by P. K. Tyler
“Nice to—” I slammed my mouth closed, fearing I might gag. Leaning forward, I hung my head between my knees before I threw up.
“Just breathe, Amari.”
My temples rattled between my knees like a pinball.
“Besides, we’ll see how nice it is to know me after I fix your shoulder,” Rowan added.
The memory slammed shut as I bolted upright in my bed, gasping for air. The sheets were soaked with sweat, my head spinning.
“No,” I swallowed. “No, it can’t—”
“This work is groundbreaking for humankind.” Eleni smiled. “Oh God.”
* * *
“Rowan, we have to warn the others.”
Across the sofa of his personal quarters, Rowan’s eyes fixed on mine, guarded.
“Jaya, I understand this mission was never perfect. A lot of bequests are going through some difficult stages right now but—”
“Rowan, think! The Collective pounded the same story into our heads. Earth was on the verge of collapse. The Source Donors had to be saved. If Earth was in such a dire state, why did The Collective have to abduct them? Wouldn’t they have billions of people killing each other to claim a space on The Halcyon?”
“Even if it were true, to reveal something like this would cause chaos amongst the bequests. What end would that take us to?” Rowan shook his head. “We’re stuck on a ship hundreds of light-years away from any form of a home planet. There’s nothing we can do to change where we are now.” I sat down and folded my fingers together. I wasn’t sure I had the right words to tell him.
“Rowan, this is much greater than that.” I took a breath. “We are never meant to make it to the Pleiades.”
He paused a moment. A nervous smile cracked his stoic mask.
“Jaya, what are you talking about? That’s the whole point of this mission.”
“No,” I shook my head. “That’s what we’re told but we are not the ones destined to inhabit the planet. We’re just an experiment.”
“What?” Rowan’s voice almost disappeared.
“Haven’t you wondered why there are wings of the ship sealed off? Entire dead wings, completely empty like they had they ever been used at all?” Rowan searched for an explanation.
“When The Halcyon mission launched, they were full of bequests. Tens of thousands. But they failed, Rowan. Why are we the lucky ones? What’s so special about our gene lines that we didn’t die with the rest of them?”
Rowan looked pale. “Everyone has…a different chemistry makeup—”
“That has nothing to do with it. We’re all cloned from the same species: Human.”
He was speechless.
“Don’t you see that’s the only reason we’re all here? To show The Collective what works in the AGE therapy. Those lines that died are the canaries. They’re the warnings that tell The Collective what isn’t working. You must know that we are all receiving different treatments, don’t you? Everyone has a different response to the therapy because they’re testing our limits with each generation. If you received my treatment dosage your genes wouldn’t be able to mutate fast enough and you’d die.” I paused. “I think Samidha tried to end the Dawar line, Rowan. She knew.”
Rowan shot up from the sofa, shaking his head. “Jaya…” I stood, quiet, waiting for it to sink in. He glanced back but did not turn to face me.
“Do you realize what you’re saying? How can this even be remotely true? You must have…you must have been misinformed. You even admitted you’re suffering from these strange nightmares–”
“Your Source Father helped build the MAGS system, Rowan. You can gain access to her mainframe from one of the dead wings. All the information is there. But we have to leave now.”
Rowan shook his head again. “No. This is way beyond anything I am prepared to take on. These accusations are enough to terminate our lines.”
“Isn’t that reason enough to fight?”
Rowan was silent a moment. His shoulders were hunched forward, neck drawn in as if he were suddenly cold.
“The Collective aims to be a superior race?” he asked.
“They already are.”
“Jaya, I—”
The suite suddenly flooded with light and three armed Guides burst through the door with canes and shackles. One shot a lasso; the cord wound and zipped tight around my arms and torso. I spun around to run but the Guide hauled me backward with a violent jerk. My body landed heavy and hard on the floor, forcing a loud, painful pop from my shoulder. I screamed in pain. Horace smiled down at me through the violet haze of his oxygen collar.
“We meet again, Jaya,” he taunted. The other two Guides rushed in, one wrapping a restraint around my ankles, the other seizing Rowan’s hands behind his back. I wriggled and writhed with all my strength, resisting the warmth of agony spreading down my dislocated shoulder. Through a gap in the group, Eleni pushed in front of Rowan, her best sympathetic expression molding her refined features.
“The others will find out,” I groaned. “I’ll make sure they do!”
“You assume the poor misinformed masses need to be saved from their naivety,” Eleni bemused, “but you fail to see that their ignorance is what’s keeping them all sane.”
“Not all of them.” I shuddered, fear gripping my stomach. “They don’t know how to deal with the pain.”
“Yes, Jaya, they do.” Eleni lowered her brow. “They just deal with it alone. They slice a scissor blade down their thigh. They tie the bed sheets around their neck. Or, they jump off a balcony.” Her tone twisted the words deep into my chest. I squeezed away the sight of Samidha on the table, tears burning my eyes. “If you tell them their lives have been for nothing, they’ll take a sledgehammer to the ship’s metallic hydrogen fuel tanks and try to end it for us all.”
“Sounds like a good way to go.” I forced the words through my gritted teeth. Eleni’s expression revealed nothing. She looked to Horace.
“Incubate her.”
The familiar prick of a sedative pen bit into my thigh. Eleni was out of the room before the blessed darkness had washed me back into the cold ebb of unconsciousness.
* * *
“You are committing murder!” I stood, my shout echoing across the stark expanse of the hearing chamber to The Collective of Elders before me. “And you hide it behind a ‘greater purpose’ for everyone’s approval. You’ve brainwashed us all to condone it! When you’re through with the next batch of bequests you’ll squeeze their lives away. And then all their friends and family will nod their heads at the Reclamation ceremony and chant their approval for the ‘greater purpose.’”
“Is that what you think this is?” Elder Torrel spoke out, an old, ailing man stooped at the shoulders. “Dear child, you are the key to humankind’s success.”
Elder Shane gestured a palm from his heart. “We owe you our deepest gratitude. And you should be honored to have such a place in our evolution. Our own genetically altered children are nearly perfect because of your sacrifice.”
“How can you treat us this way?” I cried to them.
“My dear,” Elder Warren seemed genuinely perplexed, “you’re just a clone. You were never meant to survive beyond the initial mission.” I blinked. They were delusional. They didn’t see bequests as a true species. We were merely lab rats.
“Bequests are honored and given every comfort. What more could you want, Jaya?” Elder Eleni asked, cold. Turning my eyes back to the eldest of the Elders, I adjusted my recently aligned shoulder socket.
“Let us live like humans.”
“But you are not human.”
“Because you stole our humanity from us!” I exclaimed. “We are indentured servants on this ship. I’m not the only one waking up to the truth. When my brothers and sisters realize what you’ve done, they will restore the balance.” I smiled. “This is all just part of the process.”
Eleni’s eyes were hard and dead on me for a long moment. She turned to the armed Guides and motioned with a nod that
our discussion was over.
Wordless, The Collective filed out of the holding room to decide my fate. Although our brief and heated exchange had proven my lack of devotion to their twisted beliefs, the group of human elders still held an air of somber ceremony as they left. The shiny door slid closed and I was alone in the white, empty room. The padded chair I perched on was the only other object in the hearing room. The Collective would not debate long, not on a clearly decided case such as mine. They had all known their answer before they’d captured me. I would live out my days in solitary confinement until they had peeled away the final answers of Amari’s research from my brain. Forgotten. Alone. Maybe they’d give Rowan a second chance. He hadn’t believed a word I’d told him anyway.
My breath rasped loudly in the harsh acoustics of the room. I listened to the air as it passed through my mouth and inflated my chest. The pitch of my inhale was shallow and emaciated, like the life I was spoon-fed aboard this ship. The experiences, the relationships, the food, the air, even my body was a thing of fabrication. Everything was designed, measured and plotted for efficiency. My exhale, though, was deep and dark, like I imagined an ocean to be. I envisioned it blue fading into black and full of unfathomable truth. It flowed from my lungs. It still possessed life. It still possessed essence.
The blank reflective walls curved around me in a large dome. They were one-way windows into the hearing room. I knew I was watched from all sides, as this ship, The Halcyon, was designed to do. As The Halcyon had always done.
I wasn’t the only one who knew what happened back on Earth some three hundred years ago. I wasn’t the only one who knew what The Collective had planned for us. But I sat in the hearing room because I was the only one who believed our fates could be changed. I believed our Source Mothers and Fathers still struggled for their freedom through us. In that quiet moment, a strange calm settled in my chest and a vision washed over me.
The Collective enters. They serve my sentence. Two guards come to escort me out. A kick to the groin of the first guard, another to the knee of the second. It hyper-extends, snapping backward. Rush the door. Elder Torrel is nearest. A sudden strike, there, at the throat. Elder Eleni. Deliver a double-fisted blow to the face and shove her into the rest of the advancing group. Sling my shackled wrists around the neck of the third guard and crack his delicate spine with my knee. Release him. Kick the fourth guard across the jaw and pin him to the floor. Grab the demagnetizer to undo my shackles and rush the door. Then run to the dead wings. Run like hell.
I opened my eyes. The Collective had contorted my spirit with lies and guilt but they hadn’t broken me. I drew in a long, silent breath, wishing for the comforting hand of my sister. Instead, my grief had flayed me of my old self, revealing another version in its place. This new Jaya would be my protector. She would be my Guide. She would free the rest of my brothers and sisters drowning in their agony and confusion. And as I waited in the hearing room until The Collective returned, I had a sudden and profound understanding. I exhaled. It was not my fate they were deciding.
A cold clack of steel resounded around the dome as the door unlocked.
It was I, deciding theirs.
About the Author
Erica Ruhe is an uncommon, Florida-based fiction writer and poet. A lover of all genres, Erica explores a wide range of work from speculative fiction and horror to sci-fi and romantic comedy. Her travels as a military brat have rooted a deep appreciation for adventure and world cultures, encouraging a passion to connect with others through her writing. In her free time, she draws inspiration from human nature, Mother Nature, and her divine muses.
Exhale: An Ascendants Story
by Laxmi Hariharan
Short Summary: Sofia must mate with Kris and birth a race superior to humans, but she cannot accept her fate. Can she create her own destiny?
1
Whenever I ask my grandmother why she’s so dark that there's almost a bluish tinge around her in the sunlight, she says it's because of the hours spent out on the moors. It isn't until I inherit her little black box that I discover there is a little more to it.
Today, on my obligatory annual visit from London, I sneak away after dinner to her study tucked away under the roof. As always, when I see the wall of books taking up the entire length of the room, I lose my breath.
The musty smell of damp wallpaper washes over me and, hearing footsteps behind me, I ask, "So you've read all these books, Sofia?"
"Of course I have, Sofia." She smiles, joining me where I stand looking up at the shelves.
It's a game between us, this calling and replying to Sofia, one we play only when alone. Running her fingers over the spines of the jackets, she picks out a book, handing it to me. "This here is my favorite," she says.
It's a well-thumbed copy of The Origin of Us – A collection of legends. A comic book.
I huff, "I am twenty-two, about to start a job at one of the top law firms in the country. A bit too old for this, don’t you think?"
"Not this one." She pulls me to the love seat near the small window and opens it. "I haven't shared this story with you, now, have I?"
I shake my head. She has told me stories of the place she comes from, a city too far away, too alien for me to understand, but no, never this one.
I read: After the next great dissolution, when everything goes into a state of sleep, the self-manifested being will rise. A formless being which will re-establish the seed of creation in the Golden Womb. Ultimately the Golden Womb—also called the universal germ—will break into two halves to form Earth and Heaven and so life begins. Again.
Earth and Heaven.
"And hell, what of hell?" I ask, caught up in her story.
"Hell is where we are now.” She snaps those silver-grey eyes on me. Eyes unusual in someone with her dark skin.
"Do you know why I am telling you this?"
I don't respond. But my heart thuds in my chest.
No, don’t tell me anymore. Don't.
“You, Sofia, are the Golden Womb,” she says. "You will give rise to a new race. One more connected to their inner selves. Something humans have forgotten in their quest for material wealth."
I almost laugh at that.
Almost.
But her eyes sharpen into slate-grey pinpoints of focus. She's not joking.
I have never seen her so serious before.
Never.
A shiver runs down my back. Something buried deep unfurls, bringing a flush to my cheeks.
I shake my head. "No, it can't be," I say, at which she grabs me by my shoulders.
I try to step away from her but she doesn't let go.
"You've been chosen to birth a new species," she goes on, not noticing my rising panic. "One more evolved than humans, do you understand?"
Her eyes glow unnaturally, the silver within swirling with flecks of green, and I blink. "Na... Nana. You... so you..."
"Are not human. I am Ascendant."
Huh? What? She says it so casually, just puts it out there, and all I can do is stare. My head whirls. What is she trying to tell me?
She lets go of my shoulders and takes my palm in between hers. "Listen carefully. Your parents are human but that's where any resemblance to them ends. All my genes—everything I carried with me—are now in you. My essence. I made sure it was transferred to you."
“Essence?” I stutter.
She nods, “We Ascendants choose who to pass on our traits to. And I chose you.”
I barely hear her. My grandmother is not human? And I am not completely human. What does that make me?
I pull away and this time she lets me go.
Jumping to my feet, I walk to the bookshelf and stare at the rows of books with unseeing eyes.
Half turning, I ask, "What—Who are these Ascendants?" I don't want to know and yet, a part of me waits for her to speak.
"Humans refer to us as Gods. Angels." She replies, "They think we are imaginary, just stories."
I laugh, a sh
ort bark of disbelief, "And aren't they?" I ask.
She doesn't laugh.
Or smile.
Her features harden into a mask of certainty. One I don't recognize.
"We are here. Among them. We—" She corrects herself. "You are from another dimension."
"Right!" The word whooshes out on an exhale. "So, me? I am from Saturn. And you? You are from Jupiter?"
My voice comes out sharp, snarky, and I wince.
This is my grandma I'm talking to. Still, it's as if she woke up senile this morning. And decided to spew this utter bullshit at me.
Anger flashes across her face, her jaw set. Determined. She's not going to stop ‘til she's told me everything.
"You are not listening," she snaps, her voice urgent. "I said dimension. A parallel universe. Earth but not as we know it."
"You're joking!" It just bursts out of me, a half laugh in my voice. I press my palms together in front of me to stop them from shaking.
"No,” she says. "It's all true, Sofia. And you must hear me carefully, for there may not be another chance.”
She says it with such certainty, a feeling of impending finality settles over me.
She's on edge. Worried about something. Is there a deadline she's up against? Is that why she has to tell me everything now? This very moment?
"What are you trying to tell me, Sofia?" I run my fingers through my hair, trying to focus my attention on her. Trying to figure out what's gotten her into this mood.
"That you are the Golden Womb," she says, calling me by that name. Again.
"What does that even mean?" I snap back.
"What I told you earlier," she bites her lips, trying to hold back her anger. “You are going to birth a new species,” she says, her voice clear. Compelling.
"No!" I turn away and put my hands over my ears to block out her voice. If I look at her, I'll see the conviction on her face. That she believes every word she's saying.
This is my grandma, someone I've known all my life. Someone who has been perfectly content taking care of her family in this little town. And one day she turns around and tells me that she—and I—are something called Ascendants?
