by Kurt Johnson
I WOULD CONSUME IT MOLECULE BY MOLECULE, AND FEED ON ITS SUBSTANCE!
What the nova was wrong with me?
CONSUME! DESTORY! ABSORB!
I raised my hands, gathered my desire, and gave into my NEED. Blue-white arcs played between my fingers and the shell of my corona. I grabbed IT-ME. CLAWS OF ENERGY formed at my gesture, stabbing through its shield. It writhed. I shivered. “PREY!” I screamed to the sky.
Wherever my claws dug into its substance, it turned to ash. As it turned to ash, energy thundered through me.
And yet.
I could feel IT-ME pulling at me, leaching MY energy! But panic gave me strength, and I threw another storm of lightning at the creature. Electric tendrils stabbed through IT-ME’s ribs and then through its back, until a web of coruscating, blinding arcs surrounded IT-ME, pulling it to me like a fish in a fisherman’s net. I clawed into the cracks of its shields, prying and popping them apart. Consumption, absorption! Life-essence raced through my being, filling me like no food I’d EVER HAD! MORE!
I leaned back against the thing’s tug at MY life and PULLED. Images flashed across my mind’s eye. A dirty, rust-colored room. Pain. A blurred figure looming over me. A boy with freckles and brown hair, strange brown eyes. Human. Familiar. They were gone in a disorienting blink. I staggered in momentary confusion, and through the distraction, heard AI.
“Ray! Come back!”
Fool. I ignored AI and shoved more energy into the seams of the creature’s defenses. Armor cracked, seams spread wider, and I entered. I was through. IT-ME’s panic surged around me.
I pushed aside the tiny, horrified part of me and SCREAMED MY ANGER TO THE SKY! Lightning pounded the ground around the lev-sled in response. Clods of soil and grass rocketed skyward, paused, and then fell to the dirt with dull thumps. IT-ME pushed against my grip, its counter-force a pressure on my palms.
I PUSHED BACK HARDER, DRIVING MY CLAWS DEEPER.
What was left of the creature exploded through the air and cratered into the field. A circle of brown, dead ’natch instantly spread out from where it landed. The ’natch crumbled to ash just as quickly as it had with me. IT-ME morphed into a silver sphere and levitated a meter above the ground. Dad had maneuvered below where I stood atop the sled’s cockpit. From around the sled’s container wall, he launched a barrage of head-sized orange plasma bolts at the creature from his gigantic pistols. But the destructive globs only blossomed loudly and prettily against IT-ME. The creature’s shield absorbed Dad’s fire.
It ignored my dad.
“RRRRYYYYSSSSSSTTRRRRR!” IT-ME crackled, then tore off toward the Mesa Ruins and the approaching storm in a silver streak that sucked ’natch into the air in its wake.
I LITERALLY hissed with energy, HUNGRY STILL. I turned my gaze slowly toward Dad. He looked up at me, eyes wide, now seeing something different in my expression.
And then the moment of power was gone.
The unintelligible display overlaying my vision flickered and disappeared. A nanosecond later, my corona vanished. The sled’s walls were bent and torn. Regular, natural lightning arced from the clouds down to the ’natch field around us, sending geysers of dirt and green into the air. I was mortal again, and flinched with each lightning punch to the ground as it boomed and then—a second later—echoed off of the Mesas kilometers away. Dad turned in the direction the creature had vanished, his giant plasma pistols smoking in each hand.
Exhaustion crushed me to the floor and I tumbled from the top of the cockpit to the ground. I lay crumpled on the earth, my hand a few centimeters from my face, dimly aware that there was no blood on me. Dad lifted me, cradling me gently in all four arms. I blinked into his worried golden eyes and curled my knees to my face. My corona’s disappearance marked my headache’s grand entry. I gripped my head, as if I could squeeze the pain out. Rain poured down. I threw up. On Dad. On me. On the sled.
And then, thankfully, I passed out.
6
“Raystar. Nem’ to my Raystar.”
Mom. My room. My bed.
She cradled me. I was warm. Oh, Architect, I was hungry. Someone hadn’t removed the nail from my forehead. But Mom caressed my temples with a deliciously cool towel. With effort, I willed my eyelids open and, like rusty shutters, they responded, pouring painful light into my brain.
She wore a worried frown slightly offset by a faint smile, no doubt from my waking up. Her scar shone purple against her red skin, and she idly traced the line with a finger. My hand brushed against the wiry fabric on her arm as I grasped her wrist for comfort. If I hadn’t already been squinting, I would have frowned. Why was she in her combat suit?
Nonetheless. She was warm and all around me, and that was what I focused on. It was good to be small sometimes.
“She looks fine,” someone yelled, their tinny voice in my ear. In both ears. I felt like I had ten ears, and they were all being yelled in. And then what could only be my sister’s finger poked me between my eyes. “Mom, she seems OK. See? She’s moving. Can we do something else now?” Pain crashed through my forehead.
“Cri, be gentle. She’s had an episode. Have you seen the lev-sled? Architect be praised, she and Dad are OK.”
“She always has episodes,” my sister grumped.
I shuddered as events replayed with motion-picture speed. That thing had been spying on us the day before. I was sure of it! It ate our controller! Panic swelled up my throat. It said my name! I’d sparked out, or whatever I’d done. WHAT HAD I DONE? Mom called it an “episode.” None of my “episodes” had ever involved seven-meter claws of lightning—pretty sure I would have remembered that. I shivered, remembering the power I’d held, the delicious thrill of it. And the hunger. IT-ME, the creature, had been helpless, and I had wanted to eat it. Eat. It.
I blinked against the light and turned my head to see Cri staring at me. She would have been a perfect mini-version of Mom, down to her silver combat suit. But while mom’s smile was filled with sunshine and sunflowers, Cri’s expression held the threat of cruelty just underneath, just within reach of each smile, or joke, or word. Straight-faced and magazine-gorgeous, she slowly reached out a hand to poke me again while trying to distract me with her “innocent” eye contact.
As if I wouldn’t notice her flipping Glean-sized hand coming toward me.
“Touch me, you die,” I mumbled, raising my shaky arm to ward her away. “Mom!”
Cri smirked. “Big words, Twig.”
Ugh. Here we go.
Cri ran her upper hands through her long black hair. Waves of her lustrous strands flowed through long fingers, and as it did so, it changed to purple.
“What’s with your hair?” I muttered, dropping my arm back on my stomach.
She posed, batting her lashes over golden eyes, “Do you like? Purple is the style now.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Since you’re getting so much attention from my parents, I thought I’d change my hair to something they’d notice me for.”
“Cri Ceridian!” I felt Mom tense and arched my neck to look up at her. Mom’s scar was deep purple, a sure sign of her anger. “Apologize, at once!”
My sister returned Mom’s glare with blazing eyes. Which actually didn’t look uncool against her red skin and purple hair. Finally, she lowered her gaze and turned to me.
“Please don’t be mad at me, Mom. Please.” Cri, said, looking furtively at Mom. Then she turned her gaze to me and gently placed a hand on my shoulder. “Sorry.”
Whatever. I didn’t need her attitude. It was her same old jealousy. And of what? Her parents hadn’t put her up for adoption. I shrugged her hand from my shoulder.
Cri’s recalcitrant expression turned into a glare and then a “see what happens when I try to be nice” look aimed at Mom.
Mom sighed, “You two are a pair of leggers.”
Leggers hunted the animals that lived in the ’natch fields. They looked like woolly, hairy Terran spiders—but were about
two meters tall. Standing on six legs (thus the nickname), they had two front appendages for grabbing and a circular mouth for gnawing what they grabbed. Eight unnervingly Human-looking eyes were sunk into the tops of their heads, and they could see in nearly all directions. Wealthy farms could put up protective-force fences against them, but for most, adequate legger defenses were well out of the budget. Legger packs would occasionally take the lone farmer or stray kid. And in really dry years, sometimes they would attack a homestead.
When a female would lay her eggs, she’d do her best to irritate her mate to death. If he turned his back, she would trip or poke him. Who knows how they, as a couple, registered pleasure, but it was believed that they enjoyed this back-and-forth game. Of course, there is such a thing as taking a game too far. In this case, the loser became dinner for the hatchlings. Leggers were the ultimate frenemies.
Mom noticed my expression. A curtain of her jet-black hair fell around me as she tilted her head to me, and I breathed in her smell of flowers, like spring. “Little Twig, we’ve got to be more careful.”
“Not little!” OK, I was a lot of little. Fine. “And how more careful? That, that creature! How could that have been predicted? You and Dad aren’t telling me things! What’s going on, Mom?”
“Hush,” she said, putting the cool towel down and caressing my face with her other hand. “Yes, we have waited too long to talk with you,” she said, nodding, “but I swear on my lineage, Daughter, that creature is not something we knew about. We must concentrate on recovering your strength. Resting.”
“Mom?” Dizzy, I wriggled out of her lap and swayed unsteadily, daring Mom or Cri to help me. And how do I get some food? Hunger was burning in my stomach. “How exactly am I supposed to ‘rest’?” I grabbed my hair, as if I could pull understanding from my head.
Cri flopped down on the only chair in my room, landing rudely on a pile of my clothes that had been resting there. She squeaked. Her eyes grew big, and she pulled out from under her butt a green boot that matched the one on my bathroom counter.
Huh. I would have never checked for it there.
I was thankful. A boot in her butt was OK by me.
“This room’s a gratcher pen,” Cri grumped, her teen voice cracking. She chucked the boot onto my bed in annoyance and grabbed a panel reader resting on the chair’s arm. Light shown on her face as images flared to life. She was no doubt going to start vidding with her friends. About me. But that wasn’t what made me frown. The back of the reader was polished Galactic alloy.
And in the reflection I saw myself.
My hair was the deepest shade of purple I’d ever seen. But it was my eyes that got me. “Hey!” Cri yelled as I snatched the reader from her and held the back up to my face. I put my hand against my forehead and pushed up my bangs. My pupils had no brown.
“Take it easy? Mom, I’m NOVA FLIPPING PURPLE!” I stared hard at my reflection, “My eyes are purple! My hair is purple! What is going on? School is starting tomorrow!”
Cri gasped at my swear, but Mom didn’t blink. She just nodded and listened as I raged on. “I hate this! Why does this happen? How am I supposed to take anything easy? I get headaches from storms, something just tried to kill me, and...I AM PURPLE!”
“How?” I asked in a smaller voice, looking at her. Uugh. I could feel my eyes welling up. I was not going to cry. Cri had moved behind me while I’d been ranting. My shoulders started jerking as the frustration inside of me shook its way out. Tears came down. “What’s wrong with me, Mom? Why am I like this?”
Cri put her arms around me, and Mom put her warm arms around both of us. Their pressure felt good. My family felt good.
“Shhhh. Oh, Raystar, it’s OK. C’mon, shhh,” Mom said, rocking Cri and me back and forth together. Cri pinched my cheek softly. I looked at her. She winked, pointing at her purple hair.
I snorted and laughed, but was shaking mostly.
“Raystar,” Mom said, holding Cri and me back from her embrace. I stuck my lower lip out and poofed up my bangs, as well as the strand of Mom’s hair that was lying on Cri and me. She looked at me, concerned, and wiped the wet streaks from my cheeks. “We will figure out what’s going on. I promise.” And then she smiled. In that moment I was the center of her universe.
“I bet you’re hungry. Let’s get some food.”
My stomach growled its agreement.
7
We three girls spilled into the kitchen and froze at the strange scene. Dad sat at the kitchen table, glowering. He hadn’t changed his burned, dirt-covered clothes or removed his four plasma pistols (visible in their straps across his chest and holsters at his hip). Two hands pushed around virtual hologram images of our fight from this morning. He played them forward, then back, and then forward again, from different angles. The images blurred and fizzed into static when he scrolled to the creature emerging from the nanocontainer. IT-ME. His two other hands drummed aggressively on the table—thrump, thrump, thrump. In the middle of the table was a jar filled with a clear liquid. There was a familiar shape in the jar. I clutched at the emptiness in my chest.
Dad must have taken AI while I was unconscious.
“Thank the Architect! Ray, your dad’s insane and is torturing me!” AI vocalized from the jar. A small ruby pinpoint glowed at his center; he was not happy.
Mom and Cri gasped. Mom moved forward. “Nent?”
Dad jumped, bumping the table and nearly tipping over the jar with my pendant. The images flickered and faded.
“Show me the attack sequence.” Dad had a great command voice. I would have shown him the images, as would most normal beings not as giant and angry and Glean as he was just then.
“Well, ginormous alien, as I told you before, I would show you only with Raystar present.”
“Stop. Calling. Me. That,” Dad snapped, gritting his teeth.
“Alien? It’s what you are.”
Mom, Cri, and I looked between my pendant and my dad. Today was way in the Do-Not-Repeat-Ever zone.
“You!” Dad gasped, “are not even alive!” He was strangling the jar with two hands as his lower two hands braced him against the table. AI glowed the color of lava, and the liquid bubbled over the top on to Dad’s fingers. He thunked the jar back on the table, waving his massive, scalded hands in the air so quickly that they created a breeze.
“Dear Nent.”
“You’re an alien. Ai-leee-en,” AI sang.
“People!” Mom thundered. It was a Glean thing, commanding attention with thunderclaps of sound. AI and Dad paused, and Dad put the jar down. AI turned a smug green and did a lazy swirl as liquid sloshed around the jar.
“Thank you for interceding, Lady Sathra. Your husband placed me in nanosolvent in an attempt to break my seal and access my personality and lifecores. I have failed to convince him that he cannot. More important than his thuggery is that I am an independent life form. His actions break multiple Republic treaties.”
“I have transferred relevant sections of said treaties to the house attendant for your review. Beyond breaching covenants regarding torturing allies, he is being a jerk,” AI paused and briefly turned red. “And is a jerk. And most likely will always be one.”
Cri caught my eye and mouthed, “Lady Sathra?”
Today was not becoming unweirder.
AI was showing remarkable restraint. If I was dumped in acid designed to eat at my brain, I would be furious. I’ve known AI my whole life; his behavior was odd. Diplomatic. Like he claimed as much power here as Mom or Dad. And I didn’t think he was being snarky when he addressed Mom as Lady Sathra. My headache roared back, this time from the implications of how little I seemed to know about all these familiar people around me.
AI had been with me every day of my conscious life. He was a weight at my chest and a thought in my head. If there was anyone I could say knew me, it would be AI. And if there was anyone I thought I’d known, he’d be at the top of the list. Our togetherness made it easy to forget how different he was.
/> “Nent,” Mom dipped her head toward AI. One of her hands extended and turned over, long fingers drifting toward the jar, “Please remove, ah…him from the solvent.”
“Sathra….” Dad stopped midsentence, sighed, nodded his head, and took AI out. He even rinsed and dried him before returning him to me. “My apologies to you, AI, and to you as well, Raystar,” he muttered as I draped AI around my neck. I felt better as his familiar warmth and weight returned.
“Whatever, alien,” replied AI. Dad’s eyes glowed. Mom wasn’t finished.
“AI, protocols have been observed. You are a guest, and this house has come under outside threat. Aid us with your response.” And after a millisecond’s pause, Mom dipped her head and added, “Please.”
“Of course, Lady Sathra. I should love to play the remaining images for you,” AI said sweetly. Mom nodded. Dad clenched his fists. Cri giggled.
The images restarted, and the four of us got to see, from various angles and with full sound, exactly what had happened.
The creature launched meteors of energy at me. The lightning claws I generated were nearly as long as the lev-sled, and somehow AI had gotten an excellent view of my craxy face. The part where I threw my head back and screamed toward the sky, uh, certainly conjured up words like insanity and unstable. My hands twitched as I recalled the glee I had felt when tearing down the thing’s shield. And satisfaction of eating…it. “Not normal,” I muttered silently to myself, over and over, while I rocked slightly.
The room was quiet as my claws ripped into IT-ME and the resulting explosion threw it into the fields. Dad’s plasma pistols made a great light show, but had no effect. The creature raced off. Lightning scattered clods of dirt around us. I collapsed. The images vanished.
Everyone let out a collective breath and turned to me.
“Hi.” I leaned against Mom and waved a hand from my hip.