I Am Not Junco Omnibus: Books Four - Six

by J. A. Huss

  “See, how can he be exploded and alive at the same time?”

  “Patience, Junco,” he chastises me. “Tier was made as a weapon. His genetics were changed with gifts and code, much like yours were, but not under duress. When your knife hit his body, he dissipated himself and all those around him. Save for me. I need direct contact with your SEAR knife to be dissipated. It was the one gift I got from the Higher beings who set this whole plan up using me as a pawn. To make it seem as though they were on my side.” He looks down at me with a sad face. “They were not on my side. It took me a very long time to piece together what happened to me on Earth when I lived as a man and what they were doing with me after the death of my Amelia. I was used in a struggle to claim power over that Bridge that we cannot cross, or else we’ll contaminate the other side.”

  He wrinkles his nose at this. Like it disgusts him.

  “So, they made you do things? That you didn’t want to do? And I was that girl? Who got her head chopped off?”

  “They were collecting souls to take across the Bridge. Playing God, if you will. This system is filled with souls. It’s a special place, Earth is. Souls are everywhere. They recycle through life. And your soul was the one they put inside the woman, Amelia. And then my father used that soul to get me to agree to start a war that would last thousands of years. Aesin is my father, that insane Angel you saw out on the Red Rocks plaza. He has always been touched, but too many punishment cycles have left him… intolerable. He does nothing but kill. Some Higher Beings get this way, we all have the demon genetics inside us, some more than others. Aesin killed Amelia—the woman you were back then in those ancient times—collected that soul, and then used it, used you, Junco, to try to make a punishment for me. If I killed you, like I ordered Tier to do, then I was killing the one woman I loved. If you killed me, as you would’ve been ordered to do had Tier not removed you from Earth, then I would have been killed by the one woman I loved.”

  “He must really hate you,” I say impulsively. Lucan says nothing to that and I feel a little guilty for bringing it up. It sucks to know that your father hates you. I thought mine hated me for a long time before I figured out the truth, and it really hurt.

  “There were other punishments. Other demons they didn’t try to manipulate into being little girls who kill for corrupt governments. Those other Six Demons released a bunch of toxins on Earth to poison the biosphere. We’re cleaning it up. There was a stock of genetics found in a cave… well, let’s just say, my father, Aesin, thought of almost everything. He was going to destroy me, my avians and Archers, and the human population. Then use that seed stock up in the ice to repopulate things the way he wanted them. It was creation science engineering on the planetary level. We’ve halted the degradation of the planet, but it’s not all back together yet. Earth has been… decimated. The Six Demons unleashed so many disruptive genetic agents as they traveled down North America. Almost all the humans who are left have been contaminated and the DNA has been compromised. It will require many generations of molecular manipulation to set it right again.”

  He stops to let the seriousness of this sink in. “There are only a few million humans on the entire planet. And even the avian have been cut to about ten percent of previous levels.”

  “The best-case scenario?”

  “This is it, Junco. The best-case scenario.”

  “So anyway,” I interrupt because that’s just so depressing. That my entire planet was pretty much annihilated and all those avians died too. I can’t think about it. I can’t. I shouldn’t have to. I did my part, I’m done. I’m done with Earth and humans. I just can’t listen to it. I can’t let it become my problem, even if that’s selfish and disgusting. So I change the subject. “How did you outsmart them, Lucan? Take my mind off how fucked up things are.”

  “Gravity,” he says simply. “Gravity is the anti-dissipater.” He laughs at his made-up word. “You see, you can only pull yourself back together if you’re floating in space—in a vacuum, right? All the laws of motion only apply in the strictest sense when they occur in a vacuum. High-school physics, Junco. That’s how the universe we live in works. And that’s how I defeated my father and Inanna. When you shot Tier, the SEAR dissipated him and in turn, he dissipated everyone around him—except me, of course—but Sera and HOUSE activated the Halo shield at the same moment of the dissipation, so all the particles fell back to Earth because of gravity.”

  “Oh, I think I felt that. It was strange.” I look up at him. “I bounced.”

  Lucan tries to tuck down a smile but he fails and this pleases me. It’s not a joke, but come on. It’s so, so fucked up, what can you do?

  “And then HOUSE left Sera. She was very upset at being quarantined up in space when you came back to Earth, but Sera was insistent, to keep her safe for you. HOUSE and I collected all the scattered pieces. It took months to find you. But I pieced you back together first and put you in the Halo virtual with Isten. I told you I’d take care of you, Junco. And I did.”

  “Is Isten still in there?”

  “Yes. He’s there with Arel and Braun. Eventually we’ll populate it with others. Drifting souls, maybe. AIs perhaps. I’m not sure yet.”

  “Minions,” I say with a little laugh.

  “Aesin and Inanna couldn’t pull themselves back together under the force of Earth’s gravity, so I collected them next and encased them in billions of lead cubes. I sent Aesin to many, many places. So he will never accidentally come back together under the laws of physics.”

  “And Inanna?”

  He smiles. “I sent her away forever, too.”

  “And Tier?”

  “Your SEAR knife is actually a biological tool used in ancient times to change the DNA code. Gib made Tier special in many ways, but the most important way was that any SEAR cut would initiate his High Order status. We stole genetics to make him. It was all highly illegal.” And for this Lucan stops to snicker. Like he pulled something big over on everyone. “Shooting him with your knife initiated his true biological form and exploded his old one at the same time.”

  “So I really did save him?”

  “You really did, Junco.”

  “Finally,” I huff. “I didn’t fuck it all up.”

  Chapter Forty-Six—JUNCO

  Home

  I’m standing out in a long green yard of grass facing a twilight sky. It’s a cliff, so I really am facing the sky. There are no lights in the valley below, just stillness.

  I don’t get a lot of stillness. At least, not without the morph gel and pain that goes with it. So it’s kinda nice.

  “I told ya, Juncs. They’d send me to some backwater habitat if I let them turn me Archer.”

  I whirl around and my relief and happiness is so consuming, I’m not sure if I want to hug Tier or cry my eyes out. He hugs me, so I don’t have to choose.

  “God, you feel good.”

  “I shot you, I’m so sorry. I was so crazy.” We look each other over. I’m not sure what he sees in me, but I sure know what I see in him. His wings are gone, but I do not care. They were beautiful, but that was never what I loved about him. His hair is a little longer than the last time I saw him. It does that sexy curl thing like it did when we first met. And his eyes are the same brilliant green. He’s wearing a white t-shirt and some jeans, totally at ease in his Archer body.

  “But that was the plan. Ya did it all according to plan, ya just took the long way ‘round, Darlin’. Lucan’s love is real, Junco. He even saved Gideon for you, but he left him back on Earth with Moju and them. Ryse and Esta came back, but the other Siblings stayed.”

  Gideon. I’ll probably see him again one day, but my life with Gid is over now. My Earth life is over and I’m OK with it. It’s time to move on. “Did you know Lucan would save you?” I pull away and look up at his face. The sadness is the only answer I need, but he tells me anyway.

  “No, I thought it was the end.”

  “So I’m not the only one.”

&nbs
p; “Yer not the only one. I’m sure he was disappointed that we didn’t see through it. It probably hurt to know we thought he’d sacrifice us all like that. But if anyone figured it out, it wouldn’t have worked.”

  I nod and wipe my nose on the sleeve of my hoodie, and then we both turn back to the valley and the sky. It’s a lovely moment.

  “My sight is nothing like Lucan’s,” Tier whispers into the night air. “But I saw this place, many times actually. It would creep up in the oddest of moments. And not when I was stressed like I normally get a random glimpse of the future. But when I was calm. And when I saw myself here, I was always alone, so it never meant anything special to me other than this was where I would live if I became an Archer. So when ya asked me on the ship when we were going to Earth if I wanted to be Lucan’s Archer when I quit, that’s why it was so unappealing. I never saw you here, Junco. So I figured this was all the Archers had to offer. A backwater place in the middle of nowhere, in charge of nothing. All alone.”

  He squeezes me a little.

  “To a guy who ran millions of warriors, it looked pretty boring. And to a guy who was sleeping next to the only person he ever wanted to keep for himself… well, it was unimaginable that I’d end up in this place without you. It was like a punishment.” I look up at his face when he stops talking and he smiles as soon as I find his calm green eyes. “I’d live anywhere with you, Junco. But I think the stillness of this place will suit us if you give it a chance.”

  I hug him hard. “I don’t give a fuck where we live, Tier.”

  He clicks his tongue and flicks my nose. “Stop with that now. Yer not a soldier any more, act like a wife.”

  “I’m not a wife either!” I laugh.

  “But ya will be soon.”

  He lifts me up and I wrap my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck. “I’m ugly again. Lucan turned me back into ugly Junco.”

  “Ya look like a princess ta me, Juncs.”

  I make a face at him. “My hoodie says I’ll Work For Beer. I’m pretty sure no princess in history ever wore one of these.”

  “I’m pretty sure everyone expects Princess Junco to wear offensive slogans on her person, so stop worrying about it.”

  I lay my head on his shoulder and sigh. “Tell me something good, Tier.” He sets me down and takes my hand. We walk over to another part of the yard and then he turns me around to look behind us. “That’s our house.” He says it like he can’t believe it’s real. It’s not anything like my house on Earth. Not the modern one where I lived as a soldier princess, nor the scrub-colored cinderblock buildings where I lived as a recovering demon.

  But it is familiar. Because it’s a farmhouse. White with black shutters and a wraparound porch. I can picture us here, living a new life as we try and forget the old one.

  “I’ve lived here for a few years waiting on ya.”

  “Years! Why didn’t Isten tell me? I would’ve come out sooner!”

  “We have all the time in the world, Junco. There is no rush. Sit here so I can show you something good instead of tellin’ ya.” He points to a red rock sticking up from the ground. I recognize it as one of the stargazing rocks my dad put in the ground at our cabin. I look up at the sky behind us but Tier twirls me back around. “Don’t cheat, it’s a special surprise.” I sigh, but it’s a happy sigh. I sit and lean back on the rock and then Tier sits next to me. “Now you can look,” he says, pointing up. It’s just dark enough to see the stars, but not black yet. A pretty midnight blue sprinkled with white. “What’s that?” he asks.

  I look up and try to figure out what constellation I’m looking at. I have no idea what month it is, or where this habitat is located in the Solar System, so it’s quite difficult to get my bearings at first. But it’s hard to miss Lyra when Vega is always shining so bright. “It’s the Summer Triangle,” I breathe.

  “And who’s in the Summer Triangle, Juncs?”

  “Us.”

  He hugs me tight, and shakes me a little. “Us, darlin’. We’re in the Summer Triangle. Aquila and Cygnus. But tell me now, Junco, what’s different about these constellations, can you see it?”

  I do see it. I saw it right away because this is not at all how the Summer Triangle should look. On Earth, Cygnus and Aquila are on opposite sides of the Milky Way, but here—

  I stop because HOUSE is clambering across the lawn towards us carrying a fussy child.

  “Tier! She’s crying again! I gave her a bottle but she’s—Junco! You’re home!” HOUSE drops the girl and she plops to the ground. A few seconds later my little sister’s arms and legs are all tangled up in my own. “I missed you, I missed you so much.”

  Tier gets up to grab the wailing child and now things are so strange, my world begins to spin. “Who?” I ask as he sits back down next to me. The little girl looks at me and then stops crying abruptly and drags a fist across her nose. She’s wearing a fancy dark green dress and white tights that make me itch just looking at them.

  “Savannah,” Tier asks the little girl. “Who am I?”

  She looks at me with her green eyes, then turns them up at Tier and replies through her thumb, “Daddy.”

  My heart swells. Oh my God, it swells. I get this feeling… a feeling I never knew I was capable of.

  Then Tier points to me. “And who’s this?”

  I actually hold my breath to wait on her answer. She looks up at Tier again and he nods at her. Then she removes her thumb and whispers, “Mommy.”

  This is my daughter.

  “Yer parents knew what to do, Junco. And I rescued Deb from Peaks after things settled down. They had the AI backed up in the power plant underground, and she waited things out down there.” He looks down at our child and smiles. “Deb helps Savannah be a good girl when she’s feeling contrite and ornery. Web was holding Deb prisoner all those years down in Dallas, she’s not the mutant killer. He is.”

  “Yeah,” HOUSE says. “Deb keeps her happy, like I keep you happy, Junco.”

  “She’s beautiful,” I say softly. I want to touch her, I want to run my fingers through her dark hair and wipe the tears off her pink cheeks. But I know better than to rush things. Patience, Junco. It’s a lesson I learned over and over again in my other life. Patience.

  Savannah snuggles back into Tier’s chest and HOUSE snuggles into mine, and we all breathe together as we look up at the sky.

  In. Out.

  Maybe we’re not the perfect family. We’re three half-demons and a couple of AIs, so it’s about as non-traditional as it gets. But that’s OK, I think. I’ll take it. Because I’m way more than satisfied.

  I’m happy.

  All those sad years, all those insane years, all those violent acts I committed in the name of whatever… they’re gone now. It’s just us.

  I look back up at my new sky where Cygnus and Aquila are practically hugging, that’s how close together they are. There is no river of stars to separate them here. There’s no Little Fox or Jupiter’s Arrow to get in the way of their love. All those constellations are mashed together into a clump.

  Lucan was right. This whole time Lucan was absolutely right. My happy ending has been written in the stars since the beginning of time.

  All I needed was a new perspective.

  End of Book Shit

  Well, I hope you enjoyed the ride. I certainly enjoyed writing this series and I’m planning on writing a lot more SF in the years to come. Of course, since Junco was my very first attempt at writing and I wasn’t aiming for the romance genre back then, it’s pretty tame compared to most of my stories. There will definitely be no fade to black sex in future books. ;) I have fans begging me for sex scenes with Junco and Tier in my fan group and street team all the time. But no, I’m gonna leave this story alone. I like the fact that it’s not romance based. I think Tier and Junco are a very romantic couple, if a little unconventional. And I think the rest is better left up to the imagination.

  People ask me all the time where I get all these weird ide
as for books and this one actually started when I discovered the Takeshi Kovacs SF series written by Richard K Morgan. The books are called Altered Carbon, Broken Angles, and Woken Furies. That Kovacs character is one hell of a ruthless anti-hero and I fell in love with him. He was all the things in a character that I just get. So when I started thinking about what kind of girl Junco was, well, I figured she was a small, female version of Kovacs. That’s where she gets her bad-ass background. And even though this was my first attempt at writing fiction, I’m seriously happy with how it all turned out.

  I didn’t continue writing SF after this last book because it just wasn’t selling enough for me to make a living. Romance was my ticket to being a full time writer and now that I’m far enough along in my career that I can pick and choose what I write a little more carefully, I will for sure be dedicating more time to SF in the upcoming years.

  Gideon is up next in the SF world and I’m still writing that story but it’s about three hundred years after the world ends and the avians and High Order leave Earth. What’s it like to be a newly immortal man? I wonder… I’m not done writing this book or I’d tell you a little more about it, but it will be releasing in early February 2016. So be sure to look for that.

  If you liked this story and want to try something else but you’re not sure where to start, why not try Anarchy Found? This is my newest full-length book (as I write this) and it’s a superhero romance with a SF twist. There is some dirty sex in that one, and pretty much every other book I’ve written (except my young adult book, Losing Francesca) so just warning you.

  If you follow me on my author page on Facebook or my Twitter account, you know I run a lot of contests. I give away a lot of signed books and prize packages. That’s how I like to connect with #fans. So if you want to win some cool stuff, keep in touch! I love interacting with fans and answering any questions you have about the characters or the story.