The Riser Saga

by Becca C. Smith

  And we were headed right for them.

  “This may hurt a little,” Ryan’s voice echoed in my head.

  If I could have closed my eyes I would have, but since I was in Ryan’s brain I was forced to watch as we slammed into the line of lights like a bowling ball. The lights scattered like roaches, but re-formed quickly as one.

  We zigged and zagged through the electronic ether, hitting balls of light that came hurtling towards us. It was surreal to think that we were actually attacking the I.Q. kids, but when I realized I could wiggle my hand, I knew it was working.

  “I can move,” I told Ryan in his head.

  I vaguely heard Elisha screaming commands, and could feel my body moving from being pulled. She screamed “Ritual” so I knew she was about to try and steal my powers and kill me once and for all. She knew something was happening, but by the sheer alarm in her voice I could tell she had no idea what.

  My hand was ripped from Ryan’s, but I was still connected to him.

  “Keep fighting them, I have to jump out,” I said inside his head as I started to gain control over my body again.

  “Will do,” Ryan replied back.

  I ripped myself away from Ryan’s head and came back to myself. I could see again with my own eyes. The I.Q. kids’ hold over me was weakening from Ryan’s attack. I still couldn’t control my grandparents and their men, but I kept a part of my brain dedicated to the task.

  I had control over myself and I knew I had to stall Elisha.

  I pulled away from Roland with as much power as I could. He leapt back in shock.

  I turned to Elisha with a wicked grin. “Guess, you underestimated my boyfriend.”

  Elisha’s eyes went wide with shock and horror. “He’s… he can’t be… it’s impossible.”

  “He’s in your little machine and he’s taken over.” I knew this wasn’t completely true, but I liked seeing Elisha sweat like that. It was the first time ever.

  “No one can control the machine. Not even I can.” Elisha whirled around to the holo-stations, frantically studying the readings, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. Ryan was hiding everything from her.

  “You’re not Ryan,” I said, rubbing it in as much as I could.

  “But his test results… they said he was just above par… nothing special…He shouldn’t even remember who you are.” Elisha was seriously at a loss. I don’t think she’d ever been duped before and it was freaking her out.

  “Guess you’re not as smart as you think, Elisha.” I smiled. “Ryan spent the whole time you had him prisoner and wired-in studying your little apparatus there, and sending you falsified information, and now he’s going to destroy your little army.” I really hoped I was right about that. I could move around freely now, but I still had no control over the lights.

  “Get her! Let’s do this!” Elisha hysterically commanded Roland. Then she yelled at the I.Q. kids. “Make Chelsan kill them all! The sinners must die!”

  I braced myself for the moment I dreaded: making me use Samuel and John to kill Ryan and the others… but nothing happened.

  I smiled at Elisha triumphantly.

  “Looks like your little experiment is broken.” I even tried making the pouty lip thing that Jill did so well in mockery of Elisha.

  She screamed in rage.

  Roland tried to grab my arm, but I stepped away from him and looked him in the eyes with as much emotion as I could muster. “Elisha tortured and murdered Beth, are you really going to follow her? You call yourself a holy man, but look what she’s making you do.” I was desperate. I needed to delay them.

  Roland was immediately choked up. “Beth committed suicide, you heathen, how dare you make up a story like that!”

  “I’m not making it up. Ryan saw the whole thing. Why would you trust an aunt you’ve never even met!” I tried to appeal to Roland’s rational side, because maybe he really didn’t know how psycho Elisha was. (Though she did just order the kids to make me kill everyone in here. Still, in his warped mind Roland probably thought it was justice.)

  “He’ll never listen to you, Chelsan. He knows the difference between lies and truth.” Elisha was confident when she said this, so confident it made me wonder…

  “Listen, Roland, you don’t live in the real world. You live in this town where people age and grow old and die. You live peacefully. I know you thought taking the surrogates was the right thing to do, but do you really want to start a war? Because that’s what’s going to happen if you keep listening to what Elisha says. She killed your mother. Did you ever check the body?” I was grasping at straws, I knew, but I was starting to feel a tingling sensation in my head. I could feel just the outsides of the swirling white holes.

  “Elisha told me: Beth killed herself… it was all too much for her.” Roland looked like he was starting to doubt. I needed to take advantage of that.

  “Enough! Ready her for the ritual!” Elisha screamed at Roland.

  “Roland, think about it: Beth wouldn’t want this. Elisha killed her because Elisha likes to kill. It’s why she was chosen for the I.Q. Farm. They only take sociopaths, Roland. Elisha doesn’t care about you. She doesn’t even know you.”

  Roland’s eyes flared with anger. “Stop saying that! I know Elisha, I knew her from the day she was born, they were my little angels…”

  “STOP!” Elisha screamed.

  But it was enough.

  I hoped my face wasn’t showing my shock, but I knew Elisha read it there.

  Roland wasn’t Elisha’s uncle, he was her father.

  But he…

  …And I understood. Roland had been taking Age-pro probably since Elisha was taken by the government. He’d been lying to his community. He’d duped them all just to save his daughter.

  “I just wanted them to know how it feels to have your baby taken away from you.” Roland was broken.

  He’d taken all those surrogate mothers because he was a dad whose daughter had been ripped away from him. He didn’t care about any of the consequences. Elisha knew that. She took advantage of his love for her so she could start a war and recreate the act that gave my dad his power. The unborn babies in front of me were going to be born with my powers, and Elisha would have mine as well. They would be indestructible.

  “Why these three?” I asked her, trying to sound as defeated as possible. I could almost control the lights.

  “I looked for genetic markers similar to mine. The first batch of surrogates didn’t have any, but in the second there were three.” Elisha was coming back to herself. She was in gloat mode.

  “Genetic markers for what?” I asked.

  Roland stared at Elisha in confusion. I hoped he was puzzling out the whole Elisha-is-a-psychopath in his brain.

  “The same genetic markers your grandfather uses to find I.Q. kids,” Elisha said with a grin.

  Great, more sociopaths.

  With my powers.

  Four against one.

  Oh crap.

  “You killed Beth,” Roland said as if waking up from a cruel nightmare.

  Elisha turned to him with a sadistic expression. “Yes, Father.”

  SWIPE!

  Before I could even move or react, Elisha had grabbed the ritual knife off the table and sliced Roland’s throat.

  I gasped.

  It was so shocking, I nearly passed out.

  Roland held his neck like he was trying to keep the blood inside his body. And then it was over: he dropped to the floor, unmoving, his black swirling hole telling me he was dead.

  Elisha giggled. “I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time now.” She turned to me holding the knife in her child hands, “Get on the table.”

  “Um, no,” I said as I kicked Elisha in the chest as hard as I could.

  Her little body flailed backwards and hit the console behind her.

  Cool.

  All the I.Q. kids dropped to the floor unconscious.

  CLAP!

  Powers back.

  Oh ye
ah.

  Thanks, Ryan.

  I disconnected from the twins instantly. It was just now that I realized they had been whimpering the whole time. I hadn’t drained them as badly as before, but they looked like they were about to collapse.

  “NOW!” Elisha screamed and at least forty armed men ran into the building. “Get the mothers out of here!” Elisha commanded the men closest to her.

  Five or six of the men started pushing the hover-gurneys out the back.

  Roberta and Turner began chanting again, and I did the only thing I could think of.

  Sorry twins.

  I slammed back into their swirling black heads, then made Elisha and all of her men freeze.

  Without the I.Q. kids controlling me I could feel John and Samuel’s power surging through me once more.

  Turner and Roberta stopped chanting and stood beside me.

  “Can you control her back onto the ship?” Turner asked.

  I nodded my head.

  Whoa.

  I nearly fell from something draining my energy fast.

  Ryan was there in an instant to catch me.

  “What’s wrong?” he whispered in my ear.

  “I don’t know,” I answered honestly. My legs were shaking, I could barely stand up. It was like I had been running on batteries and someone just pulled them out.

  My eyes wouldn’t stay open.

  I was losing my grip on the twins.

  I looked over at them with hooded eyes.

  And they were smiling.

  The black swirling holes in their heads were growing fainter and fainter.

  “Turner!” I gasped. “John and Samuel… they’re healing…” was all I could sputter out.

  Turner and Roberta looked at each other with horror.

  “The connection with the I.Q. collective. They figured out how to regenerate the dead cells,” even Turner’s voice sounded pale from what that meant.

  I was fading fast.

  Elisha and her men were squirming loose.

  John and Samuel were giggling as they slowly started to take control. They were chomping at the bit to use their powers once again.

  We’d all be dead soon.

  “Geoffrey we have to,” Roberta’s voice sounded determined.

  “NO! You’ll die!” Turner was crazy with terror.

  “We have no choice!” Roberta pleaded.

  I tried to push myself up.

  Ryan kept me clasped in his arms. “Don’t. I’m getting you out of here.”

  “No… I… have… to … help…” I gasped.

  My vision was blurring.

  John and Samuel’s black holes were almost dissipated.

  Turner and Elisha’s men were dropping like flies as the twins disconnected them from their spinning white holes. It took all of my being to stop them from killing Ryan, Turner, Roberta and myself. Elisha was up now, taking the three surrogates, and steering their hover-gurneys out of the building.

  No.

  I could see Roberta run to the boys.

  Turner grabbed for her, but she was faster. He was screaming.

  I kept Roberta protected.

  The boys were desperately trying to kill her.

  I was fading fast. I didn’t know how much longer I could hold on.

  SLICE. SLICE.

  John and Samuel dropped to the floor like Roland, their necks slashed, their black swirling holes now spinning in their chests instead of their heads.

  Turner caught Roberta just before she hit the floor.

  The last thing I saw was the black swirling chasm raging in Roberta’s chest, her dead body clutched in the arms of my grandfather…

  I awoke next to Ryan, in my own bed at Nancy’s house.

  I leapt out of it like it was on fire. Ryan was immediately up with me and put his arms around me protectively. “It’s okay. You’re home now.”

  I fell into his chest and started to cry. I couldn’t seem to stop. Everything that happened was too much. Roberta was dead. Elisha was…

  “Elisha?” I asked.

  Ryan held me tighter. “Gone. She escaped with the three surrogates. Turner said they were dead like Roberta, but the babies might have survived.”

  I shook my head. “They’ll be like me.”

  Ryan cupped my face with his hands. “You need some rest.”

  “I don’t want to,” I said and tried to stop the tears from falling down my face.

  Ryan leaned close and kissed me.

  “Can I come in?” Nancy popped her head through the door. Her face somber.

  I raced over to Nancy and hugged her tightly.

  The whole gang followed behind, Bill, Jason and… Jill. We all sat down on the bed, silent for a good few minutes, no one sure what to say.

  Jason was the first, “The surrogates were reunited with the babies’ parents. Turner took care of all that.”

  “How is he?” I asked and found that the lump in my throat was making it hard to swallow.

  “I don’t know. He was pretty quiet for most of the trip. He only talked shop before he dropped us off,” Jason answered.

  I couldn’t help but feel for Turner. I knew I should feel like he finally got what he deserved, but I didn’t. No one should have to lose someone they love. No one.

  “He told us to be ready,” Bill said, a little bit of fear in his eyes.

  “Ready for what?”

  “Everyone is in an uproar.” Jason sighed as if the next sentence was difficult to say. “From the attacks on the Baby Centers and the bombings at the school…”

  “A war,” I said guessing at his next sentence.

  “Not just a war, Chelsan. A holy war,” Jason’s voice was quiet with fear.

  A holy war?

  I looked at everyone and they all looked at me. We were all in shock. No one spoke. There hadn’t been a war on this planet in three hundred years, and somehow I felt as if I was the one that started it.

  Oh man.

  I leaned into Ryan and wished it would all go away.

  Yeah, right.

  Here we go.

  ripper

  BECCA C. SMITH

  Chapter Zero

  Year: 2321

  Are those coffins?

  I couldn’t quite make out the boxy silhouettes before me.

  I must have fallen asleep doing my homework again. This was starting to become a habit with me. But I couldn’t help it! Two chapters of Biochemistry and I was out cold.

  I tried to get a better look at my surroundings to determine if this was really a dream or astral projection.

  When it comes to my brain, it could be either.

  Roberta stepped out in front of me.

  Definitely a dream, considering Roberta died five months ago. And besides, this Roberta was young, about twenty or so. The Roberta I knew was a Feline. Felines are people who lived before the invention of the drug Age-pro and they had used multiple surgeries to keep their youthful appearance. The only problem was that after so many face-stretching surgeries they ended up looking like cats. With the immortality of Age-pro, they ended up looking like cats forever.

  Roberta was my grandmother and she was by far the worst offender. I was relieved, then, to be dreaming of Roberta in her twenty-year-old form. Back when she was alive, seeing her all stretched and frozen was like coming face to face with a monster. (Of course, it didn’t help that she actually was a monster!) Let’s just say I have a history with my grandparents and the bottom line is: they’re psychopaths.

  Still. Roberta had helped me out. She even saved my life a couple of times when she wasn’t trying to kill me. (I know, sounds like I’m contradicting myself, but you really have to know my grandparents to understand.)

  Even though I hated to admit it, I really was sad when Roberta died.

  After all, she killed herself to save my friends and me.

  I still couldn’t believe she sacrificed herself like that. Selflessness was not one of Roberta’s traits.

  But she did.
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  And I was grateful.

  I suppose I was dreaming about her because a part of me missed her.

  When she wasn’t trying to kill me, I almost liked her.

  In fact, when Elisha (an age-pro’d-seven-year-old-ninety-eight-year-old-sociopath-I.Q.-Farm-kid, long story!) buried me alive, Roberta had been my only lifeline. She visited me through astral projection so I wouldn’t go insane. That’s how I knew what she looked like at twenty. Roberta appeared to me in the form of her younger self when I was trapped in that metal coffin…

  Even though the boxes were in silhouette, I was sure they were coffins now.

  I must be having some kind of nightmare dealing with… umm gee, let’s think… BEING BURIED ALIVE!

  Did I mention that? Thank you very much.

  I thought I was over it, but I guess it’s the kind of thing you never get over.

  “Chelsan,” Roberta said, bringing my focus back to my dream.

  That was new.

  This wasn’t the first time I’d dreamt of dear old Grams in the last five months. But it was the first time she spoke. Normally, she’d just look at me like she was trying to talk, but wasn’t capable of it. Even now, the way Roberta was looking at me, made me pause. It was hard to believe that this was coming from my imagination. She looked real and her eyes were so intense.

  I wasn’t sure if I should respond. It felt weird, like I was talking to myself, which I guess I was since this was a dream.

  “This isn’t a dream,” Roberta shook her head.

  Okay…

  Now my brain was really trying to mess with me. I felt like a schizophrenic. Was I really going to have a conversation with myself in the form of my dead grandmother whom I hated 98% of the time and kind of liked 2% of the time?

  “Can you hear me?” Roberta sounded agitated.

  Apparently I was going to do exactly that.

  “Yes,” I answered reluctantly. I really hated giving into my inner crazy.

  “Chelsan, you’re not talking to yourself. I’m actually here,” Roberta’s younger self spoke rather convincingly.

  So convincingly, it made me pause. I knew she was dead, I saw her die myself, but what if she was a ghost? Roberta’s mojo was insanely powerful. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if she could somehow have become a spirit and was now trying to communicate with me.