by Jalex Hansen
A note to buyers:
You know how it is
You wait all week for your favorite TV show, waiting to see what happens when this person is on the verge of death, or that person is about to spill all their secrets, or he is about to kiss her (finally!).
Nothing can beat that sense of anticipation.
But, if you’re anything like me, you have this terrible need for instant gratification. You don’t want to wait a year or more to find out what happens in your favorite book series.
Lux is written with those of you in mind, the anticipation junkies, and the I want it now crowd.
This novel is episodic. Each installment is roughly a hundred or so pages, and will be released on the average of every three weeks.
So you can hang in that moment just long enough to savor it, but not so long that the waiting makes you crazy.
Or, if you read while drinking a lot of energy drinks and can’t stand waiting a couple weeks to finish a story, think of this as literary TIVO, save them up for when you’re ready.
For information on upcoming installments and to get an in-depth look at the world of Lux visit: luxtheseries.com
Now,
The moment is here.
Close your eyes...
Lux
1.1
Seeds
A novel by Jalex Hansen
Kindle Edition
Copyright 2011 by Jalex Hansen
All Rights Reserved
*Please be advised: Lux contains language, sexual content, and mild violence similar to a movie rated PG 13.
For Fallon, who has always been my inspiration. For Missy, who has shown incredible bravery. And for the H.C., who brought it to life.
If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then unto me.
-William Shakespeare
LUX 1.1
Seeds
Chapter
One
There was a flash of light. A white hot brilliance, too bright for all the darkness it would leave behind.
Lissa ran.
The flames ruptured the earth where the compound had been, reaching out into the night with hot, bright red tentacles, and then pulling back into their monster center, dissolving down to blackness, hiding all the secrets forever.
Disoriented by light and fear, she was oblivious to her ragged breath and the beat of her feet, as she tried to escape the explosion.
The car was unlocked, the smallest of miracles, the keys left dangling from the ignition. Left in haste and panic as her mother tried to warn her father what was going to happen, running to tell him that they had to get out; they had to run as Lissa was doing now.
They had collided in the hallway, she and her mother, just inside the door.
Her mother gripped her shoulders so tightly the bones rubbed together. Her eyes wide and bulging in panic, her skin drawn taut against her skull. This terrified Lissa enough without the desperate command, “Get out Lissa! Run until you can’t go any farther and then keep going.”
“No!” Lissa shouted. “I don’t want to leave you, come with me!”
Her mother pushed her away. “I have to try to save your father. You have to remember. Look for the others. They will help you. They will tell you what you need to know about yourself. If we live, we’ll find you. Now go!”
Lissa had blundered out of the airlock and from behind came a muffled whump that pushed her across the ground, sheering the skin from her knees and elbows and nose. Then the explosion expanded, engulfing the building and killing the only people she had ever loved.
She started the car, turned on the lights that she didn’t need yet, not here, where the fire lit the landscape in hellish magenta and orange. She was old enough to drive, more than old enough, she’d been able to drive since she could touch the pedals, but she would never have a driver’s license because she technically did not exist.
She backed up, knocking into a small tower array in her panic. She took a breath feeling time press down on her, feeling Them coming, soon now. And then she rocketed off into the night, her headlights making dust stripes, illuminating the landmarks that she had been told to memorize to find the highway, the one she had never seen because it was not safe for her to leave the compound.
When she found the highway she marveled at the smoothness of it, the way the tires ran as if greased, the bright yellow lines in the road marking boundaries, order and symmetry here in the empty, secret-keeping desert.
There was nothing in the air, no lights on the road; she might outrun Them after all.
The darkness closed in around her. She did not know where to go but away, pushing the night back as long as she could. The old car, running on hoarded gasoline, gave an odd burp, a little lurch, and she looked at the dashboard, noticing for the first time that the gas tank was empty. Her mother had run it dry trying to get to them.
She considered going back, but something told her that would be walking right into Them, giving herself up for a sacrifice.
Despair filled her blood, her bones, weighted her down, a solid element, a stone unable to act. The car gave a last gasp and she coasted onto the shoulder of the highway.
There was a sound in the distance, just beyond her hearing, the hairs on the back of her neck stood up alerting her. She stumbled out of the car and headed out into the desert, scraping her skin on branches in the dark, falling over rocks. Her pupils opened wide, wider, letting in the lambent light of a gibbous moon. She would have preferred a complete and cloaking darkness, risked breaking her neck rather than being found.
The land sloped up. Hand over hand she climbed the rocks, worn sandpaper under her fingers. She reached a plateau and looked down. In the distance, car lights snaked through the land, coming closer. She would not make it, there was nowhere to go.
Everything her parents had worked for, all the knowledge they had fed her from the cradle, wasted.
She did not want to give Them anything, but she was afraid that she did not have the strength to keep silent under torture. She looked across the opposite side of the plateau where the edge led off into darkness. She approached the edge cautiously until she stood on its lip. This side did not slope, but sheered down to the desert floor, a lethal drop.
She thought of her parents, dying for their beliefs. She owed it to them to do the same. She could not lose her nerve now, moments from being taken. Still, the desire to live is a strong one, and so she hesitated. Above her, the drone of a helicopter, a black killing insect, came from above. Its spotlight trained on her, a white eye pinning her in her vulnerability.
She made up her mind.
She felt tears running down her face, a nameless terror and sorrow for all she had lost, and was now about to lose. She turned and hurried back about twenty feet giving herself enough room to launch into a murderous flight. She took a deep breath, felt the hot air the helicopter kicked up as it descended right over her head. She took three more breaths, fast and desperate, and then with a scream, she bolted toward the edge and threw herself off.
She did not fall, but hung suspended.
She could not tell what was holding her aloft and considered that maybe she had fallen after all, and this was death, soft and firm holding her up, lifting her to the sky. But she could still hear the helicopter, its breath buffeting her, even as she drifted in the air, and then she felt a strong grip, a warm hand taking her arm and pulling her into the craft.
She was not dead yet.
The helicopter banked left and carried Lissa Trent up and away into the unknown.
Chapter
Two
Hikari Suzuki was sure there was nothing more boring on earth than doing homework in a hot boardroom surrounded by cigar smoking politicians th
at thought they were above the laws of the little people.
She glanced down at her AP Calc, penciled in an answer without having to think. It was ridiculous that she was even in school. She knew that was a rule her father could break, as he broke so many others, but he had insisted it wouldn’t look good to his constituents. She knew all about that catch-all, she was practically his campaign manager, and she wasn’t even old enough to vote.
Her father, Congressman Suzuki, thank you very much, was an Important Man. Important equals Lame Ass Stick In The Mud, a man important enough to exploit his only daughter while still making her do her homework. Her cell vibrated against her leg and she glanced at the text from Yerik. “You used my toothbrush on your eyelashes again. I have mascara between my teeth.”
She texted back a raspberry and tucked her phone back between her legs. Yerik was her best friend/sometimes boyfriend when no one else was available, which she had to admit was a lot lately. But he was like a big brother, well, a big brother you sometimes kissed…yuck…maybe not the best way to think about it.
The men were rumbling around the table, discussing Senator Angine and his continuing ascent up the drain of politics. Hikari didn’t normally care about politics, but the Senator gave her the creeps, the Come sit on my lap and I’ll tell you a story kind of creeps.
She had met him once, and that had been enough. Her father and his lackeys couldn’t get enough of the man. They would have eaten him with a spoon and a splash of milk if they could. All that groveling was disgusting. He wasn’t even really a Senator; he was a self-made multi- billionaire with a title given like a gold star for his efforts. No one knew where he came from, (No matter how much she dug and hacked Hikari hadn’t been able to find anything on him besides his own press releases and a hell of a lot of speculation.), but they all knew where he was going. Up. Way up, to the top of the pyramid with the Chinese barons and the nameless, faceless moguls that pulled the strings and made the world spin.
Hikari was just turning her eyes back to her work when something they were saying caught her attention.
“The Trents were unearthed and taken care of.”
“Was the information secured?”
“The lab was destroyed completely. Nothing was salvageable.”
“Well, that was a waste.”
Hikari’s father glanced in her direction and Hikari stared until she was cross-eyed at her laptop. Good Japanese girl just doing her homework, not listening to her father’s dirty state secrets, uh-uh, no way.
“There is one thing. The daughter--Lissa, I believe.” Her father ran his finger down the edge of the table. “She esca…uh, left the premises.”
“Was she retrieved?”
“Not exactly.”
The man Hikari thought of as Stuffed Shirt Number One cleared his throat. “Not exactly?”
Number One glanced at Hikari. “Sir, maybe it would be best if your daughter left the room.”
“Hikari stays. She will be leading you someday, it’s better that she understands the stakes. Angine’s people did not retrieve Lissa, the others did.”
“Which others?”
“The Tesero people.”
Hikari was really listening now, taking mental notes, but the subject turned to the earthquakes and strange weather phenomenon, and she squirmed until the meeting ended and The Shirts left her alone with her father.
He turned to her, his eyes so dark she couldn’t read them. His hair at the end of the day had escaped its gelled confines and fell across his forehead in a dark tousled swath, making him look younger, more accessible. “You have questions.”
“About a million. You let me sit in on these stupid meetings and tell everyone you’re grooming me, but really you’re keeping me in the dark. Like your electors.”
She usually didn’t argue and now his brow furrowed into lines of disapproval. “You do not respect what I do?”
“I don’t really know what you do, do I? Just the baby kissing part. But there’s a whole lot more than you’re telling me, isn’t there? Senator Angine is killing people, like the Trents, and you know about it. How can you let that happen?”
His smile was shallow and bitter. “There is nothing anyone can do to stop Senator Angine. The people that try are eliminated just like the Trents. If I don’t cooperate, you will be in danger.”
Hikari swept her hair back and stood up (eye to eye with him she noticed). “I don’t want people to die to protect my ass. Your job is to protect people, to lead them, not send them to the chopping block.”
“You don’t understand, you have so much to learn.”
“You bet I do!” she shouted. “But not from you.” She knocked a glass of water to the floor in her frustration, and stormed out of the room unable to look at him anymore. She could hear him calling her name, but she didn’t care, he and his cronies could take a fricking leap.
She was still angry when she got back to their building, even after walking ten blocks. She punched the buttons of the elevator, bent back her nail, and cursed. She got off on the 12th floor, the penthouse, and let herself into the foyer. She could hear her twelve year old brother Jason, gaming his prodigal little heart out beyond a door plastered with such genius sentiments as Jason’s Room-- No Admittance!!! and No Sisters Allowed.
Other people had mothers waiting at home getting dinner ready, maybe working up a good lecture on birth control or college admissions. She had her misfit brother and her father the political machine, the family killer.
She locked the door of her room and pulled the curtains on the lights of L.A., winking false promises below the window. She had painted the walls the color of wet blood, happily let the paint drip on the plush white carpet, murdering the good little girl’s room of pink and lavender.
On the wall across from her bed, a bank of monitors glowed brightly, playing channels from across the globe, keeping an eye on the stock market, monitoring the internet. All in a day’s work for the wunderkind teen of Congressman Suzuki.
She considered herself in the floor length mirror hung by the closet, looked to see if her sudden distrust of her father had changed her, made a difference she could see in her eyes. But she looked like the same Hikari, a pretty good Hikari. She liked what she saw, the long silk of hair with the strip of cobalt blue she favored in her bangs, the tilt of Asian eyes, cupid’s bow lips. She was sexy at seventeen, hell, even at fourteen she had been sexy and used it to her advantage, but she could wrap herself up in innocence too.
She went online, opened the web cam, and found Yerik waiting for her. If it wasn’t for the net she would never talk to anyone.
“Hey, Kari.”
“Howdy.” She pulled out a nail file and worked at the nail she had creamed in the elevator.
“You look pissed.” His tousled blond hair fell into his eyes making him look like an overgrown skater boy.
“Oh, you know, just the usual day full of meetings, Calculus, and homicidal fathers.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Who’d he kill?”
“Rebellious democrats.”
“Is that all?” He tipped back in his chair. “Want some company tonight?”
“Sure, bring your toothbrush.” She grinned unable to help herself. That was the cool thing about Yerik, he could bring out the worst in her, but he could also bring out the best. “No seriously, I just want to be alone tonight. My dad’ll be here soon anyway.”
“Suit yourself, but you’re missing a night you’d never forget.”
“Oh yeah? I already forgot the last one.”
“Let me come over and I’ll refresh your memory.” He was a genius of originality.
“Goodnight, Yerik.” She closed the video out and sat looking at the screen for a second. Then with a sigh she considered the best way to hack her dad’s personal files.
Chapter
Three
All the screaming gave Connor a headache. Preteen girl squeeing, the kind that made his eyeballs vibrate and nestled in his ear-drums. He
had stayed behind on the set, theoretically to read lines, but really to avoid the screaming fans. He liked the set like this, after the fact, quiet, dark, the gaffers and grips moving busily in the shadows like industrious animals, stripping tape marks, winding up electric cords.
He sat in a school desk, one of the props, just like a real desk, with gum stuck underneath and graffiti carved into the top. Connor loves Joanne. This with a big, angry X through it.
He couldn’t even remember high school, just this set, years and years of it, his character staying the same age while he got older and older. This year, when he turned eighteen, he had joked that it was time for a spin off, so he could go to college. They had given him an indulgent smile and pretended to take notes, just like they did when he requested vitamin water or a bigger dressing room. They took him seriously, took this whole fake world seriously, but it was all a joke, a big, big joke…on him.
When he first got this gig at fourteen, it had seemed like he had walked into his own fantasy life. Overnight he was a star, his voice, his striking eyes, the promise of his emerging physique, had made him a hit with the girls.
And of course his story got them every time. Never mind that he was raised in the burbs by a teacher mother and an accountant father, that he had new shoes three times a year, went to private school, and never went hungry (unless you counted eating his way down to the bottom of a box of Twinkies and still wanting more). His agent had played the race card and cooked up a spin that made it sound like Connor was one of those black boys on welfare that had clawed his way out of the Compton ghetto to get into the limelight. They never outright lied, they just implied a lot, and Connor was coached in interviews to say, “I can’t really talk about it.”
His parents were horrified, but being the sort of people they were, they had just went along with it.
The grips were done with the set, it was struck clean and ready for tomorrow’s shoot. One of them propped himself on the top of the desk and lit a cigarette. “We’re done for the night Con, but if you wanna stay, just lock up behind you.”