OSMOS V
June 1, 16:14 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE TWELVE
I was three years old - again - when my second life decided to veer off of the expected course. I might never get used to the idea of a second life at all, but I am living it all the same.
There were clues, certainly, that things were headed in a weird direction. Yet, the limitations of a toddler's development kept me from fully realizing the gravity of the situation, the strangeness of this new life. Somewhere in the haze of a baby's neural networks lie memories of a history teacher in his late twenties who longed for more than a meager existence in the throes of late-stage capitalism. Nothing in those old, fading memories could have prepared me for the first time my grandfather visited and unraveled everything I thought I knew.
I stared, slack-jawed, as a figure I only knew from Mother's stories stepped into the family living room. He shifted on one leg as he removed his wet boots by the door. The dented cleaning robot shifted into position to dry up the mess, bumping into Grandfather's knee. The man's face brightened when he finally spotted me on the other side of the oval sofa, a redness in his cheeks reaching to his horns.
Horns.
Horns.
I rubbed at my forehead with tiny fingers, as confusion only grew. I rubbed my eyes next, wondering if I was just seeing things.
Nope - all four of them are still there.
"Hello, little one." The man crossed the distance and leaned down on one knee to come closer to my height. "You must be Cassian."
I nodded. Any discomfort from the use of a name that was not my own paled in comparison to learning that my grandfather had horns tucked beneath short, silver hair. I failed to rationalize it - they were too perfectly symmetrical to be a freak birth defect. What was this…?
"Hi," I said nervously, speaking not in English but in whatever language took over Earth in this future time. Perhaps these horns were a futuristic surgical body mod? "You have horns?"
He smiled slightly. "Oh these? You'll get them eventually."
I'll… get them?
"I don't understand."
"You will one day - it's a natural part of who you are, Cassian."
A natural part…?
Before I could clarify, his attention turned to Mother, who exited her room to greet him with a worried expression written across her face. Faded laugh lines hid how she really felt, and her perfume was different again for the third time this week. "Have you any news?"
The man with inexplicable horns returned his daughter-in-law's expression. It was not lost on me that this was my first time meeting my grandfather, and Mother had not commented on the occasion the moment she saw us together.
Whatever news she expected must be big.
"There was no landing," Grandfather said simply, a grave expression written on his face. "Zenoan drones sent over the expected site found nothing of note."
Mother arched a brow of her hornless forehead. Was she supposed to have them? Was I? What did he mean?
"Did they check the calculations?"
"Mother, why does Grandfather have those things on his head?"
She glanced down at me and then back to her father-in-law, face awash with worry. "Son, the adults are talking."
My knuckles tightened, and my jaw clenched tightly enough to nearly draw blood.
Grandfather ushered her into the one room in which I could not go and had not gone - Father's office. A metallic door whirred to life at their approach, as though it knew they were allowed, and I was not. Cool air from the only air conditioned room in the house spilled blissfully into the living room. "Yes, I'm told they triple and quadruple checked, and accounted for any reasonable margin of error. Clan Zenoan does not do half-measur-."
The door closed behind them, cutting me off from Mother's swift reply.
I scurried over to follow them and to continue listening, eager to hear about news from the outside world. Mother and Father almost never talked about anything important around me, and I barely knew that we lived in the outskirts of a city I'd never heard of in my past life, speaking a language I did not recognize. If not for neural plasticity, I'd have continued to confuse them with English words they took as baby talk. I held precious the few bits of knowledge I did know, things they did not hide from me.
I craved an adult conversation. I'd even take a contentious political or religious debate at this point over Father trying to teach me to count, or Mother reading bedtime stories about fanciful morality tales. None of them were even the familiar ones I remembered, so it was difficult to feel invested at all.
The door to the office did not open at my urging or my presence and remained closed, locked and unresponsive. Frustration grew yet again, and I kicked at the floor just to let the feelings go somewhere.
The cleaning robot rolled onto the space where I kicked and began scuffing out any potential damage, however minor, to the floor. The buggy thing cared little for my personal space, almost rolling over my outstretched toes.
I sighed and patted the thing on the head like a pet. "You'd understand, wouldn't you, if you were in my shoes? Not able to ask proper questions without the people you love looking at you like a freak?"
The robot did not respond. It couldn't - I'd heard of robots who could speak on the broadcasts, but this was barely more complex than a Roomba. Telling it my woes in private, away from my parents, was a frequent way to spend my evenings, even if it could not listen or engage. It was just responsive enough sometimes that I could convince myself it cared.
I did love them. Second set of parents or not, I had never been the kind of person who rejected connections. Even in my first life, my best friends' parents were almost like a second set for me. When you spend the first few months of renewed life nursing, it was difficult to not feel connected to Mother, even if most of that time was a hazy-mess in my memory.
I was grateful for it - I had no desire to unpack that.
I did have a desire to figure out how this door worked.
OSMOS V
June 1, 21:23 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE TWELVE
"Cassian."
Mother's voice interrupted my almost sleepy state. I'd almost fallen asleep despite worrying over horns and Zenoan drones and confusing reincarnations into a future era of Earth.
She crept into my bedroom and stopped near the edge of the harsh bed. She tucked a stray strand of her ginger hair away and cleared her throat. "Cassian, how are yo-"
"Why does Grandfather have horns?"
She blinked at the question. "Everyone grows horns eventually - it's part of maturing, Cassian. You won't have to worry about it for a long time."
Not to worry about it? If that was something natural, then… that meant my humanity was in question! If I was not human, and this second family was not human, then what did all of it mean? Was there a transhuman movement in the past?
Nothing added up, and one question came to mind. "Where are yours and Father's?"
Mother touched a spot on her forehead. "I still have nearly thirty years before they begin to grow. Your father has probably twenty." She repeated the numbers again in a sing-song voice, and I had to remind myself to look like a stupid toddler learning math for the first time.
"An old age thing?"
How had humans changed this much?
"Oh, no!" She chuckled. "I am nowhere near old. My grandfather is old - nearly four hundred and ten. That is old."
…!
I had so many questions.
"Listen, Cassian, your grandfather wanted to visit with you today. Some work came back up in the capital with your aunt, and he left via transport ship this morning shortly after he arrived here," she began, a solemn look in her eyes, but I cut her off. "I know that it is all sudden, but can you-"
"Okay, that's fine - but Great Grandfather is four hundred and ten? Is that a long time?"
She grinned. "He'd disagree with you, I'm sure - he's always been stubborn about all that. When I was young, I knew an Elder who lived to be six hundred and eighty-two, so old depends on who you ask."
I nodded, not fully taking in anything she said. Horns… living for centuries…
More so than before, I needed to learn to read the language they used to speak, that I learned as my mother tongue in this body. I wanted to ask her if they have any datapads in English, but they were remarkable unhelpful about that. There were limits to what you could ask without your parents thinking you needed a psychiatric evaluation.
"Does that mean you'll teach me to read instead?"
Mother gently smiled. "You meant that?"
I fervently agreed. Grandfather had been a teacher once, a professor later in life - so had I, once. If anyone could teach me to read before any formal schooling, it would be him. That was something I'd asked Father a week ago when Grandfather told us he was coming for an extended stay.
"If you're serious," she began, her eyes steady and warm, "then we can get started soon. It won't be easy, and you'll have to work hard, Cassian."
I was reading chapter books well before any of my peers in school in my first life - if anyone can learn to read earlier than most children, it would be someone with the memories of an adult brain. Surely that would help.
"I'm sorry your Grandfather had to leave on business with your aunt," Mother finally said, pulling me from my thoughts. "He was looking forward to spending time with you, but so am I and your father. We'll get you reading, Cassian, in no time."
The idea of unencumbered learning made me salivate. I would read every piece of text I could get my hands on until I learn exactly what was going on, with Grandfather and horns and long lives and Zenoan drones and whatever else was damn curious about this place. Either medical technology had progressed far, far beyond its rational limits, or… I was not human at all. If the latter was true, then asking either of my parents was no simple task.
No - I'd have to figure this out myself.
MUMBAI
June 2, 3:23 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE TWELVE
A young girl stepped into the city street, bundled in nearly every piece of clothing she owned. The sweltering heat - even in the middle of the night - made this a miserable choice, but she'd seen how others look at her. She could not make a different choice, or she... she would suffer.
Covering all but her eyes and the soles of her feet, she felt her way through dingy streets and back-alley crossings, sticking to the shadows as much as she dared. The dark was scary and full of nightmares, but the streetlights brought attention and focus toward her.
She did not want either of those things.
What she wanted was something to fill the empty pit in her stomach, to fill out her scrawny arms, to give her energy back. She had next to none, and every day, it got worse.
As she lifted a heavy dumpster lid with all her might, it suddenly snapped shut as the weight was too much for her tiny body. The sound echoed throughout the alleyway, and she couldn't avoid remembering the screaming, the shouting. Loud sounds of rage and of fear could not escape her mind for a moment, and she tumbled off the side of the container and collapsed onto grimy asphalt.
The creak of a metallic door opening nearby forced her to try to climb to her feet, but she stumbled over her own weight and fell face-first into a leftover puddle. Before she could react, a voice slurred, "Hello? Whooo's there...?"
A brown man in glasses and a thick beard approached her carefully, stopping when she tensed. Loud music from inside the club behind him died out when the door finally closed again.
"Are you there or have I-" he burped- "finally proved my mātā right and drunk too much?" Groaning, he waited expectantly for her to do something.
What, she didn't know.
The girl had two choices, she figured: ignore him and run or stay and beg. She hesitated long enough for the man to brace himself against the wheelchair ramp railing.
"You're short- no, you're a kiiiid," he muttered as his senses slowly tried to return to him. He blinked behind his glasses. "Why are y-you out here?"
She considered running or talking, and then immediately tensed. Fresh tears welled up in her eyes as she realized her hesitation would get her killed one day.
"You don't have to be scared," he said calmly, taking a step closer. "I'm a friend. My name is Abhi. What's yours?"
She felt frozen, unable to push herself to her feet. Her hands tingled against the earth.
"How old are you?" he asked. When she didn't tell him she was barely four years old, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a cell phone. The motion spread a shiver across her palms. "You really should not be out here, kid, especially not at this time of night."
He glanced over his shoulder toward the door for the club, phone tucked between his ear and his shoulder. Hands pull at the door to open it again behind him, drowning the silence of the alleyway in dance music again. "Don't go anywhere, kid. You-"
Not even a moment later, two women barge through the exit, laughing in their bright colored clothing and not having a care in the world about showing off beautiful skin. She didn't know why she did not like them, but it takes them all of ten seconds to realize that she is there.
"Hello, little one," one said, a soft smile across her face. "Abhi, you didn't mention this."
"It just happened," he countered, "and you didn't answer your phone."
The other woman scoffed. "Who cares about that? We gotta figure out what to do with the kid. He could be hurt or something."
He? She frowned again, annoyed that they could not see her through the mud, through the clothes, through the cloth coverings. "I'm a girl!"
"She speaks!" Abhi called, speech still slurred. "The three of us were here together tonight, and we're going to work together to get you home."
She wanted to answer, but every time she had talked lately, it just made things worse. The other orphans hated her guts after what happened, and any one who's tried to help just ended up dead.
"You hungry?" the first woman asked carefully. The girl could not stop herself from nodding. "Okay, good. My name is Fatima, and this is Thya. We were going to go to a midnight snack joint just down the street. You want to come with?"
"We'll get some food in you," Thya added. "You have anything you want to tell us?"
Slowly, she followed and ignored Thya's question, allowing her stomach to guide her along. She kept an appreciable distance between herself and the three adults, and the earth tingled beneath her feet.
"This is crazy," Abhi said too loudly, before their conversation devolves into a whisper she was too far away to hear. The women said something in argument with each other and with him, and the girl was not liking her chances of making it through this dinner in one piece.
The small midnight diner reminded her of a place her father once took her, before he got sick three years ago. Not the same place, but the smell of breakfast food wafted into the area outside the restaurant, serving to only make her sicker.
When they opened the door to escort her inside, she almost turned around and hightailed it out of there. Instead, she let her stomach pull her through the doorway.
"Why's she covering all of herself?"
"Maybe it's a religion thing."
"That's not a burqa-"
"She's like three years old or something," Thya finished as they took their seats, allowing the girl to sit on the side facing the aisle. "Too young to be worried about all that."
Fatima met the girl's gaze, running her finger through her shortened brunette hair. "Listen, you can't keep wearing those clothes forever. They reek, it's not lady-like, and - well, let's just see!" The woman reached a hand across the table suddenly and yanked down part of the hood covering the back of her head, revealing the girl's pink hair to the few people in the diner during the middle of the night.
"Ooh, pretty!"
Untapped power surged from the girl for a single instant. The table between them shook for half a second, knocking Fatima's water onto her lap.
"Damn it," she cursed, trying to use a paper towel to address it. "Did one of you shake the tab-"
"Uh, guys - check this out!"
Abhi cared little for the gushing over the girl's unnatural hair color dye job nor for the arguing over the spilled drink. He pointed to one of the televisions showing a live-feed of something happening on nearly the other side of the world through GBS. A helicopter crew caught footage of a spandex-covered man with a red cape stopping a rampaging semi truck from crashing into a freeway full of crossing pedestrians and smaller vehicles using one hand.
"Is he flying?"
"How's he picking up that tractor trailer like it's nothing?"
"Did he just laser weld using his damn eyes?"
The girl stared up at the feed with interest. She couldn't read the captions, but she could hear fairly well if people were quiet. In English, she thinks, the words, "The Superman" rolled across the screen.
Strong, flying, heat vision, durability... where was he when she needed him last week? Or the week before? She doubted very much that he just appeared out of nowhere. If he had all that power, he could have done something for her, to help her, to not have her endure all of this.
He could have removed the heads of her first set of foster parents a year ago so that she didn't have to.
Fun fact: June 1st, 1998 (Team Year Negative Twelve) is the date of Superman's public debut in Young Justice. Batman would debut around a year later.
OSMOS V
September 14, 1:09 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE ELEVEN
I was four years old - again - when my second life decided to veer far off of the expected course.
I stared blankly at the datapad, a handheld metallic screen not unlike a smart tablet. Scrounged from some of Father's things, I frequently sat in bed each night and tried to learn what I can. The data network it accessed was nothing like the modern-day Internet, and learning to navigate that while held back linguistically was incredibly difficult. Written in a language called Osmotin with letters that were less like letters and more like Chinese characters, there was much I could not read adequately, and finding a search engine function was incredibly difficult.
Google was not eternal, apparently, and typing in the rough translation of that word revealed nothing. Perhaps my translation was wrong, though - learning Osmotin was the hardest thing I'd ever done, academically, but I had plenty of time on my hands to do it because no toddler had a busy schedule. I'd come a long way, but there was long to go. I could have gotten farther if Mother could devote more time to me, but I understood that she could not.
I scrambled my way through site after site, annoyed that this was organized very much like a wiki crawl. It was like the Internet had restarted at Web 2.0 and had not progressed further, or perhaps had regressed to that stage, in all this time. Regardless of the truth, each night, I felt like I got closer and closer to something resembling what I am looking for, until finally, I found something to confirm exactly what I suspected.
A news article or bulletin with a headline that loosely translated as follows: "Period of Something? Ahead - Expect Falling Sky Objects." Sponsored by a writer for Clan Herod, a name I'd overheard frequently enough to believe that it was someone important in the capital.
Wherever that was. It was not Washington D.C. or London or Moscow or Beijing.
I read through the next few lines of the article, the verbiage hard to parse as this was not written for someone like me. That one word in the headline had no easy translation, or was one that I had not encountered before. A name? The article itself provided little more context. Something about a year ago, something about rocks, something about the last time this happened twenty years back. Something close to Osmotin - Osmos?
A hand reached for the datapad and gently yanked it from my fighting grasp. Father stood at the foot of the bed, a magnifying monocle lens covering one eye while he smelled vaguely of the butchery he called work. An admonishing frown crossed his face, brow raised in challenge.
Frustration built in the pit of my stomach, and I had to actively push down the will to fight.
"I didn't, uh, hear you come in."
He adjusted the light fixture to the side of my bed and pulled the cord, revealing the rest of the room. The window looking out into the small yard shone with our reflections against the darkened desert sands. His look did not improve as the seconds passed, and the click of the datapad screen going dark echoed in the silence. Fingers reached up to grasp the monocle and to put it away.
"You've been doing this every night for the past week."
A sheepish blush covered my cheeks, and I ignored the childish impulse to lie. "I - yes."
He glanced at the half-open bedroom door. "Your mother and I worry about you, Cassian. You had the opportunity to come with me to work-"
"I don't like blood."
Not true, but the truth was harder to explain.
Father sighed. "I know. You always say that, but you don't look uncomfortable right now." He adjusted his shirt for good measure, where a bit of his job must have leaked onto his real clothing beneath whatever counts for an apron. "You haven't wanted to leave the house much at all."
Why would I? Four year olds were the most physically uncoordinated creatures imaginable. I tripped over my own toe the other day and nearly split my face open on the edge of a stairwell. Not to mention the weaker immune system - I had no desire to catch an infection and test the childhood mortality rate of this time. Or place? Add in the fact that our house rested on the edge of a sandy desert that looked to run for hundreds of miles in all directions?
No, it was much better to stay indoors and learn as much as I can as quickly as I can. That was the only benefit to being so sheltered.
"I just like the house, Father," I answered. "It's safe here. Cooler here."
Our only cleaning robot forced its way past Father, interrupting whatever he was about to say. It picked up the towel from my earlier shower, squeezed any excess water from it into a porthole on its side, and then rolled back into the exterior hallway.
Father huffed. His distaste for the robot was openly a topic at many family dinners - his sister bought it for us, and he hates the idea of her charity. She ran a wealthy business in the capital, but I'd never met her.
"Look, Cassian." He shook his head. "You're coming with us to the celebration tomorrow. Your mother was adamant that we buy tickets for a show."
I smiled. "That's good to hear. And, okay."
His face brightened.
Did I want to go to the celebration? Not particularly, but I'll do it for her. They really have given me too much leeway anyway to stay home at such a young age, but I know how to make a sandwich, to let the cooler air at night circulate, to avoid running into anything sharp, and to not unlock the exterior doors to our home for anyone. I could take care of myself.
What could a group of people honoring some dead elder really need with another young child who barely understands the context anyway?
"And, son, this is going to stay in my office. Understood?"
I nodded, but I did not mean it. I won't let an overbearing parent stop me from gaining whatever information that I can about this new life. Impassable door to that office be damned. I'd tried every method I could over the past year, and whatever tech it had kept me from going inside.
I gestured to the datapad under his arm. "Father, what did that mean by falling sky objects? Like, meteors?"
He stopped at the door and turned to look incredulously at me. "You read all that?"
I frowned. "Most of it? I think?"
Father clicks the screen on again and reads it over for a few seconds. "Oh, it - uh - it means that we might have to spend some time underground soon."
"Underground?"
He waved his hands to assuage my worries. "I'm sure it's nothing to be worried about, Cassian. The sky won't fall down on us any time soon."
OSMOS V
September 14, 15:44 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE ELEVEN
The family house rested on the outskirts of a small city called Sanitas, and it took a little time walking on my tiny legs to begin to see its sand-blasted metallic structures. The town itself almost seemed to emerge from the sands of the Magna Desertus that enveloped it on all sides and partially buried it. Domes topped major buildings and homes, and only a few unfortunate structures had sharpened corners and edges. Stairs regularly descended below the surface level, and spoke to greater underground floors in places like markets or auditoriums.
Father always talked about upgrading our home to have a domed roof, but it was neither easy nor feasible to do. His work as a butcher was an important one, but not one that made a ton of money. Mother was barely the breadwinner with her work as a hospital clerk, and despite all of that, my parents did their best to never let me know it. If I were not an adult in all but body, I might have been blissfully unaware of the poverty we sometimes deftly avoided and occasionally embraced.
Mother clutched my hand in hers while I walked beside her, sweaty palms sticking together. With my free hand, I adjusted the black hood protecting the back of my neck from the sun streaming above, hoping the event was outside its reach. Father walked just behind us, and every time I looked back at him, he was scanning the crowds as though looking for something.
His eyes settled on a holographic banner above a squat dome jutting above the sands that read: "The Day of Salimus Rex" in the bold, black symbols of Osmotin. Beneath the larger celebratory message was an eye-catching advertisement, and Father perked at the sight of it. "Lucrecia, we should stop by on the way back."
Mother studied it for a moment as well, craning her neck to look past a throng of people walking across the street. "We don't need a new generator."
Father balked. "The one we have now barely functions."
"We can't afford a new generator."
"Perhaps, but Mattrima has never steered us wrong. We can make a payment plan with her-"
"Until we need a new one, I don't think we should be cutting into our savings."
The tension in the argument built until others started to notice. An elderly woman - old enough for her horns to have sprouted, apparently - shot me a sympathetic look from behind her kiosk selling some kind of future meat - not quite chicken, not quite beef. Given the way things were headed back then, I'm sure all the infrequent meals with meat I'd had were really meat substitutes. She waved one of her kebobs in my direction, a peaceful look on her face.
"Father, can we get some?" I asked in an attempt to redirect the tension. Their expressions soften and their volume lowers, while the onlookers returned to their usual Day of Salimus Rex routines. "It's not too expensive, right?"
Father glanced at Mother for a long second, and then he bent down to look at me in the eye. He had such presence - for a moment, all the worries in the world slipped away as he gripped my shoulders. "Cassian, don't worry about price. We're doing just fine."
Mother offered a small smile from behind her husband. "He's right, you know. We can certainly afford an early treat for the day."
If they say so…
The line for the woman's kiosk was not long, but the wait time distracted everyone from the earlier tension long enough for me to ask a question that bugged me. Research I've done has been limited - most of the time I've spent in front of any device has been learning the language, not actively searching the extranet for answers. Learning the interface was far more difficult than it needed to be.
"Who was Salimus Rex anyway?"
Father smiled, though I'm not certain if it was meant in a condescending manner or not. Frustrations slid into the forefront of my mind yet again as I prepared for the answer, expecting something said with kid gloves.
Instead, the man replied, "A general who lived a long time ago. He was born here and gave his life to defend the Triarchy from enemies beyond the stars."
I glanced up, confused - not all of those words had meaning for me, but I was fairly certain that the Triarchs were the leaders of the region, country, or nation. "How long ago?" And from beyond the stars… a general who fought alien invaders? "The stars?"
"Osmos V is just one planet in the greater universe, Cassian," Mother explained, as though it was not the most shocking thing she had ever said to me. "The general lived and died sixteen hundred years ago, the last time our planet faced visitors. You'll learn a bit about his final moments tonight!"
Osmos V…
Other worlds.
Horns.
Osmotin.
I…
This was incredibly bad news.
OSMOS V
September 14, 19:37 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE ELEVEN
The festival was largely a blur for someone in my predicament. Street performers, couples' dances, and clan-sponsored feasts were quite extravagant, but nothing really stood out to me. I was sure that Salimus Rex had been a good man and all of this was very important to honor local history.
But goddamn, this planet was not Earth.
I pinched my own arm, in case this was merely some elaborate four-year-long dream. No… no, this was real. This was my life now.
How could I not have seen it before?
In my own defense, until the people of this planet get old enough, they looked virtually identical to humans and had much of the same bodily functions. The food was different, yes, but a diet of meats, cheeses, and vegetables was perfectly normal. The sky was, admittedly, a shade of brighter blue than the Earth's own atmosphere, but I'd rationalized that to merely be some product of a futuristic, maybe cleaner Earth. I didn't have any context now for when I was, or if the planet I called home even existed anymore. I'd been reborn as an alien baby on another planet - all bets were off, and anything was poss-
"Look, Cassian!" Mother interrupted, gesturing toward the main event she'd been so happy to attend.
I really should continue my damn self-destructive spiral of doubt, despair, and destabilization, Mother. But, well, history of an alien planet was far more interesting to me, now that I knew that. With what limited knowledge of Osmotin I'd picked up, a lot of the history was still available to learn.
A shirtless man with long dark hair and four prominent horns carried a large prop blade that curved at the edge. He sidled across from his opponents, who gathered about the edges of the stage until they began to surround him. The stage actor playing the hero was the spitting image of Salimus Rex according to the statues that decorated public places for the event. Facing him down were several men and women in elaborate costumes, their own prop metallic weapons of all sizes and shapes in hand. Cheap, feathered wings stretched unmoving from their backs, barely hanging on through whatever ties they were using to keep them anchored to their backs.
The narrator cleared her throat, and music began to play as she fiddled with her blonde hair in one hand and something akin to microphone in the other. "And so, Salimus Rex left his fighting soldiers behind, soldiers who gave their final breaths to ensure that their fearless leader had but one moment. One moment to make things right, to disable the bomb, and to save the Triarchy from certain destruction."
The music reached its peak, and that was their cue to begin an elaborate mock fight. The choreography was rather impressive for a one-night show like this, and I could tell that the actors had had a ton of practice to really nail this. With each definitive blow, the hero of the moment defeated a crowd of goons before coming blade-to-blade with the apparent leader of the bird-men, a demonic masked creature with glowing eyes and gaunt, gray wings. The crowd was on the edge of their seats, and I had to admit that I was interested in their version of the outcome as well. The tension mounts among the audience as, in the background of the stage, a screen counted down to destruction.
The narrator, a young woman with a magenta dress robe, spoke into the projector, standing just on the edge of the staged battle arena. "The gallant Salimus Rex and the demonic Onimar Synn face each other for the final time before the doomsday device counts down to zero!" She pointed to the prop device, a machine designed to look like a whirring energy bomb in the background of the fight. "How will Salimus Rex cope with the potential destruction of Osmos V and the death of the Triarchs?"
The two actors traded blows, and I had to admit that the production had out-done themselves and whatever I expected of them. It was still goofy and over the top, but it had some merit. I had been in several plays growing up in my first life, and this performance was more than I expected when Mother floated the idea to me earlier. The audience itself was huge - I had not seen so many people in my second life in one place before, all enjoying the festivities and the events and coming together for a shared experience like this.
It was almost enough to distract me from the existential crisis that was my second life. This was another planet, not a future Earth…. I needed to research geography, politics, and history as soon as possible. A whole new world…
When Onimar Synn delivered a fatal blow to the abdomen with the strike of a perfected music cue, fake blood splattered across the stage in a gruesome display. Salimus collapsed to his knees, gasping for air and grasping at the wound. The demonic-faced birdman screeched, "You're bested, hero. There is nothing you can do but watch your nation burn and leave your planet to rot!"
Salimus Rex shook his head fervently. "No. No, no, no! I won't stand for i-it!"
"Don't make me laugh, Osmosian. You've no tools to defeat me nor my weapon. Even now, while we talk, I whittle the timer down to zero. Send your thoughts to whatever gods or ancestors you worship, scum!"
The timer ticked to ten seconds. I leaned forward to watch the final moments, expecting things to go the way of the heroic Osmosian. How would he turn it around in the next few moments?
Salimus shouted in rage and slammed his fists upon the ground. "This is your end!"
…
How did they do that effect?
A gray stone-coated Salimus Rex, looking every bit the statue that many street corners had temporarily arranged throughout Sanitas, rushed forward, unimpeded by whatever had occurred in that split-second. Onimar Synn, expecting this, swung his weapon down upon the head of Salimus Rex, but the Osmosian flicked a reinforced hand up and grabbed the handle with a grinding crack as the blade struck the open palm.
The metal of the prop blade began to coat the limb that gripped the weapon, extending up to cover most of the arm to the upper bicep. A moment later, and that fist rockets into the villainous actor's ribcage, hitting hard in a practiced maneuver that seemed so real that it beggared belief.
"The special effects are great," I muttered under my breath, still not sure how they got a spotlight to shine colored light on just the skin to convincingly pull whatever that was off. What were they implying about this general's real history, here? A mythological retelling with some ancestor protection from whatever clan?
The crowd erupted into cheers as the birdman fell to his knees, then to his stomach to lay dead, wings unfurled to almost completely cover his body. The actor playing Salimus Rex returned to his normal hue, inch by inch, and limped bleeding toward the device set to blow in the middle of the stage. A single punch later, and the actor collapsed to the ground to his injuries, the timer halted with only three seconds to spare.
"And with that final moment, Salimus Rex ensured the continued existence of Osmos V and our beloved Triarchy." The narrator finished with a bow of the head, and the crowd cheered once more, myself included.
On the way out of the venue, the sun had begun to set in the sky, bathing everything in a soft light. I spotted the main actor engaging with some of the crowd on the way out, and he seemed a popular enough man. Despite a youthful face, his horns suggested he was older than either of my parents, which was still wild to me and only further solidified how this revelation about Osmos V and its people forced me to reconsider everything I thought I knew.
I raced over to the actor with a quick word to Mother, hoping that my being young would be helpful for a change. The tall Osmosian twisted his head down to look toward me with a grimace on his face, a woman hanging on his left arm and trying to drag him away from me.
"Excuse me!"
"No, thanks, ki-"
"I'm not a kid," I argued, before realizing how impetuous that must sound to someone not in the know. So, you know, everyone. "How'd they do that thing?"
"The play? We wrote a script, er, made costumes, and uh-"
"No, that light trick across your skin! You almost matched the stage, and it was hard to see you if you weren't paying attention from where we were watching, up there."
My go-to maneuver when I wanted to be a cute toddler was to bounce on the balls of my feet.
The man stared at me like I'd grown a second head. "This a serious question?"
"Yeah!" I shouted. "I'm interested in how show business here works, and how they pulled that off could be helpful. A hologram, maybe? One set to stick to your movement patterns."
The actor frowned. "For a smart kid, you sure are dumb."
The woman dragged him away several feet before he turned and joined her in walking to whatever shag house they planned to visit. Her laughter trailing after them both would haunt me the next few minutes, I was sure of it.
"Wait! You didn't-"
He disappeared around the corner. Mother and Father caught up with me, concern evident on their faces.
"That was far better than last year," Father supplied as we rejoined the street traffic. "A snack on the way home?" Mother gave a nod, but I couldn't focus on anything like that right now.
"Did you see how they did that visual effect?" I asked, earning a confused expression from both of them. Are they really going to act stupid? "The one where his arm turned to metal, and his body to stone? It looked so real!" I had significantly more questions than I had when the day started, but I kept it to a relevant one.
Father and Mother held each other's eyes for a long moment, before Mother reached over to touch a nearby streetlamp. "Cassian, he did turn to stone. And to metal."
"What?"
And just like that, her fingers shifted to become the same material as the street lamp, a silvery metal.
"What?!"
Father gestured for a nearby bench that was mostly empty. "Cassian, we knew you'd learn about this someday - everyone will. We thought it… best that you develop without worrying about the Gift. Not everyone affords their children the same opportunity to grow without fear."
Hang on. Hang on.
She just turned her fingers to metal and then back. That actor really did become stone, all for a show. A miracle used for a one-night shitty community play.
"The Gift is something most Osmosians develop. A few gain no additional abilities, while others have abilities that do not fit the mold of the majority. We call those Exceptions," Father explained with an admonishing look. "I do not have the Gift, but your mother does. Chances are strong that you will develop the Gift in time."
I was truly at a loss for words. "What… how does it work?"
"Let's not worry about that right now," Mother replied, hands hanging once more at her side, unchanged from flesh.
I was absolutely not going to live this down. "So, is that how the story went? Salimus Rex used his Gift or whatever to defeat the birdmen's leader?" I'd have to unpack what Mother just did later.
Father chuckled. "I'm sure it's got the spirit of the truth."
"Some say he was the first one with the Gift, but there are records from before that," Mother added. "The myth about him still rages to this day."
"Those aliens - are they still around?"
She looked thoughtful for a second. "No, Cassian - they cannot harm you. The way the story goes, in the early days of the Triarchy, they went on to defeat the aliens and drive them off the planet. They might still be out there, somewhere, but history tells us that they have not returned yet."
Father shook his head in agreement as he led our group through the throngs of people, domed street lamps providing enough light to navigate the busy thoroughfares. The smell of something close to funnel cake filled my nostrils, baking pastries fresh in the rack. "If there's anything you learn from us, Cassian, it's that history is bound to -"
Something beeped in his front pocket. In mild frustration, he pulled a device from his coat and spoke into it. "Jula, now is not a great time-"
The name surprised me. Aunt Jula had, to my knowledge, not spoken with her brother directly for years, and the last time was with bad news that they hid from me. News I could absolutely handle, but my parents refused to share. The lack of trust to know things was reasonable and frustrating, simultaneously.
They'd kept growing up and gaining superpowers from me. Something a vast majority of kids my age likely already know. How is any of that fair? Yeah - they might be dangerous, but so is a gun.
Mother placed a concerned hand on Father's shoulder. "Horatio, is there-"
Father brushed her off absently and pushed through the crowd to find a simplistic bench to sit. I was not about to let this moment go, so I darted as quickly as my uncoordinated body could and sat next to him.
"That can't be true. Clan Zenoan would have noticed-"
I tried to get close enough to hear the other side of the conversation, to hear Aunt Jula's voice, but I couldn't make it out. Father lightly palmed my chest to force me to sit.
"We're sitting ducks, then. We need to mobilize, we need to-" His eyes met mine upon the word 'mobilize,' widening with surprise that I could hear him. "Jula, give me a second. Cassian's listening."
A pause as he stood.
"I cannot let my son overhear-"
"Oh, I'm sure you'd love to tell him all about it, but we can't-"
"No, we're not going to go there-"
"I will contact you later."
Father put the device away and lightly glared at me. Mother finally made her final approach through the crowd, her own face askew with worry.
"I'm sorry," I tried, realizing that I made this important conversation with an estranged sister impossible to have and speak openly. "Is something really wrong? You seem scared."
Father's smile did not reach his eyes, a silent message shared with Mother from his body language. "No, son, there's nothing wrong. We should get a snack."
The man was tired. So tired. They'd never shown their kid how much the world affected them, and... I did not want to be stressful.
I realized at that moment that what my parents needed more than anything was peace and quiet. I'd pushed them a lot today to reveal what they know, to talk about what they don't.
I was fortunate to be born on an alien planet with parents who cared. If I kept pushing, I'd push them away.
LOS ANGELES
September 14, 13:51 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE ELEVEN
The boy could not help but badger his mom's friend for questions. He'd gotten to go with him to a special screening of a movie before it came out! All his friends down the street and all his cousins and, and all his preschool mates would be so jealous!
Yeah, the movie had been scary but the excitement over the whole thing just kept him thinking about it, even after all the ghosts tried to scare him.
"Gabriel, I did not see the ending coming. The man was dead the whole time!"
The man the boy'd only met once before nodded with a smile. "It was crazy, son."
Son.
For a second, the boy forgot where he was and wondered what his dad would think about a movie like this. It had been a while since he'd considered the man, but Mom always talked about him fondly. She'd not married anyone yet, and- oh, oh, oh!
"Are you gonna marry my mom?"
The man's tan skin turned paler. "I don't think so, Kyle."
"Boring," he muttered as he waited for Gabriel to escort him safely across the street. "You sure?"
"I'm sure."
Kyle was not sure he believed the man he'd only met tonight, but this was a man who looked trustworthy. Nice. Thoughtful. He'd be good to Mom.
"Why not? She's a catch."
Gabriel clutched the boy's hand and walked him safely across the crosswalk. Kyle couldn't help but notice how wet the man's palm was.
"I'm too busy for your mom, Kyle," he said quietly as they rounded the corner into Kyle's neighborhood. "I wish I'd been able to do more for you and your mom. Tonight, I mean. She wanted to join us, but she'd already, uh, made plans."
"What do you even do, Gabriel? Mom acted like she couldn't tell me."
A pause. "I work for the government. Have to travel a lot; haven't been back to LA in," Gabriel met Kyle's eyes, "years."
"The guvnemen?"
"Gov-ern-ment," he repeated. "The people in charge of everything you see. I help them out."
"Must be a nice job when you can score movie tickets early!" Kyle shouted. "When's the next one? Can I go, can I go, can I go?"
The man breathed heavily and said nothing for a long moment. "I'm not sure they'll be another one, s-son."
"Oh man." Like ReplyReport Reactions:Raregroove_50, CrabbitBlake, Bga20 and 154 othersHmmasterApr 17, 2023Add bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks 0.3 View contentHmmasterKnow what you're doing yet?Apr 19, 2023Add bookmark#13OSMOS V
DECEMBER 22, 09:11 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE NINE
I was nearly seven years old - again - when my second life decided to veer further off from the expected course.
The emergency broadcast was on every news station, every data site, and every viewfinder. So total was the broadcast that even the equivalent of elementary school children could not escape it, despite Mistress Drucia's many attempts to divert back to the boring recorded lecture on the Magnus Desertus. She reached to cut the power of the screen altogether, but not before the subject of the forced broadcast finally reached her attention.
A hornless ambassador dressed in a deep maroon coat stepped into frame, his face far too grim for this to be anything but good news. The background of the shot was stale, nondescript, and not at all inviting - a clearer sign that whomever recorded this did not have time to prepare a statement of calm. I recognized the man vaguely, but only through sheer charm.
"Put it back!" a girl in my class shouted.
"I wanna see those lizard things!" a boy with brunette hair agreed, slamming his hand on the table. "They were eating all sorts of bugs! It was cool!"
I shot them both a death glare from across the room; the new kid Adrius was a handful of a child that would have gotten on my damned nerves as a teacher in my previous life. I had much sympathy for Drucia and anyone else who tried to watch over elementary age children like him. The temptation to be as loud, obnoxious, and snot-ridden as these little ones was an inborn trait that I had to remind myself to push away at nearly every turn. The few times I indulged - to keep up appearances - absolutely killed brain cells.
The woman ignored them after a quick admonishing look, her own face askew from the likely realization for what this kind of emergency alert might mean. I was glad for it, in a way. Drucia and I were kindred spirits then - the only ones in the room who had the life experience to understand the gravity of the situation.
"People of Osmos V," the man began. "You may recognize me, you may not, but I am Chief Diplomat Xandros of Clan Herod. I have served under Elder Seneca for many years in all matters related to his position as Triarch. As such, I have had many dealings with the public at large, but I must admit that I was not expecting such a large audience today."
He addressed Osmos.
As in, the entire planet.
This was not local, or national, but a global announcement to all of Osmos at once? I wished so desperately to see Mother and Father's reactions and not to be stuck among what counts as public education in this shitty town. The two of them would hopefully understand my reaction.
"As has been predicted, we are in an unprecedented period of our planet's history. The anomaly of our orbit has begun to flux far sooner than we anticipated, and for far longer than estimated. We have been fortunate so far that most debris has disintegrated on entry, has been too small to do damage, or has landed in remote areas or in our oceans."
I fought the urge to roll my eyes. As incredible as it was to learn of Osmos V's most fascinating quirk, I had been hearing about this for years. This was not surprising, and unless he was about to explain that they uncovered some new, bigger space object that will kill us all when it struck, I almost wanted to tune the whole thing out. Why something would force me to reincarnate on a gravitational deathtrap of a world was beyond me. Not sure that potential future superpowers were worth it if it meant that I died before it could come to fruition.
"During this period of fluctuation, nearly three years ago to the day," Xandros paused for emphasis, "Osmos V caught a passing interstellar ship within its fluctuating gravity field, and it was forced to crash land."
Drucia's mouth dropped open.
"What's 'interstetlar'?" a snot-nosed brat asked, drying his nose with his own arm.
"Hush now, children," the woman tried, but her heart was clearly not in it. I had been a teacher in my first life, and the first major world event I covered in class to my schoolchildren involved storming the U.S. Capitol. A year later, the war between Russia and Ukraine. I could certainly understand her reluctance to make a comment to explain to her students what was happening, why it was happening, and what to do with the information.
"The crew fortunately survived the journey, though not without physical injury. However, their ship was not as fortunate. The Triarchs, in their infinite wisdom, offered these beings a temporary home on Osmos V, until such a time that they could repair their ship and recover from their injuries. For this short time, our visitors have remained in hiding, and it became official policy of the Triarchy to maintain absolute secrecy. No one was to know about these visitors, the first in more than a century."
Why would they reveal themselves now?
Mobilize.
That was the word that Father used. Almost three years ago.
A chill ran down my spine.
"In communications with these beings from the stars, we have come to an agreement - they would share some of their technology with us, and in return, we would welcome them as planetary partners with an official proclamation. Under intergalactic law," the ambassador's voice grew strained, something he forced himself to correct quickly with a charming smile, "they have invited us to be part of their overall collective, as partners, allies, and shared stewards of Osmos V. The citizens of this planet and of the Triarchy will benefit greatly from this partnership for many years to come."
The diplomat beckoned someone to step into frame: a maroon-skinned alien with an insect-like carapace covering a lanky, humanoid form. The masculine, robed figure placed a comforting, five-fingered hand on the ambassador's shoulder. Human-like eyes accompanied a noseless face, lips thin and so muted with color they looked almost nonexistent.
"Allow me to introduce to you an Ambassador to his people," Xandros declared with a grin. "His interests represent the best of his race, and he means the best for all Osmosians. Currently, the language barrier between our two peoples is insurmountable except to our very best linguists, but we were able to translate a clear message that I wish to share with you today, from the Ambassador's own lips."
A pregnant pause filled the space, and I could not help but feel this was all too good to be true. The word 'mobilize' dominated my thoughts again.
"To my dear Osmosians," Xandros started to read from a prepared statement, "I am known to my people, The Reach, by my role as Ambassador. While our meeting was not under the best of circumstances, we hold no ill-will to the planet or its population. We plan to share with you the resources we have cultivated, and contact has been made with our homeworld and our other territories to ensure a healthy, two-way partnership. I have apologized to Elder Seneca of the Triarchs on more than one occasion, for our relationship thus far has largely been parasitic - we have enjoyed your hospitality, taken from the resources of our hosts. We wish for a symbiotic partnership in the future, where both sides may prosper." He paused for maximum dramatic effect and gestured toward the Reach Ambassador. "As a token of our new bond, I have gifted Diplomat Xandros with the height of our technology."
Xandros, on the Ambassador's cue, raised a finger into the air.
A moment later, a maroon suit of power armor erupted from his back and molded around his form, covering every inch with insectoid plates. Twin nodes, almost like antennae, rise from the shoulder pauldrons, their tips glowing the same golden color as the eyes on the armored face-plating. Gone are the features of the Osmosian diplomat, replaced with a full suit of high-tech armor. Xandros raised his scarlet-plated arms in demonstration, gesturing happily in the Reach Ambassador's direction.
Something felt familiar about the whole thing. The armor, the Reach… I could not place why. Beetleborgs - a cursed idea - came to mind.
"That's so cool!"
Of course Adrius would like that. It was impressive, I'll give it that.
"What is that, Mistress Drucia?" another student I hadn't bothered to learn the first thing about asked.
The teacher had no answers for her students this time, and neither did I.
"Our scarab technology creates a living bond with its host," the Reach Ambassador's message continued as he gestured with a long finger toward Xandros' armored breastplate, the details forming into an insectoid symbol. "With this armor, I am capable of creating nearly any form of technology with a thought, in virtually any field. Medicine, weapons, defense - the list goes on." The armor molded again with a flick of the wrist into something akin to a cannon, whirring with dark light within its barrel. "The Reach offers this Scarlet Scarab armor to the people of Osmos V, a perfect blend of Reach technology and natural Osmosian stock. This is a symbol of our future partnership."
Xandros waved one more time before the transmission ended, leaving me as dumbfounded as everyone else in the class, teacher and student alike.
OSMOS V
DECEMBER 22, 13:16 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE NINE
Father and Grandfather were clearly mid-discussion when I strode through the front door, as their voices trailed off. It did not take a genius to guess what they were discussing - how could anyone not be talking about the Reach?
"How was school?" Father asked nonchalantly. He was not hiding his distress well, and as I've grown older, he tends to be additionally stressed any time his father visited. The man had been largely absent from my childhood, but every few months, he reappeared, usually bringing news that could not possibly be good.
I raised an eyebrow - that's how they'll play it? Ignore it around me. Not today, of all days - today, I can be as curious as I want to be. "Mistress Drucia says the aliens are nothing to worry about, but I don't believe her."
Father tensed, but Grandfather chuckled. "You're right to be skeptical, Cassian. We've every right to be concerned."
"Now, Maximus, you-"
Grandfather scoffed. "Horatio, please - this is the smartest thing your so-called genius child has ever said. I'm going to indulge him." Father looked ready to argue again, but Grandfather continued. "What do you think about all this? What made you not believe him?"
I sat at the table and poured a glass of water from the plastic pitcher. "It seems far too good to be true. Aliens with strong technology that looks weaponized and just offering it to us? Like that? And you guys talk all the time about Elder Seneca and how you don't trust him-"
"Cassian, you should not be listening to our conversations."
I was not going to apologize. Those small pieces of information about politics were the only real pieces of information with context I'd gotten for years before they stopped trying to limit my screen time. It was silly how sheltered they tried to force me to be.
"I feel like they want something from us."
Grandfather smiled. "Any guesses as to what?"
"Money? Some, uh, resource our planet has. Or ship parts?"
My favorite horror movie of all time, and one that still scared the shit out of me as an adult, was the alien invasion story, Signs. I saw it at a way-too-early age while on a family trip to New Orleans, and I had to ask my mom to cover my eyes. Despite that fear, part of me has always been fascinated with the idea of what happens when two civilizations from other planets meet. The Reach Ambassador wanted a partnership, but he did not tell us what he wanted out of it. Maybe it was just a home for them, and that's all they needed, but I doubted anything was that simple. And hey - maybe they were deathly allergic to something as simple and ubiquitous as water too, if they proved violent.
Father sighed. "Your Grandfather thinks they want our Gift."
Oh.
That would make sense.
The Gift. An ability that manifests in most Osmosians - the ability to absorb nearly anything and then do truly wondrous things with whatever is absorbed. Matter, energy, DNA - any of it could be taken in by us and used for crazy things. An ability that would manifest in me in a few years, if it manifests at all. The chances were - well, not great. Until that day at the theater, I'd not even known Mother had the ability, and she hardly used it at all. Father and I were the only people in our closely tied family who did not possess the Gift (yet), and it was clear that there was bad blood there.
I wanted the Gift badly. An Exception would be nice, but it's difficult to say how useful one might be. Adrius bragged all the time about how his older cousin developed an Exception early, one that gave him an extendable, stretchy tongue, but he had none of the Gift.
"Why would the Reach want that? For themselves, or do they… want us?"
Soldiers for an army? Even a few squads of ten Osmosians could probably do some real damage, if what I've read about is even remotely true.
Rare material duplication? Absorb some diamond, become diamond, then cut the limbs off until you've got more wealth out of it. A scary exploitation, to be a living farm for some rare loot.
Grandfather looked amused at the questions. "Your guess is as good as mine, Cassian. I suspect we'll learn sooner than later."
I did not like the sound of that.
The word 'mobilize' came back to my mind.
"The Reach - if they're a threat, surely we have the numbers to beat them. They said that it was a ship that crashed, not a whole fleet."
"Assuming we can take anything they say as truth, then yes," Grandfather replied, "but I think it wise to not believe everything that you hear."
I glanced at Father and met his eyes. "You - do you remember that day? You mentioned to Aunt Jula that we should mobilize. Was that about this?"
Father said nothing for a long moment before slowly nodding. "Yes."
"Was that, uh, as a civilian? Or are you and Aunt Jula not civilians?"
Father blanched at that.
Grandfather swooped in to save Father from having to answer. "Cassian, why don't we go get some pre-dinner desert? You can show me what you're learning in school."
"No," I argued. "Just tell me, Father."
But the elder of the men was not having it. He grabbed me around the elbow and took me toward the front door. I almost fought the grip, trying for once to learn whatever it was that they were keeping from me for years. Yet, Grandfather leaned in close and halted me in my tracks. "Let's not, Cassian. Not now."
I stewed. "When, then?"
But Grandfather did not budge.
OSMOS V
DECEMBER 22, 19:33 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE NINE
I was not about to let them continue to lie to me without some inkling of the truth. At this point, the secrets were held for larger reasons than simply to hide them from their young child. It had to be more than that - I could handle any information they threw at me.
I looked far smarter than my peers and acted far more mature than any of them could ever dream. Their lack of trust could not have been from a lack of maturity - I hardly ever acted childish in front of either of them anymore, and I didn't bother to hide from Grandfather in the few times I'd seen him over the years. No, the adage of "an old soul" applied to me in a very literal way, and Mother and Father all but knew the truth.
The door to Father's office stayed locked, except when either my parents or a guest of theirs entered. I'd seen a few people come and go over the years, not all of them relatives, and I'm starting to suspect quite a few things. There had to be something good in there, in information at the very least, but I'd tried to look over the interface several times.
I approached the door again to try the basic route, but I was not keyed to enter, so it did not slide open. A bead of sweat dripped from sheer frustration, but I'd tried this countless times and I should not have expected it to change. Getting angry - well, it was pointless at this stage.
The only other interface was a manual console, a simple electronic panel built into the side of the circular door frame. It was not a digital code that I could simply record Father using, memorize it, and then input it. I could not swipe a key from his jacket pocket when he puts the clothes in for a wash. No - I'd need to somehow copy his handprint, which was physically impossible.
I'd seen a lot of secret agent media growing up, so my solution for that problem was to simply grab some packing tape, force Father to touch it with his whole palm, and then cut the excess away and hope, maybe, that the scanner does not pick up my hand and instead reads the grooves on the tape. I'd not tried that method yet, because, well, packing tape does not exist on Osmos V.
Packing tape might not exist in the whole universe.
I'd tried to find similar adhesives using the extranet, but online shopping was not a thing on Osmos V either. Ultimately, that was probably a blessing rather than a curse, but it was mighty annoying at this moment.
A year ago, I resolved to try to physically dismantle the manual console if I was desperate enough. Until this particular night, I did not think that I was, because taking the console apart might, A) jeopardize the relationship with my parents, and B) not even work, in which case I'd broken Father's office door for nothing.
But aliens announced their existence on the planet today. As far as I understood, there had not been alien visitors to Osmos V in any regular capacity for centuries. Until the Reach, a group that seemed helpful on the surface but absolutely is hiding something. They have an ulterior motive, and I was determined to see what the hell my family knew. If they knew something actually important, then I deserved to know.
I searched the house for a suitable tool, wishing the kitchen utensil I grabbed was more like a flathead screwdriver. As it was, it'd have to do. I'd had to push the oblong chrome cleaning robot to the side just to get into that cabinet, and I'd almost felt bad about it. It was difficult to explain how much that thing had meant to me as a very young toddler.
"I'd like to apologize, Father," I said aloud to no one, before taking the final few steps. Finding the right angle took a few tries, but... there!
I pushed on the tool with all of my might, forcing my body weight forward, until the knife slipped into the space between the wall and the console. Forcing a gap took some leverage, but I finally managed to pop the console's front away and reveal the circuitry and wires behind it. I almost giggled when I realized there was a blue, red, and yellow wire connecting to a power supply deep within the hole - some things are universal.
I gingerly reached into the panel with the knife and chose a cord to cut. Snapping through the first wire, the door was still unresponsive. The second - no change. The third....
Nothing.
At least it wasn't a bomb.
I tapped on the entrance to the office - no response. Determined, I pressed on the door with all of my weight. Nada.
I heaved and heaved.
Zilch.
Breathing heavily and sweating after a couple minutes of trying, I dropped the obnoxious and bent knife that had gotten me nowhere, and it clattered to the floor amid the silent house.
Fuck this. I shot to my feet and headed for my parents' room, glad that the two of them were on a date night. I scrounged their room, their drawers, their closet, their mattress, their bathroom. Apart from learning some things about my parents' sex life that no one needed to know, I found nothing controversial nor a link to the Reach.
After a couple of minutes of trying to put everything back where it was supposed to be, I had to breathe hard just to let the feelings out.
Not for the first time, I considered my last resort. If Father and Mother knew the fucking truth, maybe they'd have been telling me things all along. Maybe I wouldn't have to fucking go to school with a bunch of damn brats. Maybe I would know their secrets about the Reach, and I'd have some context as to why they treated me like no other child and kept me inside for much of my life up to this point.
I glanced up at the whirring sound of a door.
The door.
I rushed to the great room and practically squealed in delight.
Rolling into Father's office was his most hated possession: the cleaning robot. In its clawed appendage held the knife I'd dropped, and it moved haphazardly down an incline toward the innards of the chamber I'd never seen.
I'd never seen it go in there. Something must have changed - maybe tearing up the console actually did work, just not in the way I'd expected.
I bounded across the room and into Father's office with a childlike energy, tapping the robot on what would count for a head along the way. "Good fucking job!" I shouted in English, not in Osmotin, and it just felt so good to say aloud.
The large office was octagonal and filled with shelves, comfortable seating through purple fabric-covered chairs, and a large computer monitor that currently had data streaming across it at a speed that was difficult to parse. Several open windows, for lack of a better term, were displaying graphs indicating things like rate of temperature change, number of falling debris incidents per capita, and other graphs that did not make sense at a quick first glance. Three windows opened to extranet feeds that were far better managed than any I'd seen, though only some of it was in Osmotin - one was a news bulletin about the day's events, including speculation that the Reach would be releasing medicines into the market soon to potentially soothe the effects of some common ailments.
On the shelves lay various types of equipment, the most interesting of which was something that had to be a gun of some kind. I carefully picked it up without touching any buttons, pressing any triggers, or activating any switches. The weight was light, though cumbersome in my too-small hands. I could barely reach my fingers around the grip to the other side.
I put the gun down before I shot my own eye out - if that was even how this gun worked. I'd seen the effects of plasma-based laser weaponry on a few broadcasts over the years, which was a big reason why I'd initially thought this was just Earth in some future time. Laser weapons = future vibes.
The fact that my Father owned one was a shock. He did not seem the type. For any of this.
This was not an office - this was a resting place for someone who had a much bigger role than a local butcher. What that role was, was anyone's guess.
I glanced toward the door leading out, expecting that my luck would soon fail me and that my parents would return home any minute. I wanted desperately to push it, to search through the computer for any information. I almost backed out before I realized, well, fixing that panel was going to be impossible. I was already in deep shit - in for a penny, in for a pound.
Navigating the extranet and other readouts from this too large computer was far easier than it sounds, though the pages were clearer than any interface I'd seen before. I eventually found a way to enter a query and searched for Father's name, Horatio of Clan Bathar.
News article after news article filled the screen, though not as clearly written for the public as they might be on Earth. They instead read like public service announcements, and why my Father might have some written about him was confusing.
"Capital Local Exposes Exotic Species Trade."
"Unseen Evidence Comes to Light: Elder Seneca Faces Questions Tied to Corruption Investigation."
"Elder Gordia's Forces at a Hidden Stalemate with Elder Cato - Pressure Mounts Among the Triarchs."
There were more, but it painted a very funny picture of the man I thought I knew. Why these were all tagged with Father's name was what confused me - he was not mentioned at any time within the articles themselves, but rather tagged in the system by the user. Father had specifically tagged his name in these. Did he... expose someone for something? Was he once a bigshot investigator? A reporter? A spy?
I backed out and searched for the Reach, but it was difficult to parse through anything that was not current news. Article after article, bulletin after bulletin, replayed the news from earlier that day, some with commentary and some without. I tried again, shifting to information about the Reach that might not have been known to the public before today. Much less information popped up, but one piece of information stood out to me.
"The Reach Are Heralds for Change."
It was a message. A message to Father from Aunt Jula.
Dated from two years ago.
MUMBAI
DECEMBER 23, 1:29 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE NINE
The girl supposed that she would need to call them for money soon.
Everyone was really tense and had been for the last several days. A big attack happened on some government building in New Delhi more than a week before, and everyone she passed by wanted everyone from Pakistan to burn.
They were all too wrapped up in the tension for her to make a good mark. The bigger the crowd the more difficult the mark for her pickpocketing. She'd learned of these things over the years, and she knew how to find someone rich enough to give her something but not so rich that they'd send everything at her to take her down.
But tens of thousands of people were in massive crowds of protestors. Business had all but stopped, and it was starting to feel impossible to find a good place to rest without it getting trampled, or found, or interrupted by some bad person who wouldn't leave well enough alone.
She tried to cover the inhuman tone to her skin less these days, as she'd grown more used to the looks over the years. She told herself that they didn't bother her, and if anyone gave her crap, she was more than happy to show them exactly who they were messing with. But ever since the attack, she'd taken to covering herself if only to avoid the additional pairs of eyes.
With a heavy head, she approached a payphone and deposited pocket change she'd taken earlier that day. Or was it the night before? She couldn't remember.
"... Hello?"
"Abhi, give me a big job."
"That's my Jinx!" he exclaimed, and she could practically see his smile through the phone. "I knew you'd want another one. We've still got some funds from your last one, but we're running real low."
She nodded, having felt that herself. Part of her wondered when Abhi and the others were going to cut her in fairly, as she's the one who does all the heavy lifting.
Abhi directed her to a bank near the edge of the financial district, one away from any major protests. Fatima said it was a perfect time to strike, because the cops were too busy dealing with the attack, the protestors, and the aftermath to do anything about it quickly.
Jinx approached the back of the facility, face cloaked alongside the rest of her to avoid notice by any cameras. A couple security guards were stationed in the back, but they wouldn't know what to do momentarily.
She pressed her feet into the pavement, wiggling her toes against concrete, and felt the connection spike as she focused. With a thought, she confirmed the location of the main vault, as it, too, was nestled in the earth nearby, and she could feel their kinship.
Raising a hand, the girl willed natural forces around her to listen. They regretted what she would have them do, and she knew that she was close to gaining more from that connection than she had previously, but she would have to do with what she could manifest now.
A gout of pink flame crossed the street and impacted with the back of the bank, the flames surging immediately to encompass a large gap blown through the stone. She willed the earth's winds to carry her and dashed forward with a speed that the guards could not match, pink light trailing around her feet. Before they could even turn to aim their guns in her direction, she was already into the chamber just before the vault.
More pink fire erupted between her and the hallway leading toward the rest of the modest bank, obscuring her from any interior guards who may try to do something heroic. They wrapped around to coat the entrance she'd made as well, sealing her in a flame-like cocoon that they'd surely be too scared to pass.
She focused on the metal of the vault door and placed her hands upon it. Earth began to vibrate beneath her feet, and she forced those tremors forward and toward her hands. Voices shouted to intercede, to intercept her, but she couldn't hear them over the cracking of the fires she stirred nature to burn.
Jinx watched with excitement as the vault door began to dent, to crack, and to rend open - it frustrated her how long that took, because her flames were beginning to die down by the time she finished. Still, a gap formed, one she was able to traverse, and she slipped through it and began taking anything she can get her hands on. She slipped money into her pockets, into her gloves, into her pants, into her scarf, into her coat, and into her hood.
She knows better than to press her luck and take more.
Slipping through the gap and watching the dwindling flames, she spotted the guards attempting and failing to progress, none of them brave enough to try their luck with her fire.
Jinx blew a kiss toward one of them with a childlike grin and then darted back out the way she came, the summoned fire doing nothing to harm her. The exterior guards began firing this time, but she was ready for that and hurled her hands backward. Twin bolts of pink light shot across the back of the bank's lot, but they both went wide and still spooked the security enough that they miss all their shots.
She spotted the getaway car around the corner and bolted to it as quickly as she could, feeling most of her power spent. She hoped she would not have to do anything else like that again for a while, because she doubted she could spark more than a candle.
A gleaming Abhi opened the door at her approach, and she dove into the backseat, heaving. He sped away before anyone was the wiser - that took, at most, a few minutes to top them off for the foreseeable future.
All in all, a successful job.
She doubted it would be long before she had to do that again, but for her own sake, she hoped she got enough to keep them satisfied. To keep her fed, clothed, and maybe to stay in a nice place for a few weeks.
She was happy to help them out, as they'd helped her out so much.Last edited: Apr 19, 2023 Like ReplyReport Reactions:Raregroove_50, CrabbitBlake, Bga20 and 133 othersHmmasterApr 19, 2023Add bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks 0.4 View contentHmmasterKnow what you're doing yet?May 7, 2023Add bookmark#16OSMOS V
February 25, 13:22 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
I was eight years old - again - when my second life decided to veer even further from the expected course.
It was a clear, warm day, a welcome pleasure for geyser season. A new waterspout had burst from the sands just outside of Sanitas, and now only two days later, even school children were asked to help in the preparation for new, temporary aqueducts.
Hands caked in mud, I cursed at the Reach's new scanners. This was the second time in six months that I'd had to work a geyser, and all of it had accelerated when they introduced technology into the market that could predict where a new waterspout would come. I was sure that small desert towns like Sanitas were overall better off thanks to it, but would it kill a guy to ask for a cheap robot labor force that could work these canals for us?
I was certain that the other kids agreed.
"Cassian!"
I flipped around and pushed the shovel tool further into the gunk. "I don't want to hear it, Adrius."
The brunette boy was nearly a year older but had become as close a friend as I'd allowed. Not a child and not an adult - a truly painful combination. If not for some very powerful hormones, I wouldn't have bothered dealing with anyone, even family. No man is an island.
"Seriously, you have to listen to this. My brother saw something last night. It was like a meteor! He thinks it landed nearby and wants to go and check it out!"
I stared, disbelieving. Because of the unique properties of Osmos V, it was likely for debris to fall toward the planet all the time, especially in the fluctuation period. They say it will end any day now, but I'm not certain. "It probably didn't even land. Far more likely it broke up."
Adrius shook his head and absently ran a hand through his hair. He frowned when he realized it tracked mud through his brown curls. "No, but really, Cassian. He wants to go tonight and try to find it."
"If it landed, there is no chance that it isn't crawling with people by now. We'd be picking over nothing at best, or actively getting in the way of some minor or major clan at worst."
"Don't be annoying!" Adrius cried while trying to rid his hair of the mud, only making things worse. One of the supervisors of the irrigation channel site walked by and shot him an admonishing stare, and he blanched and quickly started digging again. "I'm going whether you come or not, but I could use the backup."
"I'm not being annoying by being reasonable, kid."
"Kid? I'm ten months older than you!"
He'd repeated that mantra so many times it was old hat by now.
"So act like it."
The boy pouted and returned to work, absently. His muscles strained under the labor, and I don't think any school credit or work credit was worth forcing children to do this in the desert heat. Not when our planetary "partners" could have given us damnable robots to do this instead.
I felt guilty the more I considered Adrius and his brother Felixus. Good kids who were just that - kids. I knew them well, better than many in my immediate circle; I'd spent the last Founding Day at their home and had commiserated with them over their uncle's not great cooking.
Adrius never let an idea go. He was stubborn to a fault, and his brother was nearly as bad. Felixus was once convinced that the two of them were Exceptions, and that his apparent ability to jump higher than most was the Gift he'd inherited instead of the usual absorption package. It was barely an inch higher than other kids in their class, so if he was right in that assumption, then he'd gotten a shitty genetic deal.
Fearing what would happen if they held onto this bad idea like the others, I tried again to convince him of the error of his ways the next time we got a break. Other students and peers mingled around the refreshment tables while the sweat from the sun poured from their foreheads, but I pulled the boy aside and away from them all.
"Let's say you found a meteorite. What would you even do with it?"
Adrius perked up from his sandwich. "What would I do with it? Keep it forever as a keepsake for how badass I was as a kid? Sell it and get rich?"
I pressed harder. "So your options are to put it on a shelf as a useless souvenir or to hope you find someone who will sell it to you for a price that actually means something?"
He stopped sipping his water abruptly, eyes unfocused. "You don't know!"
"Sure I do. My mother tried to pawn some jewelry once. She went to two different places, and they both offered her different prices based on what they thought it was worth. The real price? Worth more than either offer."
I didn't tell him that it was my first mom who tried to do that, but he'd have no context for reincarnation. It wasn't a widely held religious belief anywhere on the planet, if my research is clear about that. The instant I knew enough Osmotin to research that, I looked for any reference to it in case there was a local explanation for how I'd ended up here.
There wasn't.
"As long as I get a thousand trines, then I'll have rich!"
A thousand trines was indeed a lot of money for people around here, but a drop in the bucket compared to anyone who mattered. I did not have a great eye for the value of things compared to dollars from my first life, but a single trine was usually something close to three and a half bucks. The trickiest thing about this nation's currency was that its value could fluctuate slightly based on which Triarch's face sat upon the coin you used - this year, Elder Gordia was in vogue, while Seneca was all the rage for the past three. I'd read a lot of folks were happy with the change, because Gordia's old as dirt.
I merely glanced at him incredulously. "A thousand trines is nothing to a collector. And if whatever landed is a rare substance, then you could get a hundred times that easily, if you ask the right person."
His eyes bugged for a second, the width displaying the deep, blackened circles under the eyes that I once mistook for make-up on my parents. Turned out that most Osmosians develop that at puberty, and I'd started to get my own, however faintly visible they were as of late. It frustrated me more than a bit that Adrius had prominent blackened lines encircling the base of his eyes, as childish as it felt to compare sometimes. He was nearly a year older, anyway, so the whole thing was unreasonable to do - he was an actual child.
"But none of that matters, anyway. You'd never get someone local to have that kind of money to give you, nor would someone give that much money to a child. Your best bet would be to cut in your parents, in which case they wouldn't let you have that much of the profit and you'd be in trouble for messing with the thing in the first place."
Adrius got progressively redder the longer I continued, but I was not yet done and held up a hand to cut him off.
"Or you could try a dumber plan to make false identification papers for Felixus, and try to convince everyone your fourteen year old brother is just short and baby-faced for his twenty odd years. That might bypass the age problem, but you'd have to take it to an appraiser from one of the major clans in a bigger city like the capital, and I don't need to tell you that that trip is unlikely."
Adrius crushed the cup in his knuckle-white hand, spilling water across the sands below his feet. "Cassian, you always do this know-it-all routine."
"I don't think I do it enough," I argued. "You have this thing-"
Adrius stomped his foot in a movement that would be adorable if it weren't arguing for something so damn stupid. "We're going to do it, no matter what you try to shoot down. Felixus already had Ducius plot a route this morning, and we're going to head out tonight."