The Mammoth Book of Futuristic Romance (Mammoth Books)

by Trisha Telep

  She heard a young man’s voice in her mind. Is there anyone out there who can answer back? I hear everyone else’s mind. Can’t anyone hear mine?

  I can, Saire replied, her mental voice tiny, hopeful, shaking.

  Oh. Oh thank God, he cried in relief. Because I am going mad—

  So am I, Saire confessed.

  About to kill myself—

  So am I—

  Don’t. They said it in each other’s minds at once.

  I won’t die now that I know you’re there, he promised.

  Saire stepped off the ledge and back into the hospital. A guard tried to take her arm. Glaring at him, her mind shoved him back. She ran. Ran for her life, toward the sound of that voice. She escaped other guards with psychic blows and nimble movement. That night, two young minds – alone in the dark, each running away, far flung across a vast country – vowed to meet in the middle. Saire heard a boy she came to know as Brodin crying for all he’d endured: the family that had beaten him, the utter lack of understanding, everything he was leaving behind, and his fears of what was to come.

  Saire did the only thing she could think to do when someone needed comfort. She sang. She sang a song that her grandmother had taught her, before the government stole her from her family, a song she had learned from the wise old books, some ancient rite called a “hymn”.

  My life flows on in endless song;

  Above earth’s lamentation,

  I hear the sweet, tho’ far-off hymn

  That hails a new creation;

  Thro’ all the tumult and the strife

  I hear the music ringing;

  It finds an echo in my soul–

  How can I keep from singing?

  But she had not moved her lips. She offered the song to him in his mind. She swore she heard the air take up the harmony. She swore a bird had her notes in its throat. That was in the days when there still were birds.

  “Don’t stop . . .” his voice begged. How could she deny him?

  What tho’ my joys and comforts die?

  The lord my saviour liveth;

  What tho’ the darkness gather round?

  Songs in the night he giveth.

  No storm can shake my inmost calm

  While to that refuge clinging;

  Since came the lord of heaven and earth,

  How can I keep from singing?

  When tyrants tremble, sick with fear,

  And hear their death-knell ringing,

  When friends rejoice both far and near,

  How can I keep from singing?

  In prison cell and dungeon vile,

  Our thoughts to them go winging;

  When friends by shame are undefiled,

  How can I keep from singing?

  It became their private anthem.

  Night by night, as they crossed the country towards one another, the need for connection, for intimacy, for understanding and for company, consumed them. Their minds entwined, they learned about their tragic pasts, and assumed others of their kind suffered too, if there were any. Saire shared what the scientists thought of her: that she was a newly evolved strain.

  They knew they couldn’t run forever undetected, so they decided that once they met up, they’d try and find others and create a society. They’d likely not be able to do this without the government’s knowledge, and so Saire pledged she’d be a liaison and perhaps gain training and research facilities on their own terms. They were going to create a new world.

  Each day as they got closer to one another, they kept out of sight and off the radar, their excitement building.

  Finally she saw his silhouette across a barren field of dried grasses. The ruins of an old stone building, something grand and sacred with Gothic arches, stood silent sentry in the field.

  Slowly they approached one another. The moonlight cast them in stark light, beautiful, heavenly light, and Saire swore she saw a halo about him, as if he were an angel. He was tall and elegant, sharp-featured and dark-haired, slightly fairer than she. His eyes were luminous, humming with the raw power of brand-new creation. And bright with desire.

  They didn’t say a word. He took her hand and led her into the beautiful ruins, beneath the pointed arches, into a room where moonlight cascaded in through a hole in the vaulted ceiling, illuminating a vast stone table that was cracked and settled at a slight angle. Saire moved to it, sat upon it, and placed Brodin’s hands upon the buttons of her blouse.

  “You’ve been deep inside my mind,” she breathed, her lips dancing up his neck, making him shiver. “Now, my body. Let me feel you . . .”

  Slow and tenderly, Brodin undressed her so that she lay upon the stone, vulnerable and exposed in the moonlight. He stood over her and wept at his gift, so beautiful and graceful and full of an understanding he’d so desperately craved. She could feel his appreciation both in thought and in tangible touch as his hands explored her with the wonder of a child but the needs of a man.

  They could feel each other’s arousal so pointedly that the entire experience of touching, kissing, caressing, was painfully delicious agony. Their bodies joined slowly, achingly. Their connection built into furious climaxes. Hours of torturous builds to transcendent releases, their ability to sense one another’s pleasure drove the cycle again and again. Their minds and bodies were entwined until the sun began to rise and even then their hunger was not quenched.

  They were the stars of the ancient tales, Adam and Eve, and this Gothic ruin was their Eden, and they were about to become mother and father to a whole new family. A powerful yet peaceful people whose abilities might allow them to reverse damage done to their planet, create bridges out of barriers. With abilities that resembled magic, anything was possible.

  And as their bodies writhed in wave after wave of inexplicable ecstasy, they pitied the average mortal for not knowing what this kind of bliss was like; this soul-bond on a level mere coupling could not begin to match.

  Somewhere deep in her unconsciousness, Saire moaned, aching again for that long-lost sacred connection. She realized she was dreaming, dead, or near dead. That’s when memories make their parade . . . But Saire had the distinct impression, on whatever level her mind was able to register it, that she was not alone in this journey . . .

  Six

  Dark Nest counsels swarmed over Brodin, who had collapsed at the Great Well, which he was using as a transmitter, to project his mind toward the Homeworld and to Saire.

  “He’s dreaming, I think, lost in unconsciousness,” one counsel said. “He’s tethered to another mind.”

  “Madame Saire, surely,” another counsel breathed.

  “But they’re—”

  “Destined. Even the High Council cannot keep souls such as theirs apart forever.” They knelt in reverent guard at their regent’s side, keeping watch on his vital signs and willing their great mother home.

  Saire watched as ground was broken for the training school. She and Brodin were granted safety and their facility was green-lit provided that an inhibitor, a substance developed during testing on Saire, was used in the construction of the whole facility. Their powers would be limited, contained. Saire balked at this but Brodin signed off.

  “If it’s what keeps us safe,” he said to her in private. “You and I know we can do so much more. We’ll find a way. We’ll push boundaries in private. But on the surface, this is what has to be done. We have to be seen as harmless. There will be more persecution otherwise. As for you and I . . .”

  Saire knew Brodin meant the connection the Homeworld demanded they sever. “We have to comply and do what is expected of us, to best lessen the suffering of our people.”

  She watched Brodin’s blazing eyes cool, his jaw tense. But he nodded.

  Later that day, Saire went to a doctor whom she trusted. She had missed two periods and assumed with a mounting thrill that she was carrying her lover’s child. It would change everything, and they would have to rear their child in secret, but it would be their most precious treasure
and a sacred defiance that the Homeworld could not take away from them.

  Only to find out that due to all the tests she had endured, she could have no children.

  Saire closed off her mind, kept this knowledge to herself, wept bitterly for days, and threw herself into the work of the school.

  Brodin felt the weight of a great and terrible pain but did not pry. He took her cue to be stoic. They had so much work to do, and children were being dropped off at a facility that was still under construction. It was easy to lose oneself in others’ lives.

  How children could be so easily abandoned puzzled Brodin, as his own abuse had baffled him. Saire just took the children in without question and looked for more.

  She sent Brodin out to travel the country to gather others as the rift between humans and these newly evolved beings grew wider. As she handed him his bags on the platform, checking to be sure they were not being watched or recorded on security cameras, she kissed him.

  He bent to her hungrily, seizing her. “I love—”

  “Always,” she interrupted him before he could complete his declaration.

  It wasn’t a vow.

  But it had somehow sufficed for countless, interminable years. Until it hadn’t.

  The Homeworld was planning to assassinate Brodin.

  The night before he knew he would be killed, Brodin traveled the corridors of the training school and went to Saire’s quarters. She greeted him with tears in her eyes, disabled the sensors in her home and led him to her bedroom.

  This kill order was the beginning of a new phase of persecution. There was no going back. Their people were not numerous enough to cause a revolution, nor were they trained to do so. Their best chance to survive was to keep building and perfecting their escape vessels and ships – their Nests – so they could live and develop their powers and skills in peace.

  They made love for what they both knew might be the last time. The act was careful and loving, but without the wild abandon they sometimes felt when they were both scared they might break apart, shattering into frightened pieces.

  “I don’t want to pretend any longer that you’re not my mate, my partner. I don’t want to pretend that I don’t want you for my husband,” she gasped against his shoulder. “We’ve sacrificed everything, and for what? So they could kill you in the end anyway? I swear to you, if you do not resurrect as planned—”

  “I’ll resurrect. I promise,” he said, holding her tightly. “But it will be a long time before I see you again.”

  She wept that he kept his mind closed from her. To protect himself. To prepare himself, he said. Neither of them knew if he would survive the ordeal as planned, or if it would all be in vain. In her mind, she apologized for the painful things she’d never told him, but by now he must have assumed. But he didn’t seem to hear her.

  In the morning he was shot and there was a funeral.

  Saire managed to be present at the memorial as the training school grieved bitterly for their leader. She sang, her voice clarion, clear, magically reverberant in the close air.

  My life flows on in endless song;

  Above earth’s lamentation,

  I hear the sweet, tho’ far-off hymn

  That hails a new creation;

  Thro’ all the tumult and the strife

  I hear the music ringing;

  It finds an echo in my soul–

  How can I keep from singing?

  His coffin was laid in the ground and her tears rolled down her cheeks onto the rain-starved earth.

  Internally, she kept singing for him, verse after verse, for whatever deep recesses of his mind might be listening, to bring him back to those first days when they only had each other.

  There was the distant sound of an explosion and Saire’s dream-scape of memories shifted into a vague, swirling darkness where she felt lost and alone.

  Had the Dark Nest exploded? Did they have no one to turn to after all?

  Come, Saire, she heard dimly in her mind. Rise and bring your people home. No more deaths.

  They were all being killed. Exterminated.

  But there was singing. Her singing. She’d just been singing.

  No, someone else was singing . . .

  A drop of water fell on Saire’s cheek. A tear. A small body shuddered next to her. She lifted one heavy eyelid. In the dim light little Franca bent over her, splashing more tears, choking as she tried to sing the song Saire used to sing her to sleep with as an orphan at the training school.

  “N-no s-storm can sh-ake m-my in-most calm . . .” Franca’s sobbing voice warbled.

  As Saire shifted her hand to Franca’s knee, the little girl gasped and clasped her hands over her runny nose and streaming cheeks. She fell on top of Saire, arms around her neck, and in that moment Saire finally let go of the pain of never having her own child. She had countless, and they did not count for any less.

  “I can’t lose you too, Lady Saire,” Franca cried, nearing hysterics. “I can’t hear Joyie. I can’t sense my sister.”

  “Shh, I need you calm. Joyie needs you calm. What happened? How long was I unconscious and how did you wake?”

  “A voice in our mind told us to get up,” replied Tynne. “It sounded like Professor Brodin. How could he do that?!” Tynne exclaimed. “It’s like he’s God.”

  “Oh, don’t tell him that, it’ll go to his head,” Saire laughed even though it hurt like hell.

  Simm rushed forward. “I heard voices.” He tapped his head in wonder. “Someone from our class hid in the school. Deep in the corridors. It sounded like Zho.”

  “Good. We’ll go to her, and that’s where the crew will rescue us.”

  If the children heard Brodin then it wasn’t just her imagination. Perhaps there was a Nest to land in after all. But they needed to survive until the transport. And patrol drones would make periodic sweeps outside, waiting for movements and heat signatures. Now that they were awake and alert, they would be targets.

  “Children, I need you to be as powerful as Professor Brodin right now,” she said, and allowed her psychic fields to expand around her. Everyone gasped again at the subtle beauty. “This is what you can do. Even in training school you were being suppressed. Oppressed. And now that the Homeworld has come to tell you your lives aren’t worth preserving, you must use your powers to rebel. We can move underground undetected if you cast your fields wide and we move quietly but quickly.”

  A brief lesson, but an effective one with survival on the line, and they were out the door and towards another underground tunnel. The Homeworld had been given incorrect schematics for the tunnels and had no access to them, for the codes only responded to psychic signatures.

  Saire imagined the Homeworld must have thought extermination would be far easier than it was. At this thought a fierce smile curved a corner of her mouth.

  They reached Zho, who shrieked with joy to see them, soot and tracks of tears marring her smooth olive skin. She threw her arms around Simm. “Thank you for hearing my mind,” she cried.

  Saire ached for Brodin, hearing her past echo in the mental connections between their students.

  Zho excitedly showed them stores of food she’d ferreted from the cafeteria kitchen between sensor sweeps. Everyone took hands and gathered in a circle, honoring the dead before they sat to eat.

  Another round of sweeps and a few explosions rattled the ground nearby, sending dust, dirt and bits of concrete down upon them. The students panicked, but Saire cast her fields out around them like a blanket, masking their heat signatures and calming their systems. She didn’t let on how exhausted and drained she was, or that she might not have it in her to hide them all again.

  But she had to.

  Selfish as it may have been of Brodin to tie his life to hers, it finally let her know what kind of footing she was on. They had been through so much. Perhaps there was a limit as to whom you simply could not lose and still go on. Just like that time at the ledge, that moment of possible death, when they had turned a
nd run toward one another.

  Seven

  Brodin paced the Great Well, a pool of water that transmitted images from the Homeworld like a screen. Gray robes whipping behind him, little Joyie was by his side, pacing too, her elder-grade tunic replaced with deep-blue Dark Nest robes, all her thoughts on her sister Franca.

  She stopped suddenly and looked up at him. “Were you and Saire the first? Of our kind?”

  “The first to be known,” he replied. “There may have been others before us who never came forward. We were the first to be experimented upon.”

  Joyie shuddered. “Do you think we’ll ever go back to the Homeworld?”

  “Not that dying crust. We’ll go live on Sanctuary, the planet we’ve chosen for ourselves. It is empty and waiting for us to coexist with it, its flora and fauna. As for the Homeworld, our rescue team has one extra task – to leave behind a lesson, a psychic blast that will detonate in the capital. Hopefully then, should there ever be relations between our kind again, they’ll be sure to know what we’ve been through.”

  “Revenge?”

  “Better. Empathy.”

  Just then everything started screaming.

  A wail came up from the Great Well, flickering images of Homeworld citizens doubling over, shrieking as if they were on fire, clawing at their faces, each of them experiencing a PA death but with no psychic shields to ease the pain.

  “Franca,” Joyie hissed, clutching her head. “It’s agony. They can’t move, they’re paralyzed—”