Fluorescence: The Complete Tetralogy

by P. Anastasia

  “Leave the kid alone,” I said, squeezing my fists as amber energy pulsed beneath my skin.

  The Savior backed away.

  I’d heard that Brian had tried to stand up to them at one time, too, but that he was injured in the process. This time, the Savior didn’t resist our revolt. Maybe they were getting weaker. Maybe it was because he was alone. Either way, we had the upper hand. Clearly.

  “You will regret this act of defiance,” he said, narrowing his eyes.

  A cloud of white blinded me and everything around us came back into focus. I blinked a few times to adjust my blurred vision.

  Damn. That face it made at us.

  The translator almost never emoted, but even a forced sneer of anger from the creature made my heart jump into my throat. The words he said were flat and monotone, but… those grey eyes and the frail white brow line leering at me from just above the flashing lights on his silver facemask... That made me feel sick. Lightheaded, almost. And that’s not something that’s ever happened to me before.

  “So that was creepy as hell,” Kareena said. “Well, I guess these work.” She lifted her wrist.

  I looked down at the white band of smoke swirling around my own. “Yeah.”

  “What was that thing on his face?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.” Brian shrugged. “But it’s always hard for us to breathe up there, so maybe it’s hard for them to breathe down here.”

  “Solus seems to be doing okay,” Alice added, ruffling his hair. He peered up at her.

  “He is. But he’s human, too,” Brian added with a subdued grin.

  “You know, the low oxygen up there probably made him a little stronger,” I said.

  Brian’s brow wrinkled. “Why do you say that?”

  “There’s a type of mask that simulates high altitudes. Some guys train with them to hold up better in MMA fights. It constricts airflow so your lungs work harder, and you have to train your body and mind to function better under those stressors.”

  Brian cocked an eyebrow.

  “It’s crazy, I’ll give you that,” I continued, “but I’ve seen guys win fights even after having an opponent block their breathing. Scary shit, but some guys swear by it.”

  He stared at me and grimaced. “That’s messed up.”

  “Whatever works, right?” I wasn’t about to delve into the reason I knew so much about them. “We should get moving. Lucy?” I turned. She was standing beside Solus with an arm draped across his bony shoulders. Lucy’s protective nature—probably inherited from me—really shined around him. It was heartwarming, while worrying. How long would Solus be with us? Could he really survive here on Earth? What would Lucy do if he was suddenly ripped away from us?

  But all of that wasn’t what I needed to focus on right then and there.

  “What’s the plan?” I asked Brian.

  I liked being in charge, but so did he. We agreed to split decisions between us in order to keep things quiet. If Alice and Kareena had something to suggest, we listened. If Brian had a better idea, I listened.

  The kid was smart, even though I hated to admit it. There were moments he made me feel like an idiot. If only I’d had my own head screwed on as tightly when I was his age—things might be—

  “Whoa!” My wrist felt hot. I looked down. The band of smoky essence radiated with brightly colored light.

  I heard a voice.

  “There are things we need to show you.”

  The words echoed not through my ears but through my head. Somehow. It wasn’t sound I could hear coming from anywhere around me. The words resonated from a strange place inside my head—my skull. It was only inside me. Inside my brain.

  Kareena heard something, too. Her fingertips were pressed to her temples, but I couldn’t tell why. She shut her eyes.

  Alice and Brian froze in place.

  Solus was looking up, unmoved and unafraid, listening intently to a ghost I could not see. Lucy didn’t appear to be fazed at all.

  “Who?” I opened my mouth to say the word, but before it left my lips, I got a reply.

  “The Prism.”

  The fluttery, subtle voice seethed through my brain and I sucked a breath in through my teeth from the eerie, sickening sensation. Hearing something without my ears.

  I looked back at Kareena, who was clenching her jaw and groaning in pain. “Y-you said we were safe!” she bellowed, doubling over to clutch her head in her hands.

  Was she getting a migraine from the voice?

  “You are,” it replied. “The Saviors are hiding information from you. We want to show you the truth, but we must ask for your permission. We must bring you here and, therefore, require your consent.”

  “What about Lucy? And Solus?” The question drifted through my mind.

  “They will accompany you to the neutral atmosphere we have prepared. We will protect them as we have already.”

  They were right. They rescued Solus from the Saviors and they gave Lucy a bracelet as I slept.

  “And, if I agree, will you bring us back here after?” Again, I didn’t have time to speak the words before I got my reply.

  “Yes.”

  I couldn’t tell if the others were hearing the same thing I was or not. I couldn’t tell if they were hearing my voice—thoughts—whatever they were, or if they were having their own private conversation with the Prism.

  “I don’t know what it means to you in your language,” I started, still only thinking the words I wanted to say, “but promise me you will protect my daughter from harm if we go with you. Please.”

  “We will. She is important to you and you are important to your people and your world. We promise sanctuary while you are with us.”

  Before I could verbally agree, a large plume of sparkling silver burst before me. The portal of glistening light spun like a vortex, beams of white intersecting and then splitting through each other to spin around the circumference again.

  I took a deep breath and looked at Lucy. She stared up at me with beautiful, trusting brown eyes. I took her hand, stepped into the doorway of endless white, and pulled her through.

  The familiar rush of cool air hit me, my surroundings blurred, and my body was propelled into nothingness. We were transported to a vast white room not unlike the glossy interrogation chamber the Saviors brought us to when they wanted to talk. But the air here was different and the temperature mild.

  I took in a breath. The air felt no different in my lungs than what I was used to on Earth. The room was tepid. Comfortable.

  “Where are we?” Lucy asked, tugging my arm.

  Then a flare of white light sparkled beside me and I stepped back. Brian, Alice, and Solus instantly appeared, their gazes quickly taking in the surroundings.

  For a split second, I thought Kareena had said no—that she’d had enough.

  But then a final blast of white proved me wrong and she arrived, agitated, with a look of immense pain twisting her expression.

  “Are you alright?” I turned to her, still clinging to Lucy’s hand. “Kareena?”

  “No,” she muttered, and cupped her forehead with her hand.

  “Can I do something?” Brian’s arm sparkled with a hint of blue.

  “No,” she grumbled, turning from him. “It will go away soon. Probably.”

  “Do the Prism make the headaches worse?” Alice asked.

  “Kind of,” Kareena replied, shaking her head. “But, whatever. Just don’t worry about it.” She cringed.

  I reached out for her hand.

  “Kareena,” I whispered, trying to get her to look me in the eye. “Kareena, it’s okay to ask for help.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” Her face shot up and her narrowed eyes met mine. “Just leave me the hell alone right now. I don’t want your help.”

  “Okay. Okay.” I backed off. “I’m sorry.”

  I caught her glare at Lucy just before wincing and rubbing her temples
again.

  Lucy’s fingers squeezed mine.

  “I don’t know where we are, but Solus is here.” I motioned toward him. “And he’s being good. I don’t think you need to be scared.”

  Solus stood between Alice and Brian, looking off into the empty white distance in anticipation.

  “What is it?” Alice set a hand on his shoulder. He turned toward her and then lifted up his arm and pointed forward. “I don’t see anything.”

  We all looked off in the direction he was pointing and waited. The room was completely silent. So quiet, I could hear everyone breathing, including myself. I swear my heartbeat was louder than anything though, and I felt it throbbing in my chest.

  Then Solus’ eyes grew wide and he marched off after something.

  Without a sound, a massive hole opened in front of us, as if a curtain was being drawn to reveal a movie-theater-sized window so tall and wide, it nearly devoured us.

  I cleared my throat and gawked at the monstrous opening. It encompassed almost half of the room, surrounding us in a semi-circle of glass—like a snow globe. But we weren’t looking into a ball of plastic glitter. We were looking out… at the Earth.

  A ball of greens and blues, browns and whites, hanging before a backdrop of star-studded black. Tiny white lights flickered subtly in the ocean of space.

  “Is… that…” Brian cautiously walked a few steps closer so he could reach his son. Solus took a seat very close to the window and stared out. He turned his head and gestured with his hand for Lucy to come join him. She let go of me and darted off.

  “L-Lucy!” I called out, but she ignored me and plopped down beside Solus, cross-legged. Together, they peered intently out at the stars.

  Somehow, I think she trusted Solus more than she trusted me. Then again, I was starting to wonder if he knew things we didn’t.

  I approached the window slowly, half of me wondering if we might fall right out of the place if we got too close. We knew nothing about their technological limits.

  It was straight off one of those satellite images often seen in magazines—the Earth floated in a sea of blackness, so close, yet so far away. Clear enough to make out the silhouettes of the continents. The vivid blue and aqua oceans saturated with radiant color. Misty clouds wafted across the surface in a circular motion, like fluffy puffs of snow blowing in the wind. But the motion was subtle, more like a 3D photograph than anything else.

  The colors and crispness were unreal. Golden edges along the shores, framed by beautiful teal outlines where the water must have been shallow. All encompassed within a globe with a fading blue aura. I could reach right through the window and touch Hawaii—if the Earth rotated slightly and the clouds moved out of the way.

  “Are we really this far from Earth?” Alice asked.

  “I think so,” Brian replied.

  We were captivated by the majestic ball of color we called home.

  Chapter 12

  “Thank you for coming,” the voice spoke. This time, I heard it with my ears.

  A basketball-sized orb of wild silver energy floated in the distance. It drifted up and down, slowly, tiny bolts of white light arcing across its surface as it hovered a few feet in the air.

  Solus was the first to approach it, his hand already reaching up high to touch it.

  “Solus!” Brian lunged to stop him, but Solus looked back with a calm and assuring expression, as if he’d done this before.

  His fingers barely made contact with the bottom of the sparkling ball, and the white began to cycle through thousands of colors. Red. Pink. Orange. Yellow. Green. Blue. Purple. Everything in between. White again, and then the cycle continued—every hue of the spectrum being displayed in split seconds of time.

  “Hello, Solus,” the light spoke. Solus bowed his head slightly, acknowledging the greeting.

  Kareena squinted and shuffled closer. We were all surrounding the thing now. Even Lucy looked up at it curiously.

  “Prism,” Kareena said.

  “I know,” I replied, putting out an arm to pull Lucy back a few inches so the light wouldn’t damage her eyes. She didn’t have colored fluorescence like we did.

  “She will be safe,” the Prism said. “We promised.”

  I hesitated and then withdrew my arm from in front of Lucy.

  Solus lowered his hand and the colors faded instantly back to white.

  “Kareena, please raise your hand up to the sphere. We must show you the truth.”

  The pink light in her face ignited to life, casting a soft fuchsia glow on us all. She lifted her hand just above the orb. Hot pink flushed half of her face and then the ball blazed with bright magenta fire.

  “Look back at Earth,” the Prism requested.

  We turned to the window and watched faint glimmers of white reflect back at us.

  “Are those… infected people?” Alice asked.

  “Yes. You are seeing what the Seeker sees.”

  “There are so many,” I said through clenched teeth, while my eyes flitted over the scene, darting between flickers of white spawning all across the globe.

  “There are more,” the Prism added.

  The planet began to gradually spin, but the room didn’t feel like it was moving at all.

  We inched past North America and then across South America toward the shadowed side where Africa and Europe were cloaked in night. Golden veins of electricity must have been cities. White sparkles outshined them though, shimmering in and out of view beneath wispy clouds swirling overhead.

  Antarctica, then Asia and Australia spun into view. A small ball of yellow fire peeked out from behind the Earth and then slipped from sight. The sun.

  Then even more flashes of white in the darkness.

  “Shit.” Brian forked a hand through his hair.

  “They’re everywhere!” Kareena shouted, accidentally withdrawing her hand from the light. The markings faded briefly and then came back into view once she put her hand above the orb again. “They’re freaking EVERYWHERE!”

  “The Saviors did not tell you how many people they have infected with the disease.”

  “What can we do?” I asked, my voice shaking, as I feared for Lucy’s future.

  “There is nothing you can do at this moment,” the Prism replied. “What the Saviors released is more volatile than they realize. It is unstoppable in this form.”

  “What do you mean ‘this form’?” Brian asked.

  “The Saviors have been to Earth before. Many, many years ago. The infection then was mild—isolated to only a few—but the damage was done, and the Saviors refused to acknowledge their error. They left in search of a more suitable environment for their DNA, but were unable to find a species more compatible with it than the humans of Earth.”

  “What happened to all of the people they infected back then?” Kareena dropped her hand down to her side. “Did it kill them?”

  “No.” The ball of light turned white once her hand parted from it. “It changed them. It destroyed their humanity and turned them against one another.”

  I sucked in a sharp breath. Turned them against each other?

  There was no way in hell I would hurt my little girl. Or the others.

  “Solus survived exposure because he is strong,” the Prism continued. “He carries an evolved form of the Healer’s genetic material. We do not yet know how to protect the rest of you, but there is something we can do to help the young one since she is still healthy.”

  “Lucy?” I asked, my voice trembling.

  “Yes.”

  The room fell silent. I watched Solus listening to a voice I couldn’t hear. He looked down at his open hands and tipped his head to the side, confused.

  Solus turned toward Lucy and reached his hands out for hers. Just as she offered hers back, I panicked.

  “Don’t!”

  But before the words could get out, their fingers touched and a glimmer of rich blue light ricocheted through her.
It faded instantly, but a faint cyan essence drifted around her now.

  “What did you do to her!?” I shoved Solus away and knelt in front of Lucy.

  “Shit!” Kareena yelped. “He’s a Starter, too! But—”

  “Do not worry,” the Prism echoed, its voice louder. “Please.”

  “Are you kidding me?” My heart raced. “You infected her? How can I not be upset right now!? What the hell were you thinking? Are you trying to kill—”

  “She was already infected and started. You were aware of this previously. Colored fluorescence will make her stronger—resistant to the disease. Just as the Hybrid is. This is why he shared a fraction of his light with her.”

  “How can it make her resistant when it’s killing me!?” I tried to catch my breath. My adrenaline was raging.

  “What?” Brian reached for my shoulder. “What does that mean, David? Since when were you—”

  “There’s something wrong with me. With my fluorescence.” I pulled away from Brian’s grasp. “It’s been there for a while now. Kareena’s seen it. Why don’t you tell them?” I looked at her and she looked away from me.

  “I see darkness in him,” she murmured beneath her breath. “Like all the other poor bastards who died. The ones you couldn’t heal, Brian.” She glanced at him and frowned.

  “Why do this to Lucy, then?” Alice asked. “Aren’t you putting her at risk?”

  “Yeah! Why!?” I clenched my fists. “We trusted you!”

  “Sleepers started by Alice have higher chances of survival,” it replied. “Lucy carries your DNA, Tracker, and is therefore receptive to becoming a host for colored fluorescence as well as falling prey to the mutation that attacks you now. The Solus Child’s immunity, combined with her preexisting condition, will lower the mortality rate.”

  “Wh-what?” Some of the heat diminished from my face. “It will?”

  “Each time you were ordered to start others, the Saviors had you taint the DNA of those infected with a small portion of your own colored DNA. This made the light inside them stronger—more resilient. But it does not make them immune to the evolution of the disease. The time between when the Starter, Healer, and Seeker were first activated was enough for several more mutations to occur before the Tracking DNA had even been bonded to you, David. What the Saviors experimented with centuries ago was a much weaker strain. It moved slowly and had little ability to transfer between hosts. What is killing your people and the Saviors today changes rapidly—almost instantly upon attacking a host.”