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

by Gwynn White

  He sucked in a long breath, arching his back.

  “You can’t… be… freeeeeee—”

  “Shut up.”

  She was going to slap her hand over his mouth, maybe even sit on his chest until he passed out. But the knife had slipped off his chest. It was in his free hand. She had a vision of him sticking it in her stomach with a stupid grin on his face. He would call the police and they would take her to the hospital before Barry pressed charges for kidnapping and torture. She’d go to prison and they would never find Grey.

  Maybe she was feeling paranoid, but that thought felt more like a memory that came from the same place her hatred for him was born.

  She kept her distance.

  “What’s that mean?” she asked. “The song.”

  “He’s not coming back,” he sang.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “He’s just not.” His eyelids were heavy. “And even if he does, he won’t come back. Not really.”

  For a moment, she thought the truth would slip from his drugged-soaked brain, that his secrets would leak out. She sat at the foot of the bed with an empty barbell in her hand, far away from his free hand and the knife. If he attempted to cut himself free, she’d break his kneecap.

  Whatever it takes.

  “Where did they take him, Barry?”

  “I don’t know,” he breathed. “You won’t find him, but they still want you to look. That’s why you’re here.”

  “Here?”

  “It’s why you came here, to look for him. They want you to look.”

  “Why?”

  “To keep it going.”

  “Keep what going?”

  His drug-fueled laughter rattled down the tracks. He muttered the song again, barely arching off the bed now.

  She clutched the bedspread. It was stupid to put the knife near him. She wanted to shake the answers out of his mouth, smack him until he bled the truth. She imagined bloodstained pillows and gory laughter, saw herself lost in a rage that would hurt him far more than she wanted. He had answers and he was taunting her. She dropped the barbell. It landed with a heavy thud.

  Maybe she’d put that knife there to protect them both.

  “If you want to find me,” he slurred. “I’ll see you at three…”

  Sunny rinsed the coffee cup and placed it in the sink. He was grinding his teeth when she returned to the bedroom. Sweeping the laptop under her arm, she started for the door. She would look for her son, Barry was right about that. She would find him, too.

  It was why she was here.

  11

  Sunny

  After the Punch

  Sunny held the elevator open.

  The hallway had grown longer. Her rain-soaked clothing rubbed between her thighs. Barry’s laptop was tucked under her arm. It might not work after the downpour. She listened outside her apartment door. A cat meowed in Mrs. Jones’s apartment, the hallway still empty.

  Sunny opened the door.

  Her apartment exhaled a stale breath. She hesitated outside Grey’s bedroom, closed her eyes and uttered a childish wish that didn’t come true.

  She pulled food from the pantry, aspirin from above the stove and went to the shower to wash off days of sweat and worry, hot water cleansing weary skin. She closed her eyes, the water running to her toes, and sang.

  There were no words in the song, just a rambling hymn vibrating in her head. It was soothing, relaxing. She’d done that when she was a kid, following the melodic rhythm of a music box while a ballerina turned on top. She still did it to calm her nerves in the shower, when she was cleaning or driving or just alone.

  She grabbed full handfuls of hair. It had grown a full inch.

  Wiping steam off the mirror, she dried off in front of it, noticing how the skin stretched between her ribs. The jagged scar throbbed across her forehead. Her fingers trembled over it, the raised flesh sensitive. Her gums were receding; vivid green eyes with lighter bands like a wagon wheel stared back from hollows. Her mother used to talk about her eyes, said they were magical—the outer rings dark and focused, the inner irises streaky green, almost metallic.

  No one has eyes like you, Mama would say.

  Something fell.

  It was a bump on the wall or floor. Sunny’s senses perked up, those emerald eyes laser tight. She held as still as prey.

  “Grey?” she called.

  Nothing was in the front room. The deadbolt on the door was still in place. Rain spit against the window. Clean and alert, she put on fresh clothes, ditching the uniform. Might as well throw it away. She wondered if Donny was at work. Had he tried to call? Did he stop by?

  Where is he?

  There was a wallet in the back pocket of her uniform. She didn’t carry a wallet; neither did Grey. It was filled with cash. The name on the driver’s license wasn’t familiar, but the face was. His real name was Trevor Martin.

  Hamlet.

  There had been a party somewhere on Barry’s floor the night she’d followed them back. She stepped onto the elevator with them and slunk in the corner as they fell against each other. Hamlet melted onto the floor. She offered to help. Barry stumbled ahead, barfy sounds sliding out of him. That was when she heard the party somewhere on the floor, when she dragged Hamlet into the hall.

  Why do I have his wallet?

  There was three hundred dollars inside it and a business card. City Shelter for the Homeless. She knew this place, had volunteered there a couple times when Grey was with his dad and she had nowhere else to be. Maybe Hamlet was a resident, was just using Barry for a hot and a cot and a roll in the sexatorium. There was a symbol on the back of the card, something she’d seen before.

  A snake eating its tail.

  Panic seized her by the neck. She had to get out before someone came looking for her. The man in the black coat, the person on the phone had warned her to leave. What am I doing here?

  She grabbed Barry’s laptop and stepped into the hall. The cats meowed from the old woman’s apartment. Lightly, she tapped the door.

  “Mrs. Jones?”

  The door was locked. Maybe the old woman was sleeping. She only wanted to say thanks for the other day and ask if anything suspicious had happened since she’d been gone. If anyone had called.

  Had she seen Grey?

  Sunny waited for the elevator. When it arrived, she could still hear the cats.

  Coffee Beaned was for hipsters and introverts.

  Sunny grabbed a fashionably scarred wooden chair in the corner. Trinkets, local art, and old movie props were on display. A long bullwhip was coiled on the wall, the leather tassels dangling above her head.

  Sleep deprivation was bending the corners of the room.

  If she closed her eyes, she’d drip onto the floor. This sometimes happened at work when they were behind schedule, when they stacked shifts. Bolts would wiggle out of steel plates and jump like exposed earthworms until she blinked them back into reality. She’d learned to ignore it, to plow through it.

  It was how she lived her life.

  She would never admit, deep down, tragedy was a welcome change from the monotony. When the trapdoor popped under her feet, at least she felt something. Even if it was terrifying.

  Just not Grey. Don’t let anything happen to my Grey.

  She would give anything to trade places with him, to give him a chance. Her life was half done. He deserved more. She had already dealt him a shit hand of genetic predisposition to soul-crushing depression.

  She wanted something different for him.

  “Soony?” someone called.

  She raised her hand.

  The man who had taken her order delivered a muffin. She devoured it and shut her eyes, the chaos of the café driving her down a melting pot of sleep, where rich aromas carried her into a dreamless nap. She awoke to a fresh crowd of people and the laptop warming beneath her cheek.

  It was fully charged but choking on viruses. The jump drive contained exactly what he said it would—a long list
of video clips, each with cryptic labels and symbols. All of them inside the Maze.

  She didn’t want to watch them, didn’t want to imagine her son in some sort of animated death match where he respawned again and again, dying over and over. Some videos were simple smash and dash competitions. Others were a bit more complex.

  All of them psychologically irreversible.

  She opened a browser and typed a search: survivors of the maze.

  It sounded like research, not an inquiry into participation. Whatever alarms crawled the Internet, she hoped it wouldn’t set them off. It was an illegal, black-market operation, but these kids were somehow finding the clips without getting arrested.

  The first link was a winner. Stopthemaze.com.

  Sunny tipped the screen and clicked. The infamous icon faded onto the screen—the thick black lines contrasting with a stark white background.

  While the menus loaded, her heart sank into the refreshed memory of Grey lying peacefully in bed. Mission statements, personal stories, up-to-date newsfeeds from law enforcement, videos and links to report suspicion appeared.

  She wasn’t alone. There were others fighting back. Sunny clicked the “About” tab—

  “What is the Maze?”

  Quickly, she muted the sound and stopped a video, not that anyone would hear it over the music. She read the transcript.

  Why does the Maze exist? Money. Power. Those are the big ones. Participants are guaranteed a handsome payout, win or lose. Nine out of ten will, in fact, lose and have no understanding of their winnings that eventually goes to their families. Some see this as a means to help out desperate people in need, but the sad truth is that the Maze feeds on despairing souls to deliver power to the few behind it.

  It’s gambling with your mind.

  The winners, it is said, emerge with clarity of mind described by some as a state of enlightenment, although these claims have been disputed. Because winners are rarely heard from upon exiting the Maze.

  Grey could win.

  Sunny would benefit from his winnings. She couldn’t care less; money was not the cause of her suffering. But would Henk receive those winnings, too? That bastard would revel in that treasure whether Grey was a bodhisattva or a basket case.

  What am I thinking? He’s been kidnapped. And winners are rarely seen again.

  What was worse, seeing him drooling nonsense or never knowing what happened? Her hope continued a slow march to the gallows.

  Perhaps, the transcript continued, one of the most appealing draws of the Maze is something beyond fame and wealth. Some suggest the Maze is a spiritual journey, one that allows the true identity to escape the mortal coil, to be free of the desires inherent in the flesh. The creators of the Maze are rumored to be gods that created humankind as a vehicle to give birth to the mind and, in turn, imagine alternate realities as real as earth and stone. That the games and wealth and entertainment of the Maze are simply a means to deeper realization.

  Not all of the Maze games are blood and guts. Some are psychological thrillers designed to erase the personality so that the players find themselves in the Maze. And thus find the god-spark of creation.

  The true purpose of the Maze is a gift to set us free.

  Sunny wondered why a site devoted to stopping the Maze sounded more like an advertisement. There was nothing selfless about the Maze. The website’s personal stories segment proved that—tales of men and women, boys and girls, all losing out to a game, lured by the promises of money and everlasting peace.

  One story caught her attention, that of a single mother finding her son comatose. She had returned from work. He was on his bed. The mother managed to enter the Maze in search of him.

  Sunny rubbed her eyes. The names were not Grey and Sunny Grimm; the faces were different. The people different. It never said if she found him.

  She clicked the next link—ARE YOU A VICTIM?—but it circled back to the homepage, flashing the Maze icon before reloading the menus. One of the cooks was approaching, his greasy apron dangling around his neck. He balanced a small plate with a scone in one hand, a coffee cup in the other.

  Sunny nearly closed the laptop. He stopped just short of her table, turning to an old woman reading a book. She made room for the delivery, nodding her approval. She was bundled in an old coat, a multicolored scarf wrapped around her neck and a silk one around her head.

  Black saucer sunglasses.

  “Mrs. Jones?”

  She looked like a blind cancer victim, but deftly handled the knife and fork to cut the scone. It was the same floral scarf around her head, perhaps even the same clothes as the last time Sunny had seen her in the apartment. A bit more wrinkled.

  She slowly chewed a wedge, dismissing the cook with a nod, and thumbed a page of a hardback book. A queer quiver rode a wave of gooseflesh down Sunny’s back. Perhaps Mrs. Jones was a regular at Coffee Beaned. Sunny was a first-timer. It felt like she was being followed by the old woman.

  Or someone.

  “You should be careful.” Mrs. Jones jabbed the fork at the wall.

  Sunny looked over her shoulder. A hazy mirror hung loosely on a rusty wire, the angle aimed at the laptop and the logo filling the screen. She slammed it closed. A young couple looked in her direction.

  The mirror hadn’t been there when she got there, or had she been too caught up with the bullwhip? Her focus was fuzzy, attention drained by sleep deprivation.

  “A bad idea in public,” Mrs. Jones said.

  “I was just…” Sunny trailed off. Any explanation was too much. And Mrs. Jones wasn’t interested in one, returning to her book. “Have you seen anything?” Sunny said. “At my apartment?”

  Her apartment already felt like someone else’s home. If it’s not my home, where do I belong? Where have I been? She’d lost track of time, unsure how long she’d been away, what day of the week it was. She slid the laptop under her arm. Self-conscious, she preferred to be where no one recognized her.

  “What do you wish to accomplish?”

  Mrs. Jones pointed with the fork, this time at the laptop. Sunny’s twin reflections looked back from the old woman’s large black ovals. A whirlpool swirled in Sunny’s head, the disorientation that followed an extended ride on a merry-go-round, the curse of vertigo. She held the edge of the table, poised to start walking, when the floor settled beneath her feet.

  “Will you watch my apartment,” she said, “while I’m gone.”

  She choked on the words, forcing them through a thicket of emotion. Mrs. Jones couldn’t call her; Sunny didn’t have a phone. She didn’t have anything.

  She teetered for a moment, leaned toward the exit and let her momentum carry her forward.

  “It’s not there,” Mrs. Jones said. “What you’re looking for.”

  Laptop clutched to her chest, Sunny stopped at the table, frowning back at the old woman cutting another dry wedge off the scone.

  “What?”

  The cook returned to the table and leaned over Mrs. Jones’s shoulder. She told him the food was good, that she would like another coffee in five minutes. And to bring Sunny a cup, too. Both black. That was how they liked it.

  Dutifully, he returned.

  The chair opposite Mrs. Jones slid out, the toe of her boot nudging it. Sunny pushed it back under the table.

  “Do you know something?” Sunny said.

  Mrs. Jones dabbed her mouth with a napkin and thoughtfully returned it to her lap before sipping her coffee. When she looked up, Sunny’s twin reflections stared back.

  “I lost my son to the Maze,” Mrs. Jones said.

  She didn’t whisper, didn’t cringe. She threw the word out like she’d said daisy or belt buckle. The laptop made tiny popping noises in Sunny’s tightening grip.

  “What?”

  “It’s true. Curiosity, ignorance, the folly of youth—the things that define an adventurous young man are the reasons why they get caught in trouble they can’t escape. I’m sure you know what I mean, Sunny.”


  She forked another bite.

  “They have to be willing to enter the Maze. My son was tricked. I know it sounds like something a mother tells herself late at night, and I did that often, but this is true. He was manipulated into the Maze. The young are so trusting sometimes. Adults too ruthless. Innocence is a troubling time, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Your son.” Sunny nodded at the book. “He took the punch?”

  Mrs. Jones looked down, having forgotten she had been reading, perhaps. She slid it off the table, placed it in a large bag by her chair, but not before revealing the hardcover.

  Foreverland.

  It appeared to be an investigative work on the incident. She knew about it; the entire world knew about it. It was also the very same event Grey had been researching before he…

  “He was lost,” Mrs. Jones said, “like so many before him. The mind is vast and endless.”

  She adjusted the silk scarf, pulling it over her eyebrows. Did the needle hurt? Was it as painless as anesthesia, instantaneously clipping out a segment of time, transporting him to another place?

  Those were the thoughts Sunny had, the thoughts she imagined Mrs. Jones had entertained night after night as she cupped her coffee in both hands.

  “Did you find him?” Sunny asked.

  “I went looking, of course. A mother can’t help feel sorrow, a certain degree of regret and responsibility. It’s unimaginable, the pain. Of course, you know that.”

  The cook returned with two cups of coffee. Mrs. Jones thanked him. Sunny stared into the steam, the surface as black as the old woman’s glasses.

  “Do you know what I found?” Mrs. Jones said. “The Maze is an unsolvable mystery, what the Buddhists call a koan, a question that can’t be answered. All those silly games people play, the ones where they shoot and kill and rape, are just masturbation. The Maze is truly a swirling riptide of existence, an eternal free fall. It’s illogical, a series of contradictions, one fallacy after another meant to pull apart conceptions. It’s a place where time stretches into a never-ending moment, an immortal cycle of searching. It’s a mouse on a wheel.”