Dominion Rising: 23 Brand New Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels

by White, Gwynn

  Paloma returned. She asked, “Do you want to see what I removed from your body?”

  I hadn’t expected that. I was shocked and frightened to look at it, but I said, “Sure.”

  Once again, Paloma left the room. She came back carrying a jar filled with clear green liquid. Placing it on the bed next to me, she said, “This is the twin whose stem cells will save the future of the human race.”

  I looked at the creature floating inside the jar. She was exactly like the scraggly doll image I’d seen in my mind, but with more detail. Crooked teeth and long stiff hair hung down from what looked like a leather stick. A shorter stick protruded from that one, perhaps a partially formed arm or leg. I tried to imagine her as a whole girl, as a sister I could have played and fought with, and grown into adulthood with.

  An image entered my mind. I saw thousands of little green-skinned girls who all had my brown eyes. My twin sister’s brown eyes. We had thousands of siblings we would never know. For someone who had grown up as an only child and lost her mother so early into adulthood, the thought of such a large family seemed magical.

  Paloma said, “Wait here.”

  She left with the jar.

  When she came back, she handed me and Cora what looked like transparent glass rocks—one for each of us. Encased within each were two long twisted hairs.

  Paloma said, “My gift to both of you: relics to mark the connection between your generation and future generations.” To me, she said, “Two hairs from your sister’s head.” To Cora, she said, “Two hairs from your deceased twin’s head. Does she have a name?”

  Cora said, “I had been torn between two names for Jade: Jade or Sapphire. I had a twin sister named Crystal whose death was extremely traumatic for me. I wanted to give my child a gem name, like hers. In memory of my sister. Jade’s twin should be named Sapphire.”

  I thought of Max Davenport, my hoarder client. Death and loss devastate us all. We’re all hoarders deep down, tucking away artifacts to remind us of the people we’ve been close to and the people we’ve loved. My biological mother had named me after the twin sister she’d lost. I was in a way a walking, talking, breathing artifact from an earlier time in her life. I clutched the relic in my hand. Sapphire was a bridge between my past and my future. She was a bridge between the past and future of the entire human race.

  I pictured a long line of people waiting to see the glass rock in my hand, long after I had died and left it behind. All the people had green skin. A metal plaque on the front of a clear box containing the stone said:

  Relic of Sapphire Frost. To Cora Frost and her twin daughters, Sapphire and Jade, we owe the continued survival of the human race.

  I learned something that day. You never know where you’ll find family. Sometimes it’s in the strangest place.

  THE END

  * * *

  Marilyn Peake writes in a wide variety of genres, mostly Science Fiction and Fantasy. You can find all her books on her website:

  www.marilynpeake.com

  * * *

  Newsletter:

  www.marilynpeake.com/newsletter

  About the Author

  USA TODAY Bestselling Author Marilyn Peake writes in a variety of genres, mostly Science Fiction and Fantasy. She’s one of the contributing authors in Book: The Sequel, published by The Perseus Books Group, with one of her entries included in serialization at The Daily Beast. In addition, Marilyn has served as Editor of a number of anthologies. Her short stories have been published in seven anthologies and on the literary blog, Glass Cases.

  AWARDS: Silver Award, two Honorable Mentions and eight Finalist placements in the ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Awards, two Winner and two Finalist placements in the EPPIE Awards, Winner of the Dream Realm Awards, Finalist placement in the 2015 National Indie Excellence Book Awards, and Winner of “Best Horror” in the eFestival of Words Best of the Independent eBook Awards.

  Read More from Marilyn Peake

  www.marilynpeake.com

  New York

  A Bridge & Sword Prequel

  JC Andrijeski

  Born in a cyber world. Hunted by an ancient cult.

  Allie Taylor lives in a world populated by seers, a second race discovered on Earth at the beginning of the 20th Century. Psychic, hyper-sexual and enslaved by governments, corporations and wealthy humans, seers are an exotic fascination to Allie, but one she knows she’ll likely never encounter, given how rich you have to be to get near one.

  Then her boyfriend has a band concert in New York, where seers are already visible fixtures on the club and business scene. In the midst of boyfriend troubles, she sees seers get tasered on the street, terrorist attacks, and someone leaving her cryptic and creepy notes. Weirder still, a tall, black-haired guy with strangely colorless eyes, keeps showing up everywhere Allie goes.

  When a bizarre seer religious cult targets Allie for an end of the world ritual, her visit goes from chaotic to quite probably fatal.

  1

  Allie

  I was losing my boyfriend.

  I was losing him––I could feel it.

  I didn’t know why. Paranoid murmurings whispered through my mind, telling me it was happening without really supplying me with reasons, at least not reasons I could fix. I knew it was likely just my imagination working overtime, screwing with my head, but those soft murmurs felt so real.

  I struggled not to react to them as actual evidence.

  At times, I heard those voices almost like feed station commentators, humming in the background of my headset––subliminal messages woven into the virtual network.

  I swore I could almost feel his thoughts like that.

  They say people get that way with significant others. They start finishing one another’s sentences, knowing what they’re thinking before they’ve said whatever it is. I’d even heard the network could amplify that kind of thing.

  Whatever this was, though, it didn’t feel like the good kind of symbiosis.

  This came more like daggers to my head and heart, insights I didn’t want, that pierced through the bubble of the happy story I’d woven around Jaden and me.

  Like a lot of people, I guess, the instinctive but counterproductive answer to that problem was to hold on to my boyfriend tighter.

  I blame the animal part of my brain. The lizard brain, as my best friend Cass likes to call it.

  The lizard brain is uncomplicated. It can also be pretty frickin’ stupid.

  So when Jaden told me his band had a big gig coming up in New York City, all the way on the other side of the country, I told him of course I’d go.

  It didn’t matter that I couldn’t afford the trip.

  It didn’t matter that I couldn’t afford it by a long shot, given I was making the vast majority of my money at crappy waitressing jobs, and trying to survive on that in San Francisco, plus pay off my art college debt. It didn’t matter that I didn’t much like New York, the one and only time I’d been, or that I hated being around Jaden’s groupies and dealing with all the bickering and other b.s. that went along with hanging out with his band.

  It didn’t matter that I’d seen just about every show he’d ever performed, including at laundromats and hole-in-the-wall burrito bars and coffee shops.

  It didn’t matter that I’d heard all of his songs about a million times.

  Apparently, it didn’t matter that going to New York meant I’d have to pass through racial-cat security, either, and likely get flagged for the billionth time because I had “weird” blood. Ever since they’d passed that federal law allowing states to set their own regulatory standards for seers, New York was like its own country. They had their own division for Seer Containment and everything––or “SCARB” as everyone called them, which stood for “Seer Containment and Regulation Bureau.”

  SCARB checkpoints were now mandatory for domestic and international travelers, at all of the New York airports.

  That meant I’d probably spend a few extra hours post-landing, cool
ing my jets in a holding cell while I answered the same damned questions I’d been answering since I was a kid. If it was anything like last time, they’d run a couple hundred tests on my blood, then finally verify my med-recs with authorities on the West Coast and make yet another note in my file that never seemed to do me much good the next time around.

  Traveling with me was always a party.

  More to the point, that lizard brain part of me ignored the signals I was getting off Jaden himself, in regard to me tagging along for the big New York show.

  Meaning, I could tell he’d rather if I stayed behind for this one.

  None of it mattered. My lizard brain clung to that imperative to reconnect, to not let the mate-creature out of my sight, and I barely heard those softer but smarter voices in the background, telling me what a bad idea it was.

  I was going. Damn it.

  I guess I’m kind of dumb that way.

  I guess most of us are.

  2

  Airport

  The mob outside the airport should have been my first big clue something was off.

  At the San Francisco International Airport, or SFO, the entire sidewalk leading into the terminal was filled with people holding signs, screaming.

  A number of them banged bare hands on the robo-taxi’s windows as we pulled up to the curb, yelling at us before it opened its doors.

  I hadn’t bothered to check out the news feeds that morning, so I looked at my brother Jon, quirking an eyebrow, when I saw more hands banging on the taxi as we passed, faces staring blankly, as if trying to see us through the one-way glass.

  I’d talked him and Cass into coming with me to New York.

  “What’s this all about?” I said, when Jon didn’t respond to my look. “Any idea?”

  “What’s this all about? Are you serious, Al?” He grunted, giving me an incredulous look. “They’re Third Mythers. Seer’s rights groups. There’s probably some Christian-fanatic types in the mix, too… the ones who want to send all seers to a desert island so they can blow it up. Jesus. Do you ever watch the news feeds anymore?”

  “Sometimes,” I said, a little defensively.

  Next to me, Cass laughed, a little too loud. She was watching and listening to something on her headset, so probably only got the high-level gist of what we were saying.

  I looked at Jon. “So? What happened? What are they pissed about this time?”

  Still scowling, he shrugged, staring out the window, his hazel eyes flickering back and forth as he took in faces and signs as we passed along the curb.

  “They’re talking about lifting regs for import of seers for business purposes,” he said. “They want to open up the number of permits issued for corporate ownership. Get rid of all the caps, essentially. The argument is that California businesses are losing a competitive edge by limiting the number of seers in tech.”

  My brother’s jaw firmed as he continued to stare out the robo-taxi windows, enough that I knew he wasn’t in favor of the law change, either. Jon definitely fell more into the “seer’s rights” camp than any of the others he’d listed––and he stood diametrically opposed to those groups that wanted seers exterminated, or even those who wanted them barred from entering the country.

  At the same time, he wouldn’t be thrilled with corporations bringing more of them in as “slaves,” as he termed it––even if it might help the California economy.

  I couldn’t really disagree with him on any of it, but I got exhausted trying to follow all of that stuff on the media, whereas Jon had a tendency to get a bit obsessive.

  He shrugged, still staring out at the crowd.

  “They just voted for removing all import restrictions yesterday. Apparently it was a huge majority in the California State Legislature who voted for it,” he added. “Some are accusing them of being bought off by Black Arrow and some of the other big defense contractors. A bunch of previously pro-population control types flipped at the last minute.”

  He glanced at me, his mouth grim. “They’re mostly worried about China. They use seers for everything over there. Most of the tech companies are competing with Asia now, and there’s a shit-ton of corporate espionage against our companies here.”

  I nodded, but now I was looking out the window too, tensing as more hands hit the glass. I saw the sign for our airline’s drop-off point rapidly approaching. Angry faces contorted as they chanted, a lot of them yelling loudly enough I could make out their words.

  “THREE RACES! THREE FACES OF GOD!”

  “CHILDREN OF THE NEPHILIM BELONG NOT WITH MEN!”

  “NO MORE SLAVES FOR WALL STREET!”

  One problem with driverless taxis––their doors open when they get to their destination, regardless of what’s waiting for you on the other side. To the robo, the people outside our taxi could have been helpful airline porters, I guess, waiting to take our luggage.

  Instead, it was an angry mob of Third Myth and racial purity fanatics, holding signs attached to metal pipes, chanting about the world ending and sending all seers back to Asia.

  “Well, this is awesome,” my brother Jon muttered, as the door slid open automatically in front of him. Glancing over his shoulder at me, he quirked his lips in a frown, raising his voice as the crowd’s shouts and chants filled the back of the taxi. “Thanks for this, Al. Looking like this trip’s going to be just a barrel of fucking monkey laughs already…”

  I snorted, I couldn’t help it.

  “You’re just pissed Troy wouldn’t come,” I accused, grinning.

  “Of course,” he grunted. “It has nothing at all to do with New York being a oligarchical, fascist stronghold filled with slaveowners, corporate criminals and rich assholes…”

  That time, it was Cass who burst out in a laugh. Giving Jon a mock-reproachful look, she pursed red-lipsticked lips, rolling her eyes.

  “You’re not going to go all political-conspiracy guy this weekend, are you, brother Jonathan? ‘Cause that’s going to seriously grate on my happy.” Making a mock pouty face, she widened her eyes into her affected doe-eyed look. “How can someone so hot be gay and angry at the same time? Does God hate me?”

  That time, I broke out in a real laugh.

  Ignoring Cass, Jon gave me a flat look.

  “You owe me for this, little sis,” he said. “Big time.”

  He didn’t wait for my reply, but grabbed the edges of the open door with muscular hands and yanked himself up and out of the cab, straightening to his full height and squaring his shoulders as he glanced around at the crowd.

  The nearest crush of protesters grew instantly quieter.

  I smiled ruefully, shaking my head as I saw some of the more aggressive of the bunch backing off once they got a good look at my brother. Glancing at Cass, who was sitting next to me on the robo-taxi’s seat, I grinned when she broke into another laugh.

  She nudged my arm, pushing me to get out after him.

  “Grab our luggage,” she urged. “You know how these robo-assholes are. It might take off before we can empty it out.”

  I knew she was right. Sighing a bit, I followed Jon out the door.

  A few of the protesters were still glaring up at Jon resentfully as Cass and I climbed out, but most of them had already moved on, giving him the ground without making a lot of eye contact.

  I walked to the back of our taxi, hitting the button to open the trunk. As I yanked out the first piece of luggage I saw, which happened to be Jon’s, most of the people holding signs were gathering around the doors of two human-driven cars pulling up behind us.

  My brother, Jon, isn’t all that big really.

  He’s not someone who looks “scary” in the conventional sense, either.

  He’s tall, and muscular, but not super buffed out––more lean and mean, with broad shoulders and an erect, confident stance. He’s also got a presence, I guess you could say. Almost two decades of hard-core martial arts training can do that to a person. I’d lost track of how many black belts Jon had earned at
that point, but I knew it was a lot.

  Moreover, he knew how to wield the psychological side of his training––not so much by being threatening, but by exuding a kind of calm, no-bullshit thing that most people looking for a fight instinctively side-stepped.

  I wish some of his angry-mob-control mojo would rub off on me.

  I flinched when a bottle exploded against the side of the limousine directly behind us. Jon, who’d been helping me empty out the robo-taxi’s trunk, turned his head, frowning as he saw airline security rush the line of protesters, wearing anti-riot gear and holding shields.

  “This is going to get ugly,” he muttered. “We need to get inside.”

  Nodding, I threw a bag over my shoulder by its canvas strap, then reached down to grab one of Cass’s six bags and the handle of my roller bag. My beat-up suitcase was so old the wheels were practically square. It had faded from green to a kind of mottled, diseased gray.

  Jon grabbed two more of Cass’s bags and she managed the rest.

  “I’m not even going to ask what’s in all of these,” I said to her, rolling my eyes.

  She grinned at me, cocking her head. “Hey, it’s New York! Did you expect me to come unprepared?”

  “What exactly are you preparing for, Cassandra?” Jon grunted. “An apocalypse that wipes out women’s shoe stores, and vaporizes multi-colored glitter hair spray?”

  Laughing in spite of myself, I felt strangely cheered––and more than a little grateful I’d invited my friends along for this trip. Jon might be my adoptive brother, but he was also one of my two closest friends, Cass being the other. Cass was basically family, too, given that we’d known one another more or less since we were in diapers.