Dominion Rising: 23 Brand New Novels from Top Fantasy and Science Fiction Authors

by Gwynn White

  Adi's story was that he'd been captured by mistaken identity, called a stowaway because he'd ventured off to a part of the ship where he shouldn't have, and believed that his father would find him some day and make it all right. He served the empire, after all. The Osuna took care of hoppers. They owed their wide-spanning existence to those who opened Mericure bubbles and took them from one point of the galaxy to another.

  Adi wanted to be just like his father. He wanted to travel the stars, hop back to his family, and make the kind of living that kept them safe, even if it hadn't worked for him. "That wasn't his fault," Adi would say. "I shouldn't have taken that card and gone behind locked doors. I knew it was wrong, but curiosity drove me regardless."

  Curiosity.... That was the same reason he'd jumped on the wolverine, why he'd taken Adi, why he went forward with computer code to enhance Cullen's p-drive with programs he'd never seen before, but which opened up at his fingertips as though he was born speaking their language. Every step since he found that capsule with the Versteg letters had been born from curiosity. He hadn't thought about how it would affect his best friend, or his mother—what if I had fallen off Sprinkles and cracked my skull open on the valley floor? What would Mom have done?

  Emmit's oat bar had one more bite left. He fit it in his mouth, bit into the honey-sweet chewy texture, and tossed the wrapper. I left Mom back there, too. Curiosity and these strange memories pushed me to enter that moss-covered hidden entrance.

  Emmit considered how his father might be like him. Obviously, he had reasons for his research. He was fighting for a better life for Emmit and his mother, even if in a strange fashion, letting them go to prison so he could continue his research... for six years.

  "I want to talk again," Emmit said to any possible microphones or surveillance hidden in his room—his cell. "I have more questions," he said louder.

  The floor panel parted and made room for the periscope pole to rise to eye level. Its marble-sized head whirred as it rotated, then locked on Emmit's position. The light that exploded from its center was sudden and blinding.

  His world shifted under the light's current, and landed him in a hallway like the one he and Cullen's crew had been taken to after his scare in the cafeteria. The clean tile floors shone under the ceiling lights.

  A hand rested on his shoulder. He spun one way, then the next, until he found his dad standing beside him, a look of disappointment, but maybe also love, on his face.

  He squeezed Emmit's shoulder. "I understand this is a lot to take in, and I wish it were all I had for you to swallow, but there's more, and I need you to act more like an adult and less like an angry teenager. We don't have time, I'm afraid. You have to grow up and forgive me even before you care to."

  Emmit didn't know what to say. He didn't have enough answers to offer open-ended forgiveness. That wasn't to say he didn't want to. He just didn't know if he could trust the man asking, father or not. "Where are you? Why am I being held in that cell?"

  His father nodded. Good question. He lifted his hand to the closed door before them. "We have some things I'd like to test between your abilities and the neuronet that requires distance in the experiment."

  Emmit was nervous about what lay on the other side of the door, and yet he couldn't deny leaning toward wanting it to open over backing away. "When am I going to have a say about if I want to be a part of your experiments? You want me to forgive you, but not before I call you out.... You talk about fighting a war against the Osuna, but is what you've done to your wife and son much different—"

  His father's nostrils flared, and his mouth opened to speak.

  "No. I'm talking. You've earned six years of me getting to speak my mind, that is, unless you'd rather I not and we part right here."

  His father worked a thumb over his eyebrow, rubbing into the muscle. "I'm nothing like the—"

  "I said right here."

  His father exhaled, lifted a hand for Emmit to continue.

  "As I was saying. What you did to your wife and son was imprison us and manipulate our minds without our permission, all for the benefit of your plan. How is that not exactly what the Osuna did on the backs of our ancestors to build their empire?"

  His father took a moment. His hand began to point, then retreated to his chin. "I see what you're saying. The difference... is, the Osuna continued to build their empire long after they could have stopped. Their reach is driven by...." He smiled. "Revenge. I get it, my point is here somewhere. I never would have let you leave my side if I didn't think it was the only way you could survive. They are the force that triggered my action. The force behind theirs has only been pride and greed. They want what the Rucien have on Vijil, the key to unlocking the power of the First. I'm not doing this just for power and fame—I'm doing this for you, your mother, and if the First wills, our future children."

  "That's good, Dad. You don't think someone high up in the Osuna hierarchy hasn't used the same reasoning? That if they don't find the answers of the First's intervention, that they'd risk losing a war with its race, or even just some upstart revolution determined to succeed where they'd failed?"

  "Ocia has taken good care of your education in my absence."

  "One could say he's taken better care of being a father, too, though if he's around, I have a few things I'd like to say to him as well."

  "Ocia ensured your safety and wellbeing with my counsel, and more so than you think."

  "Oh, okay. Thank you very much, wise father."

  "All right, Em. I can see your forgiveness won't be as easily earned as I'd desire, and I can empathize with that based on what you've been through."

  "How understanding of you."

  "Easy now. I'm still your father, and this is my planet, so I won't abide by your disrespect."

  "Boy, I'd hate to disrespect you on your very own planet. Maybe I should leave."

  "Emmit. Son. When I said earlier that you'll have to start acting older than your age, that meant listening even when your anger would have you speak. The wise don't forfeit information at the cost of getting even."

  He had a point. Emmit did want more information. "Okay, since I'm finally at the feet of my wise master, teach me all that you know."

  "Careful." His father slowly lowered his pointed finger. "I'm serious right now. What we have on the other side of this door is going to require your full concentration. You asked for full disclosure. This is dangerous. Your mother would stab me if she knew what I was about to do."

  Emmit held in a smart response.

  "But as I said, our timeline is too far accelerated for me to offer a gentler next step in your ability's growth. The way you handled the wolverine right away, and breezed through the grill modification to the p-drive. I think your evolution went better than we could have expected."

  "My evolution?"

  His father smiled as though Emmit had uncovered the mystery that meant everything to him. "Partly from the chip that has trained your brain to grow in ways far superior to anyone else your age. Ocia helped in that development in my absence. And has done quite well.

  Ocia had acted surprised when he found Emmit and his mom were chipped, and had been a friend in both treating and keeping that a secret from the warden and his guards. He'd helped Emmit's mom with her nightmares, and activated programs that gave Emmit an education unavailable to the other prisoners his age. Now it seemed the real reason had finally been delivered.

  "The other part of your evolution is a gift of the Ancients that I discovered on Kaimerus. What you've seen since you uncovered my beacon is only the beginning of realizing that blessing."

  "Why me? Why Mom? Couldn't you just work on the loyal subjects of your planet's kingdom?"

  His father accepted the question with a moment of thought that made Emmit feel respected. He cleared his throat. "You aren't the only ones who received treatments. But between those in whom it didn't take, and the people I've trusted enough to give this amazing ability to, you two are currently my best option
s."

  "You're taking quite a gamble assuming you can trust me and Mom after telling us your part in our imprisonment."

  His father's face showed growing anger. "I did not want you to be captured. Don't you remember our time together? The set of wooden toys I made for you, and how we'd set them up like your own farm on the rug in the den? Our walks along the cliff, bird-watching? We... I loved you so much. And I think you loved me too. That hasn't changed—only grown, since we were taken apart by the Osuna. I picked you and your mother partly because I wanted to give you another form of protection until I could rescue you, but also because it didn't start that way. For you and your mother, it was treatment for her nightmares, and a way to give you the schooling I would have given if you were still in my home.

  "It could be that the gradual treatments—Ocia's cover required patience between visits to Setuk, otherwise he'd have been questioned and the chance that two net-chipped in their prison discovered... we could not risk that. By the time we realized that the rate at which those we chose here were being given treatments was backfiring, and that your progress—you and your mother's—was well beyond what we could replicate within our time frame…. We're talking days, maybe less, before we need to act. As I said, this isn't what I planned, but I'm bound to make it work, because I love you and your mother."

  Emmit took that all in with a deep resistance to buckle and accept the father he'd wanted for so long.

  "If I fail," his father continued, "because you and your mother decide not to trust me—not to forgive me—then I don't care about anything else. None of this matters if I can't have your love in return."

  Emmit couldn't stop the tears from burning through, even in this neuronet version of reality. He couldn't stop his body from breaking down, and when his father's strength held him on his feet, wrapping him against his chest, Emmit couldn't stop his deep inner need for this reality to be true, and the one he could accept.

  His father's sobs shook the base that held him tight. "I missed you so much, Son. I can't even begin to tell you how much." He pressed his cheek down on the top of Emmit's head, gave him another strong hug, then pushed him out and kissed his forehead. A tear dripped off his father's face and landed on Emmit's nose.

  Emmit looked up to see his father more shattered in this moment than he was, which helped wipe away some of the doubts and self-consciousness that whispered for him not to exhibit such weakened honesty. This moved him to speak from his heart while he had the courage. "If I forgive you and you break my trust..."

  "I won't."

  "If you do." Emmit steeled himself against the need to break down in tears again. "I don't know how I'd ever recover." He thought of the men and women locked up with them in Setuk, how they did vile things at every turn because inside there was nothing left but anger. "I don't want to think of what I'd become if I let you hurt me or Mom again."

  "I promise. You both have my everything. You are my everything. I will take all the hurt on myself before I let either of you suffer because of me again."

  Emmit wrapped his arms around his father's waist and squeezed him close. This was the truth he needed to believe in, be surrounded by, and stand up on. "I forgive you, Dad."

  "Thank you, Son." His father stroked his hair, and patted the back of his head above the implant. "I'm here for you."

  "I know."

  His father parted their embrace and smiled as he cuffed a tear from his cheek. "Are you ready to see what's inside?"

  He nodded. It was time to act, and this meeting with his father was what he needed.

  His father opened the door to a room with a long collection of view screens and four chairs set before action stations below them. The view screens showed people Emmit guessed were part of the village he'd seen during his first meeting with his father. A woman tossed a knit ball to her toddler, a wide smile and dramatic reaction to the boy catching it. In another, a man worked on sewing a net with a dock and pond in the background.

  Emmit's father led him inside and motioned for him to sit in one of the middle chairs. The view screen directly in front of him had a child poking a stick under a rock. He wedged it out of the soft earth, exposing bugs with winding bodies and countless legs, and beetles with pinchers.

  Emmit looked up at his father, who adjusted his chair to sit next to him. "Okay."

  His father pointed at the screen with lake and the fisherman. "Take a good look at this setting."

  Emmit did. Dragonflies hovered and lifted off the calm surface of the deep blue water. The planks making up the walkway of the dock were warped and splitting in places. A round hat rested at an angle on the pole at the land side, closest to the fisherman. His opened tackle box had spools of wound and unwound wire, three sizes of pliers, and a yellow fishing rod with a silver reel sitting on the dirt beside it.

  "Now I want you to transfer that image," his father said, pointing to the bug hunter screen. "Into his mind."

  Emmit was confused. The abilities and clarity of their past conversations seemed distant, as though from a program he'd watched months ago. He couldn't possibly do that. The thoughts he'd heard in the last day felt more like a fluke than a repeatable pattern.

  "Picture the world around Gerry as a place Samu wants to visit. That's his father, and he wants to see him. He just doesn't know where he is."

  That helped a little. Emmit slipped into Samu's shoes, pretending quite easily how it would feel to be within reach of his father, and how he'd react if he found out where he was and could go visit. While looking at the bugs crawling out of the rock's imprint in the mud, he ran over pictures in his mind of the dragonfly, the tackle box, and the boy's father chewing on a loose thread as his eyes focused on the net he worked over.

  The boy stuck his stick in the mud in front of an escaping beetle. It wiggled around on the uneven ground, forcing Samu to unearth and replant his stick head in front of it.

  "It's not working," Emmit said out loud. Go to your father.

  Samu's beetle diverted its path from his stick. He lifted it and stabbed it down, planting the beetle's middle in the dirt as white guts split out from its shell.

  Go see your father at the lake!

  Samu lifted his stick with pieces of the beetle and mud on its end and angled it closer to his face to examine more in depth.

  Stop looking at the bug and go see your father!

  Samu flicked the tip of his stick, sending beetle bits and mud into the air. He adjusted his grip on the stick and swatted it down at the remaining bugs in view.

  Emmit sat back in a huff. "I can't do this. I sent every detail I could—even told him to go see his stupid dad at the lake." He pointed at the view screen. "He didn't even flinch."

  His father wore a smile Emmit wanted to pinch right off. "This is your first try. Keep at it." He leaned over and pointed at a green box with an image of a radio inside on an action screen in front of Emmit. "When the boy gets to the lake, press that button."

  "What if I can't?" Is he going to leave me in here until I do?

  "You will. I'll be back before too long to check in, but for now I think you just need practice."

  "What about Adi? He was in the tunnel with me. Is he okay?"

  "He is. We opened a room for him too. But I don't want you to worry about him right now. Keep your focus on Samu getting to his father. When you're done, I'll let you go see Adi, and the two of you can continue your journey to Fel Or'an in person."

  "Why couldn't we do this in person from the start?"

  His father took a moment, then said, "Everything is working out just fine. Focus on this task for now, and as your reward, more information will be given."

  Emmit gave a slight nod.

  His father winked, stood, and patted Emmit's shoulder on his way out.

  Emmit returned his focus to the boy now lifting another big rock from the path. The bugs, exposed to light and vulnerability, wiggled and clawed in futile attempts to escape their death and mutilation.

  Tiny feet
tickled Emmit's neck as Dy crept out from under his shirt, as though to get a better view.

  Emmit reached back to pet his gecko's head. The pokey skin met his touch with lifted embrace. How did you get here? This is the net....

  If I can imagine you into this state, what else have I imagined?

  Suddenly, the comfort he'd enjoyed from his conversation with his dad left him in a spirit of confusion as to how much of that was what his mind wanted to happen.

  What if my dad really isn't alive?

  If he isn't, then who just told me to move this kid to the lake?

  Could this all be my mind trying to work out why I'm hearing voices?

  Something... someone has been acting in this. I didn't put that Versteg message in the bush or on my h-drive.

  Without knowing for sure who was asking him to move the fisherman's son, or why, Emmit couldn't continue in faith that it was the right direction.

  But if that isn't Dad....

  The pain attached to such a hopeful reality being pulled out from under him was almost enough to make him give up on it all.

  No, I'm not giving up.

  What he did know, he hoped, was that outside of the net, Adi was in danger or, at least, lost and afraid. His wolverine was out there somewhere, and so was his mom. Whatever else sided with fiction or truth, he also knew there was a connection between his mind and others.

  He didn't need to exercise that ability for someone else's gain to move a kid from one place to another; he would use it to free himself, his friend, and his mother, and then they could decide who else was real, whom they could trust, and whether they would go to Fel Or'an or find a way off this planet.

  Emmit closed his eyes and pictured the cell where the neuronet activation pole stood with its beam of light directed into his hypnotized gaze. He tried imagining how his body felt standing in that room and not the body sitting in this chair. He tried to smell the humid air, scented by the moisture deep inside the cement walls. He did smell that. His legs felt the weight of his body. Eyes still closed, he reached out and closed his hand over the head of the activation pole.