by Anthea Sharp
As they entered the meeting chamber, a beautiful monument to the rainforests of old Terra, Dante received a message from the Darwins. They were in position. He also received a message from four of the banks holding Fernand’s assets. Again, everything was in place.
He and Jacopo and their aids were seated. The delegation from Edmond Industries came in afterward.
It wasn’t hard for him to recognize Fernand. He had aged in the past five years. His hair was salted and his attention was more focused on the invisible communication grid projected in front of him. He sat where he was told and finally scowled when his access was disconnected. The meeting was private and the building was now secured.
Dante was introduced as Zatarra, stood and bowed, as did Jacopo and their aids. Dante’s gaze was laser-focused on Fernand who only gave Dante a fleeting glance before he stood and approached the podium to give his case for the Bast entering the protection of the Nine Worlds, of the advantages of allowing their worlds to be mined for crystals. And when he was finished, there was a smattering of applause from the Nine Worlds side.
Now, it was Dante’s turn. He stood, gathered his robes and approached the podium. A nod to his aid and the screen above him came to life. “Delegates of the Nine Worlds,” he said, his voice booming over the speakers. “It is time you are exposed to the truth of Edmond Industries, and your lies are made public.”
There was a murmur as the world of Shadow Down appeared.
“Behold, those of the Nine Worlds. The jewel in Edmond Industries’ crown.” He told the story of the planet’s previous use, the kidnapping, slaying, and selling of thousands of Basts. He exposed the genetic testing to create their own version of the feline race so they could continue to profit on sales. He exposed the theme park’s crimes in using these same genetically altered beings as prey for the rich.
“Lies!” Fernand stood and shouted in the middle of Dante’s presentation.
Dante smiled at Fernand. “I do not lie. We have hired the specialties of the Darwin Consortium to confirm these uses.” He changed the view of the world to pull back to the bridge of one of their ships. “This is the Eradicator. The Consortium’s most powerful punisher.”
More murmurs.
“How…” Fernand said.
“The Consortium has gathered the intel needed to prove these crimes were committed, not only against the Bast, but an array of worlds outside the Nine. The Ruby War ended nothing. This world still continues its practices to this day under the umbrella of Edmond Industries.” He waved his hand and faced the microphone again. “It is with regret and finality, that I speak the vote of the Bast Empire.” He took a deep breath and said, “That until this world no longer exists, and those responsible for these crimes are arrested adn punished, the answer from the Bast is… No.”
SIX
The news spread throughout the known worlds as the Bast Empire braced for any backlash. But there was none. In fact, the planet of Shadow Down was seized by the Nine Worlds Military Corp and all remaining prisoners, genetically altered and otherwise, were given asylum.
Dante watched as Edmond Industries, the company he’d worked his whole life to build, fell in a matter of hours. All of its assets were seized and its upper echelon, arrested. But as he watched all of this unfold from the comfort of his ship, it gave him no comfort. His life was forever changed he could never go back to what he was.
And truthfully, he wasn’t sure he wanted to. The change forced on him was permanent. He would die a Bast. And he would spend the rest of his life making amends to the Bast Empire for the sins of his best friend.
They were on their way to Terra where Jacopo said she’d found Mercedes. The planet itself was only a third populated. It was a showpiece of sorts, brought to the brink of destruction and rescued and terraformed to its former glory. Monuments decorated the surface now, along with retirement communities and resorts. It was a paradise. More than even Onyx.
Arriving in secret, since the face of Zatarra dominated the news, Dante and Jacopo were ushered into a shuttle and Dante looked out the window as they approached a field of stones. As they landed, he realized the stones were monuments.
Graves.
Tombstones.
Jacopo walked him out of the shuttle to one of the larger monuments, a mausoleum in the center of other tombs. He hesitated as he saw the front of the tomb with the name Bianco over the top.
“She was altered, just like you,” Jacopo said in her native tongue. “But she didn’t survive. She died during the transformation. Fernand… requested she be made into a female Bast. For his pleasure. Her official cause of death is the same as yours. To the world, she died in the same shuttle accident you did, but it was never publicized.”
All this time, he’d never known his love had paid the price for his best friend’s deception.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
Dante froze at the sound of that voice. A voice from his past. A voice that insisted he and Mercedes take that vacation together.
“Youse shouldn’t be here,” Jacopo said. “Theys gonna arrest youse.”
“Shut up,” Fernand said as he stepped from around the mausoleum. “This is a private monument and you are trespassing.”
“I’m afraid you’re lying again, Fernand.” Dante didn’t hide himself now. “This is a public place.” He nodded to the monument. “And I wanted to know what happened to Mercedes.”
“What does it matter to you?” Fernand had a weapon in his hand and Dante realized he wasn’t here to see Mercedes or pay respects. No, this fool had followed them here. “Do you know what you did? What you cost me? You’ve taken everything from me, you cat fuck. Everything!”
That was it. Dante had held back his temper too long now. With a roar, he lunged at Fernand, smacked the weapon from his hand, and held the bastard by his neck. Bast weren’t larger, not the males, but they were stronger than humans. “You? What it cost you? You think too much of yourself, Fernand. You should think about what you took from her,” he pointed to the monument. “Or… me. You suggested that vacation to Chimera Adventures, knowing it would be our end.”
He stared down at his prey and waited.
Until… “Dante?”
And that was all he needed. All he had ever wanted. That look on Fernand’s face. That expression of utter shock to learn the friend he thought long dead had just destroyed…everything.
Dante released Fernand and stepped away. “I was Dante Edmond, once. But you changed that, Fernand. You took my life from me, and you took Mercedes’ life from her.” He smiled, revealing his fangs. “And I took it all back and left you with nothing.” He brushed off his robes and reached out to Jacopo. “Goodbye….old friend.”
He knew this wasn’t the end. He knew Fernand’s temper and ego would never let this go. So it was no surprise when he heard the shuffling of feet and the sound of boots on stone. Dante let go of Jacopo’s hand and turned, his arm out at his side. He’d judged the height just right and braced himself as Fernand ran right into it. It caught him in the neck and he fell to the stone, clutching his throat.
Uniformed guards came running and seeing the robed Bast, the Zatarra, and a knife-wielding man on the ground, it wasn’t hard to access the situation.
“Are you all right, sir?” one of them asked as the other got Fernand to his feet and secured his wrists behind him.
Dante smiled at the guard. “Yes. I am. Thank you for your quick work.” He looked around the gardens, at the trees and inhaled the breeze. “Your homeworld is as beautiful as rumored.”
“Thank you, sir,” the guard bowed to him. “And I hope to see the Bast homeworld one day.”
With his hand in Jacopo’s, Dante returned the bow and watched as Fernand was led away. To where, he didn’t know, and he didn’t care. “And so you shall, young man. So you shall.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
My entry isn't based off a fairytale, but a literary classic that has a fairytale feel to me. I have always b
een a fan of Alexandre Dumas (having watched the Three Musketeer Movies with my dad as a kid). My favorite of his works has always been The Count of Monte Cristo. So when it came time to write a story, I wanted to put my own spin on the timeless classic of love and revenge.
* * *
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Phaedra Weldon is a mom, and a writer of Dark Urban Fantasy (and working on Fantasy as well). Her works include the Urban Fantasy series, Zoe Martinique Investigation Series, The Eldritch Files and Cast In Shadow, and more recently, a Paranormal Cozy Series, The Witches of Castle Falls. Her next series, The Dark Backward, is scheduled to release this year. For more information, go to phaedraweldon.com and join her newsletter!
Loxley - Sarra Cannon
The Dark and Dirty World
A green light blinked on the cheap handheld lying on my desk. I bit at the skin on the edge of my thumb and shook my head, cursing under my breath. Someone had left a new message.
Not again.
Blast only messaged me outside of the game when there was news, and I knew this was not the kind of news I wanted to hear.
Not that it would do me any good to ignore it. Whatever it was, I needed to know before I logged in tonight. I couldn’t risk being caught. Not after what happened two weeks ago with the Iron Guard.
In all my years of hacking into The Realm, I’d never come so close to actually being caught.
And it made sense, really. Blast had tried to warn me. If I kept aiming for greater takes, it was only going to put a bigger target on my back. But I was tired of messing around with small time. The goods I pulled from the courtyard and the smaller markets was barely enough to keep food on my own table, much less help those who were out there starving or dealing with the threat of being thrown out of the game entirely.
If I was going to make a difference in this god-forsaken world, I was going to have to take bigger risks.
Besides, a close call was just that. Close. And close was not caught.
As long as I kept my wits about me, I could always find a way out.
And thanks to my special abilities and my homemade, black-market gear, I was completely untraceable. The Iron Guard would have to actually put their hands on me here in the real world to take me down, and I wasn't about to let that happen.
Blast—the only one of my online friends who actually knew my real identity—warned me to take a break from The Realm for a while. Rumors of a new band of thieves tearing their way across The Realm had been flying through the forums and chat channels for the past few weeks, if you knew how to listen.
Blast swore that after a few more days, everyone would be talking about the leader of this new crew—Ghost—and the heat on Loxley would die down. Then I could waltz back in and take whatever I wanted without fear of the Iron Guard looking for me.
But Blast didn’t understand. He was a Lifer—one of the lucky rich kids who was always logged in. Someone who didn’t ever have to log out and see life for what it really was. For the Lifers, The Realm was the only real world they’d ever known.
Which was maybe part of why I trusted him with my real name and a way to reach me outside the game. I knew he would never actually come looking for me, because to do that, he’d have to log out.
And Lifers never logged out.
Everyone else online simply knew me as Loxley, an unregistered and untraceable character who appeared from time-to-time, stealing from the wealthiest of players and distributing the money to those who needed it most.
The Iron Guard—the force that policed all activity inside The Realm—had been looking for me for three years. They’d even put a sizeable bounty on my head, which had caused quite a few problems for me at the time.
Let’s just say that bounty had taught me who my real friends were.
I was more careful these days, keeping to the shadows and only showing up on private chat channels with people I knew I could trust.
And no one in my real life knew who I was online.
I kept the two identities completely separate, and for good reason.
My real name—Shara Verein—had been banned from online access at the age of five. No one had ever told me why, and none of us who were banned had ever received any kind of explanation as to why we were kept out of The Realm.
Rules were rules, and here in the city of Shangyo, no one questioned the rules.
Not and lived to see another day, anyway.
At five, every child was tested and taken through a series of physical and psychological evaluations by a team of stern-faced doctors in white lab coats. The results of those tests were never given to us, but for some reason, the doctors used those results to determine which children were allowed to log into The Realm and which children were not.
And every decision was final.
I’d heard of parents arguing with the results before, but from the rumors, that never turned out well for anyone. As for me, I hadn’t had any parents around who felt I was worth arguing for. I’d been on my own for as long as I could remember, and that was fine by me.
As Shara, I went to work daily in the sewers beneath the city, cleaning and maintaining the feeding systems that allowed Lifers to stay inside their pods full time. Fluids and nutrients were delivered to them through one set of tubes, while waste was taken away through another.
I kept my head down, my mouth shut, and I did my job. I didn’t smile. I didn’t complain. I made sure no one noticed me, which meant I did just enough to not get in trouble but never enough to get praised.
And after work, I came home to my tiny cubicle of an apartment and hacked into The Realm through the use of a rig I’d built myself from spare parts. Most of those parts were obtained illegally through various trades on the city’s black market over the course of several years in my early teens.
Sixteen now, I’d been logging into The Realm daily for two years, evading the Iron Guard at every turn, and hopefully making a real difference to the people who needed me most.
In some ways, it was a lonely life, and there were days when I wondered what it would be like to feel a real connection to someone. To let someone really know me and to feel like we shared something true and real.
But I tried not to let those types of thoughts creep in too much.
To make true connections meant putting everything I’d been working for on the line. Not to mention my own life.
I wasn't sure what the Iron Guard would do to me if they ever caught me, but if they found out who I was and that I’d been banned from The Realm, I had a feeling they wouldn’t exactly go easy on me.
Deep down, I knew that being caught meant being killed.
No connection was worth that risk.
Keeping to myself was the only way to survive, so other than Blast, no one knew who I was.
I picked up my headgear and positioned it around my neck, slowly attaching the footpads, chest-piece, and arm-guards to my body before sitting down on my bed.
I glanced at the handheld and shook my head. I wasn't sure I wanted to know what Blast had to say, but if I was in any kind of danger, I needed to know. Now was not the time to be stupid and take more risk than I needed to.
I snatched the silver disc from the table and clicked on the message.
Gotta be tonight. Rumors are Ghost is targeting your treasure. Move it or lose it.
My eyes widened, and I cursed.
My treasure? It had taken me months just to locate the Orb of Altress, much less to come up with a plan for how I would steal it. As far as I knew, Ghost and his crew had only entered the game a few weeks ago.
There was no way they were already heading for one of the most valuable privately-owned magical items in the game.
Shiz. What was I going to do now? If he got to it before I did, that would mean months worth of work and planning down the drain.
Not to mention more than fifty families who would have trouble paying their subscription fees for next month.
I needed that orb. I already had a bu
yer lined up and everything.
What would a thief like Ghost want with the Orb of Altress, anyway?
From what I knew of him, he never fenced the items he stole. He seemed to hold onto them, but for what purpose?
He had his game class hidden, and no matter how hard I’d tried to hack into his file, I hadn’t been able to get in. Which was saying something, because there were very few privacy filters I couldn’t get past.
Maybe he was a wizard.
There was no doubt the Orb of Altress was a powerful artifact that any wizard would kill to get his hands on, but I’d assumed Ghost was more of a Brigand or Ranger from the things I’d heard about him so far.
The orb would be totally useless to any scout class.
Honestly, I didn’t care what he wanted to do with the orb. He could want to eat it for dinner for all I cared. All I knew was that I couldn’t let him have it.
I quickly replied to Blast’s message and pulled my gloves over trembling hands.
Coming in. Tonight it is. That treasure is mine.
Was I really ready for this? I had expected to have at least another week to plan and get everything in place. Being underprepared meant risking mistakes.
And I couldn’t afford to make any mistakes right now.
I lay back on my bed and pulled the headgear over my face.
I took two deep breaths, cleared my mind of everything else but that orb, and closed my eyes.
“Connect,” I said, and in an instant, I had left the dark and dirty world of Shangyo and entered the magical land of The Realm.
Everbrooke
My eyes opened to a totally different world. No more grimy metallic structures reaching high into the constant grey and polluted skies above the city. Gone was the smell of burning and decay.