Journey to Ohmani (Across the Infinite Void Book 1)

by Ashley Grapes

  “If you had these big plans, why come to Earth for a decade?” Levi wondered aloud.

  “This plan has been in the making for much longer than you can imagine. Not only did I have Mantys’ progeny under my…temporary protection, but I was able to watch over Kravis’ as well.”

  Who was Kravis? What was he talking about?

  “I did make the mistake of thinking I was actually in love with your mother at some point. I got side-tracked from my mission and blundered the truth. Her kicking me out was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  “You are a very sick man,” Levi said. “I can’t believe our family was just a pawn in your cruel game.”

  “Yes, but in this case the means justify the end. When the conference was scheduled I had to get you guys up to Ohmani. We needed you as leverage knowing the old man would never cooperate without you. What?” he turned to Axella gagged with a towel on the floor, “You didn’t think you actually got this job on your own did you?”

  “So you killed Pila,” Levi said, hoping it wasn’t true.

  “Yes. The bitch had learned way too much on her little newfound spy excursions.”

  “You bastard!” Levi yelled.

  “Shall I start at the beginning? Jivine was working for us. As a human she proved to be quite resourceful, although not the brightest at times. I was her contact at the hotel…you see, Levi, we’ve met several times before now.”

  “You were Caleb Burger,” Levi said. No wonder his mother was subconsciously drawn towards the robot.

  “Well, I killed the real Caleb, but yes. Do you like my British accent?” he said in the same inflection Levi was used to. “It even fooled Pila. She came to the hotel on one of her little nose-digging trips and set-up a key-word hacking system using the hotel’s broadband. Jivine was careless and stupid and allowed Pila to catch onto her through one of her emails. Pila was quite the little code breaker. She had been onto Jivine from the get-go and tailed her on many occasions to the Revolution Lounge. Jivine was supposed to work her way into the group because we were going to use them as scapegoats for the bombings. They are a stupid, yet enthusiastic group. This is why we needed a human. The only way Pila could get in as a Sydces was to build her little passageway into the Revolutionist’s lot and eavesdrop. On her last trip she intercepted a rather important email detailing the first spaceport bomb. In desperation, Pila approached Jivine. That was her weakness you see. She was too soft-hearted and trusting for this business — thought she could turn Jivine against us,” Kaylan huffed a deep-chested sound.

  “All we had to do is feed Pila a little intel of my involvement and she flew straight back to the ground and drove to the hotel to tell her bestie. I used the codes Jivine set-up as Stellar Grand security manager to hook up to one of the two hovering Extensions and waited for her to show up. Ground police always forget to think about murder by Extension, especially when we erase its syncing history.”

  Axella let out a cry and tears began rolling down her cheeks.

  “Jivine made the same mistake, thinking we would save her after she let a government spy find her out. When Jivine found out I killed Pila, she tried to get out…switched jobs and everything. We told her she could if she did one last thing…planted the bomb herself in the spaceport.

  “But the bomb in the spaceport almost killed us!” Levi said.

  “But it didn’t. We strategically bought your tickets to coincide with Vernean’s. It was all planned…the bagger, the pills, even accepting your little girlfriend’s application into the Ohmani Academy. It was Hu’s job to get you all into the back shaft elevator, which he did. And as for Jivine, we had no need for her anymore.”

  “Did you plan on getting my mother arrested for terrorism?” Levi asked.

  “We only needed one of you as leverage over Mantys. Bockie, here, was a bonus. That being said, we needed to keep your mother safe because she was our original plan. Yes, we meant for her to be arrested…Charlie is one of ours, you see, but that stupid Shay woman kept getting in our way. Axella’s first preliminary trial was going to be squashed and then the powder was found on her hands, which was unexpected. We would have figured it out.”

  “You almost killed Mantys at the Stellar bombing. That was pretty stupid if you wanted to steal his identity later,” Levi said.

  “The bombings were all a ploy to get the conference members to use Extensions. We had to target the hotels where the attendees were staying. With your mom safe in jail and you safe at school, we decided the Stellar Grand was an important target. Mantys was never meant to stay there. Our people were going to set him up in this very building, making it much easier to kidnap him when the time came.” He jerked Mantys under his hand. “The old man would have been content watching your family from a distance as usual, but then you had to show up and let him know you all were on Ohmani. We had to change our plans after you reignited Mantys’ feelings for his long-lost love and he wanted to stay at the Stellar. But nothing’s ever easy, is it?”

  “I had already planted the bomb and set the timer when the limo pulled up with Mantys in it. Remember, I greeted you. I would recognize this man anywhere, baseball cap or not. I greeted you and quickly went to try and turn off the bomb. I barely made it. It would have blown the entire place to smithereens if I hadn’t removed several of the explosive packs around it.”

  Levi remembered several people, including Bockie, saying the bomb at the Stellar Grand was mild compared to the others.

  “We were never going to bomb the conference…but Mantys is a stubborn old man and needed a little coaxing to get himself inside of an Extension. I expected someone to see our guy putting our fake bomb down, but it turned out to be my own flesh and blood. Then you became a little famous boy and got your sweet mommy out of prison, giving us the opportunity to get all of them.”

  “Why didn’t you get me?” Levi asked, wondering why he wasn’t gagged and bounded.

  “It is true that we had underestimated you. Your ignorance of all of this is what kept you alive…but not anymore.”

  POP! A shot fired so loud, Levi thought it went into his ear. He thought he was dead and then heard a thump behind him. He turned around and saw Teddy lying on the floor, blood pooling around her.

  “Do you see what happens when you get distracted?” Kaylan said. “Women are just too soft-hearted and weak for this business. Now we are the only two with weapons, and something tells me I have a better chance of winning than you. You’re shaking son.”

  Levi knew Kaylan could kill him at any moment. He threw the Taser into the dark shadows across the room.

  “You’re weak, too,” Kaylan sneered. “I cannot let you leave here alive. None of you can. I think you should go first. It would be cruel to make you watch.”

  “I can’t believe I wasted so much of my life feeling nothing but pain over losing you. Mom was right. I am a hundred times the man you will ever be. I stand by my family. Mom, Bockie…Mantys, I love you,” Levi said, closing his eyes.

  This was it. Levi could tell by looking at Kaylan that any ounce of love they shared was completely lost now. This man was going to kill his son for his delusional cause. He still didn’t know much about what that was exactly. Levi blocked out his family’s desperate cries and surrendered to the moment, reveling in the memories he had shared with Talon over the past few days. At least he had finally known love.

  POW! Levi fell to his knees, waiting for pain to overtake his body — waiting to feel the hot crimson liquid pouring down his chest. Nothing. His demise had been painless. He opened his eyes, ready for what world lay on the other side of existence, and he saw the same room. Kaylan was on the ground, blood flowing from the wound in his head.

  Levi turned around and saw Talon standing with Teddy’s gun in her shaking hand. He ran to her and she dropped the gun, looking at him with tears in her eyes.

  “I am so sorry, Levi. I just killed your father,” she screeched horrified.

  “It’s okay, Talon. I’
m glad you did it,” he said, wrapping his arms around her body. She was shaking like the end of a rattlesnake’s tail. “That man was not the father I knew. He was filled with hate.”

  “I followed you down here and heard everything. Her gun fell just around the corner where I was standing and I just…I’m so sorry, Vi,” she said, her voice wavering with emotion.

  “I know, shh,” he cooed. “Let’s just get out of here.” They could still here shots being fired aboveground, and knew no one would be coming to get them in the next few minutes.

  They quickly unbound Axella, Bockie, and Mantys. Axella looked at the two bodies on the ground, and Levi could tell her heart was pulling her towards the man who had almost murdered them all. She fought the feeling and ran to Teddy’s side.

  “She’s still alive,” Axella yelled, ripping a piece of cloth from her blouse to press firmly on Teddy’s abdominal wound. “Get the towels!”

  Suddenly, a menacing laugh came from a dark corner of the room. An Extension stepped into the light, and Levi could tell by its dark blue hue that it was a Life5000. The robot had on the same black outfit that Kaylan was wearing. He was the tallest of all of them in the room and, though less broad than Levi, he was certainly well-built. His face was well-defined under the malleable material — he had sharp features and jutting eyes that felt all the more empty in an Extension as they settled on Talon.

  “That’s my girl,” he said. “Much stronger than your mother.”

  Talon ran to the gun she had dropped earlier and pointed it at the robot.

  “Shoot me,” he began, “but I assure you it will do nothing. You don’t actually think I would come anywhere near Ohmani in the flesh do you?” he laughed at the idea. “By the time they track this Extension’s syncing coordinates I will be long gone, hiding amongst the infinite void.”

  “And who the hell are you?” Talon spat.

  “I am Kravis, your father.”

  “You…you are no father to me,” she stammered, trying not to sound off-guard. “I have never met you. How do you know who I am?”

  “I have always known where you were. I have never forgotten you.”

  “Why are you here? Were you conspiring with Caleb? How could you let him kill Pila!?”

  “You haven’t heard the truth yet, little bird. You know nothing of the past your mother lived before you. I am Kravis, leader of the Sinupecs. Kaylan, like all these men,” he wafted a hand leisurely in front of him, “work for me, and soon you will too. I have big plans for you.”

  It was she who laughed this time. “I will never do anything for you. You’re a cowardly monster. Look at you, hiding behind a machine while your men go down for your crimes, one of which was killing the mother of your child. How could you? I will find you and take you down,” Talon declared confidently.

  Kravis began walking towards her, and she surprised Levi by walking even faster towards him. She cranked her neck up at him in an unintimidated glare, no longer shaking.

  “Such a brave little bird. You will come to me willingly in time. My men have free will, which is more than they have as law-abiding citizens under the midaki government. Take this man, for example,” Kravis said pointing towards Kaylan’s lifeless body, “I did not force his hand.”

  “You let him die.”

  “It was his fate. Why do you think I sat back and let it play out as was predestined?”

  “Destiny? How can you believe in such things while killing all those innocent people? You’re sick!” It was Levi who had spoken up. The blood pouring from Teddy’s body was making him queasy and disgusted. How could anyone believe she deserved this?

  “You may not have been here, alive and breathing right now, if one thing in the universe was moved a nanometer to the left a billion years ago, or one event had happened a scant faster or slower. Everything has happened perfectly, as it was destined, for the past fourteen billion years across the expanse of the void to bring us all here today. Did you know a man produces a thousand sperm every second? A woman is born with over two million of her own equivalent life-bearing seeds. The odds that you were even born is monumental. The fact that you are standing here in this room with all of us, who had our own set of near impossible odds multiplied by the thousands of ancestors we all have, is nothing but destiny.”

  Was talking about sperm part of midaki culture or something? The guy was obviously a lunatic, Levi thought, spouting philosophies of destiny to justify the mass murdering of innocent people. He was not holding a weapon, but Levi did not like a crazy person so close to Talon.

  Kravis continued as if reemerging to the present. “But some things are destined and some things are not. I do not mourn Kaylan or Pila, for they were chosen by the universe to exist…to live, and love, and bear children. We will all die one day; it is not worth expending thoughts or energy on the inevitable.” He turned to Mantys, who was now standing with a protective arm around Talon just out of the Extension’s grasp. “I underestimated your human family, Mantys, but it will not happen again. You have won this battle it seems, but trust me when I say there are many more to come.”

  “What are you trying to do anyways? Killing all these innocent people? You’re sick,” Levi spat.

  “Ask Mantys, he should know. I am trying to reverse a fate far worse than anything you saw here on Ohmani. The DSO is far more powerful and dangerous than I ever will be. Until next time, little bird.”

  Footsteps sounded in the hall and several men came around the corner. One of them stopped and became a brooding presence in the doorway. Levi turned and saw Bale’s horrified expression as he looked at his wife bleeding profusely on the ground. He looked up at the Extension and fired three shots into its chest without hesitation. The Extension fell to the floor and seemed to transform instantly into an undefined humanoid figure. It’s muscles rounded into smooth skin and any facial features except for the pucker of a nose became indistinguishable. Kravis had disconnected.

  Bockie ran across the room and fell to her already bloody knees next to the machine. She quickly pulled apart the magnet zipper of its trousers and saw a flattened area.

  “Dammit!”

  EPILOGUE

  Levi bobbed on his mat in the middle of the Ohmani mall. The people of Earth, Ohmani, and Dedrake were collectively sharing in his moment, watching on split screens that projected his real body and the Extension’s body simultaneously. As promised, he could not hear the girlish screams or the manly hoots around him and his audience could not hear his own conversation with Marco Jenikee. His ears were in California listening to the rhythmic swooshing of the waves while he sat next to his best friend past the break. Surfers waited for the wave in a long line parallel to the beach.

  “It’s so weird that you’re in a robot right now,” Marco said. “It looks just like you…but blue.”

  Levi laughed, remembering he was literally the color blue the day before. He couldn’t blame Marco or any groundie for thinking it bizarre. A few weeks ago, Levi would have thought the same thing. “It is strange, but I’m glad I got to see you.”

  “I can’t believe you chose to be in that thing,” Marco said.

  His mother’s trial had been canceled completely and Levi could have flown down in person to participate in the competition. With the new techniques he had learned from Anais, he had a real shot at winning in the flesh. He chose to make history instead, and as difficult as it was for him to admit, he was beginning to love the fast-paced feel of Ohmani; the weird people, the awesome school, the Waterdrome, and the Extensions. He was no longer a Fort Braggian surfer kid – Ohmani was his space town now.

  “Wait until you try one, it’s amazing.”

  “Well, now that Kierra and I are going to try a long distance relationship, I suppose I will be using them a lot. I was so happy to hear she wanted to try again. I’ve missed her,” Marco said with a distant smile.

  Kierra had had her first gene therapy treatment and immediately called Marco. She had not told Marco yet about her c
ondition, and Levi did not think it was his place to discuss it. Marco was one of the most kind-hearted, understanding people Levi had ever known, and so he knew Kierra would be forgiven when the time came.

  “I am so happy for the two of you,” Levi said sincerely.

  “And I am happy for you! Ms. Talon Terry after all?” Marco said smiling.

  “Yes, you were right all along. Talon is the love of my life,” he acknowledged, knowing she was only feet away from him right now standing with Axella, Bockie, Mantys, and Bale. He was surrounded on all sides by people he loved the most in this universe. He didn’t need an absentee father or even the ocean anymore to fill any holes in his heart.

  As if the ocean heard his thoughts, a boom came from out across the horizon. It was the sound of the wave maker.

  “This is our three meter.” Marco said, paddling out to the side to put some distance between Levi and him.

  A minute later a large hump started making its way towards him, growing as it closed the distance between him and the beach. Cathave was on the other side of him, and gave a quick thumbs up in her Extension. This first wave was smaller than the ones they had practiced on in the Waterdrome, and when the time came, he stood up on his board with confidence. His mind was so focused on the present, that he enjoyed the ride as if he was indeed surfing again back in Fort Bragg. He did a bottom turn and then cut back to jump off the lip of the wave and into an aerial. He surfed the rest of the wave like he was in the flesh, impressing the judges.

  Levi had already made history, but exceeded expectations by making it through the six meter round. The wave was so big, that back on Ohmani Levi looked as though he was going down the face of a wall, with the tops and the bottom of the waves cut off on the mimetic mat. In the next round he simply couldn’t adjust for the time delay and failed to catch any waves. He finished 24th in the high school division, but was invited to the US Open as the exciting new face of the Life5000.