by K. L. Lewis
five kids—fought off your troops?”
“It was odd, though,” Fara spoke. “They didn’t fight like children. When we cornered two of them, they acted like soldiers when kids like them would normally panic.”
Her superiors were silent.
“Were that not the case,” Fara continued, “they shouldn’t have held us off. Those kids knew what they were doing.”
“So…they were essentially child soldiers?” Zinc asked.
“That’s disturbing,” Lithium said tersely. “Then again, we probably shouldn’t be surprised. The populace was always tense of our presence. No doubt the Monumans added to it.”
“Regardless,” Cobalt resumed, “I hope you’ll take this as a learning lesson next time, Captain.”
Fara hardly moved, simply answering, “Yes, ma’am.”
“With that settled,” Cobalt continued, “there have been sightings of the HDF hiding in Torvil, and our forces there need the extra help in hunting them down. They look forward to your arrival.”
Fara looked down the list of HDF members sent to her OmniMorph and nodded. “Understood. Anything else?”
“Yes,” Iridium answered. “Despite your mishap, we’re promoting you to Major and putting you in command of Unit 24. Our scouts have uncovered something which may be of use to you upon your arrival. Don’t disappoint us.”
“You’re dismissed,” said Cobalt.
The projections vanished, and Fara returned to her militants. “Alright everyone. Take what you can and destroy any leftover equipment. The Red Phoenix research takes priority. We move in ten.”
Through a gap in the wall, she spotted a familiar sight scouting a bombed out two-story house: two women in pale yellow and white exo-suits, and red, four-eyed visors. They searched in and out of the house, jumping to its rooftops, then bounding out of sight. “And hurry,” said Fara. “Our old friends are still searching for us.”
“Earth-based Transnet Communications now online.”
A man stepped toward the window shades, the black shade shifting to a clear view of a steel-blue and grey city lining along the walls of a massive cylinder. Large transparent panels stretched the length of the barrel, framing the stars and large pieces of rock drifting outside. A large red ball loomed in view of the windows, its image sparking a growl from a woman behind the man. He turned to her sitting hunched at the foot of the bed, no worse for wear. Her chestnut hair was messy and uncombed, her eyes with dark circles from a lack of sleep, and stitches dotted around her body.
She shifted through images on her OmniMorph, then a reminder popped on its display, with the date: December 10th, 892 RNC. “His birthday was seven months ago,” she said. “Almost two years since I abandoned him.”
She buried her face in her hands and took a deep breath to fight the tears from streaming. But the man came over and comforted her. “Sekky, stop it. You didn’t abandon him.”
Sekhmet looked back him with a cold glare. “Really?” she growled. “Look where I am! A million miles away and floating over another planet, and you think I wanted to be here?”
“Why don’t you ask Keith?” the man said. “He’s the one who sent you here.”
He held up a medallion, one that was once on their son. “Listen, I know you don’t like hearing this, but things were outside of your control. I’d be lying if I said things were okay, but—”
“Overseer Malcolm? There is an inbound message from Earth by Marshal Keith Iyrons,” said the computer. “Shall I transcribe it for you?”
Malcolm sighed. “Bad timing…yeah, go ahead.”
A white square lit on the windowpane, and an image of Keith appeared. The man stood smiling amidst the redwood fence of someone’s backyard, with a blue house standing in the background. Then the message played. “About time this went through,” Keith said. “Hey there, Sekky and Malcolm! It’s been a while. I know this is a special day for you two, but…” He stumbled around two little parahuman girls running by. “Hey now, I’m trying to send a message!”
Sekhmet turned her head to the message as Keith looked back at the screen. “Sorry, about that,” he resumed. “Now, about that alert you sent out. The one for DeMarcus…better yet, hang on.” Keith turned away and waved at someone offscreen. “Hey! Come over here for a moment! I need you for something important.”
“Important for what?” said a boy.
“You’ll see soon enough.”
Sekhmet gasped and her eyes widening at the sight of DeMarcus on the screen.
“Now smile and wave!” Keith said.
An awkward smile grew on DeMarcus as he unknowingly waved at his parents. He had barely changed over the many months since, and despite being a pre-recorded message, his parents couldn’t resist waving back at him. “That’s it?” DeMarcus shrugged.
“That’s it. You can go back to your friends.” DeMarcus ran off as Keith turned back to the screen. “It’s amazing the stuff he’s been through down here on old Terra. Boy nearly got caught by the Amalgam Concord a few months back. But the Sun family have been taking great care of him since they’ve found him. Well, I’ve got to go…oh, and your father said you’re cleared to return to Earth at any time. Later.” The message ended.
Sekhmet wiped her tears. “He’s still alive!”
“It’s a shame you couldn’t stay to find him yourself,” said Malcolm.
“I know.” Sekhmet grumbled at the thought. “But still. I can’t wait to see him. Got any free time later?”
Malcolm checked his schedule on his OmniMorph, then shook his head. “But don’t worry about me. I’m good here, and if there’s any trouble I can just call the Imperatrix—”
“You mean ‘mom’?” Sekhmet teased.
“Right…I’ll let her know if I have any problems. Okay?”
Sekhmet giggled, then tugged Malcolm shirt, bringing him in for a kiss.
“Sekky, wait a minute…”
She kissed him again. “Oh, I’m not waiting.”
“This method is the current basis for today’s miniature reactors,” The teacher lectured before the class. “All in all, a pretty complicated way of boiling water.”
As the teacher back and forth, and shifted the images on her lightboard, DeMarcus sat at the center-left row of the class, staring dreamily to the other side of the room. There she was, Crystal Shay, her garnet-brown eyes shining from the light of the room. He flinched from a nudge on his side and almost jumped from his seat, his head snapping his head toward Sarah beside him. “Huh? Wha? What happened?”
Sarah shook her head at him. “Daydreaming again?”
The bell ended the class, and everyone packed their belongings and poured out into the halls. “Can’t a guy have dreams?” DeMarcus shrugged.
“They’re in your dreams for a reason,” Sarah joked.
DeMarcus glowered. “Well, aren’t you supportive?”
Leaving the class and joining their friends waiting outside, DeMarcus caught a whiff of Crystal’s apple-berry perfume wisping in his nose. What was it Yue hated about her again? Whatever it was, he’d have to worry about it later. There was no training at the Compound today, giving them more free time for Magnaskating at the Rula Megaplaza. Jasmine followed them toward the bridge, with Tyrone staying with her as DeMarcus and Yue traveled back home for a brief check-in.
After a quick wash and gather of essentials, DeMarcus rushed back outside with Yue following behind, and he almost bumped into Keith at their front door. “Wow, what’s the rush?” Keith asked.
“Hey, Keith! Can’t talk, gotta run!” DeMarcus yammered as Yue ran ahead of him.
He bolted after her before Keith could get a word out, and was already across the streets toward the bridge. Keith smiled and opened the video message from Sekhmet on his OmniMorph.
“Thank you so much for the news,” said Sekhmet. “Malcolm and I really appreciate it! It’ll be a while before I come to Earth, so tell DeMarcus I’m thankful he’s alive. I’ve missed him so much, and I can’t
wait to see him.”
Keith chuckled. “Maybe later.”
Acknowledgements
Writing a novel was one of the biggest challenges I’ve ever undertaken up to this point. Style and prose are one thing, but conveying imagery was another, and you can only do so much to paint a picture with mere words before you lose yourself in your descriptions. Even after finishing this work, there’s this nagging itch that more could be done, some things done better, but eventually, you have to accept doing the best you can—perfectionism can be detrimental despite its good intentions.
But it was also one of the most informative challenges as well, one that taught me many things about myself as I pushed this against all odds and bring this into the eyes of anyone interested. One bitter pill to swallow was that there was only so much one can do alone. I initially wanted to do everything by myself, the writing, the characters, and cover design, all of it, only to come to a harsh realization that being good with words doesn’t mean you’re great at visual art. At the end of the day, everyone has their limits, and one must learn and adapt in overcoming them, even if they require outside help.
Overall, this experience was a fun challenge, one that I will continue over the coming years. And I will always appreciate those that helped me bring this work to life, as well as those that supported and were the early viewers of this novel.
So for starters, I’d like to thank Amber Harris (Website: www.AmberHarrisArt.com) for taking my shoddy character sketches and turning them into actual works of art for people to gain a glimpse of the characters. I’d also like to thank Marwan Islami (Website: https://www.artstation.com/aiyeahhs) for the design of the Amalgam Concord exo-suit worn by Fara Torres and her militants. Then there’s Vincent Lefevre (website: https://www.artstation.com/ptitvinc) for combining it all into a wonderful book cover.
Further praise goes to Matteo Cavallo (website: https://www.behance.net/cavallomatteo23) for the map of my setting, taking my messy MS Paint work and turning it professional map of the world of the Res Novae era. I cannot thank you all enough.
In addition to that, I’d like to thank the beta readers who gave support and critique: my friends Martin Shaw, William Coburn, and Taylor Tremaine. I’m sure it was difficult reading this from beginning to end, and I appreciate the thoughts and enthusiasm given as this project was a work in progress.
And lastly, but not least, I would like to thank those of you reading this for picking this work out of the hundreds of others out there. You could have picked anything else, so I hope I’ve made reading it worth your while during what little spare time you could give.
It goes without saying those of you who’ve read to this point still have questions, such as who DeMarcus’s killers are, what the deal is behind Red Phoenix, and plenty of others that I can’t even begin to list. And rest assured, I plan on answering them moving forward—the world of Global Union is vast and ever-growing, and as this project continues I hope to flesh it out further into the setting’s past as well as its future.
So if you’ve enjoyed this and are eager for more, I hope you’ll stick around for the next installment going on.
Thank you for reading, and here’s to a New Life!
About the Author
K. L. Lewis is 90s kid with wide ambitions and influences taken from around the world. Living in the Lone Star State of Texas and waiting to see what the future holds, he keeps himself hidden in an ever changing landscape as he seeks to bring his own flavor of fiction to the world. What that entails is something you can only guess as the crazy mind of this man unfolds.
Also by K.L. Lewis
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