by C. C. Ekeke
But the Nnaxan youngster had thought long about what he had done, and the havoc his actions had wreaked on his family.
The pain had exploded straight up Kasiaph’s arm, through his craniowhisks, and needled into his brain, making his knees give out. He stayed conscious, barely. Blood squirted everywhere, painting the family living room floor with splatters of rusty orange.
Still, Kasiaph believed he had done the right thing.
I have no choice, was the single-minded thought that had driven his gory actions.
“Matee. Patee,” Kasiaph implored his paternities. “I’m sorry.” Actually, the boy lied. He felt no sorrow for making his family miss the event, just for the dismay this caused them.
Kasiaph’s father leveled a hateful glare at him, seeing through the lie. “No you’re not,” he snarled.
Matee gaped, her braided craniowhisks unraveling in surprise. “Louruus!” she chided her husband.
But Kasiaph’s paternal would not contain his fury. “A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!” Patee’s dark grey complexion was actually turning a shade darker in anger. “I paid a small fortune for those tickets! And you ruined it for your family! Why?! Just to get attention more!”
As expected, his maternal shrank before Patee’s towering anger. But for the first time, Kasiaph did not. Rage blossomed inside him like wildfire. He never asked for these visions. The least the Nnaxan could do with them was save his family. “But if we went to Terra Sollus we would die!”
“No one would have died!” Patee roared so loudly, Kasiaph felt the vibrations through his craniowhisks. “Spare me your false predictions!” His paternal spun around, craniowhisks rigid so much they barely even moved as he stormed out of the room—leaving Kasiaph and his maternal to stare uncomfortably at each other.
The boy turned again to the viewport, his lip quivering. Somehow he kept himself from crying. No way would Kasiaph let anyone see him cry, not when he was half grown. But his eyes stung, blurring East Poston and its traffic. Kasiaph knew how much his paternal had spent on those family pack tickets to Terra Sollus for the Union-Imperium trade merger celebration.
But Kasiaph could not have cared less about who was merging. As much as his paternal’s anger stung, the Nnaxan boy was grateful just to have his family all alive and safe still.
If his family had travelled to Terra Sollus as planned, they all would have died.
The reminder shook Kasiaph to his core, and suddenly the memories burst through his mind.
For a month Kasiaph started seeing his family in these dreams—no, nightmares—that had been plaguing him.
….He and his family on Terra Sollus, watching the Kedri Sovereign and the Union Chouncilor finalize their historic trade deal… heat from Terra Sollus’s sun Rhyne beating down on him….
…then, a massive station blotted out the sun, spitting jets of heavenly fire down onto the crowds…
… screams of terror in far too many dialects to count, the nauseating smells of living flesh burning…
…before he too was consumed by the flames, Kasiaph watched his family burning and screaming as white-hot fire reduced them to ash…
At first, Kasiaph thought these were just bad dreams. But every night, dreaming the same dream, seeing the same horror, dying the same way…it never once deviated.
The only aspect that kept changing for Kasiaph was remembering more details each time he woke up—like the region of Conuropolis’ Diktat District, between downtown and Earthtown, where heavenly fire had incinerated his family. That location was displayed big and boldly on the event tickets his paternal had bought. The fancy clothing his maternal had bought for the Trade Merger event not two weeks ago? The very clothes they and his siblings wore in the dream.
The final detail that pushed him over the edge was when a first look at the joint Galactic Union/Kedri Imperium space station was unveiled on a holoview military channel a week ago—matching the silhouette of the very same station in Kasiaph’s dreams that would slaughter millions.
Waves of fear threatened to drown the boy since then. Kasiaph never believed really in the silly creed of his paternities, the Church of the Holy Gemini, but maybe he should now.
Kasiaph had warned his family everything about these bad dreams every day for a week.
No one believed him.
His paternities wrote it off as his imagination running wild, while Kaccia and Kecienne ridiculed of him relentlessly.
Telling anyone at school was out of the question. Most kids at school actually envied Kasiaph for being able to go. Plus, his family had moved to Terra Gima from the Nnaxan homeworld Hommodus less than three months ago. Kasiaph had just started making friends. No need to be called ‘crazy boy.’
“The Kedri Sovereign will be there with a small contingent of his army and advisors,” his paternal had said last night after Kasiaph pleaded for them not to go. But his patience was waning visibly. “Same with the Chouncilor. He’ll have his Honor Guard plus the might of the UComm Armada. Conuropolis will be the safest place in the known galaxy. Now stop this nonsense before I get angry.”
That should have made Kasiaph feel better much. But last night’s dreams were so real—the death cries from the crowd as the fire from heaven took them, smelling the flesh burn off his paternities and sisters, the blinding flash of light from above before his own end was upon him—Kasiaph had woken up shrieking at the top of his lungs.
So this morning, as Kasiaph and his family had prepared to leave…and meet their end…the scared boy had taken action—and jammed a butter knife through his lower right forearm.
Thank the Gemini their dwelling sat near a short-range transmatter hub or…let’s just say Kasiaph might not have made it to the Medcenter.
The Nnaxan child was drawn back into the present by the sound of his maternal’s irritated bleating. She defended Patee, of course. She took his side always, no matter how wrong he was. “You do this to everyone, how? You know your Patee and siblings were looking forward to this, much!”
His maternal kept blathering on. Kasiaph ignored her, but not out of spite. A hush had fallen over the bustle outside his recovery room, the only sound being news streamcaster voices in various dialects blaring on top of one another in a smearing roar.
Matee was still yapping her mouth off when Kasiaph’s paternal reentered the room, his face painting a picture of horror. His craniowhisks trembled in fearful little ripples, all four arms hanging at his sides like dead things.
Kasiaph knew something was off. He had never seen his paternal this scared, even after the spreader knife incident this morning.
“Patee?” the boy asked. His paternal turned to his young son and stared.
The mix of disbelief and fear and regret in his almond-shaped orange eyes told Kasiaph everything.
“Matee, can you please turn on the HV?” the Nnaxan boy asked, a chill flooding every part of him.
“Why?” Matee asked, swiveling back and forth between the two males, her limp craniowhisks whipping about. “What’s—”
“Iobe, do it just!” Kasiaph’s paternal barked.
Somehow Kasiaph already knew what the holoview would show him. His maternal griped to an audience consisting of herself before uttering a few commands for a holoview screen.
A large 67-inch holoscreen appeared out of thin air in front of the boy—presenting a collage of horrific destruction.
The massive station thought to be a symbol of unity between the Galactic Union and the Kedri Imperium blotted out the sky, raining down white-hot fire onto Conuropolis, the capital city-state’s most majestic buildings that scraped the stars imploding before the barrage. Massive Korvenite statues that once stood as silent, majestic guardians at the borders of Conuropolis now animated and stomping through the streets of their patron city-state with nihilistic abandon; the abnormal, seemingly impenetrable golden forcefield covering Conuropolis. Clearly the Kedri weren’t behind the attack, as the news stream footage effusively showed their warships vic
iously firing on the forcefield alongside UComm vessels. One stretch of footage highlighted the far-flung civilian section where Kasiaph and his family would have sat to watch the event on massive skyview screens.
The section, meant to hold at least 300,000 occupants, had been scorched black by torrents of energy from the renegade space station. Not even skeletons remained of the corpses on the scalded earth.
Sobs and gasps erupted then outside of Kasiaph’s room. Doctors and nurses along with patients and their loved ones were all watching floating holoscreens in Medcenter recovery rooms and hallways that showcased the devastation on Terra Sollus. Everyone was digesting the horror of the terrorist attack on the Union capital world in varying degrees.
Tears trickled down Matee’s face as her whole body shook with sobs. Kasiaph could not take any of it, squeezing his eyes shut and covering his earholes. I was right. But the validation left Kasiaph so drained and sad. “I should have said something. I could have prevented—”
“NO,” Patee cut him off. All of a sudden, the firm pressure of four burly arms had wreathed around Kasiaph’s little frame, causing his eyes to snap open in surprise.
“My sorrows, child! My sorrows!” his paternal pleaded, enveloping his son with a firm hug.
Kasiaph rarely saw such emotion from his paternal, which made his apology hit that much harder. He gripped his father desperately and soon his maternal as she joined in on the hug.
“What do we do now?” the boy asked, a tremor of fear making his voice crack.
Kasiaph’s paternities said nothing, answering only by embracing their son tighter.
Over the next several days, the only thing on the news streams and the holoview entertainment channels was nonstop coverage of the attack on Conuropolis.
More and more information emerged. A group of Korvenite fundamentalists were behind the attack, many of them captured or killed. But the damage had been done, both literally and politically.
Most of downtown Conuropolis, the Diktat District in particular, was destroyed. The death toll had climbed into the millions. Both Union and Imperium governments had been humiliated by this breach in security. But the news that hit like a megaton explosion had to be the Kedri had withdrawn from the Trade Merger and was closing their borders to the Union for the foreseeable future.
What did this mean to nine-year-old Kasiaph, who had seen this devastation all coming?
First off, his family totally forgave him. The news streams hammered home their potential fate with graphic footage of the smoldering hulks of wreckage that was the Galactic Union’s greatest city-state. All that death and destruction left Kasiaph’s maternal a bawling mess. His sisters weren’t much better.
Secondly, the dreams of a ruined Conuropolis had finally stopped. Kasiaph’s slumber was dreamless for the first time in over a month.
Thirdly, Kasiaph’s paternities took him to get tested. Blood tests, psychological tests, physical tests, any test that could determine the cause of his prophetic dreams.
His paternities insisted on heading back to the Medcenter for a battery of tests the day after the Conuropolis attack. Kasiaph fought with all his heart to stay numb throughout this whole period. Too overwhelmed to shout or cry or scream angrily, he went along with everything asked of him. Any action that required more mental energy and the young boy felt like his head might explode.
After the third day of tests, Kasiaph’s doctor found something in his blood—which had never been identified because they weren’t looking for it. This newly-discovered chemical had been causing his dreams, a neurotransmitter found in a small but growing percentage of Union citizens with abilities beyond those of normal sentient beings. The neurotransmitter offered understandable variances depending on the species, but the common name is ‘xenotrophin.’
“Our son is a…maximum?” Patee asked their doctor in mild horror.
“Don’t worry,” the elder doctor reassured them. His craniowhisks and gestures were calm and loose with poise, unlike the rigid twitching of Kasiaph and his paternities. “Whatever your son can do is not a danger to himself or you, as far as we’ve seen.”
“What can we do to find out more about…what he can do?” Matee asked, her words dipped in dread.
“Well,” the doctor answered calmly. “It’s good that we have spotted this when his abilities manifested just. But, I would recommend a visit to the Section M office in Poston.”
All he got in return were blank stares. “Er…what is a Section M?” a befuddled Kasiaph inquired.
Section M, according to his doctor, was the Galactic Union’s government agency that handled maximum affairs. Giving the growing number of beings with maximal abilities, there was now at least one Section M branch on every single Union memberworld. “Registering known maximums, helping them cope with their abilities, providing training for maximums with issues controlling their abilities. They are the experts on all things maximum-related,” their doctor hashed out. He smiled affably at Kasiaph. “I think you might benefit from this, youngling.”
At first, Kasiaph’s paternities were hesitant about this Section M. The boy had no objection to meeting with this agency, if they could help about his dreams. “I might not be a maximum even, Matee,” Kasiaph tried to reassure her on the ride back home, which had the opposite effect.
Their doctor took care of the appointment for the next day and sent all types of information into Patee’s data spectacles about this Section M agency.
Bright and early the next morning, Kasiaph left with his paternities on a twenty-macrom shuttle ride to East Poston’s grander, prettier, sister city-state. The Section M office in downtown Poston was not a large building, but Kasiaph thought its hexagon structure was nice-looking from the air.
After a five-macrom wait in the building’s angular and pointy lobby, a rather stern Galdorian with his eyestalks bobbing up and down approached and led the Nnaxan family to a translifter. Kasiaph forgot the Galdorian’s name right after he announced it. Big surprise, since the moniker was overly Galdorian—in short, hard to pronounce—and began with ‘H.’
“You have nothing to worry about when it comes to your son,” the Galdorian assured them in flawless Standard dialect. The translifter zoomed up a few floors and then zipped sideways to the left. “Helping maximums adjust to society at large is our specialty.”
Patee and Matee looked less than satisfied, their craniowhisks twitching nervously. Kasiaph couldn’t help but mirror their actions and feelings. “I read somewhere that Section M had some corruption problems a year prior,” his paternal offered in fluent but rigid Standard. “What happened?”
The Galdorian frosted over. “Management restructuring,” he offered cryptically.
As soon as they got off the translifter, Patee and Matee were ushered into a fancy, hi-tech looking office. Meanwhile, Kasiaph waited outside on a bench in an obsidian-glossy corridor. For a number of macroms, he just sat steeped in worries and fears that had been planted on the shuttle ride to Poston.
What if they take me away from my family?
What if they dissect me to see how my powers work?
What if I’m not a maximum?
When will the next ‘dream’ happen?
“Hi-hi! You must be Kasiaph,” called a chipper, girly human voice from his right, interrupting his paranoid musings. The Nnaxan turned to see a short human female heading his way. She had a surprisingly fleet-footed gait for someone so plump and compact. Kasiaph could tell she was most likely earthborn human. There were no garish pastel colors in the roots of her evenly bob-cut brownish hair, and her beady, almond-shaped black eyes didn’t glitter like minerals. Plus, her skin had a peaches-and-cream color to it.
“Yea?” Kasiaph replied in Standard dialect.
This human, practically bouncing on her flat heels with excessive glee, primly adjusted her formfitting grey dress suit as she sat down next to Kasiaph. “My name’s Cameron Song,” she continued, a megawatt smile in her already chipper voice. “How
are you?”
The Nnaxan shrugged, taken aback by the human’s cheeriness. “Fine, I guess.” Close up, Cameron’s elfin features looked like a mix of human subspecies, typical of earthborn and Martianborn humans. Kasiaph could tell by the subtle creases around her eyes and forehead that she was older than she looked, but his paternities told him it was rude to ask a female’s age. “Are you a maximum?” he asked instead.
Cameron shook her head. “Nope. Just a regular baseline human.”
“Do you work for Section M?”
“Yep, I do,” Cameron nodded so eagerly her double chin jiggled like that human dessert gelatin. “By the way, I just met your parent—sorry, Nnaxans say ‘paternities,’ yes?”
Kasiaph nodded indifferently. Does that matter? “Yea.”
“Okay. Anyway, just met your paternities,” Cameron looked so pleased, her eyes sparkled with barely contained delight. “They’re great. Very worried, but really great.”
Kasiaph pictured his doubting paternal’s fury as clear as a holoimage on a wall. And the maternal who wouldn’t side against her partner, puncturing her son’s heart again. Kasiaph shrugged. “I guess so.”
“I got an idea,” Cameron exclaimed, as if it were the best idea any being had ever conceived. She fingered her choker of thick pearls. “Let’s you and I go for a walk.”
They both rose from the bench, and Kasiaph was struck anew by how not tall this human woman was, standing barely half a foot taller than him.
Outside was overcast, but with golden shafts of sunlight piercing through the grey gloom sporadically. They strolled through the labyrinthine gardens in the complex’s northern wing, a crimson-leaved sprawl. Cameron, seeing the boy’s bewildered interest, stated that most of the garden’s plant life came straight from the isles of the oceanic colony world Mekaal. During their walk, the human woman did most of the talking; being born and raised on Terra Sollus by a father from San Andreas in Western Vesspuccia and a mother from the Asian nation of Sino-Formosa; using her mother’s maiden name instead of her father’s due to him being well known in government circles; revealing her experiences working with maximum children.