by Desy Smith
Diara huh? I speak to him telepathically ignoring the pouding from my head. But you don’t know anything. He looks at me long and hard, before fear takes over his features causing Noah to ask.
“Why are you looking at him like that?”
You're like them. He swallows. Like him, Emperor and Highness. I keep my face nonchalant, not wanting Noah to know something was up. He didn’t know I was telepathic and I preferred to keep it that way.
Start from the beginning, out loud! I stress.
“How can you be here and not be one of the Disturbed?” Noah says as he opens his mouth, another question that needed to be answered.
“We were told the Disturbed was, well, are contagious,” I add.
“They are, or were,” he says as he looks to both Noah and me.
“What?” Noah and I both say together.
“At first, for about three hundred years, they were . . . like it was really bad. We couldn’t tolerate their smell, but with a few experiments . . . ”
“Wait, they don’t smell anymore?” Noah asks, cutting him off.
“You’ve been experimenting on them?” I question, shocked. I suppose it made sense, especially if they ever wanted to get their planet back.
“Yes,” the male finally answers, looking at us both. Noah reaches for the mask on his nose, but I stop him before he takes it off.
“We don’t know if this fucker is lying,” I tell him, the males nods his head ‘no’ quickly.
“I wouldn’t,” the male replies. I ignore him.
“He has no mask on, Horatio,” Noah points out and I have to admit I hadn’t noticed.
“Because we do not need it,” the male says again. I hold my hand up, indicating for him to be silent.
“Either the experiments are working or he’s a new and improved type of Disturbed,” Noah says as he unstraps the Velcro from his mask.
“You really want to test that out?” I ask him as he takes the mask off his mouth completely. Now breathing in the air, Noah clutches at his throat. “I told you . . . ” I begin but trail off when he starts laughing. Asshole.
“I suppose the tests did work because I don’t smell them,” Noah says as he looks down at the deceased Disturbed laying on the ground. Would they smell if they were dead? He takes a couple of deep breaths before be begins to lift the mask back to his face, strapping the Velcro back together.
“Suddenly afraid?” I ask him.
“Don’t want to overdo it,” Noah says with a shrug of his shoulders.
“What else did these experiments entail?” I ask.
“They aren’t contagious anymore,” the man replies. Noah and I look at each other in shock. “Well, not completely anymore, only through the sharing of their blood.”
“So not through their spit?” Noah questions.
“No,” he replies as he shakes his head. I wonder if they were also responsible for them being mentally conscious as well. I mentally direct that question to him and his reply is ‘no’. I suppose they were and always would be aware.
“What’s that crystal-like substance over there?” I point at the stuff on the floor.
“It’s what started all of this,” he replies, staring at us both dumbly. Now we get into the story, the beginning I should say.
“What?” Noah and I questions simultaneously.
“That stuff is what created the Disturbed,” he says slowly.
“He said a crystal-like substance when IUDs started this, not crystals.” Noah turns to me, confirming what we knew or were taught. I nod my head.
“What?” the male scrunches up his face in confusion.
“On Gaia . . . ” Noah begins, but the male interrupts him.
“So that’s the name of the planet they escaped to?” the male shakes his head.
You didn’t know the name of the planet? I ask him mentally.
They were looking at several different planets, we didn’t know which one they choose.
“Yes, the men were told that the IUD created the Disturbed,” Noah tells the male. He looks at us a long second before bursting out with laughter. When he notices we weren’t laughing, he stops.
“Emperor and Highness really told y’all that an IUD, a contraceptive, is what created the Disturbed?” I nod my head in response.
“You know Emperor and Highness, too?” Noah question.
“Wow,” the male says as he looks between us both. “You both don’t know anything, do you?”
“What do we not know?” I ask him. Get to it. I’m tired of the back and forth. You’re starting to sound like the women.
“The Disturbed were created from that crap, that Emperor and Highness created together to enhance the male and female bodies.”
“Enhance what?” I wonder, my curiosity getting the best of me.
“For the women, their butts, breast, and lips, and for the men, their penis, abs, and arms.”
“And Emperor and Highness created that shit?” I ask just to verify.
“Yes,” he replies, annoyance riding his voice.
“Everyone on Earth took it, right?” Noah questions.
“Everyone,” he stresses. “It turned some people into the Disturbed. It gave special powers to others, the gift of telepathy to some women and the gift of telekinesis to some men.”
“Why did they leave? Why not help turn them back since they created the crap in the first place?” Noah questions.
“Others would say they aren’t sure. ”
“What do you think?” I ask him.
“Earth was on the verge of becoming extinct, overpopulation, pollution, lack of food and resources. Both Highness and Emperor were aware of this and instead of doing something to stop it, they took the cream of the crop, Highness words not mines, found a new planet and created a new civilization, a better one, so I’d imagine.”
“But you didn’t go,” I say.
“I wasn’t invited,” he replies. I then realize that stuff, that crystal stuff, affects each person differently.
Yes, is his single reply. I realize now what he meant by your like them. Highness and Emperor could do the same thing I could do. Yes. He replies again.
Chapter Five - Essence
Planet: Earth
An hour later
Back to the shuttle . . .
Where are you? Cher questions me mentally. Turn your earpiece back on. It’s hard talking to you mentally. I continue running, hauling ass across Earth, trying to follow the map to the best of my ability.
“I’m on my way back,” I tell her as I turn the earpiece in my ear back on. Finally, I make out the shuttle in the distance. Green is standing on the top stair, surveying the lands for me, I assume.
“I see her,” Green calls out to the others. I watch them all, even Cher, who is supposed to be in the cockpit navigating. They join Green, who is now waiving at me, hurrying me. I quicken my pace, feeling beyond exhausted. I’ve been running for the past thirty minutes, which wouldn’t have been necessary if I didn’t get lost. Damn me and my lack of navigating abilities.
“You didn’t leave me,” Green tells me as I get close, now extending a hand to help me up the stairs. “I wouldn’t dare let them leave you.” That makes me smile. I suppose they didn’t hate me after all.
“If it was up to me, we would have left your ass,” Amelia says. Well, not all of them anyway.
“Amelia,” I look in her direction as she turns to me with a sneer. Sleep, I tell her mentally. She collapses to the ground and begins snoring quietly. We weren’t supposed to do this to each other, so says Grand Dame. I knew once Amelia told her, I’ll be punished, in addition to the punishment I’ll receive for making us all late.
“You know the drill,” Cher says, stopping me in my tracks. “Strip and dispose of your clothes in the toxic bin. Time for the desanitizing.” I instantly start to undress, knowing that my objections wouldn’t be heard nor cared about.
“Is tha
t the man’s sack pack?” Green questions and I smile. The girls ‘oooh’ and ‘aaah’ from a distance, knowing if they touch it, they’ll have to desanitize again.
Now sitting in the sanitization room in my comfortable bra and panties, I groan loudly when another stream of sanitizing spray hits my already wet body. It’s been doing this every ten minutes for the past two hours. Usually, when we desanitize, we undress, step into a stream of sanitizing spray, and a green light indicates all’s well. New clothes are issued and I’d be able to continue on with my day. This time, my light flashed red. Red indicates you’re infected. The infected remain inside the desantizing room, locked by way of Tara.
Tara is the automation program built by the women scientists in Diara. Her sole purpose is to take care of the shuttle, the passengers on the shuttle, and prevent/destroy anything that could infect Diara and its people. Another stream of sanitizing spray hits my body before the room finally flashes green. I breathe a sigh of relief, no longer worried that I was infected.
Tara speaks, “Your release will be in one hour.” I groan in response. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
“Can I have a towel or blanket while I wait?” I ask Tara.
“Access denied. In order to ensure that you are truly uninfected, you will remain bare-skinned.” Bare-skinned and cold, I suppose. I roll over onto my back and make myself comfortable, knowing I have another hour of this.
You’ve been in there a while, Cher speaks to me telepathically.
I’m on hold, I tell her.
Please tell me you’ve looked through his bag, Cher questions.
Not yet,” I tell her. “It’s kind of hard with the sanitizing spray hitting me every ten minutes.
You’re on hold now, do it . . . ” she trails off. I’m receiving a transmission from Diara. Give me a second. I wait a minute before Cher speaks to me again. Grand Dame wants to speak to you, Cher says.
About what? I ask her as I walk to the wall where a small tablet is attached. I unhook it and touch the screen before walking back to the floor, making myself comfortable again.
She wouldn’t say, but it didn’t sound good, Essence.
I’ll let you know.
“Connect the call, Tara.”
“Connecting call,” Tara replies. The line beeps, not connecting immediately, which doesn’t surprise me. The connection is always spotty, especially with the shuttle being so far away from Gaia. Currently, we were twenty-two hours away from our planet. The closer we got, the sooner the line would connect.
Thirty minutes go by and the line is still beeping. I found myself going through the bag I confiscated from the man back on Earth.
Why aren’t you worried about whatever Grand Dame is about to tell you? Cher questions.
Because it’s not important. It never is.
Truer words have never been spoken, Cher replies. Now, what’s in the bag? I look at the stuff I pulled from the bag and laid out on the ground in a neat row.
Water, five bottles, which explains why the bag was so heavy. There’s a pocket-size blue translucent case that holds their earpiece.
Why am I imagining our pink translucent case? Cher wonders.
Because it looks exactly like ours with the exception of the color.
Copycats, Cher comments. What else is in there?
A spiral, I tell her and begin looking through it, amazed at the sketches, some of which I assume are of Scipio, and others of women who live in Lust, the city between Diara and Scipio. The sketches of the women are surprisingly tasteful. The majority are various headshots, others full body where the women are clothed as well as unclothed, as the women of Lust usually are.
From the way you describe him, I did not get an artistic vibe.
Neither did I, I confess. Who knew the men in Scipio possessed such talents?
Although it doesn’t surprise me that you like a guy like that.
Yeah, well . . . I stop talking, replaying what she said in my mind. I don’t like him.
Yet.
There is no yet. I don’t like him.
You find him attractive, Cher states.
I’m a woman, he’s a man, that’s normal.
It always starts like this in those books you like to read so much.
You actually read something, I laugh.
Oh, shut up, I was bored. I stop laughing when I notice the line is no longer beeping.
“Essence, Essence . . . ” Grand Dame’s voice comes out muffled and staticky. “Can you hear me?”
“Barely,” I reply back to the speaker.
“Give me a minute. I need to pull over,” she tells me.
I gotta go, Cher.
Okay, see you in a few minutes, she replies.
“Essence? Essence, can you hear me?” Grand Dame questions again, her voice sounding crystal clear.
“Yes, Grand Dame,” I reply on a sigh. “You do know that this call is draining the shuttle’s fuel reserves,” I inform her.
“She knows,” Grand Dame says in a panicky voice, instantly making me sit up, knowing this call is more serious than I expected. I know the ‘she’ being referred to is Highness. A few years ago, I stumbled upon some information after accidentally reading her personal guard’s mind.
Every now and then, I get these intense migraines, where I’m able to tap into the subconscious part of the women’s mind, the memories they themselves somehow have seemed to forget over the past century, this particular guard has killed over two hundred toddler girls who her Highness believed had the ability of both telekinesis and telepathy.
I took the information back to Grand Dame, finally understanding why she did what she did all those years ago. She told me things, like how Highness and Emperor have both abilities. How their both responsible for the Disturbed and how they erased Grand Dame’s mind and others on that shuttle the day they escaped, making them believe different things. The women believe that the men were responsible for creating the Distured and visa versa for the men.
When Highness realizes Grand Dame is remembering, as she does every century, regaining her memory, Highness will erase her memory again. That cycle of memory rape has been happening to not only Highness but a few of the other higher-ranking women in Diara for five centuries now.
“How did she find out?” I ask, preparing myself for the worst. “Tara, how much time do I have left?”
“Fifteen minutes,” She replies. Great, I grab the guys sack pack, and begin putting the water back into it, along with a second pair of clothes. I search for food but stop knowing the food will be around the waiting ring, where the girls are seating at. I’ll grab that on my way to the pod. I wouldn’t stay on Gaia and go through whatever Highness had in store for me. I’d rather take my chances on Earth.
Take your chances on Earth? Cher questions, reading my mind. You’re scaring me. What’s going on?” I ignore her.
“Don’t do anything drastic,” Grand Dame’s voice calls from the device that’s still sitting on the floor.
“I’m leaving for Earth,” I tell her.
“No, Essence, you wouldn’t survive. You wouldn’t . . . ”
“I’ll take my chances!” I yell back to her. If I die, then I go out my own way.
“Emperor wants you,” Grand Dame informs me, making me pause my stuffing the blanket inside my sack pack.
“Wants me for what?” I question.
“Emperor wants to change Scipio for the better,” Grand Dame snorts, letting me know she does not believe him. “He wants the men and women to live amongst each other as they did on Earth.”
“Why the sudden change? Weren’t he and Highness the ones who started the separation?” I ask her, already knowing the answer to it.
“He thinks by doing this he’ll cut down on the men sneaking into Diara for woman companionship. He also believes it will be more convenient for his men.” Just like a man. We weren’t telling those men to sneak to Diara— they did it of t
heir own free will. Why would we women care about there convenience or lack thereof?
“So what am I to be, the whore woman who starts this little change? Will he use me and then pass me around to the other men?”
“No, Essence, you misunderstood,” Grand Dame says.
“Time!” I yell at Tara.
“Ten minutes,” she replies. I take a deep breath, trying to calm myself down. I did not want to experience another migraine. I couldn’t afford it now. I take a seat, knowing I can’t do anything until the doors unlock.
“What don’t I understand?” I ask.
“Emperor knows as well, he wants you as his Queen. He knows how rare you are and he’ll be a fool to let any of his men touch you. He knows how disastrous that would be.” I didn’t have to ask what she meant by Queen. I knew the meaning of the word from the books I’ve read that spoke about it.
A Queen in those stories is the King’s mate. In the majority of the stories, the Queen had very little power, if any at all. In most cases, they were charged with keeping the palace and the staff that lived there in order. The few books I did read where the Queen had more power, the King was either dead or mentally unable to rule. I had a feeling I would be the first example since Emperor wasn’t dead and had all of his wits about him.
“Let’s see, my options are stay here on Earth or become Emperor’s obedient bitch. I’ll take my chances here on Earth,” I tell her.
“Essence, you have a chance to do something we eight have been trying to do since we boarded the shuttle and Highness erased our memories. We could take Highness down!”
“And what would we do about Emperor?” I question.
“If you get Emperor in your corner, you can mold him and shape him to where he’ll side with you, ultimately siding with the women of Diara.”
“You expect me, a twenty-one-year-old, to mold and shape a man who’s over five hundred years old?”
“Don’t underestimate yourself, Essence. You have something that he wants.” I catch on to what she’s saying.
“You expect me to sleep with him, too!” I exclaim in disbelief.
