by C. C. Ekeke
That pierced through Khal’s sudden bleeding heart. As heartless as he sounded, Tyris was right. This ethnical cleansing was atrocious, but not their dilemma. UComm needed to step in. “No, it isn’t worth it,” he replied numbly.
“Unless it affects finding Reign and Crescendo, we do nothing,” Tyris nodded, “except report to UComm. Continue your search.” With both hands, he shrank down the holoscreen featuring the brutal slaughter of the Inuu. “I will try my contacts within the Imperium…and hope the body isn’t one of our own.”
As Tyris walked away from this workstation, Khal took another glance at the small holoscreen and the horror unfolding. With a few clicks on his console, he packaged the footage from the Inuu attack and sent it off to at least half a dozen UComm HQs nearby.
With that done, Khal inhaled deeply and thought of anything besides the slaughtered Inuu.
Then he continued the fruitless search for his lost teammates.
Chapter 8
Thaomé paced back and forth in the holographic queue’s unending white background, waiting. He’s making me wait, she grumbled heatedly.
The Korvenite hadn’t visited Echelon in either flesh or holo for months. The club was a massive, floating space station similar in shape to a colossal black octopus from Terra Sollus, serving as a decadent playground for the Union’s ultra-elite. Though Echelon stayed within the Mynar Sector, its physical location changed constantly from planet to planet, patrons visiting by appointment only.
Inconveniences notwithstanding, the delicacies inside kept the super wealthy coming back. Whatever someone desired, Echelon provided promptly discreetly and without question—virtual worlds, implanted memories, wetware, software, hardware, sexual companions from every Union memberworld or territory imaginable.
Thaomé had partaken in many of Echelon’s delights. Maybe she would celebrate here after securing victory against Tomoriq Fel. Unfortunately, pleasure wasn’t the reason for today’s visit. She needed an audience with Echelon’s owner and long-time ally.
Thaomé made sure to look dazzling. She donned a slinky dark blue dress sprinkled with twinkle starlight jewels, with a turtle neck and pencil skirt down to her knees. Her silvery hair spilled down both shoulders in sleek, straight sheets.
The Korvenite wouldn’t dare appear in the flesh at Echelon. Tomoriq would know before she stepped foot on the pleasure station. Reaching out via private channels was the safest option.
Finally, after waiting for over half an orv, a digitized voice spoke. “Mr. Hagan will see you now.”
The white background vanished before a large and lavish business office. Thaomé already knew the various disturbing sexual art sculptures lining the blood-red walls, each from different Union and non-Union member races.
Typical him, Thaomé mused about their owner. The room’s furthest end sported a wall-length viewport showcasing the twinkling heavens above the lush jungle planet Kheldoroth.
Behind a half-circle desk before her was Gabriel Hagan, owner of several interplanetary casinos and pleasure resorts under the Hagan Organization. The Korvenite saw Hagan’s hair from behind the back of his gunmetal grey executive chair, a shock of pale blond sticking out in every direction—reminding her of a Terra Sollan hedgehog. Echelon was Hagan’s crown jewel.
The business magnate sat watching several floating holoscreens, none relating to actual business. One larger screen made Thaomé’s jaw drop; it showed a naked human Union Senator in painful, compromising positions with some pleasure mech. “Is that who I think it is?”
“That is who you think it is.” Hagan spun about, sneering from ear to ear. He loved showing her the debasing peccadillos of Echelon’s regulars. “Senator Sakoda and his wife are complete deviants.”
Hagan popped up to his feet and approached a still recovering Thaomé. “Hello, beautiful,” he greeted when they stood face-to-face. Hagan was several inches taller, tanned, and well built. She didn’t find him unattractive like many earthborn humans, especially with his laughing hazel eyes. But that beak of a nose did him no favors, and neither did the face-eating smirk. “To what do I owe this unexpected visit?”
Thaomé gave him a look. “Guess.”
Hagan stopped smiling. “You and Tom.” He belonged to the same “secret society” as Thaomé, but wasn’t part of her contest with Tomoriq Fel.
“Level 10 privacy mode,” he said with a lazy hand wave. Hagan then leaned on the front of his desk, cybernetic arms folded—his most eye-catching feature. Silvery and cybernetic from shoulder to fingertips, both arms were creatively segmented to emphasize their non-organic nature. The left arm was replaced because of an accident, the right intentionally replaced for a matching set. Despite all his wealth, Hagan had refused proper organic or synthetic replacements. Pride in his cyborg-like nature drove Hagan to showcase his arms with short-sleeved or sleeveless shirts, like the black vest he wore today. “Now what’s the story, mon cheri?”
Thaomé gave Hagan a brief contest rundown. She disliked asking for help. But Hagan was in her debt, and would do the right thing when his coffers benefited. Plus, contest rules allowed limited assistance from non-participating society members.
“What’s so special about this moon?” Hagan asked after she finished.
“Whatever secrets lie below its surface,” Thaomé replied, properly restraining her enthusiasm. “My own resources are too far away.” She edged closer to Hagan, the sweetest smile playing across her white lips. “But your properties on Faroor’s neighbor, Jhod, can get me more immediate access. You’ll be handsomely compensated, of course.”
The human replied with a blasé look after chewing on this proposal. “Perhaps.”
His indifference surprised Thaomé. Then she quickly grasped why. “Tomoriq came here first, didn’t he?”
Hagan smiled his idiotic smile and shrugged. “The man rules virtual world media. His reach is infinite.”
Thaomé closed her eyes, purple complexion prickling with rage. That human excrement checks my moves at every turn. “What is Fel offering you?” she demanded through clenched teeth.
Hagan pushed off his desk and rounded behind it in four strides. “Does it matter?”
The Korvenite opened her eyes. “I’ll top his offer,” she countered, not caring how desperate it sounded.
Hagan shook his spiky blond head. “Sorry, Thaomé.” He gave her a patronizing chuckle. “Against Tomoriq Fel, you’re a bad bet.”
Thaomé’s face went blank. So it’s the hard way, again? The Korvenite’s silvery irises vanished into her eyes’ black sclera. Then she reached for Hagan’s mind.
A heartbeat later, the human’s office dimmed despite the halolights remaining unaltered. Voices whispered to Hagan. He whipped his head around in surprise. “Wha-What was that?”
“My wrath,” Thaomé replied coldly. “Since you’ve chosen to defy me.”
Hagan recoiled from the deepening shadows she conjured in his mind. “You’re light-years away—”
“Am I?” Thaomé chuckled, tilting her head to one side. “Not so much. I am near enough to enter your psyche and punish you.” Her spies had revealed Hagan’s cloaked location over Kheldoroth. So she followed Echelon close enough currently in her private space yacht a few miles away.
Silhouettes of clawed fingers skittered toward the casino resort magnate across every wall. Gabriel Hagan backpedaled so fast, he almost tripped over his own chair.
“Now Thaomé,” Hagan, no longer smug or smiling, raised both his metallic hands in surrender. “There’s no need for this temper tantrum—”
“You’ve seen me fashion illusions so real you think you’re in paradise.” The Korvenite approached with unhurried, graceful steps. Hagan looked truly terrified as his surroundings continued to swirl and darken. Thaomé leaned forward, no mercy in her delicate features. “Imagine how I can create a purgatory filled with all your worst fears.”
“Okay, okay,” Hagan squealed like a girl. “Bhoot-nee-gǒu!” he swore.
Thaomé froze. With a thought, the darkness receded and the whispering ceased. Hagan’s office returned to normal.
“Now,” the Korvenite began again in pleasant tones, hands on hips. Silvery irises reappeared over the black sclera of her eyes. “What can I offer for your assistance, Gabriel?”
“Besides new underwear?” Gabriel leaned on his desk, gasping in deep breaths to recover. His hazel eyes studied her with reverence…and fear. “I want first dibs on Faroor’s casino market,” he wheezed out, “…if you win. And fifteen percent of your points in the society’s rankings.”
Thaomé savored a victorious smirk. Losing her current high rank didn’t bother her. Once I secure this artifact, my points will more than triple. Gabriel didn’t need to know that, or the greedy pink-skin might demand more.
“Ten percent when I win,” she decided. “And you have a deal.”
Chapter 9
The five-year-old human girl woke before dawn, scurrying from her bedroom with feverish excitement, pigtails bouncing with every step.
The crashing waves outside her coastal home in the city of Santurce were as much part of her morning as brushing her teeth. After racing down a few levels, she reached her papa’s study. The study took up their whole basement. The walls were covered with her papa’s 3D holoworks, mostly moving fusions of animals and sentients or objects leaping from their frames. Currently they all remained stock-still. He’d kept these for himself. Papa’s other professional holoworks sold like crazy.
Meaning Papa was working on something new. Yes! The girl beamed at the possibilities. Papa’s study was her safe space whenever mama was busy being the worst.
She stepped fully into the study, finding papa on a stool in front of a blank floating canvas. His trademark cascades of dark brown hair were pulled back in a ponytail falling past his shoulders, and he sported a handlebar mustache. His clothing looked tamed today, a white long-sleeve tee and rainbow-splashed pajama pants. Her papa was frowning, not from sadness. Her papa always frowned when trying to visualize new work.
Sensing her presence, he turned and that frown vanished. “Buenos dias, Ana-Lucia!”
“Hola, Papa.” Ana-Lucia smiled, hands behind her back. “Starting a new holowork?”
“Yes.” Her father nodded. “Wanna take the first splash?”
Excitement jolted through Ana-Lucia. Many times since age three, her papa let her take the first splash on his holoworks. Beaming, she ran up to her father with hands held out.
He laughed his loud, musical laugh and slipped his neon-orange gloves onto his daughter’s hands. The gloves shrank to fit her smaller fingers. Flexing a few times, she turned to face the blank canvas.
Ocean blue, Ana-Lucia thought, neuronanocytes in her brain interfacing with the gloves’ color palette. She raised her right hand and slashed across the canvas, leaving five deep blue streaks. She giggled. Her father laughed again. Usually her contribution to her papa’s art ended there.
Not today.
Ana-Lucia stopped giggling. “Not done yet,” she announced.
She raised both hands, slashing in circular patterns with feverish abandon, fashioning a massive deep blue whirlpool in the canvas’s center. So focused on her task, the girl forgot about her father watching in silence as his daughter worked. Suddenly, nothing else mattered to Ana-Lucia except creating this pool. Not breakfast or schoolwork. Not even letting her papa begin his next project.
Now the pool was a cavernous hole, taller and wider than her or her papa.
Ana-Lucia decided a new color was needed. Sparkling white scatter. She raked her fingers up and down the whirlpool, creating the splattered effect of vast star fields.
She slid off the neon-orange gloves and handed them back to her father. “Finished,” she said, startled by the adult woman’s voice speaking her words.
The woman was her. A holomirror reflection on the wall across the study confirmed it. She was tall, slender, and long-legged. Her dark hair, no longer in pigtails, was short and pixie-cut. Instead of pajamas smattered with small suns, she wore a grey, red, and black Star Brigadier’s field uniform, light armored with great mobility.
Liliana Cortes turned from her own reflection to her handiwork, swirling like a slo-mo spiral galaxy, swelling and contracting. A living thing she’d created.
The depth of the whirlpool was startling, like a portal through the canvas.
Lily could tell it led somewhere unknown. Somewhere she had to go.
How she knew, Lily couldn’t guess. And that scared the doctor to her core.
Lily looked to her father for guidance.
Demian Cortes sat on his stool, unchanged by time, smiling proudly at his daughter.
“Go on, Liliana,” he urged. “Step through.”
Lily scowled. Knew he would say that. Despite her reluctance to leave, despite her mounting fears of this unknown, she stepped forward into the blue whirlpool.
The moment she stepped through, a tingle prickled at her body. Stinging on the surface at first, seeping through her uniform and into her skin pores. The warmth felt good, welcome. She entered the whirlpool completely. The prickling warmth spread and increased. Lily clenched her teeth. The warmth became uncomfortable scalding heat. Soon, every muscle was aflame, followed by every inch of her skin.
Lily opened her mouth to scream, but the agony had stolen her breath. The heat rose again, igniting every pain receptor.
Then, Lily screamed…
…sitting bolt upright with a huge gasp of air. Suddenly the heat was replaced by harsh cold. Lily was shivering violently. It took a brief moment for Lily’s thoughts to unthaw. Then she remembered.
The water beast. The frozen lake. Drowning.
Dulce Madre. She tried to hug herself, but her arms shook so badly, she could not get them working properly. As her thoughts continued unthawing, the doctor gained some awareness of her current situation. Snowflakes danced about her face while the skies of Titanoa remained as pale grey and impenetrable as before. Lily was drenched head to heel yet no longer drowning, surrounded by mounds of fresh white snow near the lake.
I’m alive. The relief would have been effusive if not for the pair of strong hands holding her in a seated posture. She looked up, vision still blurry. A broad-shouldered silhouette loomed over her, framed against the pale skies.
Captain Nwosu? Hope shot through her shivering body. CT-1 found me.
“Ana?” a voice asked hopefully. The tenor was deep and male, not quite human yet not quite machine. Definitely not Captain Nwosu.
“Ana, thank the Maker,” the voice cried above the howling winds. “Thought I lost you.” The man drew Lily into a fierce hug.
Lily recoiled, terrified but unable to resist. She didn’t recognize this man, but he clearly knew her. “Ana,” was a nickname reserved for loved ones and longtime non-work friends.
The man pulled away, thankfully. “I came just in time,” he rambled on. “A macrom or two later and I’d have been too…late...” He stopped, pained by the realization, and helped Lily up. Her spaghetti legs would have folded beneath her if not for this stranger’s iron grip on her shoulders.
Lily gaped upward. Her vision wasn’t fully clear yet, but this man’s size was undeniable. Definitely taller than Captain Nwosu but shorter than V’Korram. His powerfully built physique was covered in some kind of dull and scarred armor. A cascade of coppery braids spilled down his back, resembling more metal coils than hair. His features were steeped in shadows, except for two glowing purple eyes sliding along Lily’s body before finding her gaze again. Is he a cyborg?
She felt warmer in his presence. But her body still violently shivered from these ruthless winds. “W-W-Who are—” she asked through chattering teeth.
“I’d tell you everything, Ana-Lucia,” the man interrupted, “but I’ve already interfered enough. I need to send you back where you belong.”
“W-W-Whaa?”
The cyborg man gripped her shoulders more tightly with large gloved ha
nds. “Hold. I have to get the exact time...”
Lily had no idea what he meant. Her brain was still a sputtering wreck. Then, a splinter of light appeared before her eyes. The splinter soon tore open a swirling, deep blue portal in front of them.
Deep blue. Like my dream. Blind terror struck Lily harder than a physical blow. Another portal had sent her to this frozen tundra, away from her team. Who knew where she’d end up this time. She tried backpedaling away from this frightening death hole. But she had no strength outside of an initial burst to move her legs.
The towering man forced the doctor to face him. She was powerless to resist. “Don’t fear. This singularity is from me,” his cybernetic voice softened to where he sounded fully human. “Just know I’m sorry and that I love you.”
The cyborg man kissed Lily’s mouth passionately, then shoved her into the singularity like she weighed nothing.
“W-Wait.” Who are you? The portal greedily sucked her into its gaping maw. The cyborg man, surrounded by Titanoa’s white frozen expanse, vanished from sight. But not before she glimpsed the man’s face against the blue portal’s vivid light. His features looked carved from rock but very human, and so familiar. But her brain was too fried to make any connection.
Then everything became a cyclone of sound and fury, Lily’s body torn apart and slapped back together. Over and over and over again.
She screamed at the unbearable pain, yet no sound left her mouth.
It was a small blessing when Lily finally blacked out.
***
The bizarre tearing and slapping back together of Habraum’s molecules abruptly ended. He landed face first on an unforgivingly hard surface. The sting didn’t hurt half as much as his scrambled brain.
One moment, Habraum had accidently traveled to the past. Then some oversized furball had denied him a chance to prevent the Beridaas Massacre.
The Cerc hopped to his feet quickly and whirled on his would-be rescuer.
