by Lesley Young
When I’m not being overtly studied by medical specialists, exo-biologists, and astro-engineers, I’m under a form of radical lockdown, which means I can move around somewhat freely, but I’m always being monitored. Freedom’s a thing of the past. My life’s changed. But then, I guess I knew it would.
I visited with Jordanna once not too long after I was brought here. She brought me a new book. I was surprised that it wasn’t one I already had. At the time, she didn’t know what I was, probably didn’t know of sifts or Aeons, but she would by now. ESE explained everything to everyone last week. I believe they had to in order to A: prepare forces to fight Aeon eventually, and B: protect me while using me to fight. She and I didn’t exactly chat, but she filled me in on cadet gossip. Come to think, I don’t remember her leaving.
I vacillate between which is worse—Daz being lost to me forever, or the universe. Even saying that . . .
I didn’t tell ESE anything about my encounter with Lai or the leader of Aeons, Lochmore, the Amaranthine Compact, or my need to find the Quintom. I told them I had no memory of being in the rift. I wish I didn’t remember. I know Lai was determined to die, but I can’t stop thinking about whether I couldn’t have done something different to help him. Aelita and her ridiculous warning from the future. I suspect her goal was to give me some kind of message that would prevent Lai from dying. There are so few sifters left now. Regret sickens me, so I block it. I want to stay like this, pretending, that I’m safe, that I can forget, forever.
Only these current circumstances will change. I know it.
I suspect ESE’s preparing to launch a massive surprise attack against the Thell’eons. After taking severe losses in space during the months I was trapped in the rift, humans were nearly beaten down by the brutes, thanks in large part to their super-fast ships. The Hathaway Shield is stellar in H2H situations, useless in space battles. But the brainiacs figured out a way to expand it to blanket ESE station and Earth just in time.
However ‘the bubble,’ as it’s referred to around here, left us in our current situation, a kind of stasis mode, barely managing to resource enough helium to power such a massive shield. The Thell’eons pulled back since they can’t do much to us right now. But we won’t sit idly here hiding beneath the bubble forever. Nope. Not ESE.
I’d prefer we did, stay here beneath this halo of protection. Hathaway tells me no rifts seem to occur when the shield is activated. They don’t know why. Who cares? As long as the shield’s activated, no Thell’eon sifter or Aeon, namely, Lochmore, has a way to reach me. I try not to focus on why he didn’t kill me, but I’d be a fool to think he let me live on a whim.
Anyway, it’s the first time I have felt peaceful since I was a child and my dej—, sifting, first began.
I’m not totally negligent. I ask Hathaway a few carefully guarded questions about the expanse, about dark energy, when he comes around, which is only when he’s studying me with this team. They’re trying to figure out a way to open rifts without me.
I think they are crazy. We need less rifts.
Hath is curious about my subtle questions, but too fearful to even begin to probe why. I think he feels sorry for me.
Professor Xeno’s my saving grace. He shows up every day and insists on several hours of finely monitored lectures. He sticks to hard facts, and for that I’m grateful. I just have to listen.
How ironic is it that the lessons I really need, like combat and astro physics, used to be my least favorite? Lt. Lazarus never returned to ESE, of course, what with his cover revealed. His espionage is the least of my concerns, though it niggles at me sometimes. I often picture his face when he said he was friends with Daz, how he genuinely seemed to want me to do well even if he had a hard way of going about it, though that makes sense if he was secretly Thell’eon. Again, doesn’t exactly sit right. No one was ever charged in Lt. Daria Preston’s murder. Another situation that doesn’t sit right. Not at all.
I haven’t seen King since the second night I got back. He came into my room, commanded the guards to leave, and blocked out a number of the Eyes I didn’t even know were there. He can do stuff that like, I suppose, since he’s second-in-command at SOSA, under Adm. O’Reilly.
I trusted that King knew what he was doing and watched, a little intimidated, from the downcore. He didn’t waste any time scrambling to take off his boots, or his jacket, or, hesitating momentarily, his shirt, before he climbed under the sheets, his pants on, and pulled me to him hugging me and kissing me ardently like I’d been gone for months. Of course, to him I had been gone for three.
The first words he spoke to me, after some time passed, should have surprised me. Lying inches apart, he whispered, “Say the word and I will take you away somewhere safe, away from rifts, with Hathaway Shields to protect us, somewhere deep in the core of the universe. We’ll live out our lives the way you want.”
I lay there, breathless at the prospect.
I never did respond.
Even now, I think about what he said. Live life the way I want. Live life the way I want. What is that?
Anyway, it’s too late now. I could have, if it were only the Amaranthine Compact I took with me. I could maybe wait and wait, with him, until we all . . . ended, or I died first.
But it isn’t only the pact I carry with me. It’s knowledge of Lochmore and the Quintom. And me, this role they both said I play. I replay Lai’s words over and over. Cassiel’s faith is the final providence. I don’t understand what he meant by that.
But I do know that if Lochmore finds this Quintom, whatever it is, and changes the expanse, he will destroy everyone who doesn’t join his Id. Even if there’s no right or wrong side—and I’m not certain that being consumed by ego is not wrong—he has no right to force such a choice on others.
I know, at the very least, that I need to know more, like what this Quintom is, and what it would do to the expanse. If it stops universes from expanding, what would happen to life? Nothing would end or be reborn. Could everything just carry on and on and on? Can the universes withstand us eternally? There must be a reason why the cosmos is constantly restarted, why change, or restarts, is the constant, natural state?
King stayed for a long time, holding me, caressing me. It was a tender reunion, full of innocent pleasure. I don’t know. Maybe he sensed something was different in me. The kind of lust that I expressed with him before felt dulled, under the confusion, under the weight of my lone burden, under the hopelessness of losing my brother, and somehow he knew just the right amount of comfort, healing me a little by tender, less demanding touch. Before he left, he warned me that he would be gone for weeks. “SOSA is working on ‘something big’ that could alter the current situation greatly to our advantage. I’ll have a big surprise for you when I return.” This last bit, he delivered with a hint of shyness, but I was more interested in getting the reassurance I needed that he would be safe than asking about this surprise. In turn, he wanted reassurance that I was okay, and I tried to give it to him, so he wouldn’t worry more than he already has to. “I’m safer than anywhere else on the sta—”
“Yes, but only while the shield is activated,” he interrupted. “The situation will change. And when it does, I meant what I said, say the word.”
What a wonderful fantasy I like to play out. Making house with King hidden far away.
I recall the restrained fervor of his gaze, between kisses, and touch my mouth, as if to remind myself, as a brief buzzer sounds indicating someone’s at the entrance. I think, What’s my state?
Dressed, yes. Did I mist today? Yes.
“Come in.”
Adm. O’Reilly enters, beaming. I’ve never seen him quite so happy.
This can’t be good.
He has become quite familiar to me, a regular pal. He needs me. I think he thinks he values me. I don’t care much either way. He informe
d me yesterday that I’m going back to active duty, lockdown active duty, that is. Soon. I think he has big plans for me. To train me or, well, who knows what. I’m just glad to fill my day with more distractions until I figure out what to do.
“Winters,” he says, like only he says. “You’ve got company.”
Company? I peer around his shoulder but see only my guards. Adm. O’Reilly steps off to the side, and I spin around in my chair, closing my com-tab.
A man moves into view and stands in the entrance.
He’s thin. Freshly shaven. I smell mint.
I’m certain the station stops mid-centrifuge.
Daz.
We take in each other.
He’s expectant, familiar, worried.
Me? I’m suspicious.
If it weren’t for that emotion on his face, that zeal that only he can wear, I would think someone was playing a trick on me. That he were some weird remote LightvisionTM.33 illusion.
“Daz?”
I stand up, shaky, unbelieving.
He moves toward me. His expression’s hard to watch.
He’s . . . worn thin.
When he’s close, I take a chance and rush to him, hugging him to me, making sure he’s real, deciding never to let go. Even when he tugs away, finally with force, and we stare at each other, I don’t believe it.
“Are you real?” I ask, pushing back finally, glancing at Adm. O’Reilly briefly.
“As real as real is,” says Daz, his voice much improved since the last time I saw him. No. Something about his glance. A new wariness on that playboy face of his.
“How?” I want to ask, but my mind switches track, “Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”
“I’m all RISH’d, Cass!” he says, rustling my hair.
I shrug his hand away, like I always do, and the unexpectedly familiarity of the exchange reminds me instantly, with the power of a supernova, of everything that I thought I’d lost. I’m about to burst into sobs, which I choke back quickly, thinking there’s no need for it. Not now. Maybe never again.
“Don’t cry,” he says, like he can read my mind, bringing me to him.
I’m hyper-aware of Adm. O’Reilly leaving the room.
“I’m not. I’m sorry,” I say solemnly. “I thought I would never see you again,” I add relieved to finally be alone.
“Ya weren’t supposed to,” he answers harshly, pushing me.
“What-what do you mean?’”
“Lai. The asset. The sifter.” He says this, watching me knowingly. “He was supposed to get you a message.”
“He did!”
Daz raises a brow at me questioningly, and not a little pissed.
“But, honestly, Daz, I thought I was crazy at the time. I didn’t know I was seeing across dimensions! Imagine a piece of paper appearing out of nowhere. You could have been less cryptic!”
Our mutual outrage, Winters through and through, strikes us both as ridiculous, I think. Anyway, I can’t help but laugh. And soon, he smiles. We are together. He’s really back.
“I let him go and hide as long as he got that message to you. Fucker,” adds Daz, ruefully.
I wait for the moment he glances up at me.
“He’s dead.” I mouth the words, where no Eyes can read my lips.
Daz covers his shock. SOSA trained him well. He even covers for me, too, my sadness for Lai no doubt evident on my face—he has no idea that the burden of regret is the real source—by telling me to sit down so he can fill me in. We both take chairs near my desk, but I pop up again, suddenly full of energy, wanting to make us espresso.
I am, almost, cheerful.
“The sifter Lai, he thought I was an ESE emissary when I found him,” starts Daz. “I could barely understand the little dude, with his weird way of speaking.”
Oh my stars, it’s so good to hear Daz’s voice again. I have to physically restrain myself from stopping what I’m doing to touch him again.
“He was injured, and seemed near to dying, though I couldn’t find a wound. He told me everything, what sifts were, how he was a sift, and he begged me to let him hide in the rift so that he wouldn’t go on being used as a weapon for killing.”
I listen to Daz, sitting down while the coffee brews, re-memorizing every aspect of his face. I think absently that, of course, Lai would not have told Daz about the Amaranthine Compact. Or Quintom. Or Lochmore.
“I probably would have stunned the little guy and took us on our way if it weren’t for you. Your ability. All the pieces fit together. Your premonitions. In that moment, I knew what you were, and I couldn’t let the same . . . things happen to you as Lai.” He says the last bit trailing off.
“But, clearly, you had other ideas,” he adds, glaring at me, brows drawn into angry slashes above his eyes. I’m used to that look.
I smile sadly, trying to express a flotsam of guilt and gratitude that can never quite be measured or repaid.
Yup. Not only did I not hide, I walked right into the fire. Of course, ESE didn’t have a clue, sending me over to Or’ic’s ship, that I was a sift. They didn’t know sifts were people. Adm. O’Reilly, who I’ve come to suspect resents SOSA having to work with ESE Command at all, confirmed what King told me in those brambles.
“Anyway, when I got back, I entered all the intel Lai gave me into the matrix,” says Daz, “and I headed straight to my pod, planning to pack up, get you from the Dome, and hide somewhere in the galaxy. That’s when King found me.” My head snaps up. “He insisted on knowing what I was doing. In a moment of near insanity, I mean, Cass, I thought I might be out of my mind, I told him the truth. About everything. You. I had to, in case something bad should happen, and it did. So it was the right thing to have done!”
My heart pounds in dull thumps against my chest. Daz is bracing for outrage that he told someone about my ability. But I’m reeling from the subsequent realizations. So that’s why King broke into the Dome in Indy months ago? He was there looking for me! To take care of me. Like he sort of eventually admitted. So he knew, all along, that I was a sifter?!
And that’s why he came for me on Taxata. Is any of it real? Yes! My heart pushes away that doubt. But why did he pretend not to know that I was a sifter? Why did he believe so strongly that ESE or SOSA had sent Daz on some secret mission?
Daz appears confused by my lack of immediate upset. Wait, maybe he doesn’t know about me and King being an item. Me and his best friend.
“Have you seen King?” I ask quietly.
He looks at me, as if guessing something’s up. “Yes. He’s just back today, a day after me. Why?”
Oh. So I guess King hasn’t told him about us.
Daz is eyeing me strangely.
Change the subject! “So what happened? How in the universe did you end up a hostage of that Thell’eon Prime Aardon?”
He shakes his head, then rubs his face. Phew. “I remember King walking me to the velo.” He whispers this next bit. “Promising to make up a cover, a mission report.” So that’s what he was doing with Daria in that report, making up a cover! So between then and Daz’s actual kidnapping, he thought Daz was coming for me on Earth. But when Daz disappeared, King had to have known then that he was in trouble. Why didn’t he just admit all this? Returning to full voice, Daz adds, “And that’s it. Nothing else.”
I stare at him, surprised. He means it. I know when Daz’s frustrated. He doesn’t know how he ended up in Prime Fuck Aardon’s clutches. He adds with disbelief, “O’Reilly says they suspect it was Lt. Lazarus. That he followed us, stunned me after King left, took me, and flew me straight into the bay of the waiting Horde nearby.”
“And?” I ask quietly.
“Nothing. I just . . .” He gives me a look, and I know he’s covering something.
Is h
e uneasy about Lt. Lazarus’s ‘guilt,’ too? It doesn’t make sense that Lt. Lazarus would be the one asking questions about Daz’s whereabouts if he was the reason for his kidnapping.
I momentarily wonder why King wasn’t in trouble for covering for Daz, then I think, because they don’t know. As a Lt. Colonel, there’s a lot King can get away with. A terrible, gray haunting feeling overcomes me.
“Cass.” Daz grabs my shoulder. “Are you okay? I mean, I know some of what you’ve been through.”
“I’m fine.” I smile, determined to alleviate his concern, to push aside mine own. “I’m as okay as okay is,” I say, using one of his favorite expressions. “Honest. Just a little distracted. And here’s a perfect example. How in the Jupiter did you get back to ESE?”
I assume ESE rescued him. I sit back, preparing to relish how they finally did it, how they destroyed Mr. Prime Fuck Aardon.
“Another Horde freed me.”
I choke on my espresso shot. Splattering coffee on me, coughing, I reach for a wipe.
Breathe.
I dab my watering eyes, leaning forward in my seat trying to hide my shock.
Impossible. Recovered, I raise my head, and Daz’s watching me like ESE Eyes.
Suspicious.
“Prime Or’ic,” he says, then pauses and my stomach drops, “and his unit engaged Aardon in a battle and won. They left me on Planet XYV-000067 with a communicator so I could call ESE. I don’t mind telling you they lost a few in that fight, and made an enemy of that Horde with certainty. Any idea why they would do that, Cass?”
He asks me this with his fatherly tone. He adds, “ESE would like to know as well.”
I’m flabbergasted.
Or’ic rescued my brother. Or’ic. He and the others, they freed my brother, for what?