by Jon Davis
Picking up her cup, she came around the desk to look down at me, a sad smile on her face. She said, “Such naiveté, it’s endearing in one so young. I’m sorry, Vaughn, but America does not represent the world. Slavery is a common thing in many countries—even in America, I might add. Yes, dear boy, humans quite casually subjugate their fellow human beings without a thought. People fight against it, of course, but away from the public eye, oh yes, it happens all too often. There are even those who enjoy suffering such dark delights, but that’s not important. Yet.”
“Yasmine was sold into slavery—as what?” I said, getting us back to the point. I felt a slight heat in my cheeks upon realizing just how stupid I sounded. I had a suspicion, and I had seen people talking about child slavery for years on the Internet. I wasn’t naïve—but stupid, well, maybe. I shook my head. Something was pushing me to stop thinking about the danger I was in. A distraction.
Kular nodded and said, “She became the orphan child of a whorehouse in one of the harbor side warehouse districts of Dubai.”
I said, “Let me guess, she became telepathic on the Day, and decided to take over the world so others would end up as slaves to her. You know, so she can teach them some sort of lesson and show others what it was like for her? Am I right? Is that why she went to—”
My head burst with bright white stars in my eyes. Pushing through it, I said, “Is that why she went to Dubai—to recruit terrorists?”
Kular now sat on the corner of the desk next to me, drinking her tea. The pressure in my head was making it harder to keep my thoughts focused. I hadn’t even seen her move. She smiled down at me now. I shook my head, pushing away the pain as much as I could.
Kular said, “Oh, my boy. You have no idea of the honor you are so casually tossing aside. Yasmine does not seek to rule the world. She seeks to stop the madness of humanity as it strides blithely down the path toward self-destruction. She seeks to give humanity the same thing the Avatar did, hope. That is why we believe him to be a truly holy figure in this new age of…oh, let’s call it…power. Yes, the Age of Power.”
My eyes widened. I yelled, “You’re a cult! And who’s Yasmine, your freaking version of Jim Jones?”
Suddenly, something connected in my brain. I turned to look back at the tea set—or, rather, the cloth that the teapot was sitting on. The design on it was a double crescent symbol with a starburst between.
“Oh, gods,” I muttered. I turned back to look at her, but I remembered where I’d seen that symbol before. I would remember the final flash until my dying day. I turned around and stared at Kular.
I whispered, “Avatar cult?”
Kular sighed. “Now, boy, ‘cult’ is such a dirty word these days.”
I snarled. I said, “You seriously think of Alex as some sort of God? You worship him?”
Kular’s eyes hardened. She said, “Not a god! He was an Avatar! He was a messenger from the true power of the universe! Think on it, boy! He rose at our time of greatest need! His power spread across the world and brought forth an army of angels to strike out at all the oppression brought to us by a faulty and evil creature! Humanity will see the return of its guardians!
“The Orishai in Africa, the Children of Rodina in Russia, and the Letze Reich in Germany were but the first to rise! The takeover of Africa has already happened! Soon, the rest will follow! Especially here in the United States. Oh yes, it will be so easy. And none shall be abandoned, Vaughn! Join us!”
I flinched at that. If that wasn't a perversion of the words ‘Don’t abandon each other,’ I didn't know what was.
I said, “Dr. Kular, you are a human being. Not a god. Don’t fall into this trap of thinking people will just fall to their knees before you! I know what Yasmine is planning! It won’t work!”
Kular smiled at me with a deep, sympathetic look, as though I were a child who couldn’t understand what was really going on. Oh, I understood, all right. But she didn’t seem to.
She said, “Really, Vaughn, it’s for the best. For nearly thirty thousand years, human beings have been stumbling around, destroying the planet with casual brutality. Seventy years ago, your country created and used a dangerously powerful weapon—twice. This created decades of terror and war for the next seventy years as other countries struggled to equalize with the U.S. in a blind, terrible arms race. Humans have caused the atmosphere to warm up to the point where whole continents are constantly threatened with drought. Storms rip apart entire cities worldwide! You can’t possibly believe this to be a stable civilization!”
Smiling, she stood and walked behind me. Putting her hands on my shoulders, she said, “You see, my young friend, Yama wasn’t the test that brought forth the Avatar. It was the sign of the beginning. We are the answer to human prayer. We are the return of their gods; what more can they ask for?”
“No!” I yelled.
Desperation pushed me out of the chair. A worthless effort, though. My legs collapsed underneath me even as I jumped up. With a cry of helpless rage, I hit the floor.
Standing behind the chair and looking down at me, Kular laughed and then sighed. “Oh, dear boy, relax. Once you wake up, you will understand. In fact, you will come to agree with our dream as much as Brand has.”
I felt her foot brush my jacket. Then I jumped as her breath brushed against my cheek. I could see her moving out of the corner of my eye. She whispered, “He called for you—Brand did. You were his final hope. To him, you were the one who would always be there when he needed someone. But you weren’t.”
The pressure in my head made me cry out. But still, I pushed forward, trying to find a way to escape that relentless ache. *He called out for you, he cried for you to rescue him. As it was with Kyle, you weren’t there. And he was alone. Then I came to him. And now and forever, he will never be alone! Come to me, Vaughn, and you will never be alone.*
Something—someone —was reaching for me, pulling gently at my emotional needs. I pushed it away at first. Yasmine. It had to be. *Your parents aren’t there, Vaughn. They left you...remember? Your father moved away…* I saw my dad getting into his car for the last time, never to see him again… No! He came back…
“They came back to…together!”
*How long will that last? Yama is gone…life will return to normal…can they even make it through the year, Vaughn? Think…can you live with being alone again? Can you? With us, there would be no loneliness!*
I struggled against the voice, but all I could do was turn my head. My body barely moved now. So weak, so…
*Alex left, Vaughn…he flew away. They all leave in the end…but we won’t. Can you live alone, forever lost among even the gods?*
“I…am not…alone!” I said, and in return, I felt a smile in my head. Someone was feeling successful. I hoped it made her puke. I looked around, looking for something—anything—to stop the relentless feeling of loss. *The void is where you will be, Vaughn. You’ll always be apart from all that you love. Your parents will split up again, and your friends will be forever gone. Join me…*
The white disk.
I was falling into her words. So alone, so very alone… Something was under legs of the table. Good, I needed a distraction…
*Let me be your friend, Vaughn. No need for the void. Just come to me…*
In my mind’s eye, she appeared, a shadowy woman under a bright golden light. As she held her hands out, I could hear her clearly. Her voice was so much like my mom’s. *We are the new race, Vaughn. Yes, they will call us gods… You will be a god of music, the muse of the new wave of artisans, of sound…*
Flashes of worlds painted, music written… I started pushing myself toward the tea table…
*Vaughn, if you fight, there is only the void, the loneliness…*
*Depth, endless depth, loss…forever lost…*
“Noooo!”
Angela flashed into the room.
*She’s not here, Vaughn… Why do you cry out for a false love? She will walk away and never be there for yo
u. Her brother will keep her from you forever…*
I started to reach out, hoping she wasn’t trying to see through my eyes. I thought about Angela…needing her. I had to find her...
*Angela won’t be there. Her brother Alan will simply send you away…as he did with Brand. Sent him away…you were alone again…so very alone. Dana will go away…all of them…you will be alone…*
I cried out, feeling that loss, Brand gone, always lost. No, he was here…in my heart…
*I brought him back to you, Vaughn. Together, we are forever here for you. No void, no hate, just love, never abandoned…*
My hand moved an inch, another. To distract her, I imagined Angela in my mind’s eye. The shadowy woman began to fade. It took everything to keep her image there.
But that horrible voice. *She’s not there, boy…lost forever. She ran from her own brother, Vaughn… She wouldn’t be there for you…*
“Lady, get—” Pain! Each word brought pain. But I wasn’t going to let her win. Reaching out farther, I tensed my body with every little thing I had. Behind me, Kular grunted.
Leaning down, she looked at me and said, “What are you doing, boy? Stop fighting it! It’s so much easier to let it happen. Join us, it is truly bliss!”
“Get—” I was almost there, my hand, so close…
*Kular! He sees something! Stop him!* I heard it, and Kular gasped. I pushed forward one last time.
“Get—”
My hand touched the phad transceiver, and my mind cleared.
“Get…OUT!”
The word blasted away from me in a wave of raw power. I felt and heard screams at the same time. I still felt mentally stifled. So I pushed the power in my voice even harder. Pain ripped through my head, and yet, I knew it wasn’t mine. My mind suddenly cleared, and I opened my eyes. Rolling over, I found that my head still hurt, but the pain was fading fast. I sat up and took in what I’d just done. I sighed. I had to wonder if I would ever get used to doing this kind of thing regularly.
I had blown out the one window in the room. All that was left was a hole from which cold wind blew in. Slowly, fighting the last of the headache, I got to my feet. I moved and flinched from the feeling of something cold and wet. I looked down and found that I was soaked from the spilled tea. Ignoring it, I looked around the room. The walls were cracked, and the fluorescent light above me was hanging by one wire, swinging in the slight breeze.
I had blasted the door and the frame from the wall. It took me a minute to find Kular. My scream had blown her out into the hallway. Surrounding her was what was left of the door that she’d been blown through. I made my way past the destroyed desk and into the hallway. I stopped at the edge of the doorway when I found that I’d done a lot more than just rip apart Kular’s office. The destruction continued well into the hallway.
I hesitated, looking down at the transceiver in my hand. Somewhere out there was Yasmine. If I damaged the transceiver, I wasn’t going to make it past Yasmine. She had cracked my mind wide open with her last attack. If she recovered and hit me again, I’d be dead this time. Hoping against hope, I tightened my hand around the disk.
Walking past Kular’s unconscious body, I made my way toward them. At first, I only saw the nurse who been at the desk. A fine powder sifted from the ceiling. And when I stepped carefully over the cracked floor, I could hear ominous sounds of metal grinding on metal with every step I took. I realized that I had probably just caused the hospital to end up closing for major renovations and structural repairs.
From the floors below, I could hear people moving around, yelling to evacuate the hospital. So far, no one was talking about checking out this floor. I checked on the nurse and felt her pulse. I hoped that she would recover easily enough. Then, I saw her. My heart jumped into my throat. Unconscious, her limp body lying on the floor, Angela looked dead in the dim light of the hall. Despite the heartbeat I could clearly hear, she looked as if she wasn’t breathing. Rushing over to her, I reached down to brush hair from her face. The moment I touched her, she grabbed my wrist, hard. I gasped from the pain.
Then Angela opened her eyes, snarling at me. She yelled, “Let me go, you bitch!”
“Angela…” I managed to gasp.
Her eyes widened as she said, “Vaughn?”
Angela’s eyes widened in surprise, and she quickly let go. As I rubbed my wrist, she grimaced and said, “Sorry, I forget my own strength sometimes.”
I sighed and attempted a joke. “So that’s how it is, huh? It’s going to be that kind of relationship?”
Getting to her feet, she ignored the joke and looked at Alan and Yasmine. I softly asked, “What went on up here? Ambush?”
Looking over at the body of a woman, I saw that she was laying half on top of Alan. In the dim lighting, I saw that she was wearing the same black and gray striped outfit that Demon had been wearing. She had raven black hair and dark olive skin, having seen her picture; I knew that this was the crazy telepath, Yasmine.
Beside me, Angela nodded and said, “Yes, my disk is gone. The second that disappeared, the bitch hit me with a full psi-burst. Not fun! Then you showed up.”
I sighed. “She tried to take me down, too. Pure luck I found this. Uh, were all of you out here this entire time?”
Angela nodded. I held up the transceiver, realizing that it belonged to Alan. But Angela wasn’t paying attention. I caught my breath when she reached behind her and pulled the sword out with a whispering sound of metal on its leather sheath.
Staring at the deadly looking short sword, I said, “Hey, Angela, what are you doing?”
Growling wordlessly, she raised the sword, and in a deadly quiet voice, she said, “Ending this.”
My eyes widened. Reaching out, I grabbed her wrist, stopping the sword in mid-strike. “Whoa there, killer! No using the movie props to take the bad lady’s head!”
She yelled, “Damn it, Vaughn! She’s taken over people left and right! She’s ripping their minds apart and turning them into slaves! She’s done it to Alan!”
With a violent wrench and an elbow to my stomach, Angela turned on me. She snarled, but her rage had been spent and held back from attacking Yasmine again.
I took advantage of the moment and said, “Tell me what happened! You jaunted and…?”
She looked down at Alan and Yasmine and explained, “When I got here, Alan was already fighting her. That’s his transceiver in your hand!”
I looked at it for a moment and said, “Maybe we can use it to block her. If you can get a hold of Paradoxis, could she do a remote shutdown?”
Shaking her head, Angela said, “I don’t know, we never got a chance to figure out everything that Paradoxis could do. All I know is that as long as we have the transceiver, Yasmine is blocked from our minds.”
I glanced down at Alan and Yasmine. She looked as though she’d been right on top of him when I had screamed. “You said Alan is under her control?”
She nodded and looked down at her brother. I could see a look of pain on his face; he wasn’t completely out of it. His heartbeat came to me for a few moments. It was racing, as if he were fighting something. Poor guy, probably dealing with the mental hell Yasmine was putting him through.
Angela said softly, “When I teleported in, he tried to warn me. The whole floor was empty except for the nurse, Yasmine, Kular, and Alan. Yasmine had her hands on his head, as though she was…blessing him.”
Angela checked her brother. Looking him over, she said, “She made him pull the transceiver from me. In a flash, it was gone, and she froze me in place! I couldn’t even jaunt. I even saw you come up the stairwell a few minutes later, and I couldn’t react. She just laughed when you went past. She had all of us right there, and you didn’t notice.”
Oh my, yes, Yasmine had dug her psychic claws into all of us. Alan was still in agony! I knew how he felt. Wait, Alan was still in pain... Why? At the most, he should simply be unconscious. At least, he should be if Yasmine was—
I yelled, “An
gela! Get away from Yasmine!”
Angela’s eyes narrowed in rage. She whipped her sword up and leapt at Yasmine. I opened my mouth to scream, but held back at the last second. I would hit Yasmine, all right. But I also might kill Angela and Alan. Suddenly, Angela grabbed her head as she cried out in pain and fell back into my arms.
Yasmine opened her eyes. Glaring with raw hatred, she got to her feet, ready to attack. Attack…no, she looked ready to kill. That was the only warning I got before I felt a pressure burst through my head and then rebound in some bizarre way. That told me that the transceiver was still working. Glowering at Yasmine, I gently set Angela down on the floor. Then I held up the transceiver to Yasmine like a cross against a vampire.
“Back away, psycho!”
In deeply accented—yet understandable—English, she said, “Bad enough that I have the New Men blocking me at Ryan Tech, but those transceivers are fast becoming a nuisance! And here I thought they’d be useless!”
I straightened to my full height and faced Yasmine. Taking a step forward, I snapped, “I have no idea what you mean about ‘new men,’ lady, but you need to get the hell out of here and leave my friends alone. You are done. I know your plans.”
She smiled. “Oh, I doubt you really know! You have no idea of the reality around you, do you? Truly a pity. You're such a hero, always a knight in shining armor. Doing it all for your little girlfriend. Frankly, you’re just too sweet for my taste. You’re…too kind, too good. Well, so be it, fight your villain, hero!”
Before I could react, Yasmine grabbed Alan by the head and said, “Alan, be a dear and bring Demon back!”
I started to move, trying to push the transceiver against her to break the psychic hold she had on Alan. He tried to fight her, screaming wordlessly for a moment. It was no good. A flash came from the corridor behind me. I heard a gasp of surprise.
Yasmine yelled, “Demon! Kill him now!”
I turned to scream just as the world lit up in a blaze of fire and heat, blasting me back into the reception area. I smashed through the desk and into the file cabinets. There I slumped, feeling boneless in the wreckage. For a few short seconds, I just lay there, in agony.