by Jae Vogel
Bernice took out the sigil on the small disc and placed it on the rock wall where Dion emerged the evening before. She removed her hand from it and the disc stayed in place. Once again, it stayed attached to any surface it touched. The disc began to spin again until it was a blur. Once more, it rotated backwards and forwards until it found the right combination for the door.
They watched as the outline formed and the rock turned into the shape of a wooden door. The image coalesced and it became a solid wooden door mounted into the rock on an elaborate frame.
“I wish we could have met years ago,” Kiley said to Dion as she gave him a hug. “Thank you for ridding the tower of those things.”
“I’m sure we’ll meet again someday,” Dion said to her. “Fate has a funny way of running in cycles...” He turned and looked at Bernice. “In spite of what governments try and do.”
Dion put his hand on the doorknob. He turned it and pulled. The door swung open with ease as it was mounted to take advantage of the balance. Dion stopped when it was at the halfway point and turned to look at Bernice again.
“One question,” he said to her. He waited.
“Go ahead,” she responded.
“What are you going to do about all those Azuroth who came through? The last we saw of them was a column marching in the direction of the mountain pass.”
“I guess we’ll worry about them when the time comes,” she replied. “The sisters showed us the tower has some use as a military garrison. Perhaps the sovereign was too quick to decommission the army in favor of the dragon corps. We might have to turn it into a garrison again with the sisters in charge of the post.”
Kiley looked up with bright eyes when she heard those words. “Mother and father would’ve liked that,” she stated.
Dion pulled the door open all the way. “Everyone follow me, this is where we leave,” he ordered and stepped into the other side.
As before, there was a momentary flash of darkness and he found himself back in the huge library. He continued to move as the others needed space too. Dion stepped forward and turned around.
His parents were inside the library next, followed by his Uncle Seth. After them were the security guards who had been employed by the mall. Since no one else was coming through to the other side, he expected the door would slam shut.
But it didn’t. The door closed slowly and then locked itself with an audible click. Dion felt relived and turned back to face Adam Belial, the man who had taken him through the door to the next world where the tower was located.
“I didn’t expect anyone through here today,” he said. “It wasn’t on the schedule, what is the meaning of- oh, hello Mr. Bach!”
Adam faced his employer, Seth Bach. Dion’s uncle was not happy and pushed him aside as he thundered through the next door.
Adam watched him leave and turned back to the crowd. “Now what was that all about?” he asked.
“Mr. Bach is not having a good day,” Dion explained. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to leave with my parents.”
“Hey, what about us?” one of the security guards called out. “We’ve spent the past three months keeping those furry things away from everyone else. When do we get paid?”
“You’ll have to take that up with my uncle,” Dion explained and pulled his parents along with him. A few seconds later, he was through the next door and thundering down the stairs to the office where the twins had their office.
Anders and Blaze both stood behind their counter as Dion entered their office with his parents. He stopped for a few minutes and asked them if his uncle had just come through.
“Yes he did,” Anders, informed them. “Seemed to be in a bad mood. What happened up there?”
“I’m sure you’ll hear about it in due time,” Dion told them. “How did he leave?”
“The door on the wall,” Blaze said, as he pointed to a door where one had not existed the last time Dion had been in the office.
“It’s the same one you used when you came through,” Blaze explained. “But this one has stayed in place.”
“No it’s not,” Anders argued with his brother. “That one had red wood with a brass plate.”
“You’re wrong as usual,” Blaze snapped at him. “It was a brass frame over green wood.”
As they bickered and argued, Dion went to the door and opened it. Blackness again. There was only one way to be sure and he didn’t have time to run tests. He took his parents by the hand and pulled them together as he went through the entrance.
Seconds later, after the light returned, he found himself back in the antechamber where Edward took him before he left. This was the same place and even the little Englishman was standing there in his shirt and tie.
“My, that was quick,” he said to him. “Did you plan on going back and finishing?”
“What are you saying?” Dion asked him. “I was there all night. I’m beat. By the way, this is my mother and father.”
“Ah,” Edward responded. “Time dilation again. I should have known. Fine boy you have there.” He shook the hands of both of Dion’s parents.
Dion went back to close the door and noticed something odd when he looked on the other side. Instead of darkness, light streamed into a vacant chamber. He stepped into the chamber on the other side of the door and saw metal struts holding up an aluminum structure. The clock part of the tower was visible way up in the air. There was even a service ladder, which ran up to it.
He walked into the shaft further and looked around some more. It wasn’t the lack of any activity inside it, the tower was a shell, an artificial creation designed to have the appearance of a medieval clock tower, but it was made from cheap metal and fiberglass. He doubted it would last five years before it needed to be replaced. Of course, this mall would be around for another fifty years at least, his uncle, or whoever he sold it to, would need to replace the tower or remodel the mall. He betted on the latter option.
Dion turned and walked back through the door into the office of the mall.
Lilly almost knocked him over when she collided with him.
“Dion!” she cried out, “I missed you so much!” Lilly through her arms around him.
While his parents looked at Lilly in disbelief, Dion pulled her away and stood behind her.
“This is my fiancé, Lilly,” he told them. “Lilly, these are my parents. I went into the tower last night to rescue them. I was successful as you can see.”
“She wasn’t the only one who was worried,” another voice called from the opposite side of the office. Dion looked across and saw Sean and Emily.
“We were worried about you going inside there,” Emily told him. “I know we weren’t supposed to, but we had to be here when you entered the tower. We showed up late and found Edward standing by the door. He told us you were just left a few minutes ago.”
“Time dilation,” Edward explained again. “It happens when you cross time circles. To us, it seems Dion was gone only a few minutes. To him, it seems he was out all night. I’m sure the boy needs sleep.”
“A little bit,” Dion said as he put one hand to his head. He would need to see a doctor later about the blow he took to it. Surely, he could make up some story how it happened. Most members of the medical profession would look at you odd if you told them about being in the middle of a fight between demoniods and sphinxes.
“I managed to find the fifth element grandmaster,” Dion announced, “so now I have the power of the aether.”
“Did you rescue her?” Lilly asked him. “Wasn’t she kidnapped by your uncle?”
“It was a little more complicated than that,” he explained. Dion looked around the room. “As a matter of fact, where is my uncle? I thought he went through the door before me.”
“He did,” Edward explained. “And I let him go. He shot past us and never said a word. I daresay he has many things on his mind right now.”
“Dion,” his father said. “Can you take us somewhere? It has been a long time.”
“We can go to your other brother’s house,” Dion told him. “I’ve stayed with them since you disappeared last year.”
“Oh,” his mother commented. “We must be in Ohio.”
Epilogue
The porch over the mountains gave a good view of Mount Olympus. This was fine to the man who wore a silk dressing gown and sipped his coffee while reading the newspaper. He’d never accustomed to the modern smart phones and personal computers. The newspaper was enough for him and he liked to read his news after it had a few hours to settle down. He also took his morning meal alone, away from the petty troubles he had to endure later in the day.
So it was a surprise when the servant came into the marbled patio and stood silently by the breakfast table. The older man, who sat there with his newspaper, slowly turned and looked at the servant. The man who was seated at the table had a long grey beard and stroked it when he saw him. This was unusual. What could be so important it required is attention right away?
“Mr. Jupiter,” the servant said to him. “I have a man who wants to see you.”
“Does he have an appointment?” the greybeard asked. He took a sip of his coffee. What could it be this time?
“No, but I think you need to meet with him,” the servant replied. He’d worked for the Mountain long enough to know when to interfere with his boss’s routine. Now was such a time.
“You know my policy,” he thundered back. “No unannounced appointments. Now get him out of here.”
“I don’t think that’s possible,” a voice said behind the servant. “He’s already here.”
A young man stepped from behind the servant and starred at the older man. The greybeard looked at him and nearly dropped his coffee. The eyes, it was the eyes. Only one other person on earth had those eyes. There was another one long ago, but she was gone, to his eternal shame.
Which meant this young man had to be…?
“Dion,” he announced. “My name is Dion. We need to talk.”
“You are my son,” Jupiter Olympus said while his voice trembled. “I am your father.”
“No you are not,” Dion said. “You might have some part in my conception, but my real father was the one who raised me.”
“Doesn’t all the money I spent to make sure you were adequately cared for count?” the older man snapped back at him. “It should amount to something.”
“Not any longer it doesn’t” Dion told him. “I’ve passed my own trials. I can show you an example later, but we need to talk. There is much you and I have to discuss.”
The servant was gone. He understood sometimes his presence was unnecessary.
Dion went and sat down next to the older man. The weather was good outside and was supposed to remain that way all day.
- THE END -
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Chosen - A Sci-Fi Novella
Medea drove her rental car to the top of the longest drive she’d ever seen in her entire twenty-five years in order to reach the dwelling at the top.
She couldn’t imagine the cost involved in the upkeep on the place; surely, it was beyond her pathetic pay grade with the agency. Right now, all she cared about was making sure this assignment went off according to plan. She needed to complete it and get credit if she would make the next pay grade. With all the cutbacks in the agency, there was a severe lack of upward mobility in the government body for which she worked.
The car sputtered and Medea worried the engine wouldn’t survive the trip to the top of the hill. Dammit, couldn’t they spring for some decent transportation?
She was certain her boss never had a problem with requisitioning the best car money could afford from the motor pool. Not that Mrs. Carpenter ever went out on an assignment these days. That queen bitch sat behind her desk and did her reports while the new hires, those lucky enough to pass the test and make the right connections, where sent out on a trial by fire to investigate foreign spies, local drug cartels and suspected dealers in sex slaves.
Medea, being part of the latter, needed the credits this mission would give her and she couldn’t afford to be choosey. The last two women who were tapped to do the mission quit rather than be sent into the Torzinite den of spies, saboteurs and flesh merchants. Well, the hell with them and their pedigrees. She was made of tougher skin and could handle this job. It would advance her to the next rank in her career, or so Mrs. Carpenter hinted when she called Medea into the office one week ago, humming a familiar, but annoying tune.
“You want me to do what?” Medea asked the older woman who sat behind the big desk in the enormous office. Jesus, did the government pay for all of this?
“Your president wants you to infiltrate the latest Torzinite ring we’ve uncovered,” she explained.
Mrs. Carpenter, who always wanted everyone to know that the “Mrs.” prefix was to be used, was a career officer who’d been a legend in her day. She found the first Torzinite cell before there was any formal contact between the aliens and humans. The word around the office had her busting their first operation when she found out the human traffickers were about to ship her into outer space and not to the kingdom of some oil rich human dictator. No one ever did find out how she discovered her final destination, but the evidence she brought back to the agency came very close to starting an interplanetary war.
“Another group of Torzinites?” Medea asked. “Isn’t this the sixth one this year?”
The news media was full of stories of young, impressionable women seduced into the arms of strong men who turned out not to be human. By the time they woke up, the silk sheets were gone and they were in chains with an ownership number tattooed on their ankle. It was hard to prove the sale wasn’t “voluntary” at that stage. Before they could voice a complaint, most of them were in the harem of some off-world warlord.
“I think we’ll find more if you get inside this one and discover where they’re stashing the women they buy,” she told Medea. “I met with the president last night and he wants more evidence of treaty violations. We bring it to him, he can slam it down on the negotiation table and show the other governments the aliens are violating every point of the treaty the UN signed five years ago.”
Once the presence of aliens on Earth was made clear to the other nations, the outrage almost gave the United Nations full war powers. The aliens were accused of exploiting innocent and impressionable women who wanted a better life. Several governments nearly went down in revolutions when it came to light that the ministers were paid to look the other way while the Torzinites shipped women to their distant star system. When the knowledge went public, three orbital stations identified as belonging to the aliens were destroyed by missiles before the crew could evacuate. The Torzinites demanded payment and compensation for their losses. They claimed no human women were taken off world without due process. They claimed they had to work in secret because the humans didn’t want them on their precious soil.
Both species were locked in a dead heat over the presence of the Torzinites on Earth. The aliens wanted the women; the humans needed their technology. Early contacts between the two were productive, but the good feelings between them evaporated when the nations of Earth found out what the aliens really wanted. The Torzinites were from a planet where the female part of their race was a rare thing due to a genetic abnormality. It had taken place thousands of years ago. The ratio of women to men was in the nature of one thousand to one. When the aliens discovered Earth, they found a goldmine. No longer would whole nations fight each other to the death over the dwindling supply of women. Best of all, the two species were compatible and Torzinite men could produce children with human women. It should have solved both species’ problems.
But it didn’t.
The Torzinites found it was easy to obtain working-class human women for the right amount of funds and did so without telling anyone. The women they obtained could live lives of luxury on the home worlds, bu
t enough of them wanted to return to Earth to cause a problem. When the governments of Earth found out what had taken place, they were outraged. The immediate return of all terrestrial women was demanded or war would be declared. The Torzinites claimed the human women taken off world were happy and saw no reason to comply. A treaty was eventually signed after a Torzinites trading post on the moon was destroyed by a nuclear weapon. It later turned out the trading post housed two hundred women from Earth awaiting transfer to the Torzinite home worlds.
In the aftermath of the catastrophe, a delegation from each species negotiated a treaty in terrestrial orbit. A set number of human females would be allowed to travel to the Torzinites worlds in return for access to alien technology. No Torzinites presence would be allowed on Earth. If one were discovered, it would be grounds for war.
“They are risking another war for this?” Medea asked her director, smoothing out her skirt as she sat in the chair. “Do they want to lose all access to women from Earth?”
“We don’t think the governments in their home worlds have full control over these posts,” Mrs. Carpenter told her. “It may be smugglers. Remember the ratios they claim? Each woman they can send back pays for the trip many times over. We may be two women on the street here in Philadelphia, but to the Torzinites, we’re made of silver.”
Medea pulled the car over to a full stop in front of the mansion at the top of the hill.
If the trade in human wives was as good as they suspected, the Torzinites were spending their money to attract new prospects. They had video evidence proving that the aliens were scouting through the poorer sections of the cities under the guise of “overseas” recruiters for domestic jobs. They prized women with a reasonable amount of education and virgins brought a premium on the market. One lady who was recruited before college returned to her family on Earth loaded down with gifts and cash. But just as many of the others were bored in the home worlds and found a reason to come home. Mistreatment and deceit were two reasons for the ban.
A manservant took the car from Medea as she stepped out.