Amara’s pale blue eyes seemed stricken. “My dad is the most powerful man in the world. You don’t have to worry about him.”
“Even Vincent is just a person. He may be a demigod, but that doesn’t mean that he is invulnerable. He has weaknesses.”
“Don’t talk about him that way behind his back,” Amara shot back. “He would be so upset if he knew. What kind of weakness could he possibly have?”
“A weak daughter,” Pax answered immediately, “a daughter who chooses to remain weak. Vince taught me so much, and I owe him more than I can ever repay. We are all born liabilities, but it’s up to us as individuals whether we will take our natural gifts and run with them—or let them go to waste. I have had some disadvantages in my life, but it’s pointless to focus on them. The advantages are far greater—I was given vast natural abilities, and I had the privilege of your dad’s attention and teachings. I’m not sure why he thought I was worthy of a word here and there, a lesson here and there, but I listened to every word and I followed every instruction. I’m 26 years old, and nowhere near as strong or experienced as our fathers, or even Thorn and Ash. But I’ll tell you this, Amara: I won’t allow myself to remain a liability. I will do all I can to become an asset to our families.”
Amara was rendered speechless. “But… I invented new technology. I helped my family make money…”
“You were captured and used as leverage against me! I had to agree to join with Suja for your freedom. Thorn and Ash pledged themselves to Suja to save you. We were lucky to get away at all! Maybe you’re comfortable playing the role of the damsel in distress, but I’m not. I would be ashamed if I had let that happen to me. I’d be doing everything in my power to make sure I couldn’t be captured again. I wouldn’t be watching Disney movies to escape the reality of our world!”
Amara did not know how to respond. She remembered all too well how awful it had been to be captured and helpless. She knew that she owed Pax her life.
The dark-haired woman grew even angrier because of her friend’s silence. She turned away in frustration. “Fine. I’m giving you an ultimatum. Either you enter one of these three remaining doors with me when we wake up, or I’m going alone. Goodnight, Amara.”
“I refuse,” Amara said in a whisper. “The last time we were in one of those rooms, you died. I held your body, and I felt that you were gone. I’d rather you be pissed off at me forever than watch you die again! I’m not doing that again anytime soon.”
Pax felt sorry when she heard the emotion in her friend’s voice. She could hear that Amara was a mess of tears, but her anger overpowered her mercy. “Excellent. So next time, don’t watch. Don’t participate. Just turn away and ignore what’s happening—instead of saving my life, you can let me die.”
“I would never let harm come to you if I could prevent it,” Amara said.
“But you won’t be able to prevent it,” Pax answered. “Thorn and Ash have always had each other’s back. I thought we could be at least as tough as they are! But they’re men, and their drive to be strong comes naturally—they don’t have to work as hard as we do for it.”
“It doesn’t mean they care about each other more than we do—just because they’re stronger.”
“Doesn’t it?” Pax asked. “It means that they cared enough to work to be assets to each other instead of liabilities.”
“When you love someone, they are always a liability to you,” Amara answered softly. “We’ll go into Room Four tomorrow. You win. Goodnight, Paxie.”
* * *
Pax stood rigidly straight and ready like a soldier as she waited for Amara to get ready. The blonde woman was taking her time to shower, brush her teeth, and say goodbye to all the modern conveniences they would lose once they stepped out of the purple cube. Pax took this moment to study the three plaques that had appeared on the walls of the room upon completion of the first three trials. When placed consecutively to make a phrase, they read: Retribution before Resolution.
“What do you think it means?” Amara asked, standing beside her friend and toweling her hair.
“I’m not sure,” Pax answered.
“It makes me think about the guys,” Amara admitted as she pulled on a fresh change of clothes.
“It’s been so long away from them.” Pax reached out to touch the lovely cursive lettering emblazoned on the plaque. “It’s hard to believe that when we get out of here, we will have changed so much, but only a few days will have passed on the outside—they will be exactly the same.”
“Underneath it all, we’ll be exactly the same too,” Amara said quietly. “That’s what scares me. Even if I get stronger physically, I’ll still be too scared to know what to do with it.”
“That’s not true. This room isn’t just testing us physically,” Pax answered. She removed her fingers from the plaque, heading for the fourth door. “Are you ready?”
“No,” Amara said, “but you’re going to open the door anyway, so why ask?”
Pax was already tugging the amber rectangle almost clean off its hinges. She had grown tired of the purple cube, and was truthfully a bit too excited to continue. “Wow,” she breathed.
Amara peeked her head around the yellow door, glancing into the room. She let out a little sound of surprise when she saw an enormous ruined city. “How pretty. It looks like old Rome or Athens.”
The girls carefully stepped into the fourth room, knowing to expect the worst. They studied their new surroundings with fear and anticipation. When the yellow door disappeared behind them, trapping them in the realm, they had no choice other than to move forward and explore.
“Please, no bugs,” Amara was muttering. “No more bugs.”
This gave Pax a small smile of amusement. “What if there are giants instead?”
“At least we’ll see and hear them coming. I’ll hide behind you while you fry them with fireballs and we’ll be out of here in no time. I miss my beautiful house. I miss my soft mattress. I miss my refrigerator.”
“You’re a wimp,” Pax said, while her voice simultaneously responded, “me too.”
The girls were confused by this, and they stopped staring at the city so that they could look at each other. They realized that there were two copies of Pax standing beside each other, and two copies of Amara. Four girls now stood where there were only two before.
“Well, this is new,” said the two copies of Amara in unison. They seemed uncomfortable about speaking together, and only one continued to comment on the situation: “Kind of opposite from the way we usually do things.”
The copies of Pax were staring at each other curiously, reaching out to touch each other’s hair and faces. “If joining our bodies together makes us stronger—does being divided like this make us weaker?” one of her bodies asked with a frown.
“That’s exactly what I was wondering,” her duplicate responded.
“I guess we’ll find out,” the two copies of Amara said in harmony. “This could turn out to be an advantage, but since we’re in the Pseudosphere, I highly doubt anything that happens is supposed to make it easier on us.”
Chapter 9: Your Godly Attention
“You know, it’s funny that you arrived when you did, Nyssa,” said Rose Kalgren with a weak smile. “I actually just convinced your family to come into town a few days ago; your mom is helping with an investigation. Layla is the very best at what she does.”
“My mom’s here?” Nyssa asked, her hazel eyes pleading. “Where is she?”
Rose hesitated, sipping her tea and looking to her husband for support. She had offered the young girl a shower, a change of clothes, and a hot meal, but Nyssa had declined everything. She preferred to remain in her lime-green jumpsuit, claiming that it was a superior fabric which had not yet been invented.
The young woman was insistent. “Is my mom in the Compound right now? This very building? Please, I want to see her. I haven’t seen her in so many years.”
Vincent shook his head. “That’s an inappropriat
e request, girl. You know that when you travel back in time you are not permitted to have contact with your family members. How do you think that five-year-old Nyssa would feel if she met a fully grown woman claiming to be her?”
“I think she’d find it awesome,” Nyssa admitted with a smile.
“No. She would be terrified and distressed—it would have a huge, indiscernible impact on her life. You must be careful not to change events. Only go directly to those who can help you and do not waste a moment. Why in the blazes would you try to speak to my son before speaking to me?”
“Because I don’t know you very well, sir.” Nyssa’s eyes drifted to the ground. “Where I come from, you died a long time ago.”
Rose and Vincent exchanged glances. Rose placed her teacup down and exhaled heavily. “When did Vince die?”
“When I was five years old.”
“But… you’re five now, dear,” Rose said in confusion. “From how far in the future have you traveled?”
“Twenty years,” Nyssa answered. “According to history, Uncle Vince is going to die about two months from now.”
Rose dug her teeth into her bottom lip, shaking her head. “Well, he won’t. Not this time, now that we have a warning. We’ll fix our mistakes.”
Vincent cleared his throat. “You would do best to tell us what’s coming now, child. We don’t have much time to prepare.”
Nyssa nodded, staring down at the porcelain teacups. “There will be a global cataclysm on August 12th . A comet will hit the earth.”
“Oh, good!” Rose said with a sigh of relief. She elbowed Vincent smugly. “Just a comet! Sounds like a job for Kalgren Tech! I’ve got this one, darling.”
“No,” Nyssa said with a frown. “Don’t you think the Rose Kalgren of my timeline tried to send spaceships up to intercept and disintegrate the comet? It didn’t work—I mean, it may have made the comet smaller. But it still hit Australia, and destroyed the continent. Luckily, everyone had already been evacuated.”
“Just Australia?” Vincent asked with a groan. “I thought you said it was global. I expected this to be a bigger deal.”
“Vince!” Rose said angrily. “Try a little sensitivity.”
“The impact wasn’t the problem,” Nyssa said angrily. “Do you know what it was like? People go on and on about how nuclear warfare is so dangerous—but no one ever mentions that a giant comet hitting the earth is millions of times more powerful than a nuclear bomb!”
“Okay,” Vincent said, nodding. “So what?”
“So what?” Nyssa repeated. “So what? Is he for real?”
“He isn’t very in touch with his humanity, dear,” Rose explained.
“Well, he will be soon,” Nyssa said. “Not only did the comet completely mess up the earth’s magnetic field, but it contained organic matter that spread throughout the earth’s atmosphere. The devas lost most of their power due to the infections and magnetic distortion. Humans who had traces of deva blood gained seriously mutated deva powers—massive wars ensued, and humanity mostly destroyed itself. That is, the quarter of humanity that was left after four billion people were killed from radiation poisoning, cancer, and leukemia almost immediately post-impact.”
Rose and Vincent stared at the young girl, thunderstruck for several long, silent minutes as they both processed her words.
“So do you think that’s important enough, Vince?” Nyssa asked, leaning forward. Her lips curled upward slightly while the green specks in her eyes flared hatefully. “Do you think my little problem warrants your godly attention?”
“Yes,” Vincent answered softly. “We should stop this from happening.”
“Thanks,” Nyssa said. “That’s all I wanted. That, and vodka.”
“Oh, of course, dear,” Rose said, snapping out of her daze. “I should have realized this conversation would require something stronger than tea. It’s been a while since we’ve had a visitor from the future, and they never do bring good news, do they?”
When Rose left the room, Vincent cleared his throat hoarsely. “How did you amass the energy needed for time travel, Nyssa Solyst?”
“I went to the center of the Earth,” she answered. “Well, not the very center—there’s a giant iron crystal there. But I stayed in the mantle and mediated there for a full year while gathering my energy to make the jump. I’m telling you, it was nothing like the Jules Verne novel.”
“Who counseled you to use this strategy?” Vincent asked.
“Auntie Pax did,” Nyssa answered. “She came with me and helped, giving me all of her prana. We entered through Kilauea in Hawaii. Aunt Amara made this suit for me, and there is a mechanical fjuyen device embedded in my belt buckle. I should be able to use it to return to the future once I am finished here—but it only works forward.”
“Why would you want to return to a place like that?” Vincent asked. “You would be welcome to stay here.”
Nyssa smiled. “Well, I have a boyfriend. He’s your grandson. He’s ill right now, but…”
“Grandson?” Vincent asked with interest. The first genuine smile that had touched his lips in years threatened to spread across his face. “Grandson! By whom?”
“Grandson!” Rose shrieked as she entered the room with several giant bottles of vodka on a platter, along with three glasses. “Who? When? Will Thorn—or is it Mara? How soon?”
“I can’t tell,” Nyssa answered with a grin. “It could change the future.”
“No, I’m pretty sure that knowing this won’t change the future,” Vincent said gruffly. “Come on, this is really important. This information could help to save the world from complete apocalypse.”
Nyssa laughed. “Maybe after I’ve had a few bottles of that vodka.” She could not help noticing that Vincent and Rose seemed more affected by news of their grandson than news of the apocalypse—they were a typical deva family.
Rose smiled and began to pour. “I made a few calls on my way to the liquor cabinet. I got in touch with my brother (whom I hate and never speak to) at NASA. I’m also having my own scientists direct our observatories to monitor the skies for celestial irregularities. I commissioned five spaceships to be built in the most recent style, and for new designs to be made promptly. It’s lucky that I took back control of the company a few minutes ago, or I would have had to go through my son instead of doing this directly.”
“She moves fast,” Nyssa said in approval. “All of that just while on the way to get my vodka.”
“Her multitasking skills are legendary,” Vincent boasted.
“Well, I screwed up in the future,” Rose said, taking a generous gulp from her glass. “It won’t happen again. I’m going to use all my resources to fuck up that comet.”
“Rose, my cherished wife; I love you dearly,” Vincent said, reaching for the neck of a bottle, “but unfortunately, I’m going to beat you in the race to destroy that comet.”
She snorted in response. “Yeah, right! My science owns your goofy godly magick always.”
“I guess we’ll see, now, won’t we?” Vincent challenged. “We can make a bet of it.”
Nyssa cleared her throat, unable to believe what she was hearing. “Or,” the girl said angrily, “you two could be mature and compile your resources. You could take this situation seriously and work together instead of making this a competition? Just a thought.”
“She may have a point,” Vincent mused with a frown.
“But not a strong point,” Rose added. “Competition is what fuels the world forward—it’s what forces us to constantly innovate. I consider it far more productive than cooperation. Anyway, my observatories will contact me at first sight of this comet.”
“They may not find anything,” Nyssa said softly. “You see, in my time, it is generally accepted among the remaining devas that the comet was not a natural phenomenon.”
“What?” Vincent asked.
“We don’t have any evidence, but we believe that the comet was guided towards Earth. The viruses were spec
ifically planted in it. It’s all by design. It was the Asura—Lady Suja, specifically.”
Vincent groaned, and brought the bottle to his lips. He turned it upside down, ingesting copious amounts of fluid. “Damn the Asura!”
Rose Kalgren stood and moved around the table to embrace the young girl. She kissed her cheek. “Thank you for traveling back, Nyssa. We will prevent this from happening, and the little girl in our timeline won’t have to grow up in the same awful world that you did.”
“I hope so,” Nyssa said skeptically. She did, however, return the older woman’s hug.
“I’ll find this comet,” Rose said with determination. “Once we determine its trajectory, I’ll take action. If I must liquidate everything I have for this, so be it.”
“Similarly, I will summon all the devas on the planet,” Vincent said. “There are only a handful of true demigods remaining, but there are dozens and dozens of second and third generation devas who could contribute to a situation such as this. At any rate, they will have no choice but to participate or I will put them to death. It’s an old title that there has not been much need for in recent years, but I am the King of Devas—I must be the one to rally them in times of need.”
“Cool,” said Nyssa, chugging from her bottle. She released a giant yawn, realizing that she was spent from the recent time travel. “This was a good idea. I’m having a good day.”
Rose turned to Vincent and gave him a mischievous smile. “I bet Thorn and Pax would love the opportunity to be on a spaceship together again. Confined quarters. Fond memories. Doing battle together.”
“You are an evil, conniving woman,” Vincent said approvingly. “Only my wife could find a way to personally benefit from the possible extinction of the human race.”
“Oh, hush, Vince!” Rose said with a blush. “Unlike you folk, I’m just a human being—I would like to meet my grandchildren before I die from old age.”
Chapter 10: The Diamond Within
Thirty Minutes to Heartbreak Box Set (Books 1-3) Page 37
