by Lucia Ashta
Tanus crossed his arms over his chest in the seat next to me, remembered he was injured, and let his hands flop on the seat. I had no doubt he was noticing that Yudelle continually prioritized Aletox over him.
I wanted to reach for his hand, but I didn’t dare. I wasn’t sure if he’d meant to sit next to me, or if it was just how things worked out as we piled into the van. If I wasn’t used to loving a man, I was even more unused to having to work to be loved back. I had no intention of starting now. Either Tanus and I would come out of this together, or we wouldn’t. I might not be a princess—at least that was concluded—but I was a fine woman. The man whose love I would want would see that without tricks or persuasion.
I looked out the window to focus on the sights of Cairo—so different from what I was used to, even on Earth—mostly to distract myself from thoughts that wouldn’t accomplish anything useful. I had no desire to torture myself with ponderings about the future. Not a single one of us in this car could tell me what would happen in the next minute, let alone the next month.
Then Tanus took my hand. Warmth flooded my heart and all the worry it held despite my refusal to entertain it. I turned to face him and found him staring at me.
From the seat in front of us, the Princess turned to stare at me too, but mostly her eyes trailed down to where Tanus’ hand held mine.
He pretended he didn’t notice her displeasure, though it was obvious he did. Her violet eyes were like laser beams pointed at us.
But he had eyes only for me in that moment, and I offered him a smile that contained all the hope that pulsed through my chest, that what we shared meant something beyond worlds, beyond pasts and futures. That he continued to give life to the love that had changed my life forever.
It was Jordan that finally interrupted the moment, the one I wished would never end. But after he posed his question, my mind wouldn’t quiet.
He was next to the Princess in the seat directly behind Yudelle. The Princess and Jordan weren’t holding hands, but I noticed they sat close together. He asked the whole cabin, “If Tanus looks like me, and Ilara looks like, uh, Ilara, and if Yudelle looks like my mother, then does that mean that on this other planet there’s also someone that looks like my father?”
I answered, “Probably. On O the King looks like my father from here on Earth.”
“And your mother?”
“I didn’t see my mother...” Why hadn’t I thought of that? Did the dead Queen look like my mother?
Tanus realized it too. His eyebrows drew up. But he said, “It’s probably not just on O either. From what Aletox said, these holographic occurrences happen on lots of different worlds, across the universe, I imagine, wherever there’s human life.”
“And who’s Aletox?” Jordan asked.
“Tanus and Narcisse’s father,” Yudelle said, knowing that neither of her sons were going to be the ones to say it. “He’s ill and hasn’t yet woken since I found him. He’s on a bed in the other van.”
“So I’ll be able to see whether this Aletox looks like my dad.”
“It looks like it,” Tanus said. “And what about Narcisse? Do you have a brother that looks like him?”
All eyes traveled to Narcisse in the back row. “No, I don’t have any brothers, or sisters for that matter. I’m an only child.”
Tanus glared at the back of Yudelle’s seat. He might not have blamed Narcisse for being born, but he blamed their mother for plenty of our troubles.
“If we exist as replicas across the universe,” I said slowly, working the thought out while I spoke, “then what does that mean as far as the idea of destiny or free will? I mean, if our parents look the same and have children that look the same, then doesn’t that suggest that it’s decided ahead of time how someone’s life will develop? That two people will come together and fall in love and procreate?”
Everyone in the van was listening, even Yudelle.
“Although none of that accounts for why Jordan doesn’t have a brother when Tanus does, or what happens when two sets of the same replicas fall in love with each other. Jordan, you love or loved the Princess, didn’t you?”
His face softened. “I did. Still do, I suppose.”
The Princess’ shoulders relaxed fractionally. I saw it even if she didn’t say or do anything at first. Then she reached for Jordan’s hand, shielded from view by the seat back.
That was good, I thought. The Princess could love Jordan all she wanted, especially if it kept her from loving Tanus.
But I wanted to get to the bottom of this. “So if it’s already decided that we’ll come together with a certain person, across all worlds, let’s say, then where’s our free will to choose whom we want to love? And if we can’t choose whom we love, then what else don’t we get to choose? All of it? None of it?”
“Maybe we love the person we do because it’s what feels right to us,” Tanus said, and I knew in my heart he was talking about the love he and I shared. My heart fluttered and I lost myself for a second to the green of his eyes that pulled me in like a whirlpool, leading me to his center. “Maybe not having a choice isn’t a bad thing, because we’re led to what’s on the right path for us. Maybe it’s because every part of us is made to fit perfectly with a specific other person.”
And his parts fit mine quite nicely, if I let myself remember, which I was. I giggled, and immediately tried to regain my composure.
Tanus realized precisely what experience his words delivered me to, and he smiled too. It was a naughty smile and I loved it.
From next to Narcisse, Kai said, “What about the rest of us then? Are there replicas of all of us? Of Dolpheus, Lila, and me? And Narcisse? Or, Yudelle, did you ever see another you on Sand?”
“I didn’t realize there were these holographic occurrences until you all arrived to tell me about them. I’ve never seen anyone like any person from Sand until now.”
“How’d you find Jordan?” I asked the Princess, because that was a big deal. How did she arrive on a foreign planet to call to her the one man she wanted out of seven billion plus?
She didn’t turn to look at me, but at least she answered. “I called him to me. Just as I said earlier. I was calling to Tanus, and Jordan heard me.”
“I traveled across the world to reach her,” Jordan said.
“Really?” I said. “You realized she was calling you?”
“Of course I didn’t. But I felt a compulsion to go to Byron Bay. I didn’t understand why, but I knew I had to go. I canceled all my classes indefinitely and took off that same day. I’d never done anything like that before, and my students were upset with me. But even though I’d spent years building up my clientele at the dojo, when I saw her walking the beach, staring at me, drawing me to her like she was a drug and I was the junkie, I didn’t regret a thing.”
“And do you regret it now?” the Princess asked.
“I haven’t decided yet, but I don’t think so.”
That was a pretty generous answer considering what it sounded like she’d put him through.
“Does that mean you were destined to meet her?” I asked. “Did you have no other choice? Would you have met me instead if she hadn’t traveled to this planet and I hadn’t traveled to hers to meet Tanus?”
“Well, you’ll have to figure all that out later,” Yudelle said, “because we’ve arrived. Though I’m going to offer a bit of advice since I’ve lived longer, by centuries, than anyone in this vehicle. There are some things in life that you just need to let go of. Some things aren’t meant to be figured out, they’re meant to be lived. And some things can’t be fathomed no matter how hard you try. Take the blessings you have and enjoy them, because you never know when they might be taken from you.”
That was definitely enough to silence me. My head was already starting to hurt from trying to figure out what I feared might actually be unfigure-outable.
We were out in the middle of nowhere, and into that nowhere, we descended.
12
St
raight out of a spy movie, a hidden gate emerged from bare desert. Out of nothing appeared something that was blowing my mind. Who was Yudelle? Or rather, who had she become while on Earth?
I’d read enough vampire books to have an idea of what a person could accomplish with what amounted to immortality. Yudelle had been on Earth for centuries. That was enough time to amass a significant amount of wealth, especially if one was intelligent, and the woman was definitely that. When playing the long game, more options opened up, and it seemed to me that she’d taken advantage of every single one of these options.
Our driver reached into an opening in the rock sized just for a hand and waited. When the security scan was complete, including, it looked like, a pulse check to make sure no intruder could use a severed hand to gain admittance, the gate slid open silently. Its double doors disappeared into the rock on either side of the entrance, allowed our van entry, and closed behind us immediately, despite the fact that another of Yudelle’s vans followed. They’d have to undergo their own security check, apparently.
We entered a long tunnel, illuminated by recessed lighting that did little to dispel an eerie sense of mystery. The tunnel was long and quiet, and everyone in our van was silenced, I assumed, by the same awe and discomfort I was experiencing.
I couldn’t take it anymore. “What is this place?”
“My research facility,” Yudelle said.
“It’s all yours?”
“Yes. You can’t do the kind of research I’m doing and have someone looking over your shoulder while you do it.”
“Surely someone knows this place exists.”
“No one.”
“Not even the government or some secret agency?”
“No one,” she repeated.
“But surely it isn’t possible to build a facility of this size without someone finding out something about it somewhere along the line.”
“It wasn’t easy, but I managed it.”
“Was it kind of how they say the pyramids were built? That the pharaohs killed everyone who worked on their design and most important construction so that no one living could reveal their secrets?” I laughed uncomfortably at my joke. The lights flickered across our faces.
“Something like that,” she said, and my awkward smile became shock. “Although by now, I imagine you’ve realized that nothing about the condensers is as Sanders’ history explains it.”
I was too stunned by her suggesting she might’ve done away with those who built her underground lair to reply.
Jordan said, “If this is all yours, how did you finance it?”
“I’ve built up my own fortune since I’ve been here.”
“How? What do you do?”
“Among other things, I’m a tech consultant to several different cutting-edge industries. This, of course, has changed over the centuries.”
I was stuck wondering what the ‘other things’ might be when Jordan said, “Centuries? Are you serious?”
“Of course I am. I’m always serious.” I could hear the smile in her voice. “Unless I’m not.”
“How long have you lived?” Jordan said.
“Nearly five and a half centuries.”
I watched Jordan, who was far more composed than I’d been when I’d first learned this fact.
I asked, “Does time work the same way here as it does on O?”
The Princess said, “I’ve wondered this too.”
“From what I’ve seen,” Yudelle said, “yes, it does, although it’s nearly impossible to be sure since I haven’t been back, and you’re the first to come here from O.”
“What year did you arrive on Sand?” I asked. For once it seemed that simple math might provide an answer.
“I arrived in what your historians now call the Renaissance. It was the year 1582.”
Although my jaw was slack, I managed to get it to work. Because I just had to know more. “You lived here during the Renaissance? That’s incredible!”
“Well, I didn’t live here precisely. I first arrived in Europe, and I traveled much of the world, searching for the right spot to build my home and wait.”
“You were waiting for Aletox.”
“Yes.”
“That’s a long time to wait.” A smidgen of sympathy burgeoned to life in me. I didn’t like what Yudelle had done to Tanus, but it couldn’t have been easy to do what she’d done and come out of it as well as she did. “From what I learned, the Renaissance wasn’t a particularly safe era.”
“This planet has never been safe. But neither was O. I was used to navigating the treachery, and I was fortunate to understand that disease and aging doesn’t affect us unless we let them. Sanders are all too ready to believe in their own limitations, so they have a very great many of them. But I knew better, and once Narcisse arrived, I was able to teach him the ways of O.”
“That isn’t the way for everyone on O,” Tanus said.
“No, it isn’t, but it is for you, my son, is it not?”
“Yes. I taught myself more than what most Oers believe possible. On my own,” he emphasized, “with Dolpheus’ help.”
“My son owes you a great deal, it would seem, Dolpheus,” Yudelle said.
“Less than I owe him,” Dolpheus said. “We were orphans who became brothers.”
“There’s no need for exaggeration here. Tanus wasn’t an orphan. He had Aletox and Brachius.”
“We were orphans,” the two soldiers said at the same time.
For once, Yudelle seemed to know better than to insist.
I changed the subject. “I added it up, and it seems that time moves very much the same on Earth as it does on Origins. That’s good.”
“That’s very good,” the Princess said, “but that means I’ve been gone from my home for more than three years.”
“It was a very long three years,” Tanus said.
“For me too,” she said.
I changed the subject again. I’d never seen Tanus this reminiscent or melancholic. “Yudelle, what exactly did you do to finance this place? Consulting paid for all this? It’s pretty impressive.” And we’d only just finished traversing the long tunnel.
“I have many roles, but the one that funds most of this is my advisory position on the boards of several tech companies.”
“And what do you advise on?” Was this woman going to make me ask her every little thing? Couldn’t she just spit out her secrets, already?
She sighed, affirming her continued reluctance to explain anything about herself. “You’ve seen some of the ways crystals are used on O?” she asked me.
“Some of them, yes.”
Suddenly, Tanus was very interested. He moved forward in his seat and said, “They’re used in all sorts of things, comms, wands, operating panels.”
“Exactly. Well, when the world was ready, I showed certain scientists how to use crystals in their technology.”
“Are you for real?” Jordan said. “Are you saying that you introduced the use of quartz crystal into technology on this planet?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
He whistled.
“What?” I asked. I was impressed too, but I was obviously missing the full impact of her admission.
“No wonder you’re filthy rich,” he said to Yudelle. To me, he said, “Quartz crystal is used in basically every piece of modern tech we have. LCD panels, TVs, computers, cell phones, you name it, it uses crystals as its main component.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, the crystal works to transfer and store information. It’s actually pretty amazing. The crystals are used to transmit energy. They’re behind everything.”
“Wow, I didn’t realize that.” But now I understood how one woman could afford to build a hi-tech underground lair as snazzy as this one.
The driver parked in a spot obviously designed for a vehicle just this size, and we started streaming out of the van. I stretched my legs and my back. The drive had been long, but I wasn’t about to complai
n. The more I learned about what was going on, the more I realized how lucky we were to have evaded whatever the equivalent of the SWAT team would be in this area.
Tanus patted his blades reassuringly while we waited for the second van to pull into its place next to us. Yudelle waited until Aletox was wheeled out with his IV stand and monitors, and then said, “Follow me.”
We did. It seemed like we were all at her mercy now—her and her tech. At least the woman was our ally, or could be if she chose.
We didn’t all fit in the elevator, and I ended up in the first ride with her, Tanus, Narcisse, Aletox, and one of her henchmen.
A constant beep confirmed that Aletox still fought the infection that waged war on his body. By the time Yudelle found us by the Pyramid and the Sphinx, Aletox was unconscious. He’d lost too much blood. The hyenas tore open the flesh of his thigh near the main artery, and the surgeon said he was lucky even to be alive. Doctors were pumping antibiotics through him as fast as they could, but even they didn’t dare predict whether he’d live or die.
Yudelle’s gaze drifted to the man she’d loved for centuries, holding out hope that somehow, against impossible odds, she’d see him again. Now here he was. They’d managed to reunite, even if it didn’t seem that Aletox realized it yet.
If they’d managed to cross space to find each other, then we had a real chance of achieving our goals—once we figured out what they were. I’d lost track of them somewhere along the way, probably when the transport capsule did a remarkable job of shaking my insides loose.
My insides were squirming uncomfortably again as we sank downward, beneath the surface of the Earth, where no one would ever find us.
13
Whatever might be said about Yudelle, she knew how to set up a secret underground lab. The large room she led us to was sleek and modern. Its walls were bare and shiny, and hid recessed panels that sprang to life at the swipe of a hand with the correct digital imprint.
She didn’t bother to explain anything before getting Aletox set up and comfortable.