Paradise Forgotten Trilogy

by Mackenzie Morris

  Xanthe's hair is plastered to the side of her face with sweat. She is screaming and trying to control her breathing. She looks up. "Zodiac! Zodiac, help me. I'm in labor."

  "There's a box cutter over there on the bench." Sparta says. "Cut these ropes and let us help our mother."

  Zodiac takes the box cutter and begins releasing them. He does a quick count and inventory of them. "Where are Midas and Ajax?"

  Sparta rushes over to his mother and releases her. "Dead. They're dead. We did all we could, but the nanobots . . . they . . ."

  "What about Io?" Zodiac goes to her next and feels her cold little hand.

  "She's asleep." Atlas says as he wipes the sweat from Xanthe's face.

  Zodiac leans over and kisses the tiny girl's white curls. He takes his t-shirt off and lays it over her. "She's not asleep."

  Xanthe cries out and holds onto Sparta's arm. "Ah! Help me, Sparta."

  He lifts her skirt. "You're doing fine. Just breathe, Mom. You've done this before."

  "But with Troy. I need Troy!"

  "Troy isn't here." Atlas says. He pushes his thin glasses back up his nose. He looks over at Zodiac. "Zodiac, make yourself useful and tell us the plan."

  "Uh . . ."

  "Get the younger ones outside. Take them to your house." Sparta orders. "Go with them, Atlas. You'll be in charge of keeping them safe. Take Ovid and Eos first. They're not doing too well. Mom can't be moved in her state. I'll stay here with her and deliver the baby. Go now before Apollo gets back."

  Zodiac picks up the young boy who hasn't stopped crying and runs up the stairs. "Shh. Ovid, you're okay. I've got you. Hey, stop crying." He kicks open the front door and takes off down the street with Ovid against his chest. "You're gonna go to my house and I'll clean you up. Then we'll play some games, all right? Everything is okay." Zodiac opens the door to his house and lays the boy down on the sofa. "Uriel, I have the first one."

  Uriel rushes into the room and begins tending to Ovid. "Go get more. I'll take care of him."

  Zodiac ignores his fatigue and lightheadedness from the gasoline fumes as he runs back to Apollo's house. He pushes past his exhaustion when he sees the smoke. No! Sprinting so fast that he nearly trips, Zodiac makes it back inside the house where the flames are leaping up all around him. The thick smoke stings his eyes and makes him cough. His wounded side is aching, but he knows he can't think about that now. He dashes down into the basement.

  Sparta thrusts a tiny baby girl into Zodiac's arms. "Take her next. Go."

  "Wait. Where's Atlas?" Zodiac asks.

  "He was following you, right? He left with Eos. Go."

  "I . . ."

  "Just go. I'll bring more of them after I help my mom."

  A door slams shut as someone comes down the stairs. Apollo grins darkly as he pours gasoline on the floor. "You're not going anywhere. Give me the baby."

  * * *

  Orion jumps off of his horse and runs over to the edge of the pit. Rivers of sand continue to spill down into the blackness. "Troy! Answer me!" He digs in the pouch around his belt and retrieves a small metal instrument. One side has a light stick on it. He snaps it, shakes it, then drops it down into the darkness. He watches it as the vibrant blue light falls, and falls, and falls. It then vanishes after about fifteen seconds. That's a long drop. There's no sign of Troy's horse either. Orion pulls out a flashlight and shines it down past the splintered wooden support beams, dingy white marble columns, and walls engraved with hieroglyphics. It's some kind of long-lost ruins. Troy's horse must have been just heavy enough to crack through the ancient wooden roof. Under the sand, it was practically invisible. This is an amazing discovery, but he can't celebrate yet. If he can't find Troy, he won't be celebrating at all.

  Orion finds his backup communication sensor in his back pocket and presses it on his arm. He dials Silver's number. "Silver!"

  "Orion? What's wrong?" Silver asks.

  "Troy is gone. We came across some hidden underground ruins and his horse broke through the ceiling. It's at least a hundred foot drop. There's no signal from his sensor. I dropped an emergency light, but there's been no answer. It has a flare capability so if he finds it, he can fire it and I'll know he's there. I don't know what to do!"

  "Calm down. Freaking out isn't going to help anyone. Can you get down there safely to see if he survived the fall?"

  "No. Silver, there's no way anyone could have survived that fall." Orion clenches his fists as tears fill his eyes. "He's gone. Troy is gone."

  * * *

  "Run, Zodiac!" Xanthe screams as Apollo sends a ball of purple glowing dark matter towards him. It slams into the wall, spreading from the ceiling to the floor, leaving a gaping hole into the dirt on the other side of the concrete.

  A sudden burst of courage and adrenaline springs to life inside Zodiac. It only takes one glance at the crying newborn baby in his arms to fully solidify his bravery. With a primal yell, Zodiac lunges at Apollo. He pushes past him to the stairs. When he reaches the top, he turns around to see Apollo strike a match on the wall.

  The explosion is deafening as the house shakes and the ceiling collapses around Zodiac. He leaps towards the door as the force of the explosion throws him through the wall and out onto the street. Rubble and flaming debris rain down on him. He holds himself over the baby to protect her. He can vaguely hear someone calling his name, but the voice sounds far away. A high pitched ringing dominates his hearing as most of the rest of the world is silent.

  Someone touches his shoulders and rolls him over. It's Blice. "Zodiac, get up. Get up, man. He's coming."

  Who's coming? Zodiac manages to stand up with Blice's help then he sees the destruction. The house is nothing but a blazing inferno. Only one wall is left standing as the entire area is engulfed by flames. How did he survive that? Zodiac hands the baby to Blice and takes off running into the remnants of the house.

  "Zodiac, no! What are you doing? You can't go back in there. He'll kill you!" Blice shouts.

  Zodiac dives under a fallen beam as sparks and embers shower down around him searing his bare back and arms. He has to get to the basement and save them. They can't be dead. They just can't!

  The door to the basement flies open as Apollo emerges from the black billowing smoke. He has a helmet on and the sparkle of dark matter glistens across his power armor, shielding him from the heat and the fire. "They're dead, Zodiac. They're all dead! I watched them burn, all of them!" He laughs darkly and picks up a burning wood plank.

  Zodiac ducks as the wood speeds past his head. The heat is unbearable. He can't stay in here anymore so he drops to his hands and knees and crawls below the choking smoke. "Gabriel!" He keeps screaming, trying to get help from anyone who will hear him. "Gabriel, help me. Help me!"

  The flames are fanned higher as wind blows the smoke away. Large wings surround Zodiac sheltering him from a ball of dark matter that ricochets back across the blazing rubble. Gabriel takes off into the smoky air with Zodiac securely in his strong arms. He chuckles and his teeth glint in the light of the inferno. Raising one hand into the air, a vibrant aura swirls to life around his wrist. "Stand down, Apollo Adonis. I can and will kill you. That armor of yours won't save you from itself. Three hits from this power right here will permanently shut your armor down. In doing so, you will die as well. I know you can't understand me very well in your altered state, but heed my warning. You have merged with your armor. That's why you haven't been able to remove it. If you surrender, we can help you. You won't be held responsible for all of this. Uriel and I will defend you. We will do tests to figure out what went wrong and how to help you. This is your one chance, Apollo. You've killed your wife and children. Haven't you done enough? Think about what you've done. I know there's still a man under there who loved his family more than anything else in the universe. That man is screaming for help. I can help you if you'll only let me."

  A spike of dark matter flies through the air and pierces Apollo's armor. He makes a pained gurgling sound as i
t passes through him, impaling him. It then dissipates, leaving a gaping hole through his chest. He drops to his knees in the broken glass and charred wood. With one final scream, he collapses and the lights on his armor fade to black.

  Gabriel lands on the street where a large crowd of panicked and concerned citizens has gathered to watch the chaos. He sets Zodiac down then spins around. "Where did that dark matter come from? Who killed Apollo Adonis?"

  Blice grins and pushes back his greasy black bangs out of his violet eyes. "I did. Is that a problem for you?"

  "What have you done? I was giving him a chance to come peacefully."

  "You were giving him a chance to kill more innocent people." Blice shouts. "Look around. We're in the middle of the city. I hope no one else was hurt in that explosion. You can't give homicidal psychopaths a chance. He left second chances behind when he coated his entire house in gasoline and tied up his family! He was a nut job. You had no business promising him freedom."

  "I didn't promise him freedom. I promised him that we would figure out what was going on."

  "You shouldn't have promised him anything!"

  "It doesn't matter now." Gabriel says.

  People start screaming and running away as gunfire fills the air.

  * * *

  An oracle guard carries a small plastic bowl of steaming tomato soup through the golden doors into the oracle's inner chambers. The white curtains hang from the vaulted ceiling and billow in the cavern breezes. Icy stalactites drip water down into the glistening pools of water that surround the stone altar. Fog and gases rise from the water and fill the room with a constant supply of mind-altering chemicals. They help the oracle maintain her intimate connection with the gods. She must always have an open mind and a soul that is prepared to be manipulated by the gods themselves. She is their messenger, their prophet, and their chosen divine voice in the mortal world. It is his job to defend her.

  The oracle guard pushes back the curtains surrounding the altar. The bowl falls from his hands. He turns the oracle over and places his face on her bare chest. She's not breathing. There's no pulse. "Help the oracle!"

  All ninety-nine other oracle guards, in their white robes, rush into the room and lay hands on the oracle. They all begin humming in unison.

  The oracle guard picks up the bowl he dropped and closes the oracle's eyes. "Nova Cunningham is dead."

  * * *

  The IGR soldiers fill the streets. They surround everyone here with machine guns at the ready. They push Blice and Gabriel to their knees and secure their wrists with handcuffs. A space transport lands in the small empty lot across the street. Zodiac is still coughing and breathing hard as the soldiers take his arms and secure them behind his back.

  King Evans emerges from the transport and spreads his arms into the air. "This madness is over. Clip the archon's wings so he cannot fly or put up a fight. Round up all the impure Nymphs in Athens and load them up into the space transports for immediate transportation to Andromeda. Then get the androids. We need them for breeding." He steps over the pieces of wood and shingles that are still smoldering. He stops in front of Blice. "My son, you just struck out. I gave you so many chances to conform and cooperate with my plans. I would have given you everything. Oh well. Now I have no one to contest my ultimate plan. I will rule not only Olympus, but the IGR, the entire Milky Way Galaxy, and the universe. Guards, take my son and the archon to the dungeon. Spread out and search the city for the other archon. He can't get away." Evans walks up to Zodiac and takes his face in his bony cold hand. "As for our half android trouble maker, take him with the rest of the slaves to the Andromeda Galaxy and breed him. If he won't mate willingly, then perform the surgery and artificially inseminate him. We will impregnate all the slaves, women and men, to produce enough children so we can populate our planets. Take them away."

  Zodiac is hoisted to his feet and dragged up the ramp into the space transport. He can't cry. He feels nothing but shock. A horrifying numbness seizes his mind as his world falls apart. He hasn't had time to come to terms with the events of the past hour or the people he's lost. What awaits him now? Zodiac is thrown to the cold metal floor as the engines start up. He watches the last scraps of sunlight vanish as the doors seal shut.

  Nova

  Paradise Forgotten

  Book Two

  1

  Zodiac rubs his wrists where the handcuffs have been. He looks around the cargo hold where around two hundred other prisoners are huddled together underneath the bright fluorescent lights of the space transport. Most of them are dark-haired impure Nymphs. One other one is an android or half android like Zodiac. He knows her name, but not much more. Nyx. He can barely make out the red color of her curly hair. Without his daily nanomeds to help his colorblindness, there's a very real possibility that he may lose what little color he can see in the world around him. But right now, there are many other emergencies that take priority over that.

  He sits in the back corner up against the cold metal wall where the rivets dig into his bare back. He doesn't mind, though. It's nice to have something he can still feel. He watches the others. Men and women clutch their children to their chests and try to quiet their crying babies. Some of them hide their faces as if trying to avoid the entire situation. Whether they choose to accept it or not, this is their fate.

  A quick calculation and recollection of the final things King Evans told him before throwing him in here makes Zodiac fully understand what has been planned for all of them. This isn't an attempt to take enough people to some space colony so they can populate it. No. This is genocide.

  Apparently all of these poor people know who he is and they gather around him as if waiting for an explanation or some form of leadership. He's no leader, but the fresh burns and soot streaked across his chest, arms, and face proves he was the one who tried to save the family of their beloved Troy. He tried as best as he could to save all of those innocent victims, but the nanobots from Apollo's power armor had corrupted his mind to the point of irreversible homicidal madness. How many of Troy's half siblings even made it out of the basement before the house exploded? He doesn't know. Everything happened so fast.

  A stocky Nymph with a leather apron around his waist and a thick black mustache comes over and sits next to Zodiac. "You are Zodiac Cunningham, right? You belonged to Troy Adonis before he was forced to fight in the arena?"

  "Yes, that's me."

  "Then you have a plan, yes? You have been communicating with our rightful king and he's told you the plan."

  "No." Zodiac says. "I haven't spoken to Troy about a plan. He's a slave now."

  "Not Troy!" A woman screams.

  "Yes. I don't know anything other than that." Zodiac says.

  "Tell us something. You were Troy's right hand man. You have to know something."

  What can he tell them? He thinks of one thing, but it's not what they want to hear. "If you're religious, you should start praying."

  "Why? What are you saying?" A young woman asks as she holds a small boy in her lap.

  He has to be blunt. "We're all going to die."

  "How can you talk that way? There are children here!"

  "It's the truth." Zodiac says. "I've flown one of these ships before when my cargo ship was being repaired. I know how much fuel it can hold and how fast it can travel. There's no way we can reach the Andromeda Galaxy. I doubt any ship in existence can go that far. I don't think Evans has actually been there. It's impossible."

  "Then how long do we have?" The man in the apron asks.

  "If we left Olympus with full fuel tanks, then we can keep going for about two weeks. That won't even get us to the edge of this solar system going in this direction. All we can hope for is that they discover their miscalculation once we reach the first nanogate."

  "Nanogate?"

  "It's how space travel works." Zodiac says. "All throughout this galaxy, there are portals made of nanobots where they are eating space. They condense it that way. So we fly through those
gates to pass through a section of space at extreme speeds. Usually at those points, the pilots will receive a full system check and the computer systems stationed there will report back any issues regarding fuel, engines, or oxygen levels. With any luck, they'll realize their mistake and take us back to Olympus."

  "When will we reach that first gate?" He asks.

  "In about five minutes. If they keep going, then we'll eventually run out of fuel."

  "And what happens then?"

  "The emergency reserve system will kick on and we'll have about twelve hours of power for us to reach an alternate landing point. If we don't, then after those few hours, everything will shut down. We'll lose our heat and our oxygen. This entire ship will turn into a floating frozen tomb."

  "So you can fly this thing?" The man asks.

  "With a navigator, yes."

  "How many crewmembers are usually on a ship of this size?"

  What is he planning? "Six. You have the pilot, copilot, navigator, engineer, nanogate operator, and the computer technologist. For shorter flights like my cargo transportation, it was just me and a navigator."

  "So there's six of them and how many of us? About two hundred?"

  "On this ship. If Evans was crazy enough to round up every impure Nymph in Olympus, then there would have to be another fifty ships at least."

  "I'm not concerned with those other ships." The man says. "My family is on this ship. If we can get that door open, we can storm the command center and take over. Then you can turn this ship around and fly us home. How do we know when we reach the nanogate?"

  "We'll slow down and the lights will flicker."

  "So the power goes out?" He asks with a dark grin.

  "Only for a few seconds while the ship connects to the nanogate computer systems."

  "Then that's our chance. Once the power goes out, the electronic locks on that door will be released. We'll storm the control room and take over."