by A. K. DuBoff
“See? You’re still being so bomaxed nice! It’s kind of infuriating.”
“Only because I’ve had a taste of loss, and I know what tricks that darkness can play with your mind. We don’t have to be alone anymore. I want to know everything about you, Lexi. The real you, not whatever front you share with people.”
“What makes you think I put on a ‘front’?”
“I’m telepathic, remember?” He smiled. “Kidding. It’s… little things I’ve noticed when you’re around others versus when it’s just the two of us.”
She sighed. “Well, you’re not wrong. I dunno. It’s tough to open up.”
“And there’s no rush. I just want you to know that I’m in this for real.”
“Of anyone I’ve met, you might actually be able to understand.”
“About what?”
You can’t keep it bottled up forever, she told herself. If not him, then who? For the first time in as long as she could remember, she wanted to talk about the things she’d tried so hard to bury. If they were going to have a future together, there was no point delaying the conversation; either he’d accept it, or he’d run away.
She met his questioning gaze. “What outsiders hear about Cytera isn’t an accurate portrayal of what’s gone on there. Gifted people like us were a valuable commodity—as in prized possessions. And those fortunate enough to have active abilities in their bloodline were a force to be reckoned with.”
Jason sat back, listening. His attentiveness drove Lexi on.
“Like any planet, certain families rose to power. Any reasonably intelligent person can see it play out on countless worlds—a valuable product or service propels a company into the spotlight, and the owners pass it down to their children, and so on. Eventually, the people running the show don’t remember what had made their business relevant and successful in the first place, they just feel it’s their right to be in that position of power.”
She swallowed. “And, of course, once a person has power, they become obsessed with ways to keep it. They distrust anyone who might take it away. In such an environment of paranoia, being able to see into others’ minds becomes a valuable asset.”
Jason nodded with understanding. “So, Gifted can read minds—and also avoid being read.”
“Exactly. And the stronger the abilities, the more someone could get away with deceiving others to achieve their desired ends.”
“Placing a premium on the bloodlines with the highest potential.”
She nodded. “Yep, you’ve got it. And, of course, that’s the problem with the Generation Cycle. Eventually, you reach a point when the ability expression will disappear. What’s a powerful family to do when that happens?”
“Either find a new way to stay relevant, or…”
“Adopt,” she completed. “And thus the market for Gifted children was born.” She let out a bitter laugh. “Lucky me, I was born to a ‘consistently productive’ line.”
“Shite.” Jason’s brow knitted.
“But no, I didn’t grow up in that mess. My parents were sick of the whole thing and decided to resist. It got them killed and me handed off to a family friend, who managed to get me offworld as a baby. But, life can be hard in the Outer Colonies when you’re on the run and have a target on your back. I had my irises altered as soon as they started to glow, which helped keep me hidden. When someone decides that you’re ‘theirs’, they’ll go to great lengths to track you down.”
“No wonder you moved around so much.”
She nodded. “Even though I was offworld, I was still valuable. Like those in the Valdos System, Cytera didn’t quite play by the rules when it came to abilities. On the surface, it was all about telepathy and using those secret readings for subterfuge, but you don’t hold power for generation after generation with mental prowess alone. Every leader needs an army. Who better to defend one’s domain than those Gifted with the invisible force of telekinesis?”
“That’s pretty much how the TSS came about,” Jason assessed.
“Yep. Well, the person who got me off the planet was a trainer for one of those secret armies. When I came of age, she taught me how to use my Gifts—I kind of glossed over that when you’d asked me where I got my training when we first met. Though it was a far cry from TSS Agent training, I can get by.”
“What happened to this mentor?”
“We parted ways.”
“May I ask why?”
The memory still brought a flush to Lexi’s cheeks. “A difference of opinion about how we should use our Gifts. She felt that using telepathy for personal gain was justified, after what we’d been through. I argued that substituting a random person for those who’d wronged us wasn’t fair.”
“I must say, I fall on your side of that argument.”
“No surprise there.” She smiled at him. “At any rate, I set out on my own when I was nineteen. I met up with Melisa soon after, and we started to carve out a life for ourselves for the next few years. Then, she set off for Duronis to check out this ‘great new opportunity’ and was going to pave the way for me to follow her, and then the whole mess with the Alliance started. You know the rest.”
Jason nodded. “What about the intervening years after you left Cytera and before you met Melisa?”
“Not a lot to tell. We were chronically poor and on the run. When the regime on Cytera started to crumble, all those former hired goons had nothing better to do than become bounty hunters for their slighted masters. Between telepathy and their training, they’d root out any runaway they could get their hands on.”
“Hence your eye-altering and staying on the move.”
Lexi felt a stab in her gut as she looked into Jason’s mesmerizing glowing irises. The luminescent teal was one of the most stunning things she’d ever seen. She could have had that every time she looked into the mirror with her own pale blue eyes, and she hated that the circumstances had forced the modifications.
“Eyes are the easiest way to identify Gifted.” She shrugged. “They know to check for contacts. The people who smuggled me out wiped my genetic ID from the database, so the hunt was all about visual appearance. I needed to have my best chance of staying undetected.”
He nodded. “I’m sorry.”
“It is what it is.”
“I’m almost positive there’s a way to reverse the alteration, if you’re interested.”
Her heart lifted. “That would be amazing. But I don’t have the credits for that kind of cosmetic procedure.”
“Cost is not a factor.”
Of course, a Sietinen would think that way. She didn’t know what to say. The last thing she wanted was to be thought of as a mooch. She genuinely cared about Jason, fully independent of his family’s wealth. As long as she stuck with him, she could have anything she’d ever wanted. Though she had no idea exactly how wealthy the Sietinen Dynasty was, it was likely measured in the quadrillions—so far beyond the scope of normal life that it made her head spin.
“I’m not looking for handouts,” she said.
Jason shook his head. “I didn’t remotely mean it in that way.” He worked his mouth, seeming to search for the right words. “I grew up on Earth with a perfectly normal upper-middle class childhood. I went straight from that into the TSS, where I’ve always been surrounded by people from all different backgrounds—most of them less than well-off. I have the Sietinen name and genetics, but my life perspective couldn’t be further than that of a typical High Dynasty heir. It would be amazing to be able to spend that wealth on something meaningful.” He took her hands. “I’m growing very fond of you, Lexi, and I can’t think of a better recipient to benefit from the privileges of my position.”
“Why don’t you give it all away?”
“Believe me, it’s been discussed. It’s not as easy or as good as it sounds, but that’s a discussion for another time.”
“I should warn you, I’m really bad at accepting gifts. Too many brushes with people who have ulterior motives.”
Lexi could sense the truth in his statement, and yet she still found herself holding back. She wanted to trust him, yet it felt like she was living in a fairy tale and the spell might break at any moment.
“I want to give it a little time,” she said.
He brushed the side of her face. “Take all the time you need. I’m not going anywhere.”
— — —
Leon hated being trapped. Not only was he physically locked in the place, but he was being directed in a way he detested, and he couldn’t do anything about it without risking his life.
What kind of monsters would want a weapon like this? He didn’t enjoy the glimpse he was getting into the minds of psychopaths. The work he’d been forced to undertake went against everything he knew to be decent and good.
For the last week, he’d been locked in the lab for twenty-hour shifts, given meals only when he’d completed certain tasks. He wished he would be able to tell Kira that he hadn’t broken, but the lack of sleep and threat of harm had prompted him to take his assignment seriously. He told himself that if he did it, he could make it safe. He would know how to disable the weapon once he got free.
Except, there wasn’t a way to engineer in a failsafe. They were talking about genetics—people. The weapon controls would be tied to a person. That was the failsafe. If the person in control had evil intentions, there wasn’t any way for Leon to engineer that out of them.
The entire situation made him sick. He was working on a way to turn someone into a living conduit to the higher dimensions, a key that would be destroyed in order to unleash whatever came through.
This was so much worse than a disease, like he’d pictured when he first heard of the bioweapon. SPEAR Tec had started with that foundation and then taken it to such extremes that the original idea was almost unrecognizable. What they wanted was a precision tool. What they were making was a potential planet-killer.
Leon hadn’t believed such a thing was possible until he began running simulations. He’d figured that the task the Alliance had set before him was doomed to failure, but then the reality of it set in. A genetic tether could be accomplished, in a roundabout way. It would take someone naturally Gifted—or at least of a bloodline with the potential, even if the abilities were on an inactive Generation. That potential could be channeled into a single explosive expression, supercharging every molecule of a person’s being with higher dimensional particles. It would burst them from the inside.
He had no idea what such a detonation would do to the surrounding environment, but he could only imagine it would be horrific. What didn’t make sense is why the Alliance was interested in this work—something so far afield from the disease bioweapon they’d set out to create.
Did they realize they could make something much more powerful and just went for it? Or do they not understand what this will do? He was missing a piece of the plan, but he didn’t know what. Frankly, he didn’t want to know.
By the end of his latest long shift, his eyes were sore and his head ached. He massaged his temples with the heels of his hands.
“There’s no way to make this stable,” he spoke to his ever-silent overseers. “You can initiate a transdimensional link, but there will be no way to control it.”
“You have done well.” The reply boomed in the room, catching Leon by surprise. They hadn’t said a word to him since the first day when he got the assignment, aside from chastising him when he wasn’t doing anything.
The only thing he’d done so far was replicate a small portion of research he’d conducted with the Guard. He’d spent extensive time studying the transdimensional energy connection of Kira’s nanites, which drew the energy required to transform into her special second-skin. It was possible to open up that kind of connection in normal cells… it would just immediately kill a person. They’d written off the research as a dead-end and left it at that.
Leon had hoped that by demonstrating what a terrible idea it was to his captors that they might let him go. To say that he had ‘done well’ suggested he had made a grave error in judgment.
Obviously, I’m not thinking straight! I’m not getting enough sleep and I’ve been staring at this for so long that I can barely see. So much for acting smart. Kicking himself wouldn’t fix the problem, yet he couldn’t prevent his thoughts from spiraling. He was so very tired.
The door clicked unlocked. Leon tensed. He still had at least two hours left in what had become his usual work schedule.
Edward entered. “Come with me.”
“Where are we going?” Leon asked.
“Another lab.”
Another? He thought it best not to ask about ‘what’ or ‘where’ since he was unlikely to get a favorable response, and he wasn’t in the mood for getting yelled at again.
He followed Edward into the hall, where he was met by two large men who fell in behind him. Had he been rested and had any clue where he was, he might have consider taking them on in an attempt to escape. However, since that was unlikely to end well, he decided it best to continue playing along.
Edward stopped outside a door at the end of the hall and palmed it open. He held out his arm to indicate Leon should enter.
Cautiously, Leon stepped inside. To his surprise, he saw half a dozen other people inside working at the various computers and scientific analysis stations. They looked up with surprise at his arrival.
There are other people? What have they been doing?
When Leon’s gaze met the other scientists, he got the distinct impression that up until very recently they’d thought they had been working alone, too. More than likely, each of them had been given a discrete component of a larger assignment. With a sickening lurch of his stomach, Leon’s mind began racing through the possibilities of what it could be. None of them were good.
“That’s all of you,” Edward stated. “Please complete the task at hand.”
The door sealed shut behind Leon.
He gave the other scientists a cautious smile. “Fancy meeting you here.”
One of the young women chuckled and a couple others sighed. The remaining individuals remained stoic, worn down by worry and fatigue.
“What’s your specialty?” the woman who’d laughed asked him.
“Genetics, though I think I’m here mostly because of my work on the biological expression of transdimensional links,” he replied. “I’m Leon.”
“Carla. Molecular chemistry.”
The others introduced themselves, as well—all specialists in niche areas of biology, chemistry, and physics.
The strange mix of fields didn’t make sense until the quantum physicist, Brandon, explained what they had been brought together to work on. “They’re creating a living weapon,” he revealed. “Previous research has given us the means to form its essence in a higher dimension, where it can pull energy to interact with our reality. Right now, it isn’t stable in spacetime, so it can’t be deployed with any precision. Our task is to link the weapon with a handler—a Keeper—who will serve as a conduit and controller for its interactions.”
Leon gaped at him. “What will this weapon do?”
“It will spread like a disease, breaking down molecular bonds following the instructions from the Keeper,” Carla said. “It will be the perfect weapon—able to target the organic matter in an environment without causing harm to anything else.” Her dark eyes had taken on the sheen of someone in awe, but Leon couldn’t tell if she was horrified or excited.
Breaking down molecular bonds? It sounds like this ‘disease’ would turn any living thing it touched to dust! Suddenly, Leon understood how the genetic tethering research was, in fact, related to a bioweapon—and he’d been coerced into giving them a major component of that plan.
Regardless, there was another serious matter. He had told them how to create a link, but it wouldn’t function in the way they envisioned; he was certain of that fact. His overseers hadn’t listened to his warnings, but mayb
e these scientists would. “I can’t speak to the rest, but there’s no way a person can support this kind of sustained transdimensional link or ‘control’ anything. It would kill them,” Leon said.
“That’s not an issue,” Brandon replied. “Having a means to allow the weapon to enter spacetime is the key. Any other loss falls under acceptable casualties.”
Okay, these people are not my friends. He couldn’t be sure about everyone yet, but Brandon, at least seemed fully on board with the disastrous plan. The way Carla was nodding along to Brandon’s explanation didn’t indicate disgust, so she was more likely than not already in the Alliance’s pocket. The others hadn’t yet spoken so Leon wasn’t sure where they stood; however, it was unlikely he’d be able to rely on help from anyone.
“They brought the rest of us together this morning,” Carla said. “Apparently, they were waiting on you to deliver one final piece for us to complete our work. They’ve been eager to try again after the previous experiment failed.”
Oh, stars, they’ve tried this before? Leon’s stomach turned over. “What happened with that one?”
“They haven’t said exactly. I got the impression that they had a different approach for that weapon and are trying something new this time,” she replied. “All I know is that the first iteration was unstable, and when it accidently triggered, the results weren’t what they’d wanted.”
“This new method is far more thorough,” Brandon added.
Leon didn’t want to clarify what was meant by ‘thorough’; all of the possibilities were awful.
His concern intensified when he noticed Brandon navigate on his screen to one of the genetic models that Leon had been tooling in his private lab.
“The conditions in this model aren’t sustainable,” Leon warned again. “Don’t do this.”
Brandon raised his eyebrows in challenge. “We already have.”
Leon froze. “You’ve…?”
Brandon indicated a partitioned area along the back wall.
Leon approached the viewing window, a pit growing in his stomach. He looked inside at a woman strapped to a chair. Stars, no! He took a shaky breath. “What is this?”
