Copula Chronicles: The Complete Collection: Origin, Descend, Ascend, Legacy

by Venessa Kimball

  It’s stupid for me to be so flippant with my words. “I’m not denying it. Just not sure I will be able to do much with them.”

  “This is about you not being confident still.” Ezra shakes the paper to life as he starts looking over the text. “That isn’t an option Jesca. We all made mistakes that night. And since that night we have been training and preparing for what comes next.”

  “We still haven’t taken down Sam. With all of this training Nate and I have been doing, why don’t we just crash his fucking mansion and take him out?”

  Nate’s still munching on his cereal bouncing between Ezra and my exchange.

  Ezra folds the paper as his jaw works, then slaps it to the table. “You know the answer to that. Sam has been MIA since the night he took Corinna. Sebastian and the sleeper cell along with other assets have been searching for both him and Xander.”

  The mention of Xander’s name produces a stitch in the atmosphere between Nate and me. It’s barely tangible as I glance at him seeming to be unfazed as he eats. I may not be able to get past the mental wall he’s produced, but I know Xander isn’t his favorite person.

  Ezra carries on, “Your visions will be able to help us find him. Better yet, it could possibly stop the collision from happening. There is still time.”

  I tense with hearing the word ‘collision’.

  Ezra reads my mind. “Our scientists have confirmed that our galaxy and Andromeda will intersect. It won’t be a collision in the true sense of the word Jesca. I just use the words interchangeably at times.”

  I sigh. “Well, it doesn’t matter to the public. All they see is the chaos the media is serving them.”

  Within a week after Sam Crest and Xander disappeared from Miami’s grid, the imminent collision of the Andromeda galaxy with ours was leaked to the mainstream news. Months prior to the leak, scientists had speculated that the climate shift and other global events might have been a result of a gravitational imbalance in the Earth and its atmosphere. They had said a polar shift might be occurring. Then, a reporter from CNN accessed information from an unknown source that confirmed the collision as a scientific fact and an immediate danger to our world.

  Nate insinuated that someone had gotten sloppy, but Ezra and I knew that this was a tactic put in place by the Sondian fellowship, and possibly Sam Crest.

  For the past two months, Ezra has awaited intelligence from the Dobrian fellowship’s scientists while he, Nate and I take note of the local, national and global news reports. Rebel factions have begun sprouting up globally. Civil riots and protests for government assistance caused worldwide governmental departments to be on high alert. They started shutting down borders between nations, trying to keep the chaos contained within their own countries. The leak served its purpose to make our jobs harder. And we are only a few saviors in a sea of frightened and confused civilians.

  Ezra looks between Nate and me. “Sebastian is sending us on a mission.”

  I feel a knot form in my stomach as I think of how this one turned out in Miami.

  Nate sits back in his chair. “What about our mission here?”

  Ezra sighs. “Well, the mission here has fled Miami and is now in Tokyo, Japan.”

  “Wait, Sam is in Japan?”

  Ezra nods. “We need to get a fellow guardian on board with us and take care of some housekeeping at MIT first. Sebastian hasn’t confirmed, but I think that’s where we’re headed.” Ezra pauses, nervously tapping a pen on the table. “This fellow guardian, he may be—resistant.”

  “Why would he resist? Who is it?”

  Ezra looks down at his finger and thumb as they curl the newspaper’s edge. “He may resist because of what I have to tell him about himself. It could change the outcome of things greatly .”

  He glances at Nate, then me. “You may resist too.”

  I lean onto the table, looking directly into Ezra’s cautious eyes. “Us resist? I highly doubt that! Try me.”

  Ezra breathes in deeply. “I’ve told you about the implantation of the second-generation Copula.”

  Nate nods. “Yeah? What about it?”

  Ezra holds up his iPhone. “A device similar to this was used prior to travel to send a surge of electricity directly to the Copula. Like a Copula defibrillator.”

  I recall the idea of Sebastian electrocuting himself to get the propulsion going to pierce our world and travel into the wormhole to another. “Yeah, the electrocution thing.”

  Nate rolls his eyes at me. “It wasn’t electrocution.”

  I don’t even look at him as I stare at Ezra. “Yes, it was.”

  Ezra seems put out by our brief back and forth. “It doesn’t matter. The point is the controller had multiple purposes. It had capabilities of recording neurological and physical data, changes within the body during and after travel through the wormholes. As protocol, after every mission, Sebastian’s associates collected the data to check for any abnormalities. Across the board, the data showed increased levels of copper in those who were implanted. The levels of copper contributed to alterations within the body, making those implanted superior.”

  Nate questions, “Superior? In what way were they superior?

  Thoughts start firing in my head––alterations in the body making the implanted superior?

  I tune back in to hear Ezra’s weary voice mid-thought. “…physical strength and speed. Psychic abilities, such as clairvoyance, telepathy...”

  As the thoughts keep firing in my head, the question suddenly hits me–– are we implanted? I almost speak the words, but instead, I quickly shut my gaping mouth.

  Nate has seen my reaction though as he questions, “Jes?”

  I suspect Ezra’s bothered by the look on my face. As I’ve kept him out of my head, he’s keeping me out of his as I try to pry inside his mind without asking directly. Sensing my evasive tactic , Ezra sits back in his chair, crossing his arms in front of his chest. His voice is even when he tells us both. “You are each implanted with a Copula.”

  CHAPTER 2: ALTERED

  Jesca

  I pull my hooded sweatshirt over my head to shield me from the chill in the air as I walk on the beach. It’s mid-August, and the weather could easily pass for late November in Georgia. Damn it, don’t have a panic attack, Jes. Just breathe. I should be relieved. That one missing puzzle piece of my life has been found. With the piece in place, it strips the mystery away, explaining what is going on inside of me.

  The Copula has altered me, but from what? What was I like before I was implanted? Normal? Did they implant me to save me or make me into something they needed? Am I a weapon for this Dobrian fellowship? I stop walking as the next thought hits me. Am I a fucking alien?

  What about Nate? Has his future been cast for him as it has for me? Has our link to each other been determined all along as the manufacturing of some fucking super power couple?

  From the moment I met Nate, the attraction was instantaneous. Could this Copula inside of me be the sole reason Nate and I feel an attraction to each other?

  I stop walking and look out into the sea. Breathing in deeply, using the cuff of my sweatshirt to wipe away any evidence of my fear and anger in the form of tears, I turn around and start back to the villa to get answers.

  I slam the door shut behind me, and walk up to the table where Ezra and Nate are still sitting. “Are you implanted? Was my mother implanted?”

  Ezra responds, “Yes, and so is every other guardian in our fellowship.”

  “Where’s your implant?”

  Ezra shifts, turning his head to reveal the nape of his neck. “They’re all implanted here. It’s the closest spot to the central nervous system. I was implanted when Sebastian took me under his wing.”

  Ezra shakes his head, almost as if to clear his memory of the pain from the process, but he isn’t fast enough to block me.

 
Images flash through my mind. The sedative needle … the scalpel slicing through delicate skin at the base of his neck—the stream of blood releasing—the implantation of the device—the Copula—which is nearly the size of a half dollar—Ezra opening his eyes to Sebastian hovering over him.

  I turn to Nate to see if he saw it in Ezra too. By his expression, I know that he has. His mouth forms a thin line, and his arms cross in front of his chest as he stares at Ezra.

  I need proof. When could it have happened? I don’t remember any surgeries as a child.

  Ezra reads me. “It’s done in infancy. Your mother and I—we decided to perform the surgery immediately following your birth.”

  I point to Ezra. “Wait, you just hesitated. There’s something else. What is it?”

  Shifting in his seat, he looks at Nate and me with warning. “ Don’t interrupt me until I’m finished telling you what I’m about to say.”

  ***

  CHAPTER 3: PROGENY

  Ezra

  The sound of birds and the smell of flowers stir me, and my eyes flutter open. I’m sitting on a bench in a beautiful garden, and Sebastian is standing over me.

  Sebastian says, “Jesca’s abilities are becoming very strong.”

  I know my face must show some pain as I recall her strength. “Her abilities are beyond anything I have ever seen … since—”

  Sebastian finishes, “Anna.”

  Suddenly, I get a mental picture of Sebastian with a little girl. She looks like Jesca, but I realize it’s Anna. Sebastian is holding her in his arms. Then, he closes his eyes, and they both vanish.

  I open my eyes, looking at Sebastian with a combination of intensity and fear. “What do I not know about Anna?”

  My mind starts working a mile a minute. I know very few details about Anna’s past. She rarely talked about her childhood or family. She avoided questions about her life when I probed.

  I stand and start to pace in front of Sebastian when he says, “When Anna was young—ten years old, I believe—Elisabeth and Seth Gershon, my sister and brother-in-law, came to my estate in Colorado. They said that Anna had been having some type of paralytic episodes. She would stare off into space, not acknowledging anyone around her for an hour or more. She woke up screaming every night from nightmares as well. The things she said about the dreams, what she saw, scared the hell out of them. Elisabeth and Seth took her to their family doctor. He performed a physical evaluation, and her observations found Anna to be healthy with no ailments.”

  “The family doctor sent them to neurological and psychiatric specialists, where they learned that Anna was suffering from seizures as well as psychotic episodes. The doctors recommended admitting her to a psychiatric institution. Elisabeth and Seth could do no such thing and immediately drove from Georgia to my estate in Colorado seeking my advice. I listened to my sister cry as she told me about Anna. I remembered Elisabeth suffering from similar crippling nightmares when she was a child. She’d wake up screaming in the middle of the night, inconsolably. Mom would hush her back to sleep while Elisabeth would remain frozen, limp in my mother’s arms. My parents would excuse her nightmares, brushing them off because of an overactive imagination and the incapacitation that followed a symptom of exhaustion from the nightmares. Elisabeth knew that I had a highly qualified medical staff on hand at my estate. That’s why she sought me out. I also kept in contact with my metaphysical coach, Kenji, based out of Kyoto University in Japan. I asked him to come and observe Anna as soon as possible. I had Elisabeth, Seth, and Anna stay with me for a couple of weeks for observations.”

  “As soon as Kenji arrived, he observed her. Since he’d trained me, he was familiar with the underlying abilities I possessed, and he knew that Anna had inherited many of Elisabeth’s. I can only imagine the guilt Elisabeth felt after realizing that what she’d suffered from had been passed on to her little girl.”

  “Kenji and the medical staff spoke with Elisabeth and Seth about Anna’s seizures and the source––the result of life force energy overload from her unpracticed abilities. She needed training and therapy to show her how to deal with her energy, but she couldn’t do that without a greater mental capacity.”

  “Her little mind was not strong enough to know what to do with all of this. It was wreaking havoc on her. We had to try to find a way to increase her mental capacity.”

  Sebastian pauses, looking at me. Just then, a flashback comes flooding into my mind. I’m holding Jesca on the bookstore floor back in Georgia before her training at the facility. I try to shake the painful memory of watching her tremble and shake uncontrollably.

  Sebastian sighs. “The Copula was a solution. Of course, Elisabeth and Seth were apprehensive at first. They had many questions. The resistance by Seth was strong, but when he witnessed what Anna could do during training with Kenji, his resistance softened. The staff and I provided answers and made sure they were comfortable with the benefits and risks of implantation. Needing to keep her close to the medical staff meant her remaining with me, which meant she would have to go to Dobria when I did. For Elisabeth and Seth , the risks of Anna traveling with me were small compared to what their daughter’s small body was being put through.”

  “It’s ironic, in a way. Anna was the first person we implanted to save her life. Ultimately, she became the one that could stop the Sondian fellowship. Until Samson Crest came along.”

  I look away from Sebastian, stand, and tuck my hands into the pockets of my pants. “Anna knew Jesca would need the Copula because of the abilities she would one day inherit. We both agreed to implant her for her protection, but Anna knew she had to protect Jesca from the abilities growing within her.”

  Sebastian nods, confirming everything I have said.

  I blow out my lip, anticipating that Jesca might not forgive me for what I have kept from her about the Copula and for what I have just learned from Sebastian about the familial reasons for implantation. I let out a guttural growl of frustration.

  Sebastian leans back and closes his eyes, letting the sun warm his face. “Nate will be level-headed about it. Jesca will be mad and frustrated. Your intentions to protect her have always been pure at heart, and she will realize this. Give her time. Telling young guardians what we are considering here is overwhelming. It provides them with a reason to run, instead of compelling them to stay and fight. We both know that Jesca is different. She will stay and want to understand what is within her. Jesca’s abilities are just beginning to surface.”

  Sebastian opens his eyes and looks at me. “The abilities that are innate within her can be held at bay for only so long Ezra. Just as Anna did, Jesca will use them to fight for humanity at whatever cost.”

  I have thought through that so many times within the past two months. It still brings intense fear inside and I know it won’t get easier. “Yes, she will fight until the very end, just as Anna did. That is what I fear most. Sam Crest will try to stop Jesca, just as he—stopped Anna. He is a shifter, Sebastian. He used his transfiguration as a dark force when he came for Jes in Georgia. He will hunt her.”

  Sebastian puts his hand on my shoulder. “Just as Jesca won’t stop, we won’t let him or anyone else get a hold of her, no matter what it takes.”

  I watch as Sebastian’s confident smile suddenly fades. Seeing worry in his eyes, I ask, “What has happened?”

  Sebastian answers, “Balthazar came to me soon after Sam left Miami to flee to Tokyo.”

  My anxiety spikes again, knowing that it isn’t like Balthazar to visit his father. I’m not gentle with my accusatory words. “Why now? After all that son of a bitch has done?”

  Sebastian shakes his head. The sunlight glistens in his eyes, and Sebastian blinks, trying to keep the sorrow at bay. “I’m not sure what to believe about my son.”

  ***

  CHAPTER 4: THE LOST SON

  Sebastian

  The only p
erson I can talk to about this is Ezra. So in the lucid dream we are sharing, I sleep walk him into the one I had with my lost son.

  * * *

  “As I stirred from sleep, I was startled to see Balthazar’s silhouette sitting on the chair near my bed. The low, full moon of Dobria cast a pale light on him. One side of his being was filled with light, and the other was filled with darkness. I quickly sat up and turned on the lamp next to the bed. I asked him why he had come to me.”

  “He kept mumbling about how they have made him out to be the devil. I didn’t know what he was saying. His behavior was not typical of Balthazar. His face was sallow. His eyes were dark and heavy. Overall, his appearance looked tortured. Many things had come between us, but he was still my flesh and blood. Yes, he and his fellowship had put our Earth in the predicament it’s in now. However, he was here! He would have never come to me unless something had gone terribly wrong.”

  “Balthazar told me he shouldn’t have come to the estate and stolen my life’s work that fateful day years ago. He said he shouldn’t have been so damned curious about what it could do. He wished that he had listened to my words instead of walking out the door with the files detailing the Copula and travel beyond our world.”

  “I was shocked by my son’s words. I wanted to ask him what had happened to make him come to me, but he started to fade, like an apparition. As he wept, he kept saying that he trusted his people, his colony, and they turned against him.”

  “I don’t know why I woke. Something interrupted our communication, and his astral projection was broken. I know he was trying to tell me something, but I couldn’t read him. It felt like we were falling in and out of the dream realm.”

  ***

  Standing, I walk back to the pond I have created in Ezra and my shared projection.

  “I’m telling you this, Ezra, because I think this fight against the Sondians is evolving. I know you’ve heard the chatter among the scientists as well. The Sondian fellowship is increasing the number of Copula implantations because something within the Andromeda galaxy is reacting to them. “You have to understand, Ezra. He would have never come to me unless he had no other choice.”