“Where the hell did we transfer to?” Snake asked.
The air felt thinner and far more humid to Stanford than Florida’s air-conditioned base. Before the group stretched a glorious sunrise, the morning rays casting the view into uneven patches of light and shadow. They saw a coastal valley with dark, granite islands covered in vibrant green foliage in the distance within a deep blue ocean with hints of sangria tones. A harbor with small vessels crisscrossing the water served as a backdrop to luxury hotels.
The valley below them overflowed with the sight, smell, and sound of humanity. Thousands of buildings crammed together haphazardly with little order or continuity below a haze of pollution that soured the air, even at this altitude.
“Brazil,” Stanford muttered, wiping his mouth. “We’re on Mount Corcovado above Rio De Janeiro. I—I came here on my honeymoon with my wife.” Undisguised surprise and awe played across the visitors’ faces at the magnificent, breathtaking view before them.
“How—how many people live here? This city is … well it seems huge,” Snake marveled, stepping forward to lay a hand on a gray stone guardrail.
“Mack, you need to take a look at Jay and China,” Sarge stated firmly, breaking the distraction of the view and kneeling down to place the petite teenager carefully on the ground. Mack turned and stepped across to lay gentle hands on her unconscious teammate first.
“Who has my backpack?” she asked, beginning her examination.
“I think I might,” China answered, stepping forward and handing one over.
“That’s it,” Mack confirmed.
China turned, clutching his shoulder with a wince and giving Mack space to examine Jay. He gasped involuntarily at the sight before him, drawing everyone’s attention.
Directly behind them were a set of stone stairs leading up to a large, circular area on the exact top of the mountain. In the center of the paved area was an enormous black marble pedestal with a magnificent statue rising from it. Filling the blue sky above towered a figure in stained, white sandstone robes. The stylized face held a benign smile, his arms outstretched as if in eternal welcome.
“That’s a big statue,” Sarge stated. “Is that who I think it is?”
“Christo Redenter. Christ the Redeemer,” Stanford replied.
“It’s … astonishing, but I don’t know why,” China muttered in a small, reverent voice.
Stanford glanced at the man, and then at Snake, who also stood admiring the statute. Supposedly, he got some memories back when Jay touched his face. With Mack busy, those restored memories meant Snake was the one who could quiet the raging storm of questions in his head.
Stanford stepped over to him. “What. How did—” He stopped, rubbing his eyes and trying to get his questions in order. He nodded towards Jay. “What she did back at the base. I don’t—I don’t understand how she did it. Did she help you with your memories?” he asked awkwardly.
Snake nodded, slipping the wide strap of the instrument over his head and laying the instrument carefully on the paving. “I got some of them back. Enough to know what to do. Some other stuff. No offense Stan, but my ass is feeling very exposed in these bandages and hospital gown,” Snake quipped, taking two steps and grabbing one of the bags. He bent over, causing Stanford to hastily look at the ocean. Within moments Snake pulled out a pair of denim jeans and a plain white t-shirt.
“I got enough to remember why we are here,” he said. He stripped off the gown and bandages without any embarrassment to reveal pink skin nearly completely healed. Across his back were faint marks like stripes—older scars.
Stanford turned away, addressing his question to the statue in front of him loud enough for all of them to hear. “Would you tell me what’s going on. Please?”
Stanford heard, “Looks like there are clothes in there that will fit you two. China’s freckle is showing, but I don’t need to see it,” Snake addressed his comrades instead.
“Now don’t be jealous, Snake. Buns of steel like these take decades to earn, and years to appreciate,” China shot back.
Snake grinned at China’s reply before turning back to Stanford with a serious expression.
“I remember why I joined the Rebellion. The Royals are assholes,” Snake declared as he stepped up beside Stan and admired the view.
“Who?”
“The Royals. In our world they run things. The five of them rule the whole damned planet with their armies of Lifers and their tin soldiers and their precious damned Principles.” Snake spat the last word.
“I don’t understand. Where did they get the power to just take over the world?” Stanford asked.
Snake’s lips compressed to an unhappy line as he looked away. Stanford followed his gaze to see Mack throw China a surgical dressing that bounced off his chest and Sarge pull clothes out of the bag. Snake’s gaze was angry, but not directed at the shapely back end of the team leader that appeared to have entranced China.
“I don’t have everything back yet, you understand, and never had intimate knowledge of the hows and whys. I attended the briefing, but the brains behind this operation … they didn’t share everything.”
At Stanford’s pleading look, Snake sighed heavily and continued. “The Royals are following us. That changes things. They weren’t supposed to follow us,” he sighed dejectedly.
“We’re from this world, but not this reality. We’re from a different timeline. You figured that out. The two realities are different, but have a harmonic convergence, which means we could travel here. That’s what Sheila does; she forms a harmonic bridge and we need to harmonize with her to cross that bridge. Big risk though. Untested technology. In our reality, the world is ruled by the iron fist of the Royals. The Royals are right bastards. They live in luxury and force the rest of us into serving them. They’ve been in power for a very long time, but the Rebels keep fighting back. In the last ten years, their stranglehold has just gotten tighter. We can’t defeat them. They’re just too strong because of the world keys.”
Why name the instrument Sheila? Stan thought, picking out the one detail that had niggled at him and just trying to take the rest of it in.
“Mack mentioned ‘world keys’. I got a memory back in the ward, but it didn’t make sense,” Sarge added, moving over to the two men, pulling on a dark blue T-shirt and stamping her feet into boots as she did so. “Tell me. What are they?”
Snake nodded at the clear command delivered in a no-nonsense tone and cleared his throat before continuing. “This world, and every—reflection of it I suppose, is not … natural. Citizens get taught this at school. The way it was taught to me, the Royals discovered that while the planet is natural, our position in the solar system is not. Billions of years ago the planet was moved into its current orbit.”
“Moved?” Stanford exclaimed in shocked tones. He could barely conceive of the energy required to change the orbit of an entire planet, without tearing it to pieces or falling into the sun. “But who moved it?”
“Yeah. If the Royals know, they aren’t telling us regular folks. Anyway, shit, what did they call it? Goldilocks Zone. Conditions right for life because water doesn’t freeze or boil. It’s a way to terraform the planet if you don’t give a shit how long it takes. Something like that. Anyway, whoever or whatever moved the planet used five giant machines they placed in the planetary core. These machines do more than just keep us within the habitable zone. Somehow the Royals are connected to them. One for each engine. Five Monarchs, five engines, and five control keys. But they aren’t the same.”
“I don’t understand,” Stanford replied, desperately trying.
“Look. The planet is billions of years old, right? For one-and-a-half billion years, no life. Nothing. Earth was just an icy rock floating in space. The planet gets moved, then within ten thousand years, boom, an explosion of life.”
“The Proterozoic era,” Stanford added, struggling to remember the history channel and fossil records.
“Right. Every living thing is
a descendant of that first life. Everything has remnants of that first genetic code. Junk DNA. Except it isn’t junk. Our scientists think that whoever moved the planet seeded the Earth with genetic material and these world engines are meant to do something else. They changed people. Those that synced to the engines via the world keys, the Royals, and their offspring: they were changed.”
China joined the group, awkwardly trying to tie off a bandage on his shoulder before Sarge stepped over and helped. Stanford noticed that China sported the odd-looking pair of boots with metal strips on them. Stanford assumed they were for a woman, given the wide soles and heels. On China’s athletic figure they didn’t appear ridiculous; they looked downright dangerous.
As Stanford looked up from the strange boots, he caught China take a look back at Jay and scowl.
“Each machine has a key, a world key, and they are inscribed,” Snake continued as he waved his hands in the air, “with stuff. I don’t know. The Rebels managed to steal one from the Royals back in our reality a while ago. The inscriptions are what allowed us to build the instrument to travel between realities. Took a Rebel genius fifteen years to figure those inscriptions out.”
Sarge glanced at the instrument slung over Snake’s shoulder and then at the rifle in her hands, gripping it around the stock. “This tells me we are here to do something,” she stated with heavy conviction. “Something important.”
Snake stopped, frowning again, and conceded with a nod. “We’re here to find this timeline’s world keys so we stand a chance against the Royals. We’re here to get what we need to stop them because if we can’t …” He glanced over at Stanford with a solemn expression. “If we can’t, they’ll come here and do the same to this world as they did in ours. But they followed us. They know how to get here and we didn’t think that was possible. So, comrade. Welcome to the revolution, because they’re here, and now—it’s a race.”
“That’s … a lot to take in,” Stanford responded softly. Something occurred to him and the question made him turn to the large woman holding the rifle like grim death. “How did you see the drone? I didn’t see anything until—” he faltered, before turning to China. “And how did you—”
“Sarge has an augmented right eye. Sees beyond the normal visible spectrum. China has repulsion plates in his feet capable of creating a concussive blast and gives him a frictionless run,” Mack interjected as she re-joined the group. “Jay’s going to be okay. She’s just exhausted. What she did took a lot of effort. We need to get some food and liquids into her. Sarge, would you help me get her dressed?” she asked.
As Sarge laid the rifle on the ground and went to help the smaller woman, China raised his curious gaze from his feet, then turned back to Snake. “I knew these boots were mine somehow. So Jay is …?”
“Yeah, she’s King Mycroft Barrett’s daughter, but before you go getting any ideas that the Rebels stole a Royal princess from her loving family, you should know that you’re the one who rescued her, China. You and Sarge. She was born in a lab where she was being conditioned into becoming a killing machine, with tech in her head to make her obedient.” Snake’s tone turned hateful once again when he revealed that dark nugget of information.
Mack and Sarge returned, a fully dressed and unconscious Jay held in Sarge’s arms while Mack stuffed the med kit back into her pack. “We need to get down there and get some food into her,” Mack nodded towards the city now fully revealed by the rising sun.
Sarge looked at the teenager in her arms before handing her off to China in a seemingly practiced move before picking up the pack that had once held clothes. She fit as much of the rifle as she could inside and then took Jay back from China as the others picked up their equipment.
As the group started towards the stairs, the voice of the instrument spoke, turning Stanford’s head, his mouth open.
“Speaking of sustenance. Pilot Adder, I am once again dangerously low on battery charge. I need at least a day to fully recharge, with you playing.”
“All right, Sheila. We’ll find you somewhere noisy to munch on down in the city until I can play for you,” Snake responded, negotiating the stairs with a worried glance towards Sarge and her precious cargo.
Seeing the look, Sarge just grinned at her companion before saying, “Don’t worry about me, Snake. I guess I need to thank the Rebels for an arm that doesn’t get tired.”
“It’s not like that Sarge. The Royals are the ones with the really fancy tech, remember? You used to be on their side. You’re a Lifer. At least, you were until your husband got hold of you.”
“My what?”
Snake just gave a cheeky grin, nodding towards China.
“Sire. You were correct. I can confirm the harmonic energy signature of a transit. The Rebels have moved away during the battle,” stated Thalia in a lilting, harmonious voice that barely betrayed the fact that ‘she’ was actually an ‘it’.
Heinrich slammed a fist down on the console in frustration. He’d expended almost a tenth of the batteries in laying waste to the military base. The shinkari cannons had done their work, destroying many of the structures and vehicles. The shields had also done their part. The primitive, explosive rockets fired upon them had splashed across the kinetic shields harmlessly as the light attack craft had spread the devastation. The only significant impact against the shields originated from a large vessel off the coast. The sea vessel required multiple volleys from the cannons to sink.
All in all, it was a most unsatisfactory result. Batteries already heavily depleted by the strange transfer to get here, then having to ward off an admittedly pitiful counterattack, and still he hadn’t found a single Rebel to show for it. He tightened his right hand into a fist and pounded it onto the console a second time in impotent rage. A physical outburst was far preferable to him than losing his temper and using his Gift in an uncontrolled manner.
“Bring the attack craft back, then cloak us and head out to sea, Thalia. Tell the crew to stand down from battle stations and get some rest while you scan for the quantum emergence,” he uttered through clenched teeth, striding back to the cold comfort of his personal quarters.
“Yes, Sire.”
I am Delta. I am the hidden left hand of the First of Five.
The ball was red, almost blending into the color of the circular rug on the hard, concrete floor. Delta knew this was a dream. Dreams were the only place inside his own head that felt truly, secretly free anymore. The neural tech in his head couldn’t suppress his unconscious mind, and so his dreams were his own.
His dreams were special, almost … sacred, to him. The hidden core of him, uncontaminated by wires and pain. Yet he was accustomed to his life now, and as the dream continued some small part of him wondered why he returned to this dream so often.
It was a simple time in his life, colored with magical tones in his memory. The red ball was on the carpet and he played with his brothers and sisters. They played just as many children did. The only difference was that they didn’t use their tiny, pudgy hands.
He felt the connection with them all in the dream. The sharing of thought and emotion, like goldfish swimming through a landscape of consciousness. A gestalt mind, stronger and more capable than any individual member, only containing his brothers and sisters.
They had been together their whole short lives, the same litter from birth. Alpha was the first, then came the rest, adding to the landscape of thought that deepened every time another mind joined it. Siblings, but closer than any twins, because they lived in the joined consciousness. Every thought, every want, every need, every discomfort: they shared it all. A time of innocence and growing understanding.
It took years before they learned to shield their minds from one another. It wasn’t until after the man in white came. He was different from anyone they’d encountered. Unlike the white-coats, his mind was enclosed behind a wall of cold, hard diamond. They felt the fear and awe from the white-coats directed at this man, and so they feared him. He’d touched th
e gestalt awareness; not joining it, more tasting it before leaving.
It was after him that their mindscape changed. It was no longer filled with innocence. First came the tests, then came the competitions. Then came the punishments for failure.
They could all feel the pain at first, impossible to block out. Why would anyone push away something that was a part of oneself?
What Delta remembered most fondly was the time before the testing, before the pain and the separation, in those first years of infancy: the natural, empathic touching of unblemished and innocent minds, before the separation.
Now he was an adult and he knew who the man in white with the strange mind was. King Mycroft Barrett. The First of Five. His father. Delta knew the reason behind the tests and punishments. It forced all of them to create mental shields. To develop a sense of self, to become a me, and no longer an us.
Differences in personality formed amongst them once the gestalt mind had been separated. They could still join into a single mind, but were rarely given permission. They were forced to refer to each other by the names given to them by the white-coats. Named in military alphanumeric fashion according to the order in which they were born. Delta was the fourth, his half-brothers were Bravo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, and Kilo. His sisters were Alpha, Charlie, Echo, India, and … Juliet.
As time passed, each of them developed differences. Yet the one Delta remained closest to was Juliet. But the only time he could spend with her while not under the watchful eyes of the adults in whitecoats was those few minutes before sleep claimed them from their regimented world. They would connect in the mindscape and slip into their dreams together.
It was the smell of food that lifted Jay out of sleep. Something warm, fragrant, savory, and—Oh my God I’m starving. She sat up, blinking to clear her eyes, spotting Snake sitting on a chair across the room with Sheila cradled in his lap. He strummed out a lively tune with a distinctly Spanish air to it, humming along. Her eyes roamed over the brightly lit and clean hotel room, searching for the source of that heavenly smell.
Suffrage (World Key Chronicles Book 1) Page 6
