A Dome of Blood

by Bella Forrest

  “We do need them, don’t we?” I asked, though I already knew the answer to that.

  Raphael offered a brief nod in return. “We do. They’re doing so much. They’re exploring the world. Going from planet to planet, inadvertently setting things right wherever they land. You’ve heard their stories.”

  “Yeah. You’d like to do that, too, huh?”

  “You read me so well,” he replied, grinning, and his eyes twinkled with mischief. “What do you say, Douma? Shall we get the heck out of this joint, save our planet, and fly off into the cosmos with these people?”

  I laughed. “You make it sound so easy.”

  “They’re doing most of the hard work, if you think about it—” Raphael said, then froze at the sound of footsteps.

  The double doors glided open. Ta’Zan came in, accompanied by Amal and Amane. Amal seemed relaxed, once again benefitting from Ta’Zan’s trust. Amane, on the other hand, was fuming. She’d been crying, judging by her puffy eyes, and that collar couldn’t possibly be comfortable. Mine annoyed me like crazy.

  The twins gave us both soft nods, then went to the table and started fumbling with the slim cables. Amane turned one of the computer units on, the screen turning white. Strings of black symbols dashed across, signaling the beginning of what had to be a reading of my vitals and brainwaves.

  “Nice to see you show up again,” Raphael said to Ta’Zan, his tone clipped.

  The air thickened around us, a display of energy between the creator and his most brilliant child. Ta’Zan was smiling, but his blue and green eyes carried a certain weight and dull anger—the kind that he’d been developing over the days since Raphael had left and joined the outsiders.

  “I have no reason to stay away,” Ta’Zan replied.

  Amal and Amane both came around to our boxes, placing their hands on the glass. The surface rippled and split open, allowing them to reach inside and mount the wires on our temples. The procedure was swift and simple, as the wires had suction-cup endings that kept them in place. Amane discreetly nudged me before she withdrew her hands.

  I turned my head to look at her, and she gave me a wink, as if trying to reassure me that she was still here, still on our side.

  “Besides, I need to understand what drove you two to betray me like this,” Ta’Zan added.

  Amane and Amal took hold of two tablets, inputting data and occasionally watching the computer screens, while the wire sensors read our brainwaves and translated them into figures for them to interpret. They stole glances at Raphael and me but said nothing. The floor belonged to Ta’Zan, it seemed.

  “It takes a certain kind of thinking to commit to such stupidity, when I specifically designed you to be intelligent creatures,” Ta’Zan continued.

  “You designed us to be intelligent, but you brainwashed us into being mindless tools,” Raphael replied. “You never wanted us to be our own people. You’ve always wanted us to be strong, but limited to blindly obeying you. Please don’t insult our intelligence by saying otherwise.”

  “You must’ve seen this coming, though,” I said. “You’re smart enough to know that you would never blindly obey someone else. So why did you think we’d be different?”

  “Your brothers and sisters know what’s best for them,” Ta’Zan replied. “How are you two foolish enough to think you’d be better off without me? Actually, don’t answer that. I’m sure your data readings will tell me everything I need to know.”

  “It’s called free will!” Raphael snapped. “Like Douma said, you should’ve seen it coming. But pride does tend to blind people. It’ll turn the most brilliant ones into idiots. Case in point,” he added, nodding at Ta’Zan.

  “The Perfects are free to do whatever they wish. They chose to fight for me,” Ta’Zan retorted. A muscle twitched in his jaw, the only sign I had that Raphael’s words were, in fact, getting to him. “All I’m trying to understand is why you decided to go the other way and bite the hand that feeds you.”

  “Let’s get something straight here,” I said. “No matter how many tests you do, you’ll never be able to understand why we are who we are. You cannot study free will. There’s nothing wrong with us. And you can continue trying to keep us all under control, but it won’t last forever. Sooner or later, they will all rise against you, because what you preach is a delusion, a bitter lie that causes nothing but suffering.”

  Ta’Zan shifted his focus to me, narrowing his eyes and tilting his head to the side. “I wonder… You had your memories wiped. Amal cut your head off and implanted your old memories. How did you decide to go against my wishes, even after that?”

  My breath got stuck in my throat. I hadn’t thought about this when I went back to Dmitri and the crew. I couldn’t tell him the truth now—not without getting Amal into hot water. The twins were both quiet and stunned, trying to stay focused on their tablets as they avoided looking at Ta’Zan. The last thing they wanted at this point was to make eye contact.

  “I was already having thoughts of rebellion,” I said. “Long before the outsiders cut my head off and took out my memory chip, I was already tired of your lies and delusions of grandeur. After Amal reset me again, the same feelings came back. All you did was further fan the flames.”

  Ta’Zan didn’t say anything for a while, as if taking it all in, probably wondering if I was telling the truth. He gave Amal a sideways glance, and she gathered the courage to look at him and nod, confirming my story.

  “Then you’re as wrong as Raphael, it seems,” Ta’Zan concluded.

  “Keep telling yourself that,” Raphael said. “You’re in over your head, Ta’Zan. You can’t stop this revolution. It started with us, and even after we’re gone, it will continue to grow. It won’t end with us. It’ll end with you turned into a cloud of ashes.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Ta’Zan said.

  “We’ve seen it already. More and more of our brothers and sisters are getting tired of your lies. They see what’s going on. They see how weak and insecure you’ve been since we took out your comms blockers and destroyed your starships,” I said, smiling with sheer confidence. “They know you’re not fit to lead.”

  I was lying, of course, but he didn’t need to know that. It was enough to get under his skin, and that just proved my point.

  Ta’Zan pointed an angry finger at Amal and Amane. “Get me the reading results as soon as possible, then get cracking on the ship prototypes. We’re behind schedule already,” he said, gritting his teeth.

  “Try all you want, we’ll still destroy you!” Raphael shouted after him as he stormed out of the room. He chuckled, then nodded at the twins once the double doors slid shut behind Ta’Zan. “How are you two holding up?”

  Amal sighed deeply. “Ugh. It’s harder than before. Everything you’ve done so far has definitely gotten to him. He’s permanently angry and frustrated, especially in private. He tries to keep his composure in front of the Perfects and the Arch-Perfects, but he still snaps once in a while.”

  “Then it’s working. His psyche is crumbling,” Raphael breathed, a grin slitting his face from ear to ear.

  “You know, I have to say this, you’re enjoying this a lot. Maybe a little too much?” I asked.

  “Hell, no. I’m loving this, and I’m entitled,” Raphael replied. “After everything he’s done? This isn’t even enough. I root for the day I see him utterly distraught and miserable.”

  “How are you two doing?” Amane asked, stepping forward. “We didn’t think he’d separate you from the others.”

  “Neither did we, but here we are,” I replied with a long sigh. “We’re okay. Just wondering how we’ll do our part of the plan, if we’re stuck in these glass boxes.”

  Amal and Amane looked at each other, then back at us. They must’ve talked about this. They were unbelievably smarter when they were together, their brains operating at incredible speeds, far beyond our own.

  “We’ll help you get out, as long as we know when Araquiel breaches the colosseum
,” Amane said. “We’ve spoken to him through Amal’s earpiece. He’ll let us know.”

  My heart felt heavy, and I knew I had to approach the worst-case scenario, too. I placed my hands against the glass and took a deep breath.

  “I need you both to understand and do something for us,” I said. “If it gets too hairy or crazy out there, don’t complicate things by coming to get us. Leave Raphael and me behind—”

  “Whoa!” Raphael cut in. “What the hell, Douma?”

  “What?! You know I’m right!” I replied, and looked at the twins again. “I’m serious. If it’s too risky or too dangerous, leave us behind. The important thing here is to get all the outsiders out of the colosseum before the charges are detonated, and for the Perfects to be distracted enough not to notice the fae shuttle coming in. That’s on us.”

  Raphael groaned with frustration and cursed under his breath. Amal, Amane, and I looked at him as he clicked his teeth and exhaled sharply.

  “Screw this. Okay!” he conceded. “If anything, maybe give us some cheat codes or some way to get out of these glass boxes ourselves. If we can’t reunite with the outsiders when it’s escape time, we can at least make enough of a mess in this place, on top of the explosions, to draw as many Perfects to this location as possible. At least this way we’ll help guarantee safe passage for the incoming fae.”

  Amal shook her head. “I don’t have any cheat codes, I’m sorry. The glass boxes don’t work like that. But I promise one of us or even Araquiel will come up here and get you out when the time is right. We can’t digress from the plan.”

  “We’ll look into it, once we get everything we need for the mass memory wiper.” Amane added.

  “How are Rose and Ben’s people?” Raphael asked. “Elonora?”

  “I think they’re fine. We checked in with them about thirty minutes ago. They’re waiting to do their part. We’re all waiting for Araquiel, Herakles, and the others now,” Amal replied.

  We were all in limbo, and I hated it. I hated my glass box and the shock collar around my neck. I hated being in this situation, and, most noticeably, I hated not having Dmitri close to me. Whatever came next, planned or otherwise, would decide my fate and our shot at an actual relationship.

  I knew next to nothing about love. It was a concept that Ta’Zan had deliberately left out of our education and development, but, after all the time I’d spent with Dmitri and his people, I knew it was essential to a happy life, to a healthy relationship and a good future. Love transcended pretty much anything, and it was intense enough to drive people to do the craziest things in its name.

  I was ready to face all the Perfects and even die, if I had to, in order to keep Dmitri safe. According to Rose, that was the purest form of love out there—the kind where my life was worthless, if my loved one suffered or was dead. I was ready for the supreme sacrifice, and I was still trying to wrap my head around this realization.

  Love makes you do crazy things, Dmitri had said the other day.

  It most certainly did.

  Amane

  “What did Ta’Zan think of the readings?” I asked my sister as soon as she came back from Ta’Zan’s private quarters.

  After we collected the data from Raphael’s and Douma’s brainwaves, Amal and I prepared a short report for Ta’Zan with our findings. We already knew what the results would be, but Ta’Zan was too stubborn to understand that there really wasn’t anything wrong with Douma and Raphael that was making them act so rebelliously.

  “He didn’t like it,” Amal replied.

  We’d been assigned a lab of our own, once more, where we did all the work that didn’t require Ta’Zan’s supervision. It was also where we were going to work on the mass memory wiper, since we had the space and all the tools we needed in the room, carefully deposited and catalogued in multiple drawers.

  I’d already begun taking the pieces out, and I was halfway done with the technical specs when Amal came by my side to check out my unfinished work.

  “Of course, we both knew he’d hate the truth,” she added, frowning as she picked up one of the clippers with two fingers. “This one’s for the serium wiring, right?”

  I nodded. “I gathered most of the tools and some of the hardware, based on what we’ve already discussed. We need to figure out the rest and see where we can get it from, if it’s not here. We can’t be seen wandering around the lab area just yet. I’m sure Ta’Zan is watching me like a hawk wherever I go.”

  “He sure is. The upside is he doesn’t know what a mass memory wiper would even look like, and he wouldn’t think of me helping you,” Amal said. “I’m still surprised at how foolish he’s become. He’s clearly on edge and losing it, and that will work to our advantage. He’s too busy being paranoid about the outsiders.”

  “He can feel it all slipping away. His insecurity is chipping away at him. He’s lashing out, I suppose,” I replied. “He’s so convinced that his indoctrination program is flawless that he can’t accept the fact that he cannot fully control free will. He hates that.”

  “Raphael and Douma twisting the knife in deeper didn’t help.” Amal chuckled.

  “Hey, it did the job, didn’t it?”

  “Oh, it most certainly did. He’s on thin ice, Sister. It’s only a matter of time before he falls,” she said.

  “You got a lot of the inside work done. I don’t think we would’ve gotten this far, had it not been for your persistence in staying by his side and nurturing his trust in you,” I admitted. “I should’ve told you when I decided to leave. Maybe it’s too late, but… I’m sorry.”

  “Hey, we put that behind us already,” Amal said. “Let’s do this thing and move forward. Come on.”

  We spent the next hour inputting calculations into one of our computers, based on previous conversations. The three-dimensional model we came up with for the device, complete with all the parts and a power source, was pretty impressive. We could finetune the radio waves to go outward at high speed. My heart swelled with pride, looking at the final design.

  My synapses were fired up, and I could already visualize the device working at full capacity.

  “This is a masterpiece,” Amal murmured. “We went past the distance barriers with the physical augmentations. Well done, Sister.”

  “Well done, yourself!” I replied, smiling. “Your circuits look extremely efficient in theory. The blast radius on this baby will go past the initial five-hundred-mile mark we’d talked about.”

  She pointed at the power source on the screen. “We’ll need something huge for this.”

  “Serium. Concentrated. But how much would be enough? And how much would burn it out?” I asked. There was a risk of overloading the mechanism, if we weren’t careful.

  “It takes time to compress serium into concentrated sticks,” Amal said. “More than we have.”

  “Okay… So, what do we do? If we want a wide radius, which we definitely do, we need a lot of power, and fast,” I replied. Several possible scenarios darted through my head, but none fit the timeframe we had to work with. “Once we get out of here with the device, we’ll need to act fast and activate it, before an entire army descends upon us.”

  Amal thought about it for a while, then quickly transferred the blueprint to a small, portable tablet—perfect for a tunic pocket. She gave it to me, then smiled.

  “Keep it safe. We need a few more parts, and they’re not here. I’ll have to get to the Creation Labs and bring them in without anyone seeing me,” she said. “As for a quick and potent power source, I’m thinking of the Hermessi.”

  That made sense. Only, they weren’t fully awakened yet. “How can they do it? They’re still in a dormant state. They’re not strong enough without the one thousand and one fae,” I replied.

  “We’ll have to speak to Vesta or one of the other fae, so they can talk to them. The Hermessi could power a serium bar to the levels we need, if they’re strong enough. They’re pure, natural energy, after all. They could do it as soon as they
take what they need from the one thousand and one fae,” Amal suggested.

  I nodded, trying to fully analyze this option before actually voicing my agreement. “It might work. But it’ll have to be you talking to the fae in the dome,” I said. “I can’t be seen anywhere near them right now.”

  And I hated that. I longed to see Ridan again. I worried about him, knowing how miserable he was without his freedom. Captivity harmed everyone, but no one was more affected than Ridan—my dragon, designed by nature to soar through the skies, not languish in a diamond cage.

  As if reading my mind, Amal gave me a warm smile. “You’ll see him again, you know.”

  “I’m hoping. We have absolutely no certainty that this plan will work,” I replied.

  “We can’t go into it with that kind of mindset,” Amal said. “We have to be determined to succeed. Don’t let doubt erode your resolve. Dammit, you left and forged your own path in this new world, and you were fearless throughout. Don’t let Ta’Zan make you think you can’t make it. I need you. Ridan needs you.”

  As if seeing my sister for the first time, I felt myself overcome by a warm feeling of bewilderment. Amal could see and understand more than most, especially where I was concerned. Amal knew me best, and she’d learned to read my expressions before I even opened my mouth to speak. It was her most endearing quality, and I became determined to never be without her again.

  Ta’Zan had driven a wedge between us before. This time, however, we were walking out together. And we were taking the outsiders with us, too.

  “I’ve missed you,” I murmured.

  Amal grinned. “I know.”

  “Go, now. Get what we need. I’ll start working on the frame and the wiring first,” I said.

  “I’ll get the output circuits and a transformer unit,” Amal replied, then turned toward the door.