by Terina Adams
Beside me, Holden looked set to fight a war single-handedly in black and orange with two decent-sized swords strapped to his back. Thighs of iron, a mean face to match. Elva looked only marginally better than her real self, which put her knockout fabulous in a deep purple bra and briefs set with a thick gold wreath around her waist. Bands with spikes wrapped around her arms. A dangerous-looking headdress of sharp points controlled her long, thick raven hair. Tyren was an impressive dark-skinned warrior dressed in black and gold. Like Jax’s, his blade was small. After my last foray into Dominus, I understood why Aris only bothered with small weapons.
“You’re without a weapon, but we’ll leave it like that since you have no skill in wielding one.” Jax then turned to the rest of the group. “Sable’s vulnerable to the onslaught of her factional nature, plus her fighting skills are subpar at the moment, so no bot is to reach her. At level two, we’re unlikely to be hammered, but there will be enough to keep us busy.”
Jax focused on Holden. “Any signs of her tripping and she’s not handling it, you let me know.”
Holden nodded. After their mini showdown outside the game, Holden probably had words to add, but he kept those to himself, like any good solider.
He turned to me. “It’s going to be hard at the moment to control your factional nature, but you should know that the arena of effect could be catastrophic should you lose control.”
“What do you mean?”
“Most factional attacks in Dominus are done on the mind of the individual attacked, but for Aris and Persal, the effects are more tangible. Releasing your factional nature without control could create devastation on the immediate area around you or, if you really lose control, on a much wider scale.”
“No pressure at all.”
Jax ignored me and spoke to everyone else. “Since we have two Persal amongst us, we head for Persal HQ.” He looked at Holden. “I think it best Sable is introduced to home base. You and Sable go first.”
With a tilt of his head down the street, Holden indicated the way. So much for sticking to Jax.
I came alongside him, leaving the others behind. “Why are we going first?”
“Factions mixing will trigger the computer to attack. Milling together in the streets for a while is acceptable, but if we remain together for any length of time, the computer will read that as a threat. They won’t be far behind.”
I glanced over my shoulder, and sure enough, the rest moved meters behind us. Good thing Elva was an avatar. It meant I didn’t have to see her wicked stare, which I’m sure she was sharing with me at the moment, simply because I was Persal but also because I walked with Holden.
“If the rules of Dominus match the rules of your world, it must’ve been hard for you and Elva.”
“Very.”
“You’re so… She seems so…”
“We’re opposites. Is that what you’re trying to say?”
“So far you seem the nicest of all of them, particularly Elva.”
“There’s more to any of us, Sable. Don’t be in a hurry to judge. Elva’s not who you think she is.”
“She hates me.”
“She’s strong, loyal, and fiercely passionate. The senate would’ve killed us both rather than allow our relationship to continue, and no one could’ve prevented it. I ended it between us because I was scared of the punishment. She would’ve stayed with me until the end.”
She might have good qualities, but she wasn’t about to favor me with any of them. But what Holden said gave her attitude toward me meaning. I couldn’t help but feel humbled by her fidelity; risking your life for love was beyond something many were prepared to do. I would do that for my family; how about someone I loved who wasn’t blood?
I glanced behind, my eyes finding Elva, stone-faced and warrior-like, looking less passionate and more fierce.
My pace slowed on seeing a wave of NPCs march toward us. In game mode, their strong, muscular thighs, nuggety biceps, and stern faces made me want to head in the other direction. Holden kept his pace and the bots broke around him. I doubled my steps to keep up with Holden, but a large, powerful-looking woman in yellow strode toward me. Being a bot, her face remained devoid of any emotion, including any recognition that I was in her way. She should move, but her strides remained unchanged. Just as I was about to dodge out of her way, she changed course. I tried to catch a look at the tattoo behind her ear but she passed too quickly for me to see.
“How do we know who the enemy is?”
“We don’t. So it pays to be alert. Any one of these bots can transform into the enemy.”
“Shouldn’t you have told me that at the start?”
The others remained vigilant. Their faces scoured their surroundings, even looking up onto rooflines as if prepared for a bot to drop down over the edge.
“What’s all this writing at the left side of my vision? Jax explained some things, but not all.”
“Stats. Tells you vital stuff. The number at the top left is the number of kills you’ve made, the number next to it in green is the number you need to make before it’s safe to exit the game. You don’t get a kill-death ratio as you only get one chance to die in Dominus. The level you’re playing is the number at the top right. The—”
“What? What do you mean, safe to exit the game?”
“Depending on the level you play, you have a kill quota you must meet before you exit the game. Pull out too soon and you suffer the consequences.”
“Like what?”
“Level two, no consequences so don’t worry.”
“Don’t you dare not finish.”
“Focus on what we’re here to do for now.”
“No, tell me the consequences.”
“Each level is different, increasing in severity each time you level up. People suffer differently too. Limb paralyses, extreme headaches, memory loss, unconsciousness. I won’t touch on the more serious consequences.”
“Tell me you’re joking.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered. The three bars below show your skill, health, and power status; the silver dots on your skin allow Dominus to read these things. The one at the top is skill, how well you can fight, wield the weapons you have. Most players will usually choose a weapon and stay with it so they can become proficient. It’s a handy marker as it makes you want to improve your skills when you start to see it shift. If your skill drops, it means you need to concentrate more or increase your practice.”
How did he expect me to concentrate after dropping such a bomb of a revelation?
“The next down is your health status bar. Tells you how tired you’re getting or if you’ve been hurt. Keep an on that one. You don’t want it flashing red.”
“And that means?”
“Nothing good. If you’re experienced enough, you can push through red and get out all right. When it’s flashing, it’s critical. It means your brain waves are simulating the dive to death. That’s why mental control is so important. If you can control your fear, then you can control your death in Dominus.”
“You know what, how about you shut up now?”
He squeezed my shoulder. “The last bar is equally important. It’s your power status bar.”
“Mine’s not even registering.”
“It will. It’s another one you want to keep an eye on. It’s a valuable indicator for newbies, tells them when they’re moving close to tripping. That’s when your factional nature floods through to dangerous levels. Again, it will flash red when you reach that point. While in Dominus, it’s critical. Since Dominus speeds up the rewiring of your brain, it can force your factional nature through too quickly sometimes.”
“What does that mean exactly?”
“Outside of Dominus, if that happened, you’d destroy something, which in itself could be bad. Inside Dominus, you fry your brain, total meltdown, like melting electrical wires.”
“How are you all right with this?”
“It’s the cost it takes to achieve the outcom
e we believe in.”
“You’re willing to die for your belief?”
“Of course. Who wouldn’t?”
“Hmm…let me see. Most sane people.”
For once I saw an expression on an avatar, a broad grin. Don’t know what he saw amusing about any of this.
“Seriously, I need to get you out if you hit critical either on your health or power status bar. At level two, that’s easy as you don’t have a requirement for a certain number of kills. And being Persal, I’ll be able to sense that point before you trip—I hope.”
“I don’t think I want to know any more about this game.”
Holden scooped me in for a shoulder hug. “It will grow on you.” And left his arm there. Maybe she wasn’t, but I imagined Elva’s eyes boring holes into the back of my head. Was this Holden’s plan? I shouldn’t think like that. It only demeaned him.
We headed for a large obelisk at the end of the street. The pointy end was gold and, closer up, detailed designs emerged down the sides. The obelisk stood at the center of a radial of cobbled roads, which were filled with bots, not cars. I was about to ask how everyone in his world got around when an aircraft, a cross between a train and a plane with a sleek metal design, cruised overhead in the direction of a high column.
I glanced to Holden, unable to contain my wonderment, which was likely missed on my avatar face.
“A black skytrain. No cars in Califax, as you can see. The skies back home are crisscrossed with black, red, or blue skytrains depending on your direction of travel.”
“How long have you been in my world?”
“Two years.”
“So short.”
“I’m a new recruit.”
“How come Carter has three Aris to work with and Dad only has you?”
“It’s not that easy getting here. I’m lucky I got through. Nixon’s been on his own for most of the time. Somehow Carter’s been luckier and found three of his faction able to shift.”
“Why is it hard? Carter boasted about how easy it was for your kind.”
“The Senate of Factions outlawed dimensional shifting about thirty years ago.” He held up his hand and exposed the tattoo now present on his inner wrist, which was not there in real life. It was similar to Dad’s, Jax’s and Elva’s. “Every citizen is grafted at birth. The graft suppresses their ability to shift. It also dulls their factional nature, although it’s not always completely effective.”
“Why do they do that?”
“Some say paranoia, fear of subversion, an obsessive need to maintain control. It took a long time for the grafts to become legal practice.”
“It would prevent factions from moving to new worlds and raising an army of people like me whose factional nature is not suppressed.”
“You’re smart, but don’t judge us until you’ve lived in our world. Our factional nature makes us dangerous, but we existed a long time alongside each other with our abilities intact. Many who remember that time see the grafts as an attack on their personal freedom. They believe we are now enslaved to the senate and say the senate has over stepped its mandate. I don’t remember a time when I was free, but I don’t buy into the senate’s propaganda about creating a safer world for all to exist. I disagree with suppressing that which is so fundamentally a part of us. It’s like saying we’re all flawed when perhaps it’s their expectations that are flawed.”
“If you’re grafted, how are any of you here?”
“The Senate of Factions’ grafts remain inactive. According to them, it’s a necessity to keep harmony within the factions and maintain peaceful relations with bordering dimensions, which is fancy speak for domination. This meant Carter and Nixon were free to move between this world and ours, but they had to find a way to bring us across. And of course, they did, but it’s not an easy or safe process. There have been deaths on our side as well. It turns out there are only a rare few capable of surviving the nullification process in the crude fashion we were able to do it in. At the Dome, under proper medical attention, it would be different. That’s why Nixon only has me. I was the only survivor.”
“Why are you doing this? If it’s killing so many people, why keep trying?”
“It’s about freedom from oppression. We’re sick of being made to live a certain way, sick of being stripped of our true nature. We want a say in our lives. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices to force change.”
No one had the right to kill innocent people. If only he could see, but I said nothing because my arguments came from someone who’d never been forced to choose between love and death, who’d never had to deny the truth of who they were. I’d lived my life within the confines of my dad’s protective love, but compared to Holden’s life, I’d been free.
We walked away from the obelisk, down another cobbled street lined with amber-leafed trees. Topiaries of bizarre geometric shapes replaced the colorful garden beds. Not far along, Holden halted out the front of a tall building, the face of which was covered in tinted windows, darkened enough to obscure the view inside.
“HQ.”
“I’m not going to find this place again.” I looked around me. “There are too many metal and glass fronted buildings to make this one stand out.”
Holden walked toward the building. At a certain distance from the entrance, a fractured circle shimmered in gold across the face of the windows.
He turned back to me and smiled. “The symbol will only illuminate for a Persal. You can’t miss that.”
Despite us all standing on the mat, I turned back to the others, moving up behind us, their leather-booted feet smacking hard along the cobbles. I couldn’t begin to fathom the depth at which Dominus had meshed with my mind, twisting my senses and belief in what was real, turning everything around me into a new frightening reality.
“Show her around. I’ll give you fifteen, then meet us back outside,” Jax said.
Being in game mode meant Aris were unable to enter Persal HQ.
The light, airy rooms of Persal HQ contrasted with Aris’s dark, gloomy, tunneled hallways. The large domed center of Aris was replaced by an expansive room at the front of the building, facing out over the street we’d just left. The comfort of the modular furniture looked questionable, and the decor of muted browns and creams made the space look soothing but boring, although a lot more welcoming than Aris HQ.
“We can socialize with other Persal in here. Mostly you will meet out-of-towners at HQ. Of course, I’m talking about our world. In Dominus, bots don’t congregate within HQ, there’s no point, so unless we’re playing with a large number, you’ll be on your own. Or you could be with me. HQ is also the meeting place for Persal leaders, and the conference room is directly above us.” He pointed to the ceiling, which was a long way up.
“But there are no Persal leaders in Dominus, right?”
“There was your father. Sorry, maybe I shouldn’t have said that. Come.” He strode out of the room and down a wide and well-lit hallway, thanks to glowing panels running from ceiling to floor. Unlike at Aris’s HQ, these remained glowing before and after we passed.
“Communal kitchen in there.” The door slid open and he paused briefly in the doorway before striding off again. I stole a glimpse of the sparse room, gleaming metallic surfaces and walls, before the door slid shut again.
“There’s not much else to see apart from the accommodations. But I’m sure Jax wanted me to show you something in particular.”
He continued on his march and I remained dutifully quiet and followed. Halfway along the hall, Holden placed his palm over a section of the wall and it slid aside to reveal a cavity on the other side. The hairs on my neck prickled with the first hint of mystery. Any mystery in Dominus was likely to be dangerous.
Holden stepped inside and a large circular bulb glowed to life. We stood in an empty room—only empty for the time it took Holden to cross the small space and place his hands against the wall. The wall began to shimmer before collapsing to a vortex, a chaotic swirl that sucked th
e surrounding wall into its interior like a gaping black hole. It was like experiencing déjà vu with the noise of tumbling brickwork and fracturing plaster, then the sound of wind funneling down a tunnel once the collapse was complete. My hair flapped around my face, the long blonde locks nonexistent in real life. I even felt them tickle my face. Such was the strength of the wind, I was pulled toward the opening so grabbed Holden to use as an anchor. He tugged me close and we watched in an embrace until the violence subsided and left an abyss.
I let Holden go and took a few tentative steps forward, nervous the vortex would start again and swallow me. “I saw something similar in Aris’s HQ.”
Holden yanked my elbow to spin me to face him. “You were in Aris’s HQ? When?”
“The time I developed my headache. We were in training mode, so Jax said it was all right.”
“I can’t believe he took you inside.”
“Why?”
“That he would show a Persal.” He shook his head. “Both Aris and Persal have these tunnels. We’ve been working on them for many years now.”
“Just Aris and Persal?”
“Because of our alliance.”
“Where do they go?”
“The Califax Dome. No one is allowed to enter the Dome that does not work there or is part of the Senate of Factions. To enter unauthorized is certain death.”
“Why?”
“The Dome is where the senate maintains its power over our Earth. If the Dome was overrun and the senate defeated, they would no longer be able to suppress the people, but it’s not easy getting in.”
“So you’re tunneling.”
“Because neither faction could trust the other, we tunneled our own sections but kept our pathway secret from the other. Unfortunately for Persal, we hit an impenetrable rock that has slowed our progress. We’ve had to divert around, which has driven us far off course. But we believe Aris have had no such problems. We believe they are close to reaching the Dome.”