help.”

  Reluctantly, Deo gives a quiet sigh and nods, lifting up his shirt to expose his wounds in his abdomen. A coat of translucent elixir is plastered over each wound, so he quickly peels them off, forcing himself not to wince in pain at the friction. The wounds are healing well, no signs of infection, though the ripped flesh still appears raw.

  “This will not hurt,” Kitera assures as she scoots closer and dips her finger into the shii in her palm, collecting a small amount. She smoothes it across his wound lightly, smearing the silver fluid into his flesh with practised deftness and care, her eyes full of concentration.

  Memories of her healing him after Olympus assails Deo’s mind. He had been a jerk then, pissy at her just for being born to her kind. But now, the sense of her warmth and closeness delivers a rush of emotions. Her luminosity seems to have increased as she heals him, and now his mind wanders to when they had fallen from Babylon’s waterfall. She had said something to him in her own tongue, and those words had hit him like a rustle of silk and had stayed with him, even now.

  “Before we fell from Babylon, you said something to me,” he reminds her. “What did it mean?”

  Kitera peeks at him quickly. “Alira mokana,” she echoes those words. “The phrase is common among my people. It is a calming phrase. You may translate it as ‘be at peace.’”

  “Alira mokana,” he tries it on playfully. Kitera corrects his accent and pronunciation, laughing at his multiple failed attempts, and with a few more practises, he has the hang of it.

  Now Deo understands
. It must be some kind of iconic saying with the Ciphers. She had told him to be at peace with death, that she was not blaming him for his weakness and inability to pull them both out of that river. She had jumped in after him, fully knowing that there may not be a way out for either of them.

  Suddenly, realisation strikes him. He trusts her.

  Growing serious again, with his mind at peace, he allows his hand to brush the skin of her hand as her fingers flow over his wound. At once, her healing motions cease and her eyes travel up to his, locking in place.

  She is seeking any confliction to show in his eyes, but none do. “Deo,” she pleads, unsure of herself, and knowing this is wrong. But he silences her by reaching for her other hand and cradling them both in his much larger hands, his tenderness making her melt in his grasp. She allows him to explore her skin, feeling his hands smooth over hers, his thumbs caressing her palms, inquisitive to her fine details. Her fingers curl inward to grasp his thumbs closer, even the mere hand contact filling her with his presence. She closes her eyes as he moves his surprisingly sensitive hands to guide her body closer to his, gently pulling her in, thighs straddling his hips. His hand feels along her thigh and induces a flutter deep within her that makes her lean in further.

  How can a man trained to kill be so adept at touching her? She finds herself leaning closer the more his hand moves up her body, his touch leaving a trail of heat on her skin, wanting him to take her however he pleases, wanting to give herself to him fully. Her eyes open, penetrating into his, plunging into his depths, wanting to know everything about him, to explore his very being and be one with him.

  She cannot! She should be able to control her lust! Why can she not?

  Fighting her emotions, Kitera catches her breath and suddenly pulls away from Deo, standing from the couch and looking to the stars for guidance, her back to him. “I cannot,” she says firmly, though her voice is belying her inner fragility. “It is forbidden.”