Dominion Rising: 23 Brand New Novels from Top Fantasy and Science Fiction Authors

by Gwynn White

  Talon waved a long-fingered hand. “In the incinerator already, I’m sure. They burn everything right away.” She eyed Ember’s hair and frowned. “Particularly when there’s a question of sanitation.”

  Her skirt and blouse she could replace. But her mother’s hand-painted tarot cards in the hidden pocket were priceless. Now they were gone forever, just like the woman who had given them to her.

  “None of the others brought luggage either, gypsy girl,” Talon said. “You don’t see them crying about it. They’re all seated, waiting for orientation like you’re supposed to be.”

  “None of them were kidnapped, then,” Ember snapped. “So much for my rights as an Empire citizen. I don’t care what abilities you think I have. I don’t belong here and I’m going home.”

  Talon’s eyes narrowed. A chill settled over Ember as she remembered what this woman was capable of. Her abduction had happened quickly, but she was certain Talon was the one who’d cut her down with the stunner. At the moment, the woman looked as if she longed to do it again.

  Talon’s voice went low and dangerous. “You have no idea what you’re dealing with, gypsy. You belong where High Commander Kane wants you. Every one of this year’s batch has been marked since they tested positive around age five or six. They’ve been preparing for testing week ever since. You somehow escaped the Empire’s notice—”

  “Marked?” Ember interrupted. “You mean branded. Like livestock.”

  Talon was silent for a long moment, her long fingers hovering over the stunner at her belt. Ember knew she had crossed a line, but she forced herself to meet the tall woman’s gaze.

  “Interrupt me again,” the woman whispered, “and I will render you unable to travel anywhere, Earth or otherwise. Now go. Orientation is about to begin.”

  8

  The building felt so modern, so ship-like, that she had nearly forgotten she was standing on a giant white planet station, but when she stepped into the briefing room, it was impossible to forget. The room was shaped like a glass dome and had a clear ceiling exposed to the “sky” above. But it wasn’t like an earthly sky—stormy or clear or sunny. It was a murky gray. No clouds, no stars. Something drab and in-between. She wasn’t sure why they’d even bothered with this glass dome if there was nothing to see above it.

  Most of the flickers were already seated. Ember caught a glimpse of Stefan near the front next to Eris. She muttered something, and he chuckled. Ember instinctively gripped where her skirt had once been, but in its place was a smooth, soft fabric that hugged her curves.

  Feeling as if the entire room was watching her, she scanned the neat rows for an empty seat. Mar waved to her from the back and motioned to a chair. Relieved, Ember headed toward her just as Talon entered. The woman made it to the podium in four strides and began to speak.

  “Today is an important day for you, flickers, one we look forward to every year.” Her deep voice was amplified by speakers in the walls, but Ember couldn’t see a microphone. Their tech was so strange.

  “There are seventy-three of you here, from forty-one sectors. Many of you have trained for testing week since childhood. Many of you probably thought your twentieth year would never come. Others, however, are woefully unprepared for what is ahead.” She didn’t glance at Ember, but several flickers did. Ember kept her face impassive. She was nineteen, not twenty, but she doubted that was enough reason to send her home.

  “You have a remarkable gift, one that makes you incredibly valuable to the emperor. That’s why you’ll spend your week in comfort, housed in some of our finest rooms and eating the very best food. Each of you is a powerful weapon in our battle against the enemy. Unfortunately, not every flicker is right for our program. Either you have what we need, or you don’t.”

  The silence was stifling. The air squeezed around Ember so tightly she could almost feel Talpa’s bone-breaking arm around her throat again. One word reverberated in her mind, overtaking her thoughts until she couldn’t see anything else. Weapon.

  It was exactly like her father’s article. They were making flickers into weapons.

  Talon raised her voice again. “Your testing will consist of three phases over three days. The first begins tomorrow morning at 08:00. You will receive the room number on your wristbands. And, no, I’m not authorized to reveal what the first phase entails, so don’t ask.” She pressed her lips together in a grimace that was probably supposed to be a smile. A few people chuckled uncomfortably.

  Ember barely heard. Weapon. Battle. Enemy. Closing your eyes leaves you exposed, Stefan had said. What kind of twisted system was this? Reading a person’s inner light was an intimate experience, a gift from the stars. Was the Empire training a force of readers to spy on their enemies? Or was there something even darker going on here?

  “The room number to your quarters will appear on your wristband soon,” Talon continued. “You have the afternoon to explore the city. When your wristband begins to vibrate, return to the station immediately and report to the cafeteria by 17:00. Stragglers will be disqualified.”

  The room began to fill with excited whispers. Talon stepped down from the platform and exited, although the guards lining the walls stayed.

  Mar leaned over. “They’re testing us already. They’ll track us around the city.”

  Blood pulsed in Ember’s ears. The room seemed to be closing in on her. Ember had danced along the edges of what was moral by profiting from her gift, but using it to win a war? This was absolutely and completely wrong. She couldn’t stay in this terrible place a moment longer.

  The flicker recruits stood and headed for the double doors at the rear. A group of several men and one woman joined Stefan and Eris, apparently discussing where they would go. Ember brushed past them. The doors slid open for her, allowing her outside.

  The city reflected painfully against her eyes. She missed the casual chaos of Earth, the colors and textures and familiar ground. There wasn’t a sign of dirt anywhere. Occasionally plants broke up the whiteness, but they were obviously fake. Some were even bright colors, like purple and orange.

  “Gypsy girl!” Mar pulled up beside her, breathing hard. “How could you go barging off without me?”

  “Roma,” Ember corrected. “And I’m Gheorghe Ember of the Argyle Beach Kumpania.”

  “Uh, I’m not going to remember that. You go by what, exactly?”

  “Ember.”

  “Got it. So where to first?”

  She looked behind them at the group passing through the doors and laughing. They moved easily, as if they’d been here before. They probably had, if they were some of the lifelong-preparation flickers Talon had mentioned. She spotted Stefan in the center. Eris had her arm through his.

  Ember hadn’t told him about the kissing vision, thank the stars, and it didn’t seem like he’d seen it in her earlier. She would just pretend it never happened and move on.

  Ember thought quickly. “To find some medicine.” And if she was lucky, find a ship to take her home.

  “Oh.” Mar frowned and slowed her step. “That doesn’t sound very exciting. Don’t you want to head for a bar? This is the best tech center in eight sectors. They’ll have the best VR stations ever built. I mean, there’s this one at the Grande that supposedly uses an antigravity module with—”

  “You go ahead, then. Don’t let me stop you.” Ember continued on her path, following the others down a massive stairway to the city street below.

  Mar scowled and caught up to her. “Well, I guess we can run your errand first. I mean, since you don’t know your way around.”

  Mar technically didn’t either, but Ember didn’t feel like pointing that out.

  They made their way down six flights of steps before the street came into view. She felt light-headed for a moment and paused along the wall, allowing people to pass.

  “You okay?” Mar asked, pulling up beside her. “I know the air’s different here, but they were supposed to give you an adjustment when you got your uniform. I didn’t
need one, but I totally understand if you’re feeling an oxygen percentage discrepancy.”

  “I’m fine.” Ember stepped slowly down to a sidewalk packed with flickers. They seemed to be crowding toward a sky-train platform. She turned the other direction, determined to walk. She’d had enough air travel to last her a lifetime.

  Ember headed down the sidewalk, already deep in thought. Would Talpa turn her in when she got home? Would the Empire care enough to look for her again? Was Dai still alive?

  One step at a time, she reminded herself as Mar fell into step beside her.

  “It’s called Latitude H2C,” Ember told the pharmacist for the third time. “La-ti-tude. It comes in small round pills, a brown color.”

  “I say again,” the woman replied. “A hospital drug. Cannot get here.”

  The pharmacy was a tiny, two-level building with nothing but photographs of smiling people lining the walls. The occasional image displayed blinking words in Common. It seemed the Empire allowed only one language on their stations.

  Ember sighed. “Where else should I look?”

  Mar groaned from the doorway. This was the fourth pharmacy they’d visited in two hours, and even Ember was beginning to lose hope.

  “Cannot get anywhere but hospital.” The woman looked impatient. “I must go now.” She turned and headed toward the back.

  “Come on, Ember,” Mar said. “Let’s take a break. Remember the Grande, that VR place I told you about? It’s only a fifteen-minute walk from here. Maybe we’ll find someone there who can help you. Besides, it’ll look bad if all we do is visit pharmacies. The Empire’s tracking us, remember?”

  Ember tried to thank the pharmacist, but she had already disappeared behind a wall. Mar was already striding down the walkway before Ember got there. City trains zoomed past, whipping Mar’s brown hair over her face, but she didn’t seem to mind. A bit of her prior excitement had begun to come back.

  “Fine,” Ember muttered. If Dai’s medicine was regulated that strictly, the only way to get it would be the underground. Maybe a bar wasn’t such a bad idea.

  She had just gone to follow Mar when a female voice hissed, “Hey, flicker girl.”

  Ember stopped and turned. The pharmacist she’d just spoken with stood in the back entrance, waving at her.

  “I think I have what you seek. You wait behind.” The woman motioned behind the building and disappeared inside.

  Ember searched the crowd for Mar’s head and found her half a block up, striding purposefully toward an intersection. She’d catch up to her in a minute.

  Ember circled the building until the street was out of sight, then made her way to the back door and waited.

  The pharmacist reappeared a moment later and handed Ember a container. “It is this, yes?”

  Ember took the container, excitement rising within her. She slid open the top and looked inside, then felt her shoulders sag in relief. “Yes! This is it. Now I just need to ship it to Earth.”

  The woman’s eyes widened. “Oh, no, no. I cannot do for you. Is too expensive.”

  Expensive. Ember had forgotten about that part. She pulled out her wristband and checked her account. Stefan’s 200 credits plus another nineteen from the previous week. “What does this cost? I’ll give you all I have.” She held out her band for the woman to see.

  A glimmer of mischief shone in the woman’s dark eyes. She didn’t even look at the screen. “You are flicker, yes? I know the jacket.”

  Ember swallowed, everything within her crying out to resist the label. She wore the uniform, but that didn’t change who she was. “You want me to read your future?”

  “No. You will read my husband.” The pharmacist took Ember’s arm and pulled her through the door before she could protest.

  The woman took her to a flight of narrow stairs that led above the shop. Ember found her mind whirling at this new development. What did this woman want her to do? Was the man having a secret affair his wife wanted exposed? Was he looking for a job?

  They reached a bedroom with a figure covered in several blankets. The room stunk of medications and unwashed fabric. The woman made her way to her husband’s side and took his hand.

  “You tell me if he lives,” she said, her former mischief gone. She was completely somber now. “You tell the truth, I give medicine.”

  Ember stepped over to the other side of the bed and winced at what she saw. The man looked dead already, his features pale and sunken. Even his chest seemed to cave in strangely. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know this man’s future.

  “Why isn’t he in the hospital?” she asked.

  “They send him home. You read him now.”

  “Very well,” Ember said with forced enthusiasm. She closed her eyes and began to hum. She felt her own light pulse and extended her reach. The man’s light was weak, fluttering. He was very near death.

  She reached in and experienced bits and pieces of his past. His childhood on Tantom as the fourth of twenty-eight children. His time at the university when he met his wife, who was training to become a pharmacist. Their eleven children, three of whom were taken in the war. His time serving the Union as a spy.

  She straightened, jerking out of that particular memory. The Union. She’d heard of the group before. Was that the enemy Talon had mentioned? Surely the pharmacist didn’t know about her husband’s true profession, or she would never have asked Ember to read him. She wore the Empire’s uniform, after all.

  Don’t worry, she told the man inwardly. Your secret is safe with me.

  She reached for the light again and saw his pain, deep and raw. She saw herself standing above the man with her eyes closed. She pushed forward, straining to see what lay beyond, but it was a strange blur of color and sound. And then nothing.

  Ember swallowed hard and opened her eyes, settling her gaze upon the anxious woman across the bed from her. The pharmacist watched her with wide eyes, then her lips parted slightly in understanding. She lowered her gaze upon her husband.

  “I’m sorry,” Ember whispered. “There’s not much time left.”

  The wife let out a sob and fell upon her husband’s chest with a high-pitched wail. The husband’s arm moved slightly as if to comfort her, but there was nothing to be done. Ember had just removed whatever hope remained.

  “Go,” the woman said between her tears.

  Ember held out the container of pills, but the woman shoved it back at her and returned to her wailing.

  “I really am sorry,” she said again, the woman’s sobbing her only reply.

  9

  The vision of that sick man haunted Ember as she wandered the city. She shivered as she remembered his blank expression, his pain. Did the man still live? Was Dai as helpless and limp right now as that man had been?

  At least the dying man wasn’t alone. She couldn’t say the same for her father.

  She walked for forty-five minutes and didn’t see a single dock or landing pad. She watched the sky above her, hoping to catch sight of a shuttle, a freighter, anything. But the skies remained empty. She finally asked a man on the street for directions to a transport station but got a confused stare in return.

  “This entire planet’s the station,” he said. “There’s only one authorized landing pad, and that’s where you arrived.”

  Ember sighed. It seemed she’d be heading back to the massive white testing building after all. Maybe if she hurried there would be time to search the building for a way to get home.

  She jogged back, winding through the ever-busy streets, suddenly weary of the lights and noise. A guard scanned her wristband at the bottom of the steps before motioning her onward. She climbed the six flights of steps, which seemed to have multiplied since her descent earlier, and made her way inside. Thankfully the corridors were still relatively empty.

  For ten minutes she wandered down a series of corridors that all looked identical. Occasionally she passed a soldier in a crisp uniform. They didn’t look surprised at the sight of Ember’s jacke
t, but she noticed they gave her a wide berth. What a strange situation for flickers here—being forced to become a weapon for the Empire and being shunned for it at the same time.

  She thought about the other flickers, probably returning to this building right now. Were they reading the people they met, forcing their way past the defenses regular citizens weren’t even aware of? Were they gathering information to turn in to the Empire and get a pat on the head?

  Such knowledge would be dangerous in a place like this, especially for people like the dying man, who had hidden ties to the Union. No wonder flickers were so tightly controlled.

  She turned yet another corner and pulled up short. Stefan was striding toward her. He stopped and grinned. “Had enough of the city already?”

  She forced a smile. “Just tired. You?”

  “I’ve seen it a few times before. Fifty, eighty maybe.” He shrugged. “I grew up on Dalimane Station, and we visited here often.”

  “You mean there are others like this?”

  “Of course. This one’s more central, but it’s not even the biggest. You should see Germini.”

  She rubbed her arms. “Maybe someday.”

  “The rec deck is pretty impressive, though. They have some new tech I’ve never seen before. Have you been there yet?” His smile faded when he noticed Ember’s face. “Oh, that’s right. I forgot that your father is sick. Of course you’re not impressed by any of this.”

  She watched a soldier walk by, but the man didn’t give them a second glance. “It’s just that he needs his medicine. Where do citizens go when they need to travel?”

  “Uh, they don’t. It’s a military station, Ember. Those who leave go through inspections and all kinds of clearance, even the merchant pilots.”

  She sighed.

  “You know I’d help if I could,” he told her. “But even if it were possible, I’d be in huge trouble if they found out.”

  “Oh, I bet.”

  He checked his wristband, missing her sarcasm. “You look like you could use some cheering up. I want to show you something.”