“Get down!” she screams, but for some reason, I can’t hear her. I feel like I’m losing the ground from below my feet and at that moment, everything changes...
...the light comes again, only, this time, it’s not blinding. I can see everyone around me and even feel the air whip my face.
I’m free at last.
Dark Jay, my other side, isn’t strong enough to speak right now. After the cube activated, and for some reason he lost his footing, he also lost his focus for a fraction of a second, just enough for me to take over. Now, I’m the one holding the shining cube, and I will be the one to make this decision.
The cube starts growing around me, growing fast enough that I thought it would enclose the whole planet inside it. I can’t feel the tips of my fingers anymore, and everything around me is frozen still. The building is collapsing around us, and Eladia has jumped towards me, trying to save me. The black-haired man is still grinning like everything is going according to his plan. Maybe it did go according to his plan until now. Now that I’m here, though, I can take matters into my own hands again.
“Jasih...” I hear a female voice calling me.
I raise my head and look at her; she’s even more beautiful than she was back then when she gave her life to protect me.
“Lenora...you’re really here,” I say.
“It has been a long time since we last saw each other. You’ve changed quite a bit. You’re...different.”
She’s right; I don’t feel like the man I was before.
“Lenora...I’m sorry that I’m asking you this, but can you please save her? I don’t want her to die here if it’s possible.”
With a nod, she envelops her with a radiating light and slowly moves her away from the crumbling building. When she makes sure she’s safe, she returns to me.
“Now, tell me Jasih. What is your choice? Will you choose war or peace?”
I take a moment to savor her image; her hair is golden, and her face seems serene. She doesn’t blink, she just looks at me, stoically. Regret overtakes my feelings, but I don’t let it consume me. I’m here to stop the cube from killing anyone, and that’s the only thing I will do.
“I choose nothing, sweet Lenora. I choose life. Only that. Peace and war are two sides of the same coin like me and Dark Jay were all this time. You can’t have the one without having the other. Peace can be maintained only if there’s life, to begin with, so I choose life, and I leave the other choices to the world.”
Lenora smiles. “Then, that’s the way it will be.”
She lowers her head and looks around her; countless lights shine throughout the city. If I have to guess, then I think that she used her powers to cure all those who could be cured, and lay to rest all those that should have laid so long ago.
After this is over, she looks at me one last time. “Now, the cube needs a new guardian. You have an hour before you have to surrender yourself to the cube; an hour reserved for goodbyes. Use it well, Jasih.”
And just like that, she vanishes into thin air.
I look around me and see the building exploding in pieces. It seems that I’ll spend this hour moving up and down this space frozen in time. I decide to head towards Eladia when...
...when I manage to take control of our body once again.
What? How...how did you do that?
Jasih is panicking inside my body, trying to understand.
“Well, my old friend, your wife never meant you. I’m the new guardian of the cube; I’m the sacrifice needed for all those people to come back to life. That’s the only reason I ever lived in the first place. Your wife brought me to life all these years ago only to die right here, right now. I was never meant to love or be loved. I was just a helpless parasite,” I say out loud.
I never thought possible for a man like me to shed any tears, but in the end, I do just that.
Six months later….
Epilogue
Chapter Seventy
Alyce
Epilogue
“People believe what they want to believe. You, Jean, a professional journalist, I’m sure you understand what I’m talking about,” I say slowly and clearly to Jean, the hostess of the special online tribute titled ‘Mosa—the City that Came Back to Life.'
I was the only public onlooker of the incident so my opinion matters to the rest of the world. I still don’t understand why, but it does.
She laughs warmly although I know she’s faking it. She only invited me to throw dirt at the Phadh as a species, but I won’t let her shame me like that. I had to fight with my father many times to allow me to come here today. It’s the least I can do to honor his memory after all.
“So, you’re telling me that things didn’t happen exactly as you reported to the Known Galaxy’s Alliance council?”
A special wooing sound comes from the speakers. We’re alone in the studio, but it still feels like we’re sitting in front of a big crowd.
“I’m just saying that people tend to believe what they are naturally inclined to believe. For example, journalists wanted to believe that this attack was a conspiracy of the humans trying to overtake the First Rank and gain control of the Galaxy, but it’s not as simple as that. You can’t blame a whole species for the wrongs of one man.”
No crowd effects; I’m doing okay it seems.
“Hmm. Okay. So why don’t you tell us more about the person that managed to warp the system around his fingers?”
“Mr. Terasaka is a bright man, Jean. He always was and, unfortunately, always will be. However, being bright doesn’t mean that he isn’t an intergalactic terrorist, the first of his kind. Finding him and dealing with him is a pressing matter, one that every member of the Ranked Species are trying to attend to as efficiently as we can.”
This is the formal answer of the council to the world. If I even changed one word, my dad and I could be prosecuted and spend the rest of our days in a prison somewhere in the corners of the galaxy. Agreeing with every word makes it easier to lie to the world.
“That’s awfully familiar; I believe you just quoted the formal answer of the council to the letter, Alyce. Don’t you think it’s a highly suspicious tactic when you have to fall back into the official report to answer a question?”
Once again, she laughs like we’re the best friends since we were kids. Only that she was born two hundred years too late to challenge me. Situations like this are routine for the daughter of the ambassador of the Phadh.
“So, you would rather I lie than specifically quote the truth, especially when it’s a report issued by the council? I think you’re a pretty clever woman, Jean. If you’re hunting for a juicy topic, then I’d honestly beg you to do it in your own free time, not the time your viewers dispose to watch the news and learn the truth.”
No crowd effect again. She’s making me sound like I’m a bitch, which doesn’t do wonders for the Phadh image right now. Humans and the Phadh have openly started hostilities against each other, hostilities that could easily lead to an open war soon. The fact that I was kidnapped in the middle of a crisis management meeting, it doesn’t make things better. Maybe we got off one crisis by nullifying the cube threat, but this Terasaka guy obviously had another trick up his sleeve.
“No, no. You’re right, Alyce. But these are questions that our viewers do to us all the time, and we thought who better to answer them than the public face of the Mosa Incident? But, if I’m correct, you didn’t do everything alone. You had a dedicated crew of assassins and Chroniclers and even an alien that could change the color of his skin or something. What part of these stories are true and what part is just fiction?”
She’s trying to change the subject by opening up an even harder one. She can’t match me in political speech, so she just turned our interview into pure gossip. The truth is that she has some pretty strong sources to be able to find reports about Jasih and Eladia and even the Organization.
“Well, as you probably imagine, there are many things that are true and even mor
e things that sound true but certainly are not. For one, people on Mosa weren’t all undead zombies that came back to life as you’re letting the world believe. When we arrived, most of the danger has been regulated by the local forces. We just tended to the survivors.
“Also, there’s a great misinterpretation of the word assassin. In the report, the word is written with the first letter in uppercase. So, the Assassins is a mercenary group that was hired by the local forces to take care of the last details of the cleaning operation before the Purge. As for the Chronicler, again, we’re talking about a misinterpretation of the title. There was a Chronicler’s Assistant, an abandoned android that helped with the operation by providing it's highly advanced scanning services and knowledge of the Known Galaxy Archives. But that’s it.
“As for the last part of your question: pure fiction. There was no alien we haven’t encountered yet, especially not one changing colors or whatsoever.”
I smile at the end of my answer, hoping I did my part to conceal the story from the rest of the world. The less the publicity of this incident, the easier it’ll be in the future for the Humans and the Phadh to start peace talks. However, how long in the future, I don’t know.
Also, I hope I helped Eladia and Jay spend the rest of their lives unfettered. As for the Organization...well, let’s just say that Pyro was quite convincing when he told me that the Organization isn’t something that the rest of the world has to know.
“Phew, that is a relief of some sorts. This is the first report we take from an official member of the council regarding the questions about the saviors of the galaxy, but it seems that we were wrong again after all. Thank you for clarifying our mistakes, Alyce. Now, I have one last question for you, the most pressing of them all.”
Shit. I thought we were done with all these questions.
“The report states that there was a Nusae Relic retrieved from the foundations of the City Hall on Mosa. Is that in any way connected with the terrorist actions of Mr. Terasaka or it was found there by pure accident?”
I should have anticipated that this question would appear on the show. After the retrieval of the cube, Chroniclers analyzed it and easily unlocked it to reveal technology that vastly improved our space travels. But, for the relic to appear at a place like that, in the eye of the storm, it surely drew much unneeded attention to the incident. Many people think that the Alliance is trying to conceal the fact that not only Yaerus was in danger, but the whole galaxy.
Well, they’re right, but are they really expecting us to tell them the whole truth about the incident? Panic would erupt in every planet of the Known Galaxy and the hostilities would climate to war almost instantly. Yeah, I have to lie about it...again.
“Pure accident. Think it like that. Even in the middle of a great loss, the Nusae Relic is a bud of hope, giving us the power we need to get over this misfortune. Intergalactic travel is now optimized. Already, ten missions are preparing to start a journey to the outer rings of the Known Galaxy. It was an exaggeration to talk about a United, Known Galaxy when we haven’t even explored half of it. But, with those new engines, we’ll make sure we expand our reach to the outer rings of our current reach.”
The crowd suddenly cheers and claps, probably signaling the end of my interview. I want to sigh and run out of the set as fast as I can, but the cameras are still rolling. Jean sends me off with a long and tear-jerking monolog, but she doesn’t hesitate to hint that ‘being an elected member of the council means that I’m probably bound to the council’s opinion.’ At that moment, she introduces a popular conspiracy theorist, probably the same person that spouted every kind of nonsense about the incident. It’s his job, after all, something to do for a living.
I get out of the set and walk outside. Mosa is still in very bad shape, but people have returned, and even new businesses are booming. To be honest, it’s a miracle that not more people didn’t die. Eladia managed to brief me up about everything that happened before fleeing with the platinum-skinned Jasih. How the cube instead of destroying cured the people; how Jasih woke up back to his platinum self, unable to change back anymore; how Dale gave his life to save everyone.
I always thought of myself as a strong, fearless person, a woman of the people, someone that would only speak the truth even it was harsh and cold. But, after letting Eladia cry on my shoulder when she told me about Dale’s death and even saw Jasih turn his head and walk away, tears running down his eyes, I couldn’t do it.
His last will was to protect the Galaxy even at the cost of his own life, and by lying to the world, I decided to honor it with my own, imperfect way.
A tear leaves the premises of my eyes; I promise that it’s the last tear I shed for Dale Cross, the man I never officially met.
Chapter Seventy-One
Eladia
Epilogue
Walking while in labor has started to bother me. I’m six months in, my belly swelled up and heavy, and still, I can’t stop visiting all these Nusae ruins.
Today we’re in planet Ziurus, discovering another Nusae relic indicating the existence of the Cube and of another civilization way before humans, way before time itself. It was that civilization that created the Cubes and the same civilization that left behind it a massive Great Mystery, the likes of it no one has ever seen.
“Honey? Where are you?”
It’s him, Jay. He’s the one that has led me to this site.
“Down here, baby! Follow the lights,” I say and grab my back, trying to alleviate some of the pain I’m feeling there.
Usually, I want to piss every two minutes, and I’m hungry like I haven’t eaten for days, but when I’m inside an ancient Nusae site, it’s like my little angel understands my need for knowledge and stops squeezing my bladder all the time. I already know that he, or she, will become a great Chronicler.
“Eladia! What I’ve told you? No ruin-exploring by yourself. What if the ruins collapse on your head? What would happen then?”
“Relax, Jay. I got Pioneer here to check three times before entering. If there was a crack on the walls or anything indicating the ruins are dangerous, I wouldn’t venture in here all by myself.”
Jay looks at me with disbelief. Pioneer is our little assistant robot, a small spherical-shaped robot that flies around me all the time and helps me with my research.
“Really? Pioneer, show me a catalog of your last recorded scans,” Jay suddenly says.
“Okay, okay. You got me red handed. I didn’t quite check it, but my experience tells me that the site won’t collapse. Isn’t that a good enough reason?”
He smiles at me and shakes his head; he does that a lot since I got pregnant with his child.
“You’re crazy, you know that?”
“Yeah, but that’s why you love me after all,” I reply to him.
He moves close to me and gives me a kiss on the lips. I kiss him back and pull him closer to me. My huge belly doesn’t allow me to feel his throbbing cock in my vagina, but hell, I can’t wait to get back on the spaceship and fuck like bunnies, all night. Pregnancy hormones get me horny all the time so I can’t get enough of him.
“Well, you seem like you’re in the mood again,” he says, trying to keep a calm face but not quite managing it.
“You know me. I’m in the mood every second. It’s the hormones. You’re like a big, hot sausage to me, and I want to keep eating you until I’m stuffed.”
He laughs out loud and hugs me; I laugh as well. “That was weirdly hot. But now we have to keep on with this research. We’re close to discovering another Nusae Relic. Maybe, this time, we’ll get a time machine,” he says.
“Or tastier food?” I continue his sentence. “Yeah, I would like that,” I say.
He moves deeper into the ruins laughing, leaving me behind in the anteroom of the temple. There are many kinds of signs on the walls, most of them not even recognizable by Pioneer. It’s not that he can’t translate them, is that there are no immediate translations from the K.G.A. That mean
s that this site is of Nusae origins and that we probably have to scan the whole room to get an answer.
Still, it’s amazing that after so long, we’re still able to find new ruins almost every other week. Jasih is an endless pit of Nusae and Esuh knowledge, especially after his memories returned.
I didn’t know anything about his life before the incident on Mosa, but since then, after we left Mosa he told me everything about his visions and his wife being inside the cube from the beginning, trying to protect him. It somehow moved me. Their relationship was strong, strong enough to span a whole century, strong enough for her to control the power of the Cube and save him, us, everyone.
Lenora is the true hero of the story; her, Dale, and Dark Jay. It’s the anniversary of half a year since the incident, meaning that six months passed. Sadly, it feels like a whole life away from where I’m standing today. Thinking back, I still wonder why Dale never told me the name of his lover; I could have made sure to bury them together or something. But it seems he didn’t want that.
He wanted for his life to mean something, even if his name would only remain in the archives of the Organization as the Legendary Swamp. It was a rough life the one he lived.
When he told me his plan to set a bomb in the City Hall, one strong enough to bring down the building, I thought he was crazy. Still, he somehow managed to think ten moves ahead, taking into consideration that Jay wasn’t in the mental condition to decide the destiny of the whole Galaxy, while also wanting to take down the other black-maskers with him and give us time to get out.
However, he didn’t have a remote detonator for the explosives, so the only way to follow through his plan was to detonate them himself, sacrificing himself in the process. I knew that, and I walked away to save the man I love the most, the father of my child, Prime Officer Jasih. If it wasn’t for Dale, the other Jay would have chosen to drive humans into extinction, renewing a long cycle of deaths and revenge. If it wasn’t for Dale, Mosa would still be a wasteland of undead humans and destroyed buildings.
Jasih: Paranormal Sci-Fi Alien Romance (Àlien Mates Book 2) Page 31